He’d known that something was going on. Kaylee had been building something in the engine room. Simon and Eve had been spending a lot of time in the infirmary messing about with nasty smelling chemicals. And Jayne had shown a marked tendency to show up and try and distract him anytime he was around the engine room or the infirmary.

He didn’t like being kept in the dark, this was his goram boat! He was the Captain, and no one ever told him anything!

He’d been tempted to lock Simon and Eve in the hold for a month when they’d pulled that “nothing” business! And then they’d had the gall to giggle at him! Though he had to admit he’d been shocked to hear the sound from Simon, he’d always thought the boy too much of a stuffed shirt to giggle.

Now sitting here staring at a pile of credits, three thousand credits! He no longer felt quite so annoyed, it still bugged him; he was the Captain they should have told him!

But he couldn’t really generate much heat, especially when he thought of the looks on their faces when they’d given him the money. Pride, and something else, something he couldn’t explain, something he couldn’t put into words. But he remembered feeling it himself, remembered the pride and joy and simple satisfaction when he’d done something for his Ma that she hadn’t expected, something that she’d needed but would never have asked him for.

It scared him a little, to know that they felt that way about him. Worried him.

But mostly he felt grateful.

Even Jayne had worn the same expression, and that was down-right frightening in some ways, the man was nearly the same age as he was!

But mostly he could only feel gratitude.

Three thousand credits.

They’d made whiskey from the apples Eve grew, forged an Alliance tax seal and sold the liquor. It annoyed him that they had done so without telling him, they could have gotten them pinched if they got caught. But Simon and Eve had an answer for that. They’d given him two different glasses of whiskey to taste and he was supposed t