“Some days are just bad days, son.”

Jayne starts where he’s laying on the cot in the infirmary. The lights are dim, so that he could sleep, and he blinks trying to figure if the words were anything more than just a whisper of memory. Deciding they must’ve been, he closed his eyes, willing the pain in his hip to quiet down again so he could get some shut eye.

Next time he opens them, it’s cause there’s a hand probing beneath his blanket, tiny fingers sending shooting pains through his left hip. Instinctively he circles it in a vise grip, his eyes narrowing on the intruder. Anger immediately gives way to confusion. “Crazy?”

“Hold yer fire.”

He drops her hand like it’s burning him, and scowls at her, trying to shake the sleep off. She sounded jus’ like Mal, and that ain’t right.

“What the gorram hell are you doin’?” Her eyes are dark, and he can’t see nothing there ‘cept a shimmer of blue light reflecting eerily. He can feel his skin crawling‘. “I asked you a question, girl.”

She‘s touching his elbow, tracing a scar gone almost invisible with age. Her voice is tiny, smaller ‘n he‘s ever heard it before. “I dare ya. I double dog dare ya.”

Now he was seriously creeped out. “Git! Go on back to yer own bed and lemme sleep.”

Quick as bird, she puts her hand flat on his stomach, and he reflexively sucks it in. “Coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

He pushes her hand away before he feel more than just a hint of her heat soaking through the thin cotton of his shirt. “Don’t give me any of that go se. Just ‘cause the Doc and Mal think yer crazy talk’s all sweet and innocent, don’t mean it is.”

“You callin’ me a cheat?” She asks, poking at his right shoulder, her drawl increasingly pronounced.

“No, I’m callin’ you crazy!” He swatted at her and she moves down the bed, out of his reach. “Jus’ cause I’m shot all to hell, don’t mean I can’t hurt you none.”

Her fingers trace tiny little circles over his right calf through the thin sheet. “Time for some thrilling heroics.”

“Ain’t time for nothin’ ‘cept sleepin’,” he growls, shifting his leg away.

She‘s moving again, gorram girl can‘t keep still. That hand o‘ hers drifting along the outside of the cot. Not touchin‘, but close and that‘s just fine with him, till she leans against him, her little girl body stretchin’ over his and grabs his other side with both hands. “Trust me, Cobb. I got yer back.”

He meant to throw her off the moment she touched him, but the words that aint hers freeze him. He feels her hands burrow under his shirt and rub the puckered and ugly scar where the bullet went straight through his back and burst open his front. Wont ever be forgettin’ that.

He’s starin’ up at her and swears he can see tears glistenin’ in the corner of her eyes. “Ya can’t know that,” he mumbles weakly, shakin’ his head. “Ain’t right. Kinda thing ain’t for little girls t’ be feelin’.”

She‘s pulling away and he tells himself that tingling left behind is just ‘cause she‘s being more creepifying than usual.

“Looks better in red.” She‘s lookin‘ more sad than crazy now, and her voice is normal again when she traces the tip of her nail all across his chest.

She hasn’t looked him in the face once, not really, and suddenly he’s got a powerful urge to see her eyes. Don’t know how, but she seems to understand, lifting her hand to touch his face. Her fingers are warmer than they were just moments ago, tenderly settling over the scar on his cheek and her voice isn’t hers anymore. It’s warm like honey, husky from cigar smoke and he can almost see his Ma in Crazy’s eyes.

“Some days are just bad days, son.”

She takes her hand away, and her eyes are goin’ back to normal, dark and shadowy and older than they should be. She’s lookin’ at him all expectant and he can’t seem to find the right words. “Seen more bad days ‘n good.”

An exasperated puff of air blows a strand of hair out of her face, and she looks all of an annoyed seventeen again. “At least you’re not dead.”

In the space of his next breath, she’s flouncing out the door as though she’d never been there at all.