Life on this boat. A Firefly story. #fanfic

Crates

The days flew by and two weeks after landing, Lou detected some restlessness among the Serenity crew. Even the stoic Simon was getting testy.
She had driven out to find Zoe and Wash relaxed and happy, but ready to move on. As she heard them talk from the back of her mule, she had decided to get a larger house built instead of the cabin and get it ready for them to move into. If what she was hearing was correct, they both wanted to settle somewhere but neither knew how to tell Mal. Lou wisely stayed out of it, but being unable to not care she had decided to offer them a plot of land.

Lou had stopped counting the days. The longer Serenity was parked, the longer Lou could pretend that they would stay.
Willow had done a good job on tending the bees so the honey-stores were well stocked.
Once Wash and Zoe were back among them, Mal had insisted on a trip to town but found Valhalla citizens a bit to calm for bar brawls. Besides they were mostly Independents so there wasn't much to pick a fight about. Lou wasn't surprised.

Jayne was easily enough amused. That spark never seemed to die. But she worried that the fire might be burning too bright and that he'd get frustrated with life on a farm. During the day Lou had the farm chores and her girls, which limited the attention she could give him. Even so, just thinking about him made her smile and the little attensions he paid her made the butterflies come alive. She never expected any grand romantic gestures, but just the way he, without asking showed up and made things happen was enough. With Joseph he had repainted her house and he seemed to always be there when she was lugging heavy stuff.
Thanks to Kaylee, the farm suddenly had a full set of perfectly working machinery. She had even fixed some old rusty stuff that Lou was unsure of what was used for. A pile of antique tools were stacked in a crate. Lou had told Mal to take it and sell if he could. Jayne had even found an old hand-scythe and amused himself by walking around pretending to be the grim reaper. Once he had promised not to do any actual reaping, Lou had shown him how to sharpen the blade and maintain the handle.
"First he gets a rainstick and now he's walking around with a scythe. Call me when he gets his shaman calling," Wash grinned watching the joy caused by a simple sharpened farm-tool.
"It keeps him happy," Lou said before directing Jayne to a patch of long grass where he could play around without harming the chickens.
"What do you actually get out of him?" Wash asked.
Kaylee and Zoe were there too looking fearfully at how he hacked and slashed his way through the grass.
"What do you mean?" Lou asked, suspecting personal questions coming up.
"Well... hes by far the most selfish person out there. And he's a really sore looser who cheats at ludo if he gets a chance," Wash begun.
"And still I seem to want more?" Lou asked with a grin.
"Yeah," Wash said.
"Selfish and competitive means he wants to be the best. Which means he's worked out that it's not always about finishing first. He makes me feel good which makes him a winner. It's a win-win situation," Lou replied with a happy smile towards the big lug of a man still playing with the scythe.

Lou and her family were kept busy farming. The horses needed feeding and mucking out. The cows needed regular milking and the sheep were coming up for sheering season. Winter would be taken up with knitting and fixing, but the wool had some work to be done to it before she could make something out of it.
Lou hadn't even checked her beehives yet. There was some comfort in knowing she'd be busy once her friends were gone.

Lou was in her honeyroom melting some beeswax to sell as furniture polish. A big box of the stuff was set aside for the dining table on Serenity. She had wanted to get that polished since she first came onboard. She had candles, handcreams and a variety of honey products in the larder ready to go. Willow had done a wonderful job and Lou had more than she needed to impress Sir Warwick Harrow.
In gratitude Lou had given Willow 20 of her 60 hives and full use of the honeyroom.
She was pouring the last wax into a box when she noticed Mal standing in the doorway.
"Hey there," she said cheerfully.
"It's time," Mal said.
"You wanna go, huh?" Lou said.
"Yeah. We need to look through the crates," Mal replied.
Lou nodded and washed her hands free of wax. She had forgotten how the stuff got stuck, how the scent of honey permeated her home, her hair and her clothes. A bit like how people attached to eachother and stuck together, she thought.

