“I’m telling you,” Jayne said rather loudly, “there’s nothin’ wrong with me.”

“You look awful,” Inara told him. “Not that it’s a complete change from the norm…”

“I really don’t need you gettin’ sick on me,” Mal said, “but if you say you’re fine, then you’re fine.”

“Thank you,” Jayne said. “I am fine.”

“You’ll be bedridden by morning,” River said.

“Would you stop?” Jayne asked her first, and then turned to Mal. “Would you please get her to stop that?”

“How ‘bout everybody gets back to their work,” Mal said, “and leave Jayne be.”

Mal’s word was the end of that conversation.

“Are we ready to leave this rock?” he asked River.

“Yes, sir,” she answered. The sir was something she had picked up from Zoë. Mal certainly didn’t mind it.

“Good,” he said, mostly to himself. “Good work is hard to come by, and I don’t need to botch this job.”

Soon it was only Jayne and Mal left in the cargo bay unloading the supplies. Jayne was grumbling, as he always did when River told him her opinion.

“I ain’t been sick in years,” he said.

* * *

“Jayne ain’t gettin’ out of bed, sir,” Zoe informed Mal, who was sitting behind Serenity’s controls.

“How shi sung chung,” he answered sarcastically.

River had an I-told-you-so look on her face, but she didn’t say anything.

Simon came in slowly, obviously still not feeling well. Kaylee was right behind him; apparently trying to make sure he stayed upright, all though he wasn’t having much trouble.

“You gonna be all right, doc?” Mal asked.

“Kaylee has done a fair job of nursing me back to health,” he said as he grinned at Kaylee.

“Cuz we got another sicky needs tendin’ to,” Mal said.

“Oh,” Simon said, apparently just remembering that he had a job on the ship. “I’ll get something for him.” He and Kaylee turned to leave.

“I think you’d better make up some more of that soup, Kaylee,” Mal said.

“Me?” Kaylee asked. “I, uh…”

“It seemed to do wonders for Simon.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll get right on it.”

When she turned to leave, she ran straight into Jayne’s enormous figure. He was leaning against the doorframe.

“I ain’t sick,” Jayne lied. “I never get sick.”

In reality his eyes were bloodshot, and his nose was bright red. He looked considerably worse than Simon ever had. He took a step forward and immediately lost his balance. Kaylee did her best to catch him, and he managed to grab hold of the door frame again.

That put Jayne pretty much entirely in Kaylee’s arms, a fact that was very much apparent to Simon. He reached out and pulled Jayne back up, purposely getting him away from Kaylee.

“Why don’t I help you back to bed?” Simon asked.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” Jayne started to object.

“Go back to bed,” Mal ordered him. “I need you healthy when we reach Whitefall.”

Jayne looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t have the energy. He simply turned around and headed back for his bunk, with Simon trying to keep him from falling. Simon got him back into his bunk with some difficulty, and then came back up the ladder to see Kaylee holding a bowl of soup for Jayne.

“Oh,” Simon stuttered. “I just need to go get some things from the infirmary.”

“Okay,” Kaylee said. She was still smiling, but not quite as bright as usual.

Simon didn’t really like the idea of Jayne getting Kaylee’s attention, especially not in Jayne’s bunk, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. The captain had voiced his opinion, and going against Mal wasn’t usually a very good idea. So Simon hurried down to the infirmary to get what he needed.

Kaylee carefully came down the ladder and found Jayne looking rather pitiful in his bed. “I brought you some soup,” she told him.

“Oh,” Jayne said as he sat up. “Thanks.”

The silence was a bit awkward for a few moments.

“This is good,” Jayne finally said. “Reminds me of my mother’s soup.”

“Oh, sheh sheh,” Kaylee said. “But it came from a can.”

Jayne chuckled, and Kaylee smiled.

“Thank you for what you did back there,” Kaylee told him. “Simon said you were very brave.”

“Just doin’ my job,” Jayne said.

“Well, thank you anyway.”

That was about the time that Simon came in with his bag, ready to go. He quickly put himself between Kaylee and Jayne, and then pulled a syringe from his bag.

“This will help,” he said, then plunged the needle into Jayne’s arm.

“Ow…” Jayne grumbled.

“You could try to be gentle,” Kaylee told him. “He’s only sick because he was trying to protect you.”

“Well, I can take it from here,” Simon told her. He had a look that made it obvious how he felt about Kaylee being in Jayne’s quarters.

Kaylee left rather quickly.

“How long am I gonna be sick?” Jayne asked.

“Hard to say,” Simon told him. “Probably a day or two.”

“Great,” Jayne said sarcastically. “You don’t have anything stronger?”

“I’m afraid not,” Simon said. “Just get some rest.”

He left nearly as quickly as Kaylee had, but found that she had not gone very far. She was waiting at the top of the ladder for him.

“What’s gotten in to you?” she asked.

“What?” Simon tried to act innocent. “I was trying to help him.”

“He saved your life,” Kaylee reminded him. “Just yesterday you were all excited about how brave he was, and now you act like you hate the man.”

“Don’t you get it?” Simon sounded like he was going to start yelling. “He’s eating up the fact that you were in his quarters. That’s all he’s ever wanted from you. That’s why he hates me so much. Because he can’t have you.”

“You’re jealous of Jayne?”

“No,” Simon lied. “I just don’t trust him.”

“He saved your life!” Kaylee reminded him again. “And this isn’t the first time.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to trust him.” Simon had in fact learned to trust Jayne quite a lot, but he wouldn’t admit it. Especially not when it came to Kaylee.

“Well, some of us actually care what happens to him,” she said. “I’m going to go make sure he has everything he needs.” She started to head back into Jayne’s bunk.

Simon was about to object, but the look on Kaylee’s face made him rethink it.

Jayne was reading a letter from his mother when Kaylee came back in. He didn’t seem to expect anyone to come back in.

“Oh, Kaylee,” Jayne said.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Kaylee told him.

“Oh, I’ll be fine,” Jayne reassured her. “Thank you for the soup.”

“It’s nothing,” Kaylee said.

“Hey, could you-?” He stopped.

“What?”

“Nothin’,” Jayne lied.

“No,” Kaylee said. “What do you need?”

“It’s just that my mother used to make me hot chocolate when I got sick.”

“I thought you never got sick,” Kaylee said with a smile.

That managed to get a laugh from Jayne. “It actually happened a lot when I was a kid.”

“Well, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll go get some hot chocolate going.”

“Thank you, Kaylee.”

“Mei wen ti.”

This time it was Kaylee that found someone waiting at the top of Jayne’s ladder, but it wasn’t Simon.

“Everything all right?” Mal asked her.

“Everything’s shiny, why?”

“You two were just makin’ an awful lot of noise,” Mal said.

“Simon’s just…” Kaylee hesitated. “He’s just being Simon.”

“Yeah, I’d say he’s good at that.”

“He’s jealous of Jayne,” she said. “Jayne of all people.”

“You don’t think he has the right to be?”

“Of Jayne?” Kaylee asked. “Why? It’s not like I’m ever going to hook up with him.”

Mal looked over at the hatch to Jayne’s bunk, which was wide open. Kaylee hadn’t realized that Jayne had probably heard everything that she had said to Mal, and probably everything she had said to Simon too. She suddenly felt very sorry for Jayne.

“Look,” she said to Mal, “I promised I would get some hot chocolate for Jayne.”

“You best get to it then,” he said.