jossverse_bb Big Bang ... One In a Million (Chapter 1-3)
Title: One In a Million
Author: lar_laughs
Artist: enwashian
Fandom: Firefly/Buffy crossover
Genre: het
Word Count: 17343
Rating: R (for Chinese swear words and some drinking)
Characters/Pairings: Mal/Faith
Warnings/Spoilers: This is set after Serenity (BDM) and somewhere in the last season of Buffy. All the Chinese is either found at this really cool site or using Google Translator. Please don't think that it's exactly correct because I don't know Chinese any more than Faith does.
Author's Note: I've finished something! Imagine my surprise! I would like to thank my betas, imagine_that and brendanm720, for putting up with my "I'll have the rest to you tomorrow" attitude through most of this. I certainly made you wait for a lot of tomorrows! I would also like to think entwashian for the very cool fanmix and mannip she made for this story. There is nothing more cool in this life than having someone make something for a story I write. Thank you so much! Last but not least, this is for all my fellow browncoats at whedonland. It's true that I will do anything to get points for my team (save for making vids because I still don't know how to do that) and without that drive, I never would have completed this.
Summary: Thanks to a strange box that Kaylee found in a junkyard, Faith finds herself pulled from the world of vampire slaying that she knows so well only to land onboard Serenity in a time well out of her own. She’s surprised when the crew accept her so easily but even more surprised when the captain seems to find her as intriguing as she finds him. Mal has lost a lot of people in his life but when he loses Faith, he loses more than a friend. He loses the one girl who might be the perfect fit for his heart and soul. Will he find her again after Kaylee sends her back to where she came from and, if he does, will she return his feelings?
Link to art: Here are the pretties
Chapter 1: Retrieval
Kaylee should have been felt more tired after running around the parts yard for the last three hours. Instead, she was still going strong, her words spilling out of her mouth so that it was impossible to listen to every word she said. Mal hoped he was getting the gist right because it could be disasterous, at times, not to understand what Kaylee was saying. From what he could tell, she’d found something. A metal something, he assumed as that was all she’d brought back on board. He’d checked it all himself before she’d put it away so he knew she hadn’t brought anything strange back with her.
It seemed as if it might, in fact, be a box that she was so excited about. A box inside a box. It didn’t appear to do anything although there were plenty of gears and gadgets housed between the two sets of walls. As she talked about all that she had discovered in the last two hours since she’d been able to start working on it, Mal began to believe that it really might actually do something when all was said and done. If anyone could fix it, Kaylee could. She was a wonder when it came to mechanical things.
The words eventually ran out and Kaylee grew quiet. The rest of the table held their collective breath as they waited to see if the silence was going to stick around. Jayne cleared his throat but fell silent at a look from Mal. Now was not the time to add angry or irritated to Kaylee’s list of chaotic emotions.
“You won’t blow anything up while you’re tinkering, will you? I don’t want my ship falling out of the sky because you needed to keep your hands busy. Falling to our deaths would make me a tad upset.”
“Me, too. What he said,” Jayne chimed in, banging his fork down on his plate to emphasis his feelings on the subject.
Kaylee narrowed her eyes at him before turning her attention back to the Captain. “No, sir. I can’t imagine this is going to do more than maybe glow. Whir a bit if I can get all the gears to work in tandom. Something simple like that.”
“Glow? Whir?” This time Mal did exchange a lifted eyebrow with Jayne. They were both clearly wondering why she was even going to bother but neither of them were going to say those exact words to Kaylee. It was an unwritten rule that no one was mean to the ship’s mechanic when she was in tinkering mode. Besides that, being mean to Kaylee was akin to kicking a small puppy in the head just for laughs. No right-minded person could be that cruel.
She did nothing but shrug, not giving them the benefit of seeing what she might really be feeling. Mal saw it and backed off his next question. The conversation wound its way back to what they’d been talking about before Kaylee had previously saved them, Zoe’s work at the orphanage she’d left them for only a few months before. Her departure had left a hole in their group that no one dared talk about but that everyone felt acutely. This had been the first they’d actually mentioned her and now it seemed to be a topic they couldn’t get away from.
Jayne and River were discussing how Zoe would handle the children and most of their ideas revolved around guns. “She threatens to shoot them if they get out of line,” Jayne had decided early on.
River, on the other hand, was convinced she wouldn’t just threaten them. Every time they discussed it, she made the character of Zoe even bigger and badder. “They’ll talk back and she’ll pull out the gun. Like you said,” she gave Jayne a nod for the idea. “That won’t be enough, though. It never is. Children are horrid creatures. Although I’m sure you were an angel, Kaylee. But these children are all orphans. That’ll make them high strung and full of vinegar.”
Jayne screwed up his face to show his disgust. “She’s feeding them vinegar?” That got a laugh out of the whole crew, even Simon who didn’t normally laugh when Jayne was being obtuse and definitely hadn’t laughed much lately. “That’s gross.”
“Don’t talk, Jayne. It gives away all your secrets when you do.” River kissed his cheek to take the sting out of her words. “Now where was I? Oh, yes. Zoe takes out her gun - you know the one. Not the big one. Not yet. That’s for when they’re truly bad. One glance at the gun and the whining stops.”
“Just that easy, huh?” the doctor asked. Mal has noticed that Simon hadn’t been as kind and considerate to his sister of late. It was as if she was on her own now that she’d taken up a place of her own on the ship. She was the pilot, now that Wash was dead, which gave her a certain prestige among the crew that even this strange new friendship with Jayne didn’t detract from. It had most definitely changed her relationship with her brother. Or he had changed it. Everything had changed around him but he’d stayed where he was, his attitudes mired in the past.
River didn’t treat her brother any differently than she had before. To her, he was the same as always. “Don’t you wish you could wave a gun around and we’d all quit yammering on?”
“If I thought it would help, I’d ask the Captain for lessons on how to fire one straight. One bullet, quick and easy. Less mess for me to clean up later on.”
With that final thought of having to teach Simon anything to do with firearms, Mal had finally had enough. He stood up, stretching out his cramped shoulder muscles. Ever since Zoe had gone, he’d been holding onto his stress tighter than usual. There wasn’t anyone to share it with. For that reason alone, he missed his second in command more than anyone would ever know.
“I don’t think you can afford my rates, Doctor. I think I’ll turn in. You all might think about doing the same. Jayne, I want no evidence left of what you and River might do when I’m gone. Do you understand me? Nothing left behind. Especially not a pair of underpants slung across a ceiling light like a very inappropriate decoration. I’m tired of finding underpants in places where underpants shouldn’t be.” With one last tapping of the table with his knuckles for emphasis, Mal left his crew to mull that one over.
Kaylee took the opportunity to sneak out herself, following Mal out of the room but taking a different direction once they were out of the room. He watched her walk off, not sure if he should say something to her or not. It was only River and Kaylee now, two woman on a ship full of men. These days, there weren’t that many of those either. It would do them good to have some fresh blood. Get them out of this strange funk they found themselves in. It was time to start thinking of adding on the crew. Not today, of course. Not tomorrow, either. He had to find them a job before they could even think of hiring anyone new.
It was calm in his chair up in the flight deck. All he could see was the stars sitting serenely in the dark space that surrounded them. From here, when the ship was moving at a leisurely pace and River didn’t need to be here to do any of that fancy driving she’d been attempting lately, he could almost imagine he was all alone in the universe. There weren’t many places he could feel this way or many times that he allowed himself the luxury of sitting still like this. Lately he’d kept himself rushing around, his heart refusing to let his mind catch up with the reality of his situation long enough for him to realize just how alone he felt these days.
Inara was gone. Zoe had up and wandered to the other end of the ‘verse to forget the love of her life. Jayne and River were starting to get cozy in the sort of way that let it be known that they had strong feelings for one another. The Doctor was drowning in research, which suited Mal just fine. The less the boy poked his nose into around the ship, the better for all that were aboard.
That left Kaylee.
