Disclaimer: Joss created Firefly and Fox owns it. I just play with it a little then put it back. No infringement intended.

Author's note: The lyrics in this and later stories are all from Matthew Ryan, but the title is Sister Hazel's.

We were two of a kind, but you were the pretty one

You put your heart in mine, and now it's all I ever want

He was doing this all wrong.

Should be winin' and dinin' her under the stars on some terrace somewhere, with fancy food like Inara's dates eat. Should be sitting at the opera, trying not to fall asleep by counting hats in the audience.

Should be trying to get her to fall in love with him, leave that raggedy old husband of hers for his youthful and roguish self, working the space pirate angle, certainly more exciting than some muck who sits in an office all day, even if the muck can afford to put diamonds on her fingers.

Instead, she's on her back, and he's standing over her, his hands full of white satin and lace.

"Hold up the train," she called out, voice muffled from the wrench she had clutched in her teeth. "Aloysius will kill me if this dress gets dirty. He's always telling me slaves ain't got — sorry, don’t have — all day to be making my clothes, you know. He has a company to run."

Makin' matters worse, Wash stood in the doorway, lookin' at him with a raised eyebrow that accuses him of being several kinds of bastards all at once. He flushed.

"What?" Mal hissed. "She wanted to … We got to talkin' and I mentioned our little problem and … apparently she grew up knowing how to … gorram it, Wash, stop lookin' at me like that."

Which only made the eyebrow go up higher.

"There!" she said, pulling herself out from under Serenity's engine. She stood up and brushed dust off her gown, and took back the fabric from Mal's hands. "Thanks for holding that for me." Then, noticing Wash, "Who are you?"

Wash's eyebrow was now in danger of disappearing under his hair. "I was about to ask you the same thing, young lady."

She smiled and held out h