"Over here, little man!" Jayne called, arms stretched out to catch the hoopball just as Wash hurdled it across the cargo bay toward him.  Once in possession of the ball, Jayne ducked his head and made a beeline toward Mal and Zoe, hoping to breech their defenses in order to score.

"Oh, you are not gettin' through this," Mal crowed, guarding the side as Zoe stepped in front of Jayne, forcing him to either dodge or slam straight into her.

"Simon!" Jayne shouted, passing the ball on to him.  "Make us proud, doc!"  Simon had agreed to play, despite his still-healing leg, and was making a decent show, though he wasn't tremendously mobile.

To his credit, Simon actually caught the projectile. For a second he looked like a deer in headlights, clutching the ball in surprise.  Then he snapped out of his reverie and stretched up, his body forming a fluid line as he threw the ball up, overhead.   It sailed effortlessly through the air, arcing right through the hoop.

His teammates erupted in a cacophony of cheers, and River, beaming with delight, switched sides long enough to join them.  Wash slapped him approvingly on the back.  "Great shot!" he called.  Simon looked as though he wasn't quite clear on what had just happened, but remembered to smile at Wash's praise.

The cheering was suddenly cut short as a strange loud clanking suddenly resounded above them.  The horrid screeching of metal on metal pierced the silence that followed.

"Kaylee!" Mal shouted, as loudly as he could, lifting his head to look for her.  There was no answer save the echo of his voice off the walls of the cargo bay.

"That did not sound good," Wash observed nervously.  "Did that sound not good to anyone else?"

"Why ain't little Kaylee here playin', anyhow?  She never misses a good game," Jayne said, wiping sweat off of his face with his forearm.

"Hell if I know," Mal muttered.  "All right, get this all cleared away.  Gonna go play hide an' seek with my mechanic, instead."  He spoke without any of his usual lightness, his face irate and tense.

As Mal stalked away from the crew, heading up the stairs to search for his mechanic, he heard Zoe say, "Girl just ain't been right, last few days."

"Kaylee!" he called, ignoring the dread he felt building in the pit of his stomach. He didn't want to deal with a sullen mechanic, and he especially didn't want to think about what it was she was sullen over. 

Reaching the top of the stairs, he peered down the corridor to the engine room.    "Where the hell are you, girl?"  Receiving no answer from the engine room, he looked forlornly down the opposite direction, through the kitchen into the passenger quarters and wondered if he actually wanted to deal with Kaylee in her room.

"I pay you to do more than sulk, you know!" he called loudly in that direction, then turned around.  Maybe looking around the cargo bay would at least give him a decent idea of what it was he needed to yell at her about when she came out to be yelled at.  It had sounded, anyway, like it might be originating somewhere around there.

He strode back down to the cargo bay, where the hoop and ball had both been put away, the crew all scattered.  He'd not precisely been in the best mood for the last few days, box full of money notwithstanding, so it wasn't much wonder that they wanted to be elsewhere when he actually had something to be in a temper about.

Standing in the middle of the cargo bay, he closed his eyes, trying to remember where the sound had seemed to originate.  He turned once, remembering, then strode forward.  There he encountered one of the false walls. With minimal effort, he pried the panel off it and was surprised to find a crate neatly stuffed inside when he peered in.  He had horrible visions for a moment of them having failed to deliver a full load last time they'd been transporting, but a very little thought convinced him that that couldn't be right.  "The hell is this?" 

There was no answer from his errant crew, so Mal turned the crate over, finding the words Active Agricultural Product stamped on the side; it looked to be Alliance goods.  His brow furrowed even more.  He set the crate aside, then moved to pull off another panel of grating, encountering another crate.

He continued methodically until every cache in the cargo bay was opened, and every single one of them had revealed a crate, stamped in just the same manner.  How the hell could a very large—and probably very expensive—quantity of cargo have gotten on his ship without him knowing?  Hell, he hadn't even been away from the ship in days, not since he'd gone to do a deal for some new pieces on the space station near Santo.  That had been just before Zoe had gotten back—a kind of gamble that she would come back safely with the cash.

