Jayne staggered in late for breakfast, pulling back a chair with a loud scrape and wincing. He sat down beside Mal at the dining table with a loud groan, scratching the back of his head as he grabbed a cup of coffee.

Aside from that, the mercenary was unusually silent, and Mal had learned through bitter experience that unusual and Jayne were a bad combination. “Uh – Jayne? Anything you might want to mention to us?” asked the captain.

“Uh – “ Jayne’s brow wrinkled in the manner of a man trying to recall just how excessive his drunken excesses had been. “Mal, think I might’ve bought a planet.”

Mal’s mouth fell open unbidden, but not a sound escaped from it as his eyes blinked repeatedly. The assortment of gasps and giggles from the rest of the crew filled in for him rather neatly.

“A planet? You – bought – a planet?” asked Inara.

“A whole planet? How’d you get to be – Jayne, you ain’t rich enough to go and do a thing like that,” said Kaylee.

“I hope it’s Persephone,” said Wash with a dreamy expression on his face.

“I – reckon that’s what I did,” said Jayne. “Weren’t overly expensive, tell you the truth.”

“Persephone wasn’t?” asked Wash.

“Ah….let’s go back to you buyin’ a planet,” said Mal. “You don’t just buy a planet, Jayne.”

“May I inquire as to what kind of alcohol it was you were drinking last night?” asked Simon. “Some – more disreputable beverages have been know to – have hallucinatory effects, it’s quite possible that –“

Jayne snorted. “The alcohol mighta had something to do with my partin’ with all the coin I was savin’ up to buy me a love bot, but this wasn’t no hallucination.”

“A love bot?” asked Wash, blinking his eyes in imitation of the captain’s dazed stare. “This day is getting really fun.”

“Okay,” said Mal, pressing his palms flat against the table. “Okay. Let’s have a lot less questions and a lot more explainin.’ Jayne?”

The big man sighed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Bought it in an auction, on the cortex. Little scrap of a moon, but it ain’t in reaver territory, it’s terra-formed, and it even got sett’lers on it. Say,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You reckon I own them too?”

“I reckon you get another thought like that in your head, you’ll be makin’ a real fast trip out the airlock without a suit on,” said Mal significantly.

Jayne lowered his eyes. Captain only brought out that particular threat when he meant business, and he knew damn good and well it messed with his insides. “Well – I mean – that t’wouldn’t be right at all,” he corrected rapidly, grumbling internally. For petty crook and a murderer, the captain sure had himself a powerful unyielding collection of ethics.

“You – can’t just buy a planet, Jayne,” protested Zoe.

“Why do people keep sayin’ that?” asked Jayne. "Ain't like I said I wrote a novel or somethin' now, is it?"

“Actually, given enough money, it’s not unheard of,” said Inara. “It’s a practice that began back on Earth-that-was, when wealthy citizens would sometimes purchase small islands. There are a number of small, exclusive moons under private ownership, as well as some that were purchased by mining speculators and other business interests.”

“Your – work – ever take you to one of these places?” asked Mal.

“Indeed it has,” said Inara, ignoring the expected jab gracefully. “The main estate was a paradise, but the undeveloped outlying areas and the worker’s parcels were not unlike those of a border planet.”

“Does – yours have a paradise?” Mal asked Jayne. “And – can we stay on it?”

“I don’t know,” said Jayne. “Don’t know much of nothing about it. I was on the cortex last night talkin’ to a woman acquaintance of mine, and she gets to tellin’ me about this other gal just had a bust-up with ‘er husband. She decides she’s gonna take out a little revenge by sellin’ the planet from under ‘im before he gets home, but she ‘as to do it quick. So she puts it up on auction last night, and bein’ that time was short an’ not many folk stumbled on it – “ he pointed to himself “ – you’re lookin’ at the new property owner.”