“Sure looks big from all the way down here,” Wash said. With a frown, he added, “And kinda greenish. What’s that all about?” “That’s just the tylinn gas in the air, hon’,” Zoë said, following her husband’s look up to the open sky. “Just means there’s a little less oxygen to breathe here, but we’ll be fine. Personally, I’m just glad there’s not enough tylinn on this rock for it to have gotten into the water. First year of the war, the captain and I waded through a river on Demeter, and I swear to God it took me three weeks to scrub that green tone from my skin.” Wash chose to ignore the tale of warrior bonding, and opted instead to focus on the interesting part. “Ooooh,” he grinned, putting his arms around his wife’s waist, “scrubbing! Baths! Bring on the gasses!” Zoë patted his arm where it lay around her middle. “Well, I’m all for it. Are you ready? Have you finally packed?” He winced. “Honey, we talked about this, didn’t we? I really want to hang around at the dry-dock for a while, make sure that these people know what they’re doing, see if they need pointing out where my baby’s hurting. My *other* baby,” he quickly reassured Zoë. “We did talk about it,” she agreed, and Wash could hear the exasperation growing in her voice, “and we came to the conclusion that you and Kaylee would just get in the way of a well-oiled team of professionals if you tried to help out.” “This isn’t helping out!” Wash objected, then thought about it. “Well, OK, it’s helping out—but not getting in the way! I just need to keep an eye on things, just for maybe a couple of days.” Zoë untangled herself from Wash’s arms, and they walked back up the ramp, into the ship. “Aren’t you that guy that’s always pressuring his wife to take more vacations?” “Oh, I definitively am,” Wash agreed. “But we’ve got four-to-six weeks for the vacationing. Time aplenty for you to get extremely bored and itching to get back to the exciting and potentially life-threatening space jobs. You need the running and the shooting; I need this. Honestly, I don’t think it’s something you can understand.” “*Excuse me?*” Zoë didn’t mean to sound genuinely threatening when she said that—it was just something that came natural to her, and Wash loved her for it. Or in spite of it. Mainly, he just loved her. Still, he knew her well enough to know that she knew him well enough to think that he would immediately backpedal at that tone of voice. “It’s true. Zoë, you’ve a bond with the captain I can’t really understand even if I try, what with the war stories and all. But I’ve made my peace with that.” Fortunately, Wash was pretty confident you didn’t go to H-E-double hockey sticks for little white lies. “I’ve got the same kind of inexplicable and slightly disturbingly intimate connection with Serenity. Just ask Kaylee—she feels it too. *Guay*, she’ll be harder to pry away from this boat than I am!” They went up the stairs and passed the infirmary. “Come *on*, Simon!” Kaylee’s voice rang out from the room insistently. “You can’t just stay on board. We’ve got a vacation! I mean, all the deck plating will be pulled out, there’s gonna be construction noises all through the night… C’mon, let’s go to town—you’ll like it. They’re downright civilized here. There’s a beach?” Wash groaned. This is what happened when he brought up solid arguments. “I suppose,” the doctor replied, sounding unconvinced. “But I do have some tests to run, for when River gets back… Besides, if the towns here are that big, I really should stay out of sight. I was never really one for beaches anyway.” Zoë’s smile was far too victorious and smug for Wash’s tastes. It was a good thing he loved her, or he might have said something that she would then thoroughly have made him regret saying. “Oh! *Ni kepa-kongbu tai-kong hou-zi*! I’m *trying* to… You know what? Stay here. Lock yourself in the infirmary, then the work crew won’t be able to see you either. See how long it is before you drive yourself crazy.” Wash winced. It was quite obvious what was going on—not that Kaylee hid her attraction to the doctor very well under any circumstances, but there were stages of obviousness. This sounded like the one just past funny. The doc—embarrassed as he often seemed about the whole thing—hadn’t been able to keep from anyone that he enjoyed Kaylee’s company right back, but he had been even more stressed out without his sister and her crazy antics around than with her. Sexual tension. Wash was glad he was married—that allowed him to pull rank over any sexual tension that his wife might experience. It was comforting. “Crazy? Hold on, Kaylee… don’t be mad…” It was only when he saw her go into the infirmary that Wash realized that his wife had left his side. For a woman that gigantically tall, she could be surprisingly stealthy. Not wanting to miss a thing, he followed. “Actually, doctor,” Zoë was saying as he came in, “that’s not an option. The ship will be full of toxic fumes. We all have to clear out.” “Toxic—?” “I don’t have all the details,” she said, before the doctor could ask anything. “Just go, Simon. Have some fun.” “But I…” He