Ulysses (2/?)
Title: Ulysses (2/?)
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel, dameruth and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: The title refers to the poem of the same name by Tennyson, an online version of which can be found here.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
Chapter 2
Mal was still thinking about Rose two hours later when he climbed back up the loading ramp into Serenity's cargo hold.
Jayne and Simon were offloading the mule while Zoë negotiated passage to Athens with a man and a woman dressed in the sober black and white of missionaries. Kaylee had disappeared-she'd probably made off with the parts Simon had bought and was even now installing them and crooning to the ship under her breath-and a glance told him that Inara's shuttle hadn't yet returned. He felt a little twinge of disappointment, though he told himself he shouldn't. They weren't planning liftoff for another couple hours yet, after all, so it would've been more surprising if she were back; time was literally money for her, and any more, it was her earnings as put food on the table more often than not. Mal was grateful, he supposed, but a little part of himself hated it. She was supposed to be under his protection, not the other way round. It was he who was supposed to be providing for her. For all of them.
"She doesn't mind, you know."
He let out a purely undignified squeak of surprise and whirled to find River standing behind him, regarding him with that steady, dark gaze. "You did that on purpose," he accused.
The solemn expression on her face didn't waver, but her eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. "Maybe."
"Yeah, well, you frighten me outta a year's life and what happens when I keel over an' leave you all stranded?"
River tilted her head to the side consideringly. "We inherit the ship?"
He growled, not very convincingly, and reached out to tousle her hair. She let him. "Keep it up an' we might just find our way into the sky without you one o' these stops," he threatened, as he always did, and with just as little meaning as always.
River's mouth twisted into a half-smile and she turned to walk with him towards the interior of the ship. She'd been Serenity's unofficial pilot since not long after Wash's death, and now that they'd figured out what had been wrong with her (and, hell, if Mal'd had to carry all that around in his brain, he'd've gone crazy himself!), she'd rapidly become a favourite of his. "So you been readin' Inara's mind too, li'l Albatross?" he asked half-seriously, slinging an arm over her shoulder.
"Don't need to," she said. "Inara's family, and family helps each other." She paused, and added, "Rose needs to find what's left of her family, now the rest of it's gone."
He rolled his eyes, dropping his arm so she could precede him up the metal staircase. "I hate it when you do that."
"Then stop thinking so loud," she said logically as they started up. "I don't have to eavesdrop if you're screaming in my ear."
He sighed. "Think I should've invited her along?" he asked. Seemed a weird thing to ask the girl who'd been bona-fide off her rocker not so very long ago, but River had a way of seeing to the heart of things that very few people did-with or without the psychic stuff.
She shrugged, turning once she got to the catwalk to meet his gaze as he came up the last couple steps and joined her. "You did."
He blinked, winding his mind back over the memory of his conversation with Rose. "No," he said slowly. "No, I didn't. I'd've remembered that."
"You didn't actually say it, but you still said it."
Again Mal paused, trying to parse that out. "Okay, slipping back into crazy talk here."
River folded her arms impatiently. "You told her your name," she said. "And Serenity's. She wants us, she'll find us. She knows how to find what she needs. She's very young for her years."
"Old for her years," he corrected absently.
"Did she look old to you?"
Mal decided the buzzing in his head was a sign that he needed to be somewhere else, preferably far away. "I'll catch up with you later," he said. "I'm going to go check on Kaylee."
"She'll rope you into installing the secondary buffer panel," River warned, then skipped off towards the crew quarters before he could respond. Mal sighed and headed for the engine room.
***
Half an hour later, Mal was on top of the ship, just forward of the bridge, installing the secondary buffer panel in Newhall's blazing midsummer heat.
"I hate it when that girl's right," he muttered under his breath, lifting off the primary buffer panel and setting it upside-down so he could disconnect it from the secondary. One of the wires sparked, and he jerked back reflexively, then swore: the insulation had worn away and exposed the live wire. And, of course, the opposite end of the wire-along with the breaker switch to cut off the power-was down in what the designers of the Firefly boats had called an "access tunnel," though who was supposed to be able to access anything that small, Mal had no idea. Kaylee could probably fit down there. River, too. Zoë might be able to, though even she had wider shoulders than she looked-it was all that muscle. There was no way any male over the age of eleven could get into that tunnel.
