Chapter Text
Here’s how it is: a few years ago, I quit my job as a desk jockey to open a coffeehouse as part of a downtown revitalization project. There were lots of new businesses—some rich and flush, some not so much. Then the big corporations came to town—worst of which, Alliance Coffee, opened just down the street from my shop. A few idiots have kept fighting for the small businesses, among them myself. I’m Malcolm Reynolds, owner of Firefly Coffee and Tea. We’ve got a good crew: Kaylee and Zoe working the counter, Wash handling the books, Jayne doing maintenance. We’ve even got a singer here some nights, name of Inara Serra. You want to find serenity? Step through my door. We’ve got what you need.
~ ~ ~
“River?”
“Two by two…two by two…”
Simon’s voice barely manages to penetrate the awful wall of sounds and images she’s being assaulted with. She curls in on herself, heart beating fast, as the world spins, as the two men approach her, again and again and…
“River!”
Her head snaps up. “Simon?”
He’s holding her, crouched next to her on the pavement, ignoring or oblivious to the dirty looks from passersby. “You’re ok. You’re safe, River. I’m here.”
She’s still shaking, fragile in his arms like a tiny bird. He can feel her bony arms through the oversized sweater she wears as he helps her stand up. “Let’s get you inside. Get you some water, ok?”
River nods. She presses herself against her brother as they walk, skittish of everyone who walks past; more so if they meet her eyes. Finally, after what seems like forever in the too-loud-too-bright-too-peopled world outside, he opens a door and ushers her inside.
Coffee. Deep, rich, bitter coffee fills her nose. “SIMON!”
“No, no, River, you’re ok, it’s ok, let’s just sit down…”
She writhes and thrashes in his grasp, shrieking “No!”, struggling to break free of his grasp. With a final wrench, she rips away and runs…
…and collides with a tall, muscular man wearing an orange apron. Orange. She relaxes enough to look up at him.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Simon appears beside her. “I’m so sorry sir, my sister isn’t feeling well and we were hoping to sit down and rest for a few minutes.”
The tall man shook his head. “She doesn’t look too restful to me.”
“I know, but if we could just stay here a few minutes, I can calm her down, and…”
“She’s scaring my customers. My paying customers,” he adds with a significant look.
“Of course, I understand…”
“Hey, are you two okay?” A short, concerned-looking Asian girl in another orange apron had come up behind the man, holding two cups of water. “I thought y’all might want some water. On the house.”
The man ran a hand through his hair. “Kaylee,” he began.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on Mal, it’s just water. You can…take it out of my paycheck. I’ll pay it in installments.”
He sighed. “Just see to it that these two don’t cause any more trouble.” He strode back to the counter, where a gaggle of teenage girls were waiting for their nonfat soy caramel macchiatos.
Simon stared after him. “Who is that?”
Kaylee glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, that’s just Mal. Mr. Reynolds, I guess, if you don’t know him. He owns the shop. And who are you two?”
Simon seemed startled by the question. “Uh, nobody important. My name’s Simon. This is my sister, River.”
Kaylee shook hands with Simon and gave River a sunny smile. “You feelin’ any better, River?”
River stared. It wasn’t a particularly menacing stare, or a vacant one, or one filled with disdain. It simply conveyed very clearly that its owner would not be contributing to the conversation.
“Is she gonna be ok?” Kaylee asked Simon.
He nodded. “She’ll be fine. She gets like this sometimes.” Eager to fill the silence, he added, “How long have you worked here?”
“Oh, a couple years. I like it. Everyone’s so nice, except for Jayne, and even he’s a softy once you get past the grossness. What do you do?”
Simon cleared his throat. Cute women always left him dry-mouthed. “Well, I…used to be a doctor.”
“Used to be?” Kaylee sounded amused. “What are you now?”
“A baker. Or, I would be, if I were employed. I can bake. Professionally. River, do you want anything to eat?” That sounded so wishy-washy compared to a doctor.
She gave him that stare, as Kaylee offered “We don’t have much. Yogurt, granola bars, that kinda thing.”
“No cookies or muffins?”
Kaylee shook her head. “Nope. We can’t find a bakery that’ll supply us cheap. We could get stuff frozen, but Mal’s against it and I agree. It all tastes like chemicals.
