(DWP/FF) This World or Any Other (2/8)
Please see the This World or Any Other Chapter Guide for story details including summary, warnings, etc.
Chapter One
This World or Any Other
Chapter Two
Andrea burst into the ratty little hotel room at a full run. Miranda sat exactly where she'd left her-perched on the edge of the room's one chair, hands folded in her lap, touching the furniture and floor as little as humanly possible.
"Am I to assume from your rather spectacular entrance that you've found us transportation?" she said, her lip curling into a sneer as water pooled on the threadbare carpet around Andy's muddy shoes. Running shoes at that.
"Yes, Miranda," Andy gasped, still trying to catch her breath. "We have to go. They're leaving in-" she glanced at her watch, "-seven minutes. If we run, we can still make it."
"I will do no such thing," Miranda said with just a hint of incredulity in her voice. "They'll wait."
"Um, I don't think they will." Even as she spoke, Andy began gathering up Miranda's bags and her own small one.
Miranda climbed to her feet with a barely audible sigh of irritation-in Andy's experience, those were the most dangerous kind. Snatching the smallest of her bags away from Andy, she reached inside and pulled out an umbrella.
"You… you had an umbrella this whole time?" Andy spluttered, glancing down at her own dripping clothes and then back at the sleek black umbrella in Miranda's hand.
Rolling her eyes, Miranda answered, "Surely you don't expect that everyone leaves their home as ill-prepared as you, Andrea?"
"But… you didn't…" Shaking her head, Andrea just dropped the subject. She was angry-beyond angry, really-but the thought of remaining in this awful hotel room with an enraged Miranda for the next day or two seemed worse than her clothes being soaked through. "We have to go," she finished, not able to keep a hint of the irritation she was feeling from seeping into her tone.
She shifted everything around until she was sure she wouldn't drop any of it, then headed for the door. After a single incredulous look at Miranda, who stood waiting expectantly a few feet away, she maneuvered everything around again in order to allow herself to open the door.
Miranda's umbrella snapped open the minute she stepped outside, and she followed close behind Andrea as they walked across the small walkway that led to rickety stairs. It was only after Andy had descended the steps and was a few feet into the muddy street that she realized what was about to happen, and she turned back around with a, "No, wait!" already on her lips, but it was too late. Before her eyes, Miranda stepped off the last rotted wooden step, and a shoe that cost more than Andrea's rent each month sunk two inches into the reddish-brown mud. Miranda froze, the only visible movement the pursing of her lips.
"Um, I don't suppose you have any tennis shoes with you…?" Andrea asked hopefully. Miranda stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Right. Didn't think so."
~
"Kaylee! What's the hold-up?"
Kaylee winced, then forced a smile onto her face. "Just about ready, Cap'n." Ducking away from him before he could ask any more questions, she hurried back to the cargo hold and poked her head out the open airlock. Andrea and her Miranda were nearly five minutes late, and Mal was getting impatient. Still, Inara wasn't back yet, either, so Kaylee privately decided the captain had no right or reason whatsoever to be so grumpy.
Then, out of the gloom of the rain, she saw someone running. A moment later the blur turned into Andrea, still dripping wet and getting more soaked by the second, unsteadily carrying three different bags. She raced up the ramp, not stopping until she was standing in front of Kaylee.
"Wait, please wait," she gasped, bending over as much as the luggage she was holding would allow as she tried to catch her breath. "Miranda's on her way."
"Oh, no worries, we're still waitin' for one of ours," Kaylee reassured her, even as the captain's complaining echoed down from the kitchen. "Why don't we take these to the passenger dorms while we wait?" she said, indicating the bags. Then she glanced further down, and a confused smile quirked on her lips. "Why ain't you wearin' any shoes?"
Andrea gave her a bland, tired smile. "It's a long story. I'm sorry, I know I'm getting your ship all muddy...."
"Oh, no worries, Serenity's seen worse than a little mud in her day. She washes up real nice, don't you, girl?" she said affectionately, patting the wall.
Indecision was evident on Andrea's face as she glanced back over her shoulder, squinting to try to make out Miranda among the people hurrying here and there in the muddy street. The worry of missing Miranda-who, Andy was quite sure, had never so much as seen a Firefly, let alone picked one out of a line of ships in the middle of a torrential downpour-warred with her desire to not be holding a week's worth of Miranda's wardrobe any longer. Finally she just settled for putting the bags down at her feet.