Mal sighed and took off his hat, rubbing his forehead with his wrist. Nothing for it; he'd have to see if he could find River, since he knew damn good and well the other women were busy. He leaned sideways, trying to see if perhaps she'd come out to people-watch, the way she sometimes did.
Bright blonde hair caught his eye, and he glanced over, then blinked. There was that gal from the bar-Rose-moving with a familiar sort of almost-insouciant grace. Mal knew that particular sort of walk; it meant Don't look at me, don't notice me, I'm trying hard to blend in, see how well I blend in? Her long coat was gone; now she wore a backpack over the same bright blue blouse she'd been wearing earlier. She glanced back once or twice, checking her trail, and was clearly looking for a rabbit hole she could duck into.
In other words, she was being tailed.
Aware he was doing a supremely stupid thing, he leaned over a bit more, holding on to one of the hand-grips to keep from slipping, and called, "'Bout time you got back here! Been waitin' on you. Get yerself up here; this buffer panel ain't installing itself."
Rose looked up and saw him, and hesitated just the tiniest moment. She glanced backward once more, significantly, then up at him again. Clear warning: I'm being followed. You sure you want to put yourself in this mess?
"I ain't waitin' all day," he yelled, and this time she didn't hesitate. She hauled off her backpack and her blouse, revealing a black sleeveless shirt underneath-and surprisingly defined muscles; he'd been right about giving Zoë a run for her money, it seemed. Stuffing the blouse into the pack, she climbed the built-in maintenance rungs like a monkey. He handed her the hat he'd been wearing and she shoved it on, then slid feet-first into the access tunnel as though it were made for her, bringing the pack with her. Only made sense; there was nowhere else to put it that wouldn't be obvious to anyone on the ground. "Flip off all five of the breakers," Mal said, mostly for the benefit of the other folks around, "then see if you can find the secondary buffer panel. Looks like one o' them protein bars they give settlers on the Rim, with three or four sets of wires comin' off it."
"Got it." Her voice was muffled. She shifted a bit farther down in the tunnel. "See a pair of posh blokes tryin' to look ordinary?"
Mal let his eyes travel over the folks below and immediately recognised the men she was talking about as they came into view. Outwardly, they were dressed like anyone else in port, but they carried themselves like they expected their servants to materialise any moment and hand them a cool drink. They weren't happy to be there, and he could imagine what they'd like to do to the one who was forcing them to walk around in this heat. "Comin' this way," he said quietly. "Stay put."
"Not goin' anywhere," she said fervently. "Pass me a screwdriver."
"A what?" he asked, startled enough at the non sequitur to look down at her instead of at the men below.
"You want this panel removed or not? My fingernails aren't quite strong enough to turn screws, sorry."
Mal handed a screwdriver down, handle first, but nearly dropped it when he was hailed from below. "Have you been up there long?" one of the not-ordinary men called, shading his face with his hand. Man was going to have a hell of a sunburn come the end of the day.
"'Bout half an hour," Mal answered honestly. He was careful not to look down at Rose, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see her scrunching farther down, and some sort of movement.
"Have you seen a young blonde woman pass by? Black trousers, blue shirt, perhaps a long, black coat?"
Mal shrugged negligently. "Seen a few blondes," he said. "More of a brunette man, myself. You sure she'd be wearing a coat? 'Cause this weather, ain't nobody in their right mind wears any more'n they have to." His hand indicated the hot, baked dirt of the port's roads-Serenity couldn't afford to put down in the paved areas, not that there were many of those out here on Newhall-and the air that shimmered with the heat of a thirty-seven-degree day.
"Perhaps not," the man repeated, clearly trying to sound friendly but just as clearly having to work at it. "She's a friend of ours from Dyton, and we're afraid she's gotten lost."
He shrugged. "Ain't seen nobody says they're from Dyton, but if I do, I'll let 'em know their friends are lookin'."
It was the best the two men could ask for, and they knew it. Still, the second one stepped forward a bit and asked casually, "Working on the buffer panels? I never could find a way to get down into that access tunnel. Got an assistant?"
Hell, thought Mal, and smiled, trying to think of a way to lie his way out of this one.
