Simon, with Kaylee in the Black.

It's a funny thing, and not in a Jayne-getting-beat-up-by-my-sister

kind of way, how I now truly see the way Zoe and Wash loved each other. Before, their marriage was just part of Serenity, like her engines or the bridge. I was too focused on the day-to-day running from the Alliance to really see what they had.

Now, in the dark of Kaylee's cabin--she snores lightly. Will that still seem sweet in ten years?--I look back on the times I would see them, casually entwined in the lounge, sharing his seat on the bridge, rushing to their cabin like newlyweds, fighting each other with utter honesty.

With Kaylee I have found something similar--or I think I have. It's all mixed up with massive hormanal cascades and really regular sex, but I think it's how these things begin.

I'm no longer a fugitive from the law, so that background of utter terror has receded. I can think more deeply about what's happening to me. It feels like diving into a cold pond. Making the jump is the hard part. Once you're in among all the bubbles and the bracing chill, it's a rebirth. I'm not a very spiritual man, nominally Buddhist like most from the Core, but I wish I could talk to Shepherd Book about this. It feels so beyond me that it must come from some other place.

I don't know, and it's late past all reason. It just takes a certain special nudge to prep Kaylee's engines, even when she's sleeping. I don't think she'll mind...