A Harvest of Wild Oats, [X-Men/Firefly, gen]
Below is my fic for multiverse5000.
Title: A Harvest of Wild Oats
Prompt: Marvel Universe/Firefly. It turns out that Corsair is Malcolm Reynold's father.
Characters: Alex, Scott, Nathan, Corsair, Mal
Rating: PG
Word Count: 6,000
Summary: What begins as an intergalactic fishing trip only manages to get more complicated.
Notes: Thanks to Aaron for the beta. Post-Serenity. For the X-folks, takes place after Alex's aborted wedding, when Cable was holed up drunk in a safehouse after demoralizing circumstances, and some time during New X-Men. I say this for general orientation, but any backstory is explained in the fic, so is not important for reading comprehension.
Alex wasn't sure what his father had expected. From his perspective, when four very dangerous looking men suddenly appear on someone's ship and claim relation, an eventual lowering of weapons and a cool, "I ain't got no father, and never have done" seemed like the most positive possible reception. He was sure Scott and Nathan would both agree with him. But there was definite hurt in Corsair's eyes at his son's denial - in his mind, there were extenuating circumstances to be considered.
Their interrogation started with the traditional stare down - a cool look from the first mate, Zoë, and a glower from the bruiser called Jayne. When that had little effect, Jayne growled, "You'd best start telling us the truth 'bout how you got on our ship and to what purpose, or I'm gonna start cutting the truth out of you. I got a thing for souvenirs."
Zoë turned to him and said, "Back down! You know I like to be the first to threaten them."
Scott leaned forward in his chair, readjusting his bound hands, and asked, "Which one of you is supposed to be the good cop?"
"Who said there was a good cop?" Zoë responded.
Alex turned to the pained-looking man on his right and said, "You realize this is the worst fishing trip ever, right, Dad?"
***
"A fishing trip? In space? Now's really not a good time for me to go off-planet, Dad, I just got back from Paris..."
"Which makes me think this is an excellent time. After Lorna's little episode at your wedding, this doesn't really seem like a safe time for you two to be sharing a planet. I just got both of my boys back from the dead, I'm not anxious to lose you again!"
Alex ran his hand through his hair and looked across the room at his brother, who was sorting through a stack of unfiled paperwork Kurt had left on Alex's desk. "Have you signed on for this, Scott?"
"Sure, why not?" Scott responded, looking up from a purchase order that Bobby had spilled a frappuccino thing on; Alex kept meaning to redo that and get the thing submitted to the trust. "It might be good to get away from the mansion for a bit. Relax, just get away..." he trailed off.
"Why were you guys filling out a purchase order for plasma cannons, anyway? I think those are S.H.I.E.L.D. exclusive. And why does this smell like mocha?"
Alex scrutinized his brother, but the ruby lenses kept him as unknowable as always. "Let's not sidetrack here. Since when are you keen to abandon your X-Men, your wife, and your solar system for a vacation? Something's up."
"Nothing's up. It just sounded like a good chance for us all to spend some time together away from the chaos and confusion of our teammates and, you know, everything."
Corsair clapped Alex on the shoulder and proclaimed, "Well that settles that!"
Alex wasn't feeling quite so settled, between Scott's suspicious vagueness and his own desire to hide out with Annie and Carter for a week or two, but his objections were forgotten with his father's next words.
"Now, we need to pick up my grandson, and we'll be ready to head out!"
"Grandson?" Alex sputtered. "You mean Cable? I'd heard he wasn't doing so hot these days..."
***
"Remind me why I'm here again, Havok. I try to reserve time-hopping for important reasons - being threatened with a strip search all for the sake of a forced family reunion hardly seems to merit it. I should have shut you three down to a comatose state as soon as I saw what you had planned."
Alex eyed his nephew - a man at least ten years his senior, with grey hair and wrinkles around the corner of his eyes. "I guess you're here because you didn't choose to do that. Maybe you really do want to spend more time with our family, get to know Scott and your grandfather better."
"Or," he continued, in response to Cable's increasingly skeptical expression, "maybe you were ready to get away from the whiskey bottle and that disgusting cabin - really, it smelled - and make a difference again. And you sensed you could do that; we wouldn't have gotten here without you, and it really means a lot to Dad."
Nathan leaned his shoulders back against the couch's orange upholstery, closing his eyes. "I've decided it's impossible to make a difference. That's what a lifetime of traveling through time trying to alter its courses has taught me. And here we've arrived at just more proof of that - all the work we put into saving the world, destroying the madmen who would destroy it, and where do people end up? Earth's uninhabitable, mutants are nonexistent, a ruthless empire is in control, and we're floating around in a tin can held together by spit and wishes."
"Would you like to know every element represented in Serenity?" a soft female voice cut in. "I could give it to you - any spit involved is incidental, and wishes have no place on the periodic table. But you don't believe what you're saying, anyway. Nathan, Cable, Dayspring, Askani'son, so many names, so many times, so many men all in one skin."
"A telepath?" Nathan said, letting a bit of astonishment creep into his voice as he stood up.
"And you were saying that mutants are nonexistent here," Havok said.
Nathan's eyes remained solidly on the girl, a tiny thing with an apparent ability to sneak about silently in boots. "She's not a mutant. Are you?"
"A mutant? The result of a base-pair sequence change in the DNA of an organism's, in this case a human's, gene or chromosome, from the others in its species? I've never seen a full-scale genetic analysis of myself - there could have been some flip-flopping."
"She's not a mutant," Cable confirmed. He stepped toward her, his steps echoing off the common room's walls, and reached a hand toward her temple. "Someone has been meddling here."
A well-dressed man walked in from the cargo bay doors. "Did she tell you that?"
"Not in words, no. But she's projecting all over the place. Once I tuned in to her frequency, if you will, there's no way to stop from knowing everything. And I mean everything - it was indicated to me that the Alliance were ruthless bastards, but they are monsters." Cable blinked repeatedly, as though clearing something from his eyes.
"So you're a reader? Like River?"
"A telepath, yes. But not like River. My telepathy comes from a genetic mutation - it's something I was born with. River's was created through men's experimentation, and they seem to have destroyed most of her ability to control it in the process."
Simon nodded slowly, "You're a mutant. I thought they must be myth, surely."
Alex stepped in here, "Definitely not a myth where we come from, though there are lots of people who wish that. Scott and I are mutants, too, as well as most of our friends and family back home."
"Are you all telepathic?"
"Thank God, no." Alex shot a look at Cable to make sure he hadn't caused offense, but he mostly seemed interested in his mental examination of River, who appeared to be examining him back. "It's messy enough knowing as many telepaths as we do - it's a useful skill, but I can't imagine what it would be like if we all knew each other's thoughts. No, I can create plasma blasts, and Scott shoots energy from his eyes."
"What kind of energy? And plasma blasts? You guys are walking weapons! Does the Captain know all this?"
Alex winced. He had apparently misjudged the situation a bit. "Not precisely, no. We didn't want to fight or cause panic, so we left a few things out when we explained ourselves to Zoë and Jayne. The plan was to show that we're trustworthy, and then let everyone know we weren't baseline human."
