Title: Broke
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: Kaylee/Simon
Rating: PG at best
Notes: Whoa, my first Firefly fic. I was originally going to write this
for ff_friday (which is the Firefly equivalent of wednesday100), but
they have an upper word limit of 1000 and I blew that. This is just a quick, fluffy, post-Objects In Space piece.
___
Engines; she understands those.
Simon? Not so much.
His eyes are forever wandering off, out of focus,
and you can tell he's out there in the black, thinking of things other
than what's here and now. He's worried about River or he's
pondering everything he left behind; he plays his cards so damn close
Kaylee's never really sure what he's thinking. And maybe that's
part of the problem. Farmboys back home, they were real cute but they
weren't much for what the Cap'n would call the subtleties, meaning
they took whatever Kaylee offered and didn't make much pretense about
it.
No challenge at all.
Simon, though, he's so handsome and grown-up and
articulate; and he always smells good, like he brought some expensive
cologne onboard with him and it doesn't occur to him that it's a bit
rich for everyday shipboard use. He's scarily smart, and sad, and mysterious, all wrapped up in one pretty
package. Nothing in Kaylee's short and happy life has prepared her to
be attracted to a man like this; it's like he's some new Alliance-made
engine she's never seen, and it's going to drive her crazy till she
figures out exactly how he works, how all the pieces fit together.
And which pieces are broke. Because she knows
there's some things ain't working right, way inside him. And maybe
that's another big reason she just can't leave it alone.
There in the corridor, Kaylee watches Simon,
standing so close to her but his eyes going off somewhere else, so she
just blurts out, "Isn't there anything here you're glad of?"
Blankness at first, and then his expression softens;
he's back from wherever he was and he's actually here with her again. A
tiny smile plays at his mouth. He reaches a hand towards Kaylee's face
and her heart starts to race all crazy, like it's trying to reach
escape velocity, and...
And then Shepherd Book walks in on them; and
then the moment is gone.
Kaylee's not sure if there's a Hell for them who'd
think bad thoughts about a nice, harmless Shepherd--but if there is,
she's probably headed there.
***
Later that night, Kaylee gives serious consideration
to sneaking out of her bunk and seeing if Simon's up for finishing what
he seemed about to start. She can't quite get up her nerve, though, and
she decides it's best to keep trying to figure out how that particular
engine works before taking it for a test run.
And later still, Jubal Early comes to Serenity, and
that changes everything.
***
A month later Simon's still hobbling around on
crutches; being Simon, he's somehow managing it with dignity.
Two days earlier they'd made an uneventful landing
on Emory, a colony planet, and now they've finished loading cargo and
running last-minute system checks for launch in a few hours. Kaylee's
in the crew lounge mending a pair of coveralls when she hears the
unmistakable step-thunk of Simon heading her way on his crutches. She
bites off the end of the thread and finishes up the seam; she sets her
sewing aside as Simon comes in.
"Hey, Simon!" Kaylee says. "Whatcha got there?"
Simon's carrying a smallish paper sack. "Just a
little something from town."
"The Captain let you go into town?"
Simon laughs softly. "Hardly. I still had a little
cash, so I asked Book to pick up a few things for me." He hands
Kaylee the paper sack, and then eases himself down onto the bench a
space away from her. "That's for you."
"A present? For me? Really?"
Simon just smiles at her.
Kaylee's got no notion at all what could be in the
bag; Simon's never seemed the gift-giving type before. Which leaves her
not much to do but open it and find out.
She unrolls the top of the crinkled brown bag and
peers inside; she reaches in and pulls out--
--a mesh container full of fresh strawberries.
It's all she can do not to giggle with delight.
"Simon... How in the 'verse did you know?"
Simon shrugs. "I can't take the credit; I just asked
Shepherd Book to find something he thought you'd like."
"But--why? It ain't like it's my birthday or
anything."
Simon looks away, and he takes a minute to answer,
like it wasn't a question he was expecting. "I suppose I wanted to...
break the ice. Between us."
"What do you mean?"
Simon sighs and looks down at his hands; flexes his
long fingers. "Ever since that bounty hunter came to the ship, you've
seemed so--distant."
Now it's Kaylee's turn to look away. She doesn't
like to think about that night, is happier pretending it didn't happen,
and she wishes Simon weren't saying it out loud like this and making it
all real again.
But now it's out there, there's no point dancing
around it. She looks up at Simon; their eyes meet.
"He scared me," Kaylee begins. "He scared me
real bad. I mean, I been in lots of scrapes with the crew before, but
it was never about me, you know? He..." She shrugs. "He had a
way of making it personal."
Simon's expression shifts from neutral to suspicious
so quickly it makes Kaylee twitch a little; and then she figures the
route Simon's thinking down.
"Kaylee--" he begins, his voice low and deadly
serious.
"He didn't touch me," she says quickly. "I mean,
'cept for tying me up."
"So he didn't--"
"No."
Simon releases a sigh; he relaxes a little. "That's
good."
Kaylee hesitates, then: "He just talked about
it. What he'd do to me. If."
Simon winces; he closes his eyes and rubs between
them like he's got a headache.
They sit in the quiet for a moment; Simon's got on
his out-there stare again, and Kaylee realizes that he's
almost-not-quite trembling. Like he's choking back anger. Like he'd slam his fist against
the bulkhead right now if he weren't so finely bred.
"Simon," Kaylee says, "It ain't your fault."
He focuses on her, looks at her disbelievingly. "But
it is! Haven't you been paying attention? You almost got killed
because of me, remember? You got shot! And now you've been tied up and
scared and threatened and--" He chokes it off, takes a
deep breath. "It is my fault."
For such a smart man he can be so gorram dumb.
Kaylee slides over on the bench, closer to him. He's
real twitchy sometimes, when people get too close; she doesn't know if
that's part of the society he's from or just because life on the run
has made him paranoid, but she puts a hand on his forearm because she's
not sure how else to get him to listen to her.
"Simon. It's not your fault, hear? You didn't
ask the Alliance to kidnap your sister and experiment on her.
Everything you've done since then, you've done trying to protect her.
Everyone on the ship knows it. If the Captain didn't believe that, he'd
have put you off."
Simon looks at her hand on his forearm but he
doesn't shake it off; then he finally looks up at her.
"If I've been standoffish," she continues, "it ain't
because I blame you for what happened. It's more like maybe I didn't really understand
before, how serious it all was. And maybe now I do. And maybe I feel
silly coming around and talking to you about nothing much and--and
flirting with you and making a fool of myself. Because I
figure--maybe you got other things on your mind."
Simon's expression is unreadable for a moment, then
he shakes his head and sighs again. He smiles at her in a wry, sad way.
"I liked it when you'd come around and talk to me about nothing
much. It was a nice distraction. I miss that." He looks down at her
hand, which is still on his forearm; then he reaches over and places
his other hand over hers. "All of it."
And they just sit there grinning at each other like
two big fools, until Mal comes in and glowers at them and mutters
something about lazy crew.
So they both get up and pretend to have other things
to do; they are in final prep for liftoff, after all. But on
the way out of the lounge, Simon turns and smiles at her, behind the
Captain's back.
Kaylee hides her grin from the Captain.
***
Later on, after launch, she sticks her head into
Simon and River's quarters, just to say Hello; Simon's eyes light up
when he sees her.
She can't hide her smile this time; and she reckons
she probably should have talked things out with him sooner.
After all, it feels so good to fix stuff.
***
END.