A/N: My first post here... I hope y'all like it! Thanks to LJC and Ying for the Mandarin dialogue help. I've probably still got stuff wrong... if anyone catches anything, please let me know.

Gift Horse

Kaylee was certain that her smile was in danger of actually splitting her face in two. She loved birthdays, and though her daddy probably would’ve blushed to know he’d raised such a selfish child, she had to admit that she loved her own birthday the best. She’d been lucky this time around, too—presents and parties aboard Serenity were always something of a crapshoot, but they’d cleared a tidy profit on a job a few weeks back, which meant that the table in front of her was littered with presents and she had the remains of a fine breakfast in her belly.

She let her eyes drift over her treasures, drawing out the moment as long as possible. Even though it was first thing in the morning, they’d already eaten most of the cake, made with real chocolate and flour and eggs that Kaylee was sure Shepherd Book must have had to go to God Himself to find. There was a new automatic wrench from Zoë and Wash, self-adjusting and self-rotating; there was a whole box of only-slightly-used spare parts from Mal, because he knew there was no challenge in brand new ones; Jayne had cleaned, oiled, polished, and sharpened all her tools; River had given her a detailed and lifelike drawing of Serenity just firing up, rolled up and tied with a lacy purple hair ribbon; Inara’s present was more of a promise, the prospect of a shopping trip for a fine new dress the next time they docked on a proper planet.

That just left Simon’s gift, a carefully, colorfully wrapped box that she had saved till last on purpose. Through her eyelashes, she looked at him across the table, basking in the light in his eyes and the grin on his face. He did that more often now—finally, after months aboard Serenity, he actually seemed to be loosening up a bit—and every time he did it, she had to think that Simon grinning was about as lìngrén jingyì a sight as she was ever like to see.

‘Course, the present she was really hoping for from Simon couldn’t be wrapped in a box, and as the look between them heated up, she dared to hope he might be thinking along the same lines. With a wink, she slid a finger under the seal on the wrapping paper, careful not to tear it.

“Just rip the gorram thing!” Jayne burst out, but a glare from Zoë was enough to shut him up.

Kaylee’s heart started to pound with excitement as she peered into the box. There seemed to be a glass ball of some kind, about the size of her hand… she eagerly tipped it out into her palm, and her jaw dropped.

It wasn’t glass, but a hardier, transparent material she’d never seen. And inside... inside, suspended in some kind of impossibly small anti-grav field, the globe was filled with half a dozen tiny ceramic butterflies, each one brightly, stunningly painted down to the last detail, so that if they’d been moving their wings she would’ve sworn they were real. “Oh... Simon...” she breathed, unable to stop watching them.

Smiling, Simon watched her eyes grow wide, watched the shock turn to enchantment on her face, and figured this moment was more than worth the effort of scraping and saving every possible penny from his share of the last few months’ take. He was glad their last job had been so lucrative, though, otherwise he’d never have been able to manage it, and the minute he’d seen those butterflies floating and swirling in a shop on Persephone, he’d known they were made for Kaylee.

He was more than a little surprised, then, to see those huge, expressive eyes fill with tears, to see her place globe and box carefully back on the table and stand up so abruptly she almost knocked over her chair. Her voice was unsteady and her lips were trembling as she managed, “Y’know, actually, I, uh—I been meaning to check on them ‘tender braces, Cap’n. They snap, we’ll be spinnin’ like a top till some Alliance patrol finds us, so I’d best get back there before... um... Thanks for the shiny party, everyone,” and with a smile that she couldn’t quite hold, she ducked hastily out the door. The rapid clomping of her boots on Serenity’s metal floors was loud in the sudden silence, fading down the hallway towards the engine room.

After a stunned moment, Inara rose and went after her, stopping only for a comforting squeeze on Simon’s shoulder as she passed.

Simon, crushed and utterly bewildered, looked helplessly around the table, finally settling his pleading gaze on Zoë.

The first mate only shrugged. “Sorry, can’t help you this time, doc. Sometimes even a woman can’t tell what’s on another woman’s mind.”

“You know,” Wash mused, “I always thought the list of things that could make Kaylee mad was a pretty short one.”

Simon slumped down, letting his head thunk satisfyingly against the back of his chair. “And yet somehow I manage to hit all the highlights.”

Wash nodded thoughtfully. “I am noticing that.”

Jayne’s response was predictable: “This mean I can eat her share of the cake?”

“No,” chorused six voices in unison, including River’s.

Mal, at the head of the table, clapped his hands to his thighs and stood up. “Well. Seeing as the guest of honor has departed in tears, this looks to be another successful birthday on this boat. It’s truly a shame we can’t do this more often. Now everybody get back to work. You too, Jayne,” he added, smacking the mercenary’s arm as he tried to smuggle the remnants of Kaylee’s cake off the table. Jayne subsided, grumbling, and Mal dragged him out of the room.

