Chapter Four
Waking had never been quite so unpleasant. She was boiling in her own sweat; the heat of her skin hot, itchy, and painfl. Discarded pants and sheets lying crumpled on the floor mocked her discomfort as she twisted and turned atop her mattress in a vain search of relief. Her stomach started to roll, and with a painful groan she stumbled from the bunk towards the far wall.
Fingers blindly felt for the handle as she slid down the cool metal towards the floor. They caught just as her stomach rioted, and she bent over the toilet heaving what little she had eaten the night before. Salty tears leaked past her cheeks to settle on the corners of her lips where their saltiness lingered with the gagging bitterness of her vomit.
Why did she always cry when she got sick?
Trembling, hunched over on her knees, she didn't flinch when rough skin brushed her ears, and large fingers combed back the hair from her face. "Just breath," came a calming voice, but Kaylee couldn't stop gasping for air in-between bouts of sickness.
Had it been anyone else she would have been ashamed to be caught like that, nightshirt stuck to the sweat of her body, shaking, and kneeling before a toilet while she heaved the contents of her stomach, but it was Mal, and he'd seen her at her worst.
"It'll be over soon, Mei-mei."
She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, her grasping the sides of the toilet while he held her hair out of the way and rubbed circles on her back, as he said small things to keep her calm and let her knew he was there. Eventually her stomach emptied, and Mal grabbed a towel and helped clean her up, though it was mostly just her face and hands in need of attention.
Kaylee sniffled as he tossed the soiled rag into the sink and rubbed the drying tracks of tears from her face. "Sorry to wake you."
Mal shrugged and absently slid his hands up down her arms when he saw her shiver. The fever was waning, and she'd discarded all her clothing save a nightshirt. "Didn't."
Kaylee looked doubtful, but leaned into his chest nonetheless. "Ya couldn't have been up already. Ain't properly morning yet. The illness is a misnomer, you know."
"I sure it's morning somewhere," he defended. "Could't sleep when something kept nagging at me. Call it my captain's sense if you like. Just know when something isn't right with my crew."
She nodded in understanding, the top of her head gently bumping against the bottom of his chin. "Like the way I feel with Serenity. I just sorta…feel when something's wrong with her."
"I imagine it's the same nature."
Kaylee remained quiet for a few moments, her mind and stomach both needing a few moments to settle. There was no safer place, she realized as she sat on the floor of her room with Mal surrounding her. Reavers could have been hot on their tale at that very moment and she still wouldn't have felt terribly threatened, because that was how Serenity and Mal made her feel: safe. They were the two she trusted most in the 'verse.
The thought caused a sense of confidence to bloom inside of her, and she found herself asking the thing she's always wanted to know but never had the audacity to voice. "How come you and Inara didn't work out?"
Mal didn't respond, but Kaylee didn't feel him tense and took that as a sign of encouragement. "You two seemed to be getting along pretty well not long after we left Miranda, and then just when everyone was startin' to get use to the idea of you two acting like a normal couple, ya split," she murmured into his shirt.
When he didn't say anything right away, Kaylee figured she'd pushed too far and was about to apologize when he cleared his throat and swallowed.
"Inara and me…we're both too stubborn for our own good. Neither of us favor change when we're set in our ways." He said it casually, but his tone was deep and serious and spoke of the hurt he was still experiencing.
"She had every right, I suppose," he said as if it were the first time he admitted it out loud or even at all. "Why give up everything you've ever worked for to have a relationship that might not last?"
Kaylee pulled back and sat on her heels clearly frustrated. "You mean you two didn't get together cause she didn't wanna give up bein' a ompanion?"
"Well, that ain' all…"
"Sometimes you just gotta take a risk," she interrupted, her voice rising. "You two had a chance at havin' somethin' real special, and all she could think about was how it might not work out? Well nothin's ever gonna work if you don' try!"
"Kaylee." Mal grabbed Kaylee's shoulders and gave her an amused half smile. "It wasn't all Inara's fault. I deserve my fair share of blame."
"You had every right to want her to give it up. I wouldn't have put up with Simon sleeping with anyone else, let alone several someone elses who were paying him."
"She was willing to give up her life as a Companion."
Kaylee's face crinkled in confusion. "But you said…"
Mal sighed and leaned back against the side of the bed with his arms crossed. It was a defensive position, one he assumed whenever he was going to say something disagreeable. "She agreed to find a new line of work as long as I did the same."
Kaylee's hand reflexively jerked forward to clutch his ankle in shock. "You mean…she wanted you to give up Serenity?"
"It ain't exactly what she said. Just told me she wouldn't give up her career if I wasn't willin' to stop living so dangerously and inconsistently. Course I'd fall over dead before lettin' Serenity fly under the Union flag, which would be the only safe job profitable enough to keep her flying." Mal paused because he had never given the idea of leaving Serenity all together a single thought when he and Inara had argued the point months ago. It had never been an option.
Lips pursed, Kaylee folded her arms. "She ain't ever had a problem with the way we live on Serenity before. Why now?"
Mal's eyes roamed over the small room's trinkets and knickknacks that made it distinctly Kaylee's, as he couldn't find the will to look at her disappointed face; disappointed in Inara, disappointed in him, disappointed in the entire situation.
"If she was gonna give up one perspective future, she wanted to be sure there was another one worth livin. A woman's got a right to settle down." His words made it sound like Inara had been completely reasonable, but his tone wasn't as submissive. He'd been disappointed in Inara as well.
Kaylee was left feeling…well, she wasn't sure how she felt. She was upset with Inara because the companion thought Serenity wasn't good enough a place to start a family, and that was exactly what she was doing, frustrated for Mal because he had had to make the same decision as she did and choose Serenity over the person he loved, and, as selfish as it sounded, relieved that Mal and Inara didn't leave even though they could have been happy together.
"Now I don't want you to get angry with Inara. She was just being logical by lookin' at it realistically," Mal said seriously, slipping into the Captain tone he used to give orders.
But that was exactly why she was upset with Inara, she thought everything out with reason while Kaylee always acted on emotion and what felt right or wrong. However when Kaylee saw Mal's earnest expression, she nodded in consent and leaned over to grace his cheek with a kiss, a promise. "At least you're starting to get over her."
Mal snorted because he felt he might never truly be over the woman who had so unintentionally captured him. "And how do you figure that?"
"You defended her," she said with a shrug. "Right after Simon left I hated him and blamed him for all my hurting. Now," she said with a small smile, "I realize it's not fair to be angry with him. He only did what he thought best, and I don't put up with anyone sayin' otherwise."
Mal thought on what she said before leveling her with a questioning look. "You over the doctor then?"
She placed a warm hand to her growing abdomen. "I've just given my love to someone else."