Follow-up to "Waiting to Hear."

The meal was filled with a palpable silence that seemed to hold each crew member's gaze on his or her own plate. Even Jayne scraped his fork against the dish in an attempt to fill the space where conversations usually went.

Inara pushed the food around her plate, still feeling slightly nauseous and disappointed. She thought Simon had explained to everyone that she had been feeling ill, but that couldn't explain away the discomfort of the table. She avoided looking at Mal; she felt he might know what was going through her mind. It made no sense, the man was dense more often than not, and yet...she thought she would give away all her secrets if she looked at him.

Next to her, Zoë carefully did not watch Mal avoid looking at his crew. She shook her head slowly when Kaylee looked as though she were about to say something and saw the gentleness with which Simon patted the mechanic's hand. Kaylee looked from Simon to Zoë in confusion, but relented silently. Whatever was going on, it would come to pass in its own time. But Zoë really hoped it would come to pass soon. She wasn't sure she could take another meal like this.

River reached for the biscuit on Zoë's plate, knowing she would get her hand rapped by the woman's fork. It was just something to distract the first mate from her concerns...and to test her own response time. The fork just missed her fingernail...Zoë's sly smile was worth it. River turned her focus back to an interesting mathematical quandry she had developed earlier that morning and waited for the residing cloud of depression to lift. She knew, of course, what was going on and she knew more than most at the table, but it was up to them to solve it. It was always up to them to solve these little problems. She had bigger problems on which she could focus. Just to prove she could, though, she took Zoë's biscuit.

Jayne watched Zoë return the biscuit to her own plate and shook his head. That little girl was getting too cocky for her own good. Sh