"Enough is enough," Mal grunted.  He turned around, located one of the many crowbars they had around, and turned back to pry open one of the crates.  He kicked the wooden lid aside and frowned down at the bag of fresh seeds he encountered.  The label read Carrots.  "Gan ni niang, don't tell me…"

He moved to the next crate, prying it open.  Inside he found more of the same.  "That son of a bitch," he muttered.  Turning around, he bellowed, "Jayne!"

Zoe was first to respond, though she'd not been summoned, curious at the noise.  She paused at the top of the stairs.  "What on earth is all this, sir?  You take on a job while I was away?"

"I did not," Mal said tightly, a headache simmering behind his eyes.  "Jayne!"

Jayne appeared at the top of the stairs, running like he thought there was something amiss.  It wasn't until he saw all the crates pulled from their hiding holes that his speed diminished and he skidded to a halt.  The glare in Mal's eyes was venomous.  "I can explain, Mal," Jayne quickly said.

"Can you?" Mal said coldly.  "Can you explain to me why there is a whole lot of incredibly valuable cargo on my ship that I know nothing about?  More importantly, can you explain it before I shoot you?"

Jayne looked fearfully at Zoe, but found no solace in her eyes. "You shoot me, you ain't never gonna know who you got t'deliver them to," he said pointedly.  He glanced quickly to his right, as a flicker of movement announced Wash's arrival.

"I don't believe I've got to deliver this contraband to anyone, seeing as I ain't ever contracted for this job!  I was gone, Zoe was gone, so maybe you'd like to tell me why exactly you thought it was up to you to go and hire us out, Jayne."  Mal crossed his arms over his chest.

Jayne squared his shoulders, looking almost proud.  "It's a gorram good job, Mal. Look at all them seeds, all worth cold hard cash.  Ain't got nothing to do but deliver 'em, too.  Figured you'd be glad." He offered a smile.  "Was gonna tell you 'ventually." 

"Really.  And what would you have done if I'd picked up a different job on the space station, hmm?" Mal demanded.

Zoe sighed.  "Sir, this is pointless.  He's not gonna get—"

"Oh, he'll get it if I have to beat it into his thick skull."  Mal's voice was hard and angry, as it hardly ever was when he spoke to Zoe.

Jayne's eyes reflected a bit of his nervousness, though his stature remained proud and poised.  "Yeah, but you didn't.  We ain't had a job since we hawked that laser gun. Not that we didn't get a pretty penny for it, but this one was right there for the taking." He shrugged, not understanding why Mal was so upset.  "Figured you'd be happy for the work."

"We just got rid of the Lassiter two days ago, Jayne.  Your cut burn a hole in your pocket since then?  Now where the hell is this cargo supposed to be?  And if it's at the ass-end of the 'verse, we're gonna be havin' some words."  Mal began climbing the stairs towards Jayne.  They were headed back towards the rim, without any specific destination.  Mal had just thought it a good idea to get the hell out of the Core before Bai Lin came up with any other clever ideas about how to retrieve her funds.

Jayne looked at Zoe again, but found her still unyielding.  A glance to Wash resulted in just a helpless shrug. He was on his own.  "Ain't real far. Some moon called Charon.  Guess them folk really need the produce.  Sure was willing to pay a lot of coin to have it delivered."  He narrowed his eyes as Mal approached. "Why you so upset 'bout this?  It's good money. Honest, even."

In a few long strides, Mal reached Jayne, grabbing him and shoving him brutally against the rails.  "Charon?  And who gave you authority to do this, huh, Jayne?  Did you wave Zoe and get her permission?  Cause you sure as hell didn't ask me!"

Jayne's eyes widened at the assault, but he didn't resist, at least not yet.  "Well it was supposed t'be a surprise, Mal!  Figured a job'd fallin' in your lap would cheer you up."

"Cheer me up?"  He paused, not even sure where to go from there.

Zoe interrupted before Mal could go off on another rant.  "Sir, ain't much other way for folks on Charon to get those seeds.  Alliance don't deliver that far out, and you know most trade ships don't stop—"

"Maybe there's a reason for that!" Mal snapped, letting Jayne go and turning to look at Zoe, his face pale with anger.  "Ever think about that?"

"Look," Jayne cut in, trying to spare Zoe Mal's wrath because it was his fault.  "Figured it was on our way.  You and Zoe was gone, the wave came in, and me being third in command, figured it'd be all right to take it.  The hell's the big deal?"

