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asked.  As they approached the ramp, Malcolm heard her ask, “Are you really fluent in half a dozen languages?
    “Not fluent,” John corrected with a shake of his head.  “But I can read Latin and Aramaic.  And I can muddle through Ethiopian,” he added with a shrug.  “Greek and Hebrew I suppose you could say I’m fluent in.  But those are living languages, so learning them is easy.”
    Kara turned her head and studied John intently for a moment.  “Why did you learn so many languages?  It must have taken you years.  Decades.”  She sounded truly curious, and Malcolm wondered how much she already knew.  He’d caught Dawn asking him questions she knew the answer to more than once.  Although to be fair, that was usually when he should have been thinking along those lines already.
    “It did,” John answered, and Malcolm heard contentment in the voice that had never been there when he was young.  “But I wanted to study the scriptures myself, to read the words as written so many thousands of years ago.  It’s not like they spoke King James English back then,” John said as they walked down the shuttle’s ramp.
    “I’ll be lucky if I get her back by the time we hit Sunnydale,” Dawn whispered.
    Malcolm chuckled.  “I hope she knows what she’s getting into.”
    “She does.”  Dawn turned to smile at him.  “She asked me to introduce them.”
    “Really?”  Malcolm raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what she and Kara had planned for the older man.
    Dawn’s look turned serious.  “You’d be surprised how many people claim they believe something so they can gain followers, not because they actually believe.”
    Malcolm frowned and turned to gaze out the open end of the shuttle where they’d disappeared.  “John’s not one of them,” he declared with a firm shake of the head.
    “Is that your instincts talking?” Dawn asked in a very serious tone.  “Or your friendship?”
    That froze him.  Malcolm blinked as he considered the question, wondered if he was letting his friendship blind him to some long con.  No.  That didn’t feel right.  Malcolm frowned at the feeling and looked back at Dawn.  “John believes what he says he believes,” Malcolm said, paying careful attention for the mental warning that usually told him he was being stupid about something.  Nothing.  “And it feels right to say that,” he added with a smile made of more relief than he’d expected.  “The John I know was never that kind of con artist, and he doesn’t feel like one now.”
    Dawn nodded slowly as she processed his words, before finally bestowing a smile on him.  “Good.  That makes me feel better.  But I hope you don’t mind if we grill him a bit.  He has quite a checkered past,” she finished with a very pointed look at Malcolm.
    Malcolm snorted and smiled back at her.  “Are you implying something?”
    “Oh, no,” she answered, her face a paragon of innocence, and waved a hand towards the opening in the rear of the shuttle.  “Would you like to go?  The Captain wants us on the bridge.”
    “Oh!” Malcolm exclaimed and stepped towards the exit.  “One should never keep her waiting,” he added and flowed around a crewmember lifting another crate into the air.
    “I thought you might say that,” Dawn whispered with a knowing smile as they walked down the ramp and finally set foot on Normandy’s deck.
    They moved through the organized chaos of crates filling the shuttlebay and made it to the open lift door in seconds.  The doors shut behind them, and the lift began to move towards the center of the warship.  Malcolm found a wall and leaned against it, eyes examining Dawn.  She cocked her head at him and he smiled, wondering again why she was here.  He managed to suppress the impulse to ask her this time, and her lips twisted in amusement.  Then the lift began to slow and he straightened his suit and tie.
    The lift doors slid open and Malcolm stepped out into the