OOC: thoughtformed application
-YOU-
Name: Shurimon
Email: spdbridge03 at gmail dot com
AIM: Shuripus
LJ name: shurimon
Munhead or previous character journals (optional): N/A
Timezone: EST (GMT -5)
-THEM-
Character name: Kaywinnit Lee "Kaylee" Frye
Series: Firefly
Character history: The year is 2517. Earth as we know it has long since been used up and abandoned, all its rich history now confined to textbooks and school lessons. Humanity has colonized other star systems, and a central government, the Alliance, rules over all of them, having taken control after a bloody civil war. The central planets are under their tight control and are bastions of civilization and advanced technology, while the more distant moons and planets still elude complete government control and tend to attract a rougher crowd of people.
Not much about Kaylee's early background was ever revealed during the series- it is known that her mother and father are still alive, but nothing about siblings or extended family was ever mentioned. She worked for her father before meeting and becoming employed by Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Mal) on his ship, the Firefly-class smuggling ship Serenity. It can be guessed by the fact that she had never been to one of the central planets before the episode "Ariel" that she grew up on one of the outer worlds, at the very least.
She met Mal for the first time while in a very unusual position- Serenity's first mechanic, Bester, was in the midst of having sex with her in the ship's engine room. Kaylee immediately impressed Mal when she showed a level of mechanical competence far beyond Bester, able to diagnose a problem he was totally unaware of mid-coitus and repair it with little effort. Mal promptly fired Bester and hired Kaylee, promising to keep her around as long as she could keep Serenity in the sky. During the months after, she wormed her way into the hearts of the other members of the crew- the first mate, Zoe Washburne, her husband Wash (the pilot), the mercenary Jayne Cobb, and Inara Serra (a Companion, or professional courtesan, who rented one of Mal's shuttles and lent the crew an air of respectability). She and Inara became especially close, but everyone tended to treat her like a younger sister.
The crew's lives were destined to change forever when they landed on the planet Persephone. Kaylee was tasked with getting passengers to ride along to their next destination, to earn them a little extra money. She managed to charm Book, a Shepherd (Christian preacher), who gained her friendship when he offered her a box of strawberries- being poor space travelers, fresh food was a rare commodity for them. She also managed to get two more passengers- Dobson, a friendly but slightly clumsy man, and Simon, a young and rich doctor who appeared to be hiding something and carried a very large box with him onto the ship. Later that night, at dinner, Kaylee made her instant crush on Simon obvious, leading to a few crude remarks from Jayne. Not long afterward, someone on board paged an Alliance cruiser- which was a problem, as the crew was carrying stolen cargo to sell on the planet Whitefall. Mal confronted Simon in the cargo bay, believing him to be the mole, but in reality, the traitor was Dobson.
Dobson was suspicious of everyone on the ship, but his true mission was to arrest Simon, who was wanted by the law. In his highly-strung state, Dobson shot Kaylee in the stomach when she came to the cargo bay after hearing arguing. Simon threatened to leave her to die if Mal didn't run from the Alliance, forcing his hand, and so they fled, tying up Dobson while deciding what to do with him. Kaylee spent much of the rest of the episode unconscious after Simon expertly treated her wound. Simon then revealed his story- the box contained his sister, River, in a cryogenic sleep. He had broken her out of a highly-secure Alliance facility where she was being held and experimented on, earning the both of them fugitive status. River was placed in the infirmary with Kaylee to rest. Later, Dobson broke free and grabbed River, threatening to shoot Kaylee again if she called for help. As Dobson and Simon struggled in the cargo bay, Mal, Zoe and Jayne returned from palming off their stolen goods. Mal shot Dobson in the face and he and Jayne tossed him out, before the crew had to run from an approaching group of Reavers- savage, bloodthirsty men driven mad on the edge of space. Though still injured, Kaylee managed to direct Book and Jayne to push the ship's engine to its limits and outrun the threat.
Kaylee made a swift recovery from her injury, and just as quickly befriended River, whose ordeal had left her mentally broken. Kaylee was next seen having her hair brushed in Inara's shuttle, the older woman noting that Kaylee had quite an obvious crush on Simon. The gang was given the task of stealing a load of unknown cargo from a moving train. Kaylee prepared to lower Jayne onto it on a harness so that Mal and Zoe could pass him the goods, cheerfully explaining this plan to Simon and telling him they'd never done such a thing before, but she was confident that it would work. However, though Jayne safely got the cargo, the theft turned out to be medicine that was desperately needed on a desolate border world. The whole train full of passengers was arrested, leading to a tense situation because Mal would rather return the goods, but the man who had hired him, Niska, was sure to harm the crew for not doing the job properly. Inara managed to get Mal and Zoe away, but before the gang could leave the medicine and get out of there, Niska's minions appeared to claim the prize. A fight ensued, leading to Niska's right-hand man being killed, but the others accepted the money Niska had paid the crew in advance in exchange for letting them go, and the crew of Serenity flew off after Mal returned the medicine to the needy townsfolk.
Kaylee next played an important role in the episode "Shindig". Returning to Persephone for more work, Mal was asked by Badger, one of their contacts, to infiltrate a fancy ball to make contact with a man who needed some cargo smuggled off-world. Kaylee was coaxed into coming along to act as his date. He bought her a dress she'd been eyeing earlier and, once at the ball, she wandered off to indulge at the buffet table and admire the decorations and dresses. Mal went to find their contact, Sir Harrow, and speak to Inara, who was at the ball with one of her clients, Atherton Wing. Kaylee was brushed off by a group of snooty rich girls before making friends with a group of gentlemen when she began to talk ships and engines. She was having the time of her life until Mal punched out Wing when he implied that Inara was a whore, finding out that this meant he'd officially challenged the other man to a duel. As Mal had no idea how to use a sword, this meant almost certain death for him. Kaylee went back to Serenity only to be detained by Badger and his men, who held the crew hostage while waiting for the outcome of Mal's duel with Wing. The Captain managed to emerge victorious, securing Sir Harrow's cargo (a herd of cows) in the process, and Badger and his crew left, happy for a closed deal.
