Title: Pirate Children

Rating: PG (a little bit of Firefly swearing)

Setting: approximately 15 years post-BDM, AU

Pairings: mostly M/I, references to Z/W, S/K, Jayne/Vera

Summary: The crew’s coming over for lunch. Is Mrs. Serra ready?

Author's Note: Translations are in parentheses and all mistakes are my own. This is the final chapter before the epilogue. There are also other stories in this ‘verse in the works, which will be coming soon. This installment is mostly a fluff-fest, but some later stories aren’t so pretty. I’m more than a mite nervous about the lunch scene and Wash’s voice. Be gentle, but tell me how I did!

Part 4

“I didn’t know Noor had a child,” Dr. George Patel comments as he pours some coffee for Fahmy and passes it to him. His eyes are on the pre-adolescent boy studying the plants on the edge of his patio. George Patel and Fahmy Serra grew up together and have stayed close friends; he is surprised that this is the first he’s heard about a nephew.

“He’s not Noor’s,” Fahmy says after taking a sip of the bitter drink.

“No! Not Inara. I didn’t think Companions were allowed… The Serra heir isn’t the bastard son of some lusty Alliance general, is he?”

Fahmy looks up sharply. “No. She retired from active duty fifteen years ago, from the Guild completely thirteen. She lives on a cargo ship, wife of the captain.”

“Little Inara’s married?” George asks, still remembering the young girl dancing through the halls of the Serra household whenever he was over.

“Happily, it seems. It’s all rather domestic. He’s from the Rim, but decent enough for such humble origins. The boy’s her eldest. She has a little girl, too.”

“I would never have guessed…”

“Abram, come here, please,” Fahmy calls to his nephew. The boy looks up from his study of the greenery and joins the two older men.

“Those are aloe plants. Healing properties,” he identifies, sending a questioning look at his host.