Mal moved towards the new arrival quickly, looking stern and a bit confused. “Excuse me, miss,” he said. “How exactly--,”

“You left the main hatch open,” Krys interrupted him. This pulled Mal up short for a moment, and as he hesitated, she leaned around him to see River.

“Hey there, Riv,” she said shyly. Seeming oblivious to the tension in the room, River beamed and waved happily. Then, after a pause and a moment to ready herself, she turned once more to the dark haired man still staring at her.

“Hello, Simon.” She seemed nervous now, as if wondering if it had been a lapse of judgment to board the ship.

Hearing himself be addressed seemed to bring Simon around. “Krys,” he acknowledged, inclining his head in her direction.

“So what’s the best part, then?” Jayne asked with his usual overabundance of tact.

When Simon remained silent, River added to the story for the first time. “Simon and Krys were to be married.”

“It was arranged, of course,” Krys added. “We’ve been engaged for, what? Twenty years now?”

“Eighteen,” Simon corrected at the same time that Kaylee exclaimed, “Engaged?”

“I… no!” Simon immediately began backtracking as Kaylee rose from her seat. Krys looked on curiously as everyone else either shook their heads or rolled their eyes. River’s smile finally began to fade as she looked from her brother to Kaylee.

“Not anymore,” Simon finally managed to force out a legible statement. “Of course not, Kaylee. I… I wouldn’t…” He looked to Krys for help.

“Obviously, we’ve called it off,” she supplied smoothly after a moments hesitation. “It would appear that neither of us are under our parents’ rule anymore, so there isn’t any reason.” There was a catch at the end of her statement, but it appeared to go unnoticed. Only Inara caught anything off, but she remained impassive.

Kaylee’s expression was no longer hostile, but she still seemed upset. “I’ll be in my bunk, Cap’n,” she said to Mal before retreating down the hall. The silence lay thick after her departure, but only for a moment. Mal was the