Kaylee idly sits in her bunk, the gentle strains of the music washing over her like waves on the shores of a beach.

Not that she's ever seen a beach, but she's seen pictures on captures and so an image has formed in her head of gentle orange sands and iridescent blue sea almost indistinguishable from a cloudless blue sky, the gentle whispering of the ocean waves the only sound in the peace of Kaylee's mind.

Ever since Miranda, things had been awkward between her and Simon... maybe he had expected more than she could deliver or maybe she had too many expectations of love that he couldn't keep up with. Either way, they had just sort of drifted apart in a slow, gentle kind of break up way, until when he finally confessed that he didn't love her anymore, it wasn't much of a shock to the jaded mechanic.

Or at least that's what she told herself.

She sighs bitterly, the placid happy daze she'd placed herself in shattered by thoughts of the last tormented days of that relationship and the months of sad longing that followed...

She pulls herself out of her bunk and glances suddenly at a picture hanging on the wall of happier times.

She and River had been out shopping, a job had gone well for once and Kaylee had used her cut to take River out on a pink and fluffy shopping trip. The two girls smiling happily at the camera held in Kaylee's left hand, Kaylee had one hand wrapped around River's waist and River had one hand on Kaylee's shoulder, both for all the world looking like a pair of normal human females on a shopping trip, rather than a crazed psychopath on a shopping spree and her psychic friend. Kaylee looks closely at the picture, taking it in her hands and a smile slowly spreading across her face.

The two of them look good together, like something out of a romantic movie or an old storybook and Kaylee quickly crushes the thought.

Those kinds of thoughts are bad news, especially around River herself. Kaylee has a good friendship with the girl and Kaylee shudders to think what the enigmatic murderess w