“Can I talk to him for a minute?” Wheels had started to turn in Simon’s head. Rent was due, and they had burned through most of their savings—the little they had, anyway. His sporadic hours at the bookstore weren’t cutting it anymore. It was a long shot, but maybe…
Kaylee shrugged. “I guess I can take over the counter. But if you’re thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’, he’s not gonna be easy to convince. You’re not his favorite people right now.”
Simon smiled. “Don’t worry. I think we will be in a minute.”
~ ~ ~
Ultimately, Simon reflected, his assumption may have been a little over-optimistic.
“Absolutely not.” Mal leaned back in the creaky old chair behind his desk and linked his fingers behind his head.
“But Mr. Reynolds, think of the extra business it would bring in. People would see Firefly as a place to get breakfast, use as an office of sorts…”
Mal stood up abruptly, making River jump a little. “I wasn’t keen on the idea in general, and I’m really not keen on you two gettin’ mixed up in it. You’ve caused enough trouble in my shop today already, and I want you gone. Least till that sister of yours can keep her head on straight.” He rubbed his mouth with his hand, then sat down again, as though he had used all the energy he had allotted for this conversation in that outburst.
Simon began again, “And if we use local, organic ingredients, we’d have the advantage of…”
“Enough.” Mal just sounded tired now. “You can see yourselves out.”
Simon gathered River and, disappointed, walked out of the office, shutting the door behind him with a struggle and a sudden thump. Mal made a mental note to have Jayne look at the doorframe so the blasted thing would stop sticking.
With a sigh, he opened CNN’s website on his ancient laptop and scrolled through the news. The first business headline read “Alliance Coffee Opening First International Cafe”. With a growl, he turned the monitor off and went back out to the counter.
Kaylee greeted him with a worried look as she cleaned the espresso press. It was early afternoon--too soon after lunch for people to need a pick-me-up—and the shop was deserted. “If you keep that look on your face you’ll scare all the customers away. What’s wrong?”
Mal shook his head as he started washing mugs, but set his work aside with a clatter a moment later. “Those gorram Alliance bastards are everywhere. Now they’re in Canada. Pretty soon, every mother-lovin’ street corner and airport in the world will have one. And…”
“And their beans are burnt and their tea is weak and their service is awful and people are brainwashed to not know any better,” Kaylee finished with an eye-roll. “I know, Mal. They suck.”
“They suck the life out of small businesses who are clearly superior, and why? Because they have a flashy jingle and a stupid mascot and…”
“Mal. Calm down.”
“I can’t calm down, Kaylee! Sales dropped another five percent this past month! And they’re opening stores in Canada!”
“We’ll be ok! We’ve been doing fine this past year.” Tears were beginning to shine in the corners of Kaylee’s eyes.
Mal winced, mentally kicking himself for losing his temper. Kaylee had plenty of fire of her own, but she hated being yelled at. With a sigh, Mal said, “I’m sorry, lil’ Kaylee. I didn’t mean to yell.”
She smiled a tight smile and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Wash should be here soon. You two can figure something out.”
“Send him back to my office when he gets here, would you?”
She nodded, then turned her attention back to the espresso machine.
~ ~ ~
Before Wash could open the door, Kaylee barreled out of it, nearly knocking him over. “Wash, I need your help. Mal’s freaking out about money and Alliance, and I have a plan. But I need numbers.”
Wash ran a hand through his spiky blonde hair. “Ok. I can give you numbers. Forty-two. One thousand. Nine.”
Kaylee rolled her eyes, though the smile creeping across her face lessened the effect. “Wash…”
Hoban Washburne, affectionately known to the Firefly staff as Wash, put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on. I can give you more accurate ones inside.”
“No, Mal can’t know about this! He’s…kind of angry about it.”
“Ok, Kaylee, I am happy to help you and all, but what are you talking about?”
Kaylee explained the events of that afternoon, leaving out only how cute the doctor-turned-baker was and the more extreme oddities of his sister.
“So,” she finished breathlessly, “What do you think? Can we do it?”
Wash shrugged, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. Today it was a particularly hideous orange, yellow, and blue Hawaiian print, featuring dogs on surfboards. “I don’t know, not right now. It’s all gonna come down to the bottom line. How much his ingredients would cost versus how much we can sell the finished product for, minus the extra cost of his hourly wage, factoring in Mal’s stress levels…”
“But it’s possible? And we should at least talk to him about it so we can get those details?” The hope radiating off of Kaylee was nearly palpable.
