The get-together was to be in an old hanger somewhere on the outskirts of town, and he had started protesting even as the words left old man Bower's lips. "Young Malcolm--" they came slow and measured past whiskers as white as a calf's belly, "you know I can't let you an' your folks leave without joinin' in on our little celebration, now can I?" And he was shaking his head, thinking I ain't so young, and pulling away, claiming bad storms on the horizon, something about a job they were already late for. But Kaylee, grinning like she could see the bows and the pretty in multitude already, beat him to the reply.

"Cap'n never said no to a dance, Mister Bower," she chirped merrily, shooting Mal a look that said there's no gorramn way you're shakin' your head at this. Not today. So Mal shrugged weakly, and accepted the invite.

He trailed in the heavy clomp of Jayne's boots back to the ship, listening to the busy chatter of Kaylee from behind, and thought it a little ironic that in living a life of crime, he should be feeling more nervous of a evening of sociable mixing than the prospect of staring down the shiny barrel of a gun. If he was given the choice, in fact, he might have almost said he'd jump at the latter.

Wash, arm hooked through Zoe's and making Mal presume that particular arrangement a default not in any circumstances to be switched, grinned and eyeballed Mal teasingly. "How are you with your old contra lines, Captain? Now, Zoe here's of the opinion I'm pretty much a three-footed Quasimodo when it comes to the dance floor, but I'm quite determined to turn heads tonight."

Zoe smiled, pressed a kiss to her husband's cheek. "That's right, honey," she said patiently. "You go turn some heads."

"What you're turnin' is my gorramn stomach," Mal said grumpily. "Kaylee...I should've clamped a hand over that mouth of hers, but oh no--she get wind of Bower's damn shindig an' there's our travellin' time cut down a day."

"Oh, sir." Zoe stared at him witheringly. "You're so...full of life."

"Zoe, say what you will, but I'm at this moment wholly uncaring of any opinions you or your dancin' pilot of a husband might have of me. I could be all to burstin' at the seams with life, but that don't mean I wanna spill it makin' small talk and prancin' about like some damn turkey 'till midnight. Got better things I should be doin'. Better things we should be doin'." He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. "Waste of an evening, is what I say."

"Yeah," Jayne piped up from in front. "But think of the tasty that'll be there, Cap'n, jus' linin' up to take the horizontal waltz with ol' Jayne. Makes your mouth water don't it?"

Wash blinked rapidly. "I think I've something in my eye..."

Mal muffled a groan. Zoe reached over and patted him on the arm. "Now that's the spirit, sir. Listen to Jayne."

He shot her a look and made to pull ahead, when River's voice, small and almost lost behind them all, made him stop.

"Even the poorest soul can find solace in dance," she said, gaze settling briefly on Mal. "Let your weary feet to the floor, brave soldier, each step a wound healed, each turn a spirit lifted. Never call it a waste."

He could feel their eyes on him. Zoe smile was broad. "Can't say no to that now, can you sir?" she said gently.

She knew him too well. And, unfortunately, she was also right.

**

Staying another night had unexpectedly given Inara the chance to visit a client in town; an opportunity she took reluctantly, but to make up for Kaylee's obvious disappointment she gave the mechanic free pick of her wardrobe. So after supper Kaylee dragged a quietly curious River, and a slightly more reluctant Zoe into the companion's shuttle. To get ready, Mal assumed, and to...do various other girly things he wasn't sure he had the willpower to imagine without taking a side-trip to Shepard Book's Special Hell. The idea had been to give the men a brief window of time to get themselves ready, but Mal had seen the look in Kaylee's eye, and knew that in this particular sense, brief meant anything but.

Still, he thought, sitting in the lounge area with a fidgety Wash on one side and an even more fidgety Jayne on the other--with Simon and Book looking much more relaxed and talking to each other across the room--if he used Kaylee as the yard-stick for this particular outing, the happier she was, the less trouble for Mal. And the less trouble for Mal meant a quick and easy getaway.

At least, that was the plan. There was every chance though, come tomorrow morning, he would have a whole crew hung over, and would be forced into stringing along a Shepard, a companion and a teenaged girl on their next job. The idea alone almost made Mal smile, if it weren't for the fact that the likelihood of its coming true was growing stronger by the minute.

At last, after what seemed an interminable wait, he heard the sound of shoes on the metal steps.

"Wh-hey," Jayne said, looking up.

Zoe wore a simple, knee-length sleeveless dress in dark, forest green. She glared at Jayne but smiled at her husband.

"Baby. Ouch." Wash's grin was as wide as the room. "You look amazing."

Mal had to agree. "Zoe." He stood up politely.

He could have sworn a blush crept onto her face. "Don't say a word, sir."

"Don't see you too often in a dress, I must say."

"For good reason."

Wash's eyes matched his grin. "Oh yeah...and this is a good reason."

Kaylee was next, tripping with exuberant glee down the steps. Almost literally, too; she had on some lacy, rose-pink number which fell to her feet, and at the bottom she took one step too far and lunged forward into Simon, who acted with surprising speed and caught her, giggling, in a nimble twirl.

Mal tapped her on the arm, leaned down and kissed her forehead. "You look shiny, Kaylee," was all he said, and she glanced at him over Simon's shoulder and smiled, understanding.

"Kaylee," Simon said, peering nervously at the top of the steps, "I hope you didn't go dressing my sister up too much. I'd hate to think--"

"Oh, don't be a boob," the mechanic admonished. "Most of 'Nara's things didn't fit her anyways." She called up the stairs. "River! Come on, sweetie."

A small voice floated back down. "Can't..."

Simon shifted uncomfortably. "River," he said, "it's okay, we're all friends here, we won't laugh."

