A/N: I'm aiming at about 4 or 5 chapters for this fic. I'm not sure how long til I post the rest of it, but I'll try for soon. Still working on my other fics, as well...
Simon stared dumbstruck as his little sister moved past him and sat down next to Kaylee. "I guess I won't have to go and get River, then," he muttered to himself. Focusing his attention on her, he shoved his hands in his pockets and chewed at his bottom lip thoughtfully. "River? I'm going to read for a while in our room, okay? Stay here with Kaylee."
River looked up at him and nodded. "Paint. A substance composed of solid colouring matter mixed with a liquid vehicle or medium and applied as a coating. Sketch in lines or words to make a picture."
"Right," Simon's lip curved into a half smile. "I'll see you later, then. Thanks Kaylee," smiling, he headed towards his room, leaving his sister in the mechanic's care.
"So, River. What do you wanna paint?" Kaylee watched patiently as a thoughtful expression crossed the girls' face.
River cocked her head to the side for a moment before answering. "Pinecones," she grinned, retrieving a paintbrush from the floor and dipping it into the red paint. She scooped some of the paint up into a new heap and added some yellow. Kaylee watched fascinated as she mixed it. The paint slowly changed to an orange colour.
Adding an even smaller amount of blue to the mix, River glanced down at the piece of wood in front of her before combining the colours once again. She had to play around with the different amounts of paint before finally, the paint was a chocolate brown colour that she was happy with.
"That looks like melted chocolate!" Kaylee exclaimed. "Makes me wanna dip strawberries in it!" Her grin faded. "I got none left, though." They had bought a punnet of the red fruit last time they had stopped on the core planets and had shared them out evenly between the crew. Kaylee had eaten her last one only hours ago.
River smiled sweetly at Kaylee and fished around in her pocket. "You can have mine," she told her, pulling out a slightly battered strawberry and holding it out to her.
"Really? Are you sure?" Kaylee's eyes shone and her feint smile widened until it lit up the room.
River nodded. "Indigestion brings it back up. You have it instead," she explained.
"Thanks so much, River! You're the bested friend I've ever had!" She wrapped the girl up in a warm hug, careful not to squash the strawberry in the process. Breaking away, she took the berry from River's outstretched hand and slipped it into the small wooden box that Book had used to carry the strawberries he'd used to pay for his board. It had a distinctive smell of strawberries and Kaylee like to smell it every so often when they hadn't had fruit in awhile.
"I'll save it for later," she explained to River, as she pushed the box to the side.
