After all that exercise, I was feelin’ kinda mellow, so I slowly drifted back up to the mess hall just to see if I couldn’t scare up a little talk. Inara brushed past me on the way, and her perfume near made my knees weak. I smiled at her too, but she was a-looking stern. Sure enough, here comes the Captain in hot pursuit. They start yapping at each other, so I made myself scarce. Listening to other folks air their dirty laundry ain’t my idea of fun.
The young girl was sitting at the mess table, drawing something on a scrap of paper. She looked up at me, smiled, and drew some more. I fetched me a cup of brown-colored hot water that claimed to be coffee and took a seat at the table. She finished drawing after a while and showed me the result. It was me, and a helluva good likeness. I properly admired it for a while, then tried to give it back to her. She refused, a-telling me she wanted me to have it. I took it, and then she started telling me all about the artistic styles of a batch of people I’d never heard of. Probably folks from Earth-That-Was.
She stopped, abruptly, when the dude came in, smiled at him, and then introduced him as her brother, Simon Tam and herself as River Tam. He was making shushing noises at her, then sighed when she’d finished. He sat heavily down and put his head in his hands. I spoke up then, telling him that I was retired, and I knowed who they were for a while. Simon looked at me, like he was trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not. I ‘spect I could have been just setting them up, but… I wasn’t. Leastwise, it wasn’t the uppermost thought in my mind. Sure, I’ve let a few folks go, even though they had paper on them, ‘cause it just didn’t seem right. I’ve capped a few others that didn’t have paper, just because they pushed me too hard and it didn’t seem right them breathin’ the same air I did. I’m trying to keep being retired and all, but the thought of one more big reward does keep pushing on me. I sighed, took the drawing, and went back to my bunk. Just doesn’t seem right, the Alliance wantin’ that young girl and her brother so bad.
Tags: 'verse, bounty hunter, fanfiction, firefly, journal, reward, River, Simon
