Cerberus, alternate ending.
Title: Cerberus, Mark II
Author: babies stole my dingo (agilebrit)
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss is the genius behind these characters; I am but a lowly follower. I make no money from any of this, so please don't sue me.
Feedback: Concrit adored! If you see something that can be improved upon, please let me know.
Written for: Alternate ending to "Cerberus." Blame an anonymous reviewer at FFN (someone named "ljae") for this...this...thing. S/he wanted to know what would happen if they didn't get rescued right away. Well. Jayne's just been beaten severely with a cat o'nine tails and a chain scourge, and electrocuted a few times. What do you think would happen if he couldn't get medical attention? He's a human man, not a vampire.
Notes: Niska captures Jayne and River and tortures Jayne for awhile, then sells them into slavery. This part starts on the train and goes off wildly from there...
WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH
Jayne floated. His back was on fire, his skin felt as if it wanted to vibrate off his muscles, and he was freezing and sweating all at the same time...but it all seemed like it was happening at some great distance. He wondered, clinically, if he was dying. Didn't seem to matter much. Couldn't move, anyway--fastened to the floor somehow, wrists and ankles, on his side. Niska still thought he was a threat. This struck him as pretty comical, considering the fact that any attempt at motion sent shooting sparks of agony through his entire body.
A small hand laid itself on his cheek, briefly, and then he felt someone working away at whatever had him tied to the floor. A few moments later, he was freed. "Jayne?" River's voice. Oh, shiny, she'd got out. "Don't you leave, Jayne, you hear me?" He weren't goin' nowhere. Couldn't, nohow. "Stay awake. Wuo me da, if you die on me--" Huh, it mattered to her if he died? That was new. Well, he should make some effort, then.
He opened his eyes--and that seemed to cause a huge granite boulder of pain to come crashing on top of him. He shut them again, quickly, but it didn't help. He felt River flinch beside him. The job. Do the job. "Commlink...in my pocket," he said between teeth that chattered, no matter how hard he tried to clench them shut. "Don't think...they got it." He was so cold.
She scrabbled in his pocket and came out with nothing. Cringing, she rolled him back a little and tried the other one, while he bit back some colorful language. "Not there."
"Well, hell." Think, Jayne. But thinking through the pain and the chill was hard. He concentrated and pulled some information out of all the sensations around him. "We in a cattle car?"
"On a train," she confirmed.
He took as deep a breath as he could. She was gonna hate him for this. "Should be a ventilation door up on the roof that you can slide back and climb out of. We stop, you leave me and get the hell out. Dong ma?"
"Leave you? But--"
"Yes, leave me," he said fiercely, opening his eyes and staring her in the face. "I can't--" Stabbity pain in the back OW... "Shape I'm in, I can't protect you, so you'll have to do for yourself. You ain't safe with me." Her eyes went all big and shiny, and he closed his own. "Don't look at me that way. You know I'm right."
"Doesn't mean I like it."
"Ain't askin' you to like it. Promise me." No answer. "Promise. Me."
A long enough pause that he nearly opened his eyes again, and then, "I promise." He barely heard her, but it was enough.
"Good girl."
He felt her touch his shoulder once, lightly, and after that it was just too much effort to fight the hurt anymore. He let it wash him away into oblivion on a freezing hot wave of torment.
:-:
River's hand trembled as she sat back. Damn him. Damn him for sending her away, and escaping into unconsciousness before she could muster an argument. She rose to her feet and started exploring their temporary prison. A discarded horse blanket in one corner and an empty feed bag crumpled against the wall gave her something to do besides worry. She folded the blanket in thirds and draped it over the still form of her wounded watchdog; gathering hay, she created a makeshift pillow by stuffing it inside the feed bag, and slid it under his head.
A train goes east at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, she thought. How far will it go in four hours and thirty-five minutes? Simon had always hated those word puzzles. She'd breezed through them just like she breezed through everything else, but this particular conundrum was confounding her. Fine, get off the train when it stopped.
