She knows Wash is feeling slighted, but she's got her eye on the Captain. Something's going on in his head, and it's not anything that she's understanding. Which worries her. It's times like this that things tend to go feng le. Well, things go feng le all the time, but she's more comfortable with that fact when she knows what's driving him.

She finds him crouched on the steps over the medbay, staring through the window like he's scouting the territory. She sits on the step behind him, leans forward far enough to get a look at what's going on.

River is asleep on the main bed, her dark hair carefully brushed away from her pale face. Simon is hunched over the wall counter, studying something like it has the secrets to the 'verse. 'Course, she imagines that unless it contains a cure for River, the secrets of the universe would look like rotten gou shi to Simon.

"Did I make a mistake, Zoe? Keeping them here, trying to protect them?"

Zoe flinches at the sound of Mal's voice, just a brief blink in response to the uncertainty that he only shares with her. She sets to thinking, trying to be what he needs her to be.

"You think so, sir?"

He sighs, long and suffering, then stands gracefully. "No, you're right. I just don't like waves in the crew. Makes a man a mite cranky when things get out of his control."

Zoe smiles. "You don't have to know everything, sir."

He smiles back, tugs her to her feet. "Go see to your husband, woman. Think he was a mite cranky his own self."

She does.

On to Ringleader.