“What’re you doing?” Mal stood in the doorway to the bridge, a half-smile on his lips as he contemplated the young psychic pressed up against the window. Ever since Miranda, he’d kept a close eye on her, unable to forget the image of her standing outside the blast doors, two blades in her tiny hands dripping with Reaver blood and gore. She was too young, too frail, too … everything for that kind of experience.

“Made for it,” she whispered, but didn’t move.

“No, you weren’t.” The half-smile extended a little, but not much. Wash and Book dying like they did, he’d found very little to smile about since, although there was light at the end of the tunnel. Unless it was an oncoming train. “So, what are you doing?”

“Counting.”

“Stars, or is there something out there I ain’t privy to?”

“Stars,” she confirmed, not looking around, her fingers tapping on the thick glass.

He crossed the bridge to sit in the pilot’s seat, suppressing almost entirely the physical desire to shudder. Another gorram picture he couldn’t get out of his head, and this one turned up in his nightmares too. Wash, impaled into this very chair, reaching out with bloodied hands to ask why … He swallowed, pushing it away. “Ain't you supposed to be on watch?”

“I am. And I can see perfectly well from here.”

Running an experienced eye over the board, he noted that, apart from the buffer panel light, everything looked normal. “And what if something did go wrong?”

“I’d know. Now shush. You’ll make me lose count.”

He waited half a minute, but her finger-tapping didn’t stop. “So how many are there?” he asked eventually.

“Shh.”

“River –“

“Shh!”

“I’ll remind you I'm Captain, and I don’t get shushed. Not twice, anyhow.” He could see her breath steaming up the cold glass. “And you’ll get frostbite.”

“No frost in space.”

“Then the black’ll come and bite you in that pretty little ass instead.”

For a moment the tapping paused. “You think my ass is pretty?”

He backpedalled hurriedly. “Didn’t mean