Just as he thought of the ship’s mechanic, the stars zigged out of place. Or rather, he was the one that made the abrupt movement. As he sat upright, the ship jerked again.
“That’s not good,” he said out loud, just for the satisfaction of hearing his own voice. It was a comfort to know he could still sound calm in these sorts of situations even if there was no one around to witness it. “What are you about, Kaylee?”
When Serenity answered his question with an attempt to fall out of the sky, Mal started running for the engine room. With a craft this old, there were a million things that could be wrong. He was only assuming that this current problem had something to do with Kaylee, either the engine giving out on them at last or her newest project. A piece of metal might have flown off the outside covering and blown them off course. One of the outboard tail fins might have evaporated because the metal had been overly stressed by their last landing. The only thing Mal knew for certain was there was something wrong with his ship that hadn’t been wrong a moment ago. When in doubt, start with the newest problem and work backwards. That would be Kaylee’s box.
A feeling of dread filled the void in his stomach where dinner should have gone. Even though he was still several feet from the door to Kaylee’s sanctuary, he could hear her cussing up a storm cloud. There was a strange whirring noise that he’d never heard in this part of the ship before and never wanted to hear again. It sounded like a piece of the engine had come loose from a mooring and was taking on a life of its own. Unfortunately, that life seemed to want to rip a hole in the wall of the room.
“Kaylee,” he called out as he opened the hatch. All the lights had been extinguished in the room except for the sparks erupting from the engine core. That could not be good at all. “Tell me only good things about this situation.”
“Sorry, Captain.” There was no body to put with her voice so he could only guess where she was in the room. “Everything was fine and then I decided to hook the box up to the engine to see if I could get it to power up.”
“Without testing it first?”
“That was the test! We were idle so I didn’t figure there was enough power to do any damage. Funny thing,” she popped up with a towel to begin swatting at the sparks, “but the power doesn’t seem to be draining from any other section of the ship. Everything looks normal. It wants-“ She shrieked as a spark caught on her hair and began to sizzle away at the fuel source it found there.
As she beat at her head with the singed towel, Mal tried to figure out where he was needed most. Except for the violent movement of the ship, there was nothing else wrong. “Turn off the box.”
“I tried. It won’t-“
There was a loud thump as if something had suddenly come alive in the metal box in the corner. As if a switch had been thrown, the engine quit grinding and the sparks stopped flying. There was still a distinct smell of scorched metal and hair in the air but the problem seemed to have righted itself.
“It’s still dark in here,” Mal reminded Kaylee as she let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Yep. Bulbs burst as the power surged. I’ll get those replaced in a sec. Just have to… make sure… well, that’s strange.”
The last thing Mal wanted was to be surprised by anything that had to do with the engine. “What’s strange?”
“Except for the obvious damage from the way it was running, the core is fine. Nothing is wrong with it. I’ll have to replace a couple of, you know, parts.” She waved her hand distractly toward the mass of metal that Mal tried not to think about too hard. He got queasy when he thought about that one piece of his ship that was responsible for keeping all of it up in the sky. Since she knew he hated it when she started using big words about things that were vital for Serenity to stay operational, he noticed that she’d started being very vague about what exactly was wrong. “For the most part, everything is peachy. It was just being taxed beyond what it could handle.”
Mal was trying very hard to stay calm but this whole situation was making him angry. He didn’t understand what had just happened and he was a man who liked to understand what was going on. To be in the dark, especially when it came to something about his beloved Serenity, made him feel twitchy. Taking a deep and somewhat calming breath, he tried to relay his wishes to his mechanic.
“Kaylee, tell me what happened in terms I can understand. Little words.”
He could hear her scuffling around for a bit before he felt her presence in front of him. “I’m not sure but I’m speculating right now that the box, when turned on and connected to a power source, demanded enough power to operate fully. It’s not something I plan on doing again while we’re in the air.”
“Damn straight you aren’t,” he mumbled but it wasn’t a command. Just a recommendation. Kaylee loved this ship nearly as much as he did. She wouldn’t willing do anything to hurt her. “What now?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice grew very small and hushed. “I should probably go make sure that the box is… operational.”
“And what was that thump I heard?”
“Once again, I don’t know.” Her could feel the fear she was emanating. “But we should probably go check it out.
He caught her use of the word we this time. This was his ship and he was responsible for everyone and everything on board. Never let it be said that he shirked his responsibility.
Chapter 2: Repercussions
The explosion came at a very opportune time for Faith. On either side, gangs of vampires were closing in. There was a demon not far behind her. Rubble was piled up in front of her, blocking off any means of exit she might have used in that direction. She’d even thought about going up but the buildings didn’t connect well with each other so that would be a one-way trip that wouldn’t get her very far away.
And then just like that, she was blinded. At first it seemed as if it might be a vampire trick but she could hear them screaming in pain as the light reached them. Just as quickly as the light enveloped her, it was gone. The vampires were no longer screaming and the foul wind from the river wasn’t cutting through her thin jacket. The only real problem at the moment was that she still couldn’t see anything.
“Good joke,” she muttered as she tried to get her bearings. “Fine. Take away my eyes. I’ll still be able to fight my way out of this. You can’t stop me with a little light.”
But the light had been a big deal. Even after counting to 60, she was still almost completely blind. At first, she tried to shake her head but each movement made lightening streak through her skull as if a summer storm had exploded in her brain. She knew enough to know that an internal thunder clap like this one wasn’t normal. Experimentally, she put her right hand out. She should have felt a brick wall. Instead, she felt only a smooth wall that was cold to the touch. Much colder than anything in Sunnydale could be this time of year.
“I’ve changed my mind. This is a horrible joke.” Now that she was looking for it, she felt the sounds reverberate back to her. She had no idea where she might be but it wasn’t the alley. That might mean she was safe from the vampires but it might just mean she was in a whole different sort of trouble. There wasn’t the fizzle in the air that she felt when she was in the presence of magic, at least not the kind that Willow used, but there were any number of reasons she might have been pulled from the alley into what she was beginning to assume was a box of some kind. The Master could be back and up to more devious tricks. Or it might be something new that none of them knew about.
She shuddered to think about going up against a new adversary. There was something nice and reassuring about knowing the enemies that were coming after her. Stalking vampires was getting boring but she knew how to do it well. One quick jab through the ribs, straight to the heart. It was so simple, really. Almost poetic. No matter what it was, there wasn’t time to sulk about her predicament. She needed to figure out what was going on so that she’d be prepared for what came next.
And what came next was a door opening to her right and a beam of light shining on her. Going with her first instincts, Faith reared back into battle position, the stake in her hand raised up to lash out at anyone that came close.
“It’s a girl,” a voice behind the light said with astonishment.
“What of it?” Faith snarled. She would have preferred the blindness of the dark to the intense beam of light in her eyes, hiding everything behind it. She couldn’t see anything that gave her any indication of where she might be or who was doing the talking.
“And she’s pretty,” a smaller voice added, accompanied by a laugh that sat Faith’s teeth on edge. She couldn’t abide nervous chatter or silly laughing used to fill up the emptiness of not knowing what to say or simply as a shield. This girl seemed to be doing both.
Waving the stick around to make sure she had their attention, Faith tried a different tactic to gain a top hand in the conversation. “I’m a pissed off vampire slayer, is what I am. Tell me why you’ve got me boxed in and then show me the way out of here. I haven’t got time to chit-chat tonight. Sun will be coming up in time and B will be pissed if I’m late for breakfast again.”
“Vampire slayer?”
Her chin went up in retaliation to his tone. “Yeah. What of it? Never heard of vampires?”
“I’ve heard of vampires but they’ve been pushed back to the outskirts. The Reevers are more of a threat than those wimpy creatures.”
The light moved away from her direct eyeline. Instead, it was pointed at the metallic wall behind her, effectively lighting up the small area. She could clearly make out the face of the man who was addressing her but the girl behind him was in shadows. Perhaps that was for the best. She was damned tired of dealing with young girls without any gumption or spine. Let her hide behind the yummy man. The unobstructed view was very nice indeed.
