Oh, finally.

Title: Of Our World
Author: Gotham
Rating: PG
Content: Some religious stuff and gun-related imagery, which is entirely Jayne's fault.
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Focus on Shepherd Book, but pretty much everyone.
Summary: The Holy Trinity in space.
Notes: Written for mosca for the choc_fic challenge dealie. Mostly just a slice-of-life-on-Serenity fic.



***

Kaylee rubbed at her forehead with the heel of her fist, the only part of her well-worn pinkish hands that wasn't coloured yellow with paint. She dropped to sit on the kitchen table, peering up to admire the still wet star-scape. River was still filling in the sky parts with blue-black, her hands stained and sticky as well, but darker.

"Looks almost done," Kaylee told her, half asking.

"Except Scorpio," River said without looking down, glancing over at Kaylee's recent work instead. "And the North Star has to be brighter or we won't be able to find our way home."

Kaylee sighed, tired. "I'll finish it tomorrow." She climbed down from the table, craning her neck up again. "So this's Earth-That-Was? How the stars were?"

"Yes. Billions of them half-dead, or at least dying. Only one sun too. But it's like a star, just close and big and gaseous. Dangerous."

"Real cheery. How'd you remember all these stars?"

"Book. The Shepherd, not the thing. He had charts." She looked down at Kaylee with a smile, "And books."

***

Somehow, the original French text was all that survived. Shepherd Book carried it around when he was a child, devouring the pictures and memorising the captions, even though he didn't speak the language. Les Etoiles De Notre Monde became words as familiar to Book as his own name.

He began to pick out the Latin from the French sometime in the middle of his charity schooling. Ursa Minor, Taurus, Aurora Borealis: those words he thought of as more biblical than scientific; They matched the sounds and endings in one of the bibles on the shelves in the library. Notre he deciphered as "our" from his studies in Foreign Worship and from then on, he knew the sky was one with God.

He studied the stars as much as the Psalms. He knew the stars on Earth-That-Was as well as his own. He felt closer to God that way, knowing the stars on the planet where his way of life was born.

When Book learned French in later, less religious schooling he found that Les Etoiles De Notre Monde had very little to do with God as written, but he felt it anyway. The book was over three hundred years old and many advances had been made. He still believed that the stars, the constellations as seen from Earth-That-Was were one with God. Something he tried to be.

***

Jayne's toe caught on something, just after the stairs. Instead of tripping, he turned the light touch into a kick and a small jar of paint sailed under the table. He followed it with his eyes and saw Shepherd Book sitting at the table, looking at the ceiling.

"What?" Jayne asked, even as he tilted his own head towards the false sky. "Mal ain't gonna like that," He looked down quickly, walking over to the pantry.

"They've got everything right," The Shepherd told him, turning to the cupboards.

"Uh-huh. Who's they?"

"Well, I'm not sure. It looks like Kaylee's paints. And River's been looking at my books a lot."

"Maybe," Jayne paused, adding water to the dehydrated pancake mix, "Maybe it's like in the looney bin, how they have them all painting or making stuff outta tinfoil so's they don't scream all the time."

"It could be. Everything's so exact," Book remarked again, turning once more to the stars on the ceiling. "Perfect distances, even gradients of brightness."

"So it's like the genius version of a finger-painting then, whatever, it's not like any of us sit there starin' up at the roof."

"Yes, but how many people do you know on planets who sit around staring up at the sky?"

"Plenty of crazy people," Jayne muttered, stirring the mix viciously with a spotty metal spoon.

"We take it for granted when we're planet side that the sky is there. Maybe that's why this is here. So we just know. We don't need to stare at it. It's just - comforting."

"I guess, Shepherd." He clattered the griddle on the range, watching for it to heat up. "Oh wait, y'mean like a gun cabinet, right?" Book turned around and Jayne nodded at him, dipping a finger into the pasty batter to taste it. "Yeah, like how you keep all manner of guns in like, a closet or under the bed or somethin' and you don't sit there gawking at them, right, just you kinda know they're around and it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling inside. And every now and then, you go and look and count 'em and make sure they're loaded an' all. Like havin' a sky."

