Now …

“I’m cold.”

“So’m I.”

“I’m so cold I can’t feel my toes.”

“So? You only got one foot to not have any feeling in – I got two.”

Hank half-turned in the seat and stared at Jayne. “What?”

“Just saying. I got two feet to freeze and all my toes to fall off. What’re you complaining about?”

Hank opened his mouth to respond, but decided that, while killing his companion and using his body as an improvised shelter might be appealing, River would probably have something to say about it. Instead he hunkered deeper into his coat and wished he’d taken Freya up on the offer of her thermal underwear.

...

..

Then …

It had been fine when they started off, cold but clear, the sun having risen and thrown long shadows across the prairie.

“Closest town’s Fairmont,” Mal had said, his arms crossed to keep out the chill with the cargo bay doors open. “Can’t park any closer or they’ll pick us up, and from past experience they’ll demand Port fees, ground rental and my first born son, so I ain’t giving ‘em the chance.”

“Isn’t there anywhere else?” Hank asked, pushing his arms into his coat. “More hospitable?”

“You saw the maps. It’s Christmas Eve, there’s no planet or moon within a coupla days burn, so this is the only chance of snow tomorrow.” He shook his head. “I knew I was making a rod for my own back by starting this.”

Hank hid a smile. His captain might like pretending he was all Bah Humbug, but since Bethie was a babe in arms he’d managed to find somewhere for them to put down and have a proper Christmas.

“What about Cawston?” Jayne suggested as he settled the gunbelt around his waist. “It ain’t that much further in the opposite direction, and they’re a lot more hospitable.”

“There’s a quarantine on them,” Hank put in. “Some bug or other running riot through the town.”

“Bug?” The big man hated getting sick.

The pilot shuddered theatrically. “Horrible, from what I could find on the Cortex. Headache, fever, projectile vomiting … I think I read som