“No vampires?” She gave this thought some consideration. If vampires weren’t a threat, was there a Slayer here? For the first time since she could remember, Faith felt a strange calm descend over her. What would it be like to not have the need within her to kill? What if she could be a normal girl for the first time? Would she like being normal? That thought alone made her grip the stake a little more tightly.
“At least none worth our time. Go take care of the lights, Kaylee. I’ll deal with our guest.”
“But Captain-“
He turned around, keeping his body between Faith and the girl. “Go. And then you’re going to figure out what happened so we can reverse this mistake. I don’t like stowaways.”
Something about his protective instinct gave Faith pause. She’d seen Giles act that same way with Buffy who, in turn, treated Dawn with the same tender respect. But she’d called him Captain so it was unlikely she was his child. Not lovers. She’d be able to tell if they’d done the nasty and this was a man who hadn’t been let out to play in a long time, she’d wager. A very, very long time. The stake went back into the waistband of her jeans for the time being. Here was a riddle for her to solve with a prize at the end that might very well be worth the trouble.
She took a step forward, using her hips and shoulders as only a bad girl could. He turned back to face her, his posture one of a man waiting for trouble to find him. “A stowaway? I don’t think I’m a stowaway. Wouldn’t I have had to come here on my own accord to be a stowaway? Your prisoner maybe.” She was nearly touching him but any closer and she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes without craning her head back. “God, but you’re tall. And are those suspenders? My, but that’s a very good look for you.”
One of his eyebrows rose up high at the complement. She wanted to clap her hands together in ecstatic joy at his smirk. Instead, she mirrored his expression. It felt good to be herself with someone without have to hold back. Something told her that this was a person who wouldn’t mind if she was herself.
“What’s your name?”
After waiting a beat while she contemplated what to say to him, whether she should be snarky or kind, she went with the simplest answer. “Your name first. I am, after all, a visitor here.”
The man smiled in a way that showed his exasperation as well as his respect for her quick-thinking. Faith liked that. She was used to the look that people got when they remembered her as a murdering psychopath, always wondering if she wasn’t going to suddenly revert back. It was nice that someone saw her for something other than the mess-up that everyone else saw.
“Malcolm Reynolds.”
“That’s quite a name.”
He shrugged. “I like it. My mother must have, too. What name did your mother care for enough to bestow you with?”
Now was the time for her to decide if she trusted this Malcolm Reynolds or if she was going to keep up this tough girl persona. In a split second, she realized that she did trust him. More than she did most people that abducted her into an enclosed box without so much as a polite May I.
“Faith. Faith Lehane. I don’t really know if my mom liked the name, though. Didn’t know her long enough to have those kinds of conversations. So, Malcolm Reynolds, where am I?”
“You’re on my ship. Serenity.”
“Nice name. Very… calm. Would you mind very much letting me out of this box? It makes me feel as if I’ve been buried alive. Let me tell you, I’d rather not deal with that again.” He stepped back enough that she could evacuate the metal box that had brought her here. “So we’re on a ship? What ocean are we on?”
“No ocean. Serenity is a mid-bulk transport with a standard radion-accelerator core and a classcode of 03-K64. You can’t tell in here but she’s a Firefly-type ship. For my money, I consider her top of the line. Smoothest ride through space that you’re ever going to experience.”
“Space?” The word squeaked out in a voice that sounded like Minnie Mouse huffing helium. “We’re in space? Like up near the stars?”
“Some of them. Yes.” Mal indicated the open hatchway where light streamed through from the hallway to highlight the dirty metal surrounding them. “Would you like to see them? We have some right pretty views of several galaxies right now. River always likes to find the most interesting pattern to look at while we’re lulling about, waiting for the next job.”
The very thought of nothing but metal underneath her feet made Faith feel queasy. There was no solid ground to stop them falling if something went wrong. No oxygen to breath if a hole broke open. She was the cause of too many catastrophes to be comfortable on anything like a spaceship. “No,” she said faintly, trying not to throw up at the mere thought of being so close to any of the stars. She preferred seeing them from the firmly packed ground of Sunnydale, thank you very much. “I’m good.”
“Perhaps I can interest you in something to eat? No? We’re fully stocked so not everything tastes like sawdust. Okay, suit yourself. A drink then?”
She brightened. Maybe this place wouldn’t be too bad if they had something decent to drink. A common link through grain-based alcohol. It was how some of her best friendships… or one night stands… had started. “Do you have vodka? I’ve been jonesing for a martini. The kind with a little umbrella if you have them. I do love a drink with a little umbrella.”
Since he was staring at her like she’d started speaking another language. Strike the frou frou drink decorations then. She could wait until she was home again. Brendan at The Bronze made a stunning martini that made her tongue tingle just thinking about it.
“Fine. I’ll take water.”
“We’re not heathens even though we don’t put… umbrellas in our drinks. I can do you one better than a martini, though.”
“Better?”
Mal nodded, his grin going from cheeky to downright sexy in nothing flat. She didn’t wonder if there were woman all over this outer space she found herself in, looking for ways to make him smile just like that. “Oh, yes. You’re going to like this.”
Chapter 3: Realization
“You did what?” Jayne sat forward in his chair, completely entranced by their visitor. Mal didn’t blame him but neither did he blame River for the glare she kept trained on the girl. The status quo was being upset right and left by this girl’s appearance, that was for sure.
Faith’s dark eyes held a glint of amusement as she knocked back the remainder of her third cup of Mudder’s Milk. He figured she could quite possibly hold a fourth cup but even Jayne wasn’t able to handle more than that. Because most of the rest of his crew wasn’t holding back, he’d decided not to drink quite as much as he would on a normal night. Better that one of them stayed a bit more level-headed just in case Kaylee decided to bring someone else on board with her new contraption. Instead he sat with an empty mug in front of him. No one had even noticed that he was only drinking about one cup for every three they downed. Even still, his brain was fuzzy and his fingers were starting to tingle.
“Like I said, I went up to the guy and said, “It’s you or me, bub. I suggest you take a walk down that pier and jump off the end before I have to push you off. I should let you know that if we do it my way, you’ll have a spike through your chest. Only luck will get you out of this now.” He was quite polite about the whole thing, considering we did it my way in the end. Vampires have this thing against seeing reason. Guess it has something to do with them being undead and all that.”
“You didn’t really do that.” River crossed her arms and sank back in her chair, the exact opposite of the besotted man beside her. “It’s just a story. Like the kind that Jayne tells. No one puts spikes in people’s chests. Too slow and dirty than any real killing.”
“I don’t tell stories,” he protested, turning to look fully at the girl he’d nearly forgotten existed over the last hour. “When have I ever told a story?”
River was having none of his excuses. “You told one fifteen minutes ago.”
“No, I didn’t. That was completely true. All of it.”
Letting the two argue with each other, Faith put her chin on her hands and stared at him with eyes that sparkled. She was holding the alcohol she’d imbibed relatively well. If Mal hadn’t watched her drink it all, he might never have believed she’d had any. There was only a tiny lisp to each word that belied her true state. Her eyes crossed every other breath but that was better than having them roll back in her head. All in all, she was incredible.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that she reminded him of someone. Not Inara. They were almost complete opposites, really. In all the years that the Companion had been on his ship, he’d always fancied she was the perfect woman. Beautiful and intelligent with a spark of humor that showed at the most opportune of times. She could fight. Lord, but she could fight and she had still been beautiful when she’d been in the thick of battle.
This girl had only been here a few hours but already he felt…. something. That wasn’t like him at all. Especially not a girl who was such an unknown. He normally had to be completely sure of someone before he even gave her a second glance. Was it possible? Did he… but, no. He wasn’t going to say the word. He was still Malcolm Reynolds, after all. Old habits died hard, even for dark-eyed beauties staring at him as if he was a piece of candy she wanted to unwrap and suck on.
