Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Chapter 2
by SpikeDru
Spoilers: post-Objects in Space, eventually for the Big Damn Movie
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama/Romance
Notes:
He had such dark eyes in the dim light, felt discomforting for their intensity to be focussed on her for once. Like the floor was quivering 'neath her feet. Or maybe that were the artificial grav playing up again.
There are all sorts of ways to feel blue, and the women of Serenity feel them all.
Hopeless amounts of thanks goes to Kelly, for getting me to talk right. Or wrong. Or hwoever it is Kaylee talks.
Previous chapters:
Chapter 1 : The Best Little Whorehouse on the Rim
first published February 2006
2: She Wore a Pink Ribbon
Kaylee loved the engine room and always had. Sure, back home she had liked engines and had an uncommon skill at making them purr like fire-warmed cats but Serenity's engine room was different. She could sleep here, cradled in her hammock and rocked by the ship's lullaby rhythm. Technically, it was a public place like the lounge and the galley and the bridge but really it was hers. Only the Cap'n and Wash came down here without lookin' like intruders in her domain and she figured that was the right of it. She an' Wash were the ones who dirtied their hands in the innards of the ship, the ones who got the girl to do everything the Cap'n asked.
Sitting on the steps down into her realm, Kaylee held the cold metal of a spanner against her face till it grew warm with her tears. Maybe she could toss it in the engine, then tell Mal that they weren't going nowhere till he and 'nara had made their peace. Or had it all out in a big fight. Followed by some big loving. The way Kaylee saw it, all that not having sex was making the Cap'n's balls do his thinkin' for him.
'Cept she'd never do anything to the ship. Serenity was her home, all of their homes. Had all kinds of wonderful people in her, took Kaylee to all kinds of fine places. Well, OK, most of them weren't that fine. In fact, most of them were downright ugly. But 'nara was fine. She showed Kaylee a shiny world and didn't laugh when asked more about it. Didn't say "ain't no place for the likes o' you" the way some people did. And now Inara was leaving an' that weren't fine at all.
Kaylee wiped her nose with the back of her hand, smearing a film of thin mucus over the grease marks and dried tears already staining it. No point in mopin' over it. She stood up and kicked the step hard, just once, to vent her anger.
There weren't a day and a night in the black 'cept the ones you made for yourself. Wash had programmed the lighting to dim, given them a sense of night. He'd even put in a bit of variation in the timings, a gradual changing in the levels, because he was all smart that way. Probably learnt it in flight school. Kaylee wondered, sometimes, if she'd been born in the Core, if she'd had schoolin' and all them aptitude tests, if she'd have been a candidate for piloting. But she reckoned she'd still be a mechanic because where were pilots without their mechanics? A big fat ole nowhere. Which was pretty much where Serenity was right now. Mal seemed to have gotten it into his head that they were taking Inara all the way to her new life.
'It's a Whore School, right?' Mal had asked over dinner, making the announcement.
Inara had given him a cool look, all sharp eyes and barely masked annoyance. 'The Temple is a spiritual training centre for Companions. Contrary to the Captain's belief, the girls are guided towards an inner spirituality to enable them to better undertake their roles as Companions.'
'And to better calculate their fees, no doubt.'
Inara had smiled then, like ice over the pond on a winter's morning. And Kaylee knew Inara was letting them all see the hurt because weren't she trained to act serene no matter what came along?
So now they were heading through a fat lot of nowhere because Mal was taking 'em the long way round, picking up jobs which barely paid for the fuel and generally going as slow as he could. Weren't making life simpler for anyone. Kaylee was working late by ship's time, doing a bit of rewiring. Wires were the nerves of the ship, like all them pretty spidery chi lines drawn on the medicine man's charts. It wouldn't do for her to lose track of which wire tweaked which muscle, else she'd end up with a big old unresponsive knot, like the one she'd had twisting in her shoulders since 'nara made her announcement. Hot green tea was what she needed to clear her head and find her concentration.