"You guys are playing with fire. I don't want to be the one to get you all thrown out an airlock or to see you harm those who try to do so, so I won't tell anyone. But, mutants."
Alex pressed, "You said there were myths about mutants here?"
Simon nodded. "History, really. But not the kind that anyone studies, or believes. When River began manifesting her abilities, I did research on paranormal abilities of all types, and there was talk of mutants that used to exist on Earth that was."
"What happened to them?" Alex asked, over the tight knot forming in his chest. This was a question he had to ask, but not one he necessarily wanted to hear answered.
Simon shook his head. "One day, mutants ceased to exist. They woke up and they were standard human beings again. Not a single one that still had powers, no new mutants born. They called it M-Day."
By this point, Cable's attention was firmly on them. He exchanged a look with Alex, a feeling of horror at this story. Was Cable right? Was it impossible to make a difference? How did someone go about altering something as nebulous as this?
Simon didn't seem to realize the nightmare he had just set loose upon the other men. He asked Cable, "So, you can see what they did to River? Can you fix it?"
Cable furrowed his brow. "Telepathy isn't something that needs to be fixed. It's a gift."
"Telepathy may be. Anxiety, nightmares, and an inability to moderate her emotions are not."
Cable nodded. "You certainly have a point there. The damage to her psyche is complex, and it would take me time to see if I could repair it. I'm not even sure if I should try - the danger of causing more damage is great, and I don't know if she could handle that."
Simon looked defeated.
"But," Cable continued, "I could try to teach her how to control her telepathy. If she could block out the thoughts and feelings of those around her, except for when she wanted to, it could do a lot to help with her other problems."
Simon and Nathan sat down, and Nathan outlined for the doctor exactly what his course of treatment would involve. They had apparently forgotten their subject, who settled herself on the floor against a wall, and continued her intense analysis of Cable. Alex was sure she must now know more about him than any of the rest of them did.
At a lull in their conversation, Simon turned toward Alex and asked, "So you said that you only left some things out of your explanation here. Does that mean you were telling the truth about that old pirate being Mal's father? Because that is a story I need to hear."
***
Alex had never imagined that water could be that color. He lived a life in which he saw amazing things on a daily basis, but they were generally of the, "wow, that is an inventive way to kill my species" variety; nothing he had seen had prepared him for water so blue it looked like it came from a Crayola box. And the trees on the shoreline consisted of big blobs of the purest pink he could imagine, a color he never would have envisioned seeing in such quantity in nature.
"Errgh, why so much pink?" This, followed by a low, extended groan from the other end of the boat reminded him that not everyone found the scenery as inspiring as he did. Nathan hadn't yet gotten used to seeing sunlight again, and the long sobering up process combined with the rocking of the boat and the magenta flora was probably disorienting.
"Isn't this the greatest?" Corsair asked, as he cast his line. "This has to be one of the most beautiful spots I've found in all my travels. The weather's gorgeous, it's always quiet, you can see two moons when the sun sets and, best of all, no Shi'ar. There are apparently no resources here of interest to the Empire or to any of their rivals. Just beautiful."
Scott nodded silently and Alex smiled a bit. It was nice to have his dad and brother around when no one was shouting.
"There's only one fishing hole I can think of to match this one. The scenery wasn't so exotic, but it was even more peaceful. Trees clustered real thick around one side and you could just fall asleep there in the shade for hours. I sure would like to go back there, but that was when I got transported five hundred years into the future, you know. So, even if I could find the coordinates, who knows what the place is like now, right? They surely haven't terraformed it."
Corsair seemed to suddenly realize that two pairs of eyes and one set of ruby sunglasses were now pointed firmly in his direction. Even Cable had sat up and was staring.
Scott was the first one to speak up. "Can we review the part where you were sent five hundred years into the future?"
"I thought I told you about that." The confused expressions he faced indicated otherwise, so he continued.
"Well, the way it happened was this. The Starjammer was running low on fuel, like usual, so I took a shuttle out for a supply run. This was a long time ago, not long after we escaped from the Pits, and we were still in pretty hot soup with the Shi'ar. So a patrol recognized my shuttle and made pursuit. Things were looking pretty dicey, but then we got close to a jump gate, and I decided to go for it."
Nathan said skeptically, "You took a shuttle through a jump gate?"
Corsair chuckled. "Not my brightest moment. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but it was that or capture, and I couldn't be a prisoner again. Predictably, the jump malfunctioned. But I never would have predicted where I ended up. Five hundred years in the future, in a solar system I didn't recognize.
"And I was stuck there. No ship, no friends, and no possible route home. So I found a job at a ranch, herding cattle, mending fences. Mary owned the place and did a damn fine job running it. Eventually, we were running it together. We had a son, Malcolm.
"I was there for four years. I didn't think I'd ever get back so I set up a life there, and it was a good one. But the Starjammers never gave up on me. They went to every psi-powered being they could find. They kidnapped and bribed until they found one who was able to locate me, pluck me out of time, and bring me home. I went to sleep in my bed on the ranch, and woke up back home on the Starjammer. I never got to say goodbye."
The silence felt planet-wide - only the crickets were not still digesting Corsair's story. Alex noticed that he had a pull on his line that had probably started five minutes ago, and tried to bring the fish in.
Scott finally ended the quiet by saying, "A son? So, you're telling us we have another brother? Someone else who doesn't know you're alive?"
Corsair squinted his eyes, trying to think this one through. "Not really. That is to say, he won't be born for another five hundred years and by that point, I probably will be dead."
Nathan corrected, "You're thinking about time in a strictly linear fashion, when you've just demonstrated you know that is not the case."
"Weren't you nursing a hangover the size of my ship a second ago?" Corsair asked.
"The Askani have a proverb - pain is the whetstone upon which our clarity is sharpened."
Corsair muttered, "Seems to have a proverb convenient for every situation." To Scott he said, "Nathan is probably right - I do have another son, if you look at it in the broader sense. And not being able to explain things to him, to say goodbye to him, tore me up. But there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it; the whole episode was the result of an accident. I couldn't just travel through space and time to return to Malcolm and make amends, could I?"
At this, an idea sparked between Scott and Alex, who had ultimately lost both fish and line to the cerulean water, and it was time for the silent stares to be directed at Cable.
***
"You boys aren't too talkative, are you?" Mal had just entered the dining room to find Scott and Alex sitting across the table from one another, a bottle and glasses between them.
Alex smirked. "When we talk too much, it normally progresses to yelling fairly quickly. Also, my big brother has a secret that he is determined to keep quiet about."
"What manner of secret?" Mal asked.
Scott's lips settled into glower position. "A non-existent secret."
"Oh, a really good secret," Mal exclaimed. "This is shaping up." He pulled up a chair and poured himself a glass. It was the glass that sweet mechanic girl had intended for herself, after finding them the bottle. A mysterious explosion-like sound had been heard from the direction of the engine room, though, and she hadn't been seen since she ran off to investigate.
"Does this secret relate to the real reason you're on my ship? That is something I'm itchin' to know," Mal said.
