log: kaylee + simon WHO: Kaylee Frye, Simon Tam WHEN: Arrival! WHERE: Medical WHAT: Kaylee wakes up, and Simon's there to greet her. With a kiss. WARNINGS: N/A
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Kaylee blinked herself awake. She'd been shot in the neck, and everything had gone numb. For a moment, she thought she'd died. Would the afterlife have horrible fluorescent lighting? Where was the flowers and the gentle breeze? The sun shining down on her? Why wasn't she in a big, poofy pink dress? These were burning questions that demanded answers. Was light supposed to hurt? Were you supposed to have a headache like this?
She groaned, a quiet, low groan that was barely audible to her. Her hands felt heavy, and when she tried to roll over, she found a metal railing keeping her from falling off. The metal was cool. She was tempted to rest her head against it, but she needed to figure out what was going on. Had the captain gotten the signal out? Was everything going to be okay?
"Zoe?" Her voice was a rasp. Kaylee cleared her throat, rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. "....Simon?"
Simon was, in fact, hovering around her bed. He'd found a series of little projects to work on, all of it more or less amounting to mindless busy work while he kept checking the clock, kept glancing at Kaylee. He kept finding excuses to come back, kept finding reasons to go check on her instead of doing work elsewhere. It was a slow day in medical, someone else could handle it unless someone needed major surgery.
By now, he had several pens in his hand and was dragging them across a sheet of paper at the same time, methodically testing them and finally finding his ideal pen to write with — but at the sound of his name, he stopped.
He fumbled to put the pens down and rushed to her side, his hands wrapping tightly around the metal rail on the bed. "Kaylee."
Sometimes they weren't sure. Sometimes people had identical lookalikes, and that meant second-guessing it when familiar faces came in. But she'd said his name, he knew her face, her clothes, her voice.
"Hi," he said. He looked breathless and anxious, like he wanted to say something important — and then he didn't say anything at all.
Instead, he leaned in and kissed her.
It was clumsy, it was a little too harsh, and it was definitely out of nowhere, but it was a kiss.
Anyone with eyes was aware of the mechanic's intense crush on the doctor. She'd imagined this way more times than she would ever admit to anyone (and she'd admit quite a lot). In the engine room. Over dinner. On the ladder to her quarters. There were a lot of things Kaylee could imagine when it came to Simon Tam, but almost all of those scenarios had her initiating things. This was weird. This was way out of the ordinary.
Okay, yeah, she remembered what he said — about regret and wanting to be with her — but to be honest, Kaylee didn't figure they'd make it out of that alive. And if they did, Simon was notoriously awkward. He'd admitted that in the heat of a moment, one where none of them thought they were really going to come back from. There wasn't a single reason she'd ever forget that.
This caught her off guard, completely. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. His face was a blur of color to her opened eyes. It took her more than a few seconds to do any kind of reciprocation, and even then, it was weak. There were too many questions she wanted to ask.
"Wa o! Don't know what I did to deserve that, but maybe you should try that again when I ain't got a million questions."
Simon didn't want to pull back. His hand had come up to cradle her face, and he wanted to drawn her in for another kiss. "You're here," he said, finally letting go and putting some space between them.
He should have kissed her the last time she was here. He should have done a lot of things. He'd been busy with River. He'd been busy in general. He hadn't told her how he felt about her and she'd disappeared for months. All he'd done was regret not kissing her when he actually had the chance.
He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
— But Kaylee wasn't going to remember her time here before. She didn't know that she'd been here for months, or that their courtship (if you could call it that) had been rocky and awkward and Simon hadn't been paying attention to Kaylee's feelings. She didn't know any of that.
Simon cleared his throat, awkwardly, and turned away to fumble for his clipboard. It clattered a couple of times against the table when he reached for it before he finally got it into his hands.. "You, um. You probably do have questions."
She didn't let him go too far, reaching out to encircle his wrist with her hand. That was definitely the kind of welcome she could get used to. A dopey half-smile replaced her confused expression. Sitting up was priority now. The pounding in her head wasn't subsiding. Her throat was scratchy and rough from disuse, from dehydration, from screaming in the heat of battle. She rubbed her neck.
"What happened? Where's the crew?" Kaylee paused, growing more concerned. "We ain't in an Alliance prison. They wouldn't let us see one another if we were." Because she had to talk herself through this. "If we was dead, everyone'd be here. Where are we?"