Then what?
She was used to hiding. Making sure they didn't find her was the least of her worries. But getting back to the ship, and rescuing Jayne? If he even lived. He was deeply unconscious; she was afraid he'd never wake up. He'd lost a vast amount of blood, was still losing it, and the horse blanket hadn't stopped his shivering. She had no way to stop the bleeding on his shredded back, no way to replace what he'd lost, and no other way to warm him up.
He was going to die, right there in front of her, and she couldn't do a thing about it.
She pulled him up into her lap and arranged the blanket around both of them, resolutely pushing the words "dead weight" out of her brain. When had her eyes started leaking? She didn't know. Stupid eyes. Not like she and Jayne had been best friends or anything. She wrapped her arms around him and rocked back and forth while the car darkened with the coming of night and his blood soaked into her dress.
She began to wonder if the train would ever stop. They'd gone hundreds of miles already, and each hour added over a hundred more--and decreased the chance that help would reach Jayne in time. His breathing had started hitching in his chest, the shivering hadn't stopped, and he was getting colder. Nothing was in his head, not even dreams. She held him closer, willing him to hang on just a little longer.
It didn't work. As the rising sun lightened the still-moving train, he slipped away from her, never awakening. One last exhale, and then he was gone. She shook him a little, but she knew he wasn't coming back, not from this. Closing her eyes, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head and laid him gently on the floor. She smoothed his hair back one last time and stood up.
The best she could do for him now was escape.
The train slowed, finally, and the irony wasn't lost on her. Now that it didn't matter, they'd reached their destination. She climbed up and slid the ventilation door back. When they stopped, she levered herself up and out and closed the door behind her.
Their car was located toward the back end of the train, and she leaped to the ground on the opposite side of the depot as two men approached from that direction. "Should be two in here," one said.
"Hope they're in better shape than the last ones Niska sent us," the other grouched, opening the door. River watched through the slats as they climbed in and stopped next to Jayne's body. "Well, hell." He knelt down and felt for a pulse. "This one's dead." He stripped the blanket off and stared sourly.
"He must have really pissed the little guy off. Jeez, look at his back. Wonder where our other one is." He walked around, kicking at the loose hay, and found River's discarded cuffs. "Oh, shiny. Long gone, no doubt."
"Remind me again why we do business with Niska?"
"Because we don't want to end up like him?" He gestured down at Jayne.
"Oh well. Let's dump the body in the desert and go back to work. Not like any money's changed hands. Send Niska a wave, let him know what happened."
River found a bush to hide behind as they came around the end of the train, carrying Jayne's body between them. They tossed him into some scrub, still griping, and she noted the spot. They'd want to recover him when she called Serenity.
She waited awhile until she was sure they'd left the area for good. The train pulled out of the station, and she stepped over the track and found the wave terminal at the depot. Several idlers gave her sidelong glances, and she realized that she was still covered in blood and probably looked rather crazy as well. Crazier than usual. She gave them a What-are-you-looking-at stare and punched up the ship.
"River?" Mal's expression was startled. "Where in the name of all that's holy are you? Did that tama de hundan try to turn you in to the Alliance again? I swear, I'll put him out the airlock for real this time--"
She felt as if she'd been stabbed in the gut, and it took all her control not to curl up into a ball and make the world disappear. She interrupted Mal's rant. "It was Niska. Not Jayne's fault. He's..." She swallowed convulsively. "It's bad, Captain."
"Is that blood? Are you bleeding? Where's Jayne?"
"Not my blood. Jayne's. Should have been on the inside, but it was on the outside and it was too much, far too much..." She felt her face crumple and the tears start. "He did the job. Kept me safe. Oh, God..."
"I've got a fix on you, girl. We'll be there in less than five minutes. Keep talkin' to me."
