Archive of Our Own

You're the Other Side of the World To Me

Ain't nothing Kaylee loved more about being in the world than turning her face up to the sun and breathing in all the air her lungs could hold. She wasn't like some green hands who felt strangled flying through the black, like the hull was too close or the stars were too far away. She'd built up Serenity's air filtration systems til every breath she took on board was near as sweet halfway out in the verse as it was when the cargo hatch lifted closed. But she never could get the smells right. Sage-scent and the dust people kicked up just in living, or the green air of plants and mud and rain that'd fallen from a real atmo.

Kaylee loved sun, but seeing stars shimmering through the distortion of all that air here on Beaumonde was just as beautiful. They looked right out of storybooks that way, like the people of Old Earth must've seen them before they flew out into the 'verse. Kaylee breathed in--and night air had a scent different from day, too, like the moons themselves had a smell. "Ain't it beautiful?"

Mal grunted. "Can't see to follow the front foot with the back. Should've brought handlights."

"Aw, Captain, that'd ruin it."

"Might ruin someone's plans for jumping on us for what's in our pockets."

Kaylee ambled beside him, keeping up with his stride easy enough, for all he grumbled about getting a door between them and the night. The world was good for a visit, but both of them had their hearts out in the black. "Bet I could make Serenity smell sweet like this if I had those parts."

"I think you're forgetting that Jayne makes his bunk on my ship."

Kaylee bumped him with her elbow. "All the more reason to let me try," she said. "I know they weren't so shiny, but--"

"Kaylee, you are the sweetest mechanic in all the verse, but what that box was full of was no better than tin scraps. You ain't fixing my ship with a box of la ji."

"Have been til now," Kaylee protested. Mal just didn't appreciate the right sort of garbage when there was a chance of picking it up cheap. "They were for sale, even!"

"After the way you looked at 'em? They were for ransom."

Kaylee sniffed. Wasn't easy to keep on her dickering face when there was a chance she could finally tune up the waste extraction system. The head could get to smelling like they had a herd in the hold after three days spacing. "Well, maybe I got a little excited, but--" They came around another ship's berth, Serenity's outline blocking out the starlight ahead of them. There was movement around the ramp of the hold where there shouldn't be none. "Captain, look!"

"Ai ya!" Mal shouted. "That's my gorram ship!"

Kaylee bolted after him, but she was a filly next to a quarterhorse, and Mal was under Serenity's shadow before she'd caught him up. Kaylee gasped as soon as she got close. Zoe was lying like a sack of goods on the cargo ramp. Mal dropped to his knees, shaking her shoulder.

"Zoe! Zoe, don't you go out on me."

Zoe mumbled and turned her head, and then she woke up proper, one hand going first to her gun. Mal got her hand settled on the grip and then said, "Who was it?"

"Got the drop on me," Zoe said, a pained frown pulling across her face.

Mal was fired up as a bull, glaring into the dark like he had the infrareds to track them down. "How'd they manage that?"

Zoe fixed Mal with a proper glare. She wasn't hurt too bad, then. A glare like that was better even than Simon's machines chiming green after he looked her over. "Say anything, sir, and I'll be sure to demonstrate the technique."

Mal tried to grin. "You know, a couple of hours ago, that would've scared me somethin' awful. But now..."

Zoe's glare turned even harder. Kaylee widened her eyes, impressed. When she got knocked out, she didn't feel up to glaring that hard even when whoever done it was paraded in front of her for a scolding.

"...Now I think I'll just shut my mouth," Mal said. "Less you got a look at who managed to knock out my best soldier?"

"Sir," Zoe said. "It was Saffron."

---

Kaylee spread her hands wide over Serenity's skin. There were times when she got started talking too much that she got all poetical about what it felt like, fixing Serenity's hurts. Serenity sang under her touch when she was flying true, and the feel of her jarred against Kaylee's fingertips when there was something gone wrong. She wished she had the words to say it proper, but she settled for whispering to Serenity when no one was like to laugh at her for it.