Simon, too miserable to move just yet, appreciated Wash and Zoë’s sympathetic glances as the couple followed Mal toward the bridge. Book gave him a warm smile.

“ ‘When love is not madness, it is not love,’” he quoted. “She’ll be fine, son.” Then he winked. “And if not, you can always join my order… celibacy, as you can see, isn’t always as much of a burden as a man might think.” He headed towards the door, then suddenly turned back around. “Almost forgot—one of my brethren sent me a WAVE this morning that included a news bulletin from Osiris. I haven’t looked at it yet—probably local gossip, mostly—but I thought you might like to see it.”

Simon found, somewhat to his surprise, that news of their former home actually sounded quite appealing at the moment. He smiled, touched. “Yes, I think I would. Thank you for thinking of me, Shepherd.”

Book nodded. “I’ll send it along to you.” And then he was gone, leaving Simon alone with his sister.

“Well?” he demanded after a moment of silence. “You’re the genius—you want to tell me what I’m supposed to do now?”

River just looked at him. “Horse can’t love a fish,” she informed him solemnly. With that, she got up and left the room.

Simon sighed. “Yes, of course. Good point,” he muttered, and halfheartedly began clearing the table.

***********

Kaylee was wedged into her favorite corner of the engine room, Serenity’s gentle rhythm thrumming comfortingly through the walls around her as she sobbed. Normally, if she sat there long enough, Serenity could soothe away whatever hurt was troubling her, but when she heard a rustle of fine cloth next to her and caught a whiff of expensive perfume, she turned her head into Inara’s shoulder gratefully. She loved Serenity, but she wasn’t half as good with advice as Inara was.

Inara smiled a little and gathered the weeping mechanic closer, stroking her hair, rocking soothingly back and forth, heedless of the engine grease that was slowly working its way into the folds of her dress. My poor little Kaylee, she thought. In the time they’d been on Serenity together, Inara had seen her friend dance through a host of crushes and flirtations and even lovers without hardly batting an eye. Every time they were in port long enough to meet the locals, it seemed Kaylee always came back with some romantic tale to tell, but she left every one behind with the same cheerful grin she’d worn when they’d landed. With Simon, though, it was different. At first, she’d obviously been awed by his manners and his education and his fine clothes, all so foreign and intriguing to her, but over time, Inara had watched Kaylee being slowly drawn in by his unique brand of courage, his devotion to his sister, his slow and painful struggle to fit in the new world he was now living in. For someone as soft-hearted as Kaylee, it was a devastating combination.

She’d been cheerfully, sensuously free with her body, but Inara didn’t think Kaylee’s heart had ever been engaged in quite this way before. And like most young girls in the first throes of love, she seemed to bounce from joy to despair nearly hourly. It had reached the point where the entire crew was now watching this dance she and Simon were doing, tracking their agonizingly slow progress with varying degrees of amusement, indulgence, and annoyance.

Inara reflected that Simon and Kaylee seemed to be finding every way not to be together; eventually, though, she assumed their paths would finally merge, by process of elimination if nothing else. She hoped it would happen soon, she thought wryly, for their sake and for her own; she’d ruined more than one dress due to Kaylee’s choice of comfort zones. Besides, no girl should have to cry on her birthday.

Kaylee’s sobs seemed to be slowing now, and eventually she raised her head slightly, letting Inara smooth back her hair where it was sticking to her damp cheeks. “Are you ready to talk about it yet, honey?” the Companion asked gently. She smiled a little. “Poor Simon is awfully confused, and I have to admit, I’m a bit at a loss myself.”

“Oh, ‘Nara,” Kaylee sniffled miserably. “You all made such a shiny party for me, and I ruined it.”

Inara tsked, “Don’t worry about that, silly. It’s your birthday—you could ask us all to walk on our hands all day and we couldn’t say no to you. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s just...” Kaylee looked down at her lap, embarrassed. When she spoke again, her voice was low. “My momma always used to tell me… a horse can’t love a fish.”

“Oh, Kaylee.” Inara just shook her head, understanding perfectly despite the obscure expression. After a moment of consideration, she pushed back a bit, crouching down enough on the filthy floor so that she could look her friend in the eyes. “Listen to me, sweetheart. Animal, vegetable, or mineral—there isn’t a soul in the ‘verse that wouldn’t be foolish not to love you. And while our Simon is, on occasion, a bit slow when it comes to you, I certainly wouldn’t say that he’s a fool.”

