"Zoe don't get lost," Wash said confidently. And he was, till Mal chipped in. Cause Mal said,

"Yeah, sure," in that distant, uninterested way of his that said he was thinking on trouble, and Zoe being late was the only trouble Wash could think of.

Mal didn't say anything else, just kept staring out the viewport, hands clasped behind his back, just thinking. Thinking. Thinking 'til Wash thought he might go crazy.

"Will you quit that?" Mal snapped suddenly, and Wash jumped. Geez, all he'd been doing was drumming with his fingers along the console.

"Just, you know," he explained, patting the controls, "stayin' in touch with Serenity Mal, that's all. Ever at the ready Mal, that's me."

Mal glared.

"Yep, soon as Zoe gets back I'm totally ready, we'll be up and off a' this planet before you can say 'hello, husband'. Well not that you'd say 'hello husband', but--"

"We ain't goin' no where 'till I say so, for starters, and I'm thinkin' maybe we'll pick up a little cargo. Cargo, Wash, remember? The reason we're on this ruttin' planet? To wait for cargo? That we can deliver? And get paid? Am I bein' clear? Cargo? Pick up? Get paid?"

"Geez, Mal. Cargo. Wait for it. I got it."

"Good."

"Not going anywhere without cargo. Or Zoe. We got cargo and no Zoe, I ain't goin' Mal, I don't--"

"Wash. Bì zuî."

That hurt his feelings some, but he didn't show it. Mal wanted him to shut up, he could shut up.

"Zoe don't get lost though Mal," he said.

"Maybe she does, maybe she don't. But she ain't in any trouble she can't handle, so just. Bì. Zuî."

Desperate, he picked up his stegosaurus with one hand and his TRex with the other.

Gee, Zoe sure is late, said Steggie. Silently.

Don't worry, Zoe doesn't get lost, said TRex, and Wash paused, because this was a little out of character.

Gee, Zoe sure is late, mimed Steggie again.

That's 'cause someone ate her, said TRex. Wash stared at T Rex, incredulous. Sishengzi, he thought and threw TRex across the room. Catching himself, he looked up at Mal from the corner of his eye, but Mal was clenching his teeth and back to staring out the viewport. He looked a little twitchy, but that was probably because Zoe was running late.

Gee, Zoe sure is late, Wash said to Steggie.

Don't worry, Zoe doesn't get lost, Steggie said confidently. That was better.

That's what I told Mal, he told Steggie. But does Mal listen to me? Nooooo. Like this one time, back on...

"Wash," Mal said.

He looked up immediately. "Zoe here?"

"Quit doin' that."

"What?"

"What ever you're doing with that..." he gestured at the stegosaurus. Pretty dismissively, Wash thought.

"You know Mal, my wife is missing--my wife!--missing on some yúchûn-ass rendezvous you sent her out on might I add, you could treat my stegosaurus and me with a little more... respect."

"Respect!?"

"Concern," Wash backtracked.

"Oh I'm concerned," Mal said. "My liúmáng pilot's having an imaginary conversation with some chun dòngwù imaginary friend!"

"Hey!" Wash objected, lifting Steggie into view. "Right here!"

"My nuòfu, liúmáng pilot's having an actual, rutting conversation with some chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo--"

"Language," River said over the comm.

Mal leaned over and pushed all the comm buttons at once.

"Simon, get your qin ài de sister off my goddamn comm!"

Wash looked at Mal warily in the sudden silence. Mal didn't look to good. If Wash didn't know him any better, he'd think Mal was getting pretty riled.

The comm clicked on again and Simon said, "Ah, right away Captain." But his voice sounded strangled and in the background Wash though he could make out Kaylee laughing, real quiet but hysterical, kinda... muffled? Like... by a pillow?

"Right now, Simon," Mal said sternly into the comm.

"Those crazy kids," Wash said, and chortled villainously, "Bwahahahahaaaah." If things progressed as they seemed Zoe was soon going to be owing him 20 I-told-you-so, you-should-trust-my-keen-and-killer-instincts, beautiful, wonderous, gloatworthy credits. To the victor go the spoils, he told the stegosaurus, but not out loud, because Mal seemed a little tetchy about the dinosaurs for whatever reason.

"Simon ain't a kid," Mal said, grumpily, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Yeah, sure," Wash said. That was an opinion of Mal's that changed according to the argument of the day, but Wash took the high road and virtuously refused to be drawn in.

Still resentful of the blatant, ongoing dinosaur discrimination, Wash got up and picked up the TRex, brushed it off and restored it to its rightful place in the dinosaur habitat. Then he met Mal's glare with a challenging glare of his own. Okay, not a glare. More of a dashing, eyebrow-raised inquisitive glance that he'd practiced in front of the mirror. Zoe claimed to like it. Mal, apparently not so much. 'Cause it seemed to provoke him from towering into more of a... looming type presence.

"Wash," he said.

"Zoe seem like she's running late to you, Mal?" Wash asked.

"You understand that all this... gôu pì... " he paused and together they waited for an interruption on the comm that never came. "...fèhuà is here by my sufferance?"

"I don't... see how any... suffering... is really involved," he protested, but unsteadily, cause Mal had increasingly loomed towards him, following him down into his chair.

"Oh," Mal said dangerously, his breath now on Wash's face, "I do."

"Hey boys," came the sound of Zoe's voice, as always as melodious and welcome as a chorus of heavenly angels, or the sound of clinking money, or--

Mal straightened up immediately, looking guilty not a whit.

"You're late," he said in his Sergeant-y voice. But Zoe didn't look concerned, she was looking over at Wash, all smiles and happiness.

"Sorry about that," she said easily. "I got a little lost."