Scott said, "We've told you the real reason we're here. Dad wanted to reconcile - that's all there is to it."
"And a bang-up job he's doing of it, too. He's popping up at me all over the ship, like the go tsao de bogeyman, wanting to clear his conscience at me."
Alex said, "You should give him a chance to tell his tale. It may not make you any better disposed toward him, but it is a killer story. And he tells it well."
Mal looked from one brother to another. "So you honestly believe this dung heap of a story about that man being my father? And in this scenario, you're my...brothers?"
Scott and Alex nodded.
"So what's the tough old guy who's been meditating with my pilot? My ex-convict uncle?"
"Nephew, actually. He's my son...from the future," Scott explained.
Mal let out a peal of laughter that echoed off the floors and wall of the ship. "You boys surely are entertaining. This keeps getting better and better."
Alex said, "You are definitely not the weirdest limb of the family tree - you've never even been cloned, to our knowledge."
Mal sipped his drink, then shook his head as he set the glass down. "You appear to be nice fellas, and I'm sure your pa has some nice points to him, when he's not jumping out at you in the corridors. But none of it changes the fact that I ain't got a father. I've done pretty well for myself without one thus far, and I don't see the benefits to obtaining one now."
Scott responded, his tongue loosening the more of the paint thinner he drank. "I hear you there. We thought Dad was dead most of our lives. Alex was adopted, I grew up in an orphanage. He didn't raise us, any more than he did you. But - well, I don't really know what the 'but' is - he's never been much of a father to any of us, but he's a good sort of guy. And if you can find some place in your life for him, it might be better than not having him."
Mal considered Scott seriously. "Well, I will take that under advisement. On to other matters; have you had enough of our rotgut to divest yourself of your secret? It seems to be weighing heavily on your brother, and I am a very good listener. I only make jokes when they're really funny."
Scott tilted his head back in an exasperated gesture, but started to talk anyway. "Maybe talking will help - I keep thinking that getting farther away will bring clarity to the situation, but that hasn't worked so far. See, Emma - that's another teacher at our school, Mal - and I..."
At that moment, Corsair burst into the dining area. Judging by his voice and smell, he appeared to have found his own source of drink tonight. He pointed a finger at Mal and stated, "I can't make you listen to me, and I certainly can't make you give a damn about me, and I'm done trying. So, take us to Shadow so I can see your mother, and I'll be out of your hair. I looked at the nav computer - we're right in the quadrant."
Mal pushed himself to his feet, rattling the glasses on the table. "I will say this once, and once only. I say this because I know you aren't from here - anyone else who suggested what you just did would be on his back right now."
Mal took a deep breath and continued. "My mother is dead. Everyone on Shadow is dead or gone - the Alliance saw to that. Shadow is an uninhabitable pit that should be removed from the maps because no one will be visiting there ever again."
***
"She was a beautiful woman," Corsair said in a low voice, almost a whisper.
Alex wasn't sure if this was a statement he was supposed to have heard, or if he should respond. He was sitting with his head leaning against a cool window, eyes closed so he didn't have to think about the limitless dark of space as they drifted through it. He didn't know how his father lived out here, in all this emptiness. Alex decided the most polite, safest route was to open his eyes, but remain quiet.
His dad apparently did want to talk, because he continued, though he didn't look directly at Alex or Scott. "Mary, she was a beautiful woman. Strong, like your mother was strong, but harder. Hard enough to keep a ranch full of men, including me, in line. But she had this wicked sense of humor...
"I've tried not to think about her too much. About the things she must have said and thought, after I disappeared. Because it's hard. Because Hepzibah would kill me if she ever found out the full story. And because it's all felt unreal since I got back. Like a dream you can't quite remember, you know?"
Scott said, "I know. Ever since my time with Apocalypse, I see these images, probably memories, but I don't want to believe they're memories, don't want to believe those things were done with my hands. You push them aside, because they don't make sense, and they don't give you anything useful for your daily life, so they fade. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen."
Alex nodded and chimed in, "Since I woke up from my coma, I keep remembering these dreams that are just too vivid to have been dreams. But are just too strange to be memories, and I don't know how it's possible they could be memories. Crazy things - I lead a team of heroes, and Storm is a vampire, and I'm married to..."
Alex glanced at Scott and decided a change in conversation was probably in order before he took things in a direction he did not want them to go. Admitting to insane, vivid dreams in which he was married to his brother's dead wife was certainly one such direction. "Anyway, I think I know what you're talking about. I try to forget it all because it just doesn't make sense."
He shouted in the direction of the cockpit, where Cable was piloting them towards the Shi'ar facility Corsair's sources had told them about. "Hey, Nathan! You've done more disorienting travel than all of us combined - how do you deal with the memories?"
"No way, Alex. I don't do heart to hearts - I'll leave the reminiscing and the awkward expressions of emotion to you guys."
***
Alex sat at one end of his dad's small bunk and watched his father fumble with the electronic device Simon had lent him. He was trying to shove the encyclopedia cartridge in a slot that was not close to the correct shape. After he dropped it, Alex picked it up and gently took the computer and got it set up.
"Shadow," he said. After selecting the right entry, they mulled over the images and listened to the sterile voice read them facts and figures.
"It's so empty," Corsair said. "If you didn't know what to listen for, you'd never even know they razed it. And it leaves out all the good things; where does it talk about the blue catfish we used to catch in the summer? Or Ezekiel, the hand who would, at least once a year, get stinkin' drunk and insist on riding a tour of the ranch in his undershorts?"
Mal's head popped in through the doorway. "If that pile of crap doesn't mention Ezekiel, it's definitely left out one of the most important features of Shadow. Every year, without fail. The only reason he didn't do it more often was due to it taking a full year for his legs to heal up."
"He was still doing that as you got older? The man must have been at least fifty last I saw him."
Mal nodded. "You could set your clock by him. And let me tell you, for a man his age, he kept himself up very nicely. I saw more of that man than I ever wanted to see on a consistent basis, and never an ounce of fat on him."
Corsair looked at Mal sadly. "Are you going to knock me out or shoot me now? I know you told me not to talk about Shadow, but..."
Mal waved his hand in a shooing gesture, as he leaned against the wall. "Nope, I had a realization that not everyone is a cold son of a bitch like me. It's been pointed out to me that you shouldn't shoot a man for reminiscing."
"Am I allowed to ask a question, then? Does she have a gravestone or a monument anywhere?"
Mal shook his head. "Ma died in one of the early raids, and we buried her there on the ranch. There was a little marker. But it was destroyed, along with everything else, later. They didn't leave a stone standing.
"I have to tell you, if you are the man who fathered me, which, I admit, is looking increasingly more likely seeing your familiarity with Zeke's drunken antics and all, then my mother would not have invited you to her funeral, as it were. She couldn't really string two nice words about you together."
Corsair nodded at his son. "That doesn't surprise me. I'd imagine disappearing without a trace doesn't do much for a man's reputation."