Book smiled at him and nodded. "Very good point, Jayne. That's like religion to some people too, I suppose."

"People don't need religion if they've got a nice gun cabinet though, in my mind," Jayne glanced up at the faux-star field again, and then down at the griddle. "No offence or nothin'."

Book nodded again, fully understanding the importance of guns, and stars, and God. If not for those there, he wouldn't be on the ship. He wouldn't even be alive, he thought. Holy Trinity.

***

It was a sunny day, Mal recalls, the day he lost his faith in God, in the great mysterious Almighty. It was sunny and it was hot, and the wall of bodies in the valley stank all the more because of it. His cross, the silver one from his mother that he'd always kept so polished, was bent and dull and spotted red. It wasn't smooth under his fingers anymore; it wasn't cold when he pressed it to his lips.

He shined it with the only clean cloth he could find, but the blood was like rust, stubbornly clinging on. He tried for half an hour to clean it by the river while Zoë tried to clean some dressings. They suffered a similar fate; Nothing was clean anymore, it was all muddy or else covered in blood. And there were no supply ships bringing water or more ammo or food. No truckloads of faith to rely on from above. Just a valley full of dead and mud and dirty water that ran red. If you were thirsty, you'd say it was coppery and metallic from the guns and ships lying around, and you drank it. You had to.

The company was gone, mostly, and there was no comfort anywhere else; not in the sky, not in the God he'd put so much stock in. He tucked the cross away in a pocket just as their watch yelled for them back. It didn't matter, really, if it was in his pocket or around his neck. It didn't mean a thing anymore.

So when Mal saw the Shepherd on board, he didn't look twice. He didn't ask Kaylee why, but he didn't reserve his judgement either. It had been a good long time since he'd seen a man of God, and even longer since he'd spoken to one. Mal had his questions but he knew he'd never be content with any answers from the cloth, or out of a book.

***

Mal Reynolds reminded the Shepherd of any number of men he'd met in the past. He was headstrong, quiet and used to believe in something. Book never asked about Serenity Valley. He guessed about it from the name of the ship, the brown coats, and a lot of other things. Even without first hand experience, he knew how bad it had been. He knew there were just some things a man didn't talk about to anyone.

That was why they generally got along, Book figured. There was so much neither wanted to say that they never needed to say a word. Book understood as almost no one else did, the importance of silence.

***

"Come on, Captain, it's Inhabitation Day, let the Shepherd say a few words," Wash argued, more for Kaylee's sake than his own.

Mal and Book had locked eyes and neither seemed to be compromising.

"You know how I feel about the words of some God mixing in with my food," Mal said evenly, his hands tearing apart a hunk of bread.

"Mal, you're being completely irrational. Leave the room if you don't like it," Inara suggested, glancing between the two men.

"It's his kitchen," Jayne started before Kaylee leaned over and pinched his arm.

"Didn't they used to say Grace 'round the table when you were a kid, Cap'n?" Kaylee asked, and Mal's eyes drifted over to her.

"When I was a kid, exactly. Now that I'm a grown man, I don't see the sense in some magic words holdin' up my dinner time."

"Taurus, the bull," River said quietly, looking up at the completely sky-scape, her fingers tracing the stars in the air. "Or else Leo." Inara smiled at Simon, and then lowered her head over her plate. Mal glared around at the half-smiles and pushed his chair back.

"I think those count as them magic words, Shepherd. Now," He looked from Kaylee to Inara, and back again, "Do I get to eat yet?"

"Yeah," Jayne muttered, "Grub's gettin' cold."

"I think we can eat now," Shepherd Book assured everyone, saying a few quiet words of thanks in his head. He watched the stars as he ate, feeling blessed by a connection that felt back in place, and another comfortable separation, all at once. His Trinity was skewed, but it belonged to everyone, and that was why they all fell together under the same sky.