"I really should wait for Miranda-I don't think she actually knows which ship she's looking for, so I have to be here to catch her when she walks by."
Kaylee shrugged, glancing back over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "D'ya think she will be here soon? We're set to lift off soon as Inara gets back."
Andrea didn't know who Inara is, but didn't figure that it mattered much at just that moment anyway. She nodded. "I'm sure she'll be here any minute."
As if on cue, Miranda appeared at the far end of the street, irritation apparent from the way she was moving. The mud had been hard to walk through barefoot; doing so in shoes that were two sizes too big probably only made things worse.
Waiting until her boss was closer, Andrea stepped out onto the ramp, bracing herself against the downpour of icy-cold rain and waving half-heartedly in Miranda's direction. A moment later Miranda was storming past her up the ramp, not even glancing at her assistant. Kaylee, still hovering in the doorway, blinked in surprise, her gaze flicking over Miranda's perfect hair, custom-made designer clothes, and finally settling on the worn and muddy, too-large tennis shoes on her feet. With a barely suppressed grin, she quickly brought her eyes back up to meet Miranda's.
Miranda hadn't spared a single glance for Kaylee, and was instead looking around the ship, a look of displeasure already spreading on her face.
"No other ships were flying out," Andrea offered quietly, hoping to head off any unpleasantness. Miranda pursed her lips, but didn't say anything.
"Hi, I'm Kaylee," the young mechanic said into the awkward silence, drawing Miranda's attention away from her displeasure with the ship. She offered her hand to shake, and Miranda glanced down at it, wrinkling her nose at the grease stains on the fair skin. Entirely ignoring the girl for a moment, Miranda reached into the side pocket of the bag she held, pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped it around the handle of the bag, and then pressed the handle into Kaylee's outstretched hand. Andrea's eyes widened in disbelief, and she sent an apologetic look Kaylee's way.
Kaylee looked as though she didn't quite know whether to laugh or be offended, but after a moment she let her arm drop to her side, still holding onto the bag, and offered Miranda a patient, if faintly incredulous, smile.
"Let me show you to your rooms. This way," she said, turning and walking across the cargo bay. She exchanged an amused look with Zoe as she passed, heading for the hatch.
"Inara just docked. We're headin' out in two minutes; might wanna get everyone sittin' down sooner rather than later," Zoe said, closing and sealing the door before darting up the stairs. Kaylee hurried to usher the passengers to their dorms, doing her best to ignore Miranda's look of weary disgust as she surveyed the room she'd be occupying for the next few days.
"I've gotta be in the engine room for lift-off; you should sit down until we break atmo. Storm's gonna make things a little bumpy," she told them. Miranda continued to ignore her, but Andrea nodded her understanding, so Kaylee left them to get settled in and headed for the engine room.
~
"'Bout time you got here," Mal complained as Inara emerged from her shuttle. She rolled her eyes. "Zoe's been wavin' you for half an hour."
"Just because your newest scheme went poorly doesn't mean I can walk away from my obligations," Inara said as she passed.
Mal called after her, "Right, wouldn't want you to miss out on your whoring. I'll tell that to them that are lookin' to kill us, I'm sure they'll understand. Real reasonable folks, when you come right down to it."
She sighed, turning back around to glare disapprovingly at him. "I need to work, Mal. We've spent the last six months hopping from border moon to border moon. I'm not going to pass up what opportunities I do get."
"Well, you'll get plenty of opportunities soon enough. We're goin' to Osiris. Should be settin' down in three days. Assumin' the good doctor and his sister don't snap and try to shoot their parents, we'll be there for the weekend; Kaylee has a few repairs she wants to make while we're down."
Inara blinked in surprise, her anger forgotten in light of this new turn of events. "Simon and River are going to see their parents? Is that safe?"
"Probably not, but then what is these days?" Mal turned away, heading toward the bridge. "River wants to, and we've taken on passengers, at any rate, so we're already headin' that way."
Inara frowned. "Maybe I'll talk to River, see if I can talk her out of it. Even if they're not in any real danger anymore, I can't imagine that seeing the parents that abandoned her would help River's mental state."
