Epilog: Kaylee’s Happy Ending!

(The following is an expert from Shepherd Books Prayers earlier in the day)

And Jesus, thank you for Kaylee. You give us so many gifts, Lord, but is so rare that you put them all in one person. God, I praise you for her continual smile, for her compassionate heart, for her exuberant spirit, for her steadfast dedication, for her subtle wisdom and simple faith. Please, Lord, shower her with blessing after blessing. Give her all her heart desires.

Kaylee starred into the darkness, it starred back.

Well, that’s not quite accurate, she starred back, or to be more precise, her reflection in the cooled coffee starred back at her. Every now and then she’d shift the cup, sending ripples across her face, but it didn’t change anything. Kaylee looked at herself, as reflected in a mug, and wondered what other people saw, or to be more precise, wondered what Simon saw, or if he saw anything at all.

She wasn’t really pretty, she knew that. Of course the Captain told her she was pretty, but that was like hearing from a Dad or an uncle, they said that because they loved you for other reasons. And Inara said she was pretty too, but Kaylee couldn’t help but feel the Companion meant it the way an adult tells a three-year-old they’re clever, meaning ‘Compared to your peers, not to me.’ And Kaylee didn’t usually care if she wasn’t beautiful. She was other, more important, things. But she cared tonight, because she’d put in the effort tonight, she’d wanted to impress someone tonight, and he hadn’t even noticed her.

Tomorrow, she thought, she’d pull herself together and take another go at it, try something different, find a positive outlook. But tonight she was going to indulge herself in self-pity and nurse her aching heart. She wished she’d thought ahead and picked up some wine at Harpper’s Point, if there was ever a time to get drunk, it was now.

Her morose introspection was interrupted by an