CINDRELLA

By BESTERETTE

Disclaimer: Firefly was a Mutant Enemy production, no copyright infringement intended by this work of fanfiction.

Serenity had been in port on McCaffrey for only a couple of days, on a trading-post run. It was a backwater world, but that only meant there were talented people with long days' worth of nothing to do, and raw materials. Which meant "handcrafted folk art" that would bring a pretty price at galleries on space stations and back in the Central Worlds. With Inara and Simon giving a cultured eye to the merchandise, Mal had mostly filled the hold with pottery, leatherwork, quilting, and other such fripperies. They were about ready to lift when the invitations came.

Heavy cream paper. Mal opened his on his way to deliver Inara's. Curly writing and paper edged so it looked like something had been nibbling at it, except the edges were dipped in gold ink so it had to be deliberate. A ball at the Governor's House. His invite-ticket said Captain Malcolm Reynolds and guest.

Inara looked up in irritation as he strolled onto her shuttle without signaling from the hatch, but looked right pleased when he passed her the invitation.

"I don't suppose you'd care to accompany me," Mal asked, frowning at the paper.

Inara raised an elegantly arched eyebrow and indicated her own. "I've already been invited... and as a Companion I believe they expect me to... mingle. Add a bit of exotic mystery to their little gathering."

Mal made a noise deep in his throat. "Says here captain and guest."

"You could take Zoe," Inara suggested... and Mal considered it, but at the same moment pictured trying to ask Zoe. Pictured Zoe in a ball-gown. Pictured Zoe behaving in colony-proper manners to a man who wasn't even her husband. "No..." they both said at the same time.

Mal sighed. "And you can't take Jayne anywheres nice. If it doesn't involve sex and violence... it will, if Jayne's around. What is the etty-kit here, if'n I go alone?"

"You could take Kaylee..."

Mal looked up at that, as if surprised to be reminded that his engineer was a young woman. He shook his head almost immediately. "Naw. Kaylee isn't the type..."

Frost dripped off Inara's tongue. "Oh really."

Oblivious, Mal continued, "She's a mite tomboyish, and I won't have her shamed by these provencials for not having lady-like manners. Besides, I don't think she has a dress fancified enough. I ain't real sure she has a dress..."

"I have a few things she could borrow... why don't you ask her?"

"Think so?"

"Malcolm... she's a young woman who hardly ever gets to see much of anything but this ship. A chance to dress up, go out dancing with young men, and have fun? Go ask her."

Mal nodded and tipped Inara a two-fingered salute as he walked out. "Yes'm."

Down in the hold, Kaylee was helping pack cargo. Mal saw her stroke a velvet-scrap quilted jacket before folding it in pack tissue and laying it in a crate, and figured Inara'd been right. Funny how he'd never really thought about it, Kaylee being a girl and all. She was just Kaylee.

"Kaylee, there's this thing in town I got to go to... wonderin' if you'd care to come along."

"A thing?"

"A do. Governor's Ball, actually. Inara said you could wear one of her dresses if you like and—mhp."

He suddenly had an armload of squeaking engineer. Kaylee hugged, backed off, touching her hair, and lit out for Inara's shuttle. Mal smiled to himself. She'd been right... he hadn't seen Kaylee that excited since he'd brought home a shiny new spare warp coil.

He blinked as Jayne straightened up from the far side of the crates, where he'd been lashing an inlaid-wood chair and desk set to the wall. "Yer rutting loco, y'know that?" Jayne asked him as he knotted the last of the cords.

"I've had reason to suspect. Why?"

"Governor's Ball? You forgetting our passengers? Our Wanted By The Alliance Who Will Kill Us All Dead To Get To Our Passengers?"

"Well, I'm taking Kaylee, not River Tam. The doc and his sister have been staying out of sight.

"Plus, hell, Governor's Ball. The wine'll be that fizzy horsepiss and all the women're married or someone important's sister. Or daughter. You'll have to stand around talking and if someone says something stupid y'ain't allowed to hit 'em. Tain't my idea of a good time."

"Well, Jayne, that's why I asked Kaylee instead of making you go along."

The big mercenary's face lit up a bit. "Really? Thanks, Mal."

Shaking his head slightly, Mal went off to get himself gussied up for the ball.

Of course, most of the crew was sitting in the galley when Mal came out to meet Kaylee and Inara for the jitney he'd called in from town. Wash was checking pilot maps and River was off hiding somewhere aboard.

Zoe smiled slightly at Mal in his black coat and the red-gold waistcoat. "You look handsome."

He fingered the white cravat tied at his throat and held with a garnet stickpin. "Always feel like someone's trying to garrote me in these things."

Jayne, who was seated at the table but cleaning one of his guns over a layer of Cortex printouts grunted. "Naw. Knots'd be in the back."

Doctor Simon Tam cleared his throat. "Despite that appalling piece of sartorial commentary, you do look nice, Captain."

And then the ladies appeared. Inara looked elegant. Inara always looked elegant. She was wearing a gauzy purple thing that set off her jet-black curls. It was Kaylee who took everyone's breath away.

Blushing faintly, her sandy hair had been swept up in a style that revealed a graceful neck...and quite a bit of alabaster skin in the gold and green gown's plunging neckline. A collar of peridot and citrine drew the eye to her cleavage, and sparkling earrings of the same stones dangled from her earlobes. She looked beautiful and womanly and not at all like a freighter grease-monkey.

"Kaylee?" Jayne asked, a barrel brush forgotten in his hand.

"Kaylee. You clean up right purty," was all Mal could manage.

"Kaylee?" Jayne repeated, wonderingly.

"You look enchanting tonight, Miss Frye; Captain Reynolds is a lucky man." Simon Tam had gotten to his feet as the ladies entered.

"You're Kaylee?" Zoe leaned over and slapped Jayne across the back of his head, seeing as how he was stuck. He glared at her, but then gazed back at Kaylee in wonder.

"Don't you think she looks nice?" Zoe prompted.

Jayne nodded vigorously. "Hell yeah. I'd trade my favorite knife for her, too."

Zoe hit him again. Zoe was the only one who could hit Jayne and get away with it. No one was sure if it was because he wouldn't hit a woman or if he thought Zoe could take him.

"I think we'd better be on our way," Inara said diplomatically, handing Kaylee a shining mass of satin that turned out to be a light wrap.

The Shepherd Book was just coming back to the ship after visiting his colleagues at some of the local churches as Mal was helping Kaylee up into the jitney.

"Special occasion?" he asked. "My word. Miss Frye?"

"Inara helped her dress up for this Governor's Ball. Don't she look a spectacle to behold?"

"That she does. And Captain? Special hell."

The End