She guessed the pilot was drunk before she’d reached the galley. He told her that one, strange day he’d serenaded her on Asteron’s moon that he only sang when he was drunk, and he’d proved it the few times she’d seen him three-sheets out. Still, he had a deep, rich tenor voice, and it made her push down the quavery, butterfly feeling that secretly lusted after those serenades. He probably wouldn’t do it though – she’d decked him on Asteron after all. So maybe she had overreacted, but his singing scared her, and she didn’t like being scared so she hit him. That damn pilot coddled his black eye for weeks and grinned at her every chance he had. And that just made her madder. The man shouldn’t moon over her like that. Didn’t make sense.

But despite the rippling, hidden feelings in her bones over his velvet voice, she had to quiet him now. Standard time was near midnight and his mournful, sad song was what woke her. It was getting louder and soon it’d be enough to wake Kaylee and the cap’n, if he kept at it. So instead she grabbed her robe and drifted down to make sure he kept all his singing privately done.

A smile ghosted her lips when she slid back the galley doors. Instead of stopping when he saw her, he held his arms wide and belted out a new serenade:

“If o-o-only in my dre-e-ams…”

She stuffed down a giggle. “You know you’re gonna wake the dead with all that singin’, pilot,” she said, approaching him. He was grinning like a loon, and she shook her head at the jug on the table – Kaylee’s homemade brew. Gorram lethal, on some planets.

She went to the cabinets, grabbed a cup, and joined him. “Or worse, you’ll wake the Cap’n.”

Wash snorted drunkenly and gulped whatever remained in his mug. “Zoë, Zoë. I ain’t worried, y’know. Know why I ain’t worried?”

“Nope. Why ain’t you worried?”

“’Cause there’s a beautiful girl in the galley, tomorrow’s Christmas Eve and there’s not a humpin’ gorram thing I can do about it. That’s why.”

Zoë did a double take, noticing something she hadn’