To his utter shock, Rose popped up out of the access tunnel-but a completely different-looking Rose. She was filthy, much filthier than that tunnel could account for, and her hair was black. She must've had a disguise ready, he realised, and was just looking for a place to get into it. "How th'hell long you plannin' to keep me in there for?" she demanded in a perfect Rim accent and a deeper voice that was just convincing enough to sound like a boy on the verge of his voice changing. "Gotta be fifty degrees in there! Dad'll kill ya."
The two men below were staring at her. So was Mal, come to that, though shock was turning rapidly to respect. This woman knew what she was about, that was certain. "You're lucky to have a place on my boat, and you know it, Squirt," Mal said after what he hoped was only a tiny pause. He smacked the replacement secondary buffer panel into her outstretched left hand. "Now get that installed and you can come on outta there. I heard tell Kaylee's got some lemonade going. Real lemons an' all."
Rose rolled her eyes convincingly and ducked back down into the access tunnel, never having even glanced at the men who'd been following her. Those men looked at each other uncertainly, Mal was pleased to see.
"My sister's boy," he said by way of explanation. "Says he wants to be a spacer, but Tina wouldn't hear of him goin' into the military, so I got stuck with him."
"I see," the first man said again. "We won't keep you any longer. If you see our friend, you'll let us know, won't you?"
"Absolutely," Mal said with his brightest, dumbest grin. They moved off, and soon got lost in the crowd. He gave them a few minutes to get far enough away, then said to Rose, "I think it's safe. Come on out, Squirt."
She hauled herself out, still in the wig and his hat, and sat herself on the hull of the ship, feet dangling into the tunnel. She held out a piece of machinery that might once have been a secondary buffer panel. "You use your ship hard, Captain," she said in her normal accent, but quietly.
He'd have protested, but the panel looked like it'd been melted four or five different times. "Sometimes I do," he allowed. "Come on, let's get down out of this heat. I wasn't lyin' about that lemonade."
Rose shook her head. "Thanks," she said, "but I don't want to drag you any further into this than I already have. If I can manage to get to a passenger ship that's heading towards Athens, I'll be fine."
"That where your friend is?" Mal asked.
"Far as I can tell." She took off his hat and fanned herself with it. "At least, that's where the trail leads so far. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess."
"Well, it just so happens my second-in-command was negotiating with a couple for passage to that very planet. We ain't fancy, but since you just replaced this for me-you did turn the breakers back on, didn't you?"
"Of course," Rose said.
"So you've earned yourself some payment, and seein' as how I just spent all my coin on restocking the ship and buying replacement parts, the best I can do is to offer you passage. It's barter, fair and square," he added, since she seemed poised to refuse. "'Sides, I'm already involved, and I did it all on my own. Go find some other boat, and you'll be involving folks as don't know what's going on, and that ain't hardly fair."
"And what is going on, Captain Reynolds?" she asked. Her voice was playful, but her eyes were deadly serious.
"Call me Mal," he said. "You're bein' tracked by someone who wants to find you so bad they're sending people out into the dirty parts of the port, people as don't fit in, and that means one of two things: folks you owe money to, or slavers. Since you don't seem to be hurtin' for cash, judging by the fact that I'd bet you've got a handful of completely different personas in that backpack o'yours and the easy way you walk round the port, it ain't that you owe what you can't pay. Besides, you're worried about involving me in trouble, so you got a conscience, and folks with a conscience ain't the type to run up them kinda bills in the first place, let alone not pay 'em. So I'm guessing slavers. Am I right?"
Rose raised an eyebrow, as if to say 'not bad.' Mal was absurdly pleased by that. "All right," she said. "Passage to Athens, but I can pay my way."
"No need," he said. "We got ourselves a pair of missionaries as passengers, and they always pay in cash money. 'Sides, we got ourselves fuel, food, and cargo, and I even paid my crew most'a what I owe 'em." He jerked his head towards the ladder rungs down the side of the ship. "Let's go, 'fore Jayne drinks everything."
Rose chuckled wryly. "You've got a way with words, Mal," she said. Sliding the backpack on, she clambered down the rungs as easily as she'd gone up. Mal replaced the primary panel, secured it, and followed, feeling better than he had since he'd met her.
