“How about Daniel?” Freya suggested, watching Mal as he poured them a coffee each before coming to sit next to her. “I always liked that name.” She inhaled deeply of the smell before sipping carefully. They’d picked up a bag of the real thing on Lilac, Mal buying it for Freya because she’d seemed so wistful over it.

He put his head on one side and regarded the rapidly growing baby inside her. “Don’t seem to me to be a Daniel.” He pursed his lips. “How about Emanual?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “If you can’t be serious …”

“I am being serious,” Mal insisted. “Knew a good man by that name once, and he saved my life. Wouldn’t mind remembering him that way.”

“If that’s going to be your reasoning, then I’d go with Matthias. He was the skipper on my first ship, taught me a lot.”

“The Lancaster?”

She nodded. “He was a good man, too.”

“Matthias Reynolds.” He rolled it around his tongue. “Not bad. Still like Emanual.”

“And he’d be called Manny, you know that,” she pointed out.

“Ah.” Mal nodded slowly. “Okay, maybe not.”

“Or what about Adam.”

Mal grimaced. “Nope. No way.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Too much … well, it smacks of religiosity.”

She smiled at him. “And Emanual doesn’t?”

“Look, I've already agreed that ain't the name to go with. Just be happy.”

Freya’s smiled turned to a grin and she sipped her drink again, sighing happily. “That is so good,” she said.

He drank himself and nodded. “Sure is. I could get used to having the good things in life.”

“I thought you did,” she teased. “Aren’t I a good thing?”

“The best,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her lightly. “Now, while you’re in a good mood, about this baby’s name …”

“What’s wrong with Jayne?” the big mercenary asked, clumping into the galley. “Kinda like the idea of a littl’un carrying on the tradition.”

Freya spoke quickly, seeing the look on Mal’s face that presaged a comment possibly ending in bloodshed, if not someone taking a long walk out of an open airlock.