paused. Wash wasn’t sure if it was a sign of the penny finally dropping, but he looked at Kaylee for a moment, and then nodded. “Well, I guess I… all right. Kaylee, give me half an hour to pack my bags, and I’ll come with you.” After the doctor left, Kaylee gave Zoë a grateful look, and then—as she darted out of the infirmary—a quick hug. “I love my first officer too!” Zoë was left a little bewildered from the hug, which looked immensely comical to Wash. “Toxic fumes, huh?” he commented. She shrugged. “Have you seen those mechanics? Or *smelled* them, rather? I think that counts. Besides. Captain did promise the doctor we’d look out for him and his sister. I was just protecting him from himself.” Wash grinned ear to ear. “You matchmaker you.” “Shush. Don’t tell anyone. I’m going to see how the inspection of the engine room is going. See you for lunch in an hour or so?” “That mean we can stay?” “Don’t got much of a choice, now do I?” “That’s my girl,” Wash smiled. “Lunch. One hour. I’ll even make protein soup.” With a kiss, they went their separate ways, Zoë down to the engine room and Wash up to the cockpit. One of the work crew was going to be flying Serenity into the actual dry-dock. It was standard procedure at every dry-dock, and made sense besides that—they couldn’t afford to have someone who didn’t *know* the exact dimensions of the tight enclosure to ram the dock and take away their livelihood. But that didn’t mean Wash was any less uncomfortable with it. Serenity was *his* livelihood, not to mention his home. He intended to stand there watching over the other pilot’s shoulder and fretting the whole way in. He went into the cockpit and greeted the other man already fretting. “Mal.” “Huh? Hey, Wash, explain to this woman that—” “You’ve explained it to me,” the woman in Wash’s usual seat said tersely. “And I’ll be careful with the lateral thrust. The starboard engine turns a bit faster than the port one. Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.” “The landing gear? Did the captain tell you about the landing gear? Sometimes you have to slam the handle back and forth a few times before the struts fully extend.” She sighed. “Yes. He said. Why, I can’t imagine why you would ever want to put such a fine-working boat into dry-dock.” “And I can’t imagine that with what we’re paying you lot your boss wants you to give us sarcasm, missy.” “Yeah, pay up your tab first, then we’ll be polite.” The captain glared at her. That he didn’t respond with some cutting remark worried Wash. He pulled the captain aside. “Mal, what is she talking about? I thought you said we were golden, money-wise.” “Bit of a cashflow problem. Came up short. Nothing you should concern yourself about, Wash.” “I kinda do concern myself about it, Mal, since these people tend to impound the boats of people that can’t pay.” Mal grimaced, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Wash, it’ll be fine. Made an arrangement. I’ll be flying a yacht they fixed up here to Fell Springs station, on the edge of the Core. We’ll take a public transport back and the management here have agreed to call it even. It’ll be good, even. Fell Springs ain’t a place I’d like to take some of my passengers, or even my boat, but it’s a Cortex Hub Transmitter. All the information in the ‘verse comes through there—we’ll be able to barter for stuff we could really do well knowing.” Wash nodded slowly. “I guess. But Mal?” “Yeah?” “Please don’t tell my wife? She’s finally ready to take a holiday, and you know she’ll want to come with you.” Mal looked like he was considering it. Then he gave Wash a sideways grin. “Fine. I’ll take Jayne along. He was probably just going to hang around and ruin Kaylee and the doc’s vacation anyway.” “Thanks, Mal.” Wash was relieved. This time off had been too long coming. His marriage, happy as it still was, really needed it. Wash would never admit it, least of all to his wife herself, but if Zoë didn’t get periodic reminders that there was more to life than the never-ending struggle to get by on the fringe, she’d go back to being the stone-cold warrior she was when he’d first met her. As much as she could still appear that way now, the people close to her knew better. From the corner of his eye, Wash glanced movement on the ground outside the cockpit window. “Heh,” he said. “Speak of the devil…” “What?” Mal asked. Wash nodded to the figures making their way to the crowded ring of shops that circled the landing fields, carryalls slung over their shoulders, a suitcase in his hand. “There go Simon and Kaylee. To the beach, I hear.” He watched them walk away, coming a little closer to each other with every step, until they bumped shoulders. It looked like they smiled apologies at each other, but they didn’t move very far away from each other as they continued on. Wash spotted why—Kaylee had slipped her hand into the doctor’s, and he seemed in no hurry to let go. Wash grinned. He already liked this planet much better than the last rock they’d stayed on. It really was a lot warmer here.

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