The words came pouring out in a high-pitched, hysterical flood. "They beat him with whips, over and over. They hurt him, so much, but he didn't break, didn't tell them who I really was. Then they put us on a train, cows, sold, and he made me promise to leave him, still trying to keep me safe...I couldn't stop the bleeding, and he was shivering so hard. I tried to be strong enough for both of us, but I couldn't, we were there for hours, and he, and he--"
"River." Mal's voice turned gentle. "It's not your fault, bao bei. Where is he?"
She closed her eyes and said it out loud for the first time. "He's dead."
:-:
Of all the things she could have said, Mal wasn't expecting that. "He, wuh, huh?"
He'd been spending every spare second in the cockpit, waiting for word after River and Jayne had disappeared off the face of the world. They'd nearly had to sedate the Doc, he was so gou tsao de fong luh with worry. Kaylee had basically locked herself in the engine room, and the Shepherd and Inara had been prayin' mighty hard together. Then the wave had come from over a thousand miles from where they'd left them, and that poor little girl, covered with blood, with that particular message...
Wash, normally unflappable when he was driving the boat, let out with a violent twitch when he heard what she said, and Serenity jinked hard to the side, once, before he brought her back under control. "Mal?"
Mal held up his hand. River was still talking, the words coming faster and faster as if she couldn't hold 'em in no more. "I tried, I tried to keep him warm, but he just kept shivering, and his head was all fuzzy and then it just wasn't there anymore and he stopped breathing--" Her voice cut off with a choking sob and she slid down out of view.
He could still hear her, crying. "How soon, Wash?"
"Less than a minute. Here we go."
Mal got on the intercom. "We've found them, people. Look lively. Zoe, guns. Lots of guns. It's bad."
:-:
Not a single one of them had thought that Jayne would be the first of them to die. The big man had too great a sense of self-preservation, they all figured. Doing his Captain-ly duty of going through Jayne's stuff the next day, Mal was very surprised when he found a will in a box under his bed. The box also contained the occasional letters Jayne had received from his mother, a collection of brightly-colored knitted hats and scarves, several dog-eared magazines filled with pictures of naked women, a few other keepsakes he'd apparently picked up here and there on his travels--and a wad of cash in an envelope marked "Mom."
The will wasn't written, of course. It was made on the same sort of recording device that Tracey had used. Mal wondered if Jayne had gotten the idea from his old army buddy. He thumbed the switch, and the well-remembered voice filled the bunk.
"We're in a dangerous business here. Any one of us could get taken out, any second. So I reckon I oughta leave somethin' so's all this here stuff gets taken care of proper. Mal, you and Zoe c'n split up my weapons store any way you like between you. Take good care of Vera, and she'll take care of you. Let Simon have the girlie mags so he'll know what goes where when he finally makes his move with Kaylee." Mal snorted out a laugh. "Make sure my momma gets the money in the envelope, and y'all can divvy up whatever else is in here any which way, don't much matter. I'd like to be buried at home, and for the Shepherd to say some words over me, if he don't mind overmuch and if it's even possible. And...I guess that's it. If you're listening to this, it's because I'm dead. Try not to miss me too much. Oh, and give River a big old kiss on the lips from me, 'cause it'll give Simon a heart attack."
Simple words for a simple man. Mal put the recorder in his pocket and climbed up the ladder. He needed to give Wash some co-ordinates.
:-:
The weather should have been gloomier, River thought, but the sun seemed determined to shine through all their misery. Funerals were for the living to remember the dead, and they were all mourning this one more than any of them thought they would. Shepherd Book said some things that she didn't pay any attention to, and Mama Cobb put a half-done knitted cap in the coffin before they closed it.
River flinched every time the dirt hit the metal as they filled in the hole. Jayne had been so vital, and now he was so still, and she couldn't help but blame herself. Logically, she knew she couldn't have done anything, but her emotions--which she couldn't shut off--told her different. She should've told Niska who she was; he would've stopped the beating before it went too far; she could've saved Jayne. His blood may have been washed off her hands, but she didn't think the stain would ever really come out.