Simon glanced down at her hand on his wrist. "I…"
He had to explain all of this to her. He couldn't get caught up in his own feelings or babble at her about how grateful he was that she was here again, or how lonely he'd been, or how many regrets he had about losing her. "You're not dead," he said gently.
He pulled a chair over to sit down, and he set his clipboard aside again to rest his arms on the railing of her bed. "A lot of this isn't going to make sense to you, but I'm going to ask you to trust me, and trust that I'm telling you the truth. Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"
"I got shot with them darts. The ones the Reavers was using at Mr. Universe's. We were trying to get the signal out." Her hands went to the places she'd been hit, the neck, there were little holes there. Nothing truly substantial. "You'd just gotten shot."
The memory seemed to shake something inside her. Her eyes widened in worry as she began to inspect Simon, looking for some sign that he was bleeding out. She'd been helpless to do anything there, numb and unable to move much. Everything was darkness and slow motion, and so unlike Kaylee's happy bubble.
"Simon, you got shot. Right there in front of me. Are you —" Her hand moved to his stomach, gingerly prodding the shirt. No blood thankfully. "What's goin' on here?"
Simon frowned, looking down at his body. "I was shot in the leg, several months ago," he said. He knew that things happened after that: he knew there were Reavers, he knew someone named Mr. Universe was involved. He knew that Wash and Book were dead. No one had told him that he'd been shot.
"I'm fine, none of that's happened to me," he added quickly. It would. All of this would happen some time, whenever he went back, if people were to be believed. "You're safe from all of that as long as you're here. You're nowhere near any place we know."
"There's no Reavers here?"
That was the only thing she could process. He'd been shot in the leg some time ago, when that bounty hunter came onboard Serenity. She didn't like to think about that; he'd threatened her with some pretty heavy shit.
He was okay, though. Her fingers could tell that there was no wound there, even through his shirt. What did he mean that none of that happened to him? She'd been there; she'd seen it all happen. "What do you mean? No place we know? This isn't —" She lowered her voice and looked around. "This ain't a Alliance facility, is it?"
"No," said Simon, glancing down her hand against his shirt. "No, it's not. We don't have to hide or run from anyone here, but the truth is a lot harder to explain. I'm going to have to ask you to just believe whatever I tell you for the next couple of minutes, even if it sounds completely insane. Can you do that for me?"
Okay. Not Alliance. She could deal with just about anything else they could throw at her. Especially with Simon here. Any number of the crew could have helped in that respect. Kaylee withdrew her hand, letting it drape across the metal bars. "Tell me quick then, 'cause this suspense is killin' me."
Simon had explained this a hundred times, and every time he said it it almost started to make sense. It had been a long, long time since he'd had to explain it to anyone he knew, and he kept glancing up at her face for her reaction. They were in another world entirely, it was Earth-That-Was, but it wasn't theirs, and people from all different worlds were all here like some kind of interdimensional dollhouse where they were all being played with and no one knew why.
He ended it all by setting a paper bag in her lap, with a little pamphlet tied to it with a pink ribbon. "This is a welcome packet, in case you're feeling like everything you know has just imploded. You know. So you can feel homey."
So this was a whole new dimension. No one else was here. She'd come and gone before. Earth-that-was, and it was destroyed, but people could live here. It was several hundreds years in the past for them, so medicine and science weren't all caught up — which meant there weren't really ships for them to fly. Serenity wasn't here. It was about as nightmare as you could get.
But there was one thing that Kaylee couldn't get out of her mind: Simon had been here alone for months. Kaylee wasn't particularly skilled with reading people, and reading Simon Tam was even worse than most other people. Even with all that, she could see that it had taken a toll on him. Especially if he kissed her before she even got much of a word out.
The ribbon caught her attention. Pink was her favorite color, and the whole thing was really pretty. She'd have to figure out who made them so she could thank them. "Magic and superheroes is real?"
Simon smiled vaguely, like it pained him to admit it. "Yes?"
Sometimes he liked to live in quiet denial of all of this, just to keep his own sanity, but it was easier just to give in. "It's not always safe here, but no one's out to get us personally. There are good people."
He hesitated, clearing his throat and looking down at his hands. "I've been alone here, for a while. I thought I wasn't going to see any of you again."
The first time anyone performed magic or some astounding feat, Kaylee wouldn't be able to contain herself. She knew it. She was going to make a complete jerk out of herself either with her mouth hanging open or by asking too many questions. She hoped she didn't offend anyone with her questions.
