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Simon squeezed Kaylee’s hand and kissed her temple as she stood staring at the hologram of Wash’s ever smiling face.
“I’m okay,” she whispered, though she really wasn’t. She knew where Simon wanted to be though, and Jayne looked like he needed Simon more than she did.
Simon nodded and released her hand, then made his way over to his lover.
Rather than taking his hand, though, Jayne pulled Simon against him, Simon’s back resting against his broad chest, thickly muscled arms wrapped snugly around the doctor’s waist.
“Don’t seem right, standing here over his grave,” Jayne said, leaning down just a little to rest his head on Simon’s shoulder. “I always thought I’d be the first to go. Me or Mal anyway.”
Simon ran his hands over Jayne’s forearms and closed his eyes. “Don’t even say that. None of this is right but I couldn’t even be standing here if you were...if that was....I don’t even want to say it. So....don’t, Jayne. Please.”
Jayne nodded and held Simon a little tighter. “Yeah. Sorry.” He tilted his head and kissed Simon’s neck, then looked at Book’s marker. “That don’t seem right neither.”
“None of this does,” Simon agreed, feeling terribly selfish but thankful that it wasn't Jayne or River who’d been killed.
Jayne lifted his gaze to Zoe who looked as strong as ever...except for her eyes. If you looked into her eyes, she seemed....broken. It occurred to him that if something had happened to him, that’s how Simon would look. Or vice versa. If Simon had been killed...
He shivered, causing Simon to turn in his embrace and wrap both arms around his neck.
“You ain’t a wanted man no more,” Jayne said after a moment.
“No. I’m not.”
“You never really loved living on Serenity, did you? I mean....you always wanted to go back to your old life doctorin’ and such back on the Core, didn’t you?”
Simon hesitated. Yes, he’d wanted that, but he knew Jayne would hate living on a Core planet. “It was what I used to want, yes,” he agreed. “But things change. Lives change.”
“So you wouldn’t want to find a planet and settle down?”
Simon pulled back and looked at Jayne, astonishment written all over his face. “Settle down? You mean....as in live in one place? Have a home that sat on real dirt and going to work every day in a real hospital?”
“Yeah,” Jayne nodded. “Something like that.”
“Jayne, I....”
“See Zoe over there?” Jayne nodded toward her and waited for Simon to turn, look at her and nod.
“Yes.”
“I don’t ever want to be in her place, standing there knowin’ you’re gone. Or think of you in that place either, looking over my final restin’ place. And I figure the chances of one of us gettin’ killed out in space is about a hundred times that of one of us gettin’ killed on a nice planet. Don’t think I could live on a Core planet, mind you, but there’s plenty out there, what has a hospital and people who need doctorin’. Somewhere we can be together and safe and happy.”
Simon touched the side of Jayne’s face. “Could you really be happy like that? Honestly?”
Jayne smiled and pressed his lips against Simon’s. “I could be happy anywhere if I was with you,” he murmured quite honestly.
~*~
Six months later, as he put the finishing touches on the white picket fence around the house he and Simon had built with their own hands, he realized that for the first time ever, "happy" was just the word to describe how he felt.