Digging up another livejournal challenge relic from way back when, cleaned up some from when it was first posted there for the "view" prompt. Joss is boss, I own no one!
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Her first time, the captain stood at her back and watched her reflection in the darkened screen on Serenity's auxiliary instrument panel.
Kaylee got up on her tiptoes for a better look, awestruck as they passed over the only world she had ever known. Her eyes darted back and forth between the view out front and the rear vid monitor, rich browns and golds of prairie grass zipping by faster and faster in a blur of engine wake.
Wash asked for more speed, opening the throttle and making the engines roar as they breathed fire at the ground to give them lift; she seemed suddenly nervous at that but with the edge of space looming just beyond the protective glass, now was too late for second thoughts. Their pilot looked pleased as a cat in cream, walrussy moustache curling into a grin as he aimed for the approaching hills. When the ship bucked in response and crested the hillside before banking sharply to slingshot out of atmo the raw power of the mechanical beast proved overwhelming for Kaylee. Mal was already prepared and caught her from behind when she stumbled, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders and helping her ride out the battle between actual and artificial gravity. The girl leaned against him as the ship groaned and shuddered in her usual way, like a lover riding out a fading climax.
The black swallowed them up then, quieted the engines and stretched on forever. She stared, wide-eyed in the face of all that emptiness and the distant galaxies that were too many to visit in a dozen lifetimes. Her gaze flicked back to the receding image of her planet in the video monitor, reflection streaked with fresh tears.
Wash turned in his seat and assured her that the first few rides are always bumpy but she'd get her space legs soon enough, angling the steering yoke wide to bring them around for one last look out the window. Now that space had stabilized them, Mal moved to stand beside her as Kaylee's sun reflected the warm tones of her world down onto Serenity's bridge. No matter how many similar displays he had seen through that glass and would see again many times over, a sunlit prairie planet was a thing of beauty and a sight he didn't think he'd ever tire of, but it was something special when that was your world out there and something even more when you were leaving it behind for the first time.
"Quite a view, ain't it?" he said softly, and his new mechanic gave him such a smile that it lit him up from inside, shining eyes full of admiration and something that looked a bit like love. She was going on an adventure that he had provided access to, showing her what home looked like from the stars and letting her set sail into the unknown black.
She was looking at him like he was her hero, and it made him want to be.