Having to go to the Cobb house afterwards was just a continuation of the torture. His family was too understanding, too solicitous, too nice--and they meant it, which made it worse. They'd all heard the story, how their boy was a great big hero, but she wasn't exactly proud of her role in the damsel-in-distress fairy tale...and the prince wasn't supposed to die. She wondered if Mal was going to slay the Niska-dragon.
Simon hovered protectively over her, one of his damned needles at the ready in case she started freaking out again. She finally brushed him off and went outside, before she became overwhelmed. It was all too much, and she found a quiet spot by the barn and sat on the ground, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to calm the raging storm inside.
A black and white dog with floppy ears and a docked tail approached her and put his head on her knee, gazing at her with sorrowful brown eyes. "You feel it too, don't you?" she asked him. She put her hand on his head, and he snuggled up next to her with a dog-sigh.
Mal found her that way awhile later and sat down, cross-legged, in front of her. "Simon's worried."
"Simon's always worried." She put her head back against the barn wall and closed her eyes. "None of us liked Jayne, and we were all wrong about him. What does that mean?"
"Darlin', you're askin' the wrong person to try to find meaning in a meaningless 'verse. The Shepherd would be a better man for that question."
She revised her earlier statement. "Book liked him. He was the only one of us who did. I wonder what he saw that the rest of us missed."
"He was a better man than any of us knew. Guess you and Niska got to meet the 'real him.'"
"Shan Yu. Niska is a fan. He has a slimy mind." She opened her eyes and gave Mal a pleading look. "Can we go home? Please?"
"Sure, baby." He rose and held his hand out to help her up. "Let's go."
:-:
She wandered around the ship that night, finally stopping by the weight bench in the cargo bay. Besides the kitchen, this had been Jayne's favorite spot. She lay back and closed her hands around the cool metal of the bar, not trying to lift it, just wanting to touch what he'd touched.
"He's not gone, you know," said a quiet voice in the shadows.
She frowned a little, not because of the words, but because she nearly felt as if an invisible someone had wrapped his arms around her. "You're a Shepherd. You're supposed to say things like that. Comfort the afflicted." She sat up.
Book sat on the bench beside her. "I'm not sure there's any comfort to be had in this situation, but as long as we remember him, he'll live on for us."
The ethereal hug seemed to tighten, just a little. "He saved me. He could have told Niska who I was to save himself, and it never even crossed his mind to give me up. So focused on doing the job Mal had set for him..." Her lips tightened. "The soul is an illogical construct made up by humans to make us feel better. There's no evidence for its existence. Heaven and Hell violate the laws of physics."
"No, they bypass them. But you have to think beyond the tangible. Just because we can't see it, or we think it violates some sort of physical law that we don't completely understand, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that we can't see it. You can't see the wind, but you can see its effects. I can't see God, but I know that He affected me, changed me." He put his hand on hers. "You've been educated, River, in secular science that actively denies the very possibility for supernatural explanations, and that's closed your mind. Open it a little, try to see beyond what you can touch and feel."
"You truly believe that this isn't all there is?" She very much wanted to think that some part of Jayne would go on. He deserved more than to just be food for worms.
"I truly do. And I didn't mean for this to turn into a sermon. You just looked quite alone, like you could use a friend."
"Thank you," she whispered. "I like the idea that he hasn't gone from us. Watching over Serenity, our own personal guard dog turned guardian angel..."
The Shepherd snorted out a laugh at that. "Jayne, as an angel? An amusing and somehow not as terrifying thought as it would seem at first blush."
She laughed with him, her first real laugh since her ordeal. The phantom arm around her shoulders tightened one more time, then disappeared, and her hair swirled in a breeze that had no visible cause while a rough chuckle echoed in her head.
No. He hadn't left them.
finis
A/N: Remember, this is an alternate ending. If you hate it, you have the original to cling to. Pick your poison. Please don't hate me.