"Well?" Mal demanded. "No navigation? No engine? No steering? No what?"

Kaylee read out the information on the pilot's screen, then ducking underneath to check the connections for the third time. "It's worse than that, Captain."

"Worse? How could it be worse? Did that jian huo call down the Alliance on us?"

"No." Kaylee shook her head. "Worse than that, even." She twisted up her face as sorry as she could. "I can't find anything wrong."

Mal's mouth dropped open. He blinked at her, then at Zoe, then at the console. He smacked his hand against the door, cursing until he ran out of words, before he turned back to her. "So we can still fly out of the world?"

"Well, yes, but--"

"Then we are going to track her down." The way he said it made the verse seem small enough to try.

"That ain't proved easy up til now," Zoe said. "And we'll still have to wait for Inara to get back. If you're serious about keeping her with us."

Mal looked like he might punch the console this time, but he didn't do more than burst out with another curse and slam out of the cockpit.

Zoe raised an eyebrow at Kaylee. "You really can't find anything?"

Kaylee shook her head, miserableness sinking down her throat. Serenity felt different, like a horse that'd had a different hand on her, shying and shaking her skin, looking for comfort. But that wasn't nothing Kaylee could point to, or say in words. Saffron had hurt Serenity plenty, but that was always quick and obvious to see. This time there wasn't more than a wink, like the kind of flirtation that happened across a barn in the middle of a dance, with the same kind of promise for later attached.

---

"Why is there a dead man on my ship?" Mal's plaintive voice rang out from the catwalks, sounding like he was asking his question to the verse more than to any one person in it.

Kaylee monkeyed up the ladders from the engine room, jumping the last few stairs. Mal spun around and saw her, acted like she was the only one to solve the worst question he'd ever come up against. "Kaylee! Can you tell me why there's a dead man on my ship?"

She shook her head, trying to peek around him. "How dead is he?"

"That is a fine question," Mal said. "Best one I've heard all day." He stepped back and nudged a toe at the bundle of rags lying on the ramp outside Inara's shuttle. "Here he is! Maybe we'd best ask him. Hey there! How dead are you?"

"Stop it, Mal." Inara stepped out of her shuttle. Kaylee smiled at her, lifting one hand in a little wave. Inara smiled back, before she turned a sterner look on Mal, her voice going cold. "Was there any trouble with an old friend while I was away?"

Mal put on his best air of knowing nothing. From the way Inara looked at him, it seemed she believed it just a little too well. "Can't say as I noticed anything out of place," he said.

Kaylee rolled her eyes. There wasn't much point in pretending when Inara would find out sooner than not anyway. "Saffron snuck on board," she said. "We don't know what she did." She looked down at the body 'Nara had pushed just free of her shuttle. "Where'd you find this one, 'Nara?"

Inara sent another glare at Mal, even though it seemed to be only for the spirit of the thing. "Someone changed the registry on my appointments."

Kaylee stared at her. " Cai bu shi! On the Coretex?" That was more impossible than she could credit, and she knew more about how to fool the registries than most, 'cept maybe Wash. He'd probably drop his jaw right alongside her, though, hearing that.

"No. Just here. If she was on board, that explains how she could have done it. She must have been within range of us, having the messages relayed through her own ship."

Mal found his voice then, as well as a grin at Inara's expense. "So this fine fellow's not the nephew of the planetary governor...? Hard to believe, what with those fine features."

"No," Inara said. "He's a pirate. With a moon made of gold, to hear him go on about his own exploits."

"A moon full of...?" Mal spun around to face Kaylee, like he was checking to see if she'd heard the same moons. "And where might that be, exactly?"

"Captain!" Kaylee stepped over the body, going up to Inara. She was furious, but it wasn't really because of Mal. Nothing they'd said had riled her up more than the dead man had. "'Nara can't start sharing secrets like that! A Companion doesn't kiss and tell."

