Once No
Series: Finding
Title: Once No
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Firefly owns me, I own words
Spoiler: Post-BDM
Characters: Jayne/River
Notes: Continues the Jayne and River series of five times... the first time Jayne said No to River, a prompt from
bookaddict43...begins morning after Third Kiss in Five Kisses
Five No's Organizational Post
Main Org post
All Jayne/River stories are in the same storyline, even if seen out of order...
Once:
Jayne splashed the cold water from the basin onto his face, trying desperately to recall what happened the previous night. He had overslept, almost missing breakfast which weren’t a common occurrence. He stood and stared into the mirror over his sink, water drops rolled down his neck, leaving icy trails. Water from the tanks was always freezing unless he turned on the small heater to warm it. He almost never did, figured water was good enough cold when he was just washin’ his face or shaving. He leaned heavily on the edge of the basin, just looking at the man before him. He wasn’t sure who he was looking at any more. The months after Miranda he didn’t look in the mirror at all. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, face the man he feared he was. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he had been ignoring about his life, the crew, her. He was scared he would see the bitter little man looking back at him and he wasn’t sure he could stand to see him there anymore. And then she had been there… dancing, flying to his music, been as an angel in the night.
~~~~~
When they had finally lifted off from the Eavesdown Docks repair facility they all needed to refind their way in the Black. They spent most evenings in the lounge, the crew having a few hours of time in the evenings to just be. Sometimes there was a game of Tall Card with ship’s chores as the wager, sometimes they gathered on the couches and chairs to watch a vid feed on the Cortex. But most evenings everyone just passed the time in reading, repairing equipment, quiet conversation, things that kept the sense of family. No one was quite as they had been.
When the orders to stand down came, River cast her gaze from the crew to the soldiers and back again. She processed the situation and knew that any action on her part would endanger those who she had come to think of as family. She felt the violence of battle leave, felt her strength flow back to him. She had borrowed the flames, the power and used it to wreak death upon the mad ones. Now that they were gone, the power flowed back along the threads to him. Jayne somehow had gotten to River as she twisted into a swirling collapse, his arms wrapping around her and cradling her to his chest, safe.
“Shhh, I got ya… not lettin’ ya go.” He murmured in her ear, voice low and growly. She tried to follow his voice, to find him in the mists surrounding her mind. There was nothing there, just her own thoughts. He kept rumbling, murmuring no words, just sounds. She grasped at the sound, felt the vibration of his chest against hers and she anchored to it. When he stopped rumbling, a wall of silence slammed into her and she let out an involuntary mewl of pain. “It’s all right, I got ya… its over… don’t gotta fight no more… its over Little Crazy.” She relaxed as his voice filled the silence, took away the pain of the nothingness. He held her close and kept the growling rumble when a medic came to see to them.
“I’m a’right, go see ta the others..” He snarled at the anxious soldier. He had felt her tighten in his arms when the man had come close. “Shhh, it’s a’right Girlie… I’m here, I ain’t leavin’…”
~~~~~
The moments after the Alliance soldiers were ordered to stand down had burned into all their memories. As Mal and River both crumbled into themselves, Inara had reached out, caught Mal as best she could, keeping him from completely crashing to the ground. Simon lost consciousness, Kaylee struggled to stay focused but all she could do was softly call Simon’s name. He told her later that he could hear her even as he faded away and it kept him from losing his grounding all together. Zoë was with Mal and Inara only a moment after he fell, her strong hands supporting both of them. The soldiers called for medical aide when they saw the utter destruction and Reaver bodies. Weren’t a one of them that didn’t wish they could erase those memories, but they were burned into their minds as surely as their own names.