Kaylee appreciated the kindness, but she also figured it had to be pretty easy to think that way when you were gorgeous and educated and fine and really, really good at sex. She sniffled again and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her coverall. “Thanks for sayin’ it, ‘Nara.” She leaned up against the wall again, tipped her head to the side to rest on the Companion’s shoulder. “Do you think we could talk about something else for awhile?”

Inara sighed and laid her cheek against Kaylee’s tangled hair. “Dang ran, mèimei. You’re the birthday girl.”

*************

It was afternoon by the time Simon finally settled himself in front of the infirmary Cortex screen. He’d spent the bulk of the morning on minor tasks—stacking Kaylee’s abandoned presents into a neat pile in the center of the kitchen table, administering the latest course of treatment to River, patching up a burn on Wash’s hand, discussing herbal remedies with Inara... not to mention all the trying not to throw himself on his knees in front of Kaylee and beg her forgiveness even though he had no idea what he’d done wrong. So he’d certainly had plenty of things to occupy his time. Still, the real reason he hadn’t accessed Book’s WAVE until now was simple: fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. He assessed it clinically: there was fear that reading about Osiris would make him miss his old life all over again, just as he was starting to truly become accustomed to his new one; there was fear that he wouldn’t miss it at all, and that he’d be forced to confront all the ways that a life of smuggling on the Outer Rim had changed him; there was even fear that there would suddenly be a tragic shortage of surgeons in Capital City and he could have saved a thousand plague victims with a miracle cure if he’d only stayed at the hospital.

He’d get more than a hamster for that, wouldn’t he?

Simon reined in his wandering (stalling) brain, forced himself to focus on the screen in front of him. In a rush, before he had time to find something to distract himself, he swiped his carefully-forged ident card through the reader and punched up the Shepherd’s WAVE. Not wanting to disturb anyone else within hearing range, he turned the audio off, and trained his eyes resolutely on the first headline.

Within moments, he was smiling, fear completely forgotten.

The bulletin was geared toward a wide range of readers, and therefore contained little of any shattering import. There was municipal news of a new elevated highway being built between Capital City and Isis, one of its major satellites, where apparently a new girls’ school was opening. The Cambersons had a daughter newly married, and Simon wondered idly if she’d had hodgeberry sauce on her wedding cake. There had been a riot of Independent sympathizers on Unification Day, but all of the filthy dissenters had been safely locked away in Alliance custody. Simon was shaking his head, imagining what relief that news would once have brought him, when another headline caught his eye: “Councilman Tam Offers Reward for Fugitive Children.”

Suddenly, he was finding it very difficult to breathe. His eyes had blurred too much for him to see the screen clearly, but he forced himself to reach forward and activate the audio with a shaking finger.

A canned, too-smooth newsreader voice filled the small room: “Newly-elected Councilman Gabriel Tam is adding 5,000 credits from his own accounts to the reward offered for the return of his two children, Simon and River Tam. Both are wanted on suspicion of unspecified crimes against the Alliance and are considered extremely dangerous, and Councilman Tam’s commitment to finding them and bringing them to justice, despite his attachment to them, is certainly made clearer by this very personal gesture.”

And then—wo de ma, please, no, Simon thought frantically, but his father’s voice was already playing, that confident, decisive tone that Simon knew so well: “Of course Regan and I regret the entire situation, and our primary concern is that they be brought back safely so that the truth of their actions may be discovered. If they are proven guilty, however, I will not let my personal feelings stand in the way of any just Alliance sentence.”

For a moment, all Simon could think was, Sentence? Do you really think we’re going to get a trial?

It was right around then that River started screaming.

Between the shock and the panic and the hot blur of tears in his eyes, it wasn’t until hours later that Simon remembered that as he’d been running through the infirmary doorway, desperate to reach his sister, he’d almost slammed right into Mal.

******************

Later, he was back in the infirmary again, meticulously going over his notes to try to discover what could have produced such a reaction in River. She’d been showing so much improvement lately, and he’d actually started to hope that he might have hit on a viable course of treatment, but by the time he’d reached her today, she had vomited in a corner of the cargo bay and seemed to be doing her best to expose every bit of cargo they were carrying, tossing all the contents of the secret compartments into the center of the bay and screaming about secrets.

She was sleeping now, as she had been for the past hour or so, tucked under a blanket on the bed across the room, covered with monitoring wires that tangled in her long hair as she shifted slightly in her sleep. Simon had lost count of the number of times he’d reread the same notes, but he scanned them carefully one more time. It just didn’t make any rutting sense. He hadn’t given her any of the medications that had provoked a negative reaction in the past, and he’d checked and re-checked every element of the mixture for any possible interaction problems.

He finally tossed his notes aside in frustration, scrubbing both hands over his face in an effort to clear his bleary eyes, swiveling aimlessly back and forth in his chair. When he opened his eyes again, he’d turned himself around almost completely, and the first thing that he saw was his father staring back at him.