Author: babies stole my dingo (agilebrit)
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Joss is the genius behind these characters; I am but a lowly follower. I make no money from any of this, so please don't sue me.
Feedback: Concrit adored! If you see something that can be improved upon, please let me know.
Written for: Alternate ending to "Cerberus." Blame an anonymous reviewer at FFN (someone named "ljae") for this...this...thing. S/he wanted to know what would happen if they didn't get rescued right away. Well. Jayne's just been beaten severely with a cat o'nine tails and a chain scourge, and electrocuted a few times. What do you think would happen if he couldn't get medical attention? He's a human man, not a vampire.
Notes: Niska captures Jayne and River and tortures Jayne for awhile, then sells them into slavery. This part starts on the train and goes off wildly from there...
WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH
Jayne floated. His back was on fire, his skin felt as if it wanted to vibrate off his muscles, and he was freezing and sweating all at the same time...but it all seemed like it was happening at some great distance. He wondered, clinically, if he was dying. Didn't seem to matter much. Couldn't move, anyway--fastened to the floor somehow, wrists and ankles, on his side. Niska still thought he was a threat. This struck him as pretty comical, considering the fact that any attempt at motion sent shooting sparks of agony through his entire body.
A small hand laid itself on his cheek, briefly, and then he felt someone working away at whatever had him tied to the floor. A few moments later, he was freed. "Jayne?" River's voice. Oh, shiny, she'd got out. "Don't you leave, Jayne, you hear me?" He weren't goin' nowhere. Couldn't, nohow. "Stay awake. Wuo me da, if you die on me--" Huh, it mattered to her if he died? That was new. Well, he should make some effort, then.
He opened his eyes--and that seemed to cause a huge granite boulder of pain to come crashing on top of him. He shut them again, quickly, but it didn't help. He felt River flinch beside him. The job. Do the job. "Commlink...in my pocket," he said between teeth that chattered, no matter how hard he tried to clench them shut. "Don't think...they got it." He was so cold.
She scrabbled in his pocket and came out with nothing. Cringing, she rolled him back a little and tried the other one, while he bit back some colorful language. "Not there."
"Well, hell." Think, Jayne. But thinking through the pain and the chill was hard. He concentrated and pulled some information out of all the sensations around him. "We in a cattle car?"
"On a train," she confirmed.
He took as deep a breath as he could. She was gonna hate him for this. "Should be a ventilation door up on the roof that you can slide back and climb out of. We stop, you leave me and get the hell out. Dong ma?"
"Leave you? But--"
"Yes, leave me," he said fiercely, opening his eyes and staring her in the face. "I can't--" Stabbity pain in the back OW... "Shape I'm in, I can't protect you, so you'll have to do for yourself. You ain't safe with me." Her eyes went all big and shiny, and he closed his own. "Don't look at me that way. You know I'm right."
"Doesn't mean I like it."
"Ain't askin' you to like it. Promise me." No answer. "Promise. Me."
A long enough pause that he nearly opened his eyes again, and then, "I promise." He barely heard her, but it was enough.
"Good girl."
He felt her touch his shoulder once, lightly, and after that it was just too much effort to fight the hurt anymore. He let it wash him away into oblivion on a freezing hot wave of torment.
:-:
River's hand trembled as she sat back. Damn him. Damn him for sending her away, and escaping into unconsciousness before she could muster an argument. She rose to her feet and started exploring their temporary prison. A discarded horse blanket in one corner and an empty feed bag crumpled against the wall gave her something to do besides worry. She folded the blanket in thirds and draped it over the still form of her wounded watchdog; gathering hay, she created a makeshift pillow by stuffing it inside the feed bag, and slid it under his head.
A train goes east at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, she thought. How far will it go in four hours and thirty-five minutes? Simon had always hated those word puzzles. She'd breezed through them just like she breezed through everything else, but this particular conundrum was confounding her. Fine, get off the train when it stopped.