Jayne grunted. "The hell we won't." He stared at Mal, exasperated. "How much longer's this gonna take, Cap'n? Her little Cinderella act's cuttin' sorely into my drinkin' time."

At this Kaylee rolled her eyes, picked her way carefully up the steps, grabbed River's hand and pulled the girl down. At the bottom she put both hands on River's shoulders and turned her around.

"See?" she said. "Ain't she a picture?"

River had on the same red and crocheted-lace dress she had been wearing all day. But the top half of her was strikingly changed.

Simon's eyes bulged. "You--you've put...stuff on her face."

Kaylee glared. Zoe groaned. River pulled away and slipped out of the hatchway.

Jayne threw his hands in the air. "Can we jus' go already?"

"We are," Mal said firmly, turning and following in River's direction. He wished Kaylee hadn't gone and made such a fuss--apart from obviously upsetting the girl, it put her brother out of sorts. It was a combination almost guaranteed to give him a headache, and they hadn't even left the boat yet.

He walked forward, ignoring Kaylee and Simon's bickering, and Jayne's whining. River was standing at the closed gantry, her back to them all, and he leaned past her, tapping the door controls.

"It's not stuff," he heard Kaylee say, and then Jayne grumbled some more, and even Zoe and Wash were joining in now, gleefully adding their own, probably unwanted opinions, to the general argument. Mal looked down at River, spotting an uncharacteristic blush on the girl's cheeks. He had to admit she did have a strange, tranquil beauty about her, but it seemed almost lost underneath Kaylee's handiwork, and all that paint and powder looked out of place on her delicate features.

"Feel free to ignore them, little one," he murmured. "I know I will." She turned and peered at him. He noticed then that her lips had almost escaped his mechanic's free hand, and while rosier than usual, were free from the thick ruby lacquer Inara wore daily. He offered her a smile, and then his arm. "You look...very nice."

She wrinkled her nose, not saying anything, silent as together they watched the door open. She held onto his arm, her weight barely registering at all. When at last she returned the smile it was almost forgiving.

**

It wasn't as bad as he might have expected, but it was still a room crammed full of strangers, and a host who still expected him to be genial and sociable. George Bower not being a man of any particular high standing, this wasn't an evening to, say, Inara's standard--of set dances, stiff collars, cut glass, finger food and finery. But it still meant awkward small talk, Jayne making a drunken fool of himself, and hours of inept fumbling with unfortunate partners as Mal went about trying to remember the myriad of folk dances his mother had taught him when he was twelve. And forgetting almost every one.

Even so, he couldn't completely regret his decision to come. The look of happiness on Kaylee's face as they had entered the hall, the sound of fiddles and laughter, and the smell of food--actual, honest-to-god decent food--was enough to set his mind at rest. And, he had to admit, this weren't like the last shindig he'd attended. The lack of swords, for one thing, was as welcome a sight as if Bower had paid him in double.

"Watch the ladies, they lead and stamp out time in good propriety." River, still holding onto his arm, seemed to have an eye trained on every dancer. "The men can only follow."

Mal frowned, distracted somewhat by her hair. Kaylee had painstakingly arranged the girl's black tresses into a complicated pile of plaits and deftly pinned waves, but it was already starting to unravel, and Mal couldn't help but feel that if it stayed up or fell flat, River Tam wouldn't care either way. She was, as usual, aloft in the centre of her own particular world, and it was a place where beauty--the sort of female beauty adored by Kaylee and practiced by Inara--held no higher claim than whether her heart beat at regular intervals, or if she breathed in and out each day. In other words, it was there and it was a part of her, but he knew somehow, that in the order of things it all amounted to very little.

They stood together on the periphery, watching the dancers advance and retreat, and he told himself it was the reason why she was happy just to come in her old dress, and why she had blushed at her brother's disapproval. Why she had been so reluctant to show herself as something other than a damaged curiosity. Something, Mal thought, as far as possible from the girl he had found, curled and frozen, in an icy box not six months ago.

River seemed to sense him watching her. She sneaked a smile in his direction, then let go of his arm and began clapping her hands in time to the music.

"Will you?" She turned and regarded him with sudden amusement, eyes shining in the firelight. As if she hadn't stopped speaking and he hadn't spent the last few minutes staring at her, wondering.

Mal frowned. "Will I what?"

"Follow."

He wasn't the sociable type, and neither was she, but there was something about her tonight that made him wish things were that simple. "You sure you don't want to be dancin' with Kaylee instead?" He scanned the room hopefully. "I'm sure she's about somewhere..."

"Simon's shy," River said. "In the time since you accepted this invitation to our stepping inside this hall, it has taken him three hours and twenty one minutes to work up the courage to ask her to dance. He will be sorely mad if you take her away from his side."

Knowing the doctor, Mal was inclined to admit there was a certain undeniable truth to what she was saying--so how he could really argue with that he wasn't entirely sure. "Right, okay," he said, "what about something to eat? You hungry?"

A neat shake of her head, and she took a backwards step, teasing him with eyes too bright, too knowing, to be real. One plait fell from where it had been pinned at her temple. It swung across her eyes and she flicked it back, not caring. Just like he had predicted. She smiled mysteriously, and held out her hand.

"Will you?"

He sighed. "You know, little one," he said as they joined a circle of couples, River's hand in his, her smile everywhere he looked, "us men ain't all devoid of tempo and pearly grace. I can...lead, an'...stamp out time...just as nimbly as you."

She laughed, a joyous sound, like music. "To midnight, Captain," she said. "Then we'll see."

"You're on."

Malcolm Reynolds never lost a bet. But he'd never wagered on a feeling alone.

He was pretty sure this girl hadn't, either.