Mal got as close to pouting as he ever did. "Well, that's all well and good, except there's bodies as could use a moon full of gold more than this one can!" He kicked at the body again. "'Sides, it doesn't explain why he's dead now."

"I think Saffron poisoned him." Inara's lips tightened. "She wanted him to tell me everything and then make me look guilty once he died."

"Now that I ain't sure I can credit. She wasn't yao nü enough to loosen the man's tongue on her own?"

"She's had training, but she's not a registered Companion. She could seduce him, but he'd never have the same sense of privacy when he was with her."

"But he told you where his moon was. The one full of gold. And you can't see fit to let us know?"

"Captain!"

"Hey, I was just askin'! Maybe there's a loophole."

Inara sighed. "Of course there's a loophole."

"You see! There's a loophole." Mal frowned. "Wait. There's a loophole?"

Inara rolled her eyes. "A companion can reveal deathbed confessions if it would help the family to collect on any of the client's business affairs."

"And he was..."

Inara sighed. "Her husband. Yes."

"So you're duty bound to tell her the one thing she couldn't worm out of a man on her own?"

"Annoying as it is, yes."

Kaylee reached for Inara's hand and squeezed it. "'Nara, he didn't...hurt you, did he?"

"No. He was more...vigorous than I like my clients, but he was a gentleman. What she did, though, was take away my choice."

"You couldn't have broken the contract?"

"Not without it getting back to all my other clients and eventually the Academy itself. I could lose my license for that." Inara fixed her stare on Mal again. "Oh, I fulfilled her every requirement. I'm not often near the central planets, I can't maintain the sort of networking that most Companions can, and Mal won't authorize any upgrades to his computer equipment, even when she's been on the ship three times now. Who knows what she could have done."

Kaylee stopped Mal with a pointed stare of her own before he could get started defending himself. He didn't let her get the parts she wanted on Beaumonde, and that doesn't leave him in the most charitable position, since Inara was mostly right. "We'll follow her. Right, Captain?"

"If her ambassadorship sees fit to set us a course," Mal said.

If Inara was looking to be stubborn, she realized soon enough that it would only draw out Mal's arguing. "All right," she said. "This once."

"Good, then we'll soon be out of the world. Jayne!" Mal shouted down the ladders. "Get yourself up here to see to a bit of mess-cleaning."

Jayne came puffing up the ladder a second later and grinned when he saw the body. "Hey, he looks pretty dead," he said. He heaved the body up to his shoulder, bending it in half so the legs dangled down his front. Jayne raised his eyebrows, impressed. "Mind if I keep his boots?"

---

Knowing better where to look finally helped Kaylee find what Saffron had done. She ran the Coretex through a dozen tests before the spy-routine showed up, like a rattler in the dust, diamondback camouflaging it until a sharp warning made it stand out again.

Saffron, for the short time she'd been the Captain's wife, and shy of any talk, hadn't so much as glanced at Kaylee. She'd kept to herself, using her wiles on Mal as best she could, and other than that she kept her gaze on the decking and flinched away even when Kaylee tried to be friendly.

Kaylee had figured somehow that it'd all work out, and Mal would let Saffron stay and earn her keep. Maybe she'd even find she didn't have to be so mouse-shy. Kaylee wanted to tell her that the Captain was mighty fine, but there was the whole rest of the verse waiting out there for her to figure out what she wanted to do in it. And the Captain wouldn't steer her wrong in getting her work, neither, because he'd taken Kaylee on for nothing more than she could see a gum-up in the works.

But she'd never figured she'd gotten to know Saffron, not as the back-planet girl who jumped when Mal said boo. Kaylee figured she never would, really, until Saffron cast them all adrift with the door to the bridge welded shut. Making repairs to near every system in the ship, that was when Kaylee learned how Saffron moved through the worlds better'n most of the men who called themselves her husband.

