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So Long
I. After one year
They set down on Meiri at four local time, late afternoon. Nobody else in the cargo bay, just Mal and his few bags. He'd traveled all around the galaxy and still he hadn't accumulated much. Maybe a soldiering habit; never take more than you can carry. But this time he'd just grabbed things from his berth at random, clothes and shoes and a few books. His forged papers. Had to bring bags, or Kaylee and Zoe would worry.
The ship settled, engine hum dying down. He punched the console to lower the ramp. It touched soil and he walked down the center of it, stepped onto short brown grass.
Sunny as its name outside and the air sweet and stinging in his nostrils. Mal blinked against the bright light. Dropped his bags on the grass and walked past them to a length of split-rail fence. He touched the rough wood lightly, pressing the pad of his thumb against the rail's edge.
"Ni zen.me.le/?" he heard. Kaylee's soft voice. Mal sighed.
"Nothin's wrong," he said, turning. "You just get back-"
She dropped two canvas bags next to his, smiled hesitantly. She wasn't wearing her green coverall. Instead she'd found some floaty dress, a kind of pastel flowery thing. Light filmy material that drifted right above her knees. He looked at her knees, trying to remember if he'd ever seen that much leg on her before.
"Inara gave it to me," she said quietly, tilting her head with that little half-smile. "Can't go wearin' oily jumpsuits for the rest of my life, can I?"
"I suppose not," Mal said slowly. Still distracted by her knees. Pretty knees. If he looked up, he'd have to meet her eyes, and looking Kaylee in the eye wasn't so easy anymore. She had something going on in that mind of hers and he didn't want to see it. Didn't want to look at the bags, either.
"Quit starin' at my legs." She was laughing at him. "Anybody'd think you ain't never seen a girl in a dress before."
"What're you doing, Kaylee?" he asked. Reached out and straightened the fall of the cloth over her collarbone. Silky under his fingers, warmed by her skin right underneath it. A dress Inara had worn, once? Or had she just bought it for Kaylee?
She shrugged. Her shoulder bumped his hand. "Don't know," she said. "That kinda depends on what you're doing."
"You know what."
"Can't say as I do," she said cheerfully, but her hands were twisting together in front of her belly.
"I'm staying here," he said.
"Guess I am, too."
"Kaylee." Leader tone. Always worked, usually even worked on her. But she just looked up at him through her eyelashes and he felt his insides twist. Most of the time he thought of her as a little sister, a bundle of cute, and then she'd get that serious look. Been getting it more and more, and didn't that thought just make him feel like the lowest piece of trash ever.
"Watch the stuff, hao.le," he said, and went to get Zoe.
Zoe talked to her quietly, shot concerned glances at Mal as he leaned against the fence. He was used to Zoe's concerned glances. They just slid off him. But the look in Kaylee's eyes - that was something different. He watched her shake her head; once, then twice, more vehemently. Stubborn woman, he thought, and smiled a little.
A few more minutes of soft frustrated words, and Zoe came over to him. "Made up her mind," she said. Pointed stare, now. "You ask her to stay, sir?"
"I got no idea why she'd want to." He looked at her, looked over at Kaylee, who had her elbows propped against the fence rail and was staring at the tree-lined horizon with a soft expression.
"Right," Zoe said.
"She really wants to?" he asked, still watching Kaylee.
"I wasn't just arguing with her about engine parts, Captain."
Mal turned back to her. "I didn't ask," he said.
"I know." Zoe gave him a considering look. "We can't stay," she said after a moment. "Dentyn's waiting."
"Then I guess she stays," Mal said.
"I guess so," Zoe answered.
They stood there for a moment, watching each other. "Idiot," she murmured, and grabbed him. They hugged, fast and hard, thumping each other on the back as if they were still in the trenches and too much human contact might lead to a crying jag. Zoe pulled back first, wiped at his face with her thumb like a mother.
"Zaijian," he said, softly.
"You damn well better see me again," she said, hand dropping to her side. Defenses snapping up almost visibly. Sometimes he was so damn proud of her it hurt.
He nodded toward Serenity. "You take good care of her."
She said, "You too," and that one was a real threat. He smiled and watched her walk away.
Zoe went to Kaylee, put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. Mal looked away. When he looked back, they were still embracing, chins hooked over each other's shoulders. Zoe was saying something fierce and quiet into Kaylee's ear while the girl blushed. But her jaw was set, her mouth firm. Determined. She caught him watching and smiled over Zoe's shoulder as the older woman finally let her go.
Said something to Zoe that looked like "I will." They kissed each other's cheeks. Zoe walked back, touched his arm for a second as she passed, and walked up the ramp to the gaping mouth of the dark cargo bay. Gone.
Kaylee came up beside him. They stood, shoulders touching, watching as Serenity's ramp closed.
"Why?" he asked her without looking away from the ship. The burners flared blue-white and their drone reached its familiar pitch. His bones knew that vibration, would be able to identify a Firefly-class boat till the day he died, sure as he knew the sound of a whistler shell or Inara's gilded laugh.
Kaylee smiled at him, looking away from Serenity as she rose up into the sky, and said, "'Cause you still need fixin', Cap'n."
