Chapter 1 and 2: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14567

Chapter 3: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14577

Chapter 4: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14593

Chapter 5: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14621

Chapter 6: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14721

Chapter 7: tp://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=14810

*****

Chapter 8

Kaylee rolled off of Simon Tam and stared at the ceiling, her eyes looking straight on through like into the Black. Her breath slowly returned to normal and she began to think clearly again. Kaylee thought to herself about love, about whether or not she was in love with Simon. “If this ain’t what love is” she told herself, “then I don’t want it.” She touched Simon’s soft, well educated chest with what little of her hand wasn’t calloused, the back, and she kissed him where he felt roughest, his face. She felt relaxed while they were lying next to each other, a tangle of limbs. She liked to think that they were like a well fabricated set of machines when they were like this, that you couldn’t find where one ended and the other began. She remembered the big word that Simon had taught her to describe the feeling after the first time that they’d done this, euphoric. Kaylee had always thought that she’d loved machines, and this was like that. When Kaylee was working with Serenity it was like they were one thing, and when she was with Simon it was the same. She wondered, sometimes, if Simon felt the same way about fixing people, but she never worked up the strength to ask. Instead she just let herself slip into sleep.

*****

Zoe cried a little bit while she tried to sleep. The bed was too big for her and she felt like she was drowning in it. To stay away from it she slept on the floor, like back when she was a soldier, back before Wash. She had known hundreds of men who died, at least that’s what it felt like. She had been sad when they died, but it had only been a small weight on her shoulders. Eventually it had faded away, or she had forgotten about it. Either way, she had been able to move on in the past. Now she couldn’t. If going on with a lost cadet was like a weight, going on without Wash was like pushing boulders. She cried, something that she thought, once, that she had forgotten how to do. When she was a soldier, even after the war, she could turn her sadness into anger and do something to exorcise it. Now she just felt like she had to give up.

*****

Jayne Cobb sat alone in the Crazy Horse bar on Osiris. He had a beer in his right hand and a whiskey in his left. Jayne never wondered much, but now he wondered if he might be drinking too much. Jayne was almost thirty-five years old, or at least that’s what the Doctor had told him when he had his checkup a few days ago. Age had never crossed the mind of Jayne Cobb before, and he didn’t like that it was starting now. Now he needed to be able to relax. The times were changing, but right now there was a lull and Jayne hated lulls. He always got worried that nothing might ever happen. Jayne had never been philosophical, but he started to think about what he was doing with his life. Between shots of whiskey and gulps of beer he wondered if it was worth it to be a gun his whole life. He’d never wondered it before, but now that he thought about it he wondered if there was more to life. He didn’t think it was a manly realization, but, hell, if it had been his choice he would have let the thought stay at home. He didn’t want it. The Captain had bought his own boat and he’d shacked up in Serenity. Zoe had found Wash and shacked up. Hell, even Kaylee and the Doctor had shacked up. “Ain’t it ‘bout time I did something like that?” Jayne wondered to himself. He wondered where he’d start, what he’d do, who he’d find. Really, it didn’t matter to him, he just needed to do something, go somewhere. He needed to know “Is there more to life then what I got?”