Sometime in the future…not *so* far in the future… this isn’t the start of a relationship but a middle! Spoilers for Serenity, Safe, Jaynestown.

This is my first piece of fanfic – written mainly because Firefly, especially Simon/Kaylee, has hijacked my brain! I’d like to thank Tara LJC, BannerLee, Fireflypsngr, Malsgals & Pippin for super shiny betas, feedback and for reassuring me that it didn’t suck (I love all you guys *hugs*)! I’d also like to thank Tara for inspiration (if you haven’t read her stuff, go now! Right now! - mine can wait), because if she hadn’t provided us with glorious S/K, and then requested more, this never would have been written. That and she said that all who wrote S/K smut would go to heaven…so for the sake of my mortal soul… *L*

Standard disclaimers apply. I do not own these characters, Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Mutant Enemy, et al. do, and if there is any justice in TV land, Firefly will fly again because they (and us browncoats) love the show very much!

Traditionalist Musings

Simon paused, face slightly below her belly button, over her left hip. He had done such a good job fixing the damage that he had unwittingly caused that the scar was barely visible, except to those that looked for it. And he looked for it. He always looked for it. Traced it with his tongue. Laved it, as if trying to erase it. Kissed it, wanting to make it all better, even though in a way he already had. He knew that as she arched under his gentle ministrations – tongue and agile fingers stroking, stoking the fire building inside of her - that her abdominal muscles had healed completely, otherwise they would be screaming in protest. No pain, only pleasure – but there had been pain, and he knew it, knew what a gunshot wound felt like now. Knew better of his own arrogance.

He could be arrogant, there was no use denying that. A doctor has to project that he can do anything in the face of an emergency, and since he wanted to become a doctor he’d learned how. He adopted a bit of arrogance because that is what makes people comfortable, makes them believe that he knows his job. He didn’t know when it no longer became posturing; when it became a part of him even outside of the hospital. He supposed that it hadn’t been hard, considering his parents’ attitudes, considering his abilities. It didn’t crack when he found out his life wasn’t what it had seemed – that part of him had to remain in place, or he would have cracked.

And his arrogance had almost cost him Kaylee.

It was rather poetic that she was the one to make the chinks in his defenses, while stopping him from crumbling at the same time. He still didn’t like thinking how close he had come to losing her, losing this. He kisses the scar again, and started blazing a trail of tender kisses downwards. The soft moans that greeted his ears were music to lose and find himself in again and again.

As quivering muscles still, she let out this little gasp, so cute and sweet and strangely (impossibly) pure and innocent. He knows she can feel his smile through his lips resting on her skin. She pulled him up for kisses, unbelievably hungry, full of lips and tongues and sucking, teasing, caressing, sweat-slicked bodies melding together, mouth to mouth and skin to skin. Mutual thank-yous, but so much more that that. He likes making her feel, needs to after all that she has made him feel in turn. And he’s found giving it back to her only makes it expand, at such a rate that might be described as exponential, getting bigger than anything he’s ever been a part of. Sometimes he thinks he’s drowning in the feelings. She feels things so easily, so eagerly. And she gave him the strength to let down many of the walls that he had constructed to protect himself over the years. Sometimes he wonders, half joking of course, if something is wrong with her amygdala too, to let her be so willingly to feel everything. Or maybe that something is wrong with his own, to make it so that he has tried to feel nothing. He’s pretty certain it has everything to do with experience, and not with their brains, but he muses that it could make an interesting scientific study, looking to see if there is any correlation. He pushes the doctor part of his brain aside for a bit, even though it can be useful to know how bodies work, how to illicit certain reactions, how to fix bodies and put them back together.

