Bane lay on her back, sweaty and sated but wide awake, looking at the ceiling. Karl’s bunk was pretty much the same as hers, except tidier. The trouble was with her, the more things she had to do, the messier her quarters got. The downside of being in his bunk was that when he was asleep and she awake there was nothing she could do but lie there. If she was in her own place then she could start cutting wires to the right length for the new batch of grenades. It was no good doing any stripping in her bunk as it was a messy job, and after the first time she tried it, she did not want to break her neck. If River or Mal was doing the flying today she could make a start on that in the cargo bay soon as morning came.

“You wanna think a little quieter?” murmured Karl. Bane turned her head to him and saw that he had opened an eye. She smiled ruefully.

“Sorry. Can’t sleep.”

“Don’t make me get Jayne’s guitar,” he yawned. Bane chuckled, her thoughts naturally switching to Jayne and Esper.

“You know Zoe told me that Jayne used to interrupt us on purpose, afore we got to Whittier.” Karl breathed in deeply. He should not have spoken as Bane had taken his words as a sign he was awake. Which he was not, yet.

“Mmmm,” he responded.

“Reckon it’s payback time.” Karl came further awake.

“Leave him be,” he said. Bane propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him, unable to resist touching him as well.

“Why exactly should I do that?” a level tone to her voice to indicate that she was not happy at being instructed to do something by someone other than the Captain or Zoe. Karl was not blind to it, even half-asleep, but it did not phase him. He blinked, sighed again and rubbed both eyes.

“Because this thing he’s got with Esper, it’s new to him. I saw him in the church. If he doesn’t already, I reckon he’s halfway to loving her, though it’d prob’ly take a pile of torture to get him to admit it.”

“But he’s only known her for five minutes,” argued Bane, running a finger down his torso, distracted.

“Lo