gonna_live | (no subject)

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On their way upstairs, Kaylee didn't even bother to request the key for their usual room. They were kind of in a hurry.

It is to be hoped for the sake of their current neighbors, if they had any, that the walls were soundproofed.

The show's over now, though, and Kaylee's feeling pretty deliciously lazy.

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He nods.

"Not tonight."

"You still gonna ask him?"

A short silence.

Quiet: "I need to think about it some more."

A lot more.

"It's -- "

She bites her lower lip for a moment.

"It's not a bad question to ask," Kaylee says, tentative. "You -- you know that, right?"

"Unless I'm asking for a bad reason," he says, and looks up at her.

She's still not looking at him. "You never did say why you want to understand."

And I can't say I trust your motives.

"Didn't I?" Low, and uncertain.

"You said you wanted to understand. And that was all."

A loose, quick sigh. "No. I'm wrong. You said -- you couldn't just write us off as exceptions. Do you want to know because you want to make more excuses to make yourself feel better? Because if so -- you and me, we can't ever have that talk, because I don't find that acceptable."

Another tense silence, before he lets out a slow breath.

"It's not that." His voice is tired, but sure. "I don't want to make excuses. I want to stop making excuses."

The hand that isn't holding his tightens and loosens nervously on the hem of the smoking jacket.

"Two reactions I got to that." Quiet. "First up is I don't get why it takes the folks who believe to get you to quit makin' excuses. And why you can't just do it yourself. Second -- I still don't get what's bringin' all this on. Because it's not just the whatever-it-is that he sent over. Is it?"

He's trying to think of an answer to the first question when she asks the second one, and it stops him.

"I think it's been building for a long time," he says finally, "and this just ... tipped it over, in a way."

Because he's got something to let him deal with his dead and you don't.

Something else for the list of things Kaylee won't say.

She doesn't say anything.

"Because I --"

The silence after that is long enough to make one think he doesn't intend to continue the thought at all.

"I never told you."

It's a whisper.

"I never knew how."

Now Kaylee does look at him -- warily.

(And pale.)

The words stick in his throat, and then spill out like water.

"I -- tried to pray. Once. I didn't, I didn't know if I was doing it right, I still don't, I didn't know what I was supposed to do --"

Very quiet: "Did it help?"

(She's disentangled her hand from his; her arm's slid around his waist.)

He's silent. Remembering.

Shakes his head, wordlessly.

"Then... maybe you didn't do it right." No louder. "Helps to have faith first."

His voice is empty again, and barely audible. "I'd considered that possibility."

"Simon."

Her arm tightens around him.

"Do you want to believe in something?"

"I don't know."

He doesn't lift his gaze from the floor at his feet.

"I ... I think I may have at the time."

"Hey."

She leans in, kisses his cheek.

Says, gently, "Nobody figures anything out in a day. Even if they're geniuses. The Buddha sat under that tree for a long time. Jesus took a real long walkabout before he started doing his thing. And Mohammed was up in a cave for a while, too. 'S why prayer and worship are supposed to be private. You figure things out slow, by yourself. Teachers can help show the way, but in the end you got to take responsibility for who you are and how you are. Just like regular livin'."

He's silent a long time.

"It's been two years."

Hushed as his voice is, there's still an audible tremor in it.

And Kaylee knows what was going on two years ago.

And she doesn't think they're talking about Simon and religion any more.

She slips her other arm around him.

"You're still here. And so am I."

He leans into her, his arm coming up around her waist, and closes his eyes.

His breath stirs her hair when he whispers something half-audible that might be her name.