He’d never closed the bulletin.

Deliberately, he reached out and touched the appropriate place on the viewscreen, feeling something tear loose inside him as his father’s face abruptly disappeared. He turned again to look at River, at the dried tear tracks on her face and the bruises on her arms and her small feet peeking out from under the edge of the blanket. He couldn’t breathe again, couldn’t think; he rested his elbows on the infirmary counter, fisted his hands in his hair and tried to concentrate on not screaming.

“Simon?”

He jumped at the noise, spun to see Kaylee standing in the doorway, twisting the fingers of both hands together, hesitant. For a wild moment, he could have sworn that every molecule in his body actually jumped toward her.

“Kaylee.” He stood up quickly, ran a hand through his hair, trying to pull himself together. “Are you—ah—do you need...”

As soon as she saw his face, all her own doubts and sorrows flew right out of her head. While he stumbled around trying to pretend he was okay, she simply crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him, hugged him tight. He just stood there at first, unmoving, tension in him so hard it was like hugging one of Serenity’s fuel cell casings. Then, with something between a sob and a sigh, he let himself fall into her, his arms coming around her, face buried in the crook of her neck, holding on for dear life. Pressed so close, she could feel the tremors that ran through him, and her heart ached for him as she stroked his hair and murmured comforting nonsense.

After a few moments, he released her, stepping back and swiping the back of his hand across his eyes. He laughed a little. “I’m sorry, I—”

But she wasn’t about to let him get away with that, and she grabbed both his hands in hers. “Simon. Talk to me.” His eyes slid away from her, and she pressed on, “You can’t keep everything all buttoned up inside all the time, it ain’t healthy.”

He shook his head. “Kaylee, I’m fine, really, I just, I have to check on River—”

“River’s fine.” They both jumped a bit and turned to see the girl in question sitting up on the narrow infirmary bed, pulling off the monitoring wires, her eyes huge and sad, but clear. She swung her legs gracefully off the bed and drifted across the room to them, bare feet soundless on the cold floor, and placed a hand on top of Simon’s and Kaylee’s joined ones. “River’s fine,” she repeated to Simon, smiling a little. “As a result of treatment, the patient has exhibited a marked improvement. Slept soundly, vitals normal, insides on the inside and outsides all present and accounted for.” She squeezed their hands, then leaned close to whisper conspiratorially to her brother, “Physician, heal thyself.”

That actually won a tiny smile from him, and Kaylee sensed a childhood joke, but Simon was still shaking his head. “Mèimei, you were sick earlier, I don’t want to leave you by yourself.”

“Won’t be by herself,” came another voice from the doorway. Simon turned to see Shepherd Book standing there, a comforting smile creasing his face. Behind him, Simon caught a glimpse of dark hair and fine cloth that could only mean Inara. “I’m so sorry, son,” Book continued, placing a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I had no idea—”

“We’ll take care of River,” Inara broke in, gliding into the room to take River’s free hand in hers. “She can come have some tea with us in my shuttle. We’ll know where to find you if she needs you.”

Simon blinked, speechless for a minute, and Kaylee figured it must be a bit like being attacked by pillows—the material might’ve been soft, but it had an impact all the same.

Something in Simon’s exhausted brain was puzzling over pattern they made, his hands and Kaylee’s and River’s and Book’s and Inara’s, all linked together in various ways... He forced his attention back to his sister.

River’s eyes glinted mischievous in the harsh light of the infirmary. “Green tea is rich in epigallocatechin gallate, which has a wide variety of health benefits.”

It was the last straw. Simon smiled at her, a real smile, and tried to ignore the stab of pain that hit him every time he caught a glimpse of the sister he’d grown up with. “All right, all right. But no green tea for you, xiâo mèi. You’ll be up all night conjugating verbs again.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez...”

Simon rolled his eyes and turned to Inara, ignoring his sister as she switched to Spanish, then German, then Japanese. “Thank you,” he told the Companion sincerely, then shifted his gaze to include Book.

Inara touched his cheek, sympathy and affection in her dark eyes. “Fang xin, Simon. It will be all right.”

“Call me if she needs anything, or if she gets agitated or confused, and I’m not kidding about the tea,” Simon added anxiously, but Inara only laughed.

While her brother was distracted, River broke off her litany long enough to press her cheek to Kaylee’s. “Reparare,” she whispered into her friend’s ear, then danced from the room, the Companion and the Shepherd trailing behind her.

**********

Kaylee cleared her throat uncomfortably. “So.”