She walked out of her house to see all the serenity crew and her family gathered. She nodded and unlocked the outdoor entrance to her basement. Mal and Jayne went in and fetched all the 10 metal suitcase size crates as well as the three larger wooden ones.
"We need to see what's in these," Mal said.
Zoe crouched down next to a metal case and flipped the edge-locks.
She lifted the hinged lid and Lou saw a wide grin spread across her face.
"Paydirt, sir!" She grinned at Mal.
Mal looked into the crate and smiled.
"Looks like there should be enough to set any debts," he said.
Quickly they opened the rest of the crates and Lou wasn't sure if she even wanted to look into them. She looked around seeing smiles. Even Giles looked happy. River looked thoughtful and Zoe stayed neutral.
All the cases held gold in barres.
Something struck Lou as being off key.
"Hang on. How much did these cases weigh?" She asked.
"Heavy enough," Mal shrugged.
Simon looked at Lou and River's face was in thinking mode.
"Lou is right. The goldweight would make the cases a lot heavier than what they looked when you carried them up," River said.
Simon picked up a gold barre from the nearest case.
"Yep. Not gold," he said tossing it from hand to hand.
Mal picked one up and turned it over.
"We are a bunch og gorram dupes!" He grinned as he turned it over and unpeeled the gold foil around a bar of protein.
"Eleven year old protein," Lou grinned.
"Yuck," Kaylee exclaimed.
"But... money? Where's the money?" Jayne asked looking confused.
Lou saw disappointed faces all around her untill stopping at River who was lifting every single bar. The girl was grinning and giggling.
"Very clever. Highly inventive," she laughed.
"What are you finding, sweetheart?" Lou asked.
River grinned and struggled to pick up a bar with one hand. She stood up and lifted it out with both hands.
"This one's real," she giggled giving it to Mal who nearly dropped it.
He smiled at River and suddenly several hands were busy searching for metal among protein. In the end they had a solid gold bar from each case.
"Ten gold barres, " Mal said.
"Still not bad, sir," Zoe smiled.

They opened the wooden crates too and carefully emptied them out. Soon a set of earth-that-was artifacts of unknown use and function was laid out on a sheet on Lou's porch.
"Any idea?" Mal asked the crowd in general.
Simon knelt down to look at them.
"They look biological in origins and the carvings are human," he said.
"Some kind of bone," River said running a finger accross one of the items.
"Buffy. Could you look on the cortex if there were any museum robberies around twelve years ago," Giles ordered his daughter.
"She won't find anything," Mal said.
"Why not?" Giles asked.
"Coz there was a war," Zoe answered.
"I'll ask mr Universe," Wash said and went to Serenity to use the onboard communicator.

Half an hour later, Wash had discovered that the items were antique, from earth-that-was and, to his great disgust, that they were made from elephant and walrus tusks.
"We'll put them back in here and store them with Lou untill we have a buyer," Mal sighed.
Lou chuckled.
"Not so much paydirt after all," she grinned as they carefully placed the items back in the sawdust.

As she walked back towards her work, Adelia stopped her.
"Lou. I wonder if you could ask your friends a favour," she said looking very self concious.
"What do you need?" Lou asked.
"Russ... or I should start calling him Halvard... has had a wave from his prior. They want him to return to Persephone," Adelia said.
"And you need a ride?" Lou smiled.
"Yes," Adelia confirmed.
"Persephone is a big place. You sure you wanna go?" Lou asked.
"Well... when he came home I wanted him to just go back. But then he made everything so much better and he has become a wonderful husband in the time we had now. And when he waved his priory and explained, they allowed him to marry. I want to prove to him that he did the right thing. I'm happy," Adelia explained.
"Hey, Mal," Lou hollered over.
"Yeah," he replied.
"You know how you're a cook short... I found you one untill you get to Persephone. You'll have to suffer my annoying brother and their four year old, but she's a better cook than me," Lou smiled.
Mal looked at Adelia. Then he gave a short nod.
"Just make sure she has ingredients," he said and slapped Lou's back as he walked past heading for the horses.
"Done," Lou smiled at Adelia.
"I don't know how you are so easy with them all. They are so strong and fierce. Even that doctor has something guarded about him," Adelia said.
"A month in space and you'll be swearing like a pirate too," Lou replied.
"Oh. I hope not. Wouldn't suit a pastor's wife," Adelia smiled back.