***WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS FOR SERENITY, THE MOVIE.***

Kaylee was waiting.

Simon had been badly injured, she knew, and she knew he wasn't yet up to the things she'd been planning ever since the moment he'd confessed his feelings to her before the Reavers had driven them back into the corridor.

But it was still hard, the waiting. And every day she waited, she was sure he was going further back to the place he'd been before: so focussed on his sister and what he'd lost that there was no room for her.

Yeah, he smiled at her when she brought him his moulded protein for dinner, but he'd always done that. His eyes made no hint of the things he'd said. Maybe he'd just said them, them regretted them. As he'd pulled back on Canton.

Well, she had to get this pile of go se back into a working ship. She couldn't suppress a smile at the thought of any of the Serenity crew hearing that little thought – considering they all knew their sweet little Kaylee would turn all violent with a wrench if anyone had ever said such a thing about her beloved ship.

But she was getting mighty sick of waiting.

*****************************************

Simon was tired. He couldn't look Zoe in the eye. He hadn't paid for his selfishness in protecting River: other people had. Wash, and Book. He'd taken away the one thing that made Zoe smile. He'd been so blind. But he still couldn't see how he could have done anything else different: River was his sister.

And he missed Kaylee, with a pain that was physical. She came and said hello to him, but the pain in her eyes was obvious. And it got worse as he withdrew a little more every day.

He could barely look at Zoe when she came into the infirmary a couple of weeks after the crash that had taken her husband's life. But she, as always, was not to be ignored.

"Simon, you didn't kill Wash. Reavers did. Not that they could've helped it, poor critters. If I blame anyone, it's Alliance. The same ones that screwed your sister over, they did it to Wash