Pairing: Mal/Kaylee -

Rating: NC/17 Warning: Uh, this is kinda...well.. smutty. (Like you expect anything else from me?)

Disclaimer: Joss & Mutant own everything, with the exception of the song quotation, which belongs to Ms. Suzanne Vega.I make no profit. Indeed, I lose hours of productivity from flying the 'verse.

Feedback: Love it! Good, bad and ugly, bring it on!

Another in my Collection, in which I'm collecting every pairing Serenity has to offer. This is a kind of "What If", taking place after "Objects in Space". May still be kind of rough.

"Hold me like a baby

that will not fall asleep.

Curl me up inside you,

and let me hear you through the heat."

"Gypsy" Suzanne Vega

"Hold Me."

Kaylee curled tighter into his arms, her head against his chest, the coolness of her cheek against his warm skin, his heartbeat againt her ear.

"Cap'n?" She murmured, a little sleepy sound flush to his skin.

Mal squeezed his arms just a bit tighter. "Ain't we a bit past the captain thing now, bao bei?" His voice was soft, amused in her ear and though she didn't raise her head, he felt her smile against his chest

How had it come to this between them, he wondered. When Inara had left he'd forgotten to breathe for weeks on end. It wasn't until he came in and Kaylee was cryin in the kitchen that Mal had looked around and discovered his crew was comin' unhinged.

Jayne was snarling at Wash, and Wash, for once, was snarling back. Only Zoe was keeping them at bay. River was screaming at them to stop stop stop, that it hurt her ears, and Simon was trying to calm her down, but his saintly patience was too thin and he was only upsetting her more, snapping at Kaylee when she tried to help.

Mal had snarled in fury, told the crew to get it together. Just because they'd lost one paying boarder didn't mean there weren't work to do. They'd all just looked at him as he stormed out and slammed the hatch of his bunk behind him to the echo of Jayne's bitter insults in Mandarin.

He figured