The moment Serenity closed up completely Mal passed Kaylee off to a startled Jayne and collapsed on the stairs.

“Whadaaya want me to do with her?” he demanded, shifting her a bit in his arms.

“Just gimme a second, will you Jayne? I’m a bit busy learnin’ to breathe properly again.” Mal wheezed.

“No need to get tetchy. Just don’t know if something’s wrong with her is all. We need the Doc?” Jayne pressed.

Mal shook his head and began to stand as Zoe came down the stairs from the bridge. “I’ve been scanning the area and nothing’s showing up on radar. Hasn’t been anything since before we took off from Paquin. Probably a false alarm, sir. And River agrees with me. I think.”

Mal pressed his lips together a moment before speaking. “Well, let’s not breathe a sigh of relief just yet. We’ll keep movin’ fast as we can for awhile and if nothing shows up we’ll rein her back in. I’ll leave it to you to handle.” Before Zoe could ask why, he took a still-unconscious Kaylee from Jayne and walked off toward the sleeping quarters.

Getting an incapacitated person down the ladder and into their sleeping quarters proved to be more difficult than Mal imagined. More than once he nearly lost his grip on the ladder or on Kaylee. As it was, she took quite a bit of jostling before he finally managed to deposit her in bed.

Mal stopped a moment to watch her sleeping it off and couldn’t keep the look of concern for his mechanic from chasing the annoyance from his features. When she woke up the next morning he was likely to give her a piece of his mind for wandering off and scaring him like that. If those Reavers had been real there’s no telling if things would have turned out the way they did.

He understood why she’d turned to a bottle instead of to the list of supplies he’d provided her. Little Kaylee felt things more deeply than anyone he’d ever met. When she was happy, that happiness touched every bit of her body inside and out and couldn’t help infecting anyone who came near. But the same thing happened when she was hurtin’ – only difference was that she made a person want to do everything he could to stop her pain.

He knew all that feeling could get to a person. Doing a bit – okay, an awful lot – of drinking was her way of trying to numb those bad feelings a bit. Mal pulled the blanket over her and placed a protective hand on her shoulder. She’d be all right in the morning and they could all go on from there. He leaned over and dropped a kiss on her forehead before turning to head up to bed himself.

“Cap’n?” Kaylee called out, causing him to turn. Her eyes were half open and she was looking at him, confused. “What’s going on? Where are we?”

“What’s this? Serenity’s own mechanic doesn’t recognize her?” Mal dropped his foot from the bottom rung of the ladder and went back over to her bedside.

“How’d I get here?” she wondered aloud.

“Came sunset and you were nowhere to be seen so I went lookin’ for ya. Found you in the tavern with the local color. Had to stare down a few lecherous folk with their eye on you. Job was done so I brought you back to your bunk for some sleep. Which, come to speak of it, you should get back to sooner than later.” Mal smoothed over the bits of the story Kaylee really didn’t need to know with believable lies, and she didn’t question what he told her.

Her cheeks, already flushed with too much drink, managed to redden more as she realized what he’d seen. “M’sorry, Cap’n. I didn’t mean to cause no trouble. I was just--”

He held up a commanding hand to stop her. “Don’t worry about that none. Everyone needs some time with a bartender now and again. Nothing to be ashamed over.”

Despite what he’d said, a tear slipped down Kaylee’s left cheek and soaked into her blanket. Mal felt his heart twinge and found himself compelled to sit on the edge of the bed and wipe the second tear away with his thumb.

“None of that now, xin gan. You need to get some rest because I expect my mechanic in top shape tomorrow. We got a couple of things need doing before we touch down on Beaumonde and I expect you to be able to do them.” He tried to look like the stern captain whose orders needed to be followed. Best for her not to dwell on things in her state.

“Why do things always turn out so wrong?” Drunkenness makes most folks earnest and honest, and Kaylee was no different. “I try so hard to be happy, make things work. But they always get messy anyway. Serenity, the job today, and Simon.” She cried more now, but she was ashamed of these tears and tried to hide them by turning her face from him.

“Hey, that’s a bunch of fèhuà. The job today went fine, and ain’t nobody who could keep Serenity in better shape than you. I don’t want to be hearing no more of that kind of stuff, you hear me?” Mal looked down at her as kindly as he could; reassuring people wasn’t really one of his strong points. But Kaylee wasn’t good with accepting orders in place of emotion.

“I just wish I knew what happened. All that build-up and I thought things were gonna be shiny with Simon.” Mal looked uncomfortable and he stood from her bed. Kaylee didn’t seem to notice. “Thought I finally found someone to love who’d love me back exactly the same. But we didn’t fit and I don’t understand how I could be so wrong about—“

“Wasn’t right for you, Kaylee. You both wanted something you’d never seen before and you got it. Just wasn’t meant to be. Doesn’t reflect at all on you. You just live and breathe differently than him is all and wasn’t anything either of you could do to change that.” He cupped his hand under her chin and gently turned her face to him while he continued. “You’re a good girl. Full of joy and positivity and scarily handy with damn near every machine ever created in this ‘verse. Don’t you go thinking anymore that there’s something wrong with you. It was just a bad match.”

Mal couldn’t pull anything more elegant than that from his brain to say to her. It just wasn’t in him. Luckily, what he said appeared to be enough because he earned himself one of her ear-to-ear smiles.

“Thanks for lovin’ us all, Cap’n.”

“Hey, now. A captain’s gotta tolerate his crew but he certainly don’t have to like them. And he’s definitely not supposed to love ‘em,” Mal corrected her.

“Do you love me, Cap’n?” Kaylee blurted out. It seemed to come from a place so deep within her that the question surprised even her. Still, she was completely serious. He blinked at her in the silence that followed but said nothing, trying to work out exactly what she meant by the question. The atmosphere in the room changed considerably – it was thicker, slower, and definitely a good deal heavier. As the seconds passed, Kaylee started to look less sure of herself and more embarrassed. Mal knew he had to work quickly to prevent more tears.

“Everyone loves you, little Kaylee. Even Jayne, and he don’t love nothin’ except Vera. And maybe that ugly hat his ma made him.” He offered her a small smile that somehow didn’t betray the increase in his heart rate.

“I ain’t exactly little, Cap’n.” She couldn’t be sure if it was the drink or something else making her this bold, but she couldn’t seem to stop the words from escaping her lips.

Mal stared at her as she spoke, but she saw him swallow and avert his eyes a bit before he answered. “Well, you’re littler’n me.”

She reached out her hand and her eyes pleaded with him to take it. He complied, reaching out to give it a little squeeze. Without warning, she gave his proffered hand a strong tug. Startled, Mal stumbled toward her and she sat up in bed to give him a brief kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Night, Cap’n. Thanks for rescuing me.”

He didn’t answer her, just got up and quietly left her quarters, hitting the light panel on the way out. As Mal went up the ladder he shook his head a bit, as if to clear it. Down below, Kaylee was already asleep.

~*~ END OF PART TWO

Chinese Translations in order of appearance (courtesy of )

Xin gan = sweetheart/darling Fèhuà = garbage/nonsense