~~~~~
They were set down on Persephone for a job, an easy pick-up and transport according to the Wave. Which just about guaranteed something would go wrong. Mal’s luck after Miranda hadn’t exactly improved. Jayne didn’t dwell on it. His own world had been narrowed to a pinprick window of awareness. He couldn’t sleep to rest, it only made the demons fill him, he would dream he was fighting barehanded against the monsters, hitting and snarling and beating them back until they inevitably overcame him and he would fall towards the ground never to hit because they would have him torn in their grasping hands. Waking in a pool of sweat, heart pounding more often than not, Jayne would leave his bunk, wide awake and exhausted. Sweat, he would go the cargo bay and find the repetition of the weight lifting would let his mind settle, would get the demons in his heart to dissipate back into the ether…
She would find him there when the absence of his thoughts pressing on her drove her to seek him out. For months she had searched for him there, traveling the corridors of her awareness for the places he used to inhabit. His acceptance of her as a girl, as a person with her own thoughts and self was unique amongst the crew. She did not judge the others for their barely understood conception of her, but she missed his smoky presence, the puff of his sleeptime bear’s breath across her dream self’s face; the bear was missing, replaced by an endless field of red, no thoughts, no consciousness. She knew he was there because she could see him, but she couldn’t hear his thoughts, his fears and joys anymore. Then there was that moment, the song, the dance, amazing grace.
“Girlie… I dunno that I have what it will take to be…” he had choked out before she had moved towards him, her brown eyes locked on his, trusting, hopeful, aware. He remembered crushing his lips to hers, holding her to his chest tightly enough to break her in half. She had melted into him, her coolness had made his own red flames flare wilder, hotter, until he was sure he would vanish in the conflagration. He snapped back, pushed away from the potential of that.
“Girlie…ya need to be gettin’ away from me…” he had stammered past swollen lips, harsh and cold, trying to stamp out the explosion of heat.
“Through the Thou, the person become I,” she had said softly, stepping back with the grace of her dancers movements, all economy and expression. He looked at her, his head bowed, eyes peering up from under his brow. She was at peace and he was in the middle of a maelstrom, reds, and oranges cycloning in torn waves around his body. She had smiled, knowingly and turned on her toes, arms lifting to the heavens looking for all the world like she could just up and float away like a xiâo que, a little bird.
~~~~~~
The crew was having breakfast, the usual protein and extras Inara had been able to find on Persephone. It was the first time they had been back since they had left the Eavesdown Docks nearly six months earlier. No one had been in any rush to return either. Kaylee and Inara had left the boat early to try and get a jump on the crowds during the day. Shopping was on their agenda, restocking the pantry with what ever they could find. It was a tough time of year to be looking, but they were determined to find fresh vegetables and real meat, the second as a treat for everyone. Kaylee had brightened when Mal had given her permission. Her eyes had lit up ad she jumped up to go to him and plant a kiss on his cheek, “I love my Captain.”
“Yeah, yeah, getting’ used ta hearin’ that little Kaylee.” He had smiled back. So the galley was feeling very large and empty even with Mal, Jayne, River, Simon, and Zoë there. The missing four people made the difference between comfortably close and far too roomy.
No one noticed at first when River began to murmur softly, “23 times planetside. 23 times since the mad ones took our world. 23, odd number, indivisible, non- linear reducive…17 planets where crew ‘took their leisure’,” Eye roll from Mal when he heard her imitate his expression and voice. She smiled up at him from under her long hair. This was a normal tease she shared with the crew now. Little expressions copied and winked at. Simon took the most pleasure in it as it reminded him a bit of the little sister he thought he had lost forever.
“What ya yammerin’ away ‘bout now?” Jayne responded as he was trying to get through his breakfast without running off. Her legs folded up under her, barely a breath of contact between her thigh and his hip. Cool to flame, neither losing their essential nature. He didn’t want to think about what happened with her in the cargo bay. He could see when he closed his eyes, her hair swirling around her shoulders as she spun to a stop right before him. He could feel her in his arms as he held her… and it was all a lie, he was sure it was all a lie…
“11 times visited houses of women.” She continued as she was slicing a piece of cucumber into perfect rings. “7 times returned scented by their flowery lies.”
