Different
Little by little, River is getting better. Her words sound less like poems, her gaze is more focussed, and a hundred other small things are different and Kaylee can't even figure out what they are. She wants to be happy for her, but after Miranda, after the change and the mourning, Kaylee's smile feels wrong on her face.
Kaylee tries to hide. She goes to Inara's room but Mal is always there first, and she tries to talk to Zoe but she is always pushed away, Zoe's face set in stone. She tries hiding in Simon's arms, his warmth, but after listening him talk about River every other night, Kaylee starts to hide from him, too.
River finds her first, always a step ahead of Simon, but unlike the River from before, this new girl in her shoes knocks on the door first and says, "It's River, may she come in?"
"Of course," Kaylee says, unable to say no to her voice, even if the person behind it has changed.
River sits beside her on the mattress in the empty passenger room, their legs just barely touching as the old mattress creaks slightly. River waits for it to be still before she speaks again. "Even though everyone else feels bad, I've been getting better," River says quietly. She speaks slower now, like it takes a lot of effort to get the words in the right order. "I can tell that people are looking at me. They look at me and their eyes say I shouldn't be getting better after so many bad things happened."
"Everyone's glad, sweetie... they think it's shiny you're getting better," Kaylee says.
River touches her face and Kaylee stops speaking, making herself stay still for the thin, cold fingers against her cheek. She lets River turn her head towards her, their eyes meeting. River frowns at her. "No," she says, dropping her fingers quickly and staring down at the mattress. "I can tell. Even Simon... now that I don't need to be fixed, he's sad. He has nothing left to do here. Even though Serenity is so warm, he can't feel it."
Kaylee wants to tell her she's wrong, but her mouth refuses to form the words. River glances up again and smiles sadly, like she can see how hard Kaylee's trying. "I'd go back," she says.
"What?" Kaylee says, her mouth suddenly dry. She stares into River's eyes and tries to figure out what she's saying, even harder now than it was before.
"The noise, the pain, the mess," River says, staring at the wall behind Kaylee with an empty expression. "I'd go back to being broken if it would fix everything else. If Kaylee would just smile one more time, I'd go back."
Kaylee's mouth refuses to form the words she wants again so she just leans forward and presses them against River's, soft, rough, and just for a moment. Then her words rush back and she pulls away, looking into River's empty eyes until she comes back. "River. You don't mean that. Simon's heart would break if he heard you saying things like that."
"Kaylee's supposed to smile," River argues, her voice slipping into old patterns as she started speaking quicker. "River isn't as important. River's just a girl. But Kaylee holds Serenity together, makes her run, makes her warm."
Something inside Kaylee snaps and she yells at River, yells about how she misses Wash and Book, yells about how she hates all the bad things that happen and how she hates that bad things are still happening. She can feel tears falling from her face but she doesn't feel like she's crying, and she yells at River until she feels so tired she wants to fall over and never stand up again.
"It's hard to feel so much, isn't it?" River says in her small, soft voice after the yelling stops and Kaylee can't help but fall on her back and burst out laughing. She presses her hands to her face, trying to stop herself, but River pulls them away and lets Kaylee's laughter fill the room.
After a minute, Kaylee stares up at River, breathless from laughing, and squeezes the hands that are holding hers. "Thank you," Kaylee says, her smile popping up on her face easily.
"Fixed," River replies simply, smiling back, and places a kiss on Kaylee's forehead before pulling her off the mattress and out of the room. "Back to normal, right?"
"Different, but better," Kaylee says, and she laces their fingers together as they walk towards the engine room, trying to warm up River's small hand in hers. She tries to smile again, just to see if she can, and the expression pulls on her face comfortably. She shows it to River, who looks proud of her work.
"Different will work, I think," River says, pulling Kaylee into the hammock with her, and as they listen to Serenity's hum, Kaylee feels right again.