Mal laughed. "I can tell you it does not. As a young pup I once asked about my father and she let out the longest string of curses I have ever heard, to this day. And I've been on the losing end of a war and spent my life among a wide variety of criminal types. Oh, and one evening Lyman - do you remember him? - made the mistake of asking..."
Alex had long been forgotten here, and decided to quietly make his exit. He needed to see Scott about making plans for their departure, anyway. He hoped it could go as smoothly as their trip here.
***
The four men stared out the window at the Shi'ar facility they were preparing to invade. It was small, but ominous - a floating metallic station that spoke of clandestine research and Shi'ar military guards just by its existence.
Scott turned to his father and said, "So your sources couldn't give you any more than this?"
"No, just that he'd heard the Shi'ar had a shard of the M'Kraan crystal here and had been doing some work on it. It's pretty heavily guarded, but not as much as the crystal itself."
Scott spoke to the group as a whole, "Just remember this is a stealth mission. We take out as few people as quietly as possible, until we get to the crystal shard and Nathan can do his thing."
Alex said, "We're all professionals here, Scott. We know what we're doing. Nathan, just how long do you think 'your thing' will take?"
"As long as it takes. If I had some chronogear I could project myself through time pretty quickly. But I've never used the crystal to channel my time-displacement powers before. I don't even know for sure that it will work - as the nexus of all realities, it should, but I can't make any guarantees. Add to that the fact that I'm taking three other people with me and I'll have to search for the exact time and place we're heading, and I'm not sure. Are we really doing this?"
Scott nodded first at Corsair, then at the others. "We're doing this."
The Shi'ar put up a good fight, but they really stood no chance against the combined experience of the four Summers men. Scott and Alex blasted and stunned, Nathan put hardened warriors to sleep without blinking an eye, and Corsair cut his way through lines of guards with his saber. More than one opponent was sent through a wall, which meant that the mission wasn't entirely as stealthy as had been planned, but it was probably more fun, too, if any of them would have admitted it.
When they finally found the room with the crystal shard, the other three guarded the door while Cable went to work. He had prepared them for the fact that it could be a long process, but they still weren't ready for the hour spent watching the hallways while Cable hovered mid-air in the lotus position in front of the crystal shard.
"Cable," Alex whispered. "I don't want to break your concentration..."
"Then don't," Nathan replied.
"The thing is, I think the reinforcements are here. Like, Shi'ar battleship reinforcements, that I can see out the window. So, if there were any way to make this go any faster, that would be good."
Cable opened one eye. "Do you think I'm dawdling? That I'm purposely stretching this out?"
Alex opened his mouth, but was saved having to formulate a response by the sounds of running footsteps in the hallway.
Cable had both eyes closed again and said, "I've found him, I think. But he's older, and there's no ranch. I'm trying to trace his journey back, find him earlier."
Scott said, "I think we'll choose an old brother over Shi'ar work camp, if I can speak for everyone!"
"All right, then, here goes!"
It turned out that Cable's thing was very disorienting. It left all of them, except Cable for whom this was business as usual, on the cold metallic floor of a ship, heaving.
From this vantage point, Alex saw a pair of boots wander in from the next room, then pause. He then heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, followed by a voice on the intercom, calling for reinforcements. When the reinforcements arrived, they were all shouting in Chinese.
***
From across the cargo bay, Alex heard a string of words he was pretty sure would get you thrown through a window in Madripoor. He guessed Scott had probably just begun the little talk he had planned to have with Mal - the one in which he informed him about their mutant powers, and mentioned their thoughts on killing people, as well as on all guns not of the "stun" variety. From the way Mal's yelling continued, Alex was certain he and Scott were having their little talk.
Alex decided to seek out more serene pastures in the form of River and Cable, who were deep in conversation at the quieter end of the room. They stopped talking, out loud at least, as Alex approached. Emotion still played across River's face like sparks, leading him to believe the conversation had moved to a plane where he could not follow.
"Nathan," Alex began. "Have you given any thoughts to what Simon told us about the mutant apocalypse?"
Cable gave him a quieting look.
Alex continued, "Well, obviously, it would be hard not to think about it. What I mean is, what are we going to do about it?"
"What is, is," River piped in.
"Excuse me?"
Nathan smirked, "It's the central tenet of Askani philosophy. It teaches us acceptance and self-responsibility."
"Didn't the Askani send you back in time to kill Apocalypse and completely change the course of time? That doesn't say 'acceptance' to me."
"It is a complex, layered philosophy. I wouldn't expect you to understand without years of meditation and study.
"Besides," Nathan continued, "how would we fix this? The mysterious disappearance of the X-gene isn't something that can be solved with a simple killing, to my knowledge."
"So, you still think there's nothing we can do to make a difference?"
"No," Nathan glanced in River's direction, "we can make a difference, I think. Just not always in the ways we expect to. For instance, perhaps our very presence here, and absence from our own reality, is enough to change the course of these events. Who's to say?"
Scott approached the group and asked Alex to speak to him. They moved to the side and continued in low tones.
"I think I've convinced Mal not to murder us, though I think it's because he's convinced we're dangerous to him, not due to trust. I'm not making much headway on the gun issue, though - Jayne used the phrase, 'from my cold, dead hands,' and I believe him."
Alex shrugged, "We aren't going to change their ways with a few simple words. What is, is." He shook his head a bit to clear it and continued, "Why don't we just go in first. Between us and Nathan we should be able to get most everyone stunned and cleared away before anyone else feels inclined to start shooting."
"I suppose that might work, though they still make me nervous with that arsenal. Did you see everything they're packing?"
Alex clapped his brother on his shoulder, and said, "It'll be fine." There was a comfortable silence, and Alex continued, "So, you and Emma, huh?"
Scott shook his head a bit. "You must think I'm scum, right? I swear, it's only been mental, but it feels so..."
"Look, I just broke my girlfriend's heart as she was walking down the aisle, so that I could be with a woman whose son set up a telepathic romance for us while I was in a coma. And you and I, we're supposed to be the goody-goodies. I don't even want to know what Logan gets up to.
"None of us is perfect. And you'll still have the whole trip home to figure out what you're going to do. Assuming we get back to our own time, that is. If not, I guess all of us can set up a little life here, instead. I'm sure Dad can show us the ropes. That is," he said as Mal approached stormily with Corsair at his side, "if Mal doesn't hang us with them first."
Mal glared at all of the men who had turned out to be secret human weapons - that is, all the men except his father. "All right," he said, "we ready to do this thing?"
Cable nodded and said, "I've done my scans and River and I have plotted the location for the Alliance facility that seems to be housing this timeline's shard of the M'Kraan crystal. The biggest danger was always that the crystal shard had remained in our solar system, but it seems to have made the journey with humanity."
"Funny," Mal said, "the biggest dangers in my plans generally involve getting shot at."
The rest of the men gave Mal a curious look and Alex asked, "You're sure you and your crew want to be involved in this?"
Mal said, "We're there for backup at the least. Besides, this is what we do. It'll be a piece of cake."
Alex caught an amused expression that passed between Cable and River, which he thought probably meant things weren't usually as simple as Mal let on. But, he figured, they were Summers men - they always found their way home.