There was determination in the way she'd crossed the drive feeds, humour in the way she'd added a feedback loop to the thermal cap, a mean twist of anger in the way Kaylee found the life-support systems tied in to all the damage that'd already been done. She couldn't say she liked Saffron after, but without the playacting, she shone through loud enough that Kaylee knew Saffon's smile and her tease just as good as the Captain ever did from a goodnight kiss.

---

"Are we gonna shoot her?" Jayne asked.

"No," Mal said. He slipped a two-shooter into his boot, then straightened up to check the lie of his gun belt. "We're kindly informing her of the tragic death of her husband."

"You dyin'?" Jayne asked, reaching out to finger the material of Mal's coat.

Kaylee smiled from where she was watching the preparations. Jayne was watching the ship while Mal and Zoe went out to find the X-marks-the-spot that Inara had told them about. "I think he means one you tossed out of the ship, Jayne."

"Oh, him." Jayne strapped on Vera and gave her a loving pat. "I reckon I did right by not accepting that trade you offered."

"I didn't offer any trade!" Mal checked his gun and slammed it into his holster. "And we are only going out on that moon to make sure there ain't any booby traps in this lost goldmine."

Kaylee grinned, hopping down from her seat on the cargo to reach up and kiss Mal's cheek. "Aww, I thought you'd learned better to stay away from her booby traps, Captain."

Mal went still and looked fierce off into the distance for a moment before he said, "I ain't gonna dignify that with a reply." He punched the cargo hatch release, and them as were searching started out.

Kaylee stayed where she was, peering out into the dark. There was air enough but the surface was all crunch-dust and cold. River peeked around the edge of the hatch and came up beside her. She peered up, reminding Kaylee of a swan, all neck and big black eyes. "You see something?" she asked.

"There's a message in the stars," River said. She blinked and tucked her body closer to the solid metal of the hatch. "It's like a map written in the sky. Coordinates--" And she rattled off a string of numbers so fast that Kaylee couldn't tell much beyond the fact that the place named would be out among the border moons, farther than most people ever would've gone before the Reavers had been mostly destroyed.

Kaylee followed where River was looking as best she could, but the stars only looked like bits of light tossed out willy-nilly across the sky to her. "You sure?" she asked.

River nodded solemnly. She'd gotten better at answering questions that were put to her straight since Miranda, and she was clear enough most days to pilot the ship or cook a meal without putting all the cans away with different labels than they started with. "I can see where we're going," she said. "It's in her mind, too."

"She? You mean Saffron?" Kaylee looked out, seeing nothing but dark. "We've got to tell the Captain. Come on." She took River's hand and tugged her until they were both running, following the path of footsteps in the dirt. There was enough light to follow that, and the others weren't so far ahead that they couldn't catch them up after only a few minutes' breathlessness. "Captain!" Kaylee called. "You seen anything yet?"

Mal looked back. Zoe was scanning as far as she could see, her gun ready, her eyes steely enough to show she wasn't going to be taken down twice. "What are you doing out here?"

"River--she--" Kaylee was panting, mostly from running but some from being out in the middle of a nowhere-moon and not much to see around them but rocks of different sizes.

"I can see the future," River offered. She wasn't out of breath at all, which was some unfair.

"Well I know that," Mal said. "Unless it has a mighty big goldmine for me, I don't see why now's the time to be telling."

"The stars show a path," River said. "I can see the message there." Like a parrot-bird reciting, she named off the coordinates again.

Zoe and Mal exchanged a glance. Zoe shrugged. Mal sighed. "Does she ever not see a message in the stars?" he asked, sounding put-upon, but he looked ready to believe.

"We'd best be getting back," Zoe said. Mal nodded, and herded Kaylee and River ahead of him to lead the way.

---

"She shot me!"