Then what?
She was used to hiding. Making sure they didn't find her was the least of her worries. But getting back to the ship, and rescuing Jayne? If he even lived. He was deeply unconscious; she was afraid he'd never wake up. He'd lost a vast amount of blood, was still losing it, and the horse blanket hadn't stopped his shivering. She had no way to stop the bleeding on his shredded back, no way to replace what he'd lost, and no other way to warm him up.
He was going to die, right there in front of her, and she couldn't do a thing about it.
She pulled him up into her lap and arranged the blanket around both of them, resolutely pushing the words "dead weight" out of her brain. When had her eyes started leaking? She didn't know. Stupid eyes. Not like she and Jayne had been best friends or anything. She wrapped her arms around him and rocked back and forth while the car darkened with the coming of night and his blood soaked into her dress.
She began to wonder if the train would ever stop. They'd gone hundreds of miles already, and each hour added over a hundred more--and decreased the chance that help would reach Jayne in time. His breathing had started hitching in his chest, the shivering hadn't stopped, and he was getting colder. Nothing was in his head, not even dreams. She held him closer, willing him to hang on just a little longer.
It didn't work. As the rising sun lightened the still-moving train, he slipped away from her, never awakening. One last exhale, and then he was gone. She shook him a little, but she knew he wasn't coming back, not from this. Closing her eyes, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head and laid him gently on the floor. She smoothed his hair back one last time and stood up.
The best she could do for him now was escape.
The train slowed, finally, and the irony wasn't lost on her. Now that it didn't matter, they'd reached their destination. She climbed up and slid the ventilation door back. When they stopped, she levered herself up and out and closed the door behind her.
Their car was located toward the back end of the train, and she leaped to the ground on the opposite side of the depot as two men approached from that direction. "Should be two in here," one said.
"Hope they're in better shape than the last ones Niska sent us," the other grouched, opening the door. River watched through the slats as they climbed in and stopped next to Jayne's body. "Well, hell." He knelt down and felt for a pulse. "This one's dead." He stripped the blanket off and stared sourly.
"He must have really pissed the little guy off. Jeez, look at his back. Wonder where our other one is." He walked around, kicking at the loose hay, and found River's discarded cuffs. "Oh, shiny. Long gone, no doubt."
"Remind me again why we do business with Niska?"
"Because we don't want to end up like him?" He gestured down at Jayne.
"Oh well. Let's dump the body in the desert and go back to work. Not like any money's changed hands. Send Niska a wave, let him know what happened."
River found a bush to hide behind as they came around the end of the train, carrying Jayne's body between them. They tossed him into some scrub, still griping, and she noted the spot. They'd want to recover him when she called Serenity.
She waited awhile until she was sure they'd left the area for good. The train pulled out of the station, and she stepped over the track and found the wave terminal at the depot. Several idlers gave her sidelong glances, and she realized that she was still covered in blood and probably looked rather crazy as well. Crazier than usual. She gave them a What-are-you-looking-at stare and punched up the ship.
"River?" Mal's expression was startled. "Where in the name of all that's holy are you? Did that tama de hundan try to turn you in to the Alliance again? I swear, I'll put him out the airlock for real this time--"
She felt as if she'd been stabbed in the gut, and it took all her control not to curl up into a ball and make the world disappear. She interrupted Mal's rant. "It was Niska. Not Jayne's fault. He's..." She swallowed convulsively. "It's bad, Captain."
"Is that blood? Are you bleeding? Where's Jayne?"
"Not my blood. Jayne's. Should have been on the inside, but it was on the outside and it was too much, far too much..." She felt her face crumple and the tears start. "He did the job. Kept me safe. Oh, God..."
"I've got a fix on you, girl. We'll be there in less than five minutes. Keep talkin' to me."