The gang then headed for the planet Jiangyin to deliver the cows. Kaylee and Inara went shopping and discussed Kaylee's feelings for Simon, but soon left in a huff when they encountered a stressed-out Simon (who, along with River, had been ordered away from the ship by Mal while the cow sale was going on). He insulted both women when he complained about the situation he'd found himself in, and Kaylee wondered if his looking down on their type of life also meant he looked down on her for choosing it. Soon after, the cow sale went sour when the local cops approached the buyers to arrest them, and Book was shot in the ensuing firefight. Simon and River, meanwhile, were kidnapped by a group of locals in need of a doctor. The crew had to abandon them in order to find medical help for the mortally-wounded Book, which Kaylee was troubled by, telling Zoe that it didn't seem right. However, the gang went back for the two after Book was treated.
Later, at a settlement called Triumph, Mal managed to accidentally marry a local girl named Saffron while drunk during their celebrating a successful job. Kaylee thought it was adorable and showed some sympathy for Saffron when Mal became furious and was rude to his new bride. However, Saffron turned out to be a plant and disabled the ship, setting it on course to be captured in a gigantic net by a pair of scrappers. Kaylee rushed to fix the navigation and steering systems, but didn't manage to do so in time (though Jayne managed to disable the net with a well-placed gunshot), making her feel frustrated, though Mal assured her she was still the best mechanic floating.
The gang's next job was at a mud-farming moon called Canton. Kaylee warmly flirted with Simon before suggesting he join them on their job, leaving River behind to be watched by Book. The crew, much to their shock, found a gigantic statue of Jayne in the middle of the mud farmers' village, though Jayne swore he didn't know what it was doing there. Later, at a bar, they discovered that Jayne had dropped a large box of cash to the mud farmers and become a local hero. However, it had been a mistake- in order to escape a heist that went wrong, Jayne had had to dump the cash and his partner, Stitch, from his getaway vehicle. The other crew were quite amused, however, and Mal left Simon and Kaylee behind to "supervise" Jayne while he enjoyed his newfound fame- though the real reason was that Simon had gotten quite drunk and began flirting back, and Kaylee wanted to take advantage of the moment. They ended up falling asleep on a couch together, though when Mal came back the next morning, Simon managed to screw it up by insisting he'd never "do anything" with Kaylee. Mal and Kaylee left him alone to regret opening his mouth, getting the goods they were to deliver and stopping to watch the "Jayne Day" celebration they'd set up as a distraction. However, Jayne's old partner, Stitch, suddenly appeared, shoving a beaten-up Simon in front of him. Feeling sorry, Kaylee got him out of the line of fire while Jayne and Stitch fought, Jayne emerging victorious. Later, Kaylee patched up Simon's wounds and admitted that his overly-polite nature and tendency to freeze up when it was obvious that he returned her feelings confounded her; he replied that his politeness was how he showed her that he liked and respected her.
Some time after this, the crew spent a fun evening together, swapping funny stories before Kaylee presented Simon with a birthday cake. Just as he was about to blow the candles out, however, something hiccuped in the engine. Kaylee was about to go check it out when an enormous blast of fire hurtled toward them; Zoe shoved Kaylee out of the way and took the blow for her, becoming seriously injured. Once the fire had been expelled into space through the bay doors, Simon treated Zoe while Kaylee went to look at the source of the problem. A vital engine part had blown, rendering them dead in the water, with no heat or life support- all the oxygen they had left would expire within hours, if they didn't freeze to death first. Kaylee was depressed at her inability to fix her ship, blaming herself for not knowing something was wrong sooner (though in reality, the blown part was one that she'd complained needed replacing multiple times before). The situation seemed hopeless, as they were far out of range of any planets or ships, so nobody was around to hear their distress call. In a last desperate attempt to get help, Mal sent the rest of the crew out in the ship's two shuttles, staying behind himself in case someone did answer. Someone did, in fact, pick up on their signal- but the men who arrived shot Mal, intending to take the ship for themselves. However, he turned a gun on them, and the men gave him the needed part and left, deciding it wasn't worth the trouble. Mal somehow managed to get the part back in and re-power the ship, and the gang came back to save him on Zoe's orders. Kaylee later congratulated him for fixing the engine on his own.
Later on, the gang was enjoying having fresh apples after a hospital heist masterminded by Simon yielded a huge profit for them. However, when going to sell the last of the medicine they'd stolen, Mal and Wash were captured by Niska (who had given them the train job earlier) and were tortured. Kaylee and the others had to give up all of their winnings to ransom their captain and pilot; Niska responded by releasing Wash and keeping Mal captive, though cutting off his ear as "payment". The gang took up arms to rescue Mal from Niska's compound, but Kaylee became frightened and couldn't bring herself to shoot anybody. However... River suddenly appeared, grabbed Kaylee's gun, and calmly shot the three mean bearing down on them with her eyes closed, showing no sign of fear or distress. This deeply unsettled Kaylee, and though she didn't tell anybody about it right away, this made her pull away from River, stalling their easy friendship.
Kaylee was next seen at a cheap sideshow attraction at a marketplace with Simon, flirting with him once more and asking him to tell her what he liked about her. However, he managed to bungle it once again when he joked that she was the only person left for him, leaving Kaylee to storm off, and she was upset at him for quite a long time afterward. Mal and Zoe received a mysterious package that turned out to hold the corpse of Tracey, one of the men who had served under them in the war. Tracey left a recorded message saying he'd mailed himself to them because he'd been unable to cope after the war, and Mal and Zoe were the only people he trusted to bring him home to his parents. Kaylee was deeply touched by his story, lying in her hammock in the engine room by herself, listening to Tracey's message over and over, repelling Simon when he came to apologize and heard her. Tracey then suddenly woke up when Simon began to perform an autopsy on him, revealing that he was smuggling artificially-grown organs inside his own body. However, he'd gotten into a bad situation when he tried to turn and sell them to someone offering better money; the buyer ended up dead, and some Alliance officers were after Tracey to take the organs back.
