The traditional obligatory offering to Boss Joss. Love his work, got bored, and decided to run with it!

This is a story co-written with a very good friend of mine, aka DeanWinchester here at FF.net. Action adventure, some family drama, and humor. Simon/Kaylee and Mal/Inara galore! Jayne/OC as well. Also, River getting to be a teenage girl in later chapters!

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They cruised along the wide open plains before them for a long while, huddle together in the cramped little vehicle as it creaked and buoyed under the added and unfamiliar extra passenger weight. River sat nonchalantly on her side, while Kaylee hugged closely against Simon’s shoulder, her eyes squinting in the dusty rush of air whirling past them. All the while, Kaylee’s ingenuity, and not a small bit of improvised praying from all present, kept them flying across the landscape towards the coordinates that Jayne had left for them to meet up at his family’s ranch.

Inara sat beside Mal, leaning into him as the wind blew roughly through her hair and clothes at the end of the front seat. A soft arm had found its way instinctively around his for anchor and support, but she dare not move it, out of a slight irrational fear of falling off the speeding hauler.

Before they reached an hour in their travels, with the sun looming just over the horizon as it set, Inara caught the smallest of shadows at the edge of the sky. “There,” she pointed out, yelling over the harsh noise of the mule as Zoe sped them along.

The small shape grew in the distance as they hurtled towards what now resembled a small assembly of farmhouses in the shape of a small village. Inara had heard tell of how large the Cobb’s land actually was; Jayne had been hesitant to mention any particulars with regard to his kin, but had only let slip that all living members of the Cobb family – which comprised of his mother, father, and siblings – all lived within the massive worn down ranch compound, which had included all the land encompassing the ent