Kaylee couldn’t wait any longer. They’d been gone from Whitefall almost a full day, she’d thrown up twice, and fixed a dozen small things needed fixing. And she’d obeyed Simon’s wishes that she not go and talk to his parents.

Not that it was without ... discussion.

“If’n I don’t meet ‘em, how do I know what they think of me?” she’d asked, pushing back a strand of hair where it had come loose from her ponytail.

Simon stood in the doorway to the engine room. “Kaylee, I … I don’t want you to feel … bad.” He knew it was an excuse, and she knew it too.

“They might like me.” She smiled, wiping her hands on the cloth at her waist. “There’s nothing wrong with me, is there?”

“No, no, Kaylee, bao-bei , there’s nothing wrong with you,” he said quickly, crossing the threshold and putting his hands on her shoulders. “Nothing at all.”

“Then why –“

“It’s not you, Kaylee. It’s them. I don’t know how they’re going to react.”

Her eyes narrowed a little. “But you just said there’s nothing wrong with me.”

He sighed. “Kaylee, please, I really don’t need an argument right now. Just trust me. It’ll be a few days and they’ll be gone, and we won’t need to think about them any more.” He’d dropped a kiss on her mouth, then headed back downstairs, leaving her staring after him, biting at her lip.

Simon had good reason to hate his parents, and she understood that, but this was getting a bit absurd. Even Jayne had met them, for Buddha’s sake, albeit briefly, and surely that was more of a shock than it would ever be to meet her. And from what Freya said, Bethie and the other children had been something of a hit with the older Tams, and Kaylee knew her little daughter wouldn’t make friends with people who were in any way suspect.

Dinner that night had been easy – Regan had stayed with Gabriel in the infirmary, Freya taking a tray down to them both, so Alex was the only extra face at the table.

He’d told some stories about when the Rostov twins were young, stories that his sister