Mal never imagined he would’ve been so glad to return to Gang Kou, but they’d been away a long time and the Alliance had finally gone, taking their typical sweet time in sorting out the slave ship mess. They’d been waved two weeks ago by Jayne to say the coast was clear, and it couldn’t have come soon enough. River still piloted but always under the watchful eye of someone else, barely speaking a word to anyone and Mal was more than concerned she might flip out again. His collar bone was healing very slowly and still pained him some, one of the other reasons he was happy to be back. Some rest, just like the doctor kept ordering. Things were still very tense on ship or rather he was tense, and worried about River. The only time he’d been able to relax lately was when Serenity was grounded. Now it was winter, business was always slow and they had a place to wait it out.

As soon as the ramp went down Simon jumped off, keen to see how his other patient was doing. Glad for a change to be away from his sister, who was not the same since the Reaver attack. Mal had grounded her for a week after the event, and after that she had continued to pilot with no problems, but that was all she did. The rest of the time was spent in her bunk, ignoring everyone, including him. It had kept him awake on many nights. Simon hurried towards Jayne and Esper’s house. Waves on Esper’s condition were not good enough for him, especially as she was having twins. It was only his second delivery – having missed out on most of Marcus’ birth. He was not entirely sure he was ready to deliver twins, but he’d done enough research in the last few months to cover pretty much every eventuality. Although Simon knew Esper would be large, even he was not quite prepared for how huge she looked at seven months.

“I know!” she exclaimed, at his shocked expression. “I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this from Jayne any longer – he makes any more comments on how large I’m gettin’, he ain’t gonna see the day they’re born.” Simon hid a