A/N: What with all the fantastic S/K fics by FrellingBlonde and misskitten floating around here, what can I say? I got inspired. Instead of something good, however, the following rambling was produced. Enjoy!

Kaylee’s bed wasn’t built for two. As much as it shamed Simon to admit it (even to himself), this was the first thing he thought of during their first night in her bunk.

It could really be called “their” bunk by this time, since they spent near every night together in the small, cold, and, oh yes, completely metal room. The decision, however, was not Simon’s. That is, it wasn’t at the top of his list. They had tried to use his room down in the passenger dorms a couple times, but Kaylee noticed Simon a had a little bit of trouble concentrating, what with the knowledge that his curious teenage sister could be listening in, in more ways than one, incidentally, River being who she was.

Kaylee’s next idea was to try the hammock in the engine room. At least it was warm in there. However, with the constant fear of certain parts and such getting stuck in the many sharp rotors, it was voted out of the race in the interest of safety. That, and they were informally banned from being in the engine room together by a crudely constructed cardboard sign reading: “No Sexual Activities in the Engine Room. No Exceptions! ~Your Captain.” Kaylee resented the sign and its implications. She didn’t like how it seemed to be directly mainly at her and Simon.

So, by process of elimination, Simon was now here, in Kaylee’s bunk, lying on the cold metal floor, because, as previously mentioned, Kaylee’s bed wasn’t built for two. They’d always try to stay on the bed of course, but by the morning at least one or both of the two would be huddled in either thin sheets or each other. Most of the time it was the latter.

Slowly prying his eyes open, Simon looked down in his arms at the sleeping naked woman latched onto him. She always seemed to be much warmer than he was. He searched around them to see if they had dragged any blankets down with them in the course of last night’s “activities.” He found one nearby and managed to cover the both of them without stirring enough to awaken his sleeping lover. It didn’t do as good a job as he had hoped, however, since the blanket was an old one Kaylee bought at a bazaar years ago. Simon remembered he had told her it was called an Afghan. Kaylee said it was a weird name for a blanket.

That done, Simon wrapped his arms once again around Kaylee, breathing in her hair and feeling a bit dizzy afterward. He always seemed to get selfish when it came to smelling her hair. Feeling her start to writhe gently in his arms, snuggling closer, Simon began to stroke her smooth, bare skin. Tracing the curve of her side from her rib cage down to her hip and back again. His hands did have a habit of getting kind of cold, so at his touch, Kaylee’s skin lost a bit of its smoothness and gained a more patterned texture of goosebumps along her side.

“Hmmm… Ssmmnn…” Kaylee murmured, nowhere near consciousness.

Simon felt an instinctive smile fix itself against his face and felt that great feeling of weightlessness inside his chest at the sound that he recognized as his name without vowels. He pushed his body closer to hers, as close as he could manage. Looking back, he didn’t know how he did it, not touching her skin. How did other people stand it? How could you look at a girl like her and not feel forced to be as close to her as possible? All excellent, but rhetorical, questions.

He let out a huge breath and worried momentarily that it would wake Kaylee up. He would try to get back to sleep, but it would do no good. Now, all he could do was think of that one nagging question: What the hell had happened?

The last year was a blur. He had tried to tell back his own life to himself so many times, it now seemed to be a fairy tale, nothing substantiated or believable in any way. The only thing he knew for sure was the present: him, lying in a ship, naked (always a plus) with a girl who had, beyond all reason, deemed him satisfactory enough to grant him her exclusive company for most of the hours in the day.

The circumstances that pushed him into this ship were awful. So awful, Simon believed he and his sister were being perpetually punished. He had tried to do well throughout his stay on Serenity, but somewhere between his healing of criminals, stealing of expensive medications, and overthrowing of governmental figureheads he must have done a good deed. A deed good enough to warrant this girl. His girl. A very strange concept. Was she his girlfriend? His lover? Just the girl he works with? Nah, he was comfortable calling her “his girl” for now. To himself anyway. He’d never be so brave or impertinent to say it out loud in front of her.

It hurt him in ways he could never express how he knew that it would never work out between them. Even if she truly did love him, there was no way he could make it work. He knew a lot of things. Top three percent. One thing he didn’t know was how to be what Kaylee needed. Or wanted, for that matter. He wanted so much to believe in the possibility that one day he could marry this beautiful, genius woman in his arms, maybe have a family, but he just couldn’t picture it. As much as her fascination with him had surprised him, he could not for the life of him believe that she would stay with him. That she would find a way to believe herself that they were meant for each other. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see her loving him.

“What’re you doin’…?” Kaylee spoke softly, barely opening her eyes.

“I’m, uh, I’m watching you sleep,” Simon whispered.

“Oh.” Kaylee pressed her lips to Simon’s chest and gently kissed. She then moved back to a more comfortable position, her head on his chest. “You’re creepy, sometimes…” Those were the last words Kaylee said before drifting back to sleep.

Then again, Simon thought, nothing else so far had gone according to his finely tuned plans. Maybe he’d be willing to be surprised again.

This felt good. Good and cold. Comfortable. Yes, he was comfortable here. On this cold hunk of metal floating out in space. He felt comfortable calling her “his girl.” That felt good, too.

And with that, Simon started to drift back down, breathing in his girl’s hair. Wrapped up in old, thin blankets, together in their bunk.

Their bunk. He liked the sound of that.