He woke up, as he always did, before the alarm went. He’d always known when it was time to wake up, ever since he was a kid, and had to go help with the cattle. He could guarantee to be lying there, staring into the dark, two minutes before his mother yelled at him.

He rolled over, putting his hand out to touch his wife, but there was nothing but empty space and cold sheets. Opening his eyes he looked around the small bunk but it was conspicuous for its emptiness.

With a sigh he swung his legs out of bed and grabbed his pants.

“Morning, captain,” Zoe said as he climbed out of the hatch.

“Morning. You seen Frey?”

“Not yet.” She looked him up and down, wearing only his pants and nothing else. “She running away from you again, sir?”

“Your turn to make breakfast, isn’t it?” he asked in turn, ignoring her comment.

“Just on my way now.”

“Good.” Mal turned down the side corridor and headed for the cargo bay.

Zoe smiled and shook her head. Since he’d gone and gotten himself hitched he’d changed. For the better, she considered, but it was sometimes a shock to see him so … caring.

Jayne was in the cargo bay, working out. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked as Mal came down the stairs. “Me neither.”

“Looking for Frey.”

“She run off again?” Jayne exhaled and pushed the weights above his head. “Musta been seeing you in just your pants.”

“Have you seen her?” Mal asked, trying to maintain his dignity.

“Nope. Been here a while, too.”

“Captain,” River said, startling him.

He looked up to the top of the crates where she sat, Jayne’s ever-present shadow. “Doesn’t anyone sleep on this boat?”

“She’s in there,” the girl said, pointing towards the common area.

“Thank you.” He marched off, hitching his suspenders over his shoulders.

Jayne dropped the weights back into their stand and looked at River. “They okay?” he asked.

“They’re shiny. And they will be even better. Soon.” She smiled enigmatically. ---

He found her outside the nursery, just looking inside at Bethany sleeping peacefully.

“Hey, whatcha doing?” he asked, stepping close behind her.

Freya leaned back just a little to feel his warmth. “Just looking.”

“Somehow I get the impression that weren’t all you were doing.” He put his arms around her waist and pulled her in tight. “Thinking about Grace.”

“I know it’s crazy, and I should maybe grow up, but I can’t help wanting …” She hugged herself.

“He ain't right.” Mal said softly. “Simon ain't right. I don’t care what he says, all the tests he ran, he ain't right. There’s no way you and I are not gonna have a child.”

“But he’s so sure.”

“No buts.” He turned her around to look at him, seeing the want, the need in her eyes. “Whatever I have to do … Frey, I can’t bear to see you unhappy.”

“I'm not unhappy,” she insisted, her hands on his bare chest.

“But …” He gazed into her eyes. “There’s a ‘but’ hanging around there somewhere.”

“I don’t want there to be.”

“Don’t mean there ain't.”

She closed her eyes a moment. “What Grace did, what I saw …” A tear squeezed out from under her lids. “I managed to forget so much. All the pain at the Academy, what they did to me …” She looked at him again and more tears slid down her cheeks. “I've never told you.”

“You don’t have to. But if you need, I’ll listen.”

“Not yet,” she said, shivering slightly. “Too much darkness… I don’t want to make you stop loving me.”

“Frey, darlin’, ain't nothing in this ‘verse gonna stop me lovin’ you.”

“But maybe I shouldn’t … it wasn't just the Academy, but there’s darkness inside me, and I'm so afraid I'm gonna pass that on to our child that it …” She stopped, burying her face in his chest, letting out all the frustration and want in tears.

“Hey, hush now,” Mal said, rocking her gently. “Our baby is gonna have two loving parents, and there’s gonna be no darkness.” He lifted her chin, wiping the tears away with his thumbs before cupping her face. “And there ain’t no darkness in you either. No more’n anyone else. And I include Jayne in that statement.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Are you likening me to him?”

“Never,” he said, grimacing. “No way I'm taking that man into my bed ever again.”

“Again?” Her eyebrows lifted. “Is there something I need to know about?”

“Nothing,” Mal said quickly, his lips twitching. “At least nothing that a good bottle of whisky and two glasses isn’t gonna get out of me.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, snuggling against him again.

He felt his body react to her, as it always did, his blood beginning to pump harder around his veins. “Frey, I promise you this. There will come a time, and soon, when you’ll be lying next to me in bed and I’ll be feeling our child kicking me. And I’ll be the happiest man in the ‘verse.” He grinned. “Which, by the way, I am anyway.”

She smiled. “You promise?”

“What, that I'm the happiest man alive?”

“That we’ll have a baby.”

“Nothing in the ‘verse is gonna stop us.”

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“Putting up with me.”

“Nothin’ to put up with. You’re my wife.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“I’ll tell you when we wake up.”

“We are awake.”

“I’m considering we’re gonna have a lie in today. A long lie-in.”

“Sounds good.” She pushed her hand down the back of his pants. “Are you wearing anything under there?”

“Why don’t we get back to bed and you can find out?"