"True as that may be," Mal said, pausing to look back at her, "you know well as I do that nothin' in the 'verse can stop that girl from goin' where she wants to go. Might as well have the whole crew planet-side, just in case things get messy. Don't much like the idea of havin' her get picked up by the Alliance; doubtful we'd be able to get her out without spillin' some blood, and we just got the damn Feds off our back. Don't look to be pissin' them off any time soon."
Inara's expression softened. "You really do care what happens to her, don't you?"
Looking surprised and mildly offended, Mal shrugged. "She's on my crew." He once again set out for the bridge, calling over his shoulder, "Hang on to somethin'; we're headin' out."
Smiling in spite of herself, Inara headed back into her shuttle.
~
Breaking through the planet's atmosphere seemed to take much, much longer on Serenity than it had on the luxury transport ship. Andrea suspected that had something to do with the way the small Firefly rattled and shook as it flew higher into the storm. Of course, having Miranda sitting two feet away from her, pursing her lips so tightly that they'd nearly disappeared, probably didn't help anything.
When they finally broke through the storm and the ship leveled off, Andrea released the breath she'd been holding.
"The next time my daughters complain that I don't do enough for them," Miranda said more to herself than Andrea as she stood up and tugged one of her bags onto the bed, pulling out a new pair of heels to replace the muddy, borrowed shoes on her feet, "I will remind them that I spent three days in a flying death trap just to watch them play the piano."
Andy offered her a weak smile, reaching down to pick up her filthy shoes when Miranda toed them off and nudged them in her direction. Glancing at her own muddy feet, she grimaced. "I'm going to go find the bathroom and clean up a little."
"Yes," Miranda said simply, glaring at Andrea's feet. "Then get back here. We have work to be done." Pulling her panel from her bag, she turned it on, then frowned when it wouldn't allow her to log on. "Andrea!"
Andy scurried back to the doorway, waiting expectantly.
"While you're out there-" she waved her hand absently in the direction of the door, "-wandering around, find out why I can't connect to the Cortex."
With a nod and a quick, "Yes, Miranda," Andrea set off in search of a bathroom.
Chapter Three
Chapter One
This World or Any Other
Chapter Two
Andrea burst into the ratty little hotel room at a full run. Miranda sat exactly where she'd left her-perched on the edge of the room's one chair, hands folded in her lap, touching the furniture and floor as little as humanly possible.
"Am I to assume from your rather spectacular entrance that you've found us transportation?" she said, her lip curling into a sneer as water pooled on the threadbare carpet around Andy's muddy shoes. Running shoes at that.
"Yes, Miranda," Andy gasped, still trying to catch her breath. "We have to go. They're leaving in-" she glanced at her watch, "-seven minutes. If we run, we can still make it."
"I will do no such thing," Miranda said with just a hint of incredulity in her voice. "They'll wait."
"Um, I don't think they will." Even as she spoke, Andy began gathering up Miranda's bags and her own small one.
Miranda climbed to her feet with a barely audible sigh of irritation-in Andy's experience, those were the most dangerous kind. Snatching the smallest of her bags away from Andy, she reached inside and pulled out an umbrella.
"You… you had an umbrella this whole time?" Andy spluttered, glancing down at her own dripping clothes and then back at the sleek black umbrella in Miranda's hand.
Rolling her eyes, Miranda answered, "Surely you don't expect that everyone leaves their home as ill-prepared as you, Andrea?"
"But… you didn't…" Shaking her head, Andrea just dropped the subject. She was angry-beyond angry, really-but the thought of remaining in this awful hotel room with an enraged Miranda for the next day or two seemed worse than her clothes being soaked through. "We have to go," she finished, not able to keep a hint of the irritation she was feeling from seeping into her tone.
She shifted everything around until she was sure she wouldn't drop any of it, then headed for the door. After a single incredulous look at Miranda, who stood waiting expectantly a few feet away, she maneuvered everything around again in order to allow herself to open the door.