“Are they always like this?” Faith asked, reminding Mal that he should be trying to come up with conversation instead of staring at her.
“Like this?” He indicated the feuding couple with a look. “Not always. This is new for them. They don’t even realize they’re doing it yet. If it’s starting to irritate you, I can make ‘em stop.”
“Really?” She seemed stunned by his declaration. “How would you go about doing that?”
He pulled out one of his knives. It wasn’t one of the big ones but she didn’t need to be overly impressed by his weaponry at this point in the evening. “I’ll just throw this. That would separate the two of them quick enough, don’t you think?”
She giggled. It was strangely odd coming from this girl. He didn’t know much about her but she didn’t strike him as a person who giggled much. Even still, most girls who giggled didn’t do so at the thought of violence. He could tell she liked the idea.
Just as quickly, she straightened up as if she’d realized what she’d just done. “Can you throw straight enough that you don’t hurt them? They’re only irritating. Nothing that should require their death.”
“You doubt me? You don’t even know me, Faith Lehane.” He put his hand over his heart in a most melodramatic gesture. At least, he meant to put his hand over his heart but, in fact, ended up hitting himself in the cheek. Maybe he’d drunk more than he’d intended. Hurriedly, he put his hand over his heart and hoped that she hadn’t noticed. “I’m hurt. You’ve cut me to the quick.”
There it was again. Another giggle. While it was a pleasant enough sound, it wasn’t exactly like any giggle he’d ever heard before. Maybe because Faith didn’t seem like a girl who would giggle. It was wrong but there wasn’t much about this situation that was right.
Instead of just leaning forward this time, Faith climbed up onto the table, getting close enough so she was nose to nose with him. Just as he had the thought that she was going to give him some sort of show, she spoke again with that deep-throated sort of growl that she used. “Well, Malcolm Reynolds, go ahead and show me what you can do.”
Did she want him to kiss her? This seemed that sort of invitation, but then he remembered where the conversation had begun, dousing all hope that there was some part of her that knew what was going on. Even if she was speaking without too much of a slur, Faith was clearly intoxicated. His mother would tan his backside if he took advantage of this girl. A man did no such thing.
“Jing tsai (brilliant),” he mumbled to himself. Now that he had brought his mother into things, he might as well go back to his bunk now. “Weishéme wo xiang wo de muqīn (why am I thinking of my mother)?”
From across the room, Jayne laughed as he and River walked out of the room. “Gèng hao de ni, bi wo de xiōngdì (Better you than me, brother),” he called out.
She looked offended at his epiphany. “What? Were you speaking Chinese or something?”
“As a matter of fact, I was.”
“But I don’t know Chinese. It’s rude to speak in a language that not everyone understands. First thing I learned in Mrs. Fisher’s Spanish class.” She laughed, a full-bellied laugh that was much more in the style of the girl he was discovering Faith to be. “Of course, it was the only thing I learned, considering I only went to class three times during the whole year. And can you believe that she failed me? I know. I was surprised, too.”
“Spanish?” These days it didn’t take a lot to confuse Mal, seeing as how nothing made sense anymore, but now Faith was talking gibberish just as surely as if he’d been the one drinking. “That’s considered a dead language. Where’re they still teaching something no one’s had any thought of in the last two hundred years?”
“Sunnydale High School. That place has been through a lot since I was there. Went through a lot while I was there, now that I think about it. Good-bye, Hellmouth. I don’t miss you at all.”
“Where are you from?” he asked incredulously. “I’ve never heard of a place called the Hellmouth.”
“You bet your britches, buster.” Except it came out a lot like, “Yuba ore bridge turd.” The alcohol had finally reached the part of her brain that controlled speech. The idea obviously tickled Faith because she began to laugh; giant heaves of laughter that rendered her helpless. She fell forward, nearly on her face if Mal hadn’t caught her, gentlemen that he was.
She rolled over, her head pillowed on his arms so that his face was only inches from hers. Her lips were upside down but they still looked completely kissable. It would be taking advantage of a intoxicated female, one of his crew for the time being. Even if she styled herself a slayer of vampires, which sounded very odd to him, she was still his responsibility while she was here on his ship. He was the captain and there were standards to be held to in this situation.
“I am still a man,” he muttered as he gazed down into Faith’s dark eyes. All he wanted was to kiss her. Nothing else. He wasn’t a monster. The urge was stronger with the alcohol that coursed through his body but he still had the nerves of steel that Jayne was always griping about. There was too much in his background that kept him from doing just that.
Before he could get her upright and back in her seat, she flipped around. It was something he would have been amazed of even if they’d been perfectly sober but one minute she was laying down in his arms and the next she was sitting on the table with a glitter in her dark eyes that spoke of evil thoughts. This was a woman who knew what she was doing. So when she moved forward, her legs on either side of him, Mal didn’t give a thought to running away. Even with all his high-faluting ideals, he didn’t back away as her mouth touched his.
No matter the amount of alcohol she’d consumed, Faith could still kiss. (some sort of curse) but she could kiss, carrying it well past the point that he would have taken it if he’d been the one to start this ball rolling. When she released him, he definitely like he’d been taken advantage of but he wasn’t going to complain. Not one bit.
“Yum,” she murmured, one of her hands shaking as she touched her swollen lips. “Let’s do that again.”
Mal cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s wise. You don’t… I can’t… Oh, hell.” She was asking him to kiss her. That was completely different than what had just happened. Those urges of his were roaring to life and he doubted some two-bit whore at their next stop, days from now, would be able to fulfill the desires he felt right now for this dark-haired girl.
“Kiss me, Malcolm Reynolds. I’ve never kissed the captain of a spaceship before. I think it would be an interesting experience.”
“We’ve already kissed. You’re a guest. It’s inapproa-“ But she was talking plainly once again, the alcohol seemed to have left her system with an alarmingly fast rate, and she was asking nicely. A gentlemen always did what a woman asked. He was almost sure that was in the code of conduct.
Once again, Faith got to the punch before he could even move forward. She held nothing back but offered every part of herself and he found himself doing the same. For a moment, as she moaned his name against his lips, it felt as if she was showing him more than he’d have learned about her if they’d sat up all night, talking. This was ultimately better than any kiss he’d ever had. Two-dollar whores charged too much for kissing and Inara had….
“Who?” the girl in front of him asked after pulling away from him, one hand coming up to trace her lips as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened.
“What?”
“You just called me India.”
“India?”
“Something like that. Didn’t you?”
Mal tried to think fast but he found that he was as muddled-headed as if he’d been drinking with her. How could he explain that he’d just called her by another woman’s name? Or that the name he’s used was of the woman he’d spent years pining after before losing her because he was unable to express his emotions when the situation called for it. Not the way to start a relationship, even one that wasn’t destined to last for long.
“I said,” he began but since he couldn’t think of any good explanation, he did the next best thing. He kissed her again, this time putting as much into this one as she put in the first kiss. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done but it seemed to get the kind of results he was hoping for. In fact, the results were so good he didn’t want to stop.
Faith sighed as he pulled away. He had to because he needed to breath or he was going to pass out. She still looked like she might pass out, though. Her eyes were unfocused and her breath was coming out in little gasps.
“How you doin’, darling?”
“Why did you call me India?”
“I didn’t call you India. I called you Inara.” As the name slipped out, Mal realized that he was still the one who was muddled. She smiled at him, a sly grin that told him just as much as her kiss had. Maybe more. “How’d you make me do that?”
“Easy. The same way I’m going to make you kiss me again.”
“You are?”
She winked at him, her eyes full of the devil. “I am. But perhaps you want me to question you about your relationship with Ina-“
Just as she’d predicted, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, dragging her across the table so that she was as close as she could get. It was the third greatest kiss he’d ever had. He had no desire to tell her anything about Inara, even if he had to kiss her all night to keep her from pulling out more information from him.
