Author's Note: I am so sorry that this took so long. I got a few pages into the next chapter, and then realized that there were a few chapters that needed to happen first- like this one, actually! Then it took awhile to find Simon's voice, and then to get the scene blocked, and then writer's block/crazy work stuff, etc. I'm back on now, and doing my best to be consistent about getting my writing time in. If you're following my other two ongoing stories (one is House, the other is reboot!Trek), I'm close to updating them both as well, so keep an eye out.

WARNINGS: Het safe sex, all occurring between consenting adults. Are you a consenting adult? There's awkward sibling relations too, but they're unrelated. Cheers!


"Poor Zoe," Kaylee muttered, her head on Simon's chest. The warrior-widow's cries were rattling the ship as it hurtled through the black.

Simon sighed, not really sure what else anyone could say on the matter. "Grieving is hard," he replied at last, fighting the urge to grope her in the dark.

"Do ya think I should check on her? It ain't like her to be so loud."

"It sounds like she's with Mal, baobei," he countered, gesturing idly to the thin wall separating the mechanic's bunk from the captain's. "I'm sure he's taking care of her." A thought niggled at him when he said those words, but he pushed it aside. It wasn't his business, in any case.

Another wail came, and then silence. He felt Kaylee squirm a little beside him. "I dunno. Maybe I should.."

She started to move away, so Simon tightened his grip on her waist. She lifted her chin to glare at him, and he countered by catching her mouth with his. He whispered against her teeth, "No, stay."

When she finally leaned back, her grin was caught somewhere between admiration and reproof. "Why, Doctor Tam, I do believe you're being selfish!" She only called him by his title when he surprised her, or else to tease.

He could think of four replies, but only one seemed likely to get him laid again. "I'm entitled to it, I think, with you in my arms."

Apparently Simon guessed correctly; she laughed and settled herself back on top of him. "Entitled, huh?" she murmured, her lips on his earlobe. "Are you 'entitled' to anything else?"

It felt like his nerves were on fire. "A few things, I hope," he replied, as casually as he could, and let loose his hands. It was like routine surgery; he could trust them to do their own work.

He watched her cheeks flush and counted her breaths as he fondled her breasts and her ass. One hand dawdled at her hip bone as she laid there beside him, and he realized that she had lost weight. They probably all had... Rather than dwelling there in mind or body, he slid the hand down and opened her up.

He watched her pupils while he fucked her with two long fingers. When he saw them dilate past a particular point, one he had discovered in a most scientific fashion, he knew a single finger flick would send her screaming like Zoe (like Zoe?) into the night. The idea of that conclusion compelled him, but he chose the slow, torturous route instead. He untangled himself and dumped her body back onto the mattress with a minimum of ceremony.

"Go se!" she swore in the dark, her breathing ragged. "Simon Tam, if you come back to bed without a rubber on, I swear I will end you."

He kissed her forehead as he complied. "Of course, baobei. Of course."

There was something comforting about the rhythm they had fallen into in the last few months. She usually topped (like this), and he tended to ravish (like that), and in the course of things they both suffered all the symptoms of arousal and release. For all his dignified flirting at his parents' parties, and the rushed groping of his medacad days, he'd never had something this stable, or delicious.

It was something about her rhythm, he decided at last, as he felt her hands crawl across his chest. It was like how she handled the ship somehow, loving and urgent and steady. If she hadn't been such a perfect mechanic, or if he had been more emotional, this wouldn't have done it for him, but she was and he was and it all fit somehow. He wanted her to pay him that much mind, to be that rigorous about it. Returning the favor was the most that he could give in exchange, after all.

Kaylee came at last, glowing like a star, and crumpled onto him as he took his turn. Her hands twitched in his hair in the stillness that followed, and he petted her neck.

"I should go," Simon murmured after awhile, and waited for her to fall off of him. She didn't, and he rubbed her shoulder. "Baobei?"

She was quiet for so long that he wondered if she had drifted off. "I don't want you to," she whined at last.

In his most dutiful voice, he replied, "I should go check on River."

"She's fine and you know it!" she retorted but slid off of him anyway, rolling into the wall to hide her face. "You just don't want to stay the night."

"Kaylee, this isn't about us." He said it as calmly as he could, as if he were certain it was true. She didn't turn to face him or reply, and he didn't try to make her. He just kissed her hair and squeezed her hip, and then got dressed. A few more fingers through her hair and an "I love you, baobei," later- neither receiving a reply- he started up the ladder.

Halfway to the corridor, he heard a sound behind him. It would be Jayne, exiting his own bunk for a late night snack and maybe a jab at Simon. Claiming Kaylee's affections hadn't done much for their relationship, even if the brute had loosened up after Miranda. Simon wasn't in the mood, not tonight. He did his best to be casual, admittedly not his strong suit, as he ascended- and then froze.

"RIVER?"

"Simon!" the girl sputtered, her hand still clutching the last rung of the ladder to Jayne's bunk. It was such an incriminating gesture, he mused with the part of his brain that wasn't seizing up.

"What? I mean, you wouldn't, didn't... did you?"

Her eyes strayed up to the ceiling bulkheads. "I didn't smell you coming," she muttered feebly, squinting hard.

The ricochet in his brain slowed enough that he found the words. "What were you doing down there?"

"Listening. It's quiet there, and I can hear better." She sniffed as though to demonstrate, her eyes wide. "It's safer with dragons sometimes."

"All right," Simon replied at last. He was used to understanding his sister in fragments. Polite would be better than incredulous, he decided. "Was Jayne enjoying your company?"

River shrugged and scratched at the rough floor with her boot. "Not yet... Dunno. Next week, perhaps."

"All right," he said again, but without any comprehension.

Probably sensing his confusion somehow, she continued, "Morpheus, considering blood."

At least they shared a children's library, once upon a time. "He's asleep?" She nodded with a lazy half-smile. Talking was hard for them so often, even now, and it was late. Something big and crazed was afoot, but sleep was medicine enough for now; triage seemed the better part of valor. "Let's get to bed, meimei. We'll figure it out tomorrow, okay?"

A few smiles and nods and blinks later, they had settled in her room. She fell asleep with her head on his chest, the way Kaylee had wanted to do. Rather than dwell on any of it, he pretended that he was still in his residency and pushed himself to sleep.