Malcolm Beauregard Reynolds

Mal is not bored. He's working.

He's gone through about anything he can think of to be polite and considerate and all those things he'd ever been taught, and failing.

Giving up and scrawling on a piece of paper a short note, Mal folds it in half and places it next to a pure white crane he had been practicing folding for forty five minutes previous. It took him awhile because he had to remember what a crewmember of his had specified, which crease goes first and all that.

Finally satisfied, he takes the note and the origami piece to the infirmary. Simon'll get it to River; Mal can't really think of a reason why River'd be interested in seeing him at the moment.

She'll understand.

Sallie was visible inside the kitchen through the window facing the front of the small white one floor house. Mal couldn't see what she was cooking yet, but he could smell it - beefsteak. He just could never get over the fact he lives on a ranch, havin' steak whenever he wants as long as he leaves enough to sell and make profit.

Instead of going inside to disturb Sallie, Mal sits on the stoop in front of the house, admiring the land before him. Split-rail fences ran about nine acres square, and the land itself was all tallgrass, what the mustangs didn't graze off of, anyhow. In the back of the house was the open land. All his. And Sallie's.

"Why ain't you in here helpin' me cook, Malcolm?" Sallie walks out onto the porch, hands on her hips forcefully. Not that she isn't beaming at him anyway.

"No reason...'cept for the fact you hate it when I cook." Mal smiles back, the worry lines he normally carries gone. "Come sit; tell me what's been goin' on."

"Ain't nothin' goin' on you don't know about, Malcolm Reynolds." Sallie folds up the dishrag she had been holding and tucks it into a pocket of her muslin skirt. "Cookin', cleanin', keepin' the horses fed 'n healthy. Mayor Jackson's after me to brand 'em. Not gonna though. Ain't fair to 'em."

Mal beams at her with this, taking her hand in his and kissing the top of it. "That's what I love about ya, Mama - got spirit."

Sallie takes out the dishrag from her pocket with a great deal of speed and thwaps Mal with it across the back of the head playfully. "Malcolm Beauregard, you know you only love me 'cause I cook for you." She reaches up and musses his hair - she only comes up to about his shoulders, so it's a bit of a task. "That's shiny, though - I love you too."

Sallie turns to walk back into the house, but spins to meet Mal's face as he tries to follow. "Where do you think you're goin' exactly?"

Dumbstruck, Mal returns, "With you, o' course. Aren't I stayin' for dinner?"

"Not yet you're not." Sallie has now broken out a tone of voice that might be the origin of Captain Mal speech patterns. "Got chores to be done. Come back when you're finished."

"But Mama, I been traveling all day. Can't I stay for a bit?" Mal pleads as best he can against the woman who made him who he is.

"I said no, Malcolm..." Sallie crosses the threshold again briefly to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"But I'll be here when you're done."

Everyone is there. His crew is there, minus Wash and Kaylee, who have already claimed their positions in Serenity. Susan has taken up her spot with Kaylee in the engine room, leaving Roland and his tet crew in the cargo bay. Friends of Mal's crew, of Roland's crew, of River, have all gathered; those that know, that understand what needs to be done. No matter what.

Mal's eyes last rest on the beaded chain and cross Inara is wearing before hitting the comm speaker and addressing everyone in front of him.

"I ain't one for too many words, and we all know we ain't got the time for 'em. And for all our planning, I can't tell you exact what's gonna happen once we hit the Academy. Can't speak for all o' you; can only speak for myself - I ain't gonna lie and say I don't got worries."

Mal again casts a glance in the direction of his crew, attempting to guage their reactions and failing.

"But I don't have worries about us.

Mal cuts himself off then. No more needs to be said, at least to his crew. They know him. For all that he ever hid from them - they know.

He walks through the others standing around him in the bay. Some stand silent, others react and connect with Mal somehow - eyes, a touch of an arm or a nod to affirm their readiness. Mal stops in front of Roland. The gunslinger and the sergeant. Browncoats.

Mal matches Roland's gaze. Not sizing him up, not forming a witty remark. Mal extends his right arm to the other dinh. A soldier's greeting. Equals.

Mal loves space stations.

Mal manages, somehow, to begin weaving a path through the throng of people toward Amnon's post office.