River snuggled close to Jayne, her head on his chest, her fingers making curls from the hair across his pectorals.

His heartbeat was returning to normal, and he tried hard not to fall asleep after their first love-making session in their new home. So far they only had a couple of mattresses on the floor, but it was theirs.

“Ballet.”

“What?” He looked down at her.

“You were wondering how I became so supple.”

He grinned. “Was I?”

“When I lifted myself around and -”

“Yeah, well, maybe I did.” He chuckled, the sound vibrating through his skin.

She felt it touch her. “I was three when I started classes. I loved it, learning all the new dances, and I wanted to …” Her voice faded and her fingers stilled.

“What, moonbrain?”

After a long pause, she said, “I wanted to be a ballet dancer. To twist and turn, and arabesque …”

“Ara-what?”

She slid from the bed and his embrace, leaving him feeling cold. As he watched, she went up onto her toes, her body seeming to lengthen, tauten, and she reached out. Then she danced, just for him.

Dipping low, one leg stretched high out behind her, her naked form catching the small light and making it special, sweeping her arms across at waist height, palms upward, dancing to music only she could hear.

He felt his body tightening, despite the exertions of just a short while ago, his eyes raking across her form.

Around the interior of the small shuttle she moved, creating shapes that should have been impossible as she executed plies and entrechats, the smoothness of her body glistening in his gaze. Finally she sank to the deck, one leg bent gracefully under her, the other stretched out, her torso leaning over it, arms laid elegantly along her calf.

“River,” he groaned, getting to his feet. He held out his hand.

She grasped his fingers and allowed him to lift her to her feet. She was barely breathing hard. “Did you like it?”

“That … that was gorram beautiful.” His voice caught in his throat as he pulled her into him, pressing his length against her.

“I would have danced for the greatest in the Core.”

“And now you dance for me.”

She sighed, feeling his arousal on her belly. “Yes.”

He lifted her chin. “You miss it?”

“Sometimes. But I’m not the same girl anymore.”

“Moonbrain, much as I’d like to kill the hwoon-dahns who put you through what they did, and take my time over it, it brought you to me.”

“That it did.” She let go of him and laid down again, pulling the blanket over her as if she was cold.

“You okay?” he asked, lying next to her, careful not to touch, afraid he‘d said something wrong.

“Thinking of might have been’s.” She lifted the blanket and he moved closer. “You don’t have to ask permission, you know,” she added as she wrapped herself around him.

“Don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want.”

“I want you.”

“Good.” He let her lay quietly for a moment, but knew she wasn’t dozing. “So, you think of these might have been’s a lot?”

She shrugged, her skin rubbing on his. “Sometimes.”

“What do ya see ‘bout me?” He stroked her back. “I mean, if’n I hadn’t taken Mal’s offer.”

“I can’t see.”

“Yes, you can. I can tell.” He looked down into her face. “Figure I’d be dead?”

She nodded slowly. “There is a ninety-three percent probability.”

“How?”

“I don’t -”

“How?”

“Working for Badger.”

“That snake?”

“You did.”

“Only ‘cause I needed coin to -” He stopped. “So, what, a job go wrong?”

“There are so many variables.”

“River …”

“Attempting to rob a cargo vessel. But it was a trap, and the Alliance Federals opened fire.”

“I got shot.”

“A number of times.”

“Well, glad I took Mal’s job.”

“So’s he. You would have killed him and Zoe.”

Jayne couldn’t help a chortle slip from him. “Well, I’m guessing he wouldn’t talk about where the goods were at.”

“No. It was messy.”

“So they’d be dead too.”

“Only in that future. In another he married her and they have a ranch on Calypso. Five children.”

“The Cap and Zoe?” He stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

She smiled. “It isn’t as likely.”

“Glad to hear it. Can’t ever see them gettin’ sweaty together.”

“They might, if the planets had been in alignment.”

He grinned. “Still, something to annoy Hank with on occasion.” He set his head back. “What about Frey? She still be around?”

“Her possibilities are very complicated.”

“What does that mean?”

“Dead, alive, with Mal, without … married to Beaudine, lying in a grave on Prometheus …”

“’Cause she’s psychic?”

River nodded. “There’s one where the Academy completed their training of her, and she became an assassin, sent to kill a particular Independent sergeant with a poisoned knife.”

“Mal?”

“As I said, it’s complicated. And it might have been me.”

“Ain’t you, River.”

“No.”

“You’re lying here, in our shuttle, in my arms, and I’m thinking all sorts of lewd thoughts right now.” He ran his hand up her thigh.

She sighed happily as his fingers delved deeper. “You anchor me, Jayne. Stop my mind from running away.”

“Don’t need me for that.”

“Perhaps not, but I want you for that. I want to be able to lean on you, for you to be there when I fall, to pick me up and dust me down.”

“I kinda figured your brother was there for that.”

“He loves me. But it’s the old me he loves, the one before they cut into my brain with their steely knives. He’s still learning to love the me I’ve become.”

“I love ya.” He pulled her closer.

“You love me for me. And I am incandescent.”

“Ain’t gonna ask what that means, even though you’re waiting for me to.”

“My Jayne knows more than he lets on.”

“Ya chose me, River, and that makes me feel better’n all of ‘em. I don’t have book learning, can’t do those sums, but you’re here, now, with me in our shuttle. And you’re mine.”

“I am.” She lay back, her hair spread over the pillow. “For always.”

“Could be a long time, moonbrain.” He squinted down at her. “You see that? One of those possibilities of yours? We gonna live to an old age, with all our grandkids playing round our heels?”

“There are many. Even one where a group of elves come into Serenity and paint the cargo bay sky blue, but I think that one’s doubtful.”

Jayne grinned. “Wouldn’t mind seeing it though.” He pressed his fingers further into her heat. “But you ain’t answered my question.”

“You and me, sitting in rockers on a porch somewhere?”

“Yeah.”

Her eyes began to close, her breath shorter. “We will have a ship, Jayne. Be pirates out in the black. Plying our trade with our children at our side. And when the day comes when we can’t fly her anymore, when we’re too tired to fight, we’ll aim her for the nearest star and go out in a blaze of glory.”

Jayne considered a moment as his finger rubbed a particularly sensitive area. “Nah,” he said finally. “I figure we’re gonna be hundred and something, and you’ll shoot me.”

“There is always that.” Her thighs opened and he slid between them. “Would you mind?”

“Being with you for a century or more? Even if I know you’re gonna rip my heart out some time?” He grinned. “Helluva way to go.”

“I love you, Jayne Cobb.”

“Love you too, moonbrain.”

“Now are you going to put that inside me, or just lie there letting me admire it?”

“Well, it is a sight to behold.”

“Forever could be shorter than you think.”

“If you’re gonna threaten me …”

“Oh, yes, there. Jayne …”

“You and me, River. Always.”