After the first hour Inara knew she was never going to get her fingernails clean ever again. The manicure Sam had given her – another of his many talents that he’d apparently learned from his late wife – had long been ruined, and the skin on her hands had roughened up, but that wasn’t everything. Bits of rust had found their way into places they had no right to be, and she knew black marks were rubbed into her face and arms. By the time Kaylee said she was done, and the panel popped back on, she was sure the girls she’d taught at House Madrassa would never have recognised this grease monkey.

Kaylee caught her staring at her cuticles. “Don’t you worry none about that,” she said. “I’ve got something that’ll take that crud right off.”

“Maybe I should have worn gloves,” Inara considered.

“Could, but you can’t get a feel of things. And sometimes that’s all she needs, just a hand touching her.” Kaylee suited the word to the deed and stroked the engine housing.

“So who’s going to be doing this when you can’t get to anything at all?”

“Frey. And River. Bethie’s gonna help, tell ‘em where she’s hurting, and they’ll fix it. A’course, I made ‘em promise not to swear in front of her, but somehow I ain’t holding out much hope.”

“Kaylee, I think Bethie probably knows a fair amount of curse words by now.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing. It ain’t. She’s a little girl, and she shouldn’t be increasing that vocabulary.”

“Then I'm sure her two aunts will do their best.” She nudged Kaylee. “Maybe they’ll just think it instead.”

“That won’t help.”

Inara had to smile. “Three Readers, all in the same room, working on the same thing. I doubt that’s happened much anywhere else.”

Kaylee didn’t smile. “Yeah. ‘Cept I think maybe it did.”

“What is it?” Inara put her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders.

“Just something River talked about. After all that business on Hera. Don’t know if she knew I was listening, or didn’t care, but she was talking to the Cap. About others, li