Disclaimer- I do not own Firefly or profit from the use of its content.

Nature's Course

Chapter One

"Come with me."

"Simon…"

"I love you, Kaylee. And I want to be with you."

"Then stay with me here on Serenity. I know she ain't nothin' like the home you use to live in, but she's steady, and she's home. Our home."

The light in his eyes dimmed, and the hands that moments ago had so fervently grasped her own dropped to hang at his sides like dead weights. Kaylee swallowed hard.

"Serenity is your home, not mine." He shook his head when she opened her mouth to protest. "When I boarded over a year ago, I thought I was getting a ride to Borros. I never expected…" His thumb affectionately smoothed over her cheek. "I never expected you.

"But now that my name is cleared and River is starting to establish a consistent behavior pattern, I think its time for us to settle down planet side and start a normal life. I'm a doctor; I should be working in a hospital saving lives. I feel so useless here."

"No," Kaylee objected, "we need you. We've got plenty a' doctoring for you to do right here. Who knows when we'll be bombarded by reavers or boarded by rim pirates and need a doc to fix one of us after a heroic gun battle?" Her smile was forced, and holding back bleary tears was bringing on a throbbing in her head.

"The most I've done in the past month is give Jayne a cream for his rash," Simon said, his lips quirked into a small smile that quickly died away as the tension in the room bore down on them with growing pressure.

Kaylee took a step closer so they were almost nose and nose and whispered, "I need you."

Simon ducked his head and ran his hand up and down the length of her arm, trying to soothe her distress but only managing to overwhelm her senses all the more. "These last four months have been amazing and…I want you to come with me and River to Ariel. I have a friend there who runs a special clinic that can help River, and there are several hospitals there who've made me job offers. There's a beautiful house on the outskirts of town, just far enough away from the city…"

Kaylee's eyes widened in disbelief. "You mean you've already been plannin' this for a while now. And ya never said a word!"

The pressure of his hands grasping her shoulders brought her tirade to a hault before it could even begin. It was a moot point now; he was leaving Serenity with or without her no matter how unfair she thought it was or how much she argued.

"Come with me," he repeated.

The few seconds it took for her to decide were painful, as she turned her heart on one thing she loved in favor of another. She'd always managed to stay optimistic about life's lot, but this was beyond any silver lining.

Sniffling she wrapped her arms around his neck and reveled in the feeling of him returning the embrace with equal ardor. "I love you," she murmured in his ear.

"I love you too."

With her head on his shoulder and fingers entangled in the hair at the nape of his neck she spoke to him softly. "Serenity's my home, and these people are my family. I belong here in the black as a woman and as a mechanic. Aint nobody can take the sky from me." She felt him tense and tightened her hold. "Just don' think it would work; me being planet side all the time, not seeing everybody…"

There was a stretch of silence where neither were willing to let go, both refusing to acknowledge the gravity what she'd said. They pretended they were just two people in love holding each other, just for another moment longer.

Finally Kaylee pressed a kiss to his cheek and said "I love you" one last time, because she wanted him to know that she meant, meant it with everything she was. Once she'd pulled away, her limbs felt stiff, like she was a foreigner to her own body, and unable to take the despair on Simon's face, Kaylee forced her feet to leave his room and carry her to the engine room where she collapsed in shock against the wall.

She stared blankly at the whirring engine, it's quiet drone not as comforting as it usually was. She simply sat and stared. Seconds lengthened into minutes, and the engine continued its spinning constant, monotonous, and steady.

Her breathing began to quicken, her pulse picking up speed. Despite the burning in her eyes, she didn't raise a hand to clear the bleariness from her vision. A tremble starting in her hands spread up her arms and to the center of her chest where it took hold of her lungs and refused to relinquish them. A dry heave climbed up her throat and escaped past trembling lips in a silent sob. The engine kept spinning.

A blink set trails of salt water down red cheeks, and another breathless sob shook her frame until finally a noise sounded in the back of her throat like air escaping from the smallest hole of a pipe, high-pitched and uncontrolled. The whine came again and again growing louder until her sobs were deep and pain-filled. Her cries were so loud she could no longer hear the engine turning as she shivered and wept on the engine room floor.