final gift for willow_kat

Dec 26, 2008 17:53

Hey there, I'm memorysdaughter and I'm your Secret Santa.

You requested cuteness, and the Serenity Santa challenge happens to fall in a time period where I watch a lot of movies and listen to a lot of movie soundtracks. I brought the two together in my final piece for you - "Cinematic Cutness."


(AN: The "Interlude" section borrows a series of lines from "Family Guy," but they felt like they fit.)

Cinematic Cuteness
I. Prologue
“I think it’s the best upgrade we’ve ever made,” Kaylee says from below the control panel.

“I think it’s a ruttin’ waste of money,” Mal says grimly. “My crew’s gonna be next t’ worthless, spendin’ all their time watchin’ Earth-That-Was films off th’ Cortex. An’ in their own rooms, no less! Who’s gonna cook our meals an’ clean out the septic vats an’…”

Kaylee interrupts. “Y’ worry too much, Cap’n. I think it’ll be wonderful.”

“Ain’t gonna be wonderful when yer hungry an’…”

She smiles. “It’ll be wonderful t’ watch films with Simon while we’re in bed.”

“Gah! I didn’t need t’…”

“See, Cap’n, that’s exactly like this upgrade. Y’ don’t need it, but it sure is nice t’ know it’s there.”

II. Mulan
River sticks her head into the infirmary, looking oddly confused.

“What’s the trouble, mei-mei?” Simon asks, wrapping a roll of bandages.

“I need a dowry,” she says without much preamble.

Simon nearly chokes. “You need… what?”

“A dowry,” she repeats. “A bride-price. Preferably with cattle.”

“Mei-mei, you have to be engaged to need a dowry,” Simon points out.

“Mulan wasn’t engaged,” she says.

“Who?”

Her eyes go wide. “Mulan.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Simon says, confused.

“I saw her! She got all dressed up and went to find herself a bridegroom, only it turned out that she couldn’t get one because she was too smart, and then she had to go off and fight in a war, ‘cept she had to disguise herself as a man, and when her commanding officer found out he was not amused, but then she saves the emperor and they get married.”

“She marries… the emperor?”

River looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Why would she marry the emperor? He’s old.”

Simon shakes his head. “Who are we even talking about, River?”

“Mulan!” she practically shrieks. “If I don’t have a dowry I’m going to have to go off and fight in a war. I’ll have to fight the Huns! Is that what you want?”

“River, the Huns haven’t been a recognized ethnic group since before… wait a minute. When did you see this… Mulan?”

“Last night!”

Simon nearly falls to the floor with relief. “Oh. You saw it in a film! On the movie-screen Kaylee put in your room?”

“She didn’t have a dowry and she had to go fight the Huns.”

“Well, the Huns no longer exist and I can’t think of an army in the ‘verse that would take you,” Simon says, trying to be as kind as he can. “So I think we can hold off on the dowry for a little while.”

III. Gone With the Wind
Simon wakes up because Kaylee’s sobbing. It’s not so much that she’s crying, since she’s managing to do that silently, but because her tears are dripping into his mouth. He rolls over, hacking and spitting. “What is it?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Are you all right?”

“I just… have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” She gestures at the movie-screen, which is playing the end credits to a film.

Simon doesn’t know what to say. He has seen plenty of things that are more beautiful than the end credits to a film, but he’s pretty sure that’s the wrong answer. “Uh… no?”

She wipes her eyes. “Makes me wonder if the Cap’n and Zoë’s war was quite as pretty.”

“Um, I don’t think there was anything pretty about the war against the Alliance,” Simon says tactfully.

“Even th’ name sounds romantic - The Civil War.” Kaylee sighs. “An’ those dresses - they were like confections or somethin’ delicious like that.”

He kisses her forehead. “Was it the dresses that made you cry?”

“Oh, no,” she says. “It was… oh, just th’ love story. How they’d do anythin’ fer each other, even though th’ whole country was at war.”

She rolls over and faces him, her eyes serious. “If we was in a war, would you come lookin’ fer me? Would you drive a buggy through a fire t’ find me?”

