It turns out that a man can't ever sit in the kitchen area without some man or another coming up to him to bother him about one thing or another. It ain't never a good bother either, not like you're gettin' a bag of coin or a free woman. It's always something irritatin' and complicated. I just wanted to eat my breakfast without bother. Well, truth be told I didn't wanna eat that junk, but it's what we had and I'd slept right through Kaylee cooking something. Not that what she woulda made would be much better since we're running on limited supplies, but that ain't the point. I had a bowl of protein mash, I had my spoon and a cup of Inara's tea which ain't bad when you put enough leaves in there. I was just sitting and stuffing my face and being mighty fine all by myself.

But it never stays that way. Soon as I was starting to really appreciate the quiet, in walks the captain with a look on his face I already don't like. He's got a lot of looks I don't much like. "You busy?" he asked me, standing there with his arms folded over his chest.

"Yeah," I told him, through a mouthful of food. Don't matter what I told him, he's gonna talk if he needs to and I knew he needed to right now.

And sure enough, he just started in on it, didn't even miss a beat. "What's going on with you and the doc and his sister?"

I swallowed my mash, and grimmaced, cuz it's strong awful stuff. "Nothin' going on," I told him. "Doc asked me for assistance, I said I'd do it. Ain't much more'n that to say."

The captain sighed, and ground his teeth. "You know they been on this ship... better part of a year now. River's almost all grown up now. She's gonna be eighteen in about... eight, nine weeks I think?"

"Hmm."

"She's turning out to be a fine looking girl, I suppose."

It took a while to get what he was gettin' at, because none of it made sense to me why he was going on about River and her age and what a whatever kinda girl she was growing up to be. He sounded like her papa, which was weird, until the way he kept staring at me and and the phrase 'fine looking girl' hit my brain and I understood what he were going on about.

"Mal, you can't be serious."

He grabbed the chair with his foot and dragged it closer, planting himself in it. "I know you get stupid around money and women," he said plain like. "And since I can't imagine the good doctor's giving you much in the way of pay, I gotta wonder if it's that other bit of stupid that's got your interest here."

Scoffing and sneering, I couldn't even get across how stupid what the captain was saying really was. But it was sure as hell stupid, I can tell you that. As stupid as a pig on stilts, as my mama used to say. "Listen, I ain't got no interest in some baby moon brained little crazy, so you can just dump that go se outta your head."

"So it's money then? You planning on selling them out again, because I gotta tell you that I'm finding the both of 'em a mighty lot more useful these days, and you ain't gonna get a slap on the wrist like you did last time-"

"Slap on the wrist? It were a wrench to my gorrham head! And it ain't about no damn money, on the likely that there ain't none to be had anyway."

"So what's it about then?" He was looking at me all determined like, in that way that he does. Mal's got a way of knowing things without saying that he knows 'em, and you don't get to know he knows until he's staring you in the face like he was doing with me right now. Sometimes it made me kinda nervous, not that I'd tell him that, but this time it didn't. This time I didn't have nothing to hide from him, or nothing to confess to.

"It ain't about nothing," I grunted, spooning another mouthful of protein mash into my mouth. "You ever think maybe I'm just doin' it for the good of my fellow crew?" Course he hadn't thought of that, and that look he gave me said as much. It also said he wasn't gonna swallow that load. I guess I couldn't blame him much on that. Dropping my spoon, I looked at him right square in the eye. I was getting sick of talking about it already. "I'm not interested in some looney girl near half my age. Crazy girl tried to kill me, you remember that? She took a knife at me, sliced up my chest like I'm a gorrham turkey! I ain't forgot about that, did you?" Grabbing up my shirt, I went to show him the scar that was still there, damn near almost long as my forearm running clear cross my chest like a Miss Dairy sash. "It still itches sometimes!"

Captain put his hand over his eyes a sec, either to not get reminded about my very manly scar, or cuz he was gettin some headache from all his damn thinking that he always does. Letting my shirt down I picked up the spoon again and got back to my food, letting his brain make itself sick with overthinking. When he talked again he didn't sound sick though, even if his voice got quiet. "Then what's it about?"

Tapping my thumb on the tabletop, I thought a moment what it was about. I'm not a real big thinker, I'm a lot better spur of the moment, see. But the captain's always thinking, and asking, and planning and watching and observing. He's like a hunter, except he talks too damn much for it. He'd scare away the deer and boar and all them just from talking so damn much. Thing is that sometimes, I dunno why I do what I done. It just springs into my head, right then, usually a Yes or a No. And when the doc came round and asked me to do this thing with him and his sister, I said yes. Because my brain said yes, and it was kinda that simple. I did a quick think about the pros and cons, and decided that Yes was the better answer for it. But now the captain was sittin' there and asking for a reason why, and he had that look that said he wasn't gonna just drop this anytime soon till he got something from me, so I had to sit there and think. Truth is, I'm pretty sure that I knew why I had said yes to doing this, but I didn't want to admit to myself even what that reason was.

"Look," I said finally, busying myself with stirring up that mash, "crazy girl done us all a service by... doin' what she done with them Reavers. I ain't forgot about that. I sure as hell ain't gonna thank her for it none... but I ain't gonna not thank her for it either. Cuz she still cut me," I reminded him. He didn't say anything for a bit, just kept looking at me. Looking and talking and thinking, that's the captain. Gorrham owl, that's what he is. So I just kept eatin, cuz if he wasn't gonna talk then I wasn't gonna listen.

Finally he smiled a bit, which was good cuz I was wondering if he were mad or something and I was gonna take another wrench to the head or something. "Okay," he said plainly, getting up to his feet. "You know sometimes you surprise me, Jayne. Not often, but sometimes."

"Yeah?" I didn't know if that were a good thing or a bad one. "Is that a good thing or not?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Can I get a bigger cut on jobs now?"

"No," he called back over his shoulder, since he was already walking away from the eating area.

"But I thought you liked interestin' people!" I yelled at him. I knew he wasn't gonna say yes, but I figured I'd ask anyway. "You take an interest in someone, you give 'em all sorts of stuff. I had to damn near shoot you just to get on the boat!"

He stopped at the door right before the bunks, looking back at me. He was trying not to laugh, which was good in this instance. Usually when he's laughing it's a good day. "You're going from 'interesting' to 'annoying' now."

"You give too much to annoying people too," I pointed out. I felt pretty clever because the doc and his sister were both damn annoying and kinda interesting, and the captain seemed to have taken a shine to them both. He didn't say nothing to that, just walked away and went into his bunk and ignored me. "Damn sure saved your life more'n that ruttin' doctor," I mumbled to myself. It woulda been nice for once to have someone take my side, say 'Hey Jayne, good job ya done. Class act all around.' instead of assuming I got some ulterior motive for myself. Or worse, that I got some creepy interest in an even creepier moonbrain girl. "Erzi de húndàn báichī," I mumbled, stabbing my spoon into the bowl.