"Third in command?"  Mal gave a short, barking laugh.  "There is no third in command!  You know why?  Because everyone here who ain't me or Zoe is incompetent.  Last time you decided you was in command, I found your ass collapsed on the stairs where the rest of the crew dropped you!"

Jayne managed to shake Mal off at last, drawing up even straighter at the insult, his method of coping. He cast a dark glare to Wash, but the pilot had lowered his eyes and seemed to be brooding over the comment on his own.  "You don't want the job, then don't take it," Jayne practically spat.  "No skin off my back, you ungrateful hundan." He maneuvered his way past, stalking off.

"It isn't out of our way, sir," Zoe quietly said after Jayne had left.  Her gaze was steady, trying to draw Mal into reasonable behavior.

Mal grunted, not precisely answering, and turned to gaze down at the crates strewn all over the floor of the cargo bay.  He was silent for a long time, then finally said, "Get that stuff stowed away."

"Yes, sir."  Zoe, understanding what that meant, nodded at Wash.  "Course for Charon, then."

Simon lightly rapped on the hatch to Kaylee's room.  He found it unsettling that the girl had missed the game of hoopball, and was surprised she hadn't surfaced at all the yelling, particularly as a fair portion of it had been aimed at her.  "Kaylee?" he called softly.  "It's me, Simon.  May I come in?  I'm . . . we missed you at the game today."

"Just...I'm busy, is all," Kaylee called through the door, uncertainly, not getting up off her bed.  "I'll be out later."

Simon thought about mentioning that she apparently wasn't busy fixing whatever had the captain shouting, but decided not to.  Kaylee was hard enough for him to talk to on her best days, and this quite plainly wasn't one of them.  "Is it something I can help with?" he settled on, finally, lamely.

"No," she called back.  "No, I'm . . . I'm bathing, Simon. But thanks."

Her voice sounded final, and Simon stood there before her door for some time, confused and a little at loss as to what to do now.  Was this one of those times when he was supposed to persist, like when River tried to push him away, but screamed herself sick if he actually left?

In her room, Kaylee shifted on her bed, drawing her legs closer to her chest.  She reached out to turn up the music she had piping in to her room through the Cortex, and then resumed doing nothing more than just hugging her knees and sighing.

Mal glared at Simon as he approached the crew corridor, in search of a proper target for his anger, which Kaylee very plainly was.  "Doc, don't I pay you to do something on this ship?"

Simon's mind quickly ran through a list of tasks, but it wasn't his week to cook or wash up, and the garbage had been dealt with that morning.  "Would you like a thorough physical?" he demanded dryly.

"Probably 'bout time for one," Mal said rather glumly.  "Kaylee in there?" he added, and without waiting for a reply pounded his fist on her hatch. "Kaylee, open up in there.  I been all over this ship looking for you.  You can sulk later."

Simon moved away, shaking his head.  If the captain was in that sort of mood, Kaylee probably wouldn't want any witnesses to this conversation.  It was just slightly better to have the captain tear you apart verbally in private.

Kaylee opened up the hatch, poking out her wan, unhappy face.  "Sorry, Cap.  Didn't know you wanted me."

"Something's wrong with Serenity."  He gauged the reaction on her face.  "Heard some loud bangs and scraping in the cargo bay a bit ago." His tone seemed tense, as though he were disappointed she hadn't noticed something wrong with the ship on her own.

"Oh."  Kaylee thought about that for a moment, some of his tension transferring itself to her.  "She prob'ly just needs a little oil or something," she said, but climbed out of her bunk properly anyway.  "Where in the cargo bay?" she asked, blinking a little bit, as the lights in her bunk had been a good bit dimmer.

Mal stared at her, then waved his hand. "Up, somewhere.  I don't know.  That's what I hired you for: to figure this stuff out so I don't have to."

She nodded.  "'kay."  She glanced up at him, as though expecting him to say something more, but it didn't seem like he was going to.  Maybe he didn't know what to say.  Just like she hadn't known what to say to Simon, so maybe it was all fair.

Mal stepped aside to let her go, and when she did, he watched her.  Before she turned the corner to slip down to the cargo bay, he said,  "Best get over it fast.  She ain't coming back."

Kaylee turned, giving him a last, woeful look, then went down to the cargo bay to try and see what was wrong with Serenity.