Jayne’s fork stopped half way to his mouth as he turned to her and started to growl low in his throat- low enough that only she heard it. She looked him right in the eye, her expression quizzical, “3 times scent to skin… reducing series of primes, resist’s patterns. Never past to the fire, scent burned away.”
Jayne at first couldn’t respond, his voice was trapped with growling impotence to retort. She smiled at him, her eyes curious.
“Quit, jus’ quit yer crazy talk!” His eyes burned, angry that she had said anything at all.
No one else realized what she was going on about, but Jayne knew immediately. She was talking to him, questioning him. He knew he hadn’t been sayin’ yes to trim. Done paid the girls well, only to toss and turn in their soft beds. He couldn’t see the girls, only frustration and a slim, dark haired slip of a girl, barely a woman. Her slender body in his arms as she collapsed after the call to stand down by the Operative. Alliance troops with fingers on the trigger bearing down on them. Her hair as it brushed his arm when she would dance by, all light and air. Her leg brushing his, burning through the skin, every time she folded her graceful legs up under her when they sat to eat. He had tried, fought to regain his own bearings. Gone to ‘visit’ girls he knew, who were always good for a quick, happy tumble. As they undressed him, touched him to bring him to the places he was paying to go, all he felt was a vast red nothingness. He tried to focus on his body, the touch of the girl’s hands, and nothing. No sensation at all. It was as though he was not there at all.
He always paid the girls well, tried to explain it away as just being tired. Needin’ a good nights sleep and he would be back to his old self. The girls knew him well enough to know it wasn’t just sleep he was needing. He had been around them for years as a client and a protector. He was a fun and capable partner, never failed to make a girl feel her own pleasure even as he paid for his. He had worked at a fair number of establishments as security, so the network of contacts across thirty moons knew Jayne Cobb. And now the slip of a girl was telling everyone about it.
“You jus’ keep yer crazy thoughts ta yerself.” He managed to sputter.
“Jayne, cool off.” Mal’s voice was low and quiet, but it held a question as it commanded. Mal had been so far down his own path of self-recrimination and doubt that he had only just barely noticed the change in his merc since Miranda. Everyone, everything was different, no less Jayne. The big man had been quieter, not filling Serenity with his bawdy humor and big appetites as he used to. Jayne did the job, watched Mal’s back on jobs, didn’t get into the negotiations, stood by Mal’s decisions without remark. When Zoë had gone through her own dark place of loss and abandonment, Jayne had stood in her place, implacable, unremarked. No one had commented about it since everyone was more muted, struggling with their own memories. Mal didn’t ask out loud, but Jayne knew he would be looking for a conversation later with him, a conversation the men had avoided accidentally and providentially for several months. Jayne didn’t want to be talking with Mal about the first few weeks after the battle on Mr. Universe’s moon. Those few weeks where Mal had been mostly unconscious, recovering from his fight with the Operative. More damage had been done internally than they had realized.
Jayne had kept the crew together, totally unexpectedly. When he had caught River, felt her body melt in his arms, seen Mal collapse with Inara and Zoë there with him, Simon and Kaylee both unconscious; he knew the foundations would need to be rebuilt. He also knew he never wanted Mal to know. And now Mal would be looking for answers that Jayne didn’t want to be giving. All cause crazy girl had to go spouting her mouth off about his free time. Jayne grunted and turned back to his food.
“Albatross, why don’t ya just let Jayne be now, dong ma?” Mal’s voice changed as he addressed River. His cheek crinkled as he gave her a small, supportive smile.
“He thinks he can fix himself, fix what is broken inside. All the colors are gone, mixed and buried. Temporal reality still caught in the vortices formed. 23, 17, 11, 7, 3- all prime numbers a reducing series, no pattern, Rheimann Conjecture, distance between two primes, diminishes with lesser value…Rarity of primes as values increase.”
“I said ta quit!” Jayne stood up suddenly, his chair flipping over behind him as he did. “Keep yer feng kuang talk ta yerself!” Before anyone could say a word, he had turned to leave, not stopping to pick up the overturned chair. River leapt up and moved in front of him.
