Her hands shake as she leaves the room, so she sticks them in the pockets of her overalls. That doesn't feel right, so she takes them out again, runs them through her hair, over her face. Covers her mouth.

By the time she realizes the wetness coating her fingers is from her own tears, her feet have taken her across the cargo bay and up the stairs. Away from her usual retreat, on to somewhere that has been drawing her like a polarized power cell for the better part of a year.

She stops in front of Inara's shuttle.

She feels stupid, like she's the biggest cry-baby in the 'verse. She can't go inside, 'cause she doesn't want Inara to see her like this. She still wants to, though. She knows River didn't mean it, that it's just the craziness talking, but it hurts all the same. Scares her all the same.

It's times like this that she realizes how different she is from the rest of the crew, how she don't exactly fit in except in the way that's family. The captain, Zoe and Jayne, even Wash in his own way, they're all hardened and tough, taking whatever the 'verse dishes out, able to do whatever needs to be done to get by. Book is that way too, though he don't like to show it. Simon's different; refined and posh and innocent to the dirtiness of it all, but that just puts him even further away from herself. He's a pretty bird flying just beyond her fingertips.

Inara, though, she's a little bit of all of that, but none at the same time. Nothing seems to touch her, nothing leaves the dirty fingerprints of life on her soft skin. Kaylee thinks Inara could fit in anywhere, into any situation she wanted to. Nowhere is good enough to suit her, though. Kaylee's just glad that Inara has decided to stay on Serenity.

She's cried out now, and she snuffles against the ragged flannel of her sleeve to dry her face. Good thing, too, because she hears footsteps on metal behind her.

She gathers whatever courage resides in her purple-bellied heart, and looks up at Inara.

On to Bliss.