Chapter 1 can be found here: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=15951

- - - - -

“Has Inara gone?” Zoe asked as Mal came down the stairs into the cargo bay. They had docked onto Grant's ship hangar on Gravine an hour or two ago and Zoe was already getting a little bit antsy. Grant had had sudden business to attend to and had sent them a wave apologizing for the inconvenience.

“Left ‘bout an hour ago. Probably gonna meet up with Grant and – “

“She’s servicing Grant?” Zoe interrupted, surprised.

Mal shrugged. “Didn’t say, but I’m gonna to assume so. She probably went to meet him before she prepares all her ritual Companiony-type things. Tea party, hair-braiding, and the like. Then she’ll do her job while we do ours.”

“Right," Zoe said sardonically. Upon first meeting Inara, Zoe had a certain distaste for the young woman that was hard to get over. It wasn't just her occupation, which admittedly Zoe still wasn't so sure she liked. Inara was an impressive woman, but Zoe just couldn't appreciate what she stood for, or who she worked for, since her Guild was largely funded by Alliance. But Zoe quickly got over that, since Inara was pleasant enough to warm up to as a friend. It was just that she had her Captain so taken. Mal seemed to be developing feelings for a woman whose job it was to not have any herself. Zoe knew it hurt Mal inside whenever she went with a client, and she just thought that no good could ever come of it. She was torn, between having Inara as a friend, and protecting her Captain and brother. Contrary to popular belief, Malcolm Reynolds did have a weakness. A human heart was a hell of a lot more difficult to protect than everything else Mal liked to throw himself in the middle of.

"So when’s Grant supposed to get here, again?” It would be just Zoe and Mal who met up with Grant. Usually Jayne went along on their missions, but due to a unanimous vote that Jayne claimed was rigged, and to the fact that Barracuda Grant was a man of class and manners, they decided that the crude, loudmouthed mercenary should stay behind.

“I suspect he’ll be here any minute now,” a foreign voice said. They both looked at their docking ramp to find a small, white-haired, bespectacled man standing there, dressed in a shirt and tie. He had a large smile on his face that rivaled even Kaylee’s, and held a modest wooden cane that he didn’t seem to need for walking. Instead, he held it like a staff, and used it to wave cheerfully at them.

“Barracuda-gorram-Grant,” Mal greeted heartily, walking over and shaking his hand. "How've you been, Sarge?"

“Malcolm-gorram-Reynolds!” Grant looked behind him. “I'm just fine, Mal, though I am getting a bit frayed and grey around the edges. You know how us old folks get - goodness, don’t tell me this fine specimen of woman is Miss Zoe!”

“One and only, sir,” Zoe grinned, shaking Grant’s hand as well.

“You’re still hopping worlds with this clown?” Grant laughed. “I would have thought you’d find a better man by now!”

“Oh, I did,” Zoe smirked at her captain and Mal made an equally mature face right back. “He pilots our ship. We got hitched little over a year ago.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Congratulations!” Grant whistled. He looked them up and down. “You both look well. Healthy enough, I imagine. Oh, and of course, I’ve already met your friend Miss Serra a little earlier. She had only good things to say about you. We had ourselves a friendly chat not too long ago.”

“She is the friendly type,” Mal said dryly. Grant looked up at him over his thick, round glasses and seemed to scrutinize him for a moment.

“You don’t approve?”

“Oh, no, that ain’t it at all,” Mal said quickly, his tone not lost on Zoe. “Inara’s great. Real great at her business. And at making tea. She give you tea yet? 'Cause it's great."

“Yes, lovely woman, she is,” Grant said kindly, dropping the subject. “Though not nearly lovely as this ship. Firefly class? Bloody hell, I haven’t seen one of these in ages. She brings back good memories.”

“She’s makin’ a fair share of those good memories for us, too,” Mal agreed. “Name’s Serenity.”

“Excellent name. Just excellent,” Like every Browncoat, Grant knew the name well. He hadn’t been at that fateful battle, stationed two moons away on the Tundra, but stories of Mal and Zoe’s heroics had traveled far and wide. “All right, why don't you come follow me? I am quite the spry, witty fellow, but I highly doubt you’ve come to visit just for my winning personality,” he joked and led them out of the ship and into his docking port. “I do believe you’ve come looking for a job?”

“Yes, sir.” Zoe nodded. “We’d like to thank you again for your generosity, past and present.”

