Serenity touched down on Phoros just as the clock in the old church chimed two am.

“Okay, people,” Mal said into the ship-wide com. “Since we can’t go knocking on good folks’ doors at this time of night, you’d all better try and get some sleep. And that means little girls too.” He smiled and turned the com off.

Hank yawned ostentatiously. “So I can get to my bed?”

“You a little girl?”

“Sometimes I feel like it.” He scratched his head, making his untidy brown hair stand up even more. “All feminine and flouncy.”

“I think you’d better keep that feeling to yourself.”

“What, you don’t want to come and tuck me in?” Hank got up from his pilot’s chair, a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Tell me a bedtime story and kiss me goodnight?”

“Not if my life depended on it.”

“It might do, one day.”

“Well, one day ain't now. Go on, go to bed. And tell Zoe she needs to tell you a story.”

Hank grinned. “And I know just the one. All heaving bosoms and torn bodices –“

“Go!”

The pilot bowed low. “Your wish is my command,” he said, standing up straight and scurrying off the bridge before Mal could hit him.

Freya moved to one side to let him pass, then leaned on the doorway. “So which little girls did you mean?” she asked.

He turned and smiled at her. “Maybe you.”

“And there I was thinking you meant Bethie.”

“That little girl saw her grandma only a short while ago,” Mal pointed out, holding out his arm. “Yet she’s all anxious again.”

Freya crossed the small space and leaned against him. “That doesn’t matter. She didn’t get the full visit you promised.”

“And she won’t this time. We’re here so Kaylee can be with her Ma, but it ain't gonna be above a day or two. We got places to go, people to see.”

“Children to leave …” Her voice turned wistful.

“You regretting agreeing?” he asked, looking down into her face.

“No. No, you’re right. Better we know they’re safe than worry about what might happen to them.”

“I conjure that won’t stop you.”

“Nor you.”