She was perched on the end of Simon’s bed, legs crossed in front of her, elbows on knees. Between the four of them, she and River and Inara and Book had managed to break through Simon’s walls for a minute back there, but he’d obviously been doing a little construction on the short trip from the infirmary to the passenger dorm, and now those knee-weakening eyes of his were all shuttered up again, with her on the outside. The captain did the same thing from time to time, Kaylee knew, closed himself off from everything and everyone until he’d worked through whatever was eating at him. It worried her enough when he did it, but Simon didn’t even have Mal’s thick skin to protect him. The doctor could look so cool on the outside, but by now she knew him well enough to know that inside, he was brittle and coiled tight as a spring, and if someone didn’t help him soften things up a bit in there, he was liable to break so bad that no one would be able to fix him.

She reached out and gently touched Simon’s knee as he slumped against the wall next to her. “So,” she repeated, voice low. “I heard about the bulletin.”

His eyes flickered up to her, her sweet, concerned face and sad eyes, whatever hurt he’d caused her earlier apparently forgotten entirely in the face of his crisis. “Who told you?”

She shrugged, looked down for a second. “I overheard the Cap’n and Zoë talking about it.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall, too tired and too used to life on a small ship to be embarrassed. “Yep. Apparently it wasn’t enough for ‘Councilman Tam’ to merely abandon River and me to the mercy of those xiong can wang ba dan de biao zi; now he has to actively contribute to the great cause of hunting us down like animals.” He chuckled bitterly. “Just think of all the dinner parties he and mother would miss if anyone thought for a second they actually had any sympathy for their fugitive children.”

Kaylee took a second to appreciate the fact that several months around Jayne had definitely expanded Simon’s vocabulary, then linked her fingers with his. “Simon, I’m so sorry.” The words sounded pathetic and useless in her ears, but she didn’t know what else to say. For the zillionth time since meeting Simon and River, she wished with all her heart that people could be fixed as easy as a blown converter fuse.

Her uselessness didn’t seem to bother Simon, though. “I was actually enjoying reading it at first, you know? And even though it was comforting to see all those familiar names, I was thinking, this world doesn’t even seem like mine anymore, these people are so petty and selfish, and I don’t even miss it... and then...” He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter for a second in a kind of a wince, and the hurt on his face was so plain she couldn’t help reaching over to run her fingers soothingly through his dark hair. He was quiet for a minute, leaning into her touch, but she could sense something building in him.

The sensation of her gentle fingers in his hair was almost hypnotic. He knew he shouldn’t be saying any of this, shouldn’t be dimming her bright and cheerful Kaylee-ness with the burden of his endless string of troubles. But he was so damned tired, and even when he was at his best she had a way of sneaking inside whatever defenses he’d managed to put up, snuggling up like a kitten right next to everything he tried to keep hidden, and the words just seemed to pour out of him. “I knew that I couldn’t ever go home again. I knew it. I’d accepted it. But despite how our parents let us down, and despite the fact that we could never go back, I thought at least it was home while we were there. And now… it couldn’t have been, could it? Even if we could go back, if they loved us, they could never have...” He flinched again, opened his eyes as if that would dispel the image of his parents’ betrayal, but still didn’t look at her, his eyes focused on their intertwined hands. “And it might be all right, if I had River. But I don’t. I have a sick and tortured girl that I can’t cure, and she looks like River and sometimes she acts like her but she’s not, and I don’t know who or what she is, and I love her and she’s the only thing I know and she isn’t even her...”

He heard Kaylee make a tiny noise next to him, and when he looked up, she was crying, tears sliding over the grease marks on her face and the warm light of the lamp like a halo behind her head. He hated making her cry, and he’d done it once today already, on her birthday of all days, and everything in him felt raw and open and so tired of everyone hurting. Before he had time to think about it he was reaching for her, hands framing her face, his lips against her temple as he whispered, “Shh, Kaylee, don’t cry, I’m sorry, don’t cry, bâobèi...”

“You’re sorry?” she sniffled, with a tiny, watery laugh. “Simon, I...”

But he was kissing her tears now, strong surgeon’s hands moving soothingly over her hair and making her lose track of whatever she’d been trying to say... until eventually his mouth followed the trail of her tears to the corner of her lips, and it suddenly seemed to occur to him what exactly he was doing. They both froze for a breathless instant, then Simon pulled back slightly, just enough to meet her gaze. She could see the conflict in his eyes, feel the tension in his body, but he still leaned forward-—slowly, slowly, like she was a magnet pulling him in—-and gently pressed his mouth to hers. The kiss was tentative at first, but between her eagerness and his need, what began as soft and sweet gradually deepened to hot and hungry and almost desperate. Kaylee was stunned to discover that behind all those stiff and formal manners there was an avalanche, a flood of feeling, and she reached up and clutched a handful of his shirt to keep herself from floating away entirely.

