Everyone but Kaylee and Hank was congregated in the dining area. The children, threatened with withdrawal of treats for a month, had dug their feet in and were sitting in the easy chairs, dog and cat at their feet.

Alex couldn’t help looking at two of them from where he stood just a few paces away, hands clasped behind him as if he was about to give a report. The little boy he recognised from his previous, very brief visit, and both of them from the captures he’d occasionally received. Ethan and Jesse. He smiled a little, and the boy smiled briefly back. Jesse waved her fingers at him, beaming shyly, and his heart skipped a beat. She looked so like Freya when she was young. Not that he remembered, since he’d been that young at the same time, being twins, but his mother regularly used to get out the albums, poring over them. Even his father, at least later on, had spent a long time staring at pictures of Elena … Freya. His lips twitched. He still found it hard to get it straight in his mind sometimes, and it was always shocking to realise she’d been Freya three times as long as she’d ever been Elena.

Mal coughed, and Alex turned back, seeing everyone waiting patiently.

“If you don’t mind,” Serenity’s captain said, standing square behind the chair at the head of the table. “I’m kinda anxious to hear this story of yours.” He crossed his arms. “And quite why you had to come all this way to tell it.”

They faced each other above the heads of the other crew. “I thought it was important,” Alex said, not wanting to let himself be intimidated, and failing miserably.

Mal’s features softened just a degree. “Then go ahead.”

Alex cleared his throat. “After I found that Ele … that Freya was still alive, after we’d got back to Osiris, I started digging.” He looked at his sister. “The Rostovs have a lot of connections, and the money to make those connections profitable.”

Freya shook her head. “You shouldn’t have. The people at the back of this are too powerful, and you have a family.”

“Y