“He must go to the end of… one more prime, the first/last prime number must still follow.”
He snarled and turned away, pushin’ her with his shoulder as he did. She grabbed his arm, held it as he lifted her off the floor by trying to yank it from her hands. She flew back from the strength of his swing. She fell against Zoë who had come to her feet and around towards them. The two women stood there, Zoë holding River easily against her. The larger woman could feel River’s heart pounding through her hold on her arms.
“River, honey, what’s going on?” Zoë asked her as she glowered at Jayne who was standing there, uncertain of his next move. She could see him breathing heavily, not from exertion, but something else. His blue eyes glittered dangerously and Zoë half wished she had her Mare’s Leg on her hip. There was a moment when she thought she may need it.
“He sees it, doesn’t know what it is… the blood flows and blinds his eyes to his true meaning.”
Jayne shook his head, shaking off the words, there was no way he needed this ta be discussed in front of everyone. With a final growl, he turned sharply on his heel to leave.
“This ain’t over Jayne!” Mal’s voice cut the air, anger laced with concern.
Without slowing his departure, Jayne snarled over his shoulder, “Is fer now…” He threw a last glance over his shoulder at River, face contorted in anger, “Didn’t mean nothin’… What yer thinkin’, it meant nothin’. NO!” River staggered back against Zoë from the blast of uncontained fury in his voice. She felt the terror behind the words, the fear of losing everything he was.
Mal started after the bigger man, furious at the attitude he had just been dealt.
“No Captain, he has to find the meaning before he finds himself… is her fault he snapped.” River pulled away from Zoë and went to Mal, feeling the waves of color and emotion pouring off him. She touched his arm, felt the warm heat under her hand, solid, earthy, not fire. He looked down to her upturned face, a tear trailed down her cheek.
“Albatross, speak plainly now… What is going on with my merc?” He asked as gently as possible given his rather agitated mood. She wiped the tear from her face calmly, no sense of sadness attached to it.
“He sees only red, feels only flames, is burned from the inside… He touched her, felt her, has no way to find his way back to himself.”
“River, he touched you?” Zoë and Simon both nearly sputtered out.
She turned to look at them both, keeping her cool hand on Mal’s arm feeling him breath as she held on. “After the mad ones were gone, after destiny changed, he caught her, skin on skin, burning fire caught ice, he has been touching her since, felt nothing else since…”
“Does this have to do with why he ain’t been taking trim as you were talking about…that is what you were talking about, right?” Mal was confused, and somewhat concerned. He couldn’t have a hired gun whose mind wasn’t on his job. And it seemed Jayne had other things going on.
“Captain, if I may,” Simon interjected, “I was walking around the ship last night, thinking, and I was surprised to find Jayne up. He was playing his guitar and, ah, singing.”
Mal shook his head as he looked at Simon, “Singing? Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, quite certain, he stopped when he saw me, said it was something he did in private, for the memories or something, well, not in so many words mind you, but that was the implication. I don’t believe I have ever heard him sing. Well, except for Canton, but that was not, ah, anyway, not like that.” Simon stammered, uncertain how much of the hollowness he saw in Jayne he should share.
“He sang for me, he could see the dance when he sang for me. It lifted the curtain, cleared his eyes to see. His grace had frightened him… made him see red, she danced and he saw her… danced him back to her.”
“Mei mei, what do you mean, ‘back to her’?” Simon asked, slightly uncertain he wanted to hear her answer.
“He saw her again, not as he had been dreaming, not cut strings hanging across his arms, but her. He saw her as she is… it is all right, he is coming home soon.”
“No honey, it is not all right, happens that Jayne is bein’ in a place no one should be drawn into. He got no right to be pulling you with him…” Zoë tried to interject.
“He has not… I have brought him to me.” River’s voice held a quiet confidence, a tone she rarely used. There was a silence for a moment, an anticipation of something. No one knew what.