“For the record, I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about,” Grant winked mischievously. “And anything you insinuate shall regrettably fly over my head, as I am notorious for my foolishness.”

“In that case, we’d just like to make it known we sincerely appreciate your foolery,” Mal grinned.

Grant nodded. “Daftly noted. Now, this isn’t just any job,” he explained as they walked down the shiny, metallic corridor to the meeting room. They had been there once before, and it hadn't changed at all since the last time they met with him not too many years ago. The same immaculate hallways with walls so clean they could see their own reflections. They bypassed several plain, unmarked doors on the way, making it look like a long empty hallway of an office building on the Core. They almost expected to find a water cooler at the corner surrounded by pale men in fine suits talking about blitzball games or wives.

“You won’t be able to do it on your big ole Firefly over there.”

Zoe frowned. “We can’t do it with Serenity?” She wasn't so sure Mal would be happy with that. They always had Serenity at least nearby, no exceptions. That was how things worked, and they always had worked. At least, in the end they did. Sure enough, Mal stopped walking so that the other two had to stop as well.

“Grant, I assure you that my boat can handle pretty much anything. Even if it’s got to transport a whole other ship, Serenity’s fit enough to tow the thing ‘cross the galaxy, if it’s called for it.”

Mal was lying through his teeth, and both he and Zoe knew it. Perhaps Grant even knew that Serenity probably couldn't even handle tugging along another shuttle, much less a ship, but Mal was very reluctant to do a job without his beloved boat within walking - or as was their usual case, running - distance. Nevertheless, Grant smiled and patted Mal on the shoulder.

“Mal, my boy, trust me when I tell you that Serenity couldn’t do it.”

“And trust me when I say – “

“Aren’t many ships that can transport any amount of Dark Matter, actually,” Grant mused.

Mal and Zoe looked at each other.

“Oh.”

Dark Matter was the brand name for one of the densest substances known to human kind. It was discovered as a naturally occurring ore on a planet very close to imploding in on itself, and was also commonly called the “Ship Cruncher” by the surviving captains of the few ships that were foolish enough to try and smuggle it on the black market. Grant was in the ore business, so of course it made sense that he needed to legitimately transport his wares. However, neither of them had known that he would want them to carry something that could practically knock a small moon out of orbit.

“Ain’t that a bit dangerous?” Zoe wondered.

“Danger’s our middle name,” Mal muttered under his breath and gave Zoe a nudge that obviously meant “Shut up, he's loaded!”

“Oh yes, the material is a bit on the perilous side,” Grant admitted, leading them along again. “But there’s a planet called Hrothgar not too far out on the Rim, and it’s in danger of falling completely out of orbit of this system.”

Mal nodded in understanding. “They’re going to implant the Dark Matter into the planet for a little anchoring.”

“Yes, that’s pretty much the only use for Dark Matter there is,” Grant chuckled, as they turned a left. “To give those tiny, newly-terraformed planets a little gravitational oomph, so to speak. Those poor folks are given the choice to either hightail it to another planet, or keep their homes and risk terraform failure. I've managed to secure them a good load of Dark Matter, though, and I'm selling it to them for cheap. I'm close with a magistrate there."

“I was under the impression that there were only two kinds of ships that can shuttle around Dark Matter,” Mal said. “Both of which only Alliance are allowed to handle.”

“You’re a knowledgeable man, Mal,” Grant said, stopping in front of a door. “But I’ve got one of them in my private dock right now. You're not the only one with a working knowledge of the Alliance's more bothersome protocols and how to weasel around them. It isn’t a massive amount of Dark Matter, so I opted for the smaller ship.”

“But it’s still got to be huge,” Zoe said. “Serenity probably wouldn’t even be able to truck Dark Matter the size of a hovercraft more than a mile.”

“Huge it is,” Grant agreed. “So huge, in fact, that your entire crew wouldn’t be able to man the ship alone.”

Mal blinked and asked the same question Zoe was thinking in her head. “Then why call us?”

“Oh, I didn’t just call you,” Grant said happily and pressed his thumb against a panel by the door. It swooshed open smoothly with the sound of a soft vacuum seal and Mal and Zoe peered in.

“Uh, hi.”

Mal stared. “Hi.”

They were looking at a young man, no, boy that could not have been more than a year or so older than Simon. Seated next to him at the table, which was the lone piece of furniture aside from three other chairs, was an even younger boy that looked to be about River’s age. The two were barely out of diapers yet, which begged the question of what the hell they were doing with a man like Grant. Had they been offered a job as well?