Kaylee seemed delighted that Tracey was alive and well and began talking with him, becoming more and more interested in him the more he talked. Kaylee hid Tracey in her room when the crew was being chased by the Alliance men pursuing him, and the two talked and even flirted a little. However, once they were forced to land and hide while the men bombed them to try and scare them out, Tracey panicked when he overheard the others discussing simply handing him over, and Zoe had to shoot him to stop him from hurting Wash or Book. He then took Kaylee hostage and ran off with her, intending to force her to fly one of Serenity's shuttles for him so that he could escape. Jayne had to shoot him again to save Kaylee, and the men chasing him left in disgust, considering him to be damaged goods. As Tracey bled out, he was told that the plan to hand him over would have been a bluff, as Book had deduced that the men were acting without proper authorization and planned to blackmail them into leaving with that fact- Tracey just never gave them the chance to explain that. Tracey expressed regret for not listening to Mal and for never being able to adjust to civilian life. The gang took him back to his parents when he died, and Kaylee and Simon stood together at the funeral, holding hands and silently reconciling.
Their peace would not last long, however, as River's mental state got worse by the day, causing more and more problems, culminating in her pointing a gun, which she hallucinated was a tree branch, at the others. Kaylee finally came clean about her shooting Niska's men and how much it had scared her, and the others began to speculate that River was being conditioned into a human weapon by the Alliance before Simon rescued her. Mal ordered that she be kept locked up, and the crew seemed torn on what to do about her, wondering if she would ever harm any of them ,even unknowingly. Mal said they should sleep on it, so Simon angrily went to check on his sister. Kaylee pleaded with him to not be upset with her; Simon said that he wasn't, then calmed down a little and explained that River loved Serenity, finding it to be more of a home than any place she'd ever been. Kaylee asked Simon if he liked anything about his journey and could ever consider the ship home, too; he replied that he thought the hospital was home and that he'd still be there if the Alliance had just left his sister alone. He then got closer to Kaylee, silently telling her that she was the one good thing that had happened to him, and it seemed that the two were about to kiss before Book came along and unknowingly ruined the moment.
Later, after the crew had gone to sleep, a bounty hunter named Jubal Early, who had been sent to bring River back alive (and Simon alive if reasonable), invaded the ship. He first found Kaylee in the engine room and threatened to rape her if she didn't let him tie her up and stayed quiet while he looked for River. Terrified, she agreed to do what he asked, and he left her bound on the floor. Early next knocked Book and Mal unconscious, locked the rest of the crew into their quarters, then woke Simon up, using Kaylee as a hostage to force his cooperation in finding River. However, they couldn't find her, and soon after, her voice could be heard over the ship's loudspeakers, taunting Early and making him lose his cool. River then spoke to Kaylee privately, calming her and encouraging her to break free from her bonds and release the others. She did so, listening on in horror as River revealed that she had put on a spacesuit and snuck onto Early's ship, then proclaimed that she was going to give herself up to him and "just fade away"- giving Simon an opening to tackle Early. However, he was shot in the leg, and Early ran to get back to his ship and away from there with his bounty in tow- however, Mal was waiting for him, and shoved him off to float free in space until he died. River had finally seemed to gain acceptance from the others, instead of fear.
Over the next few months, however, that acceptance was tested. Inara and Book, two of the crew's more calm and rational members, left to pursue their own interests, and Mal and Simon began to butt heads more often, leaving the atmosphere unfriendly and tense. Things finally came to a head when Mal insisted on taking River along to a bank heist, as she could sense danger coming with her powers, and she, Mal, Zoe and Jayne were very nearly killed by Reavers. Simon got into a fistfight with Mal and agreed to take his sister and leave at their next stop. Kaylee said a tearful goodbye to the two, then later on lamented that Mal could have made them feel like family, but chose not to, squarely placing the blame on the Captain's attitude for driving the crew off, one by one. Mal argued that Simon would never have tried becoming a couple with her, anyway, considering that he had his sister to worry about, telling Kaylee that in his opinion, if he, Mal, wanted something, nothing in the universe would be able to stop him. Kaylee shot back that he should tell that to Inara, finally pointing out the unspoken sexual tension the two shared, and stormed off.
Not long after, River and Simon appeared again and were taken back in by Mal when River saw an advertisement for, of all things, Fruity Oaty snack bars on television and started attacking patrons in the middle of a bar, knocking almost all of them out before Simon appeared and spoke a Russian phrase that made her immediately fall unconscious. Kaylee and the others listened on in shock (or anger) when Simon admitted that he knew more about River than he had first let on, and that she had been conditioned to bring out her psychic powers and turn into an emotionless, completely driven assassin when seeing a certain coded phrase, which had been subliminally embedded in the Fruity Oaty commercial. The Russian phrase he'd spoken was a "safeword" to make her fall asleep and take her out of her killer state of mind. River also whispered the word "Miranda", and seemed to become fixated on it, though she couldn't articulate what it meant.
Mal, when going to visit Inara (who had contacted Serenity under obvious duress), found out that he and his crew were being trailed by an Alliance Operative, a nameless individual that worked in extreme anonymity, who wanted River and was working behind the scenes to try and get her. Mal tried to kill the Operative, but failed against his opponent's body armor and martial arts skills, and he and Inara barely escaped with their lives. Back on Serenity, the crew discovered that Miranda was a planet that had been slated for terraforming at one point, but was now supposedly a dead rock, surrounded by Reavers. They tried seeking asylum with Shepherd Book while making a plan of what to do, only to find that the preacher had been murdered by the Operative's men- along with all of the others who had ever given them shelter in the past.
The crew were forced to flee to Miranda and managed to get unharmed through the massive group of Reavers surrounding it, to discover that not only had the planet been successfully terraformed, it had apparently been home to numerous bustling cities- but all of the inhabitants lay dead of an unknown force. River went into a nearly-catatonic state at this point, screaming that she could hear all of the people, and that they were saying nothing. The gang followed a beacon deep into one of the cities and discovered a crashed ship, containing a recorded message revealing the horrifying truth- the Alliance had been testing a gas called Pax on Miranda, which was supposed to pacify the population and remove peoples' anger, but instead made almost all of the world's inhabitants simply stop doing ANYTHING, including feeding themselves, so they wasted away. The others' anger went out of control, so they became Reavers.