“Well, that does make this a mite more interesting.” Mal finished for them all. When Simon and Zoë both opened their mouths to speak, he held his hands up peremptorily, “Bì zuî .” Everyone gaped at him, “This is sure not the time ta be havin’ this conversation. I will be havin’ words with Jayne when I am good and ready to. For now, let it be, dong ma?”
River turned to her own thoughts when everyone had settled back to their own thoughts and feelings. She could tune them out with little effort when the crisis had passed. That left her free to hear his words, hear the hurt and anger in them, heard him say it meant nothing, it was nothing “Didn’t mean nothin’… What yer thinkin’, it meant nothin’. NO!” He had said no to emerging from his shadows, his red, had told her no. Silent tears trailed down her cheeks, her hair hiding her face from the others so no one saw her heart ache.
Title: Once No
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Firefly owns me, I own words
Spoiler: Post-BDM
Characters: Jayne/River
Notes: Continues the Jayne and River series of five times... the first time Jayne said No to River, a prompt from
bookaddict43...begins morning after Third Kiss in Five Kisses
Five No's Organizational Post
Main Org post
All Jayne/River stories are in the same storyline, even if seen out of order...
Once:
Jayne splashed the cold water from the basin onto his face, trying desperately to recall what happened the previous night. He had overslept, almost missing breakfast which weren’t a common occurrence. He stood and stared into the mirror over his sink, water drops rolled down his neck, leaving icy trails. Water from the tanks was always freezing unless he turned on the small heater to warm it. He almost never did, figured water was good enough cold when he was just washin’ his face or shaving. He leaned heavily on the edge of the basin, just looking at the man before him. He wasn’t sure who he was looking at any more. The months after Miranda he didn’t look in the mirror at all. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, face the man he feared he was. He didn’t want to be reminded of what he had been ignoring about his life, the crew, her. He was scared he would see the bitter little man looking back at him and he wasn’t sure he could stand to see him there anymore. And then she had been there… dancing, flying to his music, been as an angel in the night.
~~~~~
When they had finally lifted off from the Eavesdown Docks repair facility they all needed to refind their way in the Black. They spent most evenings in the lounge, the crew having a few hours of time in the evenings to just be. Sometimes there was a game of Tall Card with ship’s chores as the wager, sometimes they gathered on the couches and chairs to watch a vid feed on the Cortex. But most evenings everyone just passed the time in reading, repairing equipment, quiet conversation, things that kept the sense of family. No one was quite as they had been.
When the orders to stand down came, River cast her gaze from the crew to the soldiers and back again. She processed the situation and knew that any action on her part would endanger those who she had come to think of as family. She felt the violence of battle leave, felt her strength flow back to him. She had borrowed the flames, the power and used it to wreak death upon the mad ones. Now that they were gone, the power flowed back along the threads to him. Jayne somehow had gotten to River as she twisted into a swirling collapse, his arms wrapping around her and cradling her to his chest, safe.
“Shhh, I got ya… not lettin’ ya go.” He murmured in her ear, voice low and growly. She tried to follow his voice, to find him in the mists surrounding her mind. There was nothing there, just her own thoughts. He kept rumbling, murmuring no words, just sounds. She grasped at the sound, felt the vibration of his chest against hers and she anchored to it. When he stopped rumbling, a wall of silence slammed into her and she let out an involuntary mewl of pain. “It’s all right, I got ya… its over… don’t gotta fight no more… its over Little Crazy.” She relaxed as his voice filled the silence, took away the pain of the nothingness. He held her close and kept the growling rumble when a medic came to see to them.
