There isn’t wasn’t much to Haven. A simple mining colony on a newly terraformed moon, orbiting LeHart, it has the most meager of basics. Mal can understand why Shepherd Book has chosen it to settle. There are good, hard working people here. Men, women and children living simple and free. The production of driesian ore is small, but steady, and the Alliance won’t bother sticking their noses in unless the export comes to a stand still.

Makes for an excellent layover point when Serenity needs to lay low for a spell. Just fly right into one of the old mines. Weren’t a machine yet that could see through that much rock.

This time around, they’re not laying low so much as waiting for Kaylee to make some repairs that she insists are long over due. After the last time he hadn’t listened to her about the engine, he’s not about to go taking chances.

Did them all some good, to get off that boat. People stay too long a spell in space, looking at the same eight faces morning, noon, and night; things start to get a bit hairy. He knew the crew had reached that point when Jayne started sharpening the same five knives over and over again; and Zoë was threatening to shoot Wash at the dinner table.

If that hadn’t been indication enough, River’s antics three nights ago would have clued him in.

He’d woken up in the morning to find a blanket with silk embroidery draped over him. Sleepily, he’d thrown it off and risen to get dressed, only to find starched white shirts and vests filling his trunk instead of his customary earth-tone cotton. Splashing, water on his face, he examined his room (or what had been his room when he went to sleep in it the night before) and found every last one of his possessions replaced with something of Simon’s.

With further investigation (via Jayne’s furious bellowing about fans and flowers and ruffles), he’d discovered River had gone though the ship while everyone slept and switched rooms. Simon’s stuff was now in Mal’s bunk, Kaylee’s things were exchanged with Jayne’s. The only people