A/N: As usual, I don't own them, but I like to play in the sandbox for a while. I even brought my own shovel.

OK, OK, I felt a bit guilty for playing around with the motivational posters and not writing, so I buckled down and offer a double-sized chapter as penance.

Caution: mushiness ahead, which I am still getting grips on. So if there ain't enough smoochin', let me know and I'll try and fix it next chapter.

*******

Kaylee looked around in near defeat. Not only was the last day completely missing from her mind, but Wash had gone and burned up her engine in the meanwhile. It just wasn't fair! She'd been having a good time, gorramit, and Simon seemed to be warming up to her quite nicely - he'd even made a suggestion about getting her into bed before the Feds had shown up. Now all she had was a roaring headache and a whole lot of fixin' to do. Making a mental note to get the last day's worth of events - and maybe a whole pile of pain killers - out of Simon later, she unearthed her toolbox and went to work.

She'd managed to wrestle the housing off of the port compression chamber when Mal barreled in through the door, looking completely frantic. "Kaylee? Where you at, girl?"

"Right here, Cap'n. Somethin' wrong?" Kaylee set the engine housing down and turned to face him, just in time for Mal to crush her in a giant bear hug.

"Good Lord, Kaylee, don't ever do that again. Or at least have the good grace to kill me first so I don't have to watch." Mal tightened his hug, sure that if he let go she'd disappear on him for good. At that moment he'd have given up anything - his boat, his friends, himself - for her. Some rational part of his brain mentioned that it was a good thing Kaylee wasn't the psychic and couldn't know that.

Kaylee slapped Mal's arms, begging for him to release her ribs. "Can't breathe, Cap'n." Mal let go and she drew a deep breath. "I'm shiny. Simon says I'm pretty much all better. No need to get weepy on me."

Mal sputtered his objection, even though he w