Author's Note: Okay, I know it's been a reeeaaally long time since I posted last, and I sincerely apologize. RL sucks and is more distracting than I give it credit for. And I shouldn't have posted multiple chapters in a single day. It raised your expectations. That was rather silly of me. Hopefully it won't be so long before the next chapter, and I'm sorry if this one isn't as good as the last couple. I tried to give it the same feel, but I think I fell a little short. Anyway, here you go. (Again. Sorry about the wait, please don't kill me)

Jayne was avoiding her. Noticeably.

The next time they set down on a planet for R&R, Jayne was out of the ship before the ramp was even down, leaving River in someone else's care. The young psychic frowned, but said nothing, accepting that this day there would be no weapons training. In her head she recited everything that she knew about shooting his guns, using their names. Captain Daddy and Big Brother cast glances at her for the muttering but said nothing. They'd long since stopped giving her medicine.

Inara and Mal left the ship separately although River had already traced their separate routes and found that they would be having dinner later together. Kaylee and Simon went off together, openly affectionate, while Zoe wandered off to look at some things for the baby.

Eventually, the only people left on the ship were her and the new pilot, who smiled at her as cheerfully as she could before closing up the ramp and glancing around.

"So," she said, and River rolled her eyes.

"Ghosts are dead because they have no body," the teenager said, shaking her head at Cal for not being able to understand this simple logic. Cal blinked and thought this over for a moment before slowly nodding.

"You're gonna have to slow your thought process down a bit, sweetie, I ain't that bright," she finally replied. River sighed and muttered something under her breath.

"Wash is here," she started, and Cal nodded at that, looking somewhat sheepish. "Wash is in your head. Wash is in your body. Wash is not dead," she added, giving the thirty-something pilot a look used by most kindergarten teachers. Cal smirked.

"You're not the slightest bit concerned about the fact that he's all incorporeal, are you?" she asked, sounding amazed. River shrugged, and the older Wash nodded. "Yeah, probably seen weirder," she mused. "You know the crew would flip if they knew, right?" she asked. River pinned her with a suddenly severe glare.

"Time is wasting. Too long and his return will shock them. They will be broken," she said. Cal nodded seriously.

"I'll tell them when we're done here," she promised. River gave her the evil eye and walked away, her steps light and graceful. Cal watched her go and shook her head a little. She's like an old fashioned school marm, she thought, and her brother laughed.

Before she was just crazy and whimsical. I like this River better. She's still crazy, but she knows how to use it, he replied.

Jayne had paid and bedded five whores before realizing that it wasn't helping him none, and he grumbled about money wasted for a little bit before directing his energy into drink. A couple of all-night binges followed by almighty hangovers that laid him up for a day and a half later (not to mention one or two brawls that he may or may not have started, according to fuzzy minded recall) he realized that he only had a handful of options that would actually make a difference, and he swore off drinking and whoring (at least for the next little while, when he still remembered what the hangovers felt like).

His options, he reckoned, were so: First, and most obvious, he could leave. The second he thought of this his chest tightened and he sighed. He'd been there a long time – too long – and he was starting to depend on these people more than he'd ever depended on a group before. Kaylee was the best mechanic, Zoe was the best gunwoman, zhuàng Simon was the best doc, Mal was the best, although the category he fit into jumped around a bit, and Wash— Jayne stopped and took a moment to send his typical, silent prayer to the almighty for takin' dead-Wash's name in vain or whatever.

A merc shouldn't come to rely on his crew for anything other than the completion of a job. Trust was a commodity that people like him couldn't afford. Maybe they could afford to trust him – he'd never let them down until Arial, and afterwards, he had dedicated himself to not letting them down that way again. If they were gonna get nabbed, it was going to be honestly, not because he was greedy. Still, this situation he'd found himself in...

His second option was to openly start courtin' River. This thought was followed by a series of internal video clips detailing all the ways in which Mal, Simon, Zoe, and Callie would kill him, and he discarded it almost immediately. He could actually feel his balls starting to shrivel a little at the thought, not that he'd tell anyone. Ever.

His third option was to secretly start courtin' River. This thought brought its own complications, the main one being that he didn't actually know if she wanted him or even liked him. He was teachin' her to shoot, sure enough, but that didn't mean nearly anythin'. An' come to think of it, he hadn't been teachin' her much a' nothin' the last couple weeks. He frowned a little at the image in his mind of her let down face and then groaned. He couldn't be near her without thinkin' inappropriate things that he had to force to the back of his mind so she couldn't read 'em. They weren't nice thoughts. And even if she did like him and allowed him to court her, there was always the danger of bein' found out.