“Why’s the capt’n so upset ‘bout goin’ to Charon, anyway?” Kaylee curiously asked, setting flatware at the table in preparation for dinner.

Zoe’s face was drawn tight as she fished plates out of the cabinet, unwilling to explain.  Wash, on the other hand, felt the crew had a right to know.  Glancing from Kaylee to Simon and River, who were sitting at the table patiently, he expanded, settling down in a seat at the table.  “Shadow is Mal’s home world.”

“It was destroyed, in the war,” Simon added.  “Charon is one of moons that survived.”

Kaylee put a hand to her mouth, stunned at the revelation, letting the gravity of the information sink in.  “How awful.  He must hate havin’ t’ go back and see it all broken.”

Heavy, approaching feet made everyone drop his or her voices, but it was only Jayne arriving, looking sweaty from his workout.  Apparently he’d caught the tail end of the conversation.  “Reckon y’all better shut up too, ‘less the captain hears you gabbin’ on ‘bout it.  Know he ain’t like t’ take well to your pity.”

“Man’s got a point.”  Mal’s tone was as hard as his face as he appeared in the archway from the crew quarters.  “Don’t want to hear another gorram word on it,” he added darkly.  His eyes darted quickly to Wash and Zoe, something accusatory in their depths.

What followed was another long, tense dinner, the only kind they seemed to have since Inara had left.  Mal still insisted on sit-down meals with the whole crew, but even he was starting to wonder if that was the best idea, with Wash and Kaylee sulking over being berated, Jayne glowering at him, River looking uneasy and refusing to talk, and only Simon and Zoe maintaining any semblance of normalcy.

Kaylee, head down, began clearing away the dishes, and River, who had been fidgeting all through the meal, glanced at Mal nervously.  "Here," she said finally, dragging out a bundle of knitting from beneath her chair and shoving it at the captain.

Mal grabbed the bundle reflexively, but held it out before him like he'd just had a dead cat thrust upon him.  "The hell is this?" he gruffly asked.

River bit her lip, pulling her knees up to her chest.  "Sweater," she said tersely, not looking at him.  "For you."

"Is that what you've been knitting, River?" Simon said, smiling at his sister, who nodded briefly, then hid again behind her unruly hair.

Mal examined the bundle a little more carefully.  "That's what you're calling this piece of go se?"  He found the arms and stretched the sweater out.  The lighting was dim in the galley, but he didn't think it was playing tricks on the hideous mottled array of colors River had used to knit the sweater.  The garment seemed lumpy and far too large for him, as well.  "Know blind third-graders who can knit better than this," he chided.

River's face hadn't been precisely bright to begin with, but it darkened more at his words.  "Had to use old socks.  Not allowed off the ship, to go to market, so I found them."  She fidgeted more, looking as though she'd like to simply disappear.

"Thought it smelled like feet," Jayne snorted.

River gave him a look.  "Washed them first."

"It's very sweet of you, River," said Simon, surreptitiously trying to see if any of his own socks had ended up in the sweater, and wondering why she'd given it to Mal of all people. 

"Because he's the coldest," she whispered, turning to smile at Simon as she answered his unspoken thought.

"Real nice, honey," Zoe added.  "Maybe you could knit us some socks now that we ain't got any left," she teased gently.

"Ain't got no use for a sweater, girl, 'specially not one ugly as that."  He rose from the table, clearly intended to excuse himself. "Can't figure out why just 'cause we're stuck flying through the piss ass end of space everything we own has to be made of shit too."  Throwing the sweater back at her, he added, "Would think your genius brain could knit nicely, like normal folk.  Then again, you ain't exactly normal; ain't a one of us on this gorram boat is normal."

River's fingers clutched the sweater tightly, and she ignored the anger on Simon's face to gaze at Mal, wide-eyed.  "It ain't love if it's perfect, Malcolm," she said softly, her usually precise voice softened with the hint of a drawl.

The creases on Mal's face softened just a touch at her words and he blinked several times to clear his thoughts.  It was nothing, he knew, just a slip of words, but damn him if the girl hadn't sounded an echo of his mother in that moment.

River rose, still gripping the sweater, and shook off Simon as she went back to her quarters, stroking the fuzzy patch that had been the product of her favorite socks in her agitation, trying to find some comfort.