They were both dressed neatly, not in expensive clothing, but their shirts were more fancy than Mal and Zoe were used to. The older one had his jet-black hair slicked back and was wearing a plain brown coat. It was this coat that made their blood first begin to boil. Looking over at Mal, she saw that he was having the same distasteful reaction. The boy was almost certainly not of age when the war began, and even if he had been, he couldn't have been fighting for too long before the war had ended. Yet there he was, wearing that long brown coat like a badge of honor. If there was one thing they despised even half as much as the purple-bellies, it was the wannabe Browncoats that came out to the Rim and strutted with a false bravado and battle rep.

Zoe had to look away, and Mal looked over, stone-faced, at the younger boy before their mouths got themselves into trouble that they didn't particularly need. The other boy was tall and gangly, with bright red hair and a shy demeanor that had him staring intently at the table surface.

Mal looked at the two people, then at Grant, then back and forth again.

“So…what're we doin' now? Freeze Tag? 'Cause I think we're still a man short for Duck, Duck, Goose."

“Please, sit, you two,” Grant indicated two of the comfy-looking chairs that looked to be made of material more expensive than all of Serenity and its current contents. Mal sat across from the older of the two and Zoe started to sit next to him, when the younger boy suddenly jumped up out of his seat and hurried around the table. Mal had his gun nearly out of his holster before he realized that all the boy wanted to do was pull out Zoe’s chair for her. Zoe looked at the boy curiously and sat down, but he didn’t look back, instead returning to his own seat quietly.

The person across from Mal held out his hand. It was plainly obvious that he was the brains of the operation, despite the fact that he was an idiot pretending to be a Browncoat.

“Name’s Kent Jamison,” he said and cocked his head towards the other boy. “This here’s Tony Han.”

“Mal Reynolds,” Mal said, taking his hand and shaking it firmly, taking a feel on his grip. Zoe watched the both of them tighten their hands in almost a contest for dominance. The boy seemed strong enough. For a young, disrespectful jerk, anyway. Mal pulled his hand away and the two of them hid their winces as their bones popped back into place. “This is my first mate Zoe.”

Kent looked surprised. “First mate? You two’ve got a ship?”

“That’s right,” Mal said, in a slightly superior tone that made Zoe snort into the back of her wrist. The captain made it sound like they had some kind of top-of-the-line Blitz Freighter, not a dinky old Firefly about three atmo-burns from falling completely apart. "I'm also popularly known as Captain Mal Reynolds.”

“Mal is very proud of his boat,” Grant explained, amused. “Now, the reason I’ve brought the two of you together is because the ship I’ve got to transport the Dark Matter requires the efforts of more than one crew. So I’ve decided to recruit the both of your – “

“Hang on,” Mal interrupted, unsure if he had actually heard correctly. Grant expected him to share the pay-off with some boy and his little buddies? “The kid here’s got a crew?”

“Yeah, you can call me Captain Kent Jamison,” Kent smirked, throwing Mal's hubris right back at him. Zoe had to admit, Mal was letting the kid get under his skin too easily, but Kent was just as obnoxious. And Grant seemed to fully expect them to successfully run a ship together without dragging each other straight out the airlock. Maybe the old man was finally going senile.

“But he ain’t even got a ship!”

“What do you think I’m going to do with the money?” Kent countered defensively. "'Sides, Grant's supplyin' us with a ship. We don't need one for this job."

“Grant, don’t you think you oughta hire someone a little older, with a little more experience for a job like this?” Mal suggested bluntly, giving up the valiant effort to hold his tongue. Grant was no longer smiling as brightly.

"And don't you think a man well-suited for this type of job would buy pants that weren't about three sizes too small?" Kent recommended innocently. Zoe winced. There was a place one did not wisely go.

"They ain't small, it's the gorram style!" Mal exploded. "The boy probably don't know much 'bout proper fits, though, seein' as he ain't got a ship to see anything off his home world. Tell me, you ever even been outside atmo?"

"You don't know me," Kent seethed.

"And frankly, I don't believe I care to," Mal said.

Grant frowned slightly. “Forgive me if I’m mistaken, Mal, but I do believe you weren’t born with Serenity in your pocket. Would you really fault another man for following the same path you have?”

