“I'm getting pretty pissed off at being looked at like I'm lower’n a boil on someone’s backside,” Jayne grumbled, staring back at the man across the bar. “And it’s too gorram early to be pissing me off.” He intensified the wattage of his glare, not blinking, and the man turned away, thoroughly intimidated.

“You put people off much more, ‘n’ they ain’t gonna want to talk to us at all.” Mal took a sip of what he’d been assured was a mug of coffee, but his tastebuds refused to believe it. Even Jayne’s brew was better than … well, maybe not.

“It ain’t like they’re saying much, anyways,” the big man groused.

Mal had caught up with Jayne after leaving the clinic and ascertaining, via a Cortex booth, that Judge Temple wasn't going to be available until after lunch. Rather than head back empty-handed, without the warrant to go through the clinic’s database, he’d decided to use the time wisely and infect as many of the good citizens of Newhall with measles as was humanly possible, Well, at least see what he could get them to tell him.

He’d found Jayne almost immediately, sitting morosely at a table in a bar that, even at this time of the morning, was doing a bustling trade. Kuerk was right – booze and church, and probably the same folk doing both. An untouched bottle of beer sat in front of the ex-mercenary.

Falling into the seat opposite, Mal had ordered a coffee and tried to find out what was eating his gunhand this time. “Is it River?”

“Bit,” Jayne admitted. “She ain’t well, Mal. And she’s just a slip of a woman, and it’s taking maybe more out of her than she can afford to lose.”

“This time tomorrow she’ll be feeling better.”

“Yeah, I know that’s what Simon says, but –“

“No. It’s what I say. I'm promising, Jayne.”

“Yeah, but –“ He brought himself up short. “I know it’s your wife and kids too. I get that. But I ain’t had to worry about no-one like this for a long time. Not sure I can do it.”

Mal chuckled. “Of course you can. It’s called growing up.”

“