Somewhere in the back of Simon’s mind there was a lecture about never taking advantage of a lady, but he couldn’t hear it above the buzzing in his ears, around the salt-sweet of her tears and her mouth and her soft, tangled hair and the warmth of her body as he pulled her closer against him. Everywhere he touched her, her warmth seemed to flow into him, softening and smoothing all the jagged edges inside him. He couldn’t get enough of her. She made a sound low in her throat, sinking both hands into his hair while his tongue teased hers.

He finally managed to tear his mouth away from her temporarily, though he absolutely could not stop touching her, her arms and her back and her collarbone above the neck of her colorful cotton shirt. “And you,” he gasped out between gulps of air, as if he was continuing a conversation they’d already been having.

“Huh?” Kaylee blinked, dazed, her head spinning and her body humming and her heart as happy as the day she’d joined Serenity’s crew.

“You,” Simon repeated, and he couldn’t help leaning forward to taste her again, that graceful curve where her jaw met her neck. “I never seem to be able to tell you, but...” He smiled a little as she shivered, his mouth moving down her neck. He was having trouble forming a coherent thought, much less a sentence, but he kept trying anyway. “Even when I don’t have anything else out here, I have you.”

“Oh,” Kaylee breathed weakly. His mouth was so warm and sure, just like she’d always imagined it would be, and after waiting for so long it seemed impossible that this could actually be happening. But his hands and mouth were growing more purposeful now, his heart pounding against hers, and she was about half a second from either dying from sheer joy or tackling him when his wandering fingers slipped under the hem of her shirt and stopped suddenly.

Simon froze, feeling the hard ridge of the scar on her stomach under his fingertips. He’d sewn her up as neatly as he could, but with the rudimentary equipment in Serenity’s infirmary, there had been only so much he could do. He had a sudden mental flash of Kaylee lying bloody and terrified on the floor of the cargo bay... and of himself, just standing there while she bled, bargaining with her life. He closed his eyes and let his head rest in the curve of her neck, suddenly as lost and useless and overwhelmed as he’d been the first day he’d set foot on Serenity.

Kaylee wasn’t as smart as River by any stretch, but she figured what he was thinking was plain enough even to her. She sighed and kissed the side of his head. “Shen sheng de gao wan, Simon, save your worryin’ for the things are worth worryin’ about.” Then a thought occurred to her, and she couldn’t hold back a mischievous smile. “You can kiss it better, if you want.”

To her surprise, she actually heard him laugh as she pulled him down on top of her.

**************

Later—-much later, Kaylee reflected with satisfaction, thinking that her shy and proper doctor knew a little something about anatomy after all—-they were lying tangled on Simon’s bed, with her head on his chest and his hand tracing aimless patterns on her back, when he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Um... Kaylee?”

“Mmmm?” she replied dreamily, wanting to stretch and purr like a cat under his touch.

He shifted a bit, and she frowned at having her pillow (surprisingly rock-hard though it was) disturbed.

“Kaylee... I, uh... I mean, I don’t... I didn’t...”

All at once, it penetrated her fog of sex and happiness exactly where he was going with this. She wiggled until she could see his face, her hand splayed out on his chest and her chin resting on top of that, glaring at him. “Simon Tam, what we just did ain’t nothin’ but what I’ve been wantin’ to do ever since I first laid eyes on you, and if you apologize to me now, I swear to God the next time we hit atmo I will drop-kick you out the cargo bay doors myself.”

He grinned, tension sliding out of him, and if she’d thought that Simon grinning was lìngrén jingyì, Simon grinning while naked and curled up in bed with her was... well, pretty much beyond any words in any language she knew. He traced her bottom lip with a fingertip. “You wouldn’t.”

She bit his finger playfully, then wrinkled her nose and grinned back. “Naw. But I could re-wire the grav controls in your room, see how you like wakin’ up in midair some morning.”

His eyes widened, mouth dropping open. “You criminals are evil,” he deadpanned, tangling his hands in her hair and pulling her close for a kiss. It went on somewhat longer than he’d intended, and when they finally separated for air, he felt a rush of purely male satisfaction at the dreamy look in those enormous hazel eyes.

“Mmm. Happy birthday to me,” she murmured, a suggestive eyebrow cocked and her smile so bright he thought the whole ship must be glowing. Something jogged his memory, though, and despite his reluctance to ruin the mood, he couldn’t shake it loose. After a moment, he gathered his courage to ask,

“Kaylee... what did I do wrong, earlier? With your gift, I mean. Did you not like it?”

She blushed, hid her face in his chest. “It was nothing. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong, Simon.”

“Then why...” He cupped his hand under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him again. “Please. I always seem to be saying and doing the wrong thing around you. It’s a habit I’d like to break.”