Even Zoe couldn’t help but silently commend Grant for putting Mal in his place. He’d bought Serenity with the money from his first job as well. His first job from Grant. Thinking back, Zoe realized that she and Mal had to have been about Kent Jamison’s age, give or take a year or two.

Kent sat back in his chair with a smug look on his face that made both Mal and Zoe forget any vaguely fond, metaphoric correlations between them. Mal scowled. Kent Jamison was a brown-nosing, cocky little punk.

"And Kent, I'd think you ought to be a little more respectful. Mal was a commanding officer during the war, and since then he's seen more out there in the Black than you have in your lifetime."

Kent's pompous, lopsided grin subsided. Zoe chanced another look at Tony. Even he seemed a bit embarrassed at the behavior of his captain. Probably about the same way Zoe was feeling about Mal right then. It was all that brown coat Kent was wearing. To Mal it was like a red cloak to an angry bull.

“Now, Kent has five members of his crew ready and waiting,” Grant began again.

“You’ve already managed to find five crew members?” Zoe asked, reluctantly impressed. Mal was not as impressed. True, when he and Zoe had bought Serenity, they had technically no crew to speak of, but Mal had said it time and time again. It wasn’t numbers that kept a boat flying. It was heart.

“There’s me, Tony here, a pilot, a mechanic, and a medic,” Kent said proudly. “All the best. Oh, and then there's Lee. But we don't speak about Lee too much in good company.”

“Smart thing to do, getting your crew in order before you get yourself a ship,” Zoe complimented him cordially, against Mal’s silent but deadly wishes. Someone at the table had to act like a decent human being. She couldn't help it anyway; it was true. Mal’s unrelenting glares went voluntarily unnoticed as his traitorous first mate fraternized with the enemy.

“Now, let’s not forget about the crew of Serenity,” Grant said. “Even with the two of your people together, it’s going to be a tough job to fly. However, you’re all reasonably intelligent, hard-working folks. It shouldn’t be much trouble. Plus, the monetary compensation should make up for it.”

“And how much is that again?” Kent asked impulsively.

“The boy’s got about as much tact as Jayne does," Mal commented to Zoe.

“They should get along real shiny,” Zoe agreed dryly.

“Who?”

“Never you mind, boy,” Mal said to him, brushing him off in the most pleasant manner he could manage. He even smiled a little. Kent scowled. “Just give us the details, Grant, and we’re on it.”

Grant smiled. “I hope you aren’t in a hurry, Mal. To tell the truth, I actually hoped your two meeting would go along a bit more…amicably.”

“Oh, I’m plenty amicable,” Kent said through gritted teeth.

“More amicable than a stripper to her holographic spinshaft on Taters n' Titties Tuesday.”

"You're frothing at the mouth, sir," Zoe warned.

"New brand of toothpaste. Hell on the gums."

Grant pulled his lips into a thin line. “Well then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to have dinner with both your crews first.”

Mal, Zoe and Kent raised their eyebrows sharply. Tony, as usual, looked absolutely unfazed.

“What?”

“What?”

"Huh?"

Grant got up and opened the meeting room door for them. Apparently he had decided the meeting was over. “I said, I’d like to have both your people over for dinner tomorrow night. We can discuss all the details there, when both your crews are present. Now, Mal and Zoe, Serenity is down back that hallway where we came from. I'm sure you remember. Kent and Tony, you know where your lodgings are, right?”

Everyone was still staring at him blankly as Grant sauntered off with his wooden cane.

“Oh, and dress appropriately, please,” he called over his shoulder. "Not too fancy, just what you'd wear for a nice dinner with family and friends, is all." They watched him go until he disappeared behind a corner. Then there was nothing more to look at except each other.

“Guess we’ll see you tomorrow,” Kent said, walking away with a swagger that Mal wanted to break right off of his legs. “Just enough time to freshen up my crew. Make sure your guys are done up nice too, Grant seems like a classy fella.”

Zoe noticed Mal's nostrils flare, like an angry gorilla about to attack. She sighed.

"Ready to go, sir?" Zoe watched the two young men disappear from sight. "That Tony boy's a strange one, ain't he?"

No answer. Zoe swiveled around to find Mal already long gone. "Sir? Sir, what's the rush?" she called as she jogged down the hallway after him.

“Got to 'dress appropriately',” Mal stormed towards Serenity. “I’ll be damned if I let some little houzi de pigu out-pretty my crew!”

