Title: Prodigal Father

Disclaimer: Belongs to somebody not me. Blah blah blah, yackety schmackety.

Rating: PG

AN: This is focused more on Mal’s two children.

Derrial Wash Reynolds was bored. Which, really, for a 9-year-old, didn’t take much.

How many different paper umbrella venders did one market need, really? Derry would have much rather been allowed to go with his Pa and Aunt Zoe to watch them seal the deal on the latest job.

But instead, Carly had been put in charge of him. Which meant him getting dragged through the market to all the stalls that sold girly stuff. And then have to be Carly’s personal mule. Last time that happened, he came out all stinky from perfume that she sprayed on him as a joke.

Really funny. Not.

This time, however, he might have some good ammo to store up against his big sister, who was currently making mooney-eyes at some boy who ran the tea booth. Derry couldn’t wait to rat her out if she tried the perfume stunt again.

Oh man, that’d be sweet, if she got herself busted for flirting with a boy. He could just imagine Pa and Uncle Jayne giving that kid the thrashing of his life. And Carly confined to the ship for at least the next two stops planetside. She’d be madder’n a hornet’s nest.

In truth, he adored Carly, even if she was lately being a pain in the pi-gu. Auntie River told him it’s because she’s becoming a woman. All he knows is that lately, she’d rather spend her time sighing over pretty clothes and stupid pimply-faced boys. Oh, she was still one helluva shot and could drop him with a leg sweep when the mood took her, but it was all the girly stuff that was getting to him.

Derry hoped he’d never get that mooney over a girl. Nope, he’d play it all cool and smooth, rather than be some slackjawed sucker. He still didn’t get the attraction of girls, even though Auntie Kaylee ribbed him constantly that he’d be beating the girls off with a stick in just a few years.

He was getting fidgety, having now sniffed every one of the tea samples at least three ti