“I’m a’right, go see ta the others..” He snarled at the anxious soldier. He had felt her tighten in his arms when the man had come close. “Shhh, it’s a’right Girlie… I’m here, I ain’t leavin’…”
~~~~~
The moments after the Alliance soldiers were ordered to stand down had burned into all their memories. As Mal and River both crumbled into themselves, Inara had reached out, caught Mal as best she could, keeping him from completely crashing to the ground. Simon lost consciousness, Kaylee struggled to stay focused but all she could do was softly call Simon’s name. He told her later that he could hear her even as he faded away and it kept him from losing his grounding all together. Zoë was with Mal and Inara only a moment after he fell, her strong hands supporting both of them. The soldiers called for medical aide when they saw the utter destruction and Reaver bodies. Weren’t a one of them that didn’t wish they could erase those memories, but they were burned into their minds as surely as their own names.
~~~~~
They were set down on Persephone for a job, an easy pick-up and transport according to the Wave. Which just about guaranteed something would go wrong. Mal’s luck after Miranda hadn’t exactly improved. Jayne didn’t dwell on it. His own world had been narrowed to a pinprick window of awareness. He couldn’t sleep to rest, it only made the demons fill him, he would dream he was fighting barehanded against the monsters, hitting and snarling and beating them back until they inevitably overcame him and he would fall towards the ground never to hit because they would have him torn in their grasping hands. Waking in a pool of sweat, heart pounding more often than not, Jayne would leave his bunk, wide awake and exhausted. Sweat, he would go the cargo bay and find the repetition of the weight lifting would let his mind settle, would get the demons in his heart to dissipate back into the ether…
She would find him there when the absence of his thoughts pressing on her drove her to seek him out. For months she had searched for him there, traveling the corridors of her awareness for the places he used to inhabit. His acceptance of her as a girl, as a person with her own thoughts and self was unique amongst the crew. She did not judge the others for their barely understood conception of her, but she missed his smoky presence, the puff of his sleeptime bear’s breath across her dream self’s face; the bear was missing, replaced by an endless field of red, no thoughts, no consciousness. She knew he was there because she could see him, but she couldn’t hear his thoughts, his fears and joys anymore. Then there was that moment, the song, the dance, amazing grace.
“Girlie… I dunno that I have what it will take to be…” he had choked out before she had moved towards him, her brown eyes locked on his, trusting, hopeful, aware. He remembered crushing his lips to hers, holding her to his chest tightly enough to break her in half. She had melted into him, her coolness had made his own red flames flare wilder, hotter, until he was sure he would vanish in the conflagration. He snapped back, pushed away from the potential of that.
“Girlie…ya need to be gettin’ away from me…” he had stammered past swollen lips, harsh and cold, trying to stamp out the explosion of heat.
“Through the Thou, the person become I,” she had said softly, stepping back with the grace of her dancers movements, all economy and expression. He looked at her, his head bowed, eyes peering up from under his brow. She was at peace and he was in the middle of a maelstrom, reds, and oranges cycloning in torn waves around his body. She had smiled, knowingly and turned on her toes, arms lifting to the heavens looking for all the world like she could just up and float away like a xiâo que, a little bird.
~~~~~~
The crew was having breakfast, the usual protein and extras Inara had been able to find on Persephone. It was the first time they had been back since they had left the Eavesdown Docks nearly six months earlier. No one had been in any rush to return either. Kaylee and Inara had left the boat early to try and get a jump on the crowds during the day. Shopping was on their agenda, restocking the pantry with what ever they could find. It was a tough time of year to be looking, but they were determined to find fresh vegetables and real meat, the second as a treat for everyone. Kaylee had brightened when Mal had given her permission. Her eyes had lit up ad she jumped up to go to him and plant a kiss on his cheek, “I love my Captain.”
“Yeah, yeah, getting’ used ta hearin’ that little Kaylee.” He had smiled back. So the galley was feeling very large and empty even with Mal, Jayne, River, Simon, and Zoë there. The missing four people made the difference between comfortably close and far too roomy.
No one noticed at first when River began to murmur softly, “23 times planetside. 23 times since the mad ones took our world. 23, odd number, indivisible, non- linear reducive…17 planets where crew ‘took their leisure’,” Eye roll from Mal when he heard her imitate his expression and voice. She smiled up at him from under her long hair. This was a normal tease she shared with the crew now. Little expressions copied and winked at. Simon took the most pleasure in it as it reminded him a bit of the little sister he thought he had lost forever.