Mal knew that the truth had to be told, so the crew took off to the planet inhabited by Mr. Universe, one of their contacts who had been helping them keep tabs on the Alliance (and who turned out to be a traitor and then was killed by the Operative), intending to use his equipment to broadcast the message to dozens of planets. They took a risky gambit and allowed themselves to be pursued into atmosphere by Reavers, who immediately set upon the small army the Operative had brought with him to intercept them. Wash was killed in a crash landing on the planet when he was speared through the chest, and the remaining crew had to press on without him. Simon, Kaylee, Inara, Jayne, River and Zoe stayed back to cover for Mal while he used Mr. Universe's equipment. While waiting for the inevitable Reaver attack, Simon lamented that he'd spent so much time worrying about River, everything else- including his own wants- had taken a back seat, and told Kaylee his one regret was never advancing their relationship. In the ensuing firefight against the Reavers, things seemed hopeless when they ran short on ammo, Kaylee was taken down by poisonous darts, and Simon received a seemingly-fatal shot to the stomach. River then told Simon that he'd taken care of her for so long, now it was her turn to take care of him- and she unleashed her full human weapon potential, slaughtering every Reaver that came at her with barely any injuries of her own. Mal, meanwhile, successfully subdued the Operative and broadcast the message of the Reavers' origin.
Thereafter, the Operative realized that he had been mistaken and helped the battered crew bury their friends, repair their destroyed ship and take off again, with the Alliance's pursuit of River and Simon seemingly being scaled-back, as the Operative said they were no longer a threat. River took up Wash's position as pilot along with Mal, and Kaylee continued on as the ship's mechanic- with her and Simon finally acting on their attraction to one another, making love in the engine room.
Character personality: The first word that comes to mind when describing Kaylee is "shiny". Or perhaps "sunny". Always trying to be cheerful and optimistic, Kaylee seems to light up a room when she smiles. She is able to make friends pretty readily, even with people from entirely different walks of life than her. It does not matter if they appear to have nothing in common on the surface- Kaylee will find that one link between them, however tiny, and pull on it until she finds common ground with that person. The others on the ship tend to treat her like a little sister as a result. Her sunshine and good cheer do have their limits, however- anybody who insults her ship or disparages her life of adventure and working-class background (even if it is only a perceived slight on her part) will find themselves on the receiving end of either her anger or a silent treatment. She can also sometimes be judgmental and quick to take offense at remarks she believes are insults, whether or not the other person was trying to joke with her or was even insulting her at all. This impedes her budding romance with Simon, although she does admit that his overly-polite nature confounds her, perhaps explaining why she sometimes acts out.
Kaylee loves machines and spaceships. She has a natural intuition when it comes to diagnosing problems when things go wrong- even if she's never seen or worked on that particular type of ship or engine before- and has a gift when it comes to repairing things. However, this means that a part of her pride and self-confidence is tied to her ability to fix things, leading to moments of panic, frustration, self-blame or depression when she runs into a problem she CAN'T fix. Having to struggle to find a solution to a mechanical hiccup is something she rarely faces, so when it does happen, it hits her hard. This ability, which has saved the crew's lives on more than one occasion, is balanced out by her extremely poor skills at fighting, which can be a problem when the gang so often gets into fights. She is very uncomfortable handling weapons and always seems hesitant to hurt someone else, even if her or one of the crew's lives is threatened.
Sometimes appearing innocent or naïve, anybody who gets to know Kaylee quickly finds out that she is a flirt and an openly sexual creature. Her interest in boys and sex is something she wears on her sleeve; for example, the other crew members were able to tell right off the bat that she had a massive crush on Simon from the moment she met him. Though often seen in mechanic's overalls and covered in grease, as well as not seeing the importance in being proper and watching her language, Kaylee can clean up nicely when she wants to, and occasionally enjoys indulging in things like wearing dresses and having her hair done by Inara.
All in all, Kaylee is a mechanical genius who is a lovely person to be around and brings joy into the lives of those she holds dear.
-SAMPLES-
Journal entry sample: Dear diary,
Seems an odd way to open up when I've just been told I wasn't real and suddenly I am, doesn't it? I don't feel all that strange, but I guess I'm still trying to take it all in.
Anyway, my name's Kaylee. Not sure if there's anything mechanical needs fixing around here, but I'm the one to do it- machine workings just talk to me. Say, would anybody happen to know someone named Malcolm Reynolds...? How about Simon or River Tam, or Inara Serra? Would be nice if someone I know was here. Not that I'm not open to making new friends, either!
3rd person sample: Anybody entering Serenity's engine room would first notice the quietly turning engine, and the young woman half-asleep in a colorful hammock hung nearby. Then, they might notice the many tools and spare parts lying around, remnants of the frantic repairs she'd been making all day. Kaylee knew that things were a mess, but she could not bring herself to care. She was now resting, things finally having calmed down. Everything on the ship always seemed 2 inches away from falling apart anyway, and on that day, it all seemed to go wrong at once, one after the other. First, she and Wash had to reattach one of the solar panels on the outside when a rough descent into atmosphere left it nearly snapped off. Then, during a prolonged Cortex downtime, a fuse suddenly popped on Wash's control panel.
Then another.
Then another.
The whole panel had then begun to smoke, and it was only through River's timely arrival with a fire extinguisher that the entire thing hadn't gone up in flames. A thorough cleaning and lots of swearing and replaced parts later, and it was fixed... just in time for something to jar loose deep inside the engine, necessitating Kaylee spending roughly two hours digging, carefully unplugging and setting aside things, working as delicately as Simon might on a patient to get that damn part replaced and welded back.
Now... now she could finally enjoy sweet bliss, nestled inside her hammock. She briefly drifted off and was somehow unsurprised to find River curled up in the hammock with her when she awoke again, the half-spent fire extinguisher on the floor next to her, just in case it was needed. Kaylee sighed happily and hugged her friend close, enjoying the comfort and feeling her weariness ease.