“I guess…Kaylee, do you have any sort of contact info for this guy? I mean, what do you really know about him? I’m all for crazy schemes, but…”
“Not much. But we do have the Internet! And Mal’s leaving at 5 today, so we can stalk Simon after he leaves.”
Wash sighed. “Fine. It won’t hurt to look into. Can I go inside now? I want to start earning my paycheck.”
“By playing with the plastic dinosaurs you have on your desk?”
Wash returned Kaylee’s innocent smile with the look of someone trying their hardest to look innocent and missing it by a wide margin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he declared, opening the door to the shop.
Kaylee followed him in, close on his heels. “How’s the romance between the stegosaurus and the brontosaurus coming along? Are they working through their mutual differences?”
“You know,” Wash said, pivoting to face her, “some chicks dig creative guys.”
“Not ones who dress like they live in their mother’s basement,” Kaylee said with a wicked smirk and a hand on her hip, nodding at Wash’s aforementioned Hawaiian shirt, flung over a Star Wars T-shirt and khaki cargo pants.
He leaned a hand against the doorframe of Mal's office. “Have…you mentioned any of this to Zoe, by any chance?”
Kaylee shook her head, her sun-streaked brown curls bouncing as she did so. “I didn’t tell her about it.”
“Good, because…”
“She’s the one who told me!”
Wash’s eyes widened. “Kaylee, please tell me you’re joking.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said with a wink. Hearing the bell on the front door jingle, she turned around and sashayed back to the counter.
~ ~ ~
“Well, I’ll say this for the guy—I can really respect anyone who keeps their personal life off the Internet.” Two hours of searching for Simon had come to naught, despite all of Wash’s tricks with search engines and protocols and Kaylee’s knowledge of obscure social media platforms.
“He has to exist somewhere! I mean, if he was in medical school, there should be records. Right?”
“If he was still in med school, maybe. But since he dropped out…” Wash leaned back from the computer and stretched his arms towards the ceiling. “I dunno, Kaylee. I think he may remain shrouded in mystery forever.”
The bell on the front door jingled, causing both of them to look up guiltily from the laptop they had set up on the bar top that ran parallel to the counter. Simon stood in the doorway, looking awkward and slightly wary, as though he might be attacked by a wild Mal at any moment.
“See, Wash? I told you he exists!” Kaylee said triumphantly. “Hey Simon! We were just talking about you.”
He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh-oh. That’s never a good sign.”
“Hey, at least we admitted to it.” Wash swung off of his stool with a hand outstretched. “I’m Wash. I crunch numbers. Sometimes I even gnaw them.”
Simon shook his hand in return. “Nice to meet you. Um, I don’t mean to interrupt anything, but I wanted to pay for the waters we, uh, River and I, drank earlier. I don’t want to cause any more trouble with your boss.”
Kaylee brushed off his concern with a lazy hand gesture. “I told you, it was on the house. No worries.”
Simon swallowed. This was not how he had expected this interaction to go. “Oh. Well, thank you. I’m sorry to bother you again.” He turned to leave, cursing himself for his complete inability to flirt with attractive women.
“Hey, you don’t have to run off. We actually wanted to talk to you about something,” Kaylee called. “I think we can convince Mal to hire you.”
Simon paused, but didn’t turn around. “Really?” He didn’t dare let his hopes run away with him.
“Maybe,” Wash cautioned, back at his computer. “We need to run some numbers first to find out if it’s even feasible to pay you for your product. If it is, we’ll give you another shot at it when Mal’s in a better mood. You feel like talking business?”
If he wasn’t trying to appear cool, he would have run over to Wash and hugged him. “Absolutely,” he said, finally turning to face his potential future coworkers. “Just tell me what you need.”
As the two calculated, speculated, and data-tabled, Simon divided his time between watching Kaylee (as non-creepily as possible) and letting his gaze wander around the coffeeshop. It was small, but well laid out. The counter ran halfway along one wall, and the bar top ran along it the rest of the way; the only break in it was the hallway leading to the restroom and offices. The walls were a warm light brown color that was too dark and pleasant to be tan, with brightly-colored abstract paintings scattered around to prevent monotony. The only matching pieces of furniture were the bar stools—everything else seemed to have come from garage sales or someone’s home. Despite the eclectic décor, the space was clean, well-lit, and inviting. The chalkboard menu behind the counter was a bit cliché, but it fit.