“What ya yammerin’ away ‘bout now?” Jayne responded as he was trying to get through his breakfast without running off. Her legs folded up under her, barely a breath of contact between her thigh and his hip. Cool to flame, neither losing their essential nature. He didn’t want to think about what happened with her in the cargo bay. He could see when he closed his eyes, her hair swirling around her shoulders as she spun to a stop right before him. He could feel her in his arms as he held her… and it was all a lie, he was sure it was all a lie…
“11 times visited houses of women.” She continued as she was slicing a piece of cucumber into perfect rings. “7 times returned scented by their flowery lies.”
Jayne’s fork stopped half way to his mouth as he turned to her and started to growl low in his throat- low enough that only she heard it. She looked him right in the eye, her expression quizzical, “3 times scent to skin… reducing series of primes, resist’s patterns. Never past to the fire, scent burned away.”
Jayne at first couldn’t respond, his voice was trapped with growling impotence to retort. She smiled at him, her eyes curious.
“Quit, jus’ quit yer crazy talk!” His eyes burned, angry that she had said anything at all.
No one else realized what she was going on about, but Jayne knew immediately. She was talking to him, questioning him. He knew he hadn’t been sayin’ yes to trim. Done paid the girls well, only to toss and turn in their soft beds. He couldn’t see the girls, only frustration and a slim, dark haired slip of a girl, barely a woman. Her slender body in his arms as she collapsed after the call to stand down by the Operative. Alliance troops with fingers on the trigger bearing down on them. Her hair as it brushed his arm when she would dance by, all light and air. Her leg brushing his, burning through the skin, every time she folded her graceful legs up under her when they sat to eat. He had tried, fought to regain his own bearings. Gone to ‘visit’ girls he knew, who were always good for a quick, happy tumble. As they undressed him, touched him to bring him to the places he was paying to go, all he felt was a vast red nothingness. He tried to focus on his body, the touch of the girl’s hands, and nothing. No sensation at all. It was as though he was not there at all.
He always paid the girls well, tried to explain it away as just being tired. Needin’ a good nights sleep and he would be back to his old self. The girls knew him well enough to know it wasn’t just sleep he was needing. He had been around them for years as a client and a protector. He was a fun and capable partner, never failed to make a girl feel her own pleasure even as he paid for his. He had worked at a fair number of establishments as security, so the network of contacts across thirty moons knew Jayne Cobb. And now the slip of a girl was telling everyone about it.
“You jus’ keep yer crazy thoughts ta yerself.” He managed to sputter.
“Jayne, cool off.” Mal’s voice was low and quiet, but it held a question as it commanded. Mal had been so far down his own path of self-recrimination and doubt that he had only just barely noticed the change in his merc since Miranda. Everyone, everything was different, no less Jayne. The big man had been quieter, not filling Serenity with his bawdy humor and big appetites as he used to. Jayne did the job, watched Mal’s back on jobs, didn’t get into the negotiations, stood by Mal’s decisions without remark. When Zoë had gone through her own dark place of loss and abandonment, Jayne had stood in her place, implacable, unremarked. No one had commented about it since everyone was more muted, struggling with their own memories. Mal didn’t ask out loud, but Jayne knew he would be looking for a conversation later with him, a conversation the men had avoided accidentally and providentially for several months. Jayne didn’t want to be talking with Mal about the first few weeks after the battle on Mr. Universe’s moon. Those few weeks where Mal had been mostly unconscious, recovering from his fight with the Operative. More damage had been done internally than they had realized.
Jayne had kept the crew together, totally unexpectedly. When he had caught River, felt her body melt in his arms, seen Mal collapse with Inara and Zoë there with him, Simon and Kaylee both unconscious; he knew the foundations would need to be rebuilt. He also knew he never wanted Mal to know. And now Mal would be looking for answers that Jayne didn’t want to be giving. All cause crazy girl had to go spouting her mouth off about his free time. Jayne grunted and turned back to his food.
