When River stepped out of her bunk holding her head, Simon immediately leaped into his doctor mode.

"Mei mei? What's wrong with your head? Are you-"

The hand not clutching her temple snapped up to silence him.

"Must you yell?" she snapped, her voice hoarse and low.

"Your voice! Do you have a cold?"

River sighed heavily and blinked heavily. She didn't answer him. Instead she strode past and down into the galley where the crew had gathered for breakfast. Simon's insistent questions about her health followed her down the hall, where the crew heard them before they saw either of the siblings. Mal grinned.

"I'm thinking that the good doctor doesn't know about River's little escapade last night?" he addressed the table. Seated there, Jayne, Wash and Zoe shook their heads with identical hangdog expressions. Their captain grinned and greeted his newest gun hand as she entered, followed by Simon.

"Good morning sparky! How are we this here fine, upstanding-"

"Captain?" she growled.

"Yes 'Tross?"

"You're being unnecessarily loud. I understand that the irritating volume of your voice is mostly due to the after effects of the amount of alcohol I consumed-"

"Alcohol? What alcohol?"

"-last night, however I would appreciate it if you humoured me and shut the hell up" River finished as if Simon hadn't even spoken. Even Zoe managed a grin at her brother's shocked expression as River turned into the kitchen for coffee. She was struggling with strands of hair falling into her face when Jayne did something very strange. He pulled a piece of string from his pocket.

"Riv, here" he said and threw it to her.

Calmly, River caught it, thanked him, and used it to tie up her hair. Simon's jaw was lagging somewhere about ankle level.

"I'm going to the bridge" she snapped to the gathered and stormed away, quietly. Simon watched her for a moment, then shook his head to clear it. He stared at Jayne.

"Did you just call her…what th-River! Wait! Can I talk to you for a second please?"

He hurried out of the room and caught her in the hall.

"If you can converse quietly, you can. Otherwise I'm going to get very upset"

"You have a hangover!"

"I believe that is the colloquial for it, yes"

"Why?"

River took a deep breath as if she was going to launch into a long, scientific explanation, then instead she let it out without use.

"There is an excess amount of alcohol in my system. A lot of excess"

Simon had his arms folded and that well-known frowning expression he used when he was puzzling something out. Kaylee would coo and call it cute. River found it annoying. It meant she had to think slower, which today didn't seem like such a bad idea. She sighed heavily again.

"I indulged in drinks with Jayne, Inara, Captain Daddy, Wash and Zoe last night while you were indulging in sexual intercourse with Kaylee"

His jaw dropped and an insistent blush rose in his cheeks.

"River! I…well, what…so you went and got drunk with the crew?"

"Yes. Jayne told me it is an acceptable bonding activity after a hard job. I found it an interesting exercise"

She turned to continue her work up the bridge and sipped her coffee.

"Mm…caffeinated beans" she murmured.

For a long time, Simon stood uselessly in the hall, still puzzling.

"Hey, Riv?"

"Here Jayne" she called distractedly.

The big merc paused and looked left, then right. Then he sighed and looked up. A bright strip of fabric caught his eye through the grating on the roof.

"Yew wanna git on down here, Crazy?"

Three feet to his left, booted little feet followed by a pair of shapely dancers leg's and finally a blur of long coloured dress and bike shorts slid gracefully out of the roof and straightened. He handed her a glass and two little tablets in the palm of his hand.

She looked at them and raised her eyebrow.

"Acetylsalicylic acid?"

He looked confused.

"Ya wha?"

"Aspirin?"

His face brightened and he nodded.

"Yeah. I fig'ed you could use some, and ya wasn't in the mood for another ear-boxin' from yore uptight priss of a brother"

She gave him a brilliant smile, one that made him warm all over.

"You are a lot more intelligent than we give you credit for, Jayne Cobb" she said warmly, tossing back the tablets dry, then taking a drink so he didn't feel like too much of a moron. Not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not, Jayne stood and said nothing.

"So how're ya feelin'?"

River thought about it.

"Free"

"Wha?"

"I feel free. Apart from the unsatisfactory side effects of the consummation of that amount of alcohol, such as vomiting and tension headaches…it felt normal"

Jayne heard her voice catch on that one little word and pretended he didn't. He nodded.

"Norm'ls good" he commented. She smiled and he felt his pulse quicken before he could ignore it or control it.

"Normal is great!" she laughed. She had a beautiful laugh, and it made him grin like an idiot to hear it. Their eyes met, and she looked away first. She noted a speeding pulse and a light-headed dizziness with dissatisfaction, attributing it thoughtlessly to the hangover. She glanced back up at the hole in the grating and handed him the glass.

"Thank-you, Jayne. I had better get back to work"

He nodded, fiddling with the glass in his big hands, not looking at her. She paused, one foot on the handrail that she used to climb into the grating.

"Is everything alright, Jayne?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. He looked at her, studying her expression, a disconcerted frown as his face as he tried to read her unfathomable expression. Then he swallowed and looked down again. She sighed heavily again.

