“He’s mad again,” Kaylee said, looking remorsefully at the door which Mal had just disappeared through. It appeared to still be reverberating from his slam.

“Inara is as well,” Simon commented as he sat down beside her.

“Ya know, sometimes I just don’t understand those two,” Kaylee began forcefully. “I mean, she’s crazy ‘bout him and he’s crazy ‘bout her, so what’s the big problem?”

Simon looked sideways at her. “They’re just two very prideful people.”

“Stubborn’s more like,” she responded gruffly, turning back to the mass of metal that she was tinkering with.

“She just doesn’t understand him sometimes, and he doesn’t understand her most of the time,” Simon responded, voice softening.

“Well they could make a gorram effort!” She burst out, sending pieces of metal flying across the room as she flung her hands in the air.

He smiled at her gently. “The Captain just has a way with saying the wrong thing.”

“But they act so silly sometimes! Like it ain’t obvious or nothin, and it is!”

“Well, they’d like to pretend it isn’t so obvious, I think. Or, at least, Mal would like to. Inara may have other thoughts.”

She looked at him, still seeming angry at their shipmates, but broke out into one of her Kaylee smiles. “Like they’re from two different worlds, you know,” she commented. “He’s all troubled and rough and she’s high-class and elegance all over.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t still be…..something,” Simon said, and Kaylee looked pleased at his description. “Hard to have anything on this tub.”

Kaylee bristled immediately. “Tub?”

“Kaylee,” Simon began with a sigh, “It slipped out. I forget, sometimes, that-”

“Then maybe you should make a gorram effort,” she replied icily, smile long gone, before stomping back to the engine room.

He picked up one of the pieces she’d left behind, twiddling with it. He sighed again. “He has a way with saying the wrong thing, that’s for sure.”