River shook her head. ”I’m sure we won’t have to murder anyone. I think it’ll be fun.” She told her positively, a cute, happy smile on her lips that made Kaylee smile too, like she just couldn’t help it.

”I think so to.” Kaylee said, choosing to believe in what River said. After all, River hadn’t been wrong so far, so why would she be now? Not that she wasn’t going to make sure they were as prepared as she could make them anyway of course, that was just sensible.

She started to eat more of her portion of the berries and the leftover stew River had made for them that morning (which still tasted really good, even cold).

———-

Later in the afternoon, Kaylee was diligently at work trying to coax the shuttle’s computer into giving her the information she needed. This had involved first some creative repairs to the hardware and now she was wading through programming code trying to get the shuttle’s operating system to recognize the altered configuration she’d been forced to impose upon it’s hardware and resolve the needed data to into something recognizable by humans. She had to admit, program language wasn’t really her strong suit (although she weren’t bad at it or anything, especially considering she’d had to figure it all out on her own, no one teachin’ her anything).

River had been sitting on the bed half-heartedly playing some kind of, from the looks of it, completely original game with herself with Inara’s deck of playing cards. Kaylee’d caught her gazing her way more than once though, and they’d talked off and on while she’d worked, River seeming to sense when she needed the quiet to concentrate.

As things stood though, she was starting to get a mite frustrated with this moody and obstinate computer system she was trying to work with. ”You’re just bound and determined not to make this easy for me, aren’t you?” She spoke ruefully to the shuttle. Admittedly, she wasn’t getting along with Inara’s shuttle as well as she might have liked. Not like she had with her ’momma’ anyway (meaning Serenity).

River came padding over to her then and sat down. ”Can I help?” She asked curiously.

”Um, well, maybe. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about programming languages by any chance, all that schoolin’ you had?” Kaylee asked hopefully. River was supposed to be a genius and then some, after all. She hadn’t thought to ask her, but now she was hoping River actually could help, because at this rate she was afraid she’d be at it all night. Wasn’t even sure she’d be able to swing it at all, really. Nothing seemed to be clicking like it usually would for her. A fact she was actually feelin’ kinda embarrassed about, t’be honest. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her mind kept seeming to drift back to thoughts of River whenever it got the chance? Lately it seemed like that was all she really thought about. Only trouble was, right now, that wasn’t very helpful at all.