"Good night Cap’n."

"’Nite Kaylee"

As she scrambled up the ladder and out of sight, Mal looked at the list, she’d left and sighed. He trusted her judgment that they needed the parts, but where would the money come from to buy them?

He’d been doing the books when she came in to tell him how badly they needed parts. Mal knew exactly how poor Serenity was at the moment. They could barely afford fuel and food at the next stop. Wouldn’t be able to if it wasn’t for the money Inara and Book paid. And now they needed parts, not just one or two, but a list two pages long. Serenity might die without those parts and then so would her crew and he couldn’t let that happen.

They’d never done really well, not runnin’ under the radar like they did. But since the Doc and River came along, the financial situation had gone from bad to worse. The Doc was crew; he had to pay him a share of the jobs they did. And River - well she was just an expense. He knew he should charge Simon for her keep, but it hadn’t been part of the original deal and he hated to start now. He should have planned better, but at the time he never thought they’d stay more than a month or two.

The job on Ariel had gone well and they should be flush, but Zoe spent it all getting Wash out. She even knew where he kept the ship funds and used them too. He couldn’t fault her for that, less money and she might not have freed either of them. Mal could see where she couldn’t take the chance and leave some of the profit for the ship operating expenses. And she and Wash both deserved his loyalty, too. Be damned if he was gonna bitch about that particular expense.

Still, it left him between a rock and a hard place. He hadn’t taken a share of any job for the last six months and still there wasn’t enough left to pay all of Serenity’s operating expenses. He’d had some saved that Zoe didn’t know about. But now he was at the end of that money too.

Well. He’d just have to face facts. He was gonna have to take some jobs that paid well and do it soon. And that