The words came pouring out in a high-pitched, hysterical flood. "They beat him with whips, over and over. They hurt him, so much, but he didn't break, didn't tell them who I really was. Then they put us on a train, cows, sold, and he made me promise to leave him, still trying to keep me safe...I couldn't stop the bleeding, and he was shivering so hard. I tried to be strong enough for both of us, but I couldn't, we were there for hours, and he, and he--"
"River." Mal's voice turned gentle. "It's not your fault, bao bei. Where is he?"
She closed her eyes and said it out loud for the first time. "He's dead."
:-:
Of all the things she could have said, Mal wasn't expecting that. "He, wuh, huh?"
He'd been spending every spare second in the cockpit, waiting for word after River and Jayne had disappeared off the face of the world. They'd nearly had to sedate the Doc, he was so gou tsao de fong luh with worry. Kaylee had basically locked herself in the engine room, and the Shepherd and Inara had been prayin' mighty hard together. Then the wave had come from over a thousand miles from where they'd left them, and that poor little girl, covered with blood, with that particular message...
Wash, normally unflappable when he was driving the boat, let out with a violent twitch when he heard what she said, and Serenity jinked hard to the side, once, before he brought her back under control. "Mal?"
Mal held up his hand. River was still talking, the words coming faster and faster as if she couldn't hold 'em in no more. "I tried, I tried to keep him warm, but he just kept shivering, and his head was all fuzzy and then it just wasn't there anymore and he stopped breathing--" Her voice cut off with a choking sob and she slid down out of view.
He could still hear her, crying. "How soon, Wash?"
"Less than a minute. Here we go."
Mal got on the intercom. "We've found them, people. Look lively. Zoe, guns. Lots of guns. It's bad."
:-:
Not a single one of them had thought that Jayne would be the first of them to die. The big man had too great a sense of self-preservation, they all figured. Doing his Captain-ly duty of going through Jayne's stuff the next day, Mal was very surprised when he found a will in a box under his bed. The box also contained the occasional letters Jayne had received from his mother, a collection of brightly-colored knitted hats and scarves, several dog-eared magazines filled with pictures of naked women, a few other keepsakes he'd apparently picked up here and there on his travels--and a wad of cash in an envelope marked "Mom."
The will wasn't written, of course. It was made on the same sort of recording device that Tracey had used. Mal wondered if Jayne had gotten the idea from his old army buddy. He thumbed the switch, and the well-remembered voice filled the bunk.
"We're in a dangerous business here. Any one of us could get taken out, any second. So I reckon I oughta leave somethin' so's all this here stuff gets taken care of proper. Mal, you and Zoe c'n split up my weapons store any way you like between you. Take good care of Vera, and she'll take care of you. Let Simon have the girlie mags so he'll know what goes where when he finally makes his move with Kaylee." Mal snorted out a laugh. "Make sure my momma gets the money in the envelope, and y'all can divvy up whatever else is in here any which way, don't much matter. I'd like to be buried at home, and for the Shepherd to say some words over me, if he don't mind overmuch and if it's even possible. And...I guess that's it. If you're listening to this, it's because I'm dead. Try not to miss me too much. Oh, and give River a big old kiss on the lips from me, 'cause it'll give Simon a heart attack."
Simple words for a simple man. Mal put the recorder in his pocket and climbed up the ladder. He needed to give Wash some co-ordinates.
:-:
The weather should have been gloomier, River thought, but the sun seemed determined to shine through all their misery. Funerals were for the living to remember the dead, and they were all mourning this one more than any of them thought they would. Shepherd Book said some things that she didn't pay any attention to, and Mama Cobb put a half-done knitted cap in the coffin before they closed it.
River flinched every time the dirt hit the metal as they filled in the hole. Jayne had been so vital, and now he was so still, and she couldn't help but blame herself. Logically, she knew she couldn't have done anything, but her emotions--which she couldn't shut off--told her different. She should've told Niska who she was; he would've stopped the beating before it went too far; she could've saved Jayne. His blood may have been washed off her hands, but she didn't think the stain would ever really come out.
