"I'll leave you two alone to discuss this." Zoe was smiling again.

Simon blinked at her back, as she left. He was unsure of himself, and turned to Kaylee. "River just told me that, uhm..." he trailed off.

"Yes. Yes I am."

Simon pursed his lips in thought, and nodded. Now he had a handle on the situation, a way to proceed. “Naturally, I want you to see a specialist, which I am not, but we can start with a checkup-“

“I’m fine, Simon!” Kaylee said, flustered. “My mother had five kids, and my older sister has four already!”

“Do I tell you how to maintain the engines?”

“No. I mean, ‘Yes, Dr. Tam!’” She mumbled, 'Tyrant," under her breath.

“Very good.” He reached out and traced a tear-streak with his fingertip. "Then lets go down to the infirmary for that exam."

They walked, side by side. Simon put his hand out for hers, then dropped it back to his side.

“Technically, River and I are still fugitives, bound by law.”

“I know.”

“What’s that phrase you used, about our adventures with Reavers? 'Scared spitless?' Yeah, that would be me, right about now.”

“Because…” Kaylee held her breath, and stopped on the stairs.

“Shall I make a list?” Simon smiled. He took her hand and tugged her gently along. They continued down the stairs, which, along with a catwalk, wrapped around the modular, after-market, infirmary. His domain, to Kaylee's engine room.

“Are you scared, ah, spitless, of becoming a dad?” They entered the infirmary.

“Yes. Yes I am." Kaylee nodded.

Simon patted the examination chair that tilted, at need, into an operating table, and helped her up. He thought back to the first time he'd had her on his operating table, when both River and his lives hung on the balance of his skill, and a little luck. He also remembered the last time he'd had her on the operating table, in another way, and he blushed. Kaylee saw, and chuckled.

"Wanna play doctor, Doctor?"

"Stop," he said, then leaned over, completely unprofessionally, and kissed her. "Later. As our captain says, 'We work before we play.'"

Simon squeezed her hand, too, but that was totally professional, good bedside manner. He took her blood pressure and other readings, and they finished by watching, together, the tiny flat-screen view, of a small scrap of life. It, she, didn't look like a baby, yet, but she had a faintly beating heart.

"Kaylee, I can promise this, I’ll be a better ‘dad’ than my father was.”

The Tams' parents had sent River away to a special academy, with an exciting program. River had wanted to go, but still, it had been their parents who had sent her away. They had been the ones who refused to see the signs, or to believe Simon, when he had first sensed that there was something wrong. They had refused to help him, when he had acted to save River. Gabriel Tam had told Simon that he would not allow his son to drag the family down. His father had known, perhaps all along, and his parents had sold thier youngest, their baby daughter, to the Alliance for experimentation. To buy, or to pay the mortgage on, a comfortable, prosperous life.

“Simon, have you even thought about what this means yet? Don’t, don’t p-patronize m-me.” Kaylee was appalled, first at throwing one of Simons' fancy words in his face, then at the ensuing waterworks.

Simon wrapped his arms around Kaylee. “Ssh, hush. It’s okay, Kaylee. I, we, didn’t plan for any of this, but I’ve learned that I’m damned good, under pressure.”

Kaylee was shaking her head.

"What, Kaylee? Help me to understand. Do you want this baby?"

"I do, especially if you do. But we can't." She shook her head again. "It's too dangerous, and I'd be no use to Serenity. Mal, Mal is g-going to put me off-"

"Kaylee," Simon said. "Do you want this? Wait, don't answer too quickly, as you said. Think about it, and while you do, let me have my say. River-" Simon frowned. "It always comes back to River. Do you resent that, just a little?"

"Maybe. Just a little." Kaylee smiled, and Simons' frown went away again, to be replaced by a smile. Shiny.

"I stole my sister out of that horror show where they shattered her psyche and put her back together as a weapon. Is that part of it? Are you afraid about River being around a baby?"

"No." Now Kaylee frowned. "Should I be?"

"I don't think so. I-" Simon shrugged. "I actually think that this would be good for her. I've been taking care of her, for so long. Maybe I've actually made her recovery that much harder." One of the things that Kaylee loved about Simon was his faith, that he could, that he would, fix River. If faith, or skill, or love, or long, careworn hours, could, then it would. "This is something outside of herself. Someone depending on her, to help nurture and protect. That would be good for her."

"But let me tell you about what I want, for myself. What I need. When I brought River onto this ship, she was all that I had. All the family that I had left. But this is no longer true, and it hasn't been true for a long, long time." Simon laughed.

"On this ship, we'll never be rich, be wealthy like river and I were. I don't care about the embarrassingly large stacks of money, per se. But I have grown greedy, in other ways, so very greedy, Kaylee. All that I had was River and I, and now," Simon said, stressing the last three words, "I want more."

"Are you, are you proposing to me, Simon?" Kaylee's eyes were very wide.

Simon nodded. "Say 'Yes', Kaylee, and make me very happy."

Outside the window behind them, on the catwalk, River and Jayne were crouched down, looking in.