Kaylee brought River back to Serenity to find the captain looking like a cross-eyed cricket. He was cranky for her not telling him where she went and why, even though Simon and Wash and Book knew. And then things were worse when he saw River—like Kaylee thought, she had snuck out, and nobody knew that she had gone planetside. But what did Mal expect from her?

Kaylee tucked the schematics behind a box and showed him the fruit she had earned, but that didn’t seem to help much. River was acting odd too, she didn’t seem to want to stay on the ship and wasn’t paying attention to people when they talked to her.

But there was good news. Inara had waved back, she had already found Annelore’s friend and made an appointment with him. He had wanted to check her references, but Inara didn’t expect trouble there—a fact that seemed to have some significance for the captain. Anyway, with any luck, Annelore’s friend would be ready to hop on board when they landed at Pfalzenhoffer.

“Speaking of which, Captain,” Zoe said. “Shouldn’t we head off soon? The cargo’s loaded.”

“And it’s perishable,” Mal agreed.

So everything was ready to go, and Kaylee was excited about seeing Inara again and meeting Annelore’s friend.

But then Simon piped up with, “So, you’ll be going directly there and then coming back immediately?” and Kaylee knew, just in the pit of her stomach, that he was going to ask to stay. And sure he had his noble reasons: He was wanted to give the Li sisters a crash course in basic medicine, since they would be losing their doctor. But everyone knew that he also wanted to spend time with Annelore.

And could she blame him? No, she couldn’t blame Simon for caring about a sick friend, any more than she could blame him for not having romance foremost on his mind after he got shot by that bounty hunter. But it got under Kaylee’s skin. She could feel whatever it was they had had slipping away. It was like an engine—some build-up here, a loose belt there, and all of a sudden you weren’t going nowhere.

She