“Hi, ai ren .” Mal smiled, then winced inwardly at her look.

“Mal.” Freya’s gaze ran across the other prisoners, at Jayne’s swollen and bruising eye, Simon’s bleeding ear …

“Where’s Riv?” Jayne asked.

“She said she didn’t need to come.” She raised an eyebrow at the big man. “Apparently because she’s married to you that makes her family-in-waiting to Jolene, so she had to stay. Something about it being traditional. She also said she’d be having words with you tomorrow.”

The emphasis on that one particular word told him all he needed to know. “Oh. Right.”

Several of the men in the other cell snickered, but they stopped as she glanced at them.

“And Jolene?” This was Matty, standing up behind Mal.

“Kaylee?” Simon added.

“We didn’t all need to be trooping down here.” She looked back at Mal, seeing his shirt darker over his shoulder, the fabric sticking to him. “And what happened? Exactly?”

“It was my fault,” Hank put in before Jayne shushed him loudly.

“You never admit to anything, don’t you know that?” He sounded almost disgusted at the pilot’s ignorance. “It’s always down to the other feller.”

“I only meant in as much as I came to a lady’s aid.”

One of the other prisoners spoke, his voice nothing more than a smear. “Wasn’t no lady. Just a whore.” He cradled his injured hand, wrapped in a blue and white bandana that was stained red.

The look Freya threw him shut him up, making him squirm uncomfortably.

She turned back to her own crew. “So you were just being a gentleman?”

“Exactly that,” Hank confirmed.

“And it meant all of you got locked up.”

“Seems to be, xin gan .” Mal leaned on the bars, his forehead resting on his arm. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to get into trouble?” she asked, a flash of what she was truly feeling colouring her face. “A quiet drink. That’s all it was supposed to be.”

“Frey –”

“Are you congenitally incapable of going out to a bar without getting into a brawl?