Wasn't the first man she'd ever mesmerized, he knew. Wouldn't be the last, either. As the glinting ice fog dissipated, his brain had to stop and register her, her sable hair and her peaceful features. She was curled into the cushions, lit up softly and looking like a new day under the night sky, and still, so ominously still.

More than her beauty, her perfection, it was the sacred life of her that captivated him, that shone from her golden skin, was in the rare honest smiles for him under her companion airs, in the flash of her endless eyes that spoke of a forever he could never have. Untouched by the pain and darkness in him but understanding and unafraid, calling to something that stirred in him, underneath all the wrong, something sweet, longing, hopeless, and which felt right .

And then she breathed. And the ache that didn't exist unless he was alone in her shuttle and it was tearing him apart, that feeling he couldn't, wouldn't name, the truth was on his face, in the tenderness of his hands as he covered her.

She looked so vulnerable. He needed to hold her, press her to his heart, to that hole that only she could fill, and feel her own heartbeat answer. She seemed to breathe him in, then shifted against him with a sigh, like she was trying to nestle more snugly against him, into the warmth he offered after the cold.

Someone snorted a laugh. His eyes snapped open and he was inwardly embarrassed that they'd gone and closed. "Jayne, I am two seconds from being armed."

"Oh, don't mind us, Cap'n," Kaylee piped up encouragingly, a big grin in her voice. "Take aaall the time ya need." Gorramn crew! Even Zoë was trying to hide a smile in spite of herself. He was giving them all septic-vat duty when they got back to the ship.

"Actually," the doctor intervened, sounding a little too amused as well, "I need to administer a series of injections to prevent cryogenic shock." The boy cleared his throat. "