"Sometimes I don't know if I'll ever get her turning again." Kaylee gentles the new compression coil into its place. It slots just so between her old jury-rigs and the new hurts that tore through Serenity when they crashed--when Wash landed them. Kaylee bites her lip, and swipes the grease from her hands onto her thighs. "Maybe she ain't fixable, this time."

River tilts her head, and her eyes are wide and round like a little monkey's Kaylee once saw in a shop on Persephone. It was in a cage, and it held the bars and watched her, just as pitiable as you could want. Mal never could see the use of having animals on board, leastaways not ones that wasn't worth selling.

River's not caged no more, Simon told them, and he's the one as would know. But maybe she's got the habits of her cage set in her mind, and it's hard to let them go.

"There's just so much gone wrong," Kaylee says, but when River hands her the wrench she needs next, she turns back to the coil.

She twists the bolts fingertight. It's that point where the screw-threads catch and hold, and the engine, part and parcel, takes on a sort of energy, just from being fitted together proper. Every bit of metal in all of Serenity needs its own particular stress to hold to. That moment where if the wrench turns even a mite farther, the whole of the ship will come crashing down, someday, from that spot outwards. Kaylee knows it in her fingertips. She can feel it through the grips of her tools. They'll speak to her if she's got a mind to listen. Right now all she can hear are the places where the planet's wind comes seeping through the hull, places where poor Serenity still ain't been put right.

When the coil is set right, Kaylee wipes her forehead, probably leaving dirty streaks, like always. There's plenty of water on the planet, and she'll wash later, before Simon comes hunting her out. He's loosened up some, but he still squirms away from her grease. He tries not to show it, but she knows it's true. Kaylee sighs, and rubs her fingertips over the coil; they come away marked black as ink. "There's my girl," she whispers.

"She's made from dragon bones," River says. She's soft and serious, and even though her talk sounds crazy, it also sounds more real than anything in the 'verse. She stands beside Kaylee, and spreads her fingers wide. She presses her whole palm to the coil, as if to feel it breathing. As if there's a heartbeat hidden deep inside, and River can find it, and bring it back. As if she's a doctor more even than Simon, who fixed them all up, except the ones he couldn't. "We painted red questions on her shell, and cracked her open with fire, to get answers."

Kaylee's throat feels fit to choke her, and her eyes are hot. "What's that mean, River?" she asks.

"Oracles," River says, and then she holds her palm out to Kaylee. It's black as sin. River ducks her head like a little girl caught with mud on the knees of her best skirt, and smiles. "You like my brother."

Kaylee laughs, even though she's crying, and she can't think why. "It ain't a secret, since you caught us kissing."

"Caught you at more than that," River says. She grins through her hair, like mischief itself.

Kaylee feels herself starting to blush, and says, "Well--"

"I caught you at dreaming," River says, "months and months ago. There's no such thing as accidents. Synchronicity teaches you lessons in binary."

"River--" There's always been times when River seems to know too much. Probably that'll never leave her. But it's downright unsettling, even so.

"Don't worry." River closes the engine hatch, quite as carefully as Kaylee ever would. "It's my turn to learn."

"All right," Kaylee says, and lets River go first on the ladder. "Since you're a reader. Where's your brother now?"

"I can keep secrets, if I want. I won't let you kiss and tell." River pauses, crouched at the top of the ladder, and looks down at Kaylee, and again Kaylee thinks of the monkey, and its sharp small teeth when it smiled. "Simon's in the kitchen."

And she's gone. Kaylee touches the engine one last time, the last of her tears drying into smudges on her cheeks. It'll be weeks yet until Serenity is patched half well enough to let them fly. She got twisted too tight, and they all broke in that fall. But there's ways of making her right. And Kaylee smiles when she hears Simon call her name.

Sequel: Storm Breaking

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December 4, 2005