Zoe wasn't the type to keep Mal waiting. And tardiness by anyone he was waiting for in this City left Mal with a right unsettling sensation that he wasn't fond of in the least. So when the Captain's patience ran out, he stopped waiting and started looking.
It never seemed to matter how closely Mal kept track of his path, but navigating the City on foot always had him feeling on edge. The place shifted, quite literally and what could be a clear path home one moment would turn into a testing labyrinth for the amusement of the City itself, so it seemed.
So Mal eyed his surroundings warily. While his hand was not hovering over his holster, his firearm was never more than a brush of his coat flap away. Mal's hands had settled on his belt, thumbs tucked only slightly under the strap of leather. As he neared the corner of the next intersection, Mal's hands fell limply away to his sides. Zoe's voice might have been a relief, the second speaker... Mal had to step out around the corner to let his eyes prove his muddled recollection wrong. Wash had reappeared from the clutch of death, so this shouldn't have been as shocking as it was. But the Captain didn't speak as the Shepherd and the Amazon met in the middle.