A/N: Oh, hell. I didn't even try for a plot this time. The fluff continues.

I know everyone is still hoping for something that you'd only find on late-night cable, but as I thought about some more, it occured to me that after all the emotional wringing they'd absorbed, Simon would be very careful and gentle and slow with Kaylee. And so he is. Time to start categorizing this into "Romance". It's getting pretty gooey.

And of course, having them show up at breakfast with bed hair was required.

*******

Kaylee wasn't really a religious person. Sure, she bowed her head at meals like her Daddy had taught her, but it wasn't like she went to church or nothin'. She tended to leave the moral questions to the Shepherd and the Captain. Although she had been known to listen in when the two of 'em really got goin', it was only for the fun of hearin' the Captain make up new cuss words. The whole religiosity thing was kind of an afterthought in her world.

Which is why if there was a God up there, he'd find it all manner of funny listenin' to the words in her head this morning. For the past five minutes, she'd been alternately thanking Him - or Her, she weren't picky - and beggin' whatever Powers That Be for a favor: if they was gonna kill her, please do it now, 'cause her life weren't gonna get any better that this if she lived two hundred years.

She and Simon had moved in their sleep, and now she found herself rolled over on her other side, facing him. Her face was buried into his shoulder with half her body flung over his. His hands had come up around her - one on her shoulder, one around her waist - and were clutching her like he was drowning. Even in his sleep, Simon's over-active brain kept churning through whatever it was he worried over, and every once in a while he'd murmur something out loud, before sighing and falling quiet again. She nuzzled her nose into his shirt, taking deep breaths. He smelled kind of like the infirmary - no surprise there - but now he also smelled a bit like her shampoo. She grinned. Hadn't even got him undressed and he smelled like her. Damn, she was good.

Suddenly he shifted, unconsciously redistributing her weight and pulling her up his body a little more, so now their heads were even. This presented her with a new problem: his ear. She knew she shouldn't - he'd spent days watching over her, he was always worried about River, he'd had to stand down the Captain and absorb the stress of almost losing his home, so he really needed his sleep - but the temptation was too much. She was only human, gorramit, and if that wasn't just the cutest ear ever....she didn't stand a chance. So she nibbled. Just a little.

Of course, she should have realized Simon was a light sleeper; you had to be when you had a wacky sister prone to violent outbursts. The light pressure on his earlobe - and Kaylee was good at this; she knew how to nibble gently - was enough to snap his eyes open. Damn. She liked him asleep. But now that he was awake, she might as well get to the pillow talk. The morning was young, after all, and with all her work last night, the Cap'n should be leavin' her alone for a while.

"Hey, there, Mr. Sleepy Head." She raised herself up a bit so she could stare down at him.

"Hey." He blinked a few times, clearing out the fog. He suddenly grinned wryly, and took the hand from her shoulder to lift the covers. "I see you left me with my pants this time. Are you feeling alright?"

"Shiny, doctor. I got lots of good sleep." She set herself back down, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him fiercely. Of course, while she was there she pressed a soft kiss to his neck. She giggled when his breath caught a bit. This was going to be fun. Wonder what else she could get away with?

"Hey, come back here." He tapped her on the back of the head. She lifted her head back up and propped it on her elbow.

"What?" Oh, God, he was grinning. Damn, she had it bad.

"I was serious. No headaches or anything? Muscle twitches?"

"Nope. All parts workin' normal."

"Good." Simon would always be a doctor. It was in his nature to think of her health above all. But once that was taken care of.... "Now, I believe you were interested in something about ears?" To illustrate his point, he put one hand on her cheek, letting his fingers curl around and rub right behind her left ear, gently tugging on the top of her earlobe. "Did you know the ear is considered one of the major erogenous zones?"

"Nuh uh." She had no idea what "erogenous" meant, and was too far gone to ask, so she settled for closing her eyes and whimpering. The back of her mind was making a note that doctor training wasn't just good for stitching you up - all that manual dexterity definitely came in handy other ways, too.

"It's true." He laughed when he saw her face, jaw slack and nearly purring. "Looks like you believe me. I took a massage class in college as part of the physical therapy unit. See, what's happening is that the stimulation causes blood to - "

Kaylee opened her eyes. Damn, he was talking. That never ended well. Leaning forward, she placed a hand on each of his cheeks and kissed him. Hard. He had to choke back the rest of his sentence before he responded, reaching up and burying his hands into her hair and pulling her in tighter.

