"Kaylee, turn that ruttin' noise off!"
Kaylee's face fell. "But Cap'n, it's my favorite music!"
"I don't care if it was written by monkeys and sung by naked women, some of us are trying to--" Mal stopped talking abruptly.
Kaylee stuck her head out of the shuttle she'd been fixing. "Cap'n?"
"Uh..."
Kaylee stepped onto the catwalk and leaned over the railing to see what had the captain so confounded.
River was dancing.
Careening around the bay, combat boots stomping to the rhythm of the music, a happy smile on her face.
She held out her hands to Mal but he took a step back from her, looking slightly overwhelmed. Not missing a beat, River looked up at Kaylee instead.
Kaylee grinned widely and turned the music up before hurrying down the steps. River grabbed her hands as soon as she reached the bottom and they danced around the cargo, spinning wildly in circles and shrieking with laughter.
"What's goin' on?" Jayne's voice boomed across the hold as he entered, Wash and Zoe close behind him.
Kaylee slowed the spinning slightly so that the room would stop blurring enough for her to see them clearly. "Annoyin' the cap'n!" she called, grinning.
Jayne's face lit up. "Now anythin' that does that, I gotta be a part of!"
Kaylee smiled and let go of River so that Jayne could dance with her,
grabbing Wash for her own partner instead. He didn't seem too put out about
that.
Mal watched them from the side. "Why is it that folk are so eager to annoy me?" he asked as Zoe came up beside him.
"Couldn't rightly say, sir." She smiled affectionately at Wash, who was showing Kaylee some kind of crazy dance.
"Is it 'cause I talk about space monkeys when I'm annoyed? It's 'cause of the monkeys, isn't it! Everyone loves the space monkeys so much, they annoy me just to hear about 'em."
"Yes sir. That must be it."
"Simon!" Kaylee said, catching sight of him and Inara in the doorway. "Come dance!"
Simon seemed uncertain, but a gentle nudge from Inara sent him heading for Kaylee, a shy smile valiantly fighting its way to his face.
Wash let go of Kaylee and jigged over to Zoe, looking at her with playfully pleading eyes. She laughed and took his hand and they whirled off to the other side of the hold together.
Mal sighed.
"Aren't you going to dance?"
He turned to see Inara standing next to him.
"Not really in a dancin' kind of mood right now."
"It's Kaylee's favorite music."
"Yeah, well it ain't mine."
"What is yours?"
He reflected on this for a second. "Don't really have one." He shrugged. "Prefer the quiet. You know," he said, playing up his annoyance, "Silence."
Inara looked into his eyes for a moment, then held out her hand.
"Aren't you going to dance?" she asked again.
Mal sighed melodramatically and shrugged. "If you insist."
They smiled. Then they joined the others in the frenzy of stamping feet
and twirling figures and mindless merriment.