”They have a hole in them… they try to fill it, but they can’t. They don’t know that, they don’t care, but they always know where to look.” River said, getting up and moving something she’d set up slightly to the left.

”What are you sayin’?” Kaylee asked, having a feeling she already knew, but hoping she was wrong.

River turned and looked to her then, her eyes finding Kaylee’s effortlessly, as if River had known just where to look, down to the millimeter. ”They always know, Kaylee. Always.” She said, looking at her for a few almost timeless moments, then quietly turning back to what she was doing.

”You sayin’… they’ll find us, right? Even… even if we run?” She asked.

”Can run, but we can’t hide. ’Better to stand and fight and die with nobility, than to cast our fates upon the rocks…’” She looked over to Kaylee again. ”So Elina Kensington said once… She died, those that followed her too, but we won’t… promise.” She said, turning back to her work.

Kaylee watched her work a few more minutes, then got up and found her gun belt, retrieved it from the place she’d been keeping it beside the bed, and put it on, keeping the gun out and on her lap as she went back to sit down and watch River do what she was doing.

———-

About an hour or so later, Kaylee found herself pacing back and forth, nervousness, irritability, and fear her only company. River had left, went out into the woods. The light was just starting to die on the far off horizon. Through the widows, you could see the beginnings of what was prob’ly gonna be a very beautiful sunset. Not that, things bein’ what they were, Kaylee was in any sort of mood to appreciate it properly.

River had told her to stay put, but, crazy as she knew it was, Kaylee wanted to be out there, with her. It was all very unfamiliar, feeling this way about someone. She didn’t have a name for it, or know how to explain it, even to herself, but with River, it was just… different. Complicated.

With the men she’d been with, it was never like that, never complicated, just fun and easy (at least when things were good between her and the man in question). There wasn’t a lot to think about, ’least not this much. With River though, she felt nervous, and afraid for no good reason sometimes (though there was definitely a good reason for that now, which only made it worse). Her mind just wouldn’t stop racing sometimes, thoughts she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to have, but… River. Something about her, just… did the trick, fit. Kaylee felt so wrapped up in her already, and, while she didn’t know quite what to do with it yet, with all these feelings, she knew she didn’t want it to stop. Didn’t want for this not to have happened… well, if it ended up them getting tortured for days then killed by Reavers, then she’d probably wish it (the crash) hadn’t, but that was pretty much a given.