Name: Shurimon
Email: spdbridge03 at gmail dot com
AIM: Shuripus
LJ name: shurimon
Munhead or previous character journals (optional): N/A
Timezone: EST (GMT -5)
-THEM-
Character name: Kaywinnit Lee "Kaylee" Frye
Series: Firefly
Character history: The year is 2517. Earth as we know it has long since been used up and abandoned, all its rich history now confined to textbooks and school lessons. Humanity has colonized other star systems, and a central government, the Alliance, rules over all of them, having taken control after a bloody civil war. The central planets are under their tight control and are bastions of civilization and advanced technology, while the more distant moons and planets still elude complete government control and tend to attract a rougher crowd of people.
Not much about Kaylee's early background was ever revealed during the series- it is known that her mother and father are still alive, but nothing about siblings or extended family was ever mentioned. She worked for her father before meeting and becoming employed by Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Mal) on his ship, the Firefly-class smuggling ship Serenity. It can be guessed by the fact that she had never been to one of the central planets before the episode "Ariel" that she grew up on one of the outer worlds, at the very least.
She met Mal for the first time while in a very unusual position- Serenity's first mechanic, Bester, was in the midst of having sex with her in the ship's engine room. Kaylee immediately impressed Mal when she showed a level of mechanical competence far beyond Bester, able to diagnose a problem he was totally unaware of mid-coitus and repair it with little effort. Mal promptly fired Bester and hired Kaylee, promising to keep her around as long as she could keep Serenity in the sky. During the months after, she wormed her way into the hearts of the other members of the crew- the first mate, Zoe Washburne, her husband Wash (the pilot), the mercenary Jayne Cobb, and Inara Serra (a Companion, or professional courtesan, who rented one of Mal's shuttles and lent the crew an air of respectability). She and Inara became especially close, but everyone tended to treat her like a younger sister.
The crew's lives were destined to change forever when they landed on the planet Persephone. Kaylee was tasked with getting passengers to ride along to their next destination, to earn them a little extra money. She managed to charm Book, a Shepherd (Christian preacher), who gained her friendship when he offered her a box of strawberries- being poor space travelers, fresh food was a rare commodity for them. She also managed to get two more passengers- Dobson, a friendly but slightly clumsy man, and Simon, a young and rich doctor who appeared to be hiding something and carried a very large box with him onto the ship. Later that night, at dinner, Kaylee made her instant crush on Simon obvious, leading to a few crude remarks from Jayne. Not long afterward, someone on board paged an Alliance cruiser- which was a problem, as the crew was carrying stolen cargo to sell on the planet Whitefall. Mal confronted Simon in the cargo bay, believing him to be the mole, but in reality, the traitor was Dobson.
Dobson was suspicious of everyone on the ship, but his true mission was to arrest Simon, who was wanted by the law. In his highly-strung state, Dobson shot Kaylee in the stomach when she came to the cargo bay after hearing arguing. Simon threatened to leave her to die if Mal didn't run from the Alliance, forcing his hand, and so they fled, tying up Dobson while deciding what to do with him. Kaylee spent much of the rest of the episode unconscious after Simon expertly treated her wound. Simon then revealed his story- the box contained his sister, River, in a cryogenic sleep. He had broken her out of a highly-secure Alliance facility where she was being held and experimented on, earning the both of them fugitive status. River was placed in the infirmary with Kaylee to rest. Later, Dobson broke free and grabbed River, threatening to shoot Kaylee again if she called for help. As Dobson and Simon struggled in the cargo bay, Mal, Zoe and Jayne returned from palming off their stolen goods. Mal shot Dobson in the face and he and Jayne tossed him out, before the crew had to run from an approaching group of Reavers- savage, bloodthirsty men driven mad on the edge of space. Though still injured, Kaylee managed to direct Book and Jayne to push the ship's engine to its limits and outrun the threat.
Kaylee made a swift recovery from her injury, and just as quickly befriended River, whose ordeal had left her mentally broken. Kaylee was next seen having her hair brushed in Inara's shuttle, the older woman noting that Kaylee had quite an obvious crush on Simon. The gang was given the task of stealing a load of unknown cargo from a moving train. Kaylee prepared to lower Jayne onto it on a harness so that Mal and Zoe could pass him the goods, cheerfully explaining this plan to Simon and telling him they'd never done such a thing before, but she was confident that it would work. However, though Jayne safely got the cargo, the theft turned out to be medicine that was desperately needed on a desolate border world. The whole train full of passengers was arrested, leading to a tense situation because Mal would rather return the goods, but the man who had hired him, Niska, was sure to harm the crew for not doing the job properly. Inara managed to get Mal and Zoe away, but before the gang could leave the medicine and get out of there, Niska's minions appeared to claim the prize. A fight ensued, leading to Niska's right-hand man being killed, but the others accepted the money Niska had paid the crew in advance in exchange for letting them go, and the crew of Serenity flew off after Mal returned the medicine to the needy townsfolk.
Kaylee next played an important role in the episode "Shindig". Returning to Persephone for more work, Mal was asked by Badger, one of their contacts, to infiltrate a fancy ball to make contact with a man who needed some cargo smuggled off-world. Kaylee was coaxed into coming along to act as his date. He bought her a dress she'd been eyeing earlier and, once at the ball, she wandered off to indulge at the buffet table and admire the decorations and dresses. Mal went to find their contact, Sir Harrow, and speak to Inara, who was at the ball with one of her clients, Atherton Wing. Kaylee was brushed off by a group of snooty rich girls before making friends with a group of gentlemen when she began to talk ships and engines. She was having the time of her life until Mal punched out Wing when he implied that Inara was a whore, finding out that this meant he'd officially challenged the other man to a duel. As Mal had no idea how to use a sword, this meant almost certain death for him. Kaylee went back to Serenity only to be detained by Badger and his men, who held the crew hostage while waiting for the outcome of Mal's duel with Wing. The Captain managed to emerge victorious, securing Sir Harrow's cargo (a herd of cows) in the process, and Badger and his crew left, happy for a closed deal.