His blue, blue eyes were so concerned, so warm, and she felt her own filling with tears. Again. Gorram it. “It’s just...” She hesitated, feeling ten kinds of a fool, then blurted out, “It was so fine, Simon. So beautiful. And all I got you for your birthday was some yu ben de pile of protein, and how could you ever look twice at someone like me, with no manners and no schoolin’ an’ who doesn’t know a swan from a duck—”

He pressed his fingers to her mouth to silence her, gathered her close, whispering against her hair, “Hush, Kaylee, qin ài de Kaylee, wan mêi Kaylee. Do you want to know what I see in you?”

“Yes,” muffled against his shoulder, while she struggled between delight at his sweet words and misery that she couldn’t ever deserve him.

He took a deep breath. “Home.”

She sniffled, and looked up at him in confusion. “Shénme?”

“Home,” he repeated, smiling softly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “River’s loved this ship from the beginning. But for me, at the beginning, it wasn’t anything more than... an unfortunate necessity.” He watched her eyes narrow like they had that morning on Jiangyin, only this time he was smart enough to catch the signal, and he hurried on, “I love her now, of course,” and when Kaylee nodded in satisfaction, he figured he had permission to continue. “Still... at the beginning... I couldn’t have been farther away from everything I’d ever known. And even though Book and Inara were kind to us, everyone else barely tolerated us... except for you. You made us, both of us, feel at home here, even when you couldn’t know or trust us, even when you had every reason not to. You’re so bright and so sweet, and you take this... this cold, dangerous, feng kuang life and make it better for everyone around you.” He leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I’ve met a lot of girls with a lot of talents, but never one that could hold a candle to that.”

She was silent for a minute, her lower lip trembling and her tears making little pools on his chest. Finally, she sniffled again... and promptly whapped him on the shoulder, hard.

“Ow!”

“Now why couldn’t you have just said that when we were in that booth with dead Bessie?” she demanded. “You can talk pretty enough when you put your mind to it, apparently. And it would’ve saved me a world of heartache, let me tell you.”

He sighed and closed his eyes, and she was delighted to see a blush heat his cheeks. “I memorized it.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You what?”

His face got even redder, but he repeated, “I memorized it. After we got back from the bazaar that day, I went to find you, but you were...” He hesitated, remembering how she’d listened to Tracey’s message over and over again, remembering the gut-wrenching fear that he’d pushed her away for good this time. He forced the thought aside, concentrating on the present, on her soft curves pressed against him. “Well. You were busy. So I went to my room, wrote all that down and memorized it.” He opened his eyes to look at her, even though he was sure his face was going to catch fire any second now. “In case I ever got the opportunity to tell you again.”

It was almost worth the embarrassment to see her face light in another one of those supernova smiles. “Why, Doctor Tam, I do believe that’s about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

He smiled, pleased and awkward. “Well, second time’s a charm, I guess.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, a lascivious light coming into her eyes again. “Very charmin’, now you mention it. In fact... speaking of second times... and seeing as how you’re not so good with the talking and all...” As she spoke, her hand was sliding slowly down his chest, down his abdomen, and his eyes all but crossed as she leaned close to his ear and whispered, “How ‘bout we try not talking for awhile?”

Simon found that to be a very, very good idea.

*****************

The lights on Serenity had been dimmed for the evening when Mal finally made his way towards the passenger dorms. He hated to disturb the doctor after the day the boy had had, but Mal’s right shoulder was aching something fierce from a bullet he’d caught awhile back, and as much as he’d tried, he’d come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t be sleeping without a little pharmaceutical assistance.

He was fairly certain the rest of the crew was abed by now, or near enough, so he rounded the dorm’s corner without even looking—and almost ran smack into Inara.

“Captain!” she greeted him with some surprise, hoping he hadn’t noticed the decidedly un-Companion-like squeak she’d let out at the sight of him.

He nodded an acknowledgement, trying to play it cool, wondering what exactly she was doing lurking in the shadows outside Simon’s door. “Evenin’, Inara. You feeling all right?”

“Yes, thank you.” A bit nonplussed at being caught snooping, she added automatically, “And you?”

“Yeah, fine, I just—” but before he could explain to her about his nagging injury, a suspiciously feminine-sounding squeal and giggle pierced the quiet of the hallway. Pretty the doc might have been, but Mal didn’t figure he’d ever made a noise like that in his life.

In fact, truth be told, it sounded a hell of a lot like his little Kaylee.

As he listened, frozen, a second, deeper voice drifted indistinctly through the door-screen, followed by another giggle and the sound of cloth rustling, the whole of it punctuated by what he was pretty sure was one of those narrow bunks squeaking.

Feeling like he’d just been smacked upside the head with one of Jayne’s big-ass guns, he turned to Inara, who was grinning like a cat with a bowlful of cream.

