Disclaimer: Not Joss, don't sue. It's simple really.

A/N: This was originally supposed to be Five Ways to Show Love Without Sex but I cut it down to five because I didn't want to play favorites. This first one is Simon's PoV, Simon/Kaylee, Post-BDM. Read review and enjoy.

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"I love thee to the level of everyday's most quiet need…"

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Give

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He buys Kaylee fruit whenever he's got enough left over from his cut. It's difficult, money seems to get tighter by the job. There is still River's medication to look after, after all, because while his sister is definitely better nowadays she isn't fixed (and how he hates thinking in that term, hates that it makes his sister something less human and more machine like, like the bits and pieces Kaylee takes apart daily).

It's not nearly as often as he would like that he picks something up for her, an apricot or some plums, maybe oranges if he's got enough—she loves that the smell lingers longer than the fruit, loves the way it seeps into her hands—and he is always on the look out for strawberries. "They're like little rubies." She says whenever she sees them, hopefully washed and ready in one of Serenity ceramic bowls. He wonders if Kaylee's ever seen a real ruby.

He used to wish he could buy her one, or a sapphire or a diamond, and he still does because she deserves it. She deserves more than trinkets or baubles, she deserves every bit of the 'verse laid out on a silver platter for her enjoyment.

He doesn't beat himself up over the fact that he can't give all of it to her, not anymore. He's made peace with the fact that he's not in the situation where he can aspire to such gifts on a regular basis. He knows that she doesn't think any less of what he does have to give.

Because there's just something about the way her face lights up whenever he pulls out a basket of cherries or an apple (and on one occasion, a pomegranate he bartered nearly half an hour for). It all comes down to her smile, that beautiful, full smile that covers every inch of her face, and her laughter as she reaches and her thank yous that rain down on him in a storm of laughing and hugging and kissing. It's almost as though he were handing her the 'verse instead of an apple.

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A/N: Quote from Elizabeth Browning's sonnet XLIII: "How do I love thee?"