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel, dameruth and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: The title refers to the poem of the same name by Tennyson, an online version of which can be found here.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10
Chapter 2
Mal was still thinking about Rose two hours later when he climbed back up the loading ramp into Serenity's cargo hold.
Jayne and Simon were offloading the mule while Zoë negotiated passage to Athens with a man and a woman dressed in the sober black and white of missionaries. Kaylee had disappeared-she'd probably made off with the parts Simon had bought and was even now installing them and crooning to the ship under her breath-and a glance told him that Inara's shuttle hadn't yet returned. He felt a little twinge of disappointment, though he told himself he shouldn't. They weren't planning liftoff for another couple hours yet, after all, so it would've been more surprising if she were back; time was literally money for her, and any more, it was her earnings as put food on the table more often than not. Mal was grateful, he supposed, but a little part of himself hated it. She was supposed to be under his protection, not the other way round. It was he who was supposed to be providing for her. For all of them.
"She doesn't mind, you know."
He let out a purely undignified squeak of surprise and whirled to find River standing behind him, regarding him with that steady, dark gaze. "You did that on purpose," he accused.
The solemn expression on her face didn't waver, but her eyes suddenly sparkled with mischief. "Maybe."
"Yeah, well, you frighten me outta a year's life and what happens when I keel over an' leave you all stranded?"
River tilted her head to the side consideringly. "We inherit the ship?"
He growled, not very convincingly, and reached out to tousle her hair. She let him. "Keep it up an' we might just find our way into the sky without you one o' these stops," he threatened, as he always did, and with just as little meaning as always.
River's mouth twisted into a half-smile and she turned to walk with him towards the interior of the ship. She'd been Serenity's unofficial pilot since not long after Wash's death, and now that they'd figured out what had been wrong with her (and, hell, if Mal'd had to carry all that around in his brain, he'd've gone crazy himself!), she'd rapidly become a favourite of his. "So you been readin' Inara's mind too, li'l Albatross?" he asked half-seriously, slinging an arm over her shoulder.
"Don't need to," she said. "Inara's family, and family helps each other." She paused, and added, "Rose needs to find what's left of her family, now the rest of it's gone."
He rolled his eyes, dropping his arm so she could precede him up the metal staircase. "I hate it when you do that."
"Then stop thinking so loud," she said logically as they started up. "I don't have to eavesdrop if you're screaming in my ear."
He sighed. "Think I should've invited her along?" he asked. Seemed a weird thing to ask the girl who'd been bona-fide off her rocker not so very long ago, but River had a way of seeing to the heart of things that very few people did-with or without the psychic stuff.
She shrugged, turning once she got to the catwalk to meet his gaze as he came up the last couple steps and joined her. "You did."
He blinked, winding his mind back over the memory of his conversation with Rose. "No," he said slowly. "No, I didn't. I'd've remembered that."
"You didn't actually say it, but you still said it."
Again Mal paused, trying to parse that out. "Okay, slipping back into crazy talk here."
River folded her arms impatiently. "You told her your name," she said. "And Serenity's. She wants us, she'll find us. She knows how to find what she needs. She's very young for her years."
"Old for her years," he corrected absently.
"Did she look old to you?"
Mal decided the buzzing in his head was a sign that he needed to be somewhere else, preferably far away. "I'll catch up with you later," he said. "I'm going to go check on Kaylee."
"She'll rope you into installing the secondary buffer panel," River warned, then skipped off towards the crew quarters before he could respond. Mal sighed and headed for the engine room.
***
Half an hour later, Mal was on top of the ship, just forward of the bridge, installing the secondary buffer panel in Newhall's blazing midsummer heat.
"I hate it when that girl's right," he muttered under his breath, lifting off the primary buffer panel and setting it upside-down so he could disconnect it from the secondary. One of the wires sparked, and he jerked back reflexively, then swore: the insulation had worn away and exposed the live wire. And, of course, the opposite end of the wire-along with the breaker switch to cut off the power-was down in what the designers of the Firefly boats had called an "access tunnel," though who was supposed to be able to access anything that small, Mal had no idea. Kaylee could probably fit down there. River, too. Zoë might be able to, though even she had wider shoulders than she looked-it was all that muscle. There was no way any male over the age of eleven could get into that tunnel.
