“I hope you made arrangements.”

Simon looked up from his coffee, startled to see the captain glaring at him as though he’d sicced the Alliance on the ship or the man personally. “Shenme?”

“You know damn well what I’m talkin’ about.” Rough hands firmly grasped a shiny handle in a worn gunbelt.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s the best you can do? Make a little girl cry, cast her aside like some cheap whore, and all you’ve got is ‘oh’?!”

Simon blanched. “Captain, in no way do I consider Kaylee…” Before the young man could finish, Mal hastily grabbed him by the collar and began forcing him towards the cargo bay.

“I told you. I told you. You start this, things happen, and what did I say would happen?”

From memory, Simon replied, “Either make an honest woman of her or walk out the airlock.”

“And what happened?”

Swallowing hard, Simon forced the words out of his mouth. “Captain, how can I possibly marry her?”

“Real simple, top three percent—we get us a book of some kind, not real particular on which, an’ you stand with her in front of me an’ say the words ‘I do.’ Not hard at all.” The angry man was now shoving the young doctor in the general direction of the airlock, where the inside door was gaping open as if in wait.

“That’s…that’s…look, if you want to toss me out the airlock, fine, I’ll do it, but then what happens to Kaylee then?”

“Reckon she has that young’n and we raise him or her right,” the captian replied firmly. “Many’s the child who was raised by more’n one parent, of a sort.”

“That’s not my point,” Simon said. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Well, I’d get to the makin’ me understand real quick, lest I decide to shove off a mite early.” Mal was now glaring at the younger man, fully expecting an explanation.

“Captain, I…I have nothing to offer her.”

“I’d say the little one in her belly ain’t ‘nothin’,’ doctor.”

“Not…not that. Look at me.”

Mal looked. There in front of him stood the same Simon Tam as always did, looking tidy and sens