The job had gone off without a hitch, which was a miracle in and of itself. Mal and Zoë had boarded the luxury liner bound for Ariel, disguised as newlyweds, and like one, two, and three, Mal, Zoë, and a medium sized ship’s safe were off the liner and back on Serenity.

There was cash in the safe, which the Bulger brothers had not bothered to mention, and there was the folder, a coin collection from Earth-That-Was. A very valuable coin collection, one which they were being paid very very well for delivering.

“Are we gonna tell them about the cash?” Jayne wanted to know.

“Yes, Jayne, we are gonna tell them about the cash. The Bulger brothers could be a right solid source of work for us in the future, and I am not going to screw that by getting greedy over some bonus cash.”

“But let’s at least keep some of it for ourselves, Mal. They’re never gonna know, who’s gonna trace cash?”

Mal’s frustration with Jayne came, more often than not, because the man was not nearly as stupid as everyone, Jayne included, thought he was. More often than not, Jayne was right, just right from a different perspective than Mal’s. Jayne’s rational was simple and direct, and in spite of himself, Mal had a fair passel of liking for Jayne’s sense of simple and direct.

But Mal was Captain of this boat, and whatever that counted for, he was going to have the last word.

He glanced at Zoë, who always got a nervous look when Mal and Jayne had words. The three of them were alone in the cargo bay, Kaylee was busy with whatever Kaylee spent her day doing to the engine, and the Doc and his sister were somewhere else. Even the Shepherd and Inara were off doing something (though probably not what the good Shepherd would like to be doing with her, Mal thought, hating himself instantly for the unkind thought).

“Jayne, how long has it been since we had a job?” The Captain was about to use logic on him, Jayne didn’t like that very much, and his only reliable answer to logic was his fists, and that wasn’t going to work on the Captain. Jayne