He thought for hours before finally going with his last remaining option, which weren't nothin' more than a delay tactic, really. He made it his mission in life to avoid her like she had some sort of plague and ignore her whenever he had to spend time with her. He would no longer teach her how to shoot – someone else could take that over once he told Mal about it. He was gonna catch hell from damn near everyone, but he just couldn't take the way she smelled.

"You been what?" demanded Mal, and Jayne sighed.

"Hell, Mal, there ain' been any harm to it, except to my ammo supply. She been less crazy ever since we started," he defended himself, as Callie walked into the cockpit, pulling up short at the argument she'd walked in on.

"Jayne, what in pĭn hóng péng sōng yīn cáo were you thinking even teaching her in the first place?" Mal asked loudly, and Cal glanced between them all, wondering what they were talking about.

"I was thinking if she could control it I wouldn't have to sleep with my eyes open anymore. The girl was a loose cannon, Mal, I just screwed on a couple bolts is all," snapped the mercenary, folding his arms. Mal was furious, and Calinthia, who had come in to tell him and his first mate that her brother was maybe not as dead as they all thought he was, spent half a second to rethink her timing.

"What's going on?" she asked instead, and Zoe looked at her.

"Not now, Calinthia," the first mate said, but kindly, and Cal nodded, turning and walking back out of the cockpit.

You're not gonna tell them?

You wanna get in the middle of that?

Hmm, good point. What are they talking about, anyway?

Sounds like River.

Back in the cockpit, Mal was glaring at Jayne, who was not giving him a single inch of ground.

"Let me get this straight, then. For the last three and a half months you've been giving our unstable psychic assassin lessons in straight shooting so that you could sleep better at night?" the captain asked, his flat tone and his set jaw indicating that this was not a thought that gave him the giggles. Jayne rolled his eyes, setting his own jaw.

"You sure ain' worried about her stability when you take her out on jobs, there, Cap'n," he retorted, and Mal's eyes darkened.

"Jayne," he started, in a voice that indicated this storm was coming to a head. Jayne felt indignation well up within him.

"She's been stable since the Big Damn Mission, alright? Jus' cause she talks in circles don' mean she's crazy – she can' help that we're all dumber 'n her. An' she needs the shootin' lessons, Mal. What happens when she sees another o' them commercials? Girl's got a switch in her head she needs to be able to flip herself, 'stead o' some blue handed lab monkey thinks it's cute t' turn seventeen year old girls int' walkin', talkin' guns. You gonna jump in fron' a Kaylee next time she's triggered or d'you want River t' be able to stop herself?" Jayne exploded, feeling a rush of adrenaline pricking up the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck even as relief filled his chest where that weight had been.

Mal didn't say anything for the longest time, taking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out again before rubbing his forehead and looking at Zoe, who gave a reluctant tilt of his head.

"Jayne has a point, sir," she told him. Mal blinked at her. She returned a look that said she was just as disturbed to say those words as he was to hear them. "River has seemed a lot calmer in the last few weeks. And there was that job with Dorgan," she added. Mal's face twitched. Zoe was still not pleased that she'd been told to sit on her ass while a seventeen year old girl went in her place, even with the precious cargo she was carrying. He looked back at Jayne, who was leaning back against the wall, arms folded, defensive.

"Fine. He has a point. My question is why is he comin' to me now with this, him having kept it a secret so well," he said, and Jayne shrugged, expression blank in a way that made Mal suspicious.

"Just don' see why it has to be my responsibility, is all. It's for the good of the crew – the crew should help out," he said. "An' by crew, I mean you an' Zoe. Ain' a one o' the others can shoot worth spit," he added. Mal sighed, but nodded.

"Fine. She's been using your guns up til now, she can keep doing that. We'll teach in shifts. And as long as we're doin' that, we might as well give the others a few lessons. Might just save their skins," he said. Jayne shrugged indifferently.

Outside the cockpit, River frowned, wading through the thoughts of the three people within, all twisted together in the tight space of her mind. Why was he doing this? Had she done something wrong? She examined the last few weeks in her mind and then slipped away from the cockpit door as she realized what he was doing. Her lips twisted into a frustrated frown and she made her way to the crew dormitories, slipping into his bunk as easily as if it were open. Her eyes travelled the room, seeing everything, registering little of it as her mind circled and searched for something she could take that he would miss and want returned.

The cot was cool against her back as she lay on it, burying her head into his flat pillow and breathing in the scent of him sleeping (dreaming, dreaming, what is he dreaming) and then blinking when something called her name. She leaned over the cot, looking under, and tilted her head at the bag behind the box. She could see it, and she grabbed it, and she looked inside (rush of excitement tingling her skin, making everything tighter. Goosebumps). Her smile was slow, but devious.

She was gone long before he returned, and he barely even noticed the lingering scent of cinnamon.