A/N: All right, I cross-posted this to FanFiction.net, but I wanted to be sure to put it here as well.

Thanks to Leighkohl for the beta in a pinch - I can be awfully inpatient when I want to be!

I wrote this simply because I have been craving some really good S/K fluff and I always thought there should be some resolution after Tracey's funeral. Here is my take on it.

Oh, and comment! I mean it ... comments are like a drug and I am addicted!

***

Mourning Light

***

It was still snowing. Everyone else had drifted away, even Simon. River had started to fidget and mumble and so, with an apologetic smile, he’d squeezed her hand gently in his own and taken his sister back to the ship.

Kaylee was cold, but she had no desire to retreat inside. She’d normally seek out the solace and warmth of her engine room at a time like this, dry her tears on a grimy rag while she tinkered and fussed over her baby. But even that idea seemed empty somehow. Kind of like the look on Tracey’s mama’s face when she’d handed her the recording. Kind of like the look on the Captain’s face as he’d watched the coffin get lowered into the ground.

Shivering, Kaylee wrapped her arms around her chest. She probably shouldn’t have knelt in the snow, now her knees were wet and she was only going to get colder. But it was no colder than she’d felt when she’d realized Tracey was not the man she’d thought he was.

In truth, Kaylee had never been interested in him, not in that way. Sure, he was pretty handsome and all noble, or so she’d thought. But his pale skin and dark hair were a sad substitute for who she really wanted.

Simon was the genuine article, Kaylee knew that. Sure, the Cap’n and maybe even Simon himself thought she might just be interested in sex, in seeing Simon’s fine, unclothed body and finding all manner of ways to make him moan, but it was more than that.

When exactly the shift had happened, Kaylee wasn’t quite sure. Maybe after Canton – after she’d slept i