"Jayne; she is doing as earlier requested and not reading your thought patterns. It is very difficult to understand what you want when-"

"Ye don't 'member nothing' from last night, do ya?"

She blinked and cocked her head again. She thought about her speeding pulse and connected it to new stimuli and information she had gathered since the morning.

"I feel something has changed in our dynamic. What I do not understand; she feels…connected, but it is not overwhelming her. There are new stimuli being noticed, triggering emotive reactions. What she does not comprehend is the trigger? What has changed to affect the relationship?"

He stared at her, getting the basic flow of what she was saying and ignoring the rest of the complicated Core-speak. He blinked and was swallowed in a Tequila induced flashback.

The music was pounding, a merry band tearing up the lyrics in the corner as the whole bar swirled and spun and jumped up and down. There was beer and spirits flowing around them, the fumes alone enough to get her drunk.

She was on the table, spinning in a tight, controlled circle, her short red dress flying around her as her big boots clumped precisely to the beat. Jayne was in a haze of good times and beer and now, watching her, lust as well. When had the Moonbrain gone and gotten so curvy and right shiny?

There was a blur of a hand on her dress, tugging, and a brawl that had Mal right in the middle, roaring. He was pretty sure he'd started that, and tried to remember why he felt so satisfied as the man with the black shirt tumbled, unconscious, to the dirt floor. River was right in the midst of it, her eyes glazed and hair flying wildly as she kept Mal, Zoe, Jayne and Wash protected in a circle of the brawl.

Tumbling around, swinging punches and kicks, Jayne made it to the bar and found her sprawled against him, laughing. They were both laughing. Now how in gorram hell had he gone and gotten in this position, the drunk Crazy-Girl perched in his lap like she belonged there, the sweet, heady smell of her clean hair and alcohol soaked dress filling him like a drug. As the a knot of fighters who hadn't realised the brawl was over came tumbling towards them like clowns in the circus ring, Jayne pushed River out of the path of destruction. She took his hand; so big and rough against the small silkiness of hers, and dragged him out the back door, marked Exit in a glowing hologram. Staggering, they lurched out the door into the alley outside. River was giggling, and they were talking; how the brawlers tried to hit them, how they were too fast, too smart, too good for them, like kids revelling in the glory of a won fist fight. They were walking too, neither of them seeming to realise that it was pouring with rain. The heavens had, at some stage, opened and the cold, clean buckets had a vague sobering affect on them. Enough to realise they should really head back to the ship, and enough to realise that River was holding a full bottle of Tequila in her hand. They'd laughed, because she couldn't remember how the hell she'd come to be in possession of it. Jayne had dug at Simon; what would he say if he could see his darling, innocent mei-mei, staggering drunk, swigging the potent Mexican poison straight from the bottle, sharing it with Jayne the Ape-Man, who she was leaning on heavily to be able to walk straight.

She really couldn't hold her liquor, that one, but Jayne didn't want to stop her. It was the happiest, the most free and unguarded, he'd ever seen her, stumbling on their meandering path through the rain back to Serenity. All the liqueur was going straight to his head, and all his blood straight to his John Thomas. The rain had melded the floaty red dress to her newly discovered woman's curves and her bra was white and gone translucent. It was like a rush of adrenaline straight to his heart and she must have felt it too, because she was turning, staring at him, that look in her eyes like she was trying to process something new. All too late he realised his treacherous arm had snaked around her waist and was holding her close…too close. She could feel his hot arousal through his khaki trousers. Her little mouth hung in a limp, inviting pink O, raindrops catching on her lashes and plastering her hair to her head.

The smell of him in the rain was intoxicating. All she was able to feel was what she had seen in Wash and Zoe, sitting on the flight deck intertwined in the pilots seat. It flooded her so much she could do nothing but cling to the source of it; bracken catching a stone in a flash flood and hanging on for dear life.

Then, somewhere between her realising what lust is and him realising this was a really, really gorram bad idea, his mouth was on hers. The fumes of alcohol, the sweetness of cherry, the harsh tang of tobacco mixed and wound around them until there was nothing but wet skin, taste, sensation and the dangerous desire to get naked.

Luckily, for both of them, Mal chose that moment to holler out to them, and he was so blind drunk that he wouldn't recall the stagger to Serenity, never mind the sight of his gun hands pressed so closely they were in danger of melding into one being.

With a grunt of surprise, Jayne pulled himself out of his hazy memory and stared blankly at River, as though trying to remember where, what and who he was in a single rush. She was staring back with wide eyes and little panting breaths. His blood rushed south again; he wanted, so lethally badly, to be the one to induce that state in her. Gasping for breath, hair mussed, eyes wide. He pulled away, stepping back before he made a mistake.

"Nothin' happened, River-girl. Jus' got drunk together. Part'ers do that" he grumbled and turned away. She watched him retreat like a kicked dog, eyes narrowed. When he was long gone, she smiled.

She couldn't wait to experiment again.