Simon was in the galley, sitting all quiet at the table with a mug cradled in his thin hands.
'Oh, hey.' Kaylee managed. Real sophisticated. He started all the same. Half-stood with some ingrained etiquette, then sat again when he saw it was her.
'Oh. Kaylee. Hello. I was just...I didn't wake you, did I? I just needed some time to think...'
'Nah, I'm still working on somethin'. Just came up to get a drink.'
There was an uncomfortable silence. She hated that. Hated how tongued-tied and confuddled she got when they were alone together. Weren't always so, like that time they were drunk on Canton and some evenings in the lounge. But at times like this, when they'd both been busy in their own thoughts, she felt like her desire were standing in the room with them, an extra person all unmentionable and awkward and obvious.
She started brewing her tea. 'I'll just get this an' leave you to it, then.'
He stood and came to watch her as she poured water and strained leaves and did all that stuff. Inara could make pouring tea into a seduction, with pretty ceramics and precise sensual gestures. Kaylee knew her sudden skittishness made her clumsy and it weren't helped any by the old chipped pot and cup she had. Simon silently held his own cup out, his eyes on hers, and she poured him a fresh cup. She were right proud that she didn't spill none. He had such dark eyes in the dim light, felt discomforting for their intensity to be focussed on her for once. Like the floor was quivering 'neath her feet. Or maybe that were the artificial grav playing up again.
'That's alright,' he said, 'My thoughts weren't making a lot of sense, anyway.'
She pushed her hair back with the back of her hand, conscious of how she was in her oldest boilersuit because it was gorram dirty down in the maintenance crawlspaces, and not aware that she was smearing black fluff over her forehead. Sure, she wanted him to pay attention an' all, but did it hafta be now?
'Kaylee?' His voice was low, in deference to the artificial hour.
'Yes?'
'You look tense.'
'It's nothing.' Ai ya. Now her shoulders were tightening even more just imagining him leaning over to massage the knotted muscles. 'Just bothered by all this 'nara business.'
'What am I missing? I mean, I understand why Inara wishes to leave but why is the Captain choosing this route to the Temple? He clearly doesn't want her on the ship any longer so why...?'
'You can't see it, can you?' she asked with amazement, a smile breaking over her face as Simon looked at her with bewildered eyes. This was more familiar ground: Simon the lost babe in the woods, Kaylee the smart little bird showing him the way.
'Can't see what?'
'The real reason why 'nara is leaving and Mal is bein' all crotchety at everyone.' Simon shook his head and she saw his confusion was for real. Niou-se, but why were the pretty men so gorram dumb? Simon was waiting for her to spell it out. And wasn't that just the story of her life?
'They like each other. You know, they like each other.'
'They do? They seem to spend most of their time arguing.'
'Yeah!'
Simon looked unconvinced. Kaylee leant on the counter and smiled up at him.
'Didn't ya ever know a girl at school, and you was always fighting 'em? Then one day you see them differently and you realise you were fighting because that way they were paying atten'ion to you? Like when Dave Yun kept on pulling and pulling at my pigtails when we was walking home from school, and it weren't till I pushed him in the pond that I realised what I really wanted.'
'I had a private tutor.'
'Oh. Course you did.'
Kaylee wiped her cup clean, stowed it in her locker. Every little thing just kept on reminding her that Simon was different. She'd known, straight away, that her normal way of getting a guy's attention - the pushing in the pond kind of way - wasn't going to work with this shiny Core-worlder. But all the ways Inara suggested just seemed so downright roundabout-ish. She coloured even thinking about dressing in something fine and sashaying, and there wasn't a way she could keep eye contact with Simon for mor'an a second for fear he'd see what she were thinking. Here he was telling her again that she weren't from his world. And soon Inara would be gone and there weren't a way in the 'verse that Kaylee could ask Zoe for advice 'bout such things and it was just so gorram unfair! And all because the gorram men were so stupid.
She pushed past Simon, headed for the maintenance ducting. Ships she knew how to tease into action.
