21. Get You Close Enough to Ring the Doorbell

They made their rendezvous six hours out from Whitefall, and then had to figure out just how they were going to get everything done in the air. Wash suggested that they put the two ships belly-to-belly, with their cargo airlocks facing each other – a maneuver that made River nervous because of its complexity, and made Mal nervous because of the unpredictability of the ship Wash was flying.

“What if your autopilot fails in that thing and she rams right into us?” Mal asked Wash, over the broadwave connection.

“Well, that’s a good argument for me staying right where I’m at, flying this ship manually until the rest of you are all done,” Wash replied.

“Sounds like it’s also a good argument for River staying put, and ready to get out of the way right quick,” Mal suggested.

“Yeah. That too,” Wash allowed.

So Wash and River flew, while Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Simon moved the bodies from Serenity to the other Firefly, which Inara had dubbed Lemon, over Wash’s protests. “She won’t fly any better just because you insult her,” he’d said.

“All right, what would you call her?” Inara asked.

“This Ship?” Wash suggested, but earned only an exasperated look from Inara.

In the cargo bay, Inara retrieved the space suit Mal had carried over for her.

“How did you and Wash get along?” Zoe asked, as Inara glided past with the suit over her arm and the helmet nestled like an infant into her elbow.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Inara said over her shoulder, “but you can keep him!”

Mal and Zoe exchanged inquiring looks.

Mal sent Kaylee up to Lemon’s bridge to see if there was any hope of straightening out some of her problems.

“Honestly, I think the soldering on all of the circuit boards is bad,” Wash told her, so she retrieved her soldering iron and set to work, pulling out circuit boards and re-soldering them.

“Just don’t touch the ones I need to steer,” Wash said.

“Which ones are those? Is