But right now he just glories in feeling. Kaylee knows emotions, her own natural talent allowing her to fix ships, and to fix anything she loves, putting them back together in a completely different sense. There was a time when he thought that he knew all he needed to, a time and a feeling that he could usually barely remember. A feeling that returned to him sometimes, in her arms. She really put no demands on him, other than to care, which at first seemed to be the biggest demand of all. It was so different from almost every other demand that anyone ever made on him, that he didn’t know if he could, at first. It wasn’t cerebral, which was where his strengths lay. But with Kaylee, it was almost impossible not to care. Even Mal loved her like a sister, though Simon’s own thoughts thankfully did not tend towards that direction. River was more than enough sister for him, and he moved away from that thought, not wanting River on his mind at this particular moment in time.

No, he loved all that was Kaylee, and loved her completely. It was a kind of love that he had read about, but had never given himself permission to want or find. If he had been back on Osiris, he would never have discovered it. It wasn’t in the careful blueprint that his parents had had for his life. Now, he didn’t know who he would become, but he liked the version of himself that he saw reflected in her eyes. With Kaylee, he often felt that he had been given a new gift after all the pain. With her, he only had to be Simon – not brother, not doctor, not son, not fugitive. It was new having someone want to be his friend, want to know what he thinks and feels and dreams, someone who had no reason to. She didn’t have to love him (which was good because those that were supposed to didn’t seem to at all) except that she did.

Out of breath, Simon gasped, burying his face in the softness where her neck met her shoulder. Their kisses were… impossible to describe; there were too many feelings to try to put into words. It was enough that they left him happy and left his body trying to recover from low oxygen levels. He took a few deep breaths, relaxing as clever fingers trace his spine, trace along the muscles of his back. Holding her, having her beside him was enough. He often found himself marveling in how much he needed human contact, how nice it was to have life, and love, in your arms. Unconsciously his hands roamed, and one found the scar on her soft belly, and idly stroked it. After a few minutes, Kaylee gently covered that hand with her own, and he realized what he had been doing. Blue eyes met hazel.

“It weren’t nobody’s fault,” she whispered gently.

“But if I hadn’t – then he wouldn’t have.... shot you, and I - I bargained your life for my and River’s safety. If Mal had waited much longer – and…” he looked at her, unseeing, too immersed in the could have beens.

She took his hand and led it to her chest, over her heart, so he could feel her pulse and understand somehow that she was all right, was more than all right, “You couldna known he was gonna shoot me. And I know you wouldn’t have let me die. You fixed me up and you’ve fixed up near everyone on the ship. You came up with one of the best jobs we’ve has ever done, you criminal mastermind, you.”

He felt the corners of his mouth turn up, unbidden, “Actually, I prefer the term ‘Traditionalist;’ I was thinking of growing a big black mustache,” he interrupted dryly and he felt her body tremble in response, a giggle escaping her lips. He realized again that she was amazing, with her ability to make him smile at times when he thought it was impossible.

“And you’ve started to learn t’think before you speak,” she said the last bit teasingly, reminding him of the multiple times he had put his foot in his mouth – on Jiangyin in the shop or after they had woken up together in Canton, “I wouldna preferred it if you’d never come on this ship, Simon. I’m glad of the fact that you’re here, and that I know you. What’s past is past. Can you relax and be happy?”

She was a gift, and this was a gift. But Simon’s gifts had a habit of being snatched away. “You do make me happy, Kaylee. I’m glad of you too, very glad,” he graced her with a tender smile, “But I can’t help but worry. You were so close to – and what if -”

“Ssshh… No ‘what-ifs’ Simon. We’re here now. You can’t be so worried about what might’a been that you can’t see the shiny that’s all around us.” He felt her take the hand that was starting to make its way back to try to erase the scar, moving of its own violation, but she wouldn’t let it go. Instead she brought it to her mouth and kissed his palm, running her tongue over each finger before going back to kisses. He shuddered as she gently drew his index finger into her mouth sucking gently. She shifted position, sliding his finger out of her mouth, and placed gentle kisses along his collar bone, slipping her leg between his thighs. Now, the faint scar was pressed into the heat of his arousal, but that fact barely even registered in his mind. A soft moan escaped his lips, as Kaylee banished all the unpleasant thoughts that always floated around in his head, leaving room for nothing but pleasure.