Title: A Harvest of Wild Oats
Prompt: Marvel Universe/Firefly. It turns out that Corsair is Malcolm Reynold's father.
Characters: Alex, Scott, Nathan, Corsair, Mal
Rating: PG
Word Count: 6,000
Summary: What begins as an intergalactic fishing trip only manages to get more complicated.
Notes: Thanks to Aaron for the beta. Post-Serenity. For the X-folks, takes place after Alex's aborted wedding, when Cable was holed up drunk in a safehouse after demoralizing circumstances, and some time during New X-Men. I say this for general orientation, but any backstory is explained in the fic, so is not important for reading comprehension.
Alex wasn't sure what his father had expected. From his perspective, when four very dangerous looking men suddenly appear on someone's ship and claim relation, an eventual lowering of weapons and a cool, "I ain't got no father, and never have done" seemed like the most positive possible reception. He was sure Scott and Nathan would both agree with him. But there was definite hurt in Corsair's eyes at his son's denial - in his mind, there were extenuating circumstances to be considered.
Their interrogation started with the traditional stare down - a cool look from the first mate, Zoë, and a glower from the bruiser called Jayne. When that had little effect, Jayne growled, "You'd best start telling us the truth 'bout how you got on our ship and to what purpose, or I'm gonna start cutting the truth out of you. I got a thing for souvenirs."
Zoë turned to him and said, "Back down! You know I like to be the first to threaten them."
Scott leaned forward in his chair, readjusting his bound hands, and asked, "Which one of you is supposed to be the good cop?"
"Who said there was a good cop?" Zoë responded.
Alex turned to the pained-looking man on his right and said, "You realize this is the worst fishing trip ever, right, Dad?"
***
"A fishing trip? In space? Now's really not a good time for me to go off-planet, Dad, I just got back from Paris..."
"Which makes me think this is an excellent time. After Lorna's little episode at your wedding, this doesn't really seem like a safe time for you two to be sharing a planet. I just got both of my boys back from the dead, I'm not anxious to lose you again!"
Alex ran his hand through his hair and looked across the room at his brother, who was sorting through a stack of unfiled paperwork Kurt had left on Alex's desk. "Have you signed on for this, Scott?"
"Sure, why not?" Scott responded, looking up from a purchase order that Bobby had spilled a frappuccino thing on; Alex kept meaning to redo that and get the thing submitted to the trust. "It might be good to get away from the mansion for a bit. Relax, just get away..." he trailed off.
"Why were you guys filling out a purchase order for plasma cannons, anyway? I think those are S.H.I.E.L.D. exclusive. And why does this smell like mocha?"
Alex scrutinized his brother, but the ruby lenses kept him as unknowable as always. "Let's not sidetrack here. Since when are you keen to abandon your X-Men, your wife, and your solar system for a vacation? Something's up."
"Nothing's up. It just sounded like a good chance for us all to spend some time together away from the chaos and confusion of our teammates and, you know, everything."
Corsair clapped Alex on the shoulder and proclaimed, "Well that settles that!"
Alex wasn't feeling quite so settled, between Scott's suspicious vagueness and his own desire to hide out with Annie and Carter for a week or two, but his objections were forgotten with his father's next words.
"Now, we need to pick up my grandson, and we'll be ready to head out!"
"Grandson?" Alex sputtered. "You mean Cable? I'd heard he wasn't doing so hot these days..."
***
"Remind me why I'm here again, Havok. I try to reserve time-hopping for important reasons - being threatened with a strip search all for the sake of a forced family reunion hardly seems to merit it. I should have shut you three down to a comatose state as soon as I saw what you had planned."
Alex eyed his nephew - a man at least ten years his senior, with grey hair and wrinkles around the corner of his eyes. "I guess you're here because you didn't choose to do that. Maybe you really do want to spend more time with our family, get to know Scott and your grandfather better."
"Or," he continued, in response to Cable's increasingly skeptical expression, "maybe you were ready to get away from the whiskey bottle and that disgusting cabin - really, it smelled - and make a difference again. And you sensed you could do that; we wouldn't have gotten here without you, and it really means a lot to Dad."
Nathan leaned his shoulders back against the couch's orange upholstery, closing his eyes. "I've decided it's impossible to make a difference. That's what a lifetime of traveling through time trying to alter its courses has taught me. And here we've arrived at just more proof of that - all the work we put into saving the world, destroying the madmen who would destroy it, and where do people end up? Earth's uninhabitable, mutants are nonexistent, a ruthless empire is in control, and we're floating around in a tin can held together by spit and wishes."
"Would you like to know every element represented in Serenity?" a soft female voice cut in. "I could give it to you - any spit involved is incidental, and wishes have no place on the periodic table. But you don't believe what you're saying, anyway. Nathan, Cable, Dayspring, Askani'son, so many names, so many times, so many men all in one skin."
"A telepath?" Nathan said, letting a bit of astonishment creep into his voice as he stood up.
"And you were saying that mutants are nonexistent here," Havok said.
Nathan's eyes remained solidly on the girl, a tiny thing with an apparent ability to sneak about silently in boots. "She's not a mutant. Are you?"
"A mutant? The result of a base-pair sequence change in the DNA of an organism's, in this case a human's, gene or chromosome, from the others in its species? I've never seen a full-scale genetic analysis of myself - there could have been some flip-flopping."
"She's not a mutant," Cable confirmed. He stepped toward her, his steps echoing off the common room's walls, and reached a hand toward her temple. "Someone has been meddling here."
A well-dressed man walked in from the cargo bay doors. "Did she tell you that?"
"Not in words, no. But she's projecting all over the place. Once I tuned in to her frequency, if you will, there's no way to stop from knowing everything. And I mean everything - it was indicated to me that the Alliance were ruthless bastards, but they are monsters." Cable blinked repeatedly, as though clearing something from his eyes.
"So you're a reader? Like River?"
"A telepath, yes. But not like River. My telepathy comes from a genetic mutation - it's something I was born with. River's was created through men's experimentation, and they seem to have destroyed most of her ability to control it in the process."
Simon nodded slowly, "You're a mutant. I thought they must be myth, surely."
Alex stepped in here, "Definitely not a myth where we come from, though there are lots of people who wish that. Scott and I are mutants, too, as well as most of our friends and family back home."
"Are you all telepathic?"
"Thank God, no." Alex shot a look at Cable to make sure he hadn't caused offense, but he mostly seemed interested in his mental examination of River, who appeared to be examining him back. "It's messy enough knowing as many telepaths as we do - it's a useful skill, but I can't imagine what it would be like if we all knew each other's thoughts. No, I can create plasma blasts, and Scott shoots energy from his eyes."
"What kind of energy? And plasma blasts? You guys are walking weapons! Does the Captain know all this?"
Alex winced. He had apparently misjudged the situation a bit. "Not precisely, no. We didn't want to fight or cause panic, so we left a few things out when we explained ourselves to Zoë and Jayne. The plan was to show that we're trustworthy, and then let everyone know we weren't baseline human."
