xiao_meimei | (no subject)

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Kaylee had discovered that Warren made a very nice pillow, being as how her bunk was a bit too narrow and necessitated them sleeping curled up close together. Not that she were adverse to that anyway. He was warm, and the ship was more often than not a bit on the cold side. But sleeping with someone else after so long of not doing it was a bit disconcerting as well, and she found herself awake earlier than she might otherwise have been.

She smiled and stretched a little, content to watch him sleep, listening to his breathing. She weren't sure exactly when how or if this had become something more than scratching an itch, but having him here felt good. Right. The way he'd fit in so nicely so quick, and just having someone who looked at her and saw her were one of the nicest treats she'd had in a long time.

She was tempted to wake him up, but refrained, closing her eyes again to snuggle into him.

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Layla looked at Warren. Glanced for a second at Kaylee and back to Warren, who looked right back at her.

Warren didn't socialize at school. Even after they had saved Homecoming together she still had to be the one to go sit at his table at lunchtime. But he knew her well enough to read her, and she had learned a thing or two about him just listening to him and paying attention. They were, had been, as close as he'd been with anyone from school. And she wasn't blind. Maybe he thought she was stupid for not telling Will sooner, but she wasn't blind.

She sighed. "I don't know. I don't know enough... I don't know. And even if you came back, how could you find her again?" To Kaylee: "No offense, Miss Kaylee, but ... it's a big universe."

Kaylee nodded, just a little, eyes dropping again. "Ain't no one knows that better'n we do."

"I'll find a way." Warren did not do desperate. "There's got to be some way to get in contact. Someone, a message drop. Something."

"Maybe?" Kaylee tried to think. "There's places people hold mail for us. Places we go more'n others. An' there's waves. You could send a wave an' we could..." She frowned a bit. "It'd have to be encoded, 'cause we wouldn't want Alliance pickin' it up. They don't know we got Simon and River, but it's still best we fly under the radar."

Layla had only the faintest idea of what Kaylee was talking about, waves, and Alliance.

But even that was enough to give her an idea. "Or, not encoded? Not really. But what if it was a message only the two of you understood?"

Warren grinned at her. "Like the way you and Will talk and none of the rest of us can follow what you're saying?"

"Like that," Layla said, bright red and smiling ruefully.

Kaylee was still frowning. "Not sure how we'd manage somethin' like that with hundreds of planets he could end up on..."

Warren and Layla exchanged another look.

"Probably just this one..." he said, although tentative.

Layla nodded. "At least to start with? I mean, this is where we both ended up, and Mrs. Stronghold was very careful to make sure that the spatial coordinates didn't change."

Warren gave her a sharp look at that. "Will's Mom?"

"I told you he was worried about you."

"I guess you could just send a wave sayin' you was here. Might...take us a while to get back over here, dependin' on where we was." Kaylee was equally tentative, especially with the discussion of someone's mom.

"I could..." He stopped. "Maybe I could come over for an hour, let you know when I'd be over, and then you could get here when you get here?"

She nodded a little. "That might work. We'd have to clear it with the Captain. He might get tetchy 'bout having to fly back an' forth cross the 'verse unless there's work in it."

Warren flinched, nodded. He couldn't go dragging them all the way back and forth.

"There has to be some way to get the spatial coordinates right," Layla was thinking out loud. "So that we could revisit any planet, if we had the location of it..."

Kaylee looked at her a bit blankly, since how the technology was even possible still confounded her.

Warren just shook his head slightly. Mad science wasn't his area of expertise.

"We'll work it out. The machine... we'll figure it out. There's a way, there's got to be."

His arm tightened a bit around Kaylee's shoulders.

She nodded a little, curling into him, head on his shoulder, and not saying that he could just not go. He had friends, family, his whole life back there. No way anyone could be asked to give that up for someone they'd known less than a week.

He played his fingers through the ends of her hair, thinking. Finishing high school would be a good idea. Truthfully, the main reason he wanted to go back was just, things. Comforts. Fresh food. Mp3 players.

He had a few friends. His mother had to be panicking by now.

But there were people here who fascinated him. Who talked to him. Who...

He closed his eyes, kissed her temple again. Tried not to think about the contrast. "Six months here, six months..." It brought mythology to mind. "Maybe."

Maybe.

She didn't like to think about six months without him. It was an awful long time, but she just snuggled closer and nodded a little.

Layla shifted uncomfortably for a moment. It all seemed like a very private moment.

"Two hours," she reminded them softly, after a minute. "Six, at most. Well, one and five, now, probably."

And she moved to the door Inara and Mal had left out of, a little nervous about her ability to open it.

Kaylee nodded to the button on the side. "Jus' push that one..."

Layla gave her a grateful smile, then a more considering look.

"Good luck," she said. Might have been to either or both of them.

And then she was out the door.

Kaylee looke up at Warren, unsure of what happened now.

He trailed his fingers through her hair, twirled a bit of the end of a lock around his fingers.

It was all starting to hit him. Confusion, dissassociation, homesickness and desperation, ease, conversation, and the first glimmerings of what he might, by now, dare to call joy. Then tension, wariness, and again the slow uncurling. And now, home. Home and leaving all this behind.

He opened his mouth to say something but the only thing that came out was a strangled gasp, so he closed it again.

She wrapped her arms around him, holding tight.

"I don't know what to do."

"An' I ain't the one to tell you, 'cause I'm feelin' way too selfish."

That made him smile, if only a little. "That's nice to hear, though."