Kaylee was pretty sure she'd die from the sheer joy of it, but eventually she had to come up for oxygen. "There. Talkin' just gets in the way. So just keep quiet an' go back to the ear thing, mister."

"Yes, ma'am." Simon had no trouble following orders. Right about now, he'd do pretty much anything she asked. He carefully rolled her onto her back and sat up in the bed, sitting next to her chest and putting one hand on each side of her head, gently rubbing her earlobes before lightly pressing on the bony part right behind them. She sighed and sunk deeper in the bed as her limbs turned to jelly. He used his fingers to branch out and rub her head, working his way around to her forehead and finally lightly pinching her nose bridge. "Better?"

She opened her eyes slowly, willing her muscles to respond. "Wow. Promise me you'll do that every mornin'."

"So you intend to be here tomorrow, too?," he teased.

"Hell, Simon. It gets out you know how to do that, we'll have the whole gorram crew breakin' down the door in the mornin'." She couldn't help but giggle as Simon's expression obviously showed his distaste at doing anything at all like that to Jayne.

"Huh. Better keep it quiet then, especially since I have more tricks up my sleeve. Now roll over." Kaylee was only too happy to oblige. Simon began rubbing, gently kneading each muscle starting at her neck all the way down to her lower back. He eventually stopped and smiled to himself when her heard her light breathing. She'd fallen asleep again. Leaning over, he kissed her on the cheek to wake her up. "Hey again. You hungry?"

Kaylee rolled over and smiled up at him, pure and utter devotion on her face. "What? You gonna cook for me, too?"

"If you like, although I'll warn you that my cooking is not always received very well." They both smiled as they recalled the "smells like crotch" batch of rice he once concocted. It was bad enough that River wouldn't even touch it, and if the crazy girl wouldn't eat it, well....that wasn't a good sign.

"Really?" This was too good to be true. "I'm dead, ain't I? No other way someone would treat me so nice." Some part of her marveled at why he wasn't trying to undress her. Not that she would have stopped him - after a treatment like that, he could do whatever the hell he wanted - but it was actually really nice not to have anything expected of her. She'd never had anyone focus on her like this, and it was absolutely the greatest thing in the worlds.

"Nope. You're very much alive." He paused as her stomach growled. "And apparently I was right about the hungry. Let's go."

"Aww. Gonna spoil me, doctor." It wasn't a real objection. She had absolutely no problems with him spoiling her rotten.

He just grinned away as he got out of bed and offered her a hand up. "That's the plan. And I'm pretty sure I can keep this one from hitting any snags." He leaned in, eyes twinkling. "We just won't include the Captain and it'll all run smoothly."

**

Oh, wuh de ma, what the hell was this? Mal checked out his youngest crew members as the filed in from the aft hallway. All three of them were still in their pajamas. Simon was in the lead, holding Kaylee by the hand, who in turn was leading River. River was off in her own little world, as usual, mumbling something or other about ear therapy. Kaylee was wearing slippers, but they seemed to belong to Simon, as they were several sizes to big and it was doubtful that Kaylee owned any footwear that tasteful. Her hair was a complete wreck, although River was making something of an effort at getting it to lie straight, but was mostly just moving the mess from side to side. Simon was barefoot - which by itself was awfully strange - and also was having hair issues, as he was sporting the largest cowlick Mal had ever seen. All three of them stopped and surveyed the table as they entered the room.

Mal was staring at them critically from the far end, no doubt planning when and how Simon's death would occur, the answers most likely being "soon" and "explosive decompression". To his right, Jayne alternated between shoveling food into his mouth and giving Simon the evil eye. Wash just sat next to Zoe, grinning like an idiot, while Zoe's face showed no emotion at all except for a slight crinkle of her eyes. Inara looked extremely pleased with what she saw, giving Kaylee several looks of "meet me after breakfast." In contrast, Book looked mildly disappointed at what he assumed had happened, but wasn't going to say anything directly. The room was absolutely silent.

Simon led his small band to their seats, looking at the empty pot of what he assumed had been scrambled eggs. Pointedly ignoring the looks from the rest of the crew, he addressed his ladies. "OK, girls, what'll it be? Looks like scrambled eggs was on the menu. I think I can manage more of that." Kaylee just smiled a brilliant smile at him and nodded. River continued to stare off into space, not noticing nor caring what food landed in front of her.

