As well as, to her surprise, being the sort of woman who sought out opportunistic sex with a mercenary she barely knew (and it had hurt her civic leader-ly pride, just a little, to find out that this was his role; on the other hand it confirmed her instinct that he was a man to be discounted as a mate), Lucy Lee was scrupulous about her laundry. It wasn’t that she felt guilty or sinful, but washing the stiff, sweaty uniforms of thirty-seven Alliance soldiers provided a balance to the gloriously dirty pleasures that she had, not too noisily she hoped, enjoyed with Jayne in the hay loft.

She rose early, therefore, and set up her tubs in her back yard, where townspeople passing that way might see her at her virtuous labor. She held up the jackets and pants and ostentatiously went through every pocket, because that was what a good – and she was good – laundry woman did. Her heart – well, her loins – missed a beat when she came to Jayne’s well-fitting pants. With womanly curiosity she delved deep and came up with – of course, what else? - nothing.

Not so with the captain. She recognized the red shirt as his and unscrewed the tightly-balled piece of paper she found in one of the top pockets. If it had been an odd scrap she might have been comfortable with throwing it away, but it had clear, neat writing on it: the name Saffron, followed by a colon, then a column of names – Southern, Moskow, Fraser – and next to that another, comprised of what looked like dates.

Seeing a chance to further prove her diligence, Lucy finished checking the pockets of the remaining items, and then set off to find Mal. After asking several people she found him in the house where one of the settlers – Susan – was being put up.

Handing the note to him with an explanation of how she had found it, Lucy hoped that Mal didn’t know what was going on between herself and Jayne. She realized straight away, however, that the sight of it had a very powerful effect on him, one that put any other thought out of his mind.

“Thanks,” he said very gravely. He smiled sadly, with resignation, as he took it almost tenderly: “This might be all that’s left of my ship.”

________________________________________________________

Several days later, following instructions from Yan, Mal and Jayne uncovered the weapons that had been hidden on board the Alliance vessel. They loaded them into the shuttle and set off for town. As planned, they arrived so early at the barn holding the prisoners that not even its owner, a spry 60-year-old with an unrivalled work ethic, was up. Once they had released the Alliance men from the barn, they distributed the weapons as stealthily as they could.

Then Kaloy – now second-in-command – led the men, relishing the feeling of the weapons in their hands, back to the ship.

Yan, Boxer and Trudo stayed. It was their pledge and Mal’s guarantee that they would not try to get their ship functional and leave ahead of time. They waited near Lee’s house until the sun came up.

________________________________________________________

Lee had a full day ahead of him: Warminger had coin enough to extend the pavement of sorts that lined the town’s main square and he had taken charge of the war that had broken out over which direction it would go in. He also had to prepare for a long-awaited meeting with a group of wholesalers from Meridian over selling their metal by-products – kitchen wares, mostly – in the store he owned with his sisters. And there would also be frequent, more impromptu meetings with people who stopped him in the street or came into the store.

Or knocked at his door.

As soon as he saw Yan and two others standing behind Reynolds and the mercenary, Lee understood if not the detail then the fact of what had happened: somehow, somewhere along the way, he’d missed a very important trick.

He smiled, apparently self-deprecating. “Well, ain’t we the naïve, caught-unawares backwoodsmen,” he said, affecting a drawl that Mal recognized from their first conversation about the prisoners.

“I’ll take naïve and you can have – not naïve, if it all comes down to seeing combat,” he said, forcing Lee to stand aside as he walked into the house.

Lucy came down the stairs in time to see Jayne and the Alliance men follow. Jayne shifted awkwardly and looked serious when he saw her, not knowing how to be around her if he wasn’t doing it with her. With lowered eyes she slipped into the kitchen, where she could listen.

“Looks like it’s given you the edge though,” Lee replied, taking the papers that Mal handed to him, “knowing your way around weapons and soldiers and all.” He glanced through them, taking in the salient points. “You didn’t draft this though.”

“No. The settlers did. It’s their mine.”

“Goin’ to get a glass of water,” said Jayne, intending to share a grope with Lucy.

Lee had gone very still. “A bicarium mine,” he said, almost humming with silent, disbelieving excitement.

“Well, the terms are all there. Get your lawyer man to look it over. Make any changes ‘t seem reasonable.” Lee nodded, absorbed in the document. “In the meantime, can’t see any reason to change where everyone’s being put up. You can add it to the bill. Except the soldiers of course. They’re back on the ship.”

Jayne returned; Lucy had pushed him away and followed him into the hallway.

“We’ll have to get everyone together; now,” she said to Lee.

“D’you hear?” Lee asked with a grin. “It’s bicarium!”

“I heard,” said Lucy, who considered herself, and was, more business-minded than her politically-minded brother. She took the papers, glanced at them and turned to Mal. “We’ll come back to you with our response. In due course.”

“Work’s starting in the mine today,” was Mal’s reply.

________________________________________________________

Mal parted from Jayne and Boxer outside the house.

“See you at the mine,” he said to them; then, turning to Yan: “You met our psychic assassin yet?”

As he made his way towards the meeting hall, where he hoped to find River, Mal patted his top pocket, making sure that the note from Book was still there.