The gang then headed for the planet Jiangyin to deliver the cows. Kaylee and Inara went shopping and discussed Kaylee's feelings for Simon, but soon left in a huff when they encountered a stressed-out Simon (who, along with River, had been ordered away from the ship by Mal while the cow sale was going on). He insulted both women when he complained about the situation he'd found himself in, and Kaylee wondered if his looking down on their type of life also meant he looked down on her for choosing it. Soon after, the cow sale went sour when the local cops approached the buyers to arrest them, and Book was shot in the ensuing firefight. Simon and River, meanwhile, were kidnapped by a group of locals in need of a doctor. The crew had to abandon them in order to find medical help for the mortally-wounded Book, which Kaylee was troubled by, telling Zoe that it didn't seem right. However, the gang went back for the two after Book was treated.
Later, at a settlement called Triumph, Mal managed to accidentally marry a local girl named Saffron while drunk during their celebrating a successful job. Kaylee thought it was adorable and showed some sympathy for Saffron when Mal became furious and was rude to his new bride. However, Saffron turned out to be a plant and disabled the ship, setting it on course to be captured in a gigantic net by a pair of scrappers. Kaylee rushed to fix the navigation and steering systems, but didn't manage to do so in time (though Jayne managed to disable the net with a well-placed gunshot), making her feel frustrated, though Mal assured her she was still the best mechanic floating.
The gang's next job was at a mud-farming moon called Canton. Kaylee warmly flirted with Simon before suggesting he join them on their job, leaving River behind to be watched by Book. The crew, much to their shock, found a gigantic statue of Jayne in the middle of the mud farmers' village, though Jayne swore he didn't know what it was doing there. Later, at a bar, they discovered that Jayne had dropped a large box of cash to the mud farmers and become a local hero. However, it had been a mistake- in order to escape a heist that went wrong, Jayne had had to dump the cash and his partner, Stitch, from his getaway vehicle. The other crew were quite amused, however, and Mal left Simon and Kaylee behind to "supervise" Jayne while he enjoyed his newfound fame- though the real reason was that Simon had gotten quite drunk and began flirting back, and Kaylee wanted to take advantage of the moment. They ended up falling asleep on a couch together, though when Mal came back the next morning, Simon managed to screw it up by insisting he'd never "do anything" with Kaylee. Mal and Kaylee left him alone to regret opening his mouth, getting the goods they were to deliver and stopping to watch the "Jayne Day" celebration they'd set up as a distraction. However, Jayne's old partner, Stitch, suddenly appeared, shoving a beaten-up Simon in front of him. Feeling sorry, Kaylee got him out of the line of fire while Jayne and Stitch fought, Jayne emerging victorious. Later, Kaylee patched up Simon's wounds and admitted that his overly-polite nature and tendency to freeze up when it was obvious that he returned her feelings confounded her; he replied that his politeness was how he showed her that he liked and respected her.
Some time after this, the crew spent a fun evening together, swapping funny stories before Kaylee presented Simon with a birthday cake. Just as he was about to blow the candles out, however, something hiccuped in the engine. Kaylee was about to go check it out when an enormous blast of fire hurtled toward them; Zoe shoved Kaylee out of the way and took the blow for her, becoming seriously injured. Once the fire had been expelled into space through the bay doors, Simon treated Zoe while Kaylee went to look at the source of the problem. A vital engine part had blown, rendering them dead in the water, with no heat or life support- all the oxygen they had left would expire within hours, if they didn't freeze to death first. Kaylee was depressed at her inability to fix her ship, blaming herself for not knowing something was wrong sooner (though in reality, the blown part was one that she'd complained needed replacing multiple times before). The situation seemed hopeless, as they were far out of range of any planets or ships, so nobody was around to hear their distress call. In a last desperate attempt to get help, Mal sent the rest of the crew out in the ship's two shuttles, staying behind himself in case someone did answer. Someone did, in fact, pick up on their signal- but the men who arrived shot Mal, intending to take the ship for themselves. However, he turned a gun on them, and the men gave him the needed part and left, deciding it wasn't worth the trouble. Mal somehow managed to get the part back in and re-power the ship, and the gang came back to save him on Zoe's orders. Kaylee later congratulated him for fixing the engine on his own.
Later on, the gang was enjoying having fresh apples after a hospital heist masterminded by Simon yielded a huge profit for them. However, when going to sell the last of the medicine they'd stolen, Mal and Wash were captured by Niska (who had given them the train job earlier) and were tortured. Kaylee and the others had to give up all of their winnings to ransom their captain and pilot; Niska responded by releasing Wash and keeping Mal captive, though cutting off his ear as "payment". The gang took up arms to rescue Mal from Niska's compound, but Kaylee became frightened and couldn't bring herself to shoot anybody. However... River suddenly appeared, grabbed Kaylee's gun, and calmly shot the three mean bearing down on them with her eyes closed, showing no sign of fear or distress. This deeply unsettled Kaylee, and though she didn't tell anybody about it right away, this made her pull away from River, stalling their easy friendship.
Kaylee was next seen at a cheap sideshow attraction at a marketplace with Simon, flirting with him once more and asking him to tell her what he liked about her. However, he managed to bungle it once again when he joked that she was the only person left for him, leaving Kaylee to storm off, and she was upset at him for quite a long time afterward. Mal and Zoe received a mysterious package that turned out to hold the corpse of Tracey, one of the men who had served under them in the war. Tracey left a recorded message saying he'd mailed himself to them because he'd been unable to cope after the war, and Mal and Zoe were the only people he trusted to bring him home to his parents. Kaylee was deeply touched by his story, lying in her hammock in the engine room by herself, listening to Tracey's message over and over, repelling Simon when he came to apologize and heard her. Tracey then suddenly woke up when Simon began to perform an autopsy on him, revealing that he was smuggling artificially-grown organs inside his own body. However, he'd gotten into a bad situation when he tried to turn and sell them to someone offering better money; the buyer ended up dead, and some Alliance officers were after Tracey to take the organs back.