“I just came down to tell Simon that River will be sleeping in my shuttle tonight,” she explained, her voice low but infinitely amused, “but it seems that he’s... ah... occupied.”

Something like a moan from Simon’s room, then a low, masculine chuckle, and...

Mal cleared his throat. “Seems he is.”

Inara only smiled wider, enjoying his discomfiture. She placed a hand on his arm. “I should really tell him, though, so he doesn’t worry. I’m sure they can... ah... find their place again.”

While Mal was trying to get that image out of his mind, Inara knocked loudly on the doorframe of Simon’s room. “Simon?”

More giggling, rustling, and hushing sounds. A moment later, Simon replied in a rather breathless tone of intense nothing-going-on-here, “Yes, Inara? Did you—did you need something?”

“No, thank you.” It took all her Companion training to keep from laughing. “I just wanted to tell you that River and I had a lovely evening, and she’ll be sleeping in my shuttle tonight, if that’s all right with you.”

“Oh.” Surprise, and then, with genuine gratitude and more than a little interest in how he might fill his suddenly River-free evening, “Thank you. I... I appreciate you looking after her.”

“My pleasure.” She turned to Mal, lowered her voice. “Did you need...?”

He waved a hand almost frantically, his eyes still wide and panicked. “No, no, no, just fine here...”

Inara nodded, and despite the great temptation to tease either Simon or Mal or both, she restrained herself with Herculean effort and simply called, “Good night, then, Simon.”

“Good night, Inara.” He sounded a bit relieved, and definitely distracted already. She was just turning to head back to her shuttle when a cheerful voice added,

“’Night, ’Nara!”

Inara was fairly certain she could feel Simon blushing, even with a door and several feet of hallway between them, as Kaylee’s giggles blossomed into full-blown laughter. “Good night, mèimei,” she replied affectionately, highly pleased with the day’s outcome, before grabbing the still-immobile Mal and dragging him out into the common area with her.

By the time she turned to face him, he seemed to have collected himself somewhat.

“Well,” he muttered, his eyes still a little wide. “That’s an experience I hope never to repeat again.”

“I suspect Simon and Kaylee will probably feel differently,” Inara grinned. “Well, except for the part where we were outside eavesdropping.”

“I was not eavesdropping,” Mal protested, then, a speculative look in his eye, “Though you were mighty quiet there when I first found you, Miss Serra. Seems to me a woman who values her privacy so highly might not be so quick to linger outside of rooms that are obviously occupied.”

He thought her golden skin might have reddened a bit, but in the half-light it was difficult to tell. She looked up at him, and the warmth in her dark eyes hit him like a punch to the gut. “They’ll be happy together, Mal.”

Sometimes, she had a way of bringing out truthfulness in him. “Don’t know about that. But I hope so. I truly hope so.”

She smiled, laid a perfectly manicured hand on his arm again. “So what were you doing down here, anyway?”

He shrugged. “Oh. Shoulder was bothering me, is all, from that run-in with Tanka’s boys a few days back. Thought I might get some of them fancy drugs to help me sleep.”

Inara raised an eyebrow. “Mal, that was a minor wound.”

“Hey! What’re you trying to say?”

She shook her head, refusing to be distracted, looking up at him searchingly. “You were worried about Simon, weren’t you?”

“I absolutely was not,” he scoffed, and given that he was pretty sure they were headed towards yet another argument, someone could’ve knocked him over with a feather when she rose up gracefully to her toes and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Of course you weren’t,” she agreed, but something in her tone sent a flash of heat through his body. They just stood there for a moment, looking at each other, until Inara finally broke the spell.

“Good night, Mal.”

“Good night, Inara.” As he watched her glide smoothly up the stairs, it suddenly occurred to him that his shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. Not one bit.

************

In the perfumed darkness of Inara’s shuttle, River smiled a secret smile to herself. Reparare. To fix.

Simon fixes River. Kaylee fixes Simon, fixes Serenity. Serenity fixes them all.

She snuggled deeper into Inara’s blankets, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

END

*****

Glossary (Mandarin):

bâobèi: precious (item); ie: precious jewels (endearment) dang ran: of course fang xin: don’t worry feng kuang: crazy, insane lìngrén jingyì: stunning, amazing mèimei: little sister qin ài de: dear, darling shen sheng de gao wan: holy testicle Tuesday (my personal favorite, though I’m sure it’s not exactly an everyday phrase for native Mandarin speakers) shénme?: what? wan mêi: perfect, beautiful wo de ma: Mother of God xiâo mèi: baby sister (used with a blood relation) xiong can wang ba dan de biao zi: ruthless whores of sons of bitches yu ben de: stupid, foolish, silly

Glossary (Other):

reparare: to fix (Latin) je vais, tu vas, etc: conjugations of the verb “to go” (French)