“Trust me, if I could drive a buggy and there was a war on, you’d be the first gal I’d come to get.”

“Good.” She snuggles down next to him.

Simon resists the temptation to roll his eyes, but he can’t help but wonder if these movie-screens are a good idea. First his sister needed a dowry so she can avoid emulating an animated heroine, and now there were Kaylee’s demands that he drive a buggy through a fire to rescue her.

Someday we’re going to watch a film that requires absolutely nothing from me, he promises himself as he goes back to sleep, Kaylee snug in his arms.

IV. Fantasia
Wash stares at the screen. He can hear Zoë pulling off her clothes and he knows he should be feeling more in a loving sort of mood, but his eyes won’t rip themselves from the image of the dancing broomsticks. “Y’ think that ever happened?” he asks.

Zoë slips into her nightgown. “Sweetie, you just asked me if I think brooms came to life and carried water buckets.”

“Yeah?” Wash says, distracted. “Sounds like it could happen, right?”

She laughs. “Just like the flowers could dance.”

“They looked like little people, didn’t they?” Wash muses.

“You have got t’ stop watchin’ stuff like that,” Zoë says, and climbs into bed next to him. “A wife’s likely t’ feel neglected if her husband’s watchin’ dancin’ brooms all th’ time.”

Wash turns to her, a serious look in her eyes. “Honey,” he says, “they weren’t dancin’. They were carryin’ endless buckets of water.”

“Well, still,” she says, and kisses his neck.

“Y’ think we could get a broom to do that?” Wash wonders.

Zoë rolls her eyes, and then pulls the covers up. “Good night, sweetie,” she says firmly, and turns her back to him.

She expects Wash to flick off the screen and come attend to his husbandly duties, but instead she hears only silence, and then that music again. “Look, honey,” he whispers. “They’re the most beautiful dancin’ flowers I’ve ever seen… but… um… nowhere near as beautiful as you.”

V. Interlude - Fiddler on the Roof
“Uh, Mal?”

“Yeah, Jayne?”

“How d’ y’ know if yer Jewish?’

“Are y’ Jewish?”

“No.”

“There y’ go.”

VI. Mary Poppins
Mal knocks on the shuttle door and, without waiting for an answer, barges in. “’Nara?”

Nothing, but he hears a little swell of music from the dressing room. He peers around the corner, and gasps at what he sees.

Inara stands before her movie-screen in a beautiful silk dress, looking as though she was waiting for an important client. Well, except for the garish pink umbrella open in her hand, and the dancing penguins on the screen. And the fact that she’s nearly skipping and swaying around the room with a dreamy look on her face.

“’Nara?” he repeats.

The Companion nearly leaps into the air. “What?”

Mal shakes his head. “What in th’ name of th’ seven hells are you doin’?”

Inara flushes nearly the color of the umbrella in her hand. “I’m… I’m… well, I was dancing.”

“I could see that,” Mal says. “But why?”

“Did you ever have a favorite film when you were younger?” Inara says, tossing the umbrella to her divan.

“Well, sure,” Mal says. “Th’ one with fighter jets. Fighter Jet, I think it was called.”

Inara taps the movie-screen, and the film pauses. “My favorite was this one.” She stretches out an elegant hand to the screen, where the dancing penguins are frozen. “Mary Poppins.”

“What’s with th’ penguins?”

“Well, you see, they’re part of a magical world that Burt the street artist draws in London. Well, he’s not really a street artist. First he’s a one-man-band, and later he’s a chimney sweep, and I think he has something going on with Mary Poppins, like a romantic something, but…”

“You’ve totally lost me, ‘Nara,” Mal says.

Inara looks at the screen, then back at him. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but come here and sit down. You’ve got to see it from the beginning.”

VII. National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
“Shepherd, where’s the treasure?”

Book jumps out of his chair as River appears, seemingly out of nowhere. “What was that, sweetheart?”

“Where’s the treasure?”

“Well, it’s said that the true treasure is in God’s Heaven.”

River rolls her eyes. “That’s not where it is.”

The Shepherd marks his place in his Bible. “What treasure are you talking about, River?”