Kaylee seemed delighted that Tracey was alive and well and began talking with him, becoming more and more interested in him the more he talked. Kaylee hid Tracey in her room when the crew was being chased by the Alliance men pursuing him, and the two talked and even flirted a little. However, once they were forced to land and hide while the men bombed them to try and scare them out, Tracey panicked when he overheard the others discussing simply handing him over, and Zoe had to shoot him to stop him from hurting Wash or Book. He then took Kaylee hostage and ran off with her, intending to force her to fly one of Serenity's shuttles for him so that he could escape. Jayne had to shoot him again to save Kaylee, and the men chasing him left in disgust, considering him to be damaged goods. As Tracey bled out, he was told that the plan to hand him over would have been a bluff, as Book had deduced that the men were acting without proper authorization and planned to blackmail them into leaving with that fact- Tracey just never gave them the chance to explain that. Tracey expressed regret for not listening to Mal and for never being able to adjust to civilian life. The gang took him back to his parents when he died, and Kaylee and Simon stood together at the funeral, holding hands and silently reconciling.
Their peace would not last long, however, as River's mental state got worse by the day, causing more and more problems, culminating in her pointing a gun, which she hallucinated was a tree branch, at the others. Kaylee finally came clean about her shooting Niska's men and how much it had scared her, and the others began to speculate that River was being conditioned into a human weapon by the Alliance before Simon rescued her. Mal ordered that she be kept locked up, and the crew seemed torn on what to do about her, wondering if she would ever harm any of them ,even unknowingly. Mal said they should sleep on it, so Simon angrily went to check on his sister. Kaylee pleaded with him to not be upset with her; Simon said that he wasn't, then calmed down a little and explained that River loved Serenity, finding it to be more of a home than any place she'd ever been. Kaylee asked Simon if he liked anything about his journey and could ever consider the ship home, too; he replied that he thought the hospital was home and that he'd still be there if the Alliance had just left his sister alone. He then got closer to Kaylee, silently telling her that she was the one good thing that had happened to him, and it seemed that the two were about to kiss before Book came along and unknowingly ruined the moment.
Later, after the crew had gone to sleep, a bounty hunter named Jubal Early, who had been sent to bring River back alive (and Simon alive if reasonable), invaded the ship. He first found Kaylee in the engine room and threatened to rape her if she didn't let him tie her up and stayed quiet while he looked for River. Terrified, she agreed to do what he asked, and he left her bound on the floor. Early next knocked Book and Mal unconscious, locked the rest of the crew into their quarters, then woke Simon up, using Kaylee as a hostage to force his cooperation in finding River. However, they couldn't find her, and soon after, her voice could be heard over the ship's loudspeakers, taunting Early and making him lose his cool. River then spoke to Kaylee privately, calming her and encouraging her to break free from her bonds and release the others. She did so, listening on in horror as River revealed that she had put on a spacesuit and snuck onto Early's ship, then proclaimed that she was going to give herself up to him and "just fade away"- giving Simon an opening to tackle Early. However, he was shot in the leg, and Early ran to get back to his ship and away from there with his bounty in tow- however, Mal was waiting for him, and shoved him off to float free in space until he died. River had finally seemed to gain acceptance from the others, instead of fear.
Over the next few months, however, that acceptance was tested. Inara and Book, two of the crew's more calm and rational members, left to pursue their own interests, and Mal and Simon began to butt heads more often, leaving the atmosphere unfriendly and tense. Things finally came to a head when Mal insisted on taking River along to a bank heist, as she could sense danger coming with her powers, and she, Mal, Zoe and Jayne were very nearly killed by Reavers. Simon got into a fistfight with Mal and agreed to take his sister and leave at their next stop. Kaylee said a tearful goodbye to the two, then later on lamented that Mal could have made them feel like family, but chose not to, squarely placing the blame on the Captain's attitude for driving the crew off, one by one. Mal argued that Simon would never have tried becoming a couple with her, anyway, considering that he had his sister to worry about, telling Kaylee that in his opinion, if he, Mal, wanted something, nothing in the universe would be able to stop him. Kaylee shot back that he should tell that to Inara, finally pointing out the unspoken sexual tension the two shared, and stormed off.
Not long after, River and Simon appeared again and were taken back in by Mal when River saw an advertisement for, of all things, Fruity Oaty snack bars on television and started attacking patrons in the middle of a bar, knocking almost all of them out before Simon appeared and spoke a Russian phrase that made her immediately fall unconscious. Kaylee and the others listened on in shock (or anger) when Simon admitted that he knew more about River than he had first let on, and that she had been conditioned to bring out her psychic powers and turn into an emotionless, completely driven assassin when seeing a certain coded phrase, which had been subliminally embedded in the Fruity Oaty commercial. The Russian phrase he'd spoken was a "safeword" to make her fall asleep and take her out of her killer state of mind. River also whispered the word "Miranda", and seemed to become fixated on it, though she couldn't articulate what it meant.
Mal, when going to visit Inara (who had contacted Serenity under obvious duress), found out that he and his crew were being trailed by an Alliance Operative, a nameless individual that worked in extreme anonymity, who wanted River and was working behind the scenes to try and get her. Mal tried to kill the Operative, but failed against his opponent's body armor and martial arts skills, and he and Inara barely escaped with their lives. Back on Serenity, the crew discovered that Miranda was a planet that had been slated for terraforming at one point, but was now supposedly a dead rock, surrounded by Reavers. They tried seeking asylum with Shepherd Book while making a plan of what to do, only to find that the preacher had been murdered by the Operative's men- along with all of the others who had ever given them shelter in the past.
The crew were forced to flee to Miranda and managed to get unharmed through the massive group of Reavers surrounding it, to discover that not only had the planet been successfully terraformed, it had apparently been home to numerous bustling cities- but all of the inhabitants lay dead of an unknown force. River went into a nearly-catatonic state at this point, screaming that she could hear all of the people, and that they were saying nothing. The gang followed a beacon deep into one of the cities and discovered a crashed ship, containing a recorded message revealing the horrifying truth- the Alliance had been testing a gas called Pax on Miranda, which was supposed to pacify the population and remove peoples' anger, but instead made almost all of the world's inhabitants simply stop doing ANYTHING, including feeding themselves, so they wasted away. The others' anger went out of control, so they became Reavers.
