Hey everyone! So, I could be a prom right now, but the lack of date thing kind of shot that horse in the face. So instead, I wrote you guys a fanfic! Yay! I hope you like this one-shot. I'm a huge Firefly nerd, and I figured I should post something a little different. It's not really set at any particular point, besides the fact that it's before the move Serenity. It's not very long, under a thousand words, but I wrote it up quickly before I lost the idea. I think I'll keep writing one-shots like this for a while, unless you guys have any suggestions for a fan fic. Let me know, and please comment away!
Disclaimer: Do not own Firefly or its characters. If only…
Connect the Dots
Kaylee smiled peacefully as she spun around in the pilot's chair. The cockpit of Serenity was cramped, even for someone her size and she lifted up her feet to avoid hitting any of the control panels. She knew Wash wouldn't mind if she sat in his chair, but he would kill her if she messed with anything.
In front of her was the blinking map of dials and knobs that she knew how to fix but not how to use. She and Wash had worked together many a time to keep Serenity from breaking down, and the cockpit was just as likely to cough up a broken piece as the engine was. A set of plastic dinosaurs rested on the consol; Kaylee stoked the head of the stego…something or other, she had never been any good with history, especially anything that had to do with Earth that was.
She knew Earth was far away from here, but as she turned her face upward, Kaylee wondered if she could see it now.
A field of stars, too many to count, stretched out into the black for as far as the eye could see. Out here, away from the central planets and too far out to pick any of the border moons out, it seemed as though Serenity was drifting through an uninterrupted sea of lights, buoyed through the silent, beautiful darkness of space.
The door slid open with a clang and she started, knocking a few of Wash's dinosaurs onto the floor. Spinning the chair to face the entryway, she saw Simon Tam, half in and half out of the door, staring at her in surprise.
Kaylee breathed a sigh of relief. "Lao tien fu, Simon, you scared me."
"Sorry," Simon replied, stepping further into the cockpit. "I was wondering where you ended up; you disappeared after dinner. what are you doing in here?"
Kaylee shrugged and gestured out to the windows. "I like the view. Mal and Wash don't always like it when I'm in here while we're in the air." Simon sat in the adjacent seat as Kaylee looked back up at the sky. "It' beautiful, isn't it? Like fireflies- real ones and the like, just floating out there in the verse."
"Yes, it's… amazing," Simon replied, looking up as well. "I never got to appreciate them as much back on Orion."
"Why's that?" Kaylee asked, reaching down and scooping Wash's dinosaurs back onto their consol home.
"Pollution," He replied, "Most of the Central Planets have smog that's too thick to see out of the atmosphere. Besides, I used to be so focused on my classes and on work, and then on helping River that I never really spent much time looking up."
"Did River ever like the stars?" Kaylee asked.
Simon smiled again. "She knew all their names, all the constellations. She would find all kinds of maps and stare at them for hours, soaking up the information like a sponge. She could probably tell us right where we are just from looking at these stars," He shook his head. "But my directional sense is horrible. I have no idea where we are right now."
Kaylee smiled. "I don't either. I don't see any moons or planets that I recognize." She sighed. "We're way out in the black."
"It's nice, though. Quiet, peaceful. No Alliance on our tails for once."
"Yeah." Kaylee could feel herself going red. It always seemed to be like this whenever she was around Simon. Her feelings for him were like a private little fire, and already she could feel it warming her from within, turning her cheeks a hot pink and filling her whole body with a giddy sort of heat. Quickly she gulped and regained her composure, changing the subject. "How do you think they did it though?"
"Did what?"
"Made the constellations," Kaylee said, throwing her hands out toward the stars. "I mean did they just look up at the stars and say 'that looks like a bear to me?' I figure there's got to be some sort of pattern to it."
"Well, what do you see up there?" Simon asked.
Kaylee scrunched up her nose as she stared out into the star field. "I see… a double gasket."
"A what?"
"It's an engine part," She explained with a blush. "What do you see?"
Simon paused. "A scalpel," he finally admitted.
"We really aren't that imaginative, are we?" Kaylee said with a laugh, tilting her head sideways to view the stars from another angle. "Oh, that looks like a butterfly!"
Simon twisted his head to the same angle. "I see a…sitar-looking thing, but not a butterfly." He chuckled softly. "Maybe I'm just connecting the dots the wrong way."
"No, come here," Kaylee said. "Just, sit where I'm sitting." She stood up and let Simon take her seat in the pilot's chair. Grasping his wrist gently, she traced the outline of her imaginary constellation in the stars. "See, this is the wing, and that's the body. See it now?"
Simon squinted his eyes. "Sort of. It looks more like a skirt or something to me."
"Are you Fuh Shiang Jing? Where'd you get a skirt from?"
"Just, from the way it's angled, it looks like a swirling skirt," Simon argued. "You know, like something River wears."
She smiled softly. "I bet you could make all of River out of the stars if you looked hard enough. Draw a full picture of her"
"She'd like having her own constellation, I think."
"Yeah, but I think even we can do better than the 'River Skirt Constellation', don't you?" Kaylee said with a laugh. "See anything else? Cause I'm building a house out of stars in my head right now, but it ain't working cause the roof's too big."
"Uh, a cow?"
Kaylee pointed another direction. "A sword."
"A cross."
"Book would like that one," She said with a smile. "I see Jayne's gun."
"Which one?"
"One of the big ones; I can't tell those things apart."
He pointed upward. "I see Serenity."
"Really? Where?"
"Here, come over to this side."
"Just sit here? Are you sure?"
"I don't mind."
Kaylee sat gingerly in the chair beside him, praying that it wouldn't break. Simon reached around her waist to steady her, and her heart leapt into double time as she stared up and out the window. Mimicking her movements, Simon guided her finger across the stars, connecting the little points of light. "The hull it right there," he explained, "and that's one of the thrusters. The curve of the cockpit-"
"Is right there!" Kaylee cried. She and Simon shared a grin. "I see it."
"The Serenity constellation," Simon said. "It has a nice ring to it."
Kaylee reached into her pocket for the paper scraps she always carried with her.
"What are you doing?" Simon asked.
"I'm drawing it- you can't have a constellation if you don't document it, otherwise it ain't science and official-like. Have you got a pen or something?"
Simon plucked a pencil off the consol and handed it to her. She began sketching in the stars that could be seen through the window, connecting the dots across the page to form the celestial Serenity.
A few minutes later, she was done. "What do you think?" she asked.
"Perfect." Simon replied with a grin. "You're a very talented artist."
She blushed. "Mal never knows what tools to buy, so I have to draw the engine parts for him sometimes. But don't tell him I told you."
"Don't worry; his secret is safe with me." Simon's hand found her own, and he gently looped his fingers between hers. Kaylee's breath caught in her throat, and she whispered a quiet prayer of gratitude as she leaned against his shoulder.
"I suppose it's better than what the people back on earth that was did." She said, half to herself.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, instead of looking at the sky and saying 'that's a bear!' we're looking up and saying 'that's a firefly class transport ship!'"
Simon laughed, and then pointed out the window again. "What does that look like to you?"
"I don't know, which clump are you pointing at?"
"Look, follow my finger. It looks like a DNA strain or something."
"Like a spiral?"
"Yeah, like a spiral."
...
Wash found them in the cockpit the next morning. fully clothed, their legs tangled together, the two of them fast asleep in the pilot's chair. It wasn't until after he had woken them up and they were one their way that wash found the constellation sketch, still stuck to the screen of the consol.