And Kaylee. She moved around the coffeeshop as though the space was tailored to her. She never stood still, but not a single move was wasted. She didn’t move like a dancer; she had the grace and confidence, but there was too much practicality and solidness to her steps and turns for it to be a dance.
She smiled at every customer, even the ones who didn’t smile back. And she never let that smile slip, even for a second, until they had taken their unsmiling faces out the door. Every so often, she would glance over at Simon and Wash and grin, and when that happened Simon felt a blush that he was sure she could see…as could people in outer space. He couldn’t smile back, though. God, no. She was way out of his league.
Wash rolled his neck, tapped a few keys, and clapped Simon on the shoulder. “As long as we can stay on track with these projected costs, we should be ok. I overestimated the costs a bit and under-projected the sales, too, so we should have a pretty decent margin. It won’t be a huge production run at first, but it’s a foot in the door.”
Simon reluctantly jerked his thoughts back to the spreadsheets. “So…I have a job?”
Wash shook his head with a rueful smile. “If it were up to me, you would. Unfortunately, Mal’s the one you need to convince.”
“We’ll convince him,” Kaylee called from the counter. “Simon, how soon can you have some samples ready? Like menus and baked stuff?”
Simon bit his lip. “I could probably be ready in two days? I don’t think Mr. Reynolds is going to want to see my face again, Kaylee. He nearly tore it off the last time I talked to him.”
Her face broke out into another one of those sunny smiles that made his heart skip a beat. “Then we won’t tell him! As far as Mal knows, Wash has been researching this for months and you’re the best candidate we’ve found. Wash, email everyone and set up a staff meeting for Thursday after close, OK?”
~ ~ ~
Mal stalked into the shop at 9:15 on Thursday evening, just as the last of the regulars were packing up their laptops. He waved at Zoe, who was counting out the register, and headed back to the second office. The staff used this space like a break room, even though there was barely room for a table, 4 chairs, and a mini-fridge. Wash and Jayne were already seated when he entered. Mal nodded at them and slouched into the third chair. Scarcely a minute passed before Zoe and Kaylee joined them, giggling about something.
“Ok,” Wash began abruptly, hopping up from his chair. “Let’s get started. Mal, I’ve been thinking about our concerns these past few weeks, and I think our best solution will be to start offering baked goods.” Mal’s face darkened; Wash smiled nervously and pressed on. “I’ve been doing some research, interviewing candidates, yadda yadda yadda, and I think I’ve found a good match. Kaylee, could you grab the samples from the kitchen?”
Kaylee scampered out and reappeared a moment later with two trays: one piled with muffins, the other stacked with frosted cookies. She passed them around as Wash continued his spiel.
“The muffins are banana-peanut butter-carob-oat: vegan, and gluten-free, but still delicious. The cookies are vanilla with a holiday spice glaze—nothing fancy, but satisfying and seasonal, since a certain someone has a vendetta against pumpkin spice in coffee.” He directed a pointed glance at Mal before continuing. “Please, enjoy, and let me know what you think.”
The crew dove into the platters of treats. Only Jayne complained about the vegan muffins, and Mal gave an approving nod to the cookies. Once they had finished nibbling, Wash took them through the financial side, much to Mal’s approval. Once the presentation had finished, he nodded once, then said, “Ok, Kaylee. He can come out now.”
She blinked, trying to disguise her deer-in-the-headlights expression as innocence. “Who?”
“From the other day, what’s his name. With the sister. I know this is his work. Bring him out here.”
Reluctantly, Kaylee went to the kitchen and brought Simon into the second office. He had the distinct impression that he was on trial as he entered the crowded room.
Mal gazed at him for a moment. “You understand, your sister can’t show hide nor hair round this place if she’s gonna disturb things.”
Simon nodded nervously. “Yes, sir.”
“I’ll give you a month as a test run. If you can live up to Wash’s numbers here, and your cookies are all this good…” he gestured to the now empty platters on the table, “…then I think we might be able to work something out.”
Simon stared at him, expecting a smile, a handshake, something, anything. Eventually, he said “Thank you, sir. I can start tomorrow, whenever you want me to be here.”
Mal nodded. “5:30’s when we open our doors. Have your stuff here by then.”
Simon gulped, then nodded. “Will do.” He had a very long night ahead of him.