"You guys are playing with fire. I don't want to be the one to get you all thrown out an airlock or to see you harm those who try to do so, so I won't tell anyone. But, mutants."
Alex pressed, "You said there were myths about mutants here?"
Simon nodded. "History, really. But not the kind that anyone studies, or believes. When River began manifesting her abilities, I did research on paranormal abilities of all types, and there was talk of mutants that used to exist on Earth that was."
"What happened to them?" Alex asked, over the tight knot forming in his chest. This was a question he had to ask, but not one he necessarily wanted to hear answered.
Simon shook his head. "One day, mutants ceased to exist. They woke up and they were standard human beings again. Not a single one that still had powers, no new mutants born. They called it M-Day."
By this point, Cable's attention was firmly on them. He exchanged a look with Alex, a feeling of horror at this story. Was Cable right? Was it impossible to make a difference? How did someone go about altering something as nebulous as this?
Simon didn't seem to realize the nightmare he had just set loose upon the other men. He asked Cable, "So, you can see what they did to River? Can you fix it?"
Cable furrowed his brow. "Telepathy isn't something that needs to be fixed. It's a gift."
"Telepathy may be. Anxiety, nightmares, and an inability to moderate her emotions are not."
Cable nodded. "You certainly have a point there. The damage to her psyche is complex, and it would take me time to see if I could repair it. I'm not even sure if I should try - the danger of causing more damage is great, and I don't know if she could handle that."
Simon looked defeated.
"But," Cable continued, "I could try to teach her how to control her telepathy. If she could block out the thoughts and feelings of those around her, except for when she wanted to, it could do a lot to help with her other problems."
Simon and Nathan sat down, and Nathan outlined for the doctor exactly what his course of treatment would involve. They had apparently forgotten their subject, who settled herself on the floor against a wall, and continued her intense analysis of Cable. Alex was sure she must now know more about him than any of the rest of them did.
At a lull in their conversation, Simon turned toward Alex and asked, "So you said that you only left some things out of your explanation here. Does that mean you were telling the truth about that old pirate being Mal's father? Because that is a story I need to hear."
***
Alex had never imagined that water could be that color. He lived a life in which he saw amazing things on a daily basis, but they were generally of the, "wow, that is an inventive way to kill my species" variety; nothing he had seen had prepared him for water so blue it looked like it came from a Crayola box. And the trees on the shoreline consisted of big blobs of the purest pink he could imagine, a color he never would have envisioned seeing in such quantity in nature.
"Errgh, why so much pink?" This, followed by a low, extended groan from the other end of the boat reminded him that not everyone found the scenery as inspiring as he did. Nathan hadn't yet gotten used to seeing sunlight again, and the long sobering up process combined with the rocking of the boat and the magenta flora was probably disorienting.
"Isn't this the greatest?" Corsair asked, as he cast his line. "This has to be one of the most beautiful spots I've found in all my travels. The weather's gorgeous, it's always quiet, you can see two moons when the sun sets and, best of all, no Shi'ar. There are apparently no resources here of interest to the Empire or to any of their rivals. Just beautiful."
Scott nodded silently and Alex smiled a bit. It was nice to have his dad and brother around when no one was shouting.
"There's only one fishing hole I can think of to match this one. The scenery wasn't so exotic, but it was even more peaceful. Trees clustered real thick around one side and you could just fall asleep there in the shade for hours. I sure would like to go back there, but that was when I got transported five hundred years into the future, you know. So, even if I could find the coordinates, who knows what the place is like now, right? They surely haven't terraformed it."
Corsair seemed to suddenly realize that two pairs of eyes and one set of ruby sunglasses were now pointed firmly in his direction. Even Cable had sat up and was staring.
Scott was the first one to speak up. "Can we review the part where you were sent five hundred years into the future?"
"I thought I told you about that." The confused expressions he faced indicated otherwise, so he continued.
"Well, the way it happened was this. The Starjammer was running low on fuel, like usual, so I took a shuttle out for a supply run. This was a long time ago, not long after we escaped from the Pits, and we were still in pretty hot soup with the Shi'ar. So a patrol recognized my shuttle and made pursuit. Things were looking pretty dicey, but then we got close to a jump gate, and I decided to go for it."
Nathan said skeptically, "You took a shuttle through a jump gate?"
Corsair chuckled. "Not my brightest moment. I knew it wasn't a good idea, but it was that or capture, and I couldn't be a prisoner again. Predictably, the jump malfunctioned. But I never would have predicted where I ended up. Five hundred years in the future, in a solar system I didn't recognize.
"And I was stuck there. No ship, no friends, and no possible route home. So I found a job at a ranch, herding cattle, mending fences. Mary owned the place and did a damn fine job running it. Eventually, we were running it together. We had a son, Malcolm.
"I was there for four years. I didn't think I'd ever get back so I set up a life there, and it was a good one. But the Starjammers never gave up on me. They went to every psi-powered being they could find. They kidnapped and bribed until they found one who was able to locate me, pluck me out of time, and bring me home. I went to sleep in my bed on the ranch, and woke up back home on the Starjammer. I never got to say goodbye."
The silence felt planet-wide - only the crickets were not still digesting Corsair's story. Alex noticed that he had a pull on his line that had probably started five minutes ago, and tried to bring the fish in.
Scott finally ended the quiet by saying, "A son? So, you're telling us we have another brother? Someone else who doesn't know you're alive?"
Corsair squinted his eyes, trying to think this one through. "Not really. That is to say, he won't be born for another five hundred years and by that point, I probably will be dead."
Nathan corrected, "You're thinking about time in a strictly linear fashion, when you've just demonstrated you know that is not the case."
"Weren't you nursing a hangover the size of my ship a second ago?" Corsair asked.
"The Askani have a proverb - pain is the whetstone upon which our clarity is sharpened."
Corsair muttered, "Seems to have a proverb convenient for every situation." To Scott he said, "Nathan is probably right - I do have another son, if you look at it in the broader sense. And not being able to explain things to him, to say goodbye to him, tore me up. But there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it; the whole episode was the result of an accident. I couldn't just travel through space and time to return to Malcolm and make amends, could I?"
At this, an idea sparked between Scott and Alex, who had ultimately lost both fish and line to the cerulean water, and it was time for the silent stares to be directed at Cable.
***
"You boys aren't too talkative, are you?" Mal had just entered the dining room to find Scott and Alex sitting across the table from one another, a bottle and glasses between them.
Alex smirked. "When we talk too much, it normally progresses to yelling fairly quickly. Also, my big brother has a secret that he is determined to keep quiet about."
"What manner of secret?" Mal asked.
Scott's lips settled into glower position. "A non-existent secret."
"Oh, a really good secret," Mal exclaimed. "This is shaping up." He pulled up a chair and poured himself a glass. It was the glass that sweet mechanic girl had intended for herself, after finding them the bottle. A mysterious explosion-like sound had been heard from the direction of the engine room, though, and she hadn't been seen since she ran off to investigate.
"Does this secret relate to the real reason you're on my ship? That is something I'm itchin' to know," Mal said.
