Author: Rawles {rawles[dot]marie[at]gmail[dot]com} Type: Het Genre: Romance Characters: Kaylee. Simon. Author’s Notes: As close as I ever get to writing sex. No. Seriously.

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In Kaylee’s dream, Simon rarely leaves her side. He goes off to the hospital to work, but that’s just about the only time. It makes him happy, so she doesn’t mind much. Plus, she’s there at the end of his shift to pick him up. Many times she arrives in some new transport she’s been working on in those hours alone. He mends the people and she finds stray machines to put to rights. It’s all perfect. Sometimes she waits for him outside of the hospital and other times she goes in to find him. Either way they end up back together and they take off.

He tells her about his day and she listens. She doesn’t always understand every single thing that he says, but it’s the same when it’s her turn to talk about whatever new toy she’s found to fascinate her. Even in the parts they don’t quite comprehend they still smile and enjoy the happiness that it brings the other.

Sometimes they go out somewhere straight from the hospital. A ballet or a play or a party. On those occasions she’s all decked out in silks and brocades and jewels. The kind of things she once would have looked on and thought glamorous beyond belief. Now she has closets full and others look on her that way. Other times, the majority, really, she’s dressed simple and practical and he looks at her like she’s just as beautiful as she is any other time. On those occasions they go straight home and they make love. Lots of that.

Their bedroom holds the echoes of their laughter. They fool around on their humongous bed. Kissing and licking and biting and touching. Giggling and playing hide and seek under the covers. He always finds her and she always lets him. Then the echoes are of moans and gasps and other sounds of pleasure; their names shouted out and whispered in turn. They lie there, their bodies intertwined, happy to just be and be together.

They take a walk after. They walk through the halls of their estate and on outside. They stroll through the city, with its bright lights and tall buildings, their arms around each other as they chat about what they’re going to do tommorow and the next day. It’s idle chat because they already know the answer. They’ll be in love and everything will be perfect.

It’s always around that time when a bit of wakefulness creeps in and Kaylee feels guilty that the others are all absent. No Captain or Zoe or Wash. No Inara or Book or Jayne. No River. Simon never had to worry about River in this dream. Suddenly, Simon’s arms don’t feel as warm and safe and the ‘verse doesn’t seem quite as shiny. It only ever lasts for a moment before the dreamworld overcomes her senses once more and the guilt is assuaged by the vague feeling that somewhere in the ‘verse the others are safe and happy and living their own dreams. The vague feeling is always enough because Kaylee knows that she has other dreams for them. Dreams on Serenity, where they never leave her familiar corridors and live and love and stay there forever. Where everyone is content and together and the makeshift family they’d all found endures.

This dream, however, is for her and Simon. It’s private, like some things need to be.

The beeping begins not too long after that and awakens Kaylee. It starts in the distance, faintly, then builds up until it gathers enough strength to pull her from that perfect world and deposit her back on Serenity. She feels Simon shift beside her, the warmth of his body withdrawing a bit. He extricates his arm from where it rests around her so that he can stop the beeping. This involves disentangling his fingers from hers and she mumbles in sleepy protest. Gently, he does it anyway.

He presses a kiss to her temple, his silent promise that he’ll be back soon from giving River her medicine. He rises and pulls on some clothing in the darkness. Kaylee rolls over then, into the warm spot Simon left, and waits for him. The tiny bunk seems odd for a moment and her mind briefly goes to a faraway home with a bed large enough that they don’t have to sleep on their sides to fit in. Simon returns, happy that River is well, and Kaylee’s smile lets him know what he’s going to have to do if he wants to lie down again.

Perfect dreams are forgotten as she willingly allows sweet reality to claim her.