Screens were flying by on the little portable cortex screen that River held. Occasionally, she'd pause at one or another, or add a little note to her list. Seems the girl never went anywhere lately without it. Jayne sighed and tugged it gently from her hands.
She finished up quickly, and let him, because she could feel the little smile that he was trying to hide underneath his frustration. He was proud of her, but she had been neglecting her belly again, and Jayne liked to make sure she kept her body strong like her mind. Besides, River could feel Mal gearing up for another one of his "not at the dinner table, this is family/crew time" speeches, and they were just more tedious than not, and tended to get everyone riled up, whether they were the ones doing wrong or not.
She was anxious to tell Mal, or Jayne, or anyone, about the potential for trade that she had found on their next stop, but talking business was also disallowed at the dinner table. Still, she squirmed happily in her seat, as she at the meal that Zoe had prepared, and swiped Jayne's half-eaten dinner roll, to his protesting grunt. Numbers, figures, potential profit margins, flight paths, and fuel ratios, all swirled around in her head, while her body busied herself with eating, and she liked it that way. As nebulous as those things were, they kept her grounded, kept her focused.
After Miranda, she was a lot less broken, the crew a lot more so. They had all redefined their roles and their parameters. Mal's 'honest' sort of crime was a lot harder to come by these days, and more so when he had been laid up the first three months recovering, and Inara, River and Zoe had come up with this plan to help keep them warm in the black, flying high, with bellies full, or mostly so, most days. It had worked out so well, that Mal hadn't really had the heart to put an end to it, despite his token protests.
As River lay her hand on Jayne's thigh under the table and smiled, and Kaylee's ring reflected brightly across the table, she thought of other things that Mal hadn't had the heart to end. It was a good ship, these days, a good family. Serenity wasn't the only one with shiny new wings these days.