Mal sat down in the chair with a thump, having just been relieved of pack-mule duty hauling all the various bags and boxes up to the shuttle that Inara, Kaylee and River had brought back.

At that moment, Simon wandered into the mess, got one look at the shell-shocked expression on Mal’s face and took pity on him, remembering his own experience with that uniquely female ritual known as pre-nuptial shopping.

“Let me guess, Captain. The womenfolk just returned from yet another successful shopping hunt.”

Mal groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I’m only marrying one woman. How much frippery does she need that she don’t already have?”

Simon poured coffee for each of them. “About as much as Kaylee did before our wedding.”

At that moment, Jayne came in to get his own coffee, having enjoyed immensely the fact that it was Mal rather than him that got stuck hauling and porting. “Hey, Mal, you should get married more often. Kinda nice that somebody not me gets to do the gruntwork around here for once.’

Mal lifted his head up from where he’d buried it in his arms on the table. “I’ll remind you of that when your day to stand in front of the preacher arrives.”

Jayne guffawed. “Hell, no. Ain’t a gal alive could hogtie me!”

Simon muttered under his breath, “A fact which, no doubt, all the gals of the ‘verse are grateful for…”

Jayne continued, unabated. “Hey, yanno what we need t’do? We need to have us another stag party. Like we did for the doc here, ‘fore he got hitched.”

“Jayne, I don’t think…”

“Hell, Mal, it’ll be a blast! I downloaded some blue vids off the Cortex and everything. ‘sides, we gotta top the doc’s stag party.”

Something of the unholy gleam in Simon’s eye made Mal’s blood chill.

“Absolutely, Jayne. We need to send the Captain off to matrimonial bliss in style. Just like you did for me.”

Mal held up his hands in protest. “Hey now, I talked Jayne out of gettin’ ya that tattoo after ya passed out.”

“True, but as I recall, you did instigate painting the smiley-faces