“It’s time ta sleep now,” Jayne coerced, standing next to his daughter’s bed. “No more questions ‘til tomorrow.” Kaylee had prepared Serenity’s fourth passenger room for little Janie shortly after supper, and Jayne, himself, felt a lot more tired than Janie was acting.

Mal had decided not to put off leaving Janie with Jayne’s mother and brother, opting instead to see if they could find work in that quadrant. Why he was in such a hurry to rid the ship of the little girl was no mystery; with the kind of trouble the crew tended to get in on a regular basis, it just wasn’t safe.

“I’m not tired,” Janie protested. “I wanna play with Kaylee some more.” During the meal, the child had become a bit familiar with the rest of the crew. The doc’s crazy sister was ‘funny’, Kaylee was ‘nice’, and Inara was ‘pretty’, although the work of a Companion never had been explained to her. Jayne doubted she could have grasped the concept, anyway, being only four years old.

“You can play with Kaylee tomorrow,” Jayne told her. “Kaylee’s tired, jus’ like the rest of us.” *Gorrammit, I don’t know how I’m s’posed to deal with kids...*

“Then tell me a story,” Janie ordered.

Jayne growled. “Girl, I don’t know no stories.”

“Sure ya do,” Janie insisted. “Momma told me ya were a pirate, an’ pirates gotsta have *tons* of stories.”

Jayne had to smile at that. “I ain’t *‘zactly* a pirate, Kid, but I’ll tell ya a story if ya promise to quit yer yappin’ an’ go to sleep.”

Janie nodded her head happily, grinning from ear to ear. “Promise, Papa..”

Jayne cringed involuntarily. He still wasn’t used to hearing himself called that. “Okay. Well, let’s see...” He sat down on the only chair in the room and leaned back. “Here’s one for ya. So we was transportin’ this herd of cows to a li’l world name o’ Jiangyin. Turned out the buyers were wanted by the local marshals, an’ there was a firefight with us caught in the middle.” His hands became more animated as he was absorbed into his manipulated version of the telling.

“Had a preacher with us