- - -

The next day, Mal woke up extra late with the feeling that he was forgetting something. He pulled out his rusty sink and was fifteen seconds into washing the sleep out of his eyes when it hit him.

The job. Barracuda Grant.

"Aiya," Mal muttered into his dirty face rag. Kent Jamison. So much for easy money. Hopefully the boy's crew wasn't a whole gaggle of punks like he was. That would be most unfortunate. For them.

Mal grabbed his towel, the real one that was meant for actual showers, and trudged to the bathroom. It was time for his first true shower of the - no...certainly it couldn't have been that long... He turned the knob, glad that it still functioned the same way as when he had last trekked in there, and proceeded to wash himself, drowning in his own thoughts.

The crew had to get pretty, that much he knew. Grant did indeed have a thing for formalities and properness and such, all the things Mal had never bothered to deal with. But he figured a good man like Grant deserved what he wanted. Looking halfway decent was a small price to pay.

Besides the doctor, Inara, and maybe the preacher, no one on Serenity ever made much of an effort to wear decent civilian clothing. Brown coats and coveralls were more or less the standard issue on Mal’s boat. Even Kaylee, who did on occasion like to splurge on shiny tops, usually wrapped them up with her mechanic coveralls since she was pretty much always working on her beloved engine.

Mal fully expected that when he told his crew to dress up, there was going to be trouble. Even the littlest things tended to blow up in his face.

He turned the water off and shivered. Being wet was another thing to add to his list of things he hated. It seemed completely unnatural. He had grown up on a ranch by a long expanse of desert, and pretty much all the fringe planets had a rather arid climate. Mal preferred it that way. He didn't like the squishy, soggy feeling of water. It always felt like he was being weighted down and a man he to be free if he wanted to fly true. He dried himself off and threw on some temporary fits that would do until he changed into something more fitting.

Not too fitting, however. Not that Kent's comment about the tight pants bothered him. Not at all. Though maybe it was time to lay off the hydrogenated fat-stuffs.

Wondering if any of the rest of his crew had dressed up already, he climbed up to the bridge, fully expecting to find Wash asleep at the console with his feet resting atop a pile of plastic dinosaurs. Mal nearly fell over at when Wash whirled around in his giant, over-stuffed pilot seat wearing a dark button-down shirt and a clean pair of khaki slacks.

“Wash?” Mal said incredulously. He tilted his head, as if that would change what he saw. "You dressed up!"

“Remind me again why we’ve got to dress up for this dinner?” Wash asked irritably, tugging at his collar.

“'Cause Grant’s a decent man with annoying eccentricities that, while admittedly seem trite and unnecessary, will put us on his good side and perhaps get you that big naked vacation with your wife,” Mal said, still trying to get over the fact that Wash wasn’t wearing a grimy flight suit or that moldy old gray undershirt he liked so much. He also wondered how hard it was for Wash to leave his Hawaiian shirts in his bunk. “And because I said so.”

“Oh, right.” Wash sighed. “Big, naked vacation…big, naked vacation…Captain says so...”

“Where’d you get those fits, anyhow?” Mal asked, interrupting his disturbing mantra.

“Wore them at my wedding, remember?”

Mal did. It had been a tiny ceremony, with the only guests being himself and Kaylee. Mal had actually given Zoe away, as was tradition, though Zoe refused to call it that. In her words, Mal had just walked her to Wash because the shoes Kaylee had sweet-talked her into wearing had been killing her feet.

“But you know one good thing to come of this whole formality nonsense,” Wash mused. “I get to see Zoe in her slinky lil’ wedding dress again. It’s the only one she’s got, and I know for a fact she hasn’t got anything else to wear. I love that dress.”

Mal rolled his eyes. The dress Zoe had worn was another thing Kaylee had forced Zoe to into. They had just known each other for maybe a few weeks then, and Zoe wasn’t yet accustomed to having someone so cheerful fluttering about. The seasoned war veteran didn’t know how to deal with it, so she had just done whatever Kaylee suggested more to shut her up than anything else. The dress wasn’t a glamorous or impressive thing by any means, but Mal had to admit, Zoe did look stunning in it.

“That white and brown thing, with the lines or that criss-crossy pattern or some such,” Mal recalled. “Yeah, that should do for tonight. I forget where Kaylee scrounged that up from, but it was all right. Didn’t she say she would never wear it again, though? Something along the lines of ‘Chu fei wo si le’?”