Mal sighed and took off his hat, rubbing his forehead with his wrist. Nothing for it; he'd have to see if he could find River, since he knew damn good and well the other women were busy. He leaned sideways, trying to see if perhaps she'd come out to people-watch, the way she sometimes did.
Bright blonde hair caught his eye, and he glanced over, then blinked. There was that gal from the bar-Rose-moving with a familiar sort of almost-insouciant grace. Mal knew that particular sort of walk; it meant Don't look at me, don't notice me, I'm trying hard to blend in, see how well I blend in? Her long coat was gone; now she wore a backpack over the same bright blue blouse she'd been wearing earlier. She glanced back once or twice, checking her trail, and was clearly looking for a rabbit hole she could duck into.
In other words, she was being tailed.
Aware he was doing a supremely stupid thing, he leaned over a bit more, holding on to one of the hand-grips to keep from slipping, and called, "'Bout time you got back here! Been waitin' on you. Get yerself up here; this buffer panel ain't installing itself."
Rose looked up and saw him, and hesitated just the tiniest moment. She glanced backward once more, significantly, then up at him again. Clear warning: I'm being followed. You sure you want to put yourself in this mess?
"I ain't waitin' all day," he yelled, and this time she didn't hesitate. She hauled off her backpack and her blouse, revealing a black sleeveless shirt underneath-and surprisingly defined muscles; he'd been right about giving Zoë a run for her money, it seemed. Stuffing the blouse into the pack, she climbed the built-in maintenance rungs like a monkey. He handed her the hat he'd been wearing and she shoved it on, then slid feet-first into the access tunnel as though it were made for her, bringing the pack with her. Only made sense; there was nowhere else to put it that wouldn't be obvious to anyone on the ground. "Flip off all five of the breakers," Mal said, mostly for the benefit of the other folks around, "then see if you can find the secondary buffer panel. Looks like one o' them protein bars they give settlers on the Rim, with three or four sets of wires comin' off it."
"Got it." Her voice was muffled. She shifted a bit farther down in the tunnel. "See a pair of posh blokes tryin' to look ordinary?"
Mal let his eyes travel over the folks below and immediately recognised the men she was talking about as they came into view. Outwardly, they were dressed like anyone else in port, but they carried themselves like they expected their servants to materialise any moment and hand them a cool drink. They weren't happy to be there, and he could imagine what they'd like to do to the one who was forcing them to walk around in this heat. "Comin' this way," he said quietly. "Stay put."
"Not goin' anywhere," she said fervently. "Pass me a screwdriver."
"A what?" he asked, startled enough at the non sequitur to look down at her instead of at the men below.
"You want this panel removed or not? My fingernails aren't quite strong enough to turn screws, sorry."
Mal handed a screwdriver down, handle first, but nearly dropped it when he was hailed from below. "Have you been up there long?" one of the not-ordinary men called, shading his face with his hand. Man was going to have a hell of a sunburn come the end of the day.
"'Bout half an hour," Mal answered honestly. He was careful not to look down at Rose, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see her scrunching farther down, and some sort of movement.
"Have you seen a young blonde woman pass by? Black trousers, blue shirt, perhaps a long, black coat?"
Mal shrugged negligently. "Seen a few blondes," he said. "More of a brunette man, myself. You sure she'd be wearing a coat? 'Cause this weather, ain't nobody in their right mind wears any more'n they have to." His hand indicated the hot, baked dirt of the port's roads-Serenity couldn't afford to put down in the paved areas, not that there were many of those out here on Newhall-and the air that shimmered with the heat of a thirty-seven-degree day.
"Perhaps not," the man repeated, clearly trying to sound friendly but just as clearly having to work at it. "She's a friend of ours from Dyton, and we're afraid she's gotten lost."
He shrugged. "Ain't seen nobody says they're from Dyton, but if I do, I'll let 'em know their friends are lookin'."
It was the best the two men could ask for, and they knew it. Still, the second one stepped forward a bit and asked casually, "Working on the buffer panels? I never could find a way to get down into that access tunnel. Got an assistant?"
Hell, thought Mal, and smiled, trying to think of a way to lie his way out of this one.
