Blue Blood – Chapter Seven

As always, I remind all and sundry that I own no rights to Firefly, and write solely for my own entertainment and pleasure.

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Mal was pacing again, on the bridge. Inara was trying to ignore him, but it was becoming harder and harder to do.

“Mal, will you please stop that!” she finally implored, and Mal stopped short, looking at her in puzzlement.

“Stop what?”

“That incessant pacing,” Inara replied, rolling her eyes. “You’re going to wear a path in the bridge floor.”

“Sorry,” Mal mumbled. “Just got things on my mind.”

“I know,” Inara relented a little. “We’re all worried, Mal. Just try and keep a bit more calm, okay? There’s nothing you can do out here.”

Companion was halfway through the return leg to Argo. Mal was skittish, still worrying over that inspection. He was sure the blue suited man he had glimpsed was a Blue Hand, and that he had influenced the inspection in some way in order to get a look at the ship’s crew.

That had been the plan, Mal admitted. But for some reason, he was still worried.

“I just. . .something feels off about all this, Inara,” Mal struggled to pinpoint the source of his worries.

“Of course it does,” she nodded. “We were finally in the clear, until this. Now everything we’ve worked for is in jeopardy.”

“Jayne’s not gonna be happy with me, either,” Mal almost groaned. “He wanted to end Sheriff Grippen last time, and I held his hand. Thought my way was better.”

“It was better, Mal,” Inara soothed.

“Try convincing Jayne of that,” Mal shot back. “It ain’t me and you that’s got to fear them Blue Hands.”

“All of us have to fear them, Mal,” Inara pointed out.

“Maybe some,” he nodded. “But it’s still River and Jayne that’s in the real danger, here. And Jayne, he ain’t like to respond well when River’s in danger.”

“Would you ‘respond well’, if it were me?” Inara asked softly, and Mal smiled faintly.

“No, I would not,” he told her. “But I ain’t the killer Jayne is, Inara. I ain’t got his strength, his ability, no