The planet was a dusty one, but that didn’t stop a deflector shield from flying off the front end when they descended towards Shadow’s surface.

“What is wrong with those gorram shield plates?!” Jayne shouted while they made a rocky landing.

“I’ll need to get a replacement soon, Mal,” said Kaylee as they got off the ship and breathed the dry, hot air that clung to their throats.

“Not here, you won’t. We’ll stop by someplace when we leave, but right now I have business with the old woman,”

“Is this going to get violent?” Simon asked. “Wasn’t planning on it,” the captain replied, holstering his gun in sharp contrast to his words.

“Should I stay here then?” Analith asked her hands on her hips. “Maybe you’d better stay this time, huh?” He took Zoë, Wash, and Jayne with him.

“That would be the adventure crew,” Simon said, rolling his eyes somewhat. Analith watched the four of them slowly fade into the landscape, what little there was to be had of it. Mal’s tall figure and broad shoulders was between Wash’s slightly shorter one and Zoë’s sturdy yet almost gaunt frame. Jayne was obscured by the guns strapped to his back.

“They’ll be alright. Just wait, by sundown they’ll be back and we’ll be outta here,” Kaylee said. The others went inside, but Ana still stood, watching the figure of the captain.

***

“Jesus! Do you have some kind of thing about my room or what?” Mal had entered his bedroom to find Ana sitting on his bed surrounded by crumpled bits of paper and doodling on a stack of more paper.

“No. I just like your room. It’s not girly like Kaylee’s, neat like Simon’s, or ferociously guarded like Zoë’s, Wash’s, and Jayne’s,”

“Right. Where did the paper come from?”

“Found it,” Her reply was somewhat hasty.

“You did, did you…” He tried to look at the picture she was drawing, but it was clutched tightly to her chest.

“Come on, lemme see it,”

“No!”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Come on, I wanna see it!”

“Mal! Stop it!”

“Alright, alright. I’ll stop. But can I please see it?”

“No, Mal,”

“Ugh, kwin-gwe-je deh,” He put his long coat on his bed. Ana looked at him with blank innocence. “You might wanna go now,”

“Why?”

“Because I’m back, I need my room,” he said, and Ana gathered the crumpled sheets of paper and took them back to her new quarters, where she burned them.

Mal changed into his pajama pants, washed the dust off his face and put his new sack of money under a pile of clothes which were under his bed. He didn’t go to bed, however. He stayed up to file the video recordings of Inara that Kaylee had made into a box. Then he put them under his bed, and locked them.

“It was the past. I can forget now…” he mumbled to himself, looking at the screen and hoping someone would call and want to talk. But no one did, and he was left with his loneliness. He looked under his bed again at the sack of money he had collected today for his work, and suddenly his eye caught something that shouldn’t have been there. It was a crumpled wad of paper.

He drew it out, and looked around to make sure no one would see him looking at it, even thought there was no one in the room. Then he began to open it, to unfold it, to smooth it out with his hands. His face dropped when he saw what it was, even though there was a huge X over it, as if the artist had been highly unsatisfied. It was amazingly realistic; it was shaded like a photograph.

Ana had been drawing pictures of him.

***

“Your skin is pretty much healed. This scar on your back, however, will not be fading anytime soon,” Simon said as he pulled the gauze off of Analith’s back.

“That’s fine with me. I’ve plenty of scars,”

“You do have a lot of them, don’t you,”

“What being a pirate does to a body,”

“I see,” He was throwing away the bandages, and River was sitting on an infirmary bed behind, watching.

“Scars are memories, like the water droplets that shine in your eyes,” she said, examining Ana’s back carefully.

“Yes, River,” said Simon, smiling. River continued as if he’d never spoken.

“The scars are thoughts too. This one says you’re hungry,” She smiled, rather manically. Simon raised an eyebrow.

“She’s right, ya know,” Ana said, and went to the kitchen to find some food. Kaylee was sitting at the table, drinking some tea.

“How’s your back?” she asked.

“Healed, Simon says,”

“Simon’s a really good doctor,”

“I’m proof of that I guess,”

“Yeah,”

“Scarred pretty badly, though,”

“’S alright. Everyone here has scars. That’s what life in the Black does to you,” She sipped the tea. “Especially Mal. He’s been at it longer than any of us,” Ana had found a large chunk of cheese and was cutting off a piece.

“I wanna know something, Kaylee,”

“Sure,”

“Who was Inara?” Kaylee looked a little confused.

“Why?”

“Mal gave me her room, but he didn’t look to happy about it at first,” Her eyes were now a little sad and little surprised.

“Wow, he did? I always thought he’d leave that room like it was when she left,”

“Who was she, Kaylee?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to say it now. And don’t go telling Captain Mal I told you this if he didn’t even tell you himself,”

“Fine,”

“Well,” She looked a little uncomfortable. “They were… you know… sleeping together,” Ana’s face was stone, but something inside her had just lurched wildly. And she felt somewhat guilty.

“I should probably find another place to sleep. I didn’t know the full scale of it before…”

“Oh no, now, if the Cap’n wanted you there, or at least didn’t mind you there, you should stay. But really I’m surprised he let anyone in. He always said that he was done with that sort of thing…” Something made a loud noise in the engine room.

“Ai ya,” She threw her cup into the sink and headed for the sound. Ana watched her go, wondering how she would sleep knowing that the Captain had made love with a lady in that same room. She would have to manage.