Walking into the mess, Mal made his usual bee-line to the coffee pot, but stopped halfway when he noticed River at the dining table encircled around a cup of tea and staring at it vacantly.

“Hey there, lil’ one. What’s about?”

“Emptiness. Guilt.” River answered insipidly.

“Ok. No sure as I got a cure for that. But we can talk some if you’d like?”

River nodded and Mal smiled a twitch before retrieving a cup and joining the girl at the table.

“So, what’s on your mind?” Bringing the coffee up to his lips, he halted, looking warily at River. “No more trouble I hope? ‘Cause we’re still achin’ from the last.”

“Of a kind.” River answered vaguely, her attention on the wood grain patterns she was tracing. “After Miranda, you said, love, it makes her a home.”

“I do recall being overly speechy at a point, yes.”

“Then I don‘t belong. There isn‘t room for three.”

Mal furrowed his eyebrows. “Come at that again?”

“I can’t give her what she needs.” River confessed, meeting Mal’s eyes with her own insistent ones. “ It’s going to happen.”

“You talking about Kaylee?” Mal asked. “‘Cause we’ve already talked on this. You can’t go peekin’ on them unawares anymore, River. No matter how curious you may find yourself.”

River gave him a depreciating look. “Fully versed on sexual anatomy, captain.”

As her dark eyes bore shrewdly into his, Mal swallowed thickly, always caught of guard by her frankness.

“Oh. Right then.” He amended, wondering why she always made him feel this way. Merely a boy to her eighteen years. “Just making sure we were on level.” He added, trying to regain their normal balance.

“I was talking about Serenity.” River clarified, leaning in close as if the ship could actually hear her. “Scared I’m going to break her. Be the part that twists up the coils and makes her plummet from the sky.”

“Well now, that’s a little dramatic.” Mal dismissed, gathering the girl to his side. River looked up as he squeezed her reassuringly. “‘Sides, if I recall, weren’t you two corporally in cahoots at one time? She didn’t buck then.”

River smiled briefly before it was reabsorbed by seriousness.

Mal tried again. “Enlighten me then. Why’d you conjure she’s gonna fall?”

River lifted her small hand and splayed her fingers slowly over his chest. “Because one day, you will too.”

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