"Hey… you got me now." And she meant it. Not just because he'd kissed her, or told her that he wanted to be with her. Even without all that, Kaylee would have been right there by his side. Of all the crew, she'd been the one who didn't want Simon and River to leave the ship at all. All that advice had been to cover up her very real fears that something would happen to these two people who had become family to her.
"I ain't goin' nowhere this time 'round." She gave his shoulder a nudge. (She knew she couldn't promise that. After all, she'd done it once already even if she didn't remember.) Her expression turned serious. "I'm sorry you were all alone. Don't want that for you ever."
Simon smiled faintly, watching her for just a moment too long before he started to blush. He'd kissed her. He'd just up and kissed her, so hard that he'd almost crawled right into bed with her.
"I… uh. Sorry, for…" He gestured toward his mouth. "I was just. You know. Heat of the moment. It doesn't mean anything. Not that I kiss everyone who wakes up, I'm just saying."
You could pinpoint the exact moment Kaylee's heart shattered. It doesn't mean anything. She'd never been particularly good at hiding her feelings, and most times, she didn't need to bother. People weren't depending on her to make up a lie on the spot, which suited her just fine. No, they asked her to give them a Crazy Ivan when some Reavers were on their tail and they needed to shake them. She was silent for a beat longer than she normally would have been, her shoulders slacking.
"Oh. That." Her brain couldn't figure out what to say. They were back to this all over again? He'd just confessed his feelings, and then here and now, he'd kissed her. But nope. He was just excited not to be alone? It wasn't quite as bad as being the last girl in the world, but he'd just admitted it was a mistake.
She wished she could get up and storm out now, but confined to this bed, she had no other option than the thrust her arms over her chest and fold them there with a huff. "When can I get outta here?"
The blush drained away when Simon noticed Kaylee's reaction. Had he said that? Had he really said that? He just blurted out that it didn't mean anything, right after telling her how happy he was to see her and how concerned he'd been about never seeing her again.
It wasn't what he meant. He didn't want her thinking that they'd done things that she wasn't able to remember, or that he'd been planning on kissing her, or … no, he didn't have a good excuse, he was just bad at talking to her. He always had been. He had a bad habit of saying the wrong thing, particularly around her.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I didn't mean to kiss you, but I wanted to. Because I didn't, before, and I should have. I wanted to do it before you disappeared again."
The mood had been soured, but Kaylee couldn't seem to begrudge Simon. Every time they've had one of these misunderstandings, it had been cleared up within a few days. The last time was a doozy, and then they'd had to lay Mal and Zoe's friend to rest. That seemed like a long time ago, and was not something she wanted to relive.
That's when it hit her that she wasn't going to be able to say goodbye to Wash or Shepherd. Did they even notice she was gone? Would anyone come looking?
"For someone so smart, you sure are a dummy."
Simon rested his elbow on the armrest, and his head in his hand. He smiled vaguely. "I know," he said. "I get that a lot."
From a lot of people. All the time. He didn't have the energy to be upset by it now, not when Kaylee was here. That smile on his face lingered as he watched her, just happy to sit by her and just be there. Other things still hurt, but for once, he had one bright spot in his life. Something good had happened to him, for the first time in what felt like months.
"Kaylee, I…" Mm. He pressed his lips together and decided against it. She'd just woken up. This was a lot to deal with already.
Don't get your hopes up. But even as she told herself, she found her eyebrows lifting just a little in anticipation. She leaned just a hair closer, dropped her eyes to watch his mouth. Kaylee couldn't understand why anyone would think he was humorless. Or a stuffed shirt. She found Simon absolutely hilarious (some times) and really warm and caring. Sure, his mouth got ahead of him (she wondered what he was like around girls back home?), but whose didn't?
"You… what?"
Simon smiled (he had an adorable smile), and he turned away. He had things to say. He had a lot of things to say. He'd done a lot of thinking since she'd last disappeared. He'd taken an interest in someone else — in a couple of people, really — but he always came back to her. What he should have said, what he should have done, a pile of regrets for how he'd handled things.
He glanced back at her, chin in his hand. I love you. "I'm just glad you're here."
She couldn't stay mad at that face or the sincerity in his voice, no matter how hard she tried. The truth was she was also too exhausted from what — Sleeping? Fighting? Being drugged? — to argue anymore. Kaylee tossed her feet over the edge of the hospital bed. She had to get up before she decided to go back to sleep.