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She meets him on Nyx, and even here (far enough out of the Alliance's grasp to soothe the Captain's nerves, but still close enough to the core to be worth visiting), he stands out, all blue eyes and dapper grins as he chats with a beautiful girl with red hair and an accent Kaylee has not heard this far out of the central planets in years.
He catches her staring. Smiles at her, even as he continues chatting with his friend. She quickly looks down into her glass and hopes her face isn't as pink as it feels. She ain't shy by any means, but she's feeling a bit out of sorts among some of the women she's seen here with their nice dresses and bright, clean faces, while she sits with the cheapest drink on the menu, hair that hasn't seen a brush in a week, and coveralls she fell asleep in the past two nights.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him stand and approach the bar, and she tucks her hair behind her ears in an attempt to make it a bit more presentable.
He orders drinks for himself and the red-headed girl and leans back against the bar as he waits, and she can't help glancing over at him again. He grins.
"Can I ask you a question?" He leans a bit closer even though at this early hour, the bar is still fairly quiet. Still, she finds herself leaning in to meet him halfway. "Can I buy you a real drink? Because whatever is in that glass is a crime. You deserve better."
She tries not to smile too wide because she can see his girlfriend glancing back over her shoulder at them. "You don't know one thing about me. How do you know what I deserve?"
He offers his hand. "I'm Neal."
"Kaylee," she says.
"See, now I know plenty about you. You, Kaylee, are a mechanic."
She blinks. "All right, that was pretty slick," she concedes. "How--"
But he simply runs a finger down the back of the hand he still holds warmly in his, and when she looks down, she sees the engine grease streaked across her skin.
"Oh." She quickly pulls her hand away, hides it beneath the bar, and rubs furiously at the mark.
The bartender sets Neal's drinks down, and Neal slides one in her direction. "So you like ships?"
She shrugs. "It's the one thing I've always been good at."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Oi! Caffrey!" the red-headed girl calls out as she makes her way over to them, and Kaylee sits up a little straighter.
"Amy, this is Kaylee," Neal says.
"Is he bothering you?" Amy asks as she slips Neal's drink from his hand and takes a sip. "He does that sometimes. Down, boy," she says and ruffles his hair.
Neal simply smiles at her, not put off in the slightest. "I was just telling Kaylee that she should come see our ship. She likes ships."
Amy swats at him when he tries to take the glass back. "You know," Amy tells Kaylee, "he used to be really good at this sort of thing. Now he just buys a girl a drink and it's 'Ooh, fancy seeing my TARDIS?'"
Kaylee watches the two of them go back and forth like a tennis match, and she starts to think maybe she was wrong about the whole girlfriend thing. Maybe. She bites her lip. "I've never heard of a TARDIS before."
"She's sort of one of a kind," Amy says, and Neal nods. "But he's right. You should come with us."
"Well, I'm only just passing through myself. I ain't exactly got a lot of time." She's pretty sure the Captain wouldn't leave without her if she didn't make it back to Serenity in time, but she doesn't want to risk it.
"Trust me," Neal says, holding out a hand to her with a bright grin. "Time is the one thing we've got plenty of."