If there is one thing that Mal hates, it's carelessness on jobs. So on returning to Serenity after delivering their most recent load, he is more than a little irritated to find they've somehow missed a bag--there it sits innocently in the corner of the hold, exactly where he now remembers Jayne flinging it down a week ago.

He glares at it unhappily. They haven't the time to turn around and ride back into town. Unlike their usual schedule of one job, a whole lot of waiting, a whole lot more waiting, finally another job--for the first time in months they have not one but three clients lined up as soon as they got off this moon. As much as he'd like to, Mal simply has no time to go running back. For now, they will just have to hold onto it.

He wanders over, picks up the bag and peers inside. Dolls. A platoon of wooden soldiers. Three sets of jacks. More dolls. All brand new. Wonderful, he thinks with a sigh. Something to entertain the troops at last.

Nose still in the bag, he steps through the lower hatchway and is walking past the infirmary and up to the second floor, when he quite literally bumps into River. She is sitting on the lowest step, head resting on her knees, and Mal, still distracted by the bag and muttering to himself, only just avoids knocking her over.

"Ai ya!" With a yelp he jumps back, the bag falling out of his grasp and spilling its contents unceremoniously at River's feet. Grunting slightly, he grasps onto the railing in an inelegant attempt to stay upright.

"You wanna explain--" Mal puffs slightly, catching his breath, "--the doorstop impression?" He stares at her in wide-eyed exasperation. "'Cause you're blockin' traffic, darlin'. An' if you hadn't already noticed, I like traffic flowin' smooth on my boat."

To illustrate this he waves an arm. But she neither answers nor looks up. She is bent forward at an awkward angle, hair all down her face, and Mal hesitates, frowning for a moment. There is a stillness about her that strikes him as ghostly, and indeed, dressed as she is in a white slip of a dress, bare limbs stretched in a smooth arc from fringed hem to tip of her toes, she looks as delicate and fragile as the dolls at her feet. Then he sees at once why she has been silent; Mal bites back a sigh, and drops his arm.

"River..." He wanders over. Again she doesn't look up. He tries again. "River. Come on, now, xin gan. No tears on the cargo, okay?"

"Not tears."

Her voice seems to come from somewhere deep within her, and Mal has to lean down to catch it. He peers at her carefully; the way her eyes are staring at the floor makes him hesitant to come any closer, but finally sympathy--and his curiosity--forces him to give in. With a tiny smile he sits on the step beside her.

"Right," he says. "Not tears. Then...what?"

She turns. The long wave of her hair swings gently, sending a puff of air past his cheek. It smells clean--ginger soap and jasmine, and he wonders how strange it is that in these decidedly female aromas, he can still, underneath everything else, detect the tang of engine grease and gunsmoke. He thinks it must be Serenity--the ship itself, like the strange will of this girl, more prevailing than any transitory scent.

More silence. River reaches down, picks up one of the dolls, turns it to and fro in her hand. Porcelain. It has a scarlet mouth, grey painted eyes and long black hair to its delicately narrow middle.

"Left 'em behind," says Mal, by way of explanation, and for the first time she looks right at him.

"The ladies sell their hair--cut it off and sell it. Small stitches, webbing stuck to the skull, each strand cut and glued to be plaited and brushed and pulled by tiny, tiny hands. One hundred China dolls, toe to toe, all in a row..." River holds up the doll by the hair, letting it swing in a gentle arc, gazing in fascination at the dainty figure. "Snip snip," she whispers, "all gone."

The step is narrow; he only has to lean slightly forward and they could be touching from shoulder to knee. Mal reaches out and takes the doll from River's hand. "That so..." He runs the lock of hair over his fingers. There are tiny plaits and beads in there as well. It looks all too frivolous and dainty in his too-large hand. Like River--a doll made human if ever Mal knew one, and he has never known one quite like her.

He leans past and retrieves the bag. He places the doll inside. At her quizzical expression he raises an eyebrow. "You gonna help me put these back?" And she wrinkles her nose, leans against him for a moment. He can feel her sigh, the small weight of her a feather touch at his side.

"Please don't cut mine off..."

"What?"

"My hair."

Mal sits up. "Now why'd I go an' do a thing like that?"

"For the coin."

He looks at her, face hidden behind the black, like a mask. After a while he reaches out, pulls it gently away from her face. "Silly," he murmurs. "I'd sooner cut off my hand. Ain't no coin worth that pretty head of yours." At this he can see a tiny smile tug at her lips, He waits, and finally she shifts away from him. There is a hint of colour suddenly at the nape of her neck, pink against the white of her bare shoulders. She leans down, picks up the dolls and toys one by one until they are in a pile in her lap.

River remains very still, eyes closed, the toys a soft bundle in her arms.

"Catch," she says to Mal, the whisper of dolls. "Don't want us to break."

He tries to speak but he can't. His voice has gone, lost in thoughts and in the light, shining, through her hair.