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It's not - Simon rationalizes -his fault that Kaylee, and the ship's entire crew think he's got an adolescent crush on her.
She drew him, and then kept him close, fascinating, like distant twinkling lights on the horizon that one is compelled to chase. It takes him a year and a half to figures out why. Kaylee is the mechanic, the best he's ever known, though he's know so few that it doesn't sound like much. But after a few instances of seeing her so in tune with a machine, seeing her just lightly look or drag a finger across a shiny metal panel and just know what hurt and how to fix it. Like him but so much more pure, so angelic.
At first he thinks it's is the admiration of this talent that draws him close. Then he sees. He wishes Kaylee would do that for him. Just poke around a bit and fix him, leave him whole and running smooth. Make him feel normal, functional. Relieve the yawning empty in his chest. For so long Simon has lain dormant while doctor Tam has taken care of Serenity's crew and River. But River has grown, healed. In away he is proud of it and happy for it. But a piece of him cries out. He has less now; the empty has more room to stretch its claws. Then he sees his clinging to Kaylee is a yearning to be normal, to be fixed, he hates himself all the more, because she seems so hopeful. Every day, he feels himself grow a little worse. It's like the thin layer of cotton in his mouth and brain is thickening, and so is his skin. Everything seems to happen out there. He feels cut off from the world, in the womb with no umbilical cord.
He stops speaking to the others, because the words won't come. He watches, sees them laugh and play and River flourishes. A hot house flower growing hard and stubborn, with no need for the gardener. He is a useless piece of a well oiled machine. on the outside looking in. He barely goes in the infirmary any more, except when someone's bleeding, and even them he feels like he's stuck on autopilot. He hates going in there when it's empty because it's so crisp and clean and he feels dirty and wrong. Foreign inside his own skin.
One night he's simply sitting, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes focused on the middle distance, silent, in the dark, on the couch in the common area, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. At first he's not sure it's real, because it feels so alive, so there. He looks up, and finds the captain's concerned face. His mouth moves, but the sound takes a second to reach Simon, like the vids on an old cortex machine. "Simon? Everything ok?" at first Simon manages to make his mouth move, but no words come out. Then he tries again "I need..." Mal doesn't push, just waits for him to continue. "I need to...feel. Something. Anything. To feel...alive." for a second time freezes, and there they are, Simon still on the couch, Mal standing, his hand still warm and firm on Simon's shoulder. Then Simon begins to sob and Mal's arms instinctively go around him. At first Simon isn't sure what's happening, but then he's crying and he doesn't know why, but something feels different. All he can do is make inarticulate sound and Mal makes shushing noises and pets his back. Then Simon feels as if there's something that needs to be said, but all he can manage to stammer out is "Oh god...Mal...Oh...Mal". Later, many many months later he'll remember those words and feel embarrassed at how sexual they sounded. But in that moment all he knew is that something had finally changed in him and Mal was solid and comforting against the raging storm in his head.
He could never quite remember later, but he knew Mal had calmly led Simon back to his (Simon's not Mal's) bunk and stayed the night, sitting on the edge of the bed, slowly putting Simon back together. Then Simon slept, and it felt like the first time he'd slept in years. the next morning, though perhaps it was more like afternoon, Mal brought in a try of food and said in his stern captainy voice, "We need to talk" and after so much silence, Simon was glad to talk. He talked about everything, even things that didn't make sense until Mal stopped hi and said. "Now, I might not know all that much doc. or any of the textbook smarts they taught you. But I know this. Change is hard. And you never tried to make an impression of you on everyone else. You were always River's brother. When she started to be her own, it musta felt like the world was ending. But! And this is where years of the black have better schoolin' in 'em than core classrooms, I learned this. When worlds fall and crumble, something beautiful can always come out of the wreckage. Time to let her grow, and let you be yourself Simon. That might not always make sense, but it's what's right."
And to Simon it did make sense. The next few weeks were slow and steady progress, and the fog in his mind and body cleared. He felt like an addict going through detox. He once caught himself agreeing with the ill-fated Jubal Early, you need to be in pain to understand it. A real home was waiting now, a real family in Serenity's bowels. Kaylee was a friend, not a mystic healer. Zoe, still distant, but there, with her warm, earthy presence. Wash and Jayne, turn surprisingly good friend, though maybe not as surprising from Wash, but only as soon as he learned to take a joke and turn a phrase against them. And River was waiting patiently, the sister now waiting for the brother to get better, their roles reversed, but in the end, the Tams were as close as ever.
Mal had been more of a puzzle, but not the kind he dreaded, but the kind he found exciting. He sought Mal out, spoke to him, laughed with him, brought and kept the life in both of them. He succeeded where Inara had failed, because Mal had not been a difficult conquest, or a prize, but a man that was as unfathomable and terrifying and fun as anyone else he'd met. Probably more.
All they needed was time. with time, dinner time chats turned to alcohol fueled late night talk-a-thons, that had spilled seamlessly into a kind of new level, as ever slowly progressing with them, touches that lingered more and more, gazes telling more and promising more, until one night they were awake in Mal's bunk, not talking but moving, minds and bodies dancing, and Simon was not sorry at all. Neither was Mal, when Simon kissed him good morning as if he'd done it his whole life. To Simon, his bunk turned to their bunk, the ship to my home, the crew to my family.
Worlds had been destroyed back then, Simon mused one December night, as they glided through the black, a silver arrow shooting through ink. Mal was snoring softly, more like snuffly puppy noises, not that Simon was suicidal enough to tell him that. He was a loving lump next to him, with a heavy arm thrown on Simon's hip. And Mal was right, in the way he always was in a fashion right, even if things did have a knack of exploding or biting when they shouldn't. Worlds had died and dawned beautiful the next day. Simon snuggled further into the covers and smiled. He wouldn't change a damn thing.
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