Kaylee crowded around Jayne's bed in the infirmary and winced to see him wriggling against everything Simon was trying to do for him. Simon had nothing the worse to show than a bruise that was coming up a nice shade of purple on the point of his jaw. Halfway to the ship, River cried out and raced away, leaving the rest of them behind. They'd found her in the infirmary, cradling Simon's head and murmuring to him. They hadn't found Jayne before a bit of a search, until they heard him calling from behind some crates that had been rearranged in the hold to hide him. "I can't believe she shot me!"

"A muscle-inhibiting taser," Simon said, touching his own jaw tentatively before he pressed a hypo to Jayne's neck. "Quite effective from a distance. This will wake you up, but I warn you, you'll have a bad case of pins and needles."

Mal was cursing again, Zoe had crossed her arms and was watching everyone else rush, and River was rocking on the second infirmary bed, so Kaylee climbed up next to her and wrapped her arm around River to stop her crying. "Shh, mei mei, Simon's fine. His jaw's not even broken, he said so himself."

"Mal!" Inara's voice came over the speaker from the bridge. "She's signaling us."

Mal went to the screen in the infirmary and switched it on. The console beeped, the screen turning from black to showing them Saffron's face. "I really need to thank you," she said, breathless and soft as a core planet ingenue.

"You ain't got them yet," Mal said. "Maybe you want to tell us where you're leading us before I feel the need to settle matters between us more permanent-like."

"Oh, as if." Saffron widened her eyes, her pout deepening until she'd straddled the line between innocent and sexy just a little too well. "I never would have gotten my hands on enough computing power to figure out the coordinates from the star map without your reader."

"How'd you know--"

"That the girl's a reader? After the message you sent out about the Reavers? Mal, please." Saffron tipped him a wink. "You just had to give the entire galaxy that information. And I know you're not exactly able to take Alliance contracts. A gold mine was enough of a temptation for you."

"And maybe we'll be the ones benefiting," Mal said. He leaned both hands on the console, glaring at the screen. "Since we both know the location of it."

"Oh, that's cute. You think you can outrun me, or--" Saffron laughed, with a girlish shake of her head. "Outwit me. That's really very sweet. You're free to try." She reached to turn off her screen, and paused at the last minute. "That is, once you manage to get clear of that moon. Good luck!"

---

"Oh no."

"No what?"

"Oh no." Kaylee sprawled under the console, glad enough of its protection from Mal's anger. He was roused enough to start punching walls again.

"Zao gao, Kaylee, what in black space is 'no'?"

"No any of it, Cap'n. She's done it again." Kaylee was some angry, but there was an elegance to it all that reminded her of all them fancy ladies at a ball, dancing in their perfectly flounced dresses. Kaylee always managed to pull together something shiny from not much, and Serenity's her baby enough to make any patch job seem shiny. But Saffron's sabotage was like Wash navigating a turn around a dozen moons coasting on an ounce of fuel. Like Inara playing two customers without them knowing she was doing it and coming home with gifts from both of them and the favours of one. This was like seeing Zoe after a gunfight, when her pistols were dusty and hot from powder burns and there was a dent in her bulletproof jacket under her clothes, with a hot groove in one shoulder done up in bloody shirttails for bandages that Simon winces over before he smeared on the antiseptic. Kaylee shook her head, tracing the lines of the hurt with her eyes, shy even of touching. It was beautiful.

"Kaylee! I said, can you fix it?"

"Oh, yeah." Kaylee pulled out from under the console and sat up to give Mal a smile. She could, too. There was some wonder in all the worlds, because Kaylee could see how to fix it. "I'll have to calibrate the flow to the portside wiring and uncouple the drive regulators first, though."

Mal shot her a pained look, and Kaylee realized she'd forgotten to speak in Captain Dummy. "Are we gonna be going after her?"

"Not this time, Cap'n. She's gonna be so gone." Kaylee's mind was leap-frogging ahead to the jobs she'd have to finish just to start fixing what's wrong this time, and the work was going to be shiny. Interesting, the way keeping Serenity going on bad parts couldn't be, always, because there were going to be tricks to keep her on her toes every moment she was working. "But at least we're not drifting!"