Click here for the continuing saga of Mal and Faith
Author: lar_laughs
Artist: enwashian
Fandom: Firefly/Buffy crossover
Genre: het
Word Count: 17343
Rating: R (for Chinese swear words and some drinking)
Characters/Pairings: Mal/Faith
Warnings/Spoilers: This is set after Serenity (BDM) and somewhere in the last season of Buffy. All the Chinese is either found at this really cool site or using Google Translator. Please don't think that it's exactly correct because I don't know Chinese any more than Faith does.
Author's Note: I've finished something! Imagine my surprise! I would like to thank my betas, imagine_that and brendanm720, for putting up with my "I'll have the rest to you tomorrow" attitude through most of this. I certainly made you wait for a lot of tomorrows! I would also like to think entwashian for the very cool fanmix and mannip she made for this story. There is nothing more cool in this life than having someone make something for a story I write. Thank you so much! Last but not least, this is for all my fellow browncoats at whedonland. It's true that I will do anything to get points for my team (save for making vids because I still don't know how to do that) and without that drive, I never would have completed this.
Summary: Thanks to a strange box that Kaylee found in a junkyard, Faith finds herself pulled from the world of vampire slaying that she knows so well only to land onboard Serenity in a time well out of her own. She’s surprised when the crew accept her so easily but even more surprised when the captain seems to find her as intriguing as she finds him. Mal has lost a lot of people in his life but when he loses Faith, he loses more than a friend. He loses the one girl who might be the perfect fit for his heart and soul. Will he find her again after Kaylee sends her back to where she came from and, if he does, will she return his feelings?
Link to art: Here are the pretties
Chapter 1: Retrieval
Kaylee should have been felt more tired after running around the parts yard for the last three hours. Instead, she was still going strong, her words spilling out of her mouth so that it was impossible to listen to every word she said. Mal hoped he was getting the gist right because it could be disasterous, at times, not to understand what Kaylee was saying. From what he could tell, she’d found something. A metal something, he assumed as that was all she’d brought back on board. He’d checked it all himself before she’d put it away so he knew she hadn’t brought anything strange back with her.
It seemed as if it might, in fact, be a box that she was so excited about. A box inside a box. It didn’t appear to do anything although there were plenty of gears and gadgets housed between the two sets of walls. As she talked about all that she had discovered in the last two hours since she’d been able to start working on it, Mal began to believe that it really might actually do something when all was said and done. If anyone could fix it, Kaylee could. She was a wonder when it came to mechanical things.
The words eventually ran out and Kaylee grew quiet. The rest of the table held their collective breath as they waited to see if the silence was going to stick around. Jayne cleared his throat but fell silent at a look from Mal. Now was not the time to add angry or irritated to Kaylee’s list of chaotic emotions.
“You won’t blow anything up while you’re tinkering, will you? I don’t want my ship falling out of the sky because you needed to keep your hands busy. Falling to our deaths would make me a tad upset.”
“Me, too. What he said,” Jayne chimed in, banging his fork down on his plate to emphasis his feelings on the subject.
Kaylee narrowed her eyes at him before turning her attention back to the Captain. “No, sir. I can’t imagine this is going to do more than maybe glow. Whir a bit if I can get all the gears to work in tandom. Something simple like that.”
“Glow? Whir?” This time Mal did exchange a lifted eyebrow with Jayne. They were both clearly wondering why she was even going to bother but neither of them were going to say those exact words to Kaylee. It was an unwritten rule that no one was mean to the ship’s mechanic when she was in tinkering mode. Besides that, being mean to Kaylee was akin to kicking a small puppy in the head just for laughs. No right-minded person could be that cruel.
She did nothing but shrug, not giving them the benefit of seeing what she might really be feeling. Mal saw it and backed off his next question. The conversation wound its way back to what they’d been talking about before Kaylee had previously saved them, Zoe’s work at the orphanage she’d left them for only a few months before. Her departure had left a hole in their group that no one dared talk about but that everyone felt acutely. This had been the first they’d actually mentioned her and now it seemed to be a topic they couldn’t get away from.
Jayne and River were discussing how Zoe would handle the children and most of their ideas revolved around guns. “She threatens to shoot them if they get out of line,” Jayne had decided early on.
River, on the other hand, was convinced she wouldn’t just threaten them. Every time they discussed it, she made the character of Zoe even bigger and badder. “They’ll talk back and she’ll pull out the gun. Like you said,” she gave Jayne a nod for the idea. “That won’t be enough, though. It never is. Children are horrid creatures. Although I’m sure you were an angel, Kaylee. But these children are all orphans. That’ll make them high strung and full of vinegar.”
Jayne screwed up his face to show his disgust. “She’s feeding them vinegar?” That got a laugh out of the whole crew, even Simon who didn’t normally laugh when Jayne was being obtuse and definitely hadn’t laughed much lately. “That’s gross.”
“Don’t talk, Jayne. It gives away all your secrets when you do.” River kissed his cheek to take the sting out of her words. “Now where was I? Oh, yes. Zoe takes out her gun - you know the one. Not the big one. Not yet. That’s for when they’re truly bad. One glance at the gun and the whining stops.”
“Just that easy, huh?” the doctor asked. Mal has noticed that Simon hadn’t been as kind and considerate to his sister of late. It was as if she was on her own now that she’d taken up a place of her own on the ship. She was the pilot, now that Wash was dead, which gave her a certain prestige among the crew that even this strange new friendship with Jayne didn’t detract from. It had most definitely changed her relationship with her brother. Or he had changed it. Everything had changed around him but he’d stayed where he was, his attitudes mired in the past.
River didn’t treat her brother any differently than she had before. To her, he was the same as always. “Don’t you wish you could wave a gun around and we’d all quit yammering on?”
“If I thought it would help, I’d ask the Captain for lessons on how to fire one straight. One bullet, quick and easy. Less mess for me to clean up later on.”
With that final thought of having to teach Simon anything to do with firearms, Mal had finally had enough. He stood up, stretching out his cramped shoulder muscles. Ever since Zoe had gone, he’d been holding onto his stress tighter than usual. There wasn’t anyone to share it with. For that reason alone, he missed his second in command more than anyone would ever know.
“I don’t think you can afford my rates, Doctor. I think I’ll turn in. You all might think about doing the same. Jayne, I want no evidence left of what you and River might do when I’m gone. Do you understand me? Nothing left behind. Especially not a pair of underpants slung across a ceiling light like a very inappropriate decoration. I’m tired of finding underpants in places where underpants shouldn’t be.” With one last tapping of the table with his knuckles for emphasis, Mal left his crew to mull that one over.
Kaylee took the opportunity to sneak out herself, following Mal out of the room but taking a different direction once they were out of the room. He watched her walk off, not sure if he should say something to her or not. It was only River and Kaylee now, two woman on a ship full of men. These days, there weren’t that many of those either. It would do them good to have some fresh blood. Get them out of this strange funk they found themselves in. It was time to start thinking of adding on the crew. Not today, of course. Not tomorrow, either. He had to find them a job before they could even think of hiring anyone new.
It was calm in his chair up in the flight deck. All he could see was the stars sitting serenely in the dark space that surrounded them. From here, when the ship was moving at a leisurely pace and River didn’t need to be here to do any of that fancy driving she’d been attempting lately, he could almost imagine he was all alone in the universe. There weren’t many places he could feel this way or many times that he allowed himself the luxury of sitting still like this. Lately he’d kept himself rushing around, his heart refusing to let his mind catch up with the reality of his situation long enough for him to realize just how alone he felt these days.
Inara was gone. Zoe had up and wandered to the other end of the ‘verse to forget the love of her life. Jayne and River were starting to get cozy in the sort of way that let it be known that they had strong feelings for one another. The Doctor was drowning in research, which suited Mal just fine. The less the boy poked his nose into around the ship, the better for all that were aboard.
That left Kaylee.