Mal had intended to retire early to his room, but instead the rest of the crew had slipped away, leaving him alone in the wide-open galley.  He sank back down into his chair at the head of the table, allowing his eyes to unfocus as he stared at the dimly lit table before him.

He was ten-years-old, brandishing a broken slingshot to his bright-eyed mother.  "Timmy keeps makin' these stupid slingshots," he lamented.  "Wouldn't be so bad, 'cept he keeps givin' 'em to me like he 'spects me to be able to use 'em." He tried to pull the band back, but the wood splintered.  "Wish he'd stop."

Hannah Reynolds paused in her cooking.  Laying down her spoon, she covered up the pot of soup and moved to sit at the kitchen table.  "Come here, Malcolm."  Her voice was gentle, with just a hint of sternness.

Mal followed reluctantly, climbing up to sit on a chair opposite her.  When she put her hand out, he knew to place the slingshot into it.  "But it's broke," he warned.

"Gathered that, son."  She rose, moving to rummage in a drawer for some toothpicks and duck tape.  "That Bob's boy Timmy?  Boy sure does like you, you know."

"Yeah," he replied. "But he's eight," Mal added distastefully.  He watched his mother's hands working curiously.  "He only likes me 'cause his dad works for you.  He ain't no good; I was making better slingshots than that when I was four."

She sat down again, using a ring of toothpicks and tape to shore up the faulty structure of the slingshot.  "Well, Lord knows you don't give him any other reason to like you," she said, fairly severely.  "You know how ungrateful you sound right now, young man?"

Mal sat on his hands, staring shamefully down at his knees.  "I'm sorry, Mama. Still, seems like he could do better to get me to like him than give me a bunch of broken things."

"It ain't love if it's perfect, Malcolm," she said, more gently.  She moved around the table to stand beside him.  "You look at those socks you're wearin', which your mama knitted for you special.  Ain't perfect like you'd get in a store, are they?"

Mal stretched out his feet, looking at the bit of socks he could see peeking out from under his boots.  "No, ma'am," he agreed.  "They're better, 'cause you made 'em."

"'s right."  She kissed the top of his head, then placed the mended slingshot in his hand.  "You try and get on better with Timmy.  After all, you're gonna be a pretty lonely boy if you decide you're too good to get on with your family, dong ma?" 

Mal marveled over the neatly repaired slingshot.  Pulling back the band to test its durability, he grinned.  He twisted in his seat to look at his mother, smiling.  "Guess you're right," he said.  With a wink, he added, "As usual."

"Thought you'd be long gone by now, sir."

Zoe's voice startled Mal out of his memory, and he quickly got to his feet.  "Was just going," he replied, glancing between his first mate and her husband.

Putting her hands on her hips, Zoe said, "We just finished storing the last of the cargo, sir. You can rest easy."

The implication was that she could handle the job, if Mal couldn't, but he ignored her. He just nodded his head and disappeared down the corridor.

"Yeah, if we're not too incompetent," Wash muttered under his breath when the captain was gone.

Zoe sighed.  "Baby, please not tonight," she whispered, leaning against him.  Things had been better since she'd gotten back from Santo, but not much.  It hadn't taken more than a day before he wanted to know every single thing that had happened there, and some of it, he just didn't need to know.  And Wash's fit about the entire job had poisoned days before she'd left.

"I just want to know what is it about this job that's got him so on edge.  It's not like it's the planet we picked Inara up on or anything."

She rolled her eyes.  "No, Wash, it's a moon on a system completely destroyed by the Alliance during the war.  Hell, do you think I'm too happy to be going through there?"

Wash studied her for a moment as his brain went over the star charts he had just plotted. Charon was one of the moons of- "Oh.  Shadow."  His expression darkened.  That was Mal's home world, and remembering that explained a lot.  "Hey, I never claimed to be terribly astute, did I?" He offered a small, apologetic smile, slipping an arm around her waist.  "I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes, leaning against him rather heavily.  "It's okay," she whispered, stroking one of his cheeks.  "He'll just have to get through it, like we all do.  Just...don't be too hard on him till this is done?"

There were a multitude of things he would like to complain about, but he didn't. Instead, he just smiled and kissed her softly.  "I'll be better than good, Zo'. I'll be helpful."

Continue to part two