"Yeah, 'cause we're stuck on this moon for as long as it takes!"

Kaylee didn't show him her pout, as easy as it would be. "Well, if we'd picked up that box of spare parts on Beaumonde--"

"Zhu a, not that again."

"It coulda been spare parts, if you'd let me haggle 'em down some." Just for that Kaylee didn't plan to tell him how long this would take. Simon didn't much need another patient while he was still tending to himself. "Face it, Captain, you're just mad she got the best of you again."

"She got the best of all of us!" Mal threw his arms out, turning to Zoe for backup. "Am I the only one stranded on this moon? Or are we all sitting here?" He shook his head, and waved off anyone from answering. "Remind me why we didn't shoot her."

"What with the promise of untold riches?" Zoe asked, tilting her head to stare at Mal.

"I would've shot her," Jayne said. "'Cept she's faster than she looks."

Mal shook his head. "Okay, we didn't want to be shooting her. We still want to find that mine. River's piloting as soon as you got us off the ground, Kaylee."

"Right, Captain!" Kaylee wriggled under the console and said, "Jayne, pass me that spanner, wouldja?"

---

It was like getting lost in a place she knew--getting turned around so that the whole world looked new again. Kaylee followed Saffron just as sure as Mal wished he could. Saffron had Serenity's grease on her fingers now; her back must've scraped the same rough spot that tugs at Kaylee's dungarees each time she wormed her way under the console to set things right. Strange to think of them both lying in this same space, constricted under all Serenity's machinery; when Kaylee thought about it, it almost came with the sensation that the deckplates might still be warm from Saffron's body, from however brief a time she was curled here being nefarious.

For the first time, Kaylee felt like maybe she could understand River, and how she talked sometimes. There might be a map in the stars, coordinates that they would follow to find a golden moon, but right here and now there was a path more obvious than anything written on the stars. Maybe Saffron had Companion training, like Inara said, and she was sure able to pilot and plot a course. But the way she mucked up engines was zactly the way Kaylee'd do it herself, if she was the type to want to tear Serenity down from top to bottom without one sorry second wasted.

It was a shame Saffron used that gift--Kaylee's dad always called it a gift--to hurt instead of build. Kaylee heard Serenity's sides moaning when she ran the engine, the part and parcel of her talking in her ear and telling her what's gone wrong. Kaylee was no doctor, but she knew her own business and it ain't that hard to do, this listening.

"I'm sorry," she murmured to Serenity. Saffron had humped her right good, but if anyone imagined that woman ever fixing something, Kaylee couldn't help feeling it'd feel to Serenity gentle as hand meant to bring pleasure, as smooth as all her talk and sweeter still for being real.

---

"Captain! I know where she's been!"

Mal squinted at her. He'd reared up, protesting he was awake, when Kaylee'd caught him snoozing in the pilot's chair. They were deep in the nightwatch, but she felt giddy and shiny as if she'd been drinking down caffeine all night long. "Remind me what good that's going to do us?"

"We can track her down." Kaylee stretched out, the ache in her shoulders tightening from the hours she'd spent tending to all the finicky adjustments that had to be perfect to be right. She grinned at Mal, bouncing on her toes to get him as excited as he should be.

Mal let his boots drop down to the deck. "It ain't where she's been that concerns me. We know where she's going--"

"Captain, the parts she used--"

"The parts?"

"They're the same ones!" To Mal they might be la ji, but Kaylee'd seen 'em, and she could spot them in a bad weld to Serenity's drive sure as if she'd bartered for herself and used to fix up Serenity to closer-to-new condition. "She must'a had a base on Beaumonde. We saw her there first."

"And you want to go back."

"Better'n following two days behind her. We might even get there first."

Mal's eyes opened all the way, finally. "Now that is the kind of talk I like to hear. Is she moving yet?"