As Simon moved over towards the stove, Mal couldn't contain himself any longer. "You kids sleep well?" He gave Kaylee a very pointed look. Given that her bunk was on the opposite side of the ship from Simon's, and Mal hadn't seen her come by this morning, it didn't take a mind reading genius to figure out where she had spent the night.

"Oh, just shiny, Cap'n. Real cozy." She gave Mal a sunny smile, enjoying the way he was fidgeting. Well, good. He deserved some payback after being such a hundan yesterday.

River chose this moment to come back to reality. "I didn't. Simon was very loud." Jayne and Wash both suddenly choked on their food, erupting into a fit of coughing. Zoe, sitting between them, began whacking each of them on the back.

Mal slowly counted to ten. He was pretty damn sure he didn't want to hear about the Doc being loud with little Kaylee. "He was, was he?"

"Yes. Simon talks in his sleep sometimes." River cocked her head and gave him a prim look. "What did you think I meant, Captain?"

"Oh, nothin'. Just curious. Like to know how my crew is farin' is all." He shifted uncomfortably as Inara gave him a "knock it off" glare.

Jayne, on the other hand, was totally immune to Inara's signals, and had unfortunately recovered from his fit. "Hell, girl. He wants to know if your brother was ruttin' Kaylee all night." The rest of the table looked horrified. "What? It's true."

"Simon was a gentleman, Jayne, somethin' you might wanna look into." Kaylee recovered enough to defend herself.

"But you was in the same bed, right?"

"Yes."

"An' he didn't get any? See, Mal, told ya he was sly."

"Emily Simms, when you were sixteen years old." River jumped in. "You were in the same bed with her, and did not have intercourse." She looked Jayne over appraisingly. "Are you sly, too? Jayne is a girl's name."

Jayne turned white, but was saved from further ebarrassment as Simon returned, holding a new pot of food. "Here we are. Eggs for all." He dished up the food to three plates and handed them around. "And for the lady, ketchup." Kaylee laughed and accepted the bottle from him, turning it upside down and dumping an incredibly large amount of red goop onto her plate.

"Glad to see you've mastered fine cuisine, son." Book's eyes twinkled. Regardless of what his religion thought of the boy's nighttime escapades, it was obvious that Kaylee was soothing his soul. He'd never seen the doctor so playful, and that could only be a good thing.

"Well, my finest dish is cups of instant soup - I could make and eat one in under two minutes back at the hospital - but I'm learning to diversify." He gave the shepherd a warm smile, silently thanking him for breaking the tension. Small conversations picked up around the room as people resumed whatever it was they were doing before the morning entertainment started.

Finally, Zoe slapped the table to get attention. "Alright. We all got things to do, I reckon."

"We'll be landing on Beumonde in about five hours", Wash started. "I already waved ahead to our usual suspects, and we have a message waiting on a possible job. Should we go check it, hon?" Wash got up and headed for the bridge, Zoe following him.

"Preacher, wanna go lift for a bit? I'm feelin' the need to burn off some energy." Book nodded to Jayne and they both headed down the steps towards the cargo bay, Jayne already bragging about how much weight he was going to use this time.

Simon finished his eggs and stood. "Now that the infirmary is no longer occupied" - he gave Kaylee a small smile - "I need to go tidy it up and reset some supplies." He motioned for River to follow along, and he steered her towards the back of the ship, tipping Kaylee a quick wink as he left.

"Yeah, I should go, too. I'll come visit later, 'Nara, but right now the engine's still runnin' a bit hot." Kaylee stuck a finger into her pool of ketchup to get one last taste before heading towards her bunk to change.

Both Mal and Inara noticed Kaylee stop at the head of the stairs and turn around, her eyes following Simon's back as he ushered River down the steps. Neither of them missed the expression on her face, a mixture of wonder, devotion, and not a tiny bit of lust all rolled into one. She eventually got control of herself and continued down to her bunk.

"Oh, my." Now Inara really wanted to get Kaylee to drop by her shuttle for some girl talk - there was only one place a look like that could lead, and she wanted all the details.

"Yep." Mal put his chin in his hands, looking forlorn. "Pretty damn sure the engine ain't the only thing runnin' hot 'round here."