So here it is, my Firefly Christmas story, written between December 2002 and February 2003, and released at my website on February 14, 2003, as a Valentine's present to Firefly fandom. It turned out to be longer and far more complex than I had originally envisioned. It contains some references to my previous story, "Bloodlines," involving Mal's backstory. Set sometime after "Objects in Space," it doesn't quite take into account the three unaired episodes.

No archiving, please.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. No infringement is intended on the rights of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, or 20th Century Fox TV. Oh, those crazy space monkeys--loose again! (c) HawkMoth, 2/13/2003.

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"All is Bright"

by HawkMoth

Part One

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Wheel never stops turning.

Luck, whether you depend on it or not, is ever-changing.

Time, according to any form of reckoning, moves on, often without notice.

After a rough spell and some close calls, the crew of Serenity found themselves on the upside. A tip from one of Inara's favored clients led them to Tarquin, a Rim world settled longer than most, which could lay claim to being prosperous. Well, fairly prosperous. Definitely not poor, and seemingly void of any Alliance presence. At the very least, a place where they could contract for an actual honest day's work, ferrying construction materials from one side of the planet to the other.

They did the job well enough to be given another two days of such labors, the consequence being they wound up with almost as much cash as they'd earned selling off the drug haul from Ariel. It was a shiny realization.

After some consideration, Mal ordered Wash to set the ship down at the small space port outside of Tarquin's third largest settlement, figuring the first and second, which deigned to call themselves "cities," might be riskier propositions. Bountytown was smallish and simple, but still a pleasant place for shoreleave.

It was just past noon local time when the crew gathered in the co