Having to go to the Cobb house afterwards was just a continuation of the torture. His family was too understanding, too solicitous, too nice--and they meant it, which made it worse. They'd all heard the story, how their boy was a great big hero, but she wasn't exactly proud of her role in the damsel-in-distress fairy tale...and the prince wasn't supposed to die. She wondered if Mal was going to slay the Niska-dragon.
Simon hovered protectively over her, one of his damned needles at the ready in case she started freaking out again. She finally brushed him off and went outside, before she became overwhelmed. It was all too much, and she found a quiet spot by the barn and sat on the ground, wrapping her arms around herself and trying to calm the raging storm inside.
A black and white dog with floppy ears and a docked tail approached her and put his head on her knee, gazing at her with sorrowful brown eyes. "You feel it too, don't you?" she asked him. She put her hand on his head, and he snuggled up next to her with a dog-sigh.
Mal found her that way awhile later and sat down, cross-legged, in front of her. "Simon's worried."
"Simon's always worried." She put her head back against the barn wall and closed her eyes. "None of us liked Jayne, and we were all wrong about him. What does that mean?"
"Darlin', you're askin' the wrong person to try to find meaning in a meaningless 'verse. The Shepherd would be a better man for that question."
She revised her earlier statement. "Book liked him. He was the only one of us who did. I wonder what he saw that the rest of us missed."
"He was a better man than any of us knew. Guess you and Niska got to meet the 'real him.'"
"Shan Yu. Niska is a fan. He has a slimy mind." She opened her eyes and gave Mal a pleading look. "Can we go home? Please?"
"Sure, baby." He rose and held his hand out to help her up. "Let's go."
:-:
She wandered around the ship that night, finally stopping by the weight bench in the cargo bay. Besides the kitchen, this had been Jayne's favorite spot. She lay back and closed her hands around the cool metal of the bar, not trying to lift it, just wanting to touch what he'd touched.
"He's not gone, you know," said a quiet voice in the shadows.
She frowned a little, not because of the words, but because she nearly felt as if an invisible someone had wrapped his arms around her. "You're a Shepherd. You're supposed to say things like that. Comfort the afflicted." She sat up.
Book sat on the bench beside her. "I'm not sure there's any comfort to be had in this situation, but as long as we remember him, he'll live on for us."
The ethereal hug seemed to tighten, just a little. "He saved me. He could have told Niska who I was to save himself, and it never even crossed his mind to give me up. So focused on doing the job Mal had set for him..." Her lips tightened. "The soul is an illogical construct made up by humans to make us feel better. There's no evidence for its existence. Heaven and Hell violate the laws of physics."
"No, they bypass them. But you have to think beyond the tangible. Just because we can't see it, or we think it violates some sort of physical law that we don't completely understand, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means that we can't see it. You can't see the wind, but you can see its effects. I can't see God, but I know that He affected me, changed me." He put his hand on hers. "You've been educated, River, in secular science that actively denies the very possibility for supernatural explanations, and that's closed your mind. Open it a little, try to see beyond what you can touch and feel."
"You truly believe that this isn't all there is?" She very much wanted to think that some part of Jayne would go on. He deserved more than to just be food for worms.
"I truly do. And I didn't mean for this to turn into a sermon. You just looked quite alone, like you could use a friend."
"Thank you," she whispered. "I like the idea that he hasn't gone from us. Watching over Serenity, our own personal guard dog turned guardian angel..."
The Shepherd snorted out a laugh at that. "Jayne, as an angel? An amusing and somehow not as terrifying thought as it would seem at first blush."
She laughed with him, her first real laugh since her ordeal. The phantom arm around her shoulders tightened one more time, then disappeared, and her hair swirled in a breeze that had no visible cause while a rough chuckle echoed in her head.
No. He hadn't left them.
finis
A/N: Remember, this is an alternate ending. If you hate it, you have the original to cling to. Pick your poison. Please don't hate me.