A string of mandarin running through his head, Jayne climbed out of his bunk. He hated not being able to sleep. The decking in the corridor was cold beneath his feet, waking him up even more.

"Wa Cao!"

He stood there for a moment, contemplating going back down to get his boots. He glanced into the bridge where the control panels cast a warm glow on the empty pilot's chair. *Wash's chair.* He wondered how long it would take to stop thinking of it that way. Wasn't like it was even the same one. They'd gotten rid of Wash's chair on account of the giant bloody hole.

It was a shame though, the man shouldn't have died like that. But still, with Reavers involved. Jayne shuddered. It coulda been so much worse. So much worse for all of them.

Floating up on the heels of that thought was the image of a slip of a girl, in a slip of a dress, holding weapons dripping with blood. Back in the hallway, the rest of them were all cut up and shot to hell. But there she was, standing alone, breathing heavy but not out of breath, surrounded by at least a dozen dead Reavers. With barely even a scratch on her.

He shook his head and rubbed his stomach, the latter too empty and the former way too full. No wonder he couldn't sleep. Some food and a big ol' helping of Kaylee and Serenity's freshest should cure both problems. His boots forgotten, he turned away from the stars outside and walked towards the kitchen.

He stopped at the doorway seeing River stretched out on her back on the far side of the table, her feet pointing toward the engine room. The palms of her hands were pressed to her eyes. For all he could tell she may have been laying there for hours.

As he stepped through the doorway she moaned. Not sure if it was just his own filthy mind making it sound all needy and breathless like that, he stopped on the top step his eyes fixed on her. Her right hand started to slide down the length of her body. He tilted his head to one side, eyes wide. She pulled her left foot up onto the table so t