"Yup!" Kaylee yawned wide. "She'll get you where you're going, Captain. But next time I see parts--"

"They're yours," Mal said. "It's a promise."

---
"All right," Mal said. He stood behind River in the pilot's chair, leaning near over her he was so eager to see them touch down. "Jayne, Zoe, get yourselves ready to be doing some damage."

Jayne grinned from where he was sprawled against the doorway. The taser had mostly worn off but he wasn't yet standing up tall as he could, and every once in a while he'd curse and shake out another bout of tingles from his legs. "I been ready for that my whole life."

Kaylee shook her head. "That ain't gonna work, Captain. You gotta let me go talk to them."

"You?" Mal opened his mouth, but for a second after, no more words came tumbling out of his mouth.

"You sure about this, Kaylee?" Zoe asked, quelling the Captain before he could find his voice.

Kaylee looked round at all of them. "I'm the only one as can," she said. "Captain, do you even know the difference between a buffer panel and the compression coil?"

Mal opened his mouth again, flapping like a landed fish.

"One's to make stuff stop, the other'n makes it go," Jayne offered. "Ain't that right?"

"Tian cai," Kaylee said. Jayne did well enough passing her tools, but past that he didn't know his right from his left most days. "That's why it's got to be me."

Mal glared at her. "They touch even one hair on your head--"

"You'll come after me. I know." Kaylee beamed at him, and then headed for the cargo bay doors.

---

"...see, like this," Kaylee said. She twisted the wrench and the turbine started turning, filling the engine room with a healthy thrum. Quentin, her new friend, grinned and set to checking out readings. Kaylee watched for a minute, before she heard a new step at the hatch.

"Well, well, well. Look who dropped in from that fei wu ship. Is your captain here, sweetheart?" Saffron came into the room like Kaylee's old cat Baxter used to, sly and eager, but some wary because of the way her brothers always tried to stone the poor thing.

"Just me," Kaylee said, turning her smile on Saffron even though she wanted to protest that nothing was fei wu about Serenity. "Quentin and me were just having a chat. See, I figured since I run an aught-three you could probably use someone like me--"

Saffron's gaze jumped over to Quentin. "Get out," she snapped, and then in a second, she smiled sweet as sugar and added, "Please. Quentin. I need some privacy for the next little while." She added a pointed glared and jerked her head at the door.

Quentin blinked at Saffron, but when she favoured him with a pleading smile, he disappeared quick enough. Kaylee let the wrench fall back into Quentin's toolbox. "Now you and me have a problem to talk out," she said.

"You...have a problem with me?"

"You know it ain't easy to reset the whole navcomm," Kaylee said. "'Specially when you're working by yourself."

Saffron smiled brightly at her. "I do know that. I admit, I'm surprised to see you here so soon." She took a step forward, cheerfulness taking over her expression like the sun coming out of eclipse. "But I don't think that's why you're upset. And if there's anything I can do to set things right between us..."

Kaylee watched her come, leaning back against the bulkhead behind her. She could see plain enough that Saffron was pretending for her sake, playing up the way she did for Mal. But underneath there was still the woman who'd done a jing cai job of strangling Serenity's workings, and Kaylee smiled to see her. Hidden underneath the wide-eyed eager girl Saffron was playing, trying to laugh at Kaylee by mimicking her. "See, that's what I mean. You missed me when you were tricking everybody else."

"Aww, honey. Are you jealous?" Saffron slid just as easy into a different act. "What? Of this?" She let her eyes drop to take in her own figure, the light woven shirt and soft pants over engineer's boots. There was grease on her fingertips, and a smudge on one cheekbone, artful as makeup. "Didn't get any for yourself?" She stepped closer again, until Kaylee was pressed right up against the bulkhead, and Saffron felt warm as the world's sun beating down through atmo in front of her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's not fair to let your Captain have all the fun."