Miranda's umbrella snapped open the minute she stepped outside, and she followed close behind Andrea as they walked across the small walkway that led to rickety stairs. It was only after Andy had descended the steps and was a few feet into the muddy street that she realized what was about to happen, and she turned back around with a, "No, wait!" already on her lips, but it was too late. Before her eyes, Miranda stepped off the last rotted wooden step, and a shoe that cost more than Andrea's rent each month sunk two inches into the reddish-brown mud. Miranda froze, the only visible movement the pursing of her lips.
"Um, I don't suppose you have any tennis shoes with you…?" Andrea asked hopefully. Miranda stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Right. Didn't think so."
~
"Kaylee! What's the hold-up?"
Kaylee winced, then forced a smile onto her face. "Just about ready, Cap'n." Ducking away from him before he could ask any more questions, she hurried back to the cargo hold and poked her head out the open airlock. Andrea and her Miranda were nearly five minutes late, and Mal was getting impatient. Still, Inara wasn't back yet, either, so Kaylee privately decided the captain had no right or reason whatsoever to be so grumpy.
Then, out of the gloom of the rain, she saw someone running. A moment later the blur turned into Andrea, still dripping wet and getting more soaked by the second, unsteadily carrying three different bags. She raced up the ramp, not stopping until she was standing in front of Kaylee.
"Wait, please wait," she gasped, bending over as much as the luggage she was holding would allow as she tried to catch her breath. "Miranda's on her way."
"Oh, no worries, we're still waitin' for one of ours," Kaylee reassured her, even as the captain's complaining echoed down from the kitchen. "Why don't we take these to the passenger dorms while we wait?" she said, indicating the bags. Then she glanced further down, and a confused smile quirked on her lips. "Why ain't you wearin' any shoes?"
Andrea gave her a bland, tired smile. "It's a long story. I'm sorry, I know I'm getting your ship all muddy...."
"Oh, no worries, Serenity's seen worse than a little mud in her day. She washes up real nice, don't you, girl?" she said affectionately, patting the wall.
Indecision was evident on Andrea's face as she glanced back over her shoulder, squinting to try to make out Miranda among the people hurrying here and there in the muddy street. The worry of missing Miranda-who, Andy was quite sure, had never so much as seen a Firefly, let alone picked one out of a line of ships in the middle of a torrential downpour-warred with her desire to not be holding a week's worth of Miranda's wardrobe any longer. Finally she just settled for putting the bags down at her feet.
"I really should wait for Miranda-I don't think she actually knows which ship she's looking for, so I have to be here to catch her when she walks by."
Kaylee shrugged, glancing back over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "D'ya think she will be here soon? We're set to lift off soon as Inara gets back."
Andrea didn't know who Inara is, but didn't figure that it mattered much at just that moment anyway. She nodded. "I'm sure she'll be here any minute."
As if on cue, Miranda appeared at the far end of the street, irritation apparent from the way she was moving. The mud had been hard to walk through barefoot; doing so in shoes that were two sizes too big probably only made things worse.
Waiting until her boss was closer, Andrea stepped out onto the ramp, bracing herself against the downpour of icy-cold rain and waving half-heartedly in Miranda's direction. A moment later Miranda was storming past her up the ramp, not even glancing at her assistant. Kaylee, still hovering in the doorway, blinked in surprise, her gaze flicking over Miranda's perfect hair, custom-made designer clothes, and finally settling on the worn and muddy, too-large tennis shoes on her feet. With a barely suppressed grin, she quickly brought her eyes back up to meet Miranda's.
Miranda hadn't spared a single glance for Kaylee, and was instead looking around the ship, a look of displeasure already spreading on her face.
"No other ships were flying out," Andrea offered quietly, hoping to head off any unpleasantness. Miranda pursed her lips, but didn't say anything.
"Hi, I'm Kaylee," the young mechanic said into the awkward silence, drawing Miranda's attention away from her displeasure with the ship. She offered her hand to shake, and Miranda glanced down at it, wrinkling her nose at the grease stains on the fair skin. Entirely ignoring the girl for a moment, Miranda reached into the side pocket of the bag she held, pulled out a handkerchief, wrapped it around the handle of the bag, and then pressed the handle into Kaylee's outstretched hand. Andrea's eyes widened in disbelief, and she sent an apologetic look Kaylee's way.
Kaylee looked as though she didn't quite know whether to laugh or be offended, but after a moment she let her arm drop to her side, still holding onto the bag, and offered Miranda a patient, if faintly incredulous, smile.
