The only sounds in the room were Kaylee’s ragged sobs as he got up to close the hatch while River lead her tenderly over to the bunk. The two girls curled up in a tight ball on his bunk, River with her back against the bulkhead.

He sat down and gently removed her boots before pulling the blanket from beneath their legs and up over them. With great care he gathered up her hair so he wouldn’t lay on it, placing a light kiss on the nape of her neck as he settled onto the bed behind her, adding his arms and legs to the tangle of limbs.

Solemn eyes met his over the head cradled between them; he knew that she was asking if adding her to their arrangement was fine. He gave her a smile and snuggled them both closer. Perhaps the three of them would be enough to fill the void.

An odd image came to him as they lay entangled, earth, sun and water.

“We three are the desolate.” But they had what they needed to flourish, in time.

It flowed through them, across each one and back again, like waves taunting the shore. Sorrow and loss that never really had possession. But there was comfort, understanding, acceptance, and empathy. Even so close together in body and disheartened spirit, they were each lonely for one other. It bound them together in stands of silk and blood and bone.

Jayne reached one great arm across the two girls, who seemed smaller by the moment as they clung to each other. River whispered soft words like butterfly shadows into Kaylee’s skin as her sobs became simpers became silence. River slid her arm along Jayne’s, to form a shelter over their novitiate. Her eyes met Jayne’s and her voice floated into him from somewhere else. “Your half and my half will not be the whole, but needs must and love wants.” She must have spoken out loud, because Kaylee looked up at her then. “Will you have us, who aren’t him and die for wanting?”

“If you’ll have me.” Her voice was as thin as the edge of a knife as she took River’s face in her hands and poured herself into the soft lips she found. It keened in Jayne’s heart to hear her pain and he hugged his entire body against hers.

A layer at a time, clothes were pull away by hands both anxious and serene. Skin was bared, along with souls, as talking was abandoned and touch became the only language spoken. It was sacred and profane all at once.

River gave Kaylee soft skin and her gentleness. Jayne gave the right pieces and parts and his strength, though he held back, restrained himself, tried to touch and caress the way he imagined a high-born man would. His body was not the same, but he gave it freely and Kaylee drew him in deeper each time he moved. She drove from her mind the hair on Jayne’s chest, the thickness of his arms, the huskiness of his voice. In her mind, in her soul, Kaylee blended the two kind friends who had brought her into their church. Now the skin against her back was flawless and pale and the lips and fingers that skated over her face and breasts were firmer and stronger. She had him, finally. It was like an epiphany. She was surrounded by Simon. Her heart thundered and her body shook with the joy. But thunder never lasts forever and her tears drizzled down like autumn rain as Simon left and River and Jayne returned.

Jayne rested his forehead against Kaylee’s soft hair. He hadn’t finished, but suddenly he felt no appetite for it as Kaylee cried softly.

“It’s not enough.” River said, her whisper like a down feather floating on her warm breath. “It’s not enough and it’s not right. Punished terribly. We’re paying penance for no crime when all we wanted was a chance.”

“I thought he liked me.” Kaylee was calmer now, sadly resolute and hopeless. “He was always smilin’ and being so nice. Why’d he act that way if he didn’t mean it?”

“I’m sorry for your bein’ put through this, Little Kaylee.” Jayne kissed her head. Her hurt was at least a severe as his, but by some nameless good graces, his pain was a secret, or it had been a secret. River had drawn it out of him by offering her sorrow in exchange for his. Now Kaylee was bleeding with them and there just seemed to be more heartache in the room than they could shoulder. “Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be so bad if maybe I’d just got to have him once.”

River propped herself up on an elbow as if she were startled from sleep and listening intently for the bump in the dark. Her eyes were shining with the swirling madness only possessed by true geniuses. “That’s what’s not fair. That we never had a chance, a try, a test to see if we could win him.” She smiled then as if no sadness had ever befallen her. “Jayne, that’s a wonderful idea.” River lay back down and cuddled a confused Kaylee to her like a cherished toy. Her idea swam around her brain and up and down her spine like little silver fish. “Sleep now. It’s easier to sleep knowing everything will be well. Tomorrow, we’ll set this all to rights. Everything fair. Everything just.” River was asleep a scant moment later, sleeping as deeply as she had in years. Jayne nor Kaylee knew what peculiar thoughts were scampering around in her, but she was a genius after all and she’d just conceived a genius plan. They settled in reluctantly and through exhaustion, physical and spiritual, slept.