Kaylee breathed hard, letting the air fill her lungs. Saffron was wearing scent, too, something spicy; reminded her of nothing so much as breathing in real air for the first time after weeks in space. "I ain't so easy as all that," she said.

"Oh, but I think you are," Saffron said, and leaned in to kiss her.

Kaylee gasped a little, before Saffron had even much touched her. The kiss felt like the touch of a wire she'd forgotten was live and left her lips tingling, her breath caught, her body going tight at the power of it. Simon managed that kind of feeling, that shivered all the way down low inside her, but never on the first try, and never with lips alone. Kaylee focused so much on Saffron's lips, in fact, that she never quite noticed how her arms were leaning against the walls on either side of Kaylee's shoulders, pinning her back a little stronger. Kaylee didn't have much to say to that, past mmm, which she said loud and long when Saffron kissed her again. "I dunno if this is such a good idea," she said, when she had her mouth free again. Saffron was still leaning close, her eyes dancing wicked as a sinner's. Her lips were wet and pouty, and Kaylee licked her own, hoping that Saffron hadn't had time to use the wrong lipstick.

"You know I'm just distracting you while my men take your ship," Saffron said. "They're dumb, but they're not that dumb."

"Uh-huh." Kaylee pushed forward and kissed Saffron. Stronger than before, since she was getting the idea that she wouldn't have time to stick around for more. It wasn't hard to absorb as much as possible, every feeling and maybe even a hint of Saffron's thigh slipping between hers to press, enticing, in just the perfect place. Kaylee let her head tip back, panting. "You really should tell Quentin--ah--and them. About laser guns."

Saffron looked up--she'd been exploring Kaylee's ear with her tongue, and Kaylee thought they were disappointed in the same amount when Kaylee distracted her. "What?"

"They just ain't as reliable as the kind with bullets," Kaylee said. "'Cause, you know--with the right equipment--like a Firefly class ship--someone could knock out all the laser guns on a moon like this with an EMP pulse." She beamed at Saffron and stepped forward, getting out of the cage she'd made with her arms without any fuss at all.

"What the hell did you do?" Saffron said, stepping forward.

"Well, after River lied to you--"

"Shen me?" Saffron's voice rose, and the colour drained out of her face fast as the kissing had put it there.

"Well, you knew she was a reader," Kaylee said. "She could tell what you wanted. But I knew you'd want to know that the real moon--we found that poor man's family, and gave them the proper coordinates." She smiled. That'd been a joyful duty, even for Mal, who grumbled that all he'd ever wanted was his own gold moon, and they were all pirates, so taking what payment the man's family could manage on short notice was hardly what he'd been hoping for.

"That's--that's what you came here for? To tell me that?"

"Dui bu qi," Kaylee said, and she really was sorry, almost. "You hurt Serenity." With that, she slipped out of the engine room, heading for the port and from there to the ship. She was out before Saffron made a move for her gun.

---

"What took you so long?" Mal grabbed Kaylee by the shoulders and spun her around, looking her over for any injuries before she'd even stepped foot on Serenity proper. "Jayne! Get this hatch closed. We're leaving."

"I'm fine, Captain." Kaylee grinned at him and pulled him into a hug, quick and short, before he wriggled like a little brother to be let go.

"But what happened?" Mal wasn't the only one asking. They were all standing round, waiting for her account. River was the only one whose smile matched Kaylee's.

Kaylee waited until the hatch was closed, having fun with their stares now that she was clear and safe. "Well, Captain, you know how it is when you have to subdue that woman. Takes you long enough every time."

Zoe raised her eyebrows. "Well," she said. "I guess I'll get us underway." Simon stuttered, but Kaylee would help him past that soon enough. She had an itch that would take a powerful scratching.

Jayne blinked. "I gotta go."

Inara stepped down from the ladder where she'd been standing and took Kaylee's hand. "I think we need some tea, mei mei, while you tell me all about it."

end