She didn't mean to turn the scarf into a rag, honestly, but when the engines are shuddering and there's oil leaking across the floor and Serenity is like to fall out of the sky, there's no time for thinking. It's all the captain's fault, anyway. He told them to find a room, and they did. It just happened to be the engine room, and the scarf got left behind when she was trying to find her clothes.
Simon has thankfully learned enough tact to keep quiet while she turns the oily material over in her hands. 'I'm sorry,' she says. 'I tried washing it, but engine grease never comes out.' The square of thin material has survived blood, sweat, tears, and several memorable occasions as a blindfold, but not this.
'Well, it lasted two years. That's old, for a scarf, and now it gets to live in the engine room with you, which makes me mighty jealous.' She can't help but smile as the thought of Simon being jealous of a scarf sinks in. ''Sides, we can always find another one.'
That makes her excited. 'Really?'
'Definitely.'
'Same colours as before?'
'Whatever colours you want.'
'Maybe green, this time,' she says thoughtfully, 'or purple.'
'With stripes.'
'Or flowers.'
'Or little spaceships.'
They look at each other and laugh, happy that this is not the end, and go back to cleaning the engine room, both thinking of the future full of scarves that awaits them.