'You had pigtails?' Simon called after her.
They touched down at the Temple, after weeks of going slow with crazy jobs. Inara had invited them all to a meal that evening, at a tavern in the town which serviced the Temple. She would finish dismantling her room the next day, pack what could be taken onto a mule and climb the thousand carved steps in the mountain side to her new life. But tonight she was still their Inara. Kaylee tried not to snuffle as Inara lightly brushed her cheeks with pinkgold colour and generally made Kaylee up to be prettier and more classy than Kaylee ever thought possible. Wouldn't do to spoil all her artistry with tears.
'There,' Inara said, standing behind Kaylee in the mirror, 'I want to see Simon swooning over you, mei mei.'
'I don' think Simon is the swoonin' type,' Kaylee said. Already she were itching to fiddle with the bow in her hair. Zoe snorted with laughter from where she leaned in the doorway. Kaylee wished she could wear the kind of slinky stuff Zoe had poured herself into, but she just weren't the right shape for it. Inara had whisked the hooped dress away recently, the one the Cap'n called her "frou frou", and spent the long weeks of Mal's prevarication customising it till it didn't hardly look shop-bought at all. Kaylee weren't at all sure it was right until they stepped onto the catwalk and down the stairs to the docking bay. Even Jayne stopped picking at his nails with his bowie knife long enough to whistle at 'em.
'What you done with our girls?' he asked.
'We ain't ever gonna be your girls, Jayne,' Zoe said whilst Wash circled her, eyeing up her slinky dress like he was already imagining taking it off her. Which he probably were. And suddenly they were all laughing and talking over each other, just as if it were any other night of planetside leave and not the last time they'd see 'nara. It was only as they walked down the ramp that Kaylee realised Mal weren't with them. Weren't even standing anywhere close watching them go.
There was kriek beer. And red wine that glowed like it was lit from within. White wine whose bubbles tickled Kaylee's nose till she were a helpless heap of giggle lying in amongst the divan cushions. Plate upon plate of food filled the huge low table before them, all paid for by Inara in return for their kindnesses to her. Tiny hot mesas from New Morocco. Weird shellfish things with all too many tiny tentacles, which Jayne regarded with suspicion until he realised he could cram a handful into a pitta and cover them with chilli sauce. Simon sat, half-sprawled, next to Kaylee and as each new dish came within their reach, he would enthuse about them. He must have eaten such fine stuff fore he went on the run. Must have given up a world like this to save River.
'Oh, you must try this,' he said, his dextrous chopsticks grabbing the best morsel from a platter of tempura. He paused, with the food held between the two of them. Then he leaned forward and offered her it directly. She felt a flush rising and it weren't from the beer. There was just something so gorram intimate about eating from his chopsticks 'stead of hers. As she bit into the vegetable, he kept eye contact with her, watching for her enjoyment. She wished they were here alone. Maybe they could sneak away from the others tomorrow night, come back, and feast. 'Cept that weren't going to happen. Mal would be in a hellish mood with 'nara gone and there weren't no fun to be had when he was like that. 'Don't you like it?' Simon was asking.
'Oh, no, Simon, it's lovely. It's just...'
Simon shifted position so that he no longer leant towards her. His eyes flickered towards River, who was sat cross-legged in combat boots, her dancing eyes waltzing about the room. 'Yes.' Simon said.
As they walked back to Serenity, through the all-night bazaar that offered pre-packaged prayers to the penitents climbing towards the distant Temple, Kaylee fell behind. Her gut felt tight and it weren't from all that rich food and wine, neither. She pulled the bow out of her hair, walked over to a line of prayer flags that stretched alongside the road. They fluttered in the night breeze, the colour of their hopes fading with wind and sunlight and time, and she tied her ribbon to the line.
Inara stood on the ramp of Serenity, arms folded about herself as she waited. It was only when she whispered mei mei and embraced her that Kaylee realised she were crying.
end of part 2
Ai ya : Damn
Niou-se : Cow shit