Just as he thought of the ship’s mechanic, the stars zigged out of place. Or rather, he was the one that made the abrupt movement. As he sat upright, the ship jerked again.
“That’s not good,” he said out loud, just for the satisfaction of hearing his own voice. It was a comfort to know he could still sound calm in these sorts of situations even if there was no one around to witness it. “What are you about, Kaylee?”
When Serenity answered his question with an attempt to fall out of the sky, Mal started running for the engine room. With a craft this old, there were a million things that could be wrong. He was only assuming that this current problem had something to do with Kaylee, either the engine giving out on them at last or her newest project. A piece of metal might have flown off the outside covering and blown them off course. One of the outboard tail fins might have evaporated because the metal had been overly stressed by their last landing. The only thing Mal knew for certain was there was something wrong with his ship that hadn’t been wrong a moment ago. When in doubt, start with the newest problem and work backwards. That would be Kaylee’s box.
A feeling of dread filled the void in his stomach where dinner should have gone. Even though he was still several feet from the door to Kaylee’s sanctuary, he could hear her cussing up a storm cloud. There was a strange whirring noise that he’d never heard in this part of the ship before and never wanted to hear again. It sounded like a piece of the engine had come loose from a mooring and was taking on a life of its own. Unfortunately, that life seemed to want to rip a hole in the wall of the room.
“Kaylee,” he called out as he opened the hatch. All the lights had been extinguished in the room except for the sparks erupting from the engine core. That could not be good at all. “Tell me only good things about this situation.”
“Sorry, Captain.” There was no body to put with her voice so he could only guess where she was in the room. “Everything was fine and then I decided to hook the box up to the engine to see if I could get it to power up.”
“Without testing it first?”
“That was the test! We were idle so I didn’t figure there was enough power to do any damage. Funny thing,” she popped up with a towel to begin swatting at the sparks, “but the power doesn’t seem to be draining from any other section of the ship. Everything looks normal. It wants-“ She shrieked as a spark caught on her hair and began to sizzle away at the fuel source it found there.
As she beat at her head with the singed towel, Mal tried to figure out where he was needed most. Except for the violent movement of the ship, there was nothing else wrong. “Turn off the box.”
“I tried. It won’t-“
There was a loud thump as if something had suddenly come alive in the metal box in the corner. As if a switch had been thrown, the engine quit grinding and the sparks stopped flying. There was still a distinct smell of scorched metal and hair in the air but the problem seemed to have righted itself.
“It’s still dark in here,” Mal reminded Kaylee as she let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Yep. Bulbs burst as the power surged. I’ll get those replaced in a sec. Just have to… make sure… well, that’s strange.”
The last thing Mal wanted was to be surprised by anything that had to do with the engine. “What’s strange?”
“Except for the obvious damage from the way it was running, the core is fine. Nothing is wrong with it. I’ll have to replace a couple of, you know, parts.” She waved her hand distractly toward the mass of metal that Mal tried not to think about too hard. He got queasy when he thought about that one piece of his ship that was responsible for keeping all of it up in the sky. Since she knew he hated it when she started using big words about things that were vital for Serenity to stay operational, he noticed that she’d started being very vague about what exactly was wrong. “For the most part, everything is peachy. It was just being taxed beyond what it could handle.”
Mal was trying very hard to stay calm but this whole situation was making him angry. He didn’t understand what had just happened and he was a man who liked to understand what was going on. To be in the dark, especially when it came to something about his beloved Serenity, made him feel twitchy. Taking a deep and somewhat calming breath, he tried to relay his wishes to his mechanic.
“Kaylee, tell me what happened in terms I can understand. Little words.”
He could hear her scuffling around for a bit before he felt her presence in front of him. “I’m not sure but I’m speculating right now that the box, when turned on and connected to a power source, demanded enough power to operate fully. It’s not something I plan on doing again while we’re in the air.”
“Damn straight you aren’t,” he mumbled but it wasn’t a command. Just a recommendation. Kaylee loved this ship nearly as much as he did. She wouldn’t willing do anything to hurt her. “What now?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice grew very small and hushed. “I should probably go make sure that the box is… operational.”
“And what was that thump I heard?”
“Once again, I don’t know.” Her could feel the fear she was emanating. “But we should probably go check it out.
He caught her use of the word we this time. This was his ship and he was responsible for everyone and everything on board. Never let it be said that he shirked his responsibility.
Chapter 2: Repercussions
The explosion came at a very opportune time for Faith. On either side, gangs of vampires were closing in. There was a demon not far behind her. Rubble was piled up in front of her, blocking off any means of exit she might have used in that direction. She’d even thought about going up but the buildings didn’t connect well with each other so that would be a one-way trip that wouldn’t get her very far away.
And then just like that, she was blinded. At first it seemed as if it might be a vampire trick but she could hear them screaming in pain as the light reached them. Just as quickly as the light enveloped her, it was gone. The vampires were no longer screaming and the foul wind from the river wasn’t cutting through her thin jacket. The only real problem at the moment was that she still couldn’t see anything.
“Good joke,” she muttered as she tried to get her bearings. “Fine. Take away my eyes. I’ll still be able to fight my way out of this. You can’t stop me with a little light.”
But the light had been a big deal. Even after counting to 60, she was still almost completely blind. At first, she tried to shake her head but each movement made lightening streak through her skull as if a summer storm had exploded in her brain. She knew enough to know that an internal thunder clap like this one wasn’t normal. Experimentally, she put her right hand out. She should have felt a brick wall. Instead, she felt only a smooth wall that was cold to the touch. Much colder than anything in Sunnydale could be this time of year.
“I’ve changed my mind. This is a horrible joke.” Now that she was looking for it, she felt the sounds reverberate back to her. She had no idea where she might be but it wasn’t the alley. That might mean she was safe from the vampires but it might just mean she was in a whole different sort of trouble. There wasn’t the fizzle in the air that she felt when she was in the presence of magic, at least not the kind that Willow used, but there were any number of reasons she might have been pulled from the alley into what she was beginning to assume was a box of some kind. The Master could be back and up to more devious tricks. Or it might be something new that none of them knew about.
She shuddered to think about going up against a new adversary. There was something nice and reassuring about knowing the enemies that were coming after her. Stalking vampires was getting boring but she knew how to do it well. One quick jab through the ribs, straight to the heart. It was so simple, really. Almost poetic. No matter what it was, there wasn’t time to sulk about her predicament. She needed to figure out what was going on so that she’d be prepared for what came next.
And what came next was a door opening to her right and a beam of light shining on her. Going with her first instincts, Faith reared back into battle position, the stake in her hand raised up to lash out at anyone that came close.
“It’s a girl,” a voice behind the light said with astonishment.
“What of it?” Faith snarled. She would have preferred the blindness of the dark to the intense beam of light in her eyes, hiding everything behind it. She couldn’t see anything that gave her any indication of where she might be or who was doing the talking.
“And she’s pretty,” a smaller voice added, accompanied by a laugh that sat Faith’s teeth on edge. She couldn’t abide nervous chatter or silly laughing used to fill up the emptiness of not knowing what to say or simply as a shield. This girl seemed to be doing both.
Waving the stick around to make sure she had their attention, Faith tried a different tactic to gain a top hand in the conversation. “I’m a pissed off vampire slayer, is what I am. Tell me why you’ve got me boxed in and then show me the way out of here. I haven’t got time to chit-chat tonight. Sun will be coming up in time and B will be pissed if I’m late for breakfast again.”
“Vampire slayer?”
Her chin went up in retaliation to his tone. “Yeah. What of it? Never heard of vampires?”
“I’ve heard of vampires but they’ve been pushed back to the outskirts. The Reevers are more of a threat than those wimpy creatures.”
The light moved away from her direct eyeline. Instead, it was pointed at the metallic wall behind her, effectively lighting up the small area. She could clearly make out the face of the man who was addressing her but the girl behind him was in shadows. Perhaps that was for the best. She was damned tired of dealing with young girls without any gumption or spine. Let her hide behind the yummy man. The unobstructed view was very nice indeed.