“I told her she was beautiful,” Wash remembered fondly. “And I believe her exact response was, ‘Take a good look, because next time I wear this it’ll be over your dead body’. Though she wasn’t complaining that night, when we - ”

“Watch it. I’ve got innocent ears," Mal warned. "And this gun I've got strapped to my belt's real protective of 'em.".

“I think Captain’s had enough, Wash,” Zoe strode onto the bridge, still dressed in her usual leather-and-shotgun get up. “And you’re right. I ain’t ever wearing that dress again. Though you, Mr. Wash, look absolutely ravishing.”

“Ravish away, baby.” Wash reclined, so that Zoe could embrace him from behind his pilot’s seat.

“Could we not do the ravishing thing right now?” Mal suggested. “I’d rather we do something more constructive, something that doesn't involve getting Wash out of them pretty fits he’s got on.”

“Sorry, sir,” Zoe said as Wash pouted. “Give us the word and we’ll ravish on your order.”

“Jesus, “ Mal groaned. “Zoe, you gettin’ dressed up or not?”

“Nope, but I reckon I’m good the way I am,” Zoe said. “Always did manage to stay cleaner than you and Jayne on missions. Call it an innate feminine ability of mine.”

“I’m sure we could find something of Inara’s that – “

She removed her shotgun from her belt and clicked it purposefully.

“Yes, well, you do look mighty fine,” Mal said quickly, retreating down to the engine room to check on Kaylee. He hoped they would at least not rip out any of the buttons on Wash’s good shirt.

When he got to the engine room, he was surprised to find that Kaylee wasn’t there. She was usually in there around this time, tinkering with the whatever-coil or thingy-neutralizer. Perhaps she was already in her bunk changing out of her greasy coveralls and into something that hopefully wasn’t that massive frilly dress from Persephone. The thing probably wouldn't fit through one of Grant's doorways. It had barely managed to wedge through Serenity's cargo bay entrance.

Mal started to make his way back to the bridge when he bumped into Simon.

“Mal! Have you seen Kaylee?”

“Ain’t in there,” Mal indicated the engine room. “Figure she’s changing in her bunk.”

“I just checked and she wasn’t there,” Simon said as Mal started to brush past him.

“Maybe – “ Mal stopped and turned around to look at his medic sternly. “You been makin’ a habit of goin' into her bunk while she ain't clothed, now?”

“No! I didn’t know what was supposed to be…she just...I just…” Simon stammered. “We just talk! Sometimes - I don’t – “

CLANK! Suddenly they heard the sound of something soft hitting metal.

“Ow! Ta ma de!”

“Kaylee?” they both turned back to the engine room to find Kaylee crawling out from underneath the whirling machinery.

“That kinda hurt,” Kaylee rolled the cricks out of her neck and shrugged her shoulders to loosen them up. “Shouldn’ta fallen asleep under there.”

“You fell asleep?” Simon gaped, stepping over a box of Kaylee’s tools. “The engine is moving, do you know how dangerous that is?”

“Not to mention how unproductive,” Mal added.

Simon scowled at him, but Mal ignored it entirely. “Both of you need to get dressed. We meet up in one hour in the cargo bay.”

He walked off to make sure Jayne was making an effort to look presentable, a formidable task indeed. The ape was bound to be all sorts of unpleasant, and it didn’t help that he kept grenades under his pillow at night. Who knew it would be so bloody difficult to get his crew looking sharp? Or at the very least, less blunt and cheap-looking.

Back in the engine room, Kaylee was doing a fine job of giving Simon a cold shoulder. She reached underneath the engine to retrieve the wrench she had left there, paying no mind to Simon.

“Didn't you sleep well last night?” Simon asked finally, after several beats of tense silence. “You’re usually always so…energized and chipper.”

“Guess not,” Kaylee said shortly, rescuing the wrench and throwing the rest of her tools into the box and shutting the lid unnecessarily loudly. Simon flinched.

“Do you have a lot on your mind?” he asked, hoping Kaylee felt like talking.

Kaylee looked up and Simon almost recoiled when he saw her look of irritation. “Not too much up in this mind. Ain’t been to college, remember?” She stalked off, leaving Simon alone.

- - - - - END CHAPTER 2 - - - - -

Heheh, okay I lied. This chapter is a little early. But the next chapter should come by next week. Please comment and tell me what you honestly think! Thanks!

Chapter 3 can be found here: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=16053