He took a deep breath, let it out long and slow.
"No call for that title anymore." He looked down at the grass beneath his boots. "Wo jiao Mal."
"Okay, Cap'n," she said, and grinned at him, that sun-sweet Kaylee smile, and with a jolt he realized he'd memorized that, too. Had to close his eyes for a second and wonder what he was doing on this planet with this girl at his side.
When he opened his eyes, she was still there.
II. After two years
"I miss her, too," she said. "She made things... light."
"That she did." His voice was rough.
They sat outside on the grass, Kaylee's legs sprawled out tanned and long. There were pieces of dry grass stuck to the backs of her calves. He picked them off one by one. They had nothing to do right then - animals fed and their own food eaten and just the sun waiting to finish the day. Routine on Meiri was pretty much like routine on Shadow, comfortable and slow.
He looked up, squinting into the low-angled light. "Been more than two years."
"I know," Kaylee said. She toyed with the hem of her shorts, tracing the line where the fabric laid flat against her thigh. "You know I'm here, right?"
Mal laughed a little. "I do recall that."
"I mean, if you wanna talk about it, is all."
She was looking down at her fingers, not at him, but he reached out and folded their hands together. She got a surprised little smile on her face and he liked the look of it. Liked the sparkle of her eyes against her browned skin.
"Thanks," he said, and lifted her hand to his lips quickly. Her skin smelled like soap and grass and her skin was warm against his mouth.
She laughed. "You are a gentleman sometimes, Malcolm Reynolds."
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes." She took her hand back, slowly, and shoved up off the ground. "I'm going inside. You comin'?"
"In a little," he said, and her smile muted slightly. She nodded and stepped up onto the porch, boards creaking under her bare feet. By the time she reached the screen door she was humming already, something high and sweet and familiar.
She used to play music in her bunk, he remembered. Stuff she'd gotten off the Cortex, piped through tinny speakers. He should've let her buy better ones. He'd let her buy a little portable set, here, if they could find anything cheap that would charge on the generator.
He didn't even know if she'd brought the recordings with her. Kaylee had left things behind. All because he'd lost Inara, lost all the things he'd never really had with her. Lost her nonetheless. Lost and gone and burned on some backwater planet, and she'd taken his joy in Serenity with her. She'd taken Kaylee's joy, too.
Without Inara, Serenity lost even the faintest sheen of respectability. Not safe, Simon had said to Kaylee, I have to leave, I have to. For her. Mal had walked in on them whispering together in the kitchen, Simon's hands cupping Kaylee's face, Kaylee's eyelids lowered. Mal had paused at the door, waited for Kaylee to get angry and demand that Simon stay. Instead she'd nodded, slowly.
Too many endings. He was better by then, Kaylee and Zoe had seen to it that he ate and slept and was hardly ever alone. They were worried he'd try to take the shuttle down to O'Keeffe, get himself infected and burned just like her, in penance. The bug had mutated on the planet, some strange combination of chemicals and his kind of luck, but Alliance disease control traced it back to a shipment of smuggled goods. Not Serenity's. Of course, not Serenity's. Didn't matter much to him then. Another smuggler had killed her and he was a smuggler. So probably Zoe and Kaylee had done well to keep him away from the shuttle.
On one of his first trips outside his bunk in days he'd watched them end, standing in the doorway flushed with anger. Fingers had itched with wanting to hit Simon, wanting to shake Kaylee and tell her to demand what she needed. She deserved love and honor and all the things he no longer hoped for. All the things he'd never really had.
She hadn't hit Simon then. She'd kissed him. She was beautiful, leaning up to take his lowered face in her her hands, full of yearning and unhappiness. Mal had needed to close his eyes against her adult beauty. Kaylee was never supposed to be beautiful like that, sad-eyed and pale and full of regret.
He'd found her later, in the engine room. On her back under the slowly rotating chunks of metal. Crying. Sniffling, really, like a child. He'd knelt, touched her knee, and the sniffles had stopped immediately.
"Simon?" she'd asked. Too full of hope.
"No, Kaylee," he'd said. "Just me."
Big choked breath and then she'd slid out, lying there on the floor below him with wet eyes and chewed lips. "You should be sleepin'," she'd said. Tremulous little voice.
"I saw you before." He'd reached down, wiped tears and grease from her cheek. His fingers slid on her hot skin. "Talkin' to Simon. I'm sorry, Kaylee."
Big shocked eyes and a moment of complete stillness. Then she'd sat up fast, buried her face in his shoulder before he had time to think. "It don't mean nothin'," she'd said fiercely into his neck. "Never thought he was gonna marry me or anything, he's gotta look out for River."
"He should look out for you," Mal had said quietly into her hair. Her breath had puffed hot and shuddery against his throat. Tears dripped on his collarbone, slid down under his shirt. He'd wrapped his arms around her, tight. "Hush, baobei," he'd said. "Kaylee girl. Everything will be all right, I promise."
"You shouldn't have to do this for me," she'd told him, and broke down again. "I'm so sorry, Mal, I can't ever get anything right-"
"No," he'd said, forceful, and suddenly started to cry. "No, Kaylee, that ain't so."