Mal knew that the truth had to be told, so the crew took off to the planet inhabited by Mr. Universe, one of their contacts who had been helping them keep tabs on the Alliance (and who turned out to be a traitor and then was killed by the Operative), intending to use his equipment to broadcast the message to dozens of planets. They took a risky gambit and allowed themselves to be pursued into atmosphere by Reavers, who immediately set upon the small army the Operative had brought with him to intercept them. Wash was killed in a crash landing on the planet when he was speared through the chest, and the remaining crew had to press on without him. Simon, Kaylee, Inara, Jayne, River and Zoe stayed back to cover for Mal while he used Mr. Universe's equipment. While waiting for the inevitable Reaver attack, Simon lamented that he'd spent so much time worrying about River, everything else- including his own wants- had taken a back seat, and told Kaylee his one regret was never advancing their relationship. In the ensuing firefight against the Reavers, things seemed hopeless when they ran short on ammo, Kaylee was taken down by poisonous darts, and Simon received a seemingly-fatal shot to the stomach. River then told Simon that he'd taken care of her for so long, now it was her turn to take care of him- and she unleashed her full human weapon potential, slaughtering every Reaver that came at her with barely any injuries of her own. Mal, meanwhile, successfully subdued the Operative and broadcast the message of the Reavers' origin.
Thereafter, the Operative realized that he had been mistaken and helped the battered crew bury their friends, repair their destroyed ship and take off again, with the Alliance's pursuit of River and Simon seemingly being scaled-back, as the Operative said they were no longer a threat. River took up Wash's position as pilot along with Mal, and Kaylee continued on as the ship's mechanic- with her and Simon finally acting on their attraction to one another, making love in the engine room.
Character personality: The first word that comes to mind when describing Kaylee is "shiny". Or perhaps "sunny". Always trying to be cheerful and optimistic, Kaylee seems to light up a room when she smiles. She is able to make friends pretty readily, even with people from entirely different walks of life than her. It does not matter if they appear to have nothing in common on the surface- Kaylee will find that one link between them, however tiny, and pull on it until she finds common ground with that person. The others on the ship tend to treat her like a little sister as a result. Her sunshine and good cheer do have their limits, however- anybody who insults her ship or disparages her life of adventure and working-class background (even if it is only a perceived slight on her part) will find themselves on the receiving end of either her anger or a silent treatment. She can also sometimes be judgmental and quick to take offense at remarks she believes are insults, whether or not the other person was trying to joke with her or was even insulting her at all. This impedes her budding romance with Simon, although she does admit that his overly-polite nature confounds her, perhaps explaining why she sometimes acts out.
Kaylee loves machines and spaceships. She has a natural intuition when it comes to diagnosing problems when things go wrong- even if she's never seen or worked on that particular type of ship or engine before- and has a gift when it comes to repairing things. However, this means that a part of her pride and self-confidence is tied to her ability to fix things, leading to moments of panic, frustration, self-blame or depression when she runs into a problem she CAN'T fix. Having to struggle to find a solution to a mechanical hiccup is something she rarely faces, so when it does happen, it hits her hard. This ability, which has saved the crew's lives on more than one occasion, is balanced out by her extremely poor skills at fighting, which can be a problem when the gang so often gets into fights. She is very uncomfortable handling weapons and always seems hesitant to hurt someone else, even if her or one of the crew's lives is threatened.
Sometimes appearing innocent or naïve, anybody who gets to know Kaylee quickly finds out that she is a flirt and an openly sexual creature. Her interest in boys and sex is something she wears on her sleeve; for example, the other crew members were able to tell right off the bat that she had a massive crush on Simon from the moment she met him. Though often seen in mechanic's overalls and covered in grease, as well as not seeing the importance in being proper and watching her language, Kaylee can clean up nicely when she wants to, and occasionally enjoys indulging in things like wearing dresses and having her hair done by Inara.
All in all, Kaylee is a mechanical genius who is a lovely person to be around and brings joy into the lives of those she holds dear.
-SAMPLES-
Journal entry sample: Dear diary,
Seems an odd way to open up when I've just been told I wasn't real and suddenly I am, doesn't it? I don't feel all that strange, but I guess I'm still trying to take it all in.
Anyway, my name's Kaylee. Not sure if there's anything mechanical needs fixing around here, but I'm the one to do it- machine workings just talk to me. Say, would anybody happen to know someone named Malcolm Reynolds...? How about Simon or River Tam, or Inara Serra? Would be nice if someone I know was here. Not that I'm not open to making new friends, either!
3rd person sample: Anybody entering Serenity's engine room would first notice the quietly turning engine, and the young woman half-asleep in a colorful hammock hung nearby. Then, they might notice the many tools and spare parts lying around, remnants of the frantic repairs she'd been making all day. Kaylee knew that things were a mess, but she could not bring herself to care. She was now resting, things finally having calmed down. Everything on the ship always seemed 2 inches away from falling apart anyway, and on that day, it all seemed to go wrong at once, one after the other. First, she and Wash had to reattach one of the solar panels on the outside when a rough descent into atmosphere left it nearly snapped off. Then, during a prolonged Cortex downtime, a fuse suddenly popped on Wash's control panel.
Then another.
Then another.
The whole panel had then begun to smoke, and it was only through River's timely arrival with a fire extinguisher that the entire thing hadn't gone up in flames. A thorough cleaning and lots of swearing and replaced parts later, and it was fixed... just in time for something to jar loose deep inside the engine, necessitating Kaylee spending roughly two hours digging, carefully unplugging and setting aside things, working as delicately as Simon might on a patient to get that damn part replaced and welded back.
Now... now she could finally enjoy sweet bliss, nestled inside her hammock. She briefly drifted off and was somehow unsurprised to find River curled up in the hammock with her when she awoke again, the half-spent fire extinguisher on the floor next to her, just in case it was needed. Kaylee sighed happily and hugged her friend close, enjoying the comfort and feeling her weariness ease.