Scott said, "We've told you the real reason we're here. Dad wanted to reconcile - that's all there is to it."
"And a bang-up job he's doing of it, too. He's popping up at me all over the ship, like the go tsao de bogeyman, wanting to clear his conscience at me."
Alex said, "You should give him a chance to tell his tale. It may not make you any better disposed toward him, but it is a killer story. And he tells it well."
Mal looked from one brother to another. "So you honestly believe this dung heap of a story about that man being my father? And in this scenario, you're my...brothers?"
Scott and Alex nodded.
"So what's the tough old guy who's been meditating with my pilot? My ex-convict uncle?"
"Nephew, actually. He's my son...from the future," Scott explained.
Mal let out a peal of laughter that echoed off the floors and wall of the ship. "You boys surely are entertaining. This keeps getting better and better."
Alex said, "You are definitely not the weirdest limb of the family tree - you've never even been cloned, to our knowledge."
Mal sipped his drink, then shook his head as he set the glass down. "You appear to be nice fellas, and I'm sure your pa has some nice points to him, when he's not jumping out at you in the corridors. But none of it changes the fact that I ain't got a father. I've done pretty well for myself without one thus far, and I don't see the benefits to obtaining one now."
Scott responded, his tongue loosening the more of the paint thinner he drank. "I hear you there. We thought Dad was dead most of our lives. Alex was adopted, I grew up in an orphanage. He didn't raise us, any more than he did you. But - well, I don't really know what the 'but' is - he's never been much of a father to any of us, but he's a good sort of guy. And if you can find some place in your life for him, it might be better than not having him."
Mal considered Scott seriously. "Well, I will take that under advisement. On to other matters; have you had enough of our rotgut to divest yourself of your secret? It seems to be weighing heavily on your brother, and I am a very good listener. I only make jokes when they're really funny."
Scott tilted his head back in an exasperated gesture, but started to talk anyway. "Maybe talking will help - I keep thinking that getting farther away will bring clarity to the situation, but that hasn't worked so far. See, Emma - that's another teacher at our school, Mal - and I..."
At that moment, Corsair burst into the dining area. Judging by his voice and smell, he appeared to have found his own source of drink tonight. He pointed a finger at Mal and stated, "I can't make you listen to me, and I certainly can't make you give a damn about me, and I'm done trying. So, take us to Shadow so I can see your mother, and I'll be out of your hair. I looked at the nav computer - we're right in the quadrant."
Mal pushed himself to his feet, rattling the glasses on the table. "I will say this once, and once only. I say this because I know you aren't from here - anyone else who suggested what you just did would be on his back right now."
Mal took a deep breath and continued. "My mother is dead. Everyone on Shadow is dead or gone - the Alliance saw to that. Shadow is an uninhabitable pit that should be removed from the maps because no one will be visiting there ever again."
***
"She was a beautiful woman," Corsair said in a low voice, almost a whisper.
Alex wasn't sure if this was a statement he was supposed to have heard, or if he should respond. He was sitting with his head leaning against a cool window, eyes closed so he didn't have to think about the limitless dark of space as they drifted through it. He didn't know how his father lived out here, in all this emptiness. Alex decided the most polite, safest route was to open his eyes, but remain quiet.
His dad apparently did want to talk, because he continued, though he didn't look directly at Alex or Scott. "Mary, she was a beautiful woman. Strong, like your mother was strong, but harder. Hard enough to keep a ranch full of men, including me, in line. But she had this wicked sense of humor...
"I've tried not to think about her too much. About the things she must have said and thought, after I disappeared. Because it's hard. Because Hepzibah would kill me if she ever found out the full story. And because it's all felt unreal since I got back. Like a dream you can't quite remember, you know?"
Scott said, "I know. Ever since my time with Apocalypse, I see these images, probably memories, but I don't want to believe they're memories, don't want to believe those things were done with my hands. You push them aside, because they don't make sense, and they don't give you anything useful for your daily life, so they fade. But it doesn't mean it didn't happen."
Alex nodded and chimed in, "Since I woke up from my coma, I keep remembering these dreams that are just too vivid to have been dreams. But are just too strange to be memories, and I don't know how it's possible they could be memories. Crazy things - I lead a team of heroes, and Storm is a vampire, and I'm married to..."
Alex glanced at Scott and decided a change in conversation was probably in order before he took things in a direction he did not want them to go. Admitting to insane, vivid dreams in which he was married to his brother's dead wife was certainly one such direction. "Anyway, I think I know what you're talking about. I try to forget it all because it just doesn't make sense."
He shouted in the direction of the cockpit, where Cable was piloting them towards the Shi'ar facility Corsair's sources had told them about. "Hey, Nathan! You've done more disorienting travel than all of us combined - how do you deal with the memories?"
"No way, Alex. I don't do heart to hearts - I'll leave the reminiscing and the awkward expressions of emotion to you guys."
***
Alex sat at one end of his dad's small bunk and watched his father fumble with the electronic device Simon had lent him. He was trying to shove the encyclopedia cartridge in a slot that was not close to the correct shape. After he dropped it, Alex picked it up and gently took the computer and got it set up.
"Shadow," he said. After selecting the right entry, they mulled over the images and listened to the sterile voice read them facts and figures.
"It's so empty," Corsair said. "If you didn't know what to listen for, you'd never even know they razed it. And it leaves out all the good things; where does it talk about the blue catfish we used to catch in the summer? Or Ezekiel, the hand who would, at least once a year, get stinkin' drunk and insist on riding a tour of the ranch in his undershorts?"
Mal's head popped in through the doorway. "If that pile of crap doesn't mention Ezekiel, it's definitely left out one of the most important features of Shadow. Every year, without fail. The only reason he didn't do it more often was due to it taking a full year for his legs to heal up."
"He was still doing that as you got older? The man must have been at least fifty last I saw him."
Mal nodded. "You could set your clock by him. And let me tell you, for a man his age, he kept himself up very nicely. I saw more of that man than I ever wanted to see on a consistent basis, and never an ounce of fat on him."
Corsair looked at Mal sadly. "Are you going to knock me out or shoot me now? I know you told me not to talk about Shadow, but..."
Mal waved his hand in a shooing gesture, as he leaned against the wall. "Nope, I had a realization that not everyone is a cold son of a bitch like me. It's been pointed out to me that you shouldn't shoot a man for reminiscing."
"Am I allowed to ask a question, then? Does she have a gravestone or a monument anywhere?"
Mal shook his head. "Ma died in one of the early raids, and we buried her there on the ranch. There was a little marker. But it was destroyed, along with everything else, later. They didn't leave a stone standing.
"I have to tell you, if you are the man who fathered me, which, I admit, is looking increasingly more likely seeing your familiarity with Zeke's drunken antics and all, then my mother would not have invited you to her funeral, as it were. She couldn't really string two nice words about you together."
Corsair nodded at his son. "That doesn't surprise me. I'd imagine disappearing without a trace doesn't do much for a man's reputation."