She'd made an inarticulate noise. Surged up against him, a wave of sobbing girl, and that had just made him cry harder. Her fingers flexed around handfuls of his shirt.
"You listen to me," he'd told her, "you are everything good in this 'verse, sweetheart. You are gonna be happy. I swear it." By then he had seen Simon standing quietly in the doorway. He had given Simon a very significant look. Even loaded with tears, it worked. Simon had turned and walked away. It was better that way. Just Mal and Kaylee sitting together beside the heart of Serenity, crying their own hearts out. For a year or so afterwards, he'd thought that had been the moment when their hearts just got kind of mixed up together, snagged, fit snug like a joint.
It wasn't true. But he'd thought so for a while.
Mal scrubbed his hands over his eyes. Not damp at all. He drew a long breath, lay back against the grass. Stared up at the empty blued sky and thought about the things he knew now.
He knew Kaylee's legs sticking out of her shorts. The turn of her ankle, the tint of veins beneath the thin skin in the crease of her knee. Prickle of stubble against his fingertips as he'd plucked grass from her silky skin. The little furrows the grass left when he brushed it off, pink cross-hatching.
Mal knew her body. Seen her naked a few times, sick or hurt, by accident. But he didn't think of those glimpses; thought instead of the warmth of her in his arms when she hugged him. He remembered folding an arm around her shoulders when Jayne got uppity, marking her off-limits, not part of the game. He thought of how she shook when she cried, how her eyelids fluttered when she fell asleep unwillingly, how she breathed when she was resting quiet and content. He knew the small scar on her cheekbone that made her look as if her cheeks were always about to lift in a smile.
Kaylee, whose delight was his delight, whose sorrow was his sorrow, just like it always had been. He knew Kaylee, who'd left her ship and her engine to stay on this quiet nowhere planet with him.
He'd promised her a happy life.
He got up and went inside and Kaylee was there, lighting the lamps by hand. She smiled at him when he came in, bent to fill the last one. "Dark's comin' earlier now," she said.
"Not in here," he said. And there must've been something in his voice, because her hand paused mid-pour.
"No," she said slowly. Set down the oil canister. "Not in here."
Long pause. The twilight hushed outside the windows, no whir of rillet wings or hum of jhatae speeding back to their nests. He stared at her. Light slipped over her face as she looked down at the lamp.
"Mal, you all right?" Kaylee asked softly.
"Will be." He walked toward her, stopped. Lifted her hand from the table and twined their fingers together. Her palm was slightly sweaty. Looked back up at her face, expecting to see the same look she usually gave to broken machines: weird enthusiasm and a heart-deep sadness. But she was biting her lip, eyelids lowered, and that wasn't a kind of sadness he recognized on her.
"You better get some sleep," she whispered, and began to tug her fingers free.
He let her go, and her eyes darted up to his, surprised. He took her glowing face in his hands and kissed her. Her cheeks were heated and her mouth fell open easily. Maybe startled? But her tongue slid eagerly against his. No careful art in her kiss, just sweet direct hunger.
A sudden flush and prickle swept over his skin. He buried one hand in her hair and pressed her hips close with the other. Firm ripe curves under his fingers. She whimpered a little and he mumbled her name into the kiss, leaned into her softness. Noises came low in his throat as she struggled away, panting.
"What are you doing?" she said, fingers tightening in his hair as he nuzzled below her jaw.
"Fixing some things," he said against her skin. Her pulse beat beneath his lips, his tongue.
"What?"
He kissed her mouth again, bit gently at her lip. "I don't wanna talk about it," he said roughly.
She drew a hand down the side of his face, trailed fingers over the ridged scar on his ear. "Might be talking that's best for you right now, Mal," she said firmly, and he blinked. She was pulling back, her warmth moving out of his arms. Which was strange, not like Kaylee, who was always warm and sweet and accommodating, whose voice played in his ears like music.
"You're what's best for me," he said, hands on her shoulders to stop her. "Don't."
"Mal," she said again, softer, eyes on his boots. He let his hands slide down her back to her waist, tugged her shirt free from her shorts and traced small circles on the smooth hot skin of her back.
"Don't go."
"Quit talking like that, would you?" Kaylee squirmed under his hands. She was breathing faster, lips parted. "Thought you had some noble policy about romancin' between crew."
"We ain't crew now," he whispered, pulling her closer, "and I ain't noble." Could see her resolve softening like butter in a pan. "Nobody but us here, Kaylee, and I want to see you naked more than I can say."
"Aw, hell," she said, drawing the words out, and slid her arms around his neck. Another burning-sweet kiss which she ended by muttering, "This is real dumb," into his mouth.
"Smartest thing I've done in my life," he said, breathless, "I got no idea what took so long."
Baby glossary of pinyin phrases (I'm not bothering with accents except for neutral tones):
Meiri = beautiful sun
Ni zen.me.le/? = What's the matter with you? Hao.le = okay
Zaijian = see you later
Wo jiao = my name is, I'm called
Baobei = darling, baby
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Kate Elizabeth
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