To his utter shock, Rose popped up out of the access tunnel-but a completely different-looking Rose. She was filthy, much filthier than that tunnel could account for, and her hair was black. She must've had a disguise ready, he realised, and was just looking for a place to get into it. "How th'hell long you plannin' to keep me in there for?" she demanded in a perfect Rim accent and a deeper voice that was just convincing enough to sound like a boy on the verge of his voice changing. "Gotta be fifty degrees in there! Dad'll kill ya."
The two men below were staring at her. So was Mal, come to that, though shock was turning rapidly to respect. This woman knew what she was about, that was certain. "You're lucky to have a place on my boat, and you know it, Squirt," Mal said after what he hoped was only a tiny pause. He smacked the replacement secondary buffer panel into her outstretched left hand. "Now get that installed and you can come on outta there. I heard tell Kaylee's got some lemonade going. Real lemons an' all."
Rose rolled her eyes convincingly and ducked back down into the access tunnel, never having even glanced at the men who'd been following her. Those men looked at each other uncertainly, Mal was pleased to see.
"My sister's boy," he said by way of explanation. "Says he wants to be a spacer, but Tina wouldn't hear of him goin' into the military, so I got stuck with him."
"I see," the first man said again. "We won't keep you any longer. If you see our friend, you'll let us know, won't you?"
"Absolutely," Mal said with his brightest, dumbest grin. They moved off, and soon got lost in the crowd. He gave them a few minutes to get far enough away, then said to Rose, "I think it's safe. Come on out, Squirt."
She hauled herself out, still in the wig and his hat, and sat herself on the hull of the ship, feet dangling into the tunnel. She held out a piece of machinery that might once have been a secondary buffer panel. "You use your ship hard, Captain," she said in her normal accent, but quietly.
He'd have protested, but the panel looked like it'd been melted four or five different times. "Sometimes I do," he allowed. "Come on, let's get down out of this heat. I wasn't lyin' about that lemonade."
Rose shook her head. "Thanks," she said, "but I don't want to drag you any further into this than I already have. If I can manage to get to a passenger ship that's heading towards Athens, I'll be fine."
"That where your friend is?" Mal asked.
"Far as I can tell." She took off his hat and fanned herself with it. "At least, that's where the trail leads so far. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess."
"Well, it just so happens my second-in-command was negotiating with a couple for passage to that very planet. We ain't fancy, but since you just replaced this for me-you did turn the breakers back on, didn't you?"
"Of course," Rose said.
"So you've earned yourself some payment, and seein' as how I just spent all my coin on restocking the ship and buying replacement parts, the best I can do is to offer you passage. It's barter, fair and square," he added, since she seemed poised to refuse. "'Sides, I'm already involved, and I did it all on my own. Go find some other boat, and you'll be involving folks as don't know what's going on, and that ain't hardly fair."
"And what is going on, Captain Reynolds?" she asked. Her voice was playful, but her eyes were deadly serious.
"Call me Mal," he said. "You're bein' tracked by someone who wants to find you so bad they're sending people out into the dirty parts of the port, people as don't fit in, and that means one of two things: folks you owe money to, or slavers. Since you don't seem to be hurtin' for cash, judging by the fact that I'd bet you've got a handful of completely different personas in that backpack o'yours and the easy way you walk round the port, it ain't that you owe what you can't pay. Besides, you're worried about involving me in trouble, so you got a conscience, and folks with a conscience ain't the type to run up them kinda bills in the first place, let alone not pay 'em. So I'm guessing slavers. Am I right?"
Rose raised an eyebrow, as if to say 'not bad.' Mal was absurdly pleased by that. "All right," she said. "Passage to Athens, but I can pay my way."
"No need," he said. "We got ourselves a pair of missionaries as passengers, and they always pay in cash money. 'Sides, we got ourselves fuel, food, and cargo, and I even paid my crew most'a what I owe 'em." He jerked his head towards the ladder rungs down the side of the ship. "Let's go, 'fore Jayne drinks everything."
Rose chuckled wryly. "You've got a way with words, Mal," she said. Sliding the backpack on, she clambered down the rungs as easily as she'd gone up. Mal replaced the primary panel, secured it, and followed, feeling better than he had since he'd met her.