Challenge #73
Title: Watching
Rating: PG
Pairing: Kaylee/River, unrequited Kaylee/Simon
Challenge: Sometimes you don't get what you want...
Word Count: 794


River was watching Kaylee watch Simon.

"He's closed up," River said. "His head and his heart. It's probably my fault."

Kaylee turned, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I - I wasn't doin' anything," she blurted, her hands swiping nervously over her coveralls, as if wiping dirt off of them.

"I know you weren't. You were just watching. But he wasn't watching back." River looked above Kaylee's head, as if fixated on a point on the wall. "Your eyes are so blue when you look at him."

"I have brown eyes." Kaylee stared at River, searching her face for some sort of meaning. As always, it evaded her.

"I know," River said. "Brown, like muddy river banks. Blue, blue like water. You have so much love to give, Kaylee." She reached out and touched the other girl's cheek lightly with her finger. "You just don't know the right place to put it."

Her hand dropped, and she looked sad for a moment. "I don't know the right place to put anything," she said softly, then turned and left without another word, her bare feet making no noise against the metal floor.

Kaylee lifted her hand and let her fingers brush her own cheek.

***

Mal was watching Kaylee watch River.

"She doesn't look much like her brother," Mal commented, leaning against a bulkhead, his feet jutting out in front of him.

Kaylee's shoulders jumped, a startled expression on her face when she turned to him. "Great balls of fire, Mal, don't you never make any noise when you're sneakin' up on a person?"

"I wasn't sneaking," he said casually. "I was just looking."

"Well, there's nothin' to look at." Kaylee tucked her hair behind her ear and straightened her posture.

"Looks to me like there's a pretty girl down there." Mal stuck out his thumb towards River. She was sitting on the deck below them, her nose buried in the pages of a book. It was upside down.

"Why don't you go ask her for a date, then, Mal?" Kaylee retorted, looking distinctly ruffled.

"I don't really think I'm her type," Mal said. "Me bein' all mean like I am. And old. And manly."

"You think River likes her men unmanly?"

"Who said anything about men?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kaylee said, her voice wavering at the end as if she'd intended it to be snapped back at him, but lost her nerve in the middle. "I don't know what you're gettin' at, Mal, but I - "

"You know, there's this old song." Mal chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully and then snapped his fingers at her. "A really old song. You can't always get what you want... somethin' somethin'... ah, damn, I can't remember exactly, but the point of it is that sometimes you don't get what you want. You get what you need. And that's a whole 'nother thing."

Kaylee just looked at him for a moment, then her eyes darted briefly to River, and then back to him. "What I need," she finally said, "is for you to stop spewing gibberish at me." She turned and left without another word, her heavy boots stomping loudly across the floor.

Mal watched her, and laughed.

***

Mal was watching Simon watch Kaylee and River.

"See something interestin'?" he drawled.

Simon didn't bother to turn around, his eyes fixed on River's hand as it brushed away a strand of Kaylee's brown hair. "I don't get it. I just don't get it," he muttered.

"Get what, Doc? I just see two pretty girls." Mal leaned forward, looking past Simon and smirking.

"But they're not just - I mean, they're - " Simon looked flustered. "I thought she liked me."

"Your sister? Now, that's some crazy - "

"Not my sister. Christ. Kaylee. I've seen her watching me."

"Well, now. Now who's doing the watching?"

Kaylee was laughing, and after a moment, River joined her.

"When did you start being so damned philosophical?" Simon muttered, turning away from Mal and fixing his gaze on the two girls. "Besides, River doesn't - I mean, she doesn't want - "

"Ain't really an issue of want, now is it, Doc?" Mal shrugged. "But I don't think you should begrudge your sister of somethin' that she really needs. Especially since it might be the one thing that makes a lick of sense to her right now."

There was only a grunt of reply, and so Mal shrugged again and left him there. When Simon heard the dry footsteps padding across the floor behind him, he turned just in time to see Mal's back disappear through the open door.

When he glanced back down, River and Kaylee were gone, but he could hear the peals of laughter echoing off the metal walls.