“No vampires?” She gave this thought some consideration. If vampires weren’t a threat, was there a Slayer here? For the first time since she could remember, Faith felt a strange calm descend over her. What would it be like to not have the need within her to kill? What if she could be a normal girl for the first time? Would she like being normal? That thought alone made her grip the stake a little more tightly.
“At least none worth our time. Go take care of the lights, Kaylee. I’ll deal with our guest.”
“But Captain-“
He turned around, keeping his body between Faith and the girl. “Go. And then you’re going to figure out what happened so we can reverse this mistake. I don’t like stowaways.”
Something about his protective instinct gave Faith pause. She’d seen Giles act that same way with Buffy who, in turn, treated Dawn with the same tender respect. But she’d called him Captain so it was unlikely she was his child. Not lovers. She’d be able to tell if they’d done the nasty and this was a man who hadn’t been let out to play in a long time, she’d wager. A very, very long time. The stake went back into the waistband of her jeans for the time being. Here was a riddle for her to solve with a prize at the end that might very well be worth the trouble.
She took a step forward, using her hips and shoulders as only a bad girl could. He turned back to face her, his posture one of a man waiting for trouble to find him. “A stowaway? I don’t think I’m a stowaway. Wouldn’t I have had to come here on my own accord to be a stowaway? Your prisoner maybe.” She was nearly touching him but any closer and she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eyes without craning her head back. “God, but you’re tall. And are those suspenders? My, but that’s a very good look for you.”
One of his eyebrows rose up high at the complement. She wanted to clap her hands together in ecstatic joy at his smirk. Instead, she mirrored his expression. It felt good to be herself with someone without have to hold back. Something told her that this was a person who wouldn’t mind if she was herself.
“What’s your name?”
After waiting a beat while she contemplated what to say to him, whether she should be snarky or kind, she went with the simplest answer. “Your name first. I am, after all, a visitor here.”
The man smiled in a way that showed his exasperation as well as his respect for her quick-thinking. Faith liked that. She was used to the look that people got when they remembered her as a murdering psychopath, always wondering if she wasn’t going to suddenly revert back. It was nice that someone saw her for something other than the mess-up that everyone else saw.
“Malcolm Reynolds.”
“That’s quite a name.”
He shrugged. “I like it. My mother must have, too. What name did your mother care for enough to bestow you with?”
Now was the time for her to decide if she trusted this Malcolm Reynolds or if she was going to keep up this tough girl persona. In a split second, she realized that she did trust him. More than she did most people that abducted her into an enclosed box without so much as a polite May I.
“Faith. Faith Lehane. I don’t really know if my mom liked the name, though. Didn’t know her long enough to have those kinds of conversations. So, Malcolm Reynolds, where am I?”
“You’re on my ship. Serenity.”
“Nice name. Very… calm. Would you mind very much letting me out of this box? It makes me feel as if I’ve been buried alive. Let me tell you, I’d rather not deal with that again.” He stepped back enough that she could evacuate the metal box that had brought her here. “So we’re on a ship? What ocean are we on?”
“No ocean. Serenity is a mid-bulk transport with a standard radion-accelerator core and a classcode of 03-K64. You can’t tell in here but she’s a Firefly-type ship. For my money, I consider her top of the line. Smoothest ride through space that you’re ever going to experience.”
“Space?” The word squeaked out in a voice that sounded like Minnie Mouse huffing helium. “We’re in space? Like up near the stars?”
“Some of them. Yes.” Mal indicated the open hatchway where light streamed through from the hallway to highlight the dirty metal surrounding them. “Would you like to see them? We have some right pretty views of several galaxies right now. River always likes to find the most interesting pattern to look at while we’re lulling about, waiting for the next job.”
The very thought of nothing but metal underneath her feet made Faith feel queasy. There was no solid ground to stop them falling if something went wrong. No oxygen to breath if a hole broke open. She was the cause of too many catastrophes to be comfortable on anything like a spaceship. “No,” she said faintly, trying not to throw up at the mere thought of being so close to any of the stars. She preferred seeing them from the firmly packed ground of Sunnydale, thank you very much. “I’m good.”
“Perhaps I can interest you in something to eat? No? We’re fully stocked so not everything tastes like sawdust. Okay, suit yourself. A drink then?”
She brightened. Maybe this place wouldn’t be too bad if they had something decent to drink. A common link through grain-based alcohol. It was how some of her best friendships… or one night stands… had started. “Do you have vodka? I’ve been jonesing for a martini. The kind with a little umbrella if you have them. I do love a drink with a little umbrella.”
Since he was staring at her like she’d started speaking another language. Strike the frou frou drink decorations then. She could wait until she was home again. Brendan at The Bronze made a stunning martini that made her tongue tingle just thinking about it.
“Fine. I’ll take water.”
“We’re not heathens even though we don’t put… umbrellas in our drinks. I can do you one better than a martini, though.”
“Better?”
Mal nodded, his grin going from cheeky to downright sexy in nothing flat. She didn’t wonder if there were woman all over this outer space she found herself in, looking for ways to make him smile just like that. “Oh, yes. You’re going to like this.”
Chapter 3: Realization
“You did what?” Jayne sat forward in his chair, completely entranced by their visitor. Mal didn’t blame him but neither did he blame River for the glare she kept trained on the girl. The status quo was being upset right and left by this girl’s appearance, that was for sure.
Faith’s dark eyes held a glint of amusement as she knocked back the remainder of her third cup of Mudder’s Milk. He figured she could quite possibly hold a fourth cup but even Jayne wasn’t able to handle more than that. Because most of the rest of his crew wasn’t holding back, he’d decided not to drink quite as much as he would on a normal night. Better that one of them stayed a bit more level-headed just in case Kaylee decided to bring someone else on board with her new contraption. Instead he sat with an empty mug in front of him. No one had even noticed that he was only drinking about one cup for every three they downed. Even still, his brain was fuzzy and his fingers were starting to tingle.
“Like I said, I went up to the guy and said, “It’s you or me, bub. I suggest you take a walk down that pier and jump off the end before I have to push you off. I should let you know that if we do it my way, you’ll have a spike through your chest. Only luck will get you out of this now.” He was quite polite about the whole thing, considering we did it my way in the end. Vampires have this thing against seeing reason. Guess it has something to do with them being undead and all that.”
“You didn’t really do that.” River crossed her arms and sank back in her chair, the exact opposite of the besotted man beside her. “It’s just a story. Like the kind that Jayne tells. No one puts spikes in people’s chests. Too slow and dirty than any real killing.”
“I don’t tell stories,” he protested, turning to look fully at the girl he’d nearly forgotten existed over the last hour. “When have I ever told a story?”
River was having none of his excuses. “You told one fifteen minutes ago.”
“No, I didn’t. That was completely true. All of it.”
Letting the two argue with each other, Faith put her chin on her hands and stared at him with eyes that sparkled. She was holding the alcohol she’d imbibed relatively well. If Mal hadn’t watched her drink it all, he might never have believed she’d had any. There was only a tiny lisp to each word that belied her true state. Her eyes crossed every other breath but that was better than having them roll back in her head. All in all, she was incredible.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that she reminded him of someone. Not Inara. They were almost complete opposites, really. In all the years that the Companion had been on his ship, he’d always fancied she was the perfect woman. Beautiful and intelligent with a spark of humor that showed at the most opportune of times. She could fight. Lord, but she could fight and she had still been beautiful when she’d been in the thick of battle.
This girl had only been here a few hours but already he felt…. something. That wasn’t like him at all. Especially not a girl who was such an unknown. He normally had to be completely sure of someone before he even gave her a second glance. Was it possible? Did he… but, no. He wasn’t going to say the word. He was still Malcolm Reynolds, after all. Old habits died hard, even for dark-eyed beauties staring at him as if he was a piece of candy she wanted to unwrap and suck on.