Mal laughed. "I can tell you it does not. As a young pup I once asked about my father and she let out the longest string of curses I have ever heard, to this day. And I've been on the losing end of a war and spent my life among a wide variety of criminal types. Oh, and one evening Lyman - do you remember him? - made the mistake of asking..."
Alex had long been forgotten here, and decided to quietly make his exit. He needed to see Scott about making plans for their departure, anyway. He hoped it could go as smoothly as their trip here.
***
The four men stared out the window at the Shi'ar facility they were preparing to invade. It was small, but ominous - a floating metallic station that spoke of clandestine research and Shi'ar military guards just by its existence.
Scott turned to his father and said, "So your sources couldn't give you any more than this?"
"No, just that he'd heard the Shi'ar had a shard of the M'Kraan crystal here and had been doing some work on it. It's pretty heavily guarded, but not as much as the crystal itself."
Scott spoke to the group as a whole, "Just remember this is a stealth mission. We take out as few people as quietly as possible, until we get to the crystal shard and Nathan can do his thing."
Alex said, "We're all professionals here, Scott. We know what we're doing. Nathan, just how long do you think 'your thing' will take?"
"As long as it takes. If I had some chronogear I could project myself through time pretty quickly. But I've never used the crystal to channel my time-displacement powers before. I don't even know for sure that it will work - as the nexus of all realities, it should, but I can't make any guarantees. Add to that the fact that I'm taking three other people with me and I'll have to search for the exact time and place we're heading, and I'm not sure. Are we really doing this?"
Scott nodded first at Corsair, then at the others. "We're doing this."
The Shi'ar put up a good fight, but they really stood no chance against the combined experience of the four Summers men. Scott and Alex blasted and stunned, Nathan put hardened warriors to sleep without blinking an eye, and Corsair cut his way through lines of guards with his saber. More than one opponent was sent through a wall, which meant that the mission wasn't entirely as stealthy as had been planned, but it was probably more fun, too, if any of them would have admitted it.
When they finally found the room with the crystal shard, the other three guarded the door while Cable went to work. He had prepared them for the fact that it could be a long process, but they still weren't ready for the hour spent watching the hallways while Cable hovered mid-air in the lotus position in front of the crystal shard.
"Cable," Alex whispered. "I don't want to break your concentration..."
"Then don't," Nathan replied.
"The thing is, I think the reinforcements are here. Like, Shi'ar battleship reinforcements, that I can see out the window. So, if there were any way to make this go any faster, that would be good."
Cable opened one eye. "Do you think I'm dawdling? That I'm purposely stretching this out?"
Alex opened his mouth, but was saved having to formulate a response by the sounds of running footsteps in the hallway.
Cable had both eyes closed again and said, "I've found him, I think. But he's older, and there's no ranch. I'm trying to trace his journey back, find him earlier."
Scott said, "I think we'll choose an old brother over Shi'ar work camp, if I can speak for everyone!"
"All right, then, here goes!"
It turned out that Cable's thing was very disorienting. It left all of them, except Cable for whom this was business as usual, on the cold metallic floor of a ship, heaving.
From this vantage point, Alex saw a pair of boots wander in from the next room, then pause. He then heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, followed by a voice on the intercom, calling for reinforcements. When the reinforcements arrived, they were all shouting in Chinese.
***
From across the cargo bay, Alex heard a string of words he was pretty sure would get you thrown through a window in Madripoor. He guessed Scott had probably just begun the little talk he had planned to have with Mal - the one in which he informed him about their mutant powers, and mentioned their thoughts on killing people, as well as on all guns not of the "stun" variety. From the way Mal's yelling continued, Alex was certain he and Scott were having their little talk.
Alex decided to seek out more serene pastures in the form of River and Cable, who were deep in conversation at the quieter end of the room. They stopped talking, out loud at least, as Alex approached. Emotion still played across River's face like sparks, leading him to believe the conversation had moved to a plane where he could not follow.
"Nathan," Alex began. "Have you given any thoughts to what Simon told us about the mutant apocalypse?"
Cable gave him a quieting look.
Alex continued, "Well, obviously, it would be hard not to think about it. What I mean is, what are we going to do about it?"
"What is, is," River piped in.
"Excuse me?"
Nathan smirked, "It's the central tenet of Askani philosophy. It teaches us acceptance and self-responsibility."
"Didn't the Askani send you back in time to kill Apocalypse and completely change the course of time? That doesn't say 'acceptance' to me."
"It is a complex, layered philosophy. I wouldn't expect you to understand without years of meditation and study.
"Besides," Nathan continued, "how would we fix this? The mysterious disappearance of the X-gene isn't something that can be solved with a simple killing, to my knowledge."
"So, you still think there's nothing we can do to make a difference?"
"No," Nathan glanced in River's direction, "we can make a difference, I think. Just not always in the ways we expect to. For instance, perhaps our very presence here, and absence from our own reality, is enough to change the course of these events. Who's to say?"
Scott approached the group and asked Alex to speak to him. They moved to the side and continued in low tones.
"I think I've convinced Mal not to murder us, though I think it's because he's convinced we're dangerous to him, not due to trust. I'm not making much headway on the gun issue, though - Jayne used the phrase, 'from my cold, dead hands,' and I believe him."
Alex shrugged, "We aren't going to change their ways with a few simple words. What is, is." He shook his head a bit to clear it and continued, "Why don't we just go in first. Between us and Nathan we should be able to get most everyone stunned and cleared away before anyone else feels inclined to start shooting."
"I suppose that might work, though they still make me nervous with that arsenal. Did you see everything they're packing?"
Alex clapped his brother on his shoulder, and said, "It'll be fine." There was a comfortable silence, and Alex continued, "So, you and Emma, huh?"
Scott shook his head a bit. "You must think I'm scum, right? I swear, it's only been mental, but it feels so..."
"Look, I just broke my girlfriend's heart as she was walking down the aisle, so that I could be with a woman whose son set up a telepathic romance for us while I was in a coma. And you and I, we're supposed to be the goody-goodies. I don't even want to know what Logan gets up to.
"None of us is perfect. And you'll still have the whole trip home to figure out what you're going to do. Assuming we get back to our own time, that is. If not, I guess all of us can set up a little life here, instead. I'm sure Dad can show us the ropes. That is," he said as Mal approached stormily with Corsair at his side, "if Mal doesn't hang us with them first."
Mal glared at all of the men who had turned out to be secret human weapons - that is, all the men except his father. "All right," he said, "we ready to do this thing?"
Cable nodded and said, "I've done my scans and River and I have plotted the location for the Alliance facility that seems to be housing this timeline's shard of the M'Kraan crystal. The biggest danger was always that the crystal shard had remained in our solar system, but it seems to have made the journey with humanity."
"Funny," Mal said, "the biggest dangers in my plans generally involve getting shot at."
The rest of the men gave Mal a curious look and Alex asked, "You're sure you and your crew want to be involved in this?"
Mal said, "We're there for backup at the least. Besides, this is what we do. It'll be a piece of cake."
Alex caught an amused expression that passed between Cable and River, which he thought probably meant things weren't usually as simple as Mal let on. But, he figured, they were Summers men - they always found their way home.