(This was my second Firefly story, written in December 2002, the beginning of a slight obsession with a certain captain. Support and encouragement came from D'Alaire and Tzegha. Some of the details created here worked their way into later stories.)

Disclaimer:  This is a work of fanfiction.  No infringement is intended on the rights of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, or 20th Century Fox TV. 

No archiving, please.

Feedback welcome. Thank you.

"Bloodlines"

by HawkMoth

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The day he handed the money over for his ship, life began all over again.  The sky beckoned, the black was wide open and waiting.  What he was, what he came from, didn't matter anymore.  He would never look back on what was past.

******

Daddy was a rich man's son, from a family whose history went all the way back to the Second Wave of Colonization.  Old money.  Some of it earned by sweat, some by luck, some by other means.

Blood money, some would say.  They worked hard to keep it, to make more, and enjoy it.  Each new generation was taught how, within the law, and without it.

So on his twenty-first birthday, he was given a spread of land and a herd of cattle on the border world Shadow, and was told to make a profit.  To keep it profitable, and pay the family back for what they'd already given him in life.

By his twenty-fifth birthday, it was a smooth, well-oiled operation.  It helped that Alliance law was fairly lax out here.  He fell in love with a local girl, who'd been originally hired on as accounts manager.  It was mostly to her credit that the ranch hadn't gone under in the first year.  He didn't mind that.  She was smart and pretty, teaching him what every ranch owner needed to know.

Momma never expected to fall for a Core-bred man, but saw the potential for a good future.  His fine ways, good looks, knowledge of Alliance law, and a willingness to overlook it if there was a profit to be made, added up to a decent package.  She got her cousin Jess signed on as foreman, an