“Are they always like this?” Faith asked, reminding Mal that he should be trying to come up with conversation instead of staring at her.
“Like this?” He indicated the feuding couple with a look. “Not always. This is new for them. They don’t even realize they’re doing it yet. If it’s starting to irritate you, I can make ‘em stop.”
“Really?” She seemed stunned by his declaration. “How would you go about doing that?”
He pulled out one of his knives. It wasn’t one of the big ones but she didn’t need to be overly impressed by his weaponry at this point in the evening. “I’ll just throw this. That would separate the two of them quick enough, don’t you think?”
She giggled. It was strangely odd coming from this girl. He didn’t know much about her but she didn’t strike him as a person who giggled much. Even still, most girls who giggled didn’t do so at the thought of violence. He could tell she liked the idea.
Just as quickly, she straightened up as if she’d realized what she’d just done. “Can you throw straight enough that you don’t hurt them? They’re only irritating. Nothing that should require their death.”
“You doubt me? You don’t even know me, Faith Lehane.” He put his hand over his heart in a most melodramatic gesture. At least, he meant to put his hand over his heart but, in fact, ended up hitting himself in the cheek. Maybe he’d drunk more than he’d intended. Hurriedly, he put his hand over his heart and hoped that she hadn’t noticed. “I’m hurt. You’ve cut me to the quick.”
There it was again. Another giggle. While it was a pleasant enough sound, it wasn’t exactly like any giggle he’d ever heard before. Maybe because Faith didn’t seem like a girl who would giggle. It was wrong but there wasn’t much about this situation that was right.
Instead of just leaning forward this time, Faith climbed up onto the table, getting close enough so she was nose to nose with him. Just as he had the thought that she was going to give him some sort of show, she spoke again with that deep-throated sort of growl that she used. “Well, Malcolm Reynolds, go ahead and show me what you can do.”
Did she want him to kiss her? This seemed that sort of invitation, but then he remembered where the conversation had begun, dousing all hope that there was some part of her that knew what was going on. Even if she was speaking without too much of a slur, Faith was clearly intoxicated. His mother would tan his backside if he took advantage of this girl. A man did no such thing.
“Jing tsai (brilliant),” he mumbled to himself. Now that he had brought his mother into things, he might as well go back to his bunk now. “Weishéme wo xiang wo de muqīn (why am I thinking of my mother)?”
From across the room, Jayne laughed as he and River walked out of the room. “Gèng hao de ni, bi wo de xiōngdì (Better you than me, brother),” he called out.
She looked offended at his epiphany. “What? Were you speaking Chinese or something?”
“As a matter of fact, I was.”
“But I don’t know Chinese. It’s rude to speak in a language that not everyone understands. First thing I learned in Mrs. Fisher’s Spanish class.” She laughed, a full-bellied laugh that was much more in the style of the girl he was discovering Faith to be. “Of course, it was the only thing I learned, considering I only went to class three times during the whole year. And can you believe that she failed me? I know. I was surprised, too.”
“Spanish?” These days it didn’t take a lot to confuse Mal, seeing as how nothing made sense anymore, but now Faith was talking gibberish just as surely as if he’d been the one drinking. “That’s considered a dead language. Where’re they still teaching something no one’s had any thought of in the last two hundred years?”
“Sunnydale High School. That place has been through a lot since I was there. Went through a lot while I was there, now that I think about it. Good-bye, Hellmouth. I don’t miss you at all.”
“Where are you from?” he asked incredulously. “I’ve never heard of a place called the Hellmouth.”
“You bet your britches, buster.” Except it came out a lot like, “Yuba ore bridge turd.” The alcohol had finally reached the part of her brain that controlled speech. The idea obviously tickled Faith because she began to laugh; giant heaves of laughter that rendered her helpless. She fell forward, nearly on her face if Mal hadn’t caught her, gentlemen that he was.
She rolled over, her head pillowed on his arms so that his face was only inches from hers. Her lips were upside down but they still looked completely kissable. It would be taking advantage of a intoxicated female, one of his crew for the time being. Even if she styled herself a slayer of vampires, which sounded very odd to him, she was still his responsibility while she was here on his ship. He was the captain and there were standards to be held to in this situation.
“I am still a man,” he muttered as he gazed down into Faith’s dark eyes. All he wanted was to kiss her. Nothing else. He wasn’t a monster. The urge was stronger with the alcohol that coursed through his body but he still had the nerves of steel that Jayne was always griping about. There was too much in his background that kept him from doing just that.
Before he could get her upright and back in her seat, she flipped around. It was something he would have been amazed of even if they’d been perfectly sober but one minute she was laying down in his arms and the next she was sitting on the table with a glitter in her dark eyes that spoke of evil thoughts. This was a woman who knew what she was doing. So when she moved forward, her legs on either side of him, Mal didn’t give a thought to running away. Even with all his high-faluting ideals, he didn’t back away as her mouth touched his.
No matter the amount of alcohol she’d consumed, Faith could still kiss. (some sort of curse) but she could kiss, carrying it well past the point that he would have taken it if he’d been the one to start this ball rolling. When she released him, he definitely like he’d been taken advantage of but he wasn’t going to complain. Not one bit.
“Yum,” she murmured, one of her hands shaking as she touched her swollen lips. “Let’s do that again.”
Mal cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s wise. You don’t… I can’t… Oh, hell.” She was asking him to kiss her. That was completely different than what had just happened. Those urges of his were roaring to life and he doubted some two-bit whore at their next stop, days from now, would be able to fulfill the desires he felt right now for this dark-haired girl.
“Kiss me, Malcolm Reynolds. I’ve never kissed the captain of a spaceship before. I think it would be an interesting experience.”
“We’ve already kissed. You’re a guest. It’s inapproa-“ But she was talking plainly once again, the alcohol seemed to have left her system with an alarmingly fast rate, and she was asking nicely. A gentlemen always did what a woman asked. He was almost sure that was in the code of conduct.
Once again, Faith got to the punch before he could even move forward. She held nothing back but offered every part of herself and he found himself doing the same. For a moment, as she moaned his name against his lips, it felt as if she was showing him more than he’d have learned about her if they’d sat up all night, talking. This was ultimately better than any kiss he’d ever had. Two-dollar whores charged too much for kissing and Inara had….
“Who?” the girl in front of him asked after pulling away from him, one hand coming up to trace her lips as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened.
“What?”
“You just called me India.”
“India?”
“Something like that. Didn’t you?”
Mal tried to think fast but he found that he was as muddled-headed as if he’d been drinking with her. How could he explain that he’d just called her by another woman’s name? Or that the name he’s used was of the woman he’d spent years pining after before losing her because he was unable to express his emotions when the situation called for it. Not the way to start a relationship, even one that wasn’t destined to last for long.
“I said,” he began but since he couldn’t think of any good explanation, he did the next best thing. He kissed her again, this time putting as much into this one as she put in the first kiss. It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done but it seemed to get the kind of results he was hoping for. In fact, the results were so good he didn’t want to stop.
Faith sighed as he pulled away. He had to because he needed to breath or he was going to pass out. She still looked like she might pass out, though. Her eyes were unfocused and her breath was coming out in little gasps.
“How you doin’, darling?”
“Why did you call me India?”
“I didn’t call you India. I called you Inara.” As the name slipped out, Mal realized that he was still the one who was muddled. She smiled at him, a sly grin that told him just as much as her kiss had. Maybe more. “How’d you make me do that?”
“Easy. The same way I’m going to make you kiss me again.”
“You are?”
She winked at him, her eyes full of the devil. “I am. But perhaps you want me to question you about your relationship with Ina-“
Just as she’d predicted, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, dragging her across the table so that she was as close as she could get. It was the third greatest kiss he’d ever had. He had no desire to tell her anything about Inara, even if he had to kiss her all night to keep her from pulling out more information from him.
Click here for the continuing saga of Mal and Faith