"Let me show you to your rooms. This way," she said, turning and walking across the cargo bay. She exchanged an amused look with Zoe as she passed, heading for the hatch.
"Inara just docked. We're headin' out in two minutes; might wanna get everyone sittin' down sooner rather than later," Zoe said, closing and sealing the door before darting up the stairs. Kaylee hurried to usher the passengers to their dorms, doing her best to ignore Miranda's look of weary disgust as she surveyed the room she'd be occupying for the next few days.
"I've gotta be in the engine room for lift-off; you should sit down until we break atmo. Storm's gonna make things a little bumpy," she told them. Miranda continued to ignore her, but Andrea nodded her understanding, so Kaylee left them to get settled in and headed for the engine room.
~
"'Bout time you got here," Mal complained as Inara emerged from her shuttle. She rolled her eyes. "Zoe's been wavin' you for half an hour."
"Just because your newest scheme went poorly doesn't mean I can walk away from my obligations," Inara said as she passed.
Mal called after her, "Right, wouldn't want you to miss out on your whoring. I'll tell that to them that are lookin' to kill us, I'm sure they'll understand. Real reasonable folks, when you come right down to it."
She sighed, turning back around to glare disapprovingly at him. "I need to work, Mal. We've spent the last six months hopping from border moon to border moon. I'm not going to pass up what opportunities I do get."
"Well, you'll get plenty of opportunities soon enough. We're goin' to Osiris. Should be settin' down in three days. Assumin' the good doctor and his sister don't snap and try to shoot their parents, we'll be there for the weekend; Kaylee has a few repairs she wants to make while we're down."
Inara blinked in surprise, her anger forgotten in light of this new turn of events. "Simon and River are going to see their parents? Is that safe?"
"Probably not, but then what is these days?" Mal turned away, heading toward the bridge. "River wants to, and we've taken on passengers, at any rate, so we're already headin' that way."
Inara frowned. "Maybe I'll talk to River, see if I can talk her out of it. Even if they're not in any real danger anymore, I can't imagine that seeing the parents that abandoned her would help River's mental state."
"True as that may be," Mal said, pausing to look back at her, "you know well as I do that nothin' in the 'verse can stop that girl from goin' where she wants to go. Might as well have the whole crew planet-side, just in case things get messy. Don't much like the idea of havin' her get picked up by the Alliance; doubtful we'd be able to get her out without spillin' some blood, and we just got the damn Feds off our back. Don't look to be pissin' them off any time soon."
Inara's expression softened. "You really do care what happens to her, don't you?"
Looking surprised and mildly offended, Mal shrugged. "She's on my crew." He once again set out for the bridge, calling over his shoulder, "Hang on to somethin'; we're headin' out."
Smiling in spite of herself, Inara headed back into her shuttle.
~
Breaking through the planet's atmosphere seemed to take much, much longer on Serenity than it had on the luxury transport ship. Andrea suspected that had something to do with the way the small Firefly rattled and shook as it flew higher into the storm. Of course, having Miranda sitting two feet away from her, pursing her lips so tightly that they'd nearly disappeared, probably didn't help anything.
When they finally broke through the storm and the ship leveled off, Andrea released the breath she'd been holding.
"The next time my daughters complain that I don't do enough for them," Miranda said more to herself than Andrea as she stood up and tugged one of her bags onto the bed, pulling out a new pair of heels to replace the muddy, borrowed shoes on her feet, "I will remind them that I spent three days in a flying death trap just to watch them play the piano."
Andy offered her a weak smile, reaching down to pick up her filthy shoes when Miranda toed them off and nudged them in her direction. Glancing at her own muddy feet, she grimaced. "I'm going to go find the bathroom and clean up a little."
"Yes," Miranda said simply, glaring at Andrea's feet. "Then get back here. We have work to be done." Pulling her panel from her bag, she turned it on, then frowned when it wouldn't allow her to log on. "Andrea!"
Andy scurried back to the doorway, waiting expectantly.
"While you're out there-" she waved her hand absently in the direction of the door, "-wandering around, find out why I can't connect to the Cortex."
With a nod and a quick, "Yes, Miranda," Andrea set off in search of a bathroom.
Chapter Three