“The President’s treasure,” she replies promptly, and climbs up on the table. She crosses her legs and leans forward, so her eyes are peering deeply into the Shepherd’s.

“The President’s treasure?” Book asks, a little uncomfortable under River’s piercing gaze.

“Passed down from President to President, along with an Easter bunny and aliens and a giant cardboard cutout of a man. One book among many books, hidden.”

“Oh, well, the one Book among many books is the Bible,” Book says, glad to have at least one answer.

“Too many errors,” River says immediately. “No instructions. No maps. No treasure.”

“Well, that depends on who you ask, but…”

She cuts him off. “No maps. No treasure.”

She crosses her arms firmly. “They went into a mountain, water rushing all around, and there was gold surrounding them on all sides. Like being in a big golden vase!”

“I don’t know where that treasure is,” Book says. “The only treasure I can tell you about is God’s.”

River scoffs. “Is it made of gold?”

“Well, no, but…”

“No wonder nobody’s looking for it,” she says, and climbs off the table, scampering from the room.

VIII. 21
“Jayne, what th’ hell’s all over my table?” Mal demands, coming into the galley.

“Uh, cards,” Jayne answers distractedly. “One, two, three…”

“What in th’ hell are you doin’?”

“Countin’ cards.”

“I’m pretty sure you ain’t s’posed t’ count them numerically,” Mal says.

“Naw, they was doin’ it in that film!” Jayne says, and gestures to the movie-screen on the galley wall. “One, two… aw, hell. Lost count again.”

“An’ once you master this skill, what’re y’ gonna do with it?” Mal asks, pouring himself a mug of strong-brew. “Take it inta the finest casinos in… Carbondale?”

“Aw, Mal, they ain’t got casinos in Carbondale,” Jayne says, momentarily distracted from the cards. “I was gonna wait ‘til we got t’ Osiris ‘gain.”

“An’ then y’ go in there and get yerself arrested fer countin’ cards? Y’ ain’t any use t’ me if yer in jail.”

“Well, my plan was t’ get better ‘fore I got there,” Jayne says, and looks helplessly down at the pile of cards in front of him.

Mal sighs, and sits down at the table across from his first mate. “Well, y’ certainly ain’t gonna get better watchin’ that film and messin’ ‘round with them cards like that. Now, if anyone asks, I never taught y’ this,” he says, and cracks his knuckles. “Cut the cards.”

IV. Epilogue
“Popcorn! Popcorn!” River sings, dancing through the galley. “Popcorn! Popcorn! Pop…”

“Crazy, if you say ‘popcorn’ one more time, y’ ain’t gettin’ any,” Jayne threatens from the stove, where he’s moving a saucepan smoothly over the burner.

River’s eyes go wide, but her mouth snaps shut.

Simon and Kaylee come in, looking giggly and mussed. “Did we miss anythin’?” Kaylee asks innocently.

River turns her head towards them, puts her hand up to her mouth, and whispers, “Popcorn.”

Kaylee squeals with delight. “Really?!”

“No one’s havin’ any if they don’t get down here soon,” Jayne says over the pings of popping corn in the pan.

Kaylee hurries from the galley, yelling out: “Wash! Zo! Cap’n! Shepherd! Movie night!”

Wash energetically appears. “Are we watchin’ Jurassic Park?”

“We watched that one last week,” Simon says.

“But it’s practically a classic,” Wash protests.

“We’re watchin’ Get Smart,” Jayne says as the popcorn finishes pinging against the inside of the pan. He dumps it into a bowl. “It’s a movie about a secret agent.”

“Aww, Jayne,” Wash says, grabbing a handful of hot corn and jamming it in his mouth, “I didn’t know you were such a cinema buff.”

Soon they’re all there, crowded around the movie-screen, with Maxwell Smart and his secret-agent antics playing in real live color, hands greasy and sticky from popcorn and cranberry juice.

And though he’d never admit it, ‘least not out loud, Mal loves it. He looks over to li’l Kaylee, practically in Simon’s lap - gah - and grins. She brought them all together, in one of the most moving - or is it moving picture? - ways.

2008, for willow_kat, fic

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