“Albatross, why don’t ya just let Jayne be now, dong ma?” Mal’s voice changed as he addressed River. His cheek crinkled as he gave her a small, supportive smile.
“He thinks he can fix himself, fix what is broken inside. All the colors are gone, mixed and buried. Temporal reality still caught in the vortices formed. 23, 17, 11, 7, 3- all prime numbers a reducing series, no pattern, Rheimann Conjecture, distance between two primes, diminishes with lesser value…Rarity of primes as values increase.”
“I said ta quit!” Jayne stood up suddenly, his chair flipping over behind him as he did. “Keep yer feng kuang talk ta yerself!” Before anyone could say a word, he had turned to leave, not stopping to pick up the overturned chair. River leapt up and moved in front of him.
“He must go to the end of… one more prime, the first/last prime number must still follow.”
He snarled and turned away, pushin’ her with his shoulder as he did. She grabbed his arm, held it as he lifted her off the floor by trying to yank it from her hands. She flew back from the strength of his swing. She fell against Zoë who had come to her feet and around towards them. The two women stood there, Zoë holding River easily against her. The larger woman could feel River’s heart pounding through her hold on her arms.
“River, honey, what’s going on?” Zoë asked her as she glowered at Jayne who was standing there, uncertain of his next move. She could see him breathing heavily, not from exertion, but something else. His blue eyes glittered dangerously and Zoë half wished she had her Mare’s Leg on her hip. There was a moment when she thought she may need it.
“He sees it, doesn’t know what it is… the blood flows and blinds his eyes to his true meaning.”
Jayne shook his head, shaking off the words, there was no way he needed this ta be discussed in front of everyone. With a final growl, he turned sharply on his heel to leave.
“This ain’t over Jayne!” Mal’s voice cut the air, anger laced with concern.
Without slowing his departure, Jayne snarled over his shoulder, “Is fer now…” He threw a last glance over his shoulder at River, face contorted in anger, “Didn’t mean nothin’… What yer thinkin’, it meant nothin’. NO!” River staggered back against Zoë from the blast of uncontained fury in his voice. She felt the terror behind the words, the fear of losing everything he was.
Mal started after the bigger man, furious at the attitude he had just been dealt.
“No Captain, he has to find the meaning before he finds himself… is her fault he snapped.” River pulled away from Zoë and went to Mal, feeling the waves of color and emotion pouring off him. She touched his arm, felt the warm heat under her hand, solid, earthy, not fire. He looked down to her upturned face, a tear trailed down her cheek.
“Albatross, speak plainly now… What is going on with my merc?” He asked as gently as possible given his rather agitated mood. She wiped the tear from her face calmly, no sense of sadness attached to it.
“He sees only red, feels only flames, is burned from the inside… He touched her, felt her, has no way to find his way back to himself.”
“River, he touched you?” Zoë and Simon both nearly sputtered out.
She turned to look at them both, keeping her cool hand on Mal’s arm feeling him breath as she held on. “After the mad ones were gone, after destiny changed, he caught her, skin on skin, burning fire caught ice, he has been touching her since, felt nothing else since…”
“Does this have to do with why he ain’t been taking trim as you were talking about…that is what you were talking about, right?” Mal was confused, and somewhat concerned. He couldn’t have a hired gun whose mind wasn’t on his job. And it seemed Jayne had other things going on.
“Captain, if I may,” Simon interjected, “I was walking around the ship last night, thinking, and I was surprised to find Jayne up. He was playing his guitar and, ah, singing.”
Mal shook his head as he looked at Simon, “Singing? Are you sure?”
“Oh yes, quite certain, he stopped when he saw me, said it was something he did in private, for the memories or something, well, not in so many words mind you, but that was the implication. I don’t believe I have ever heard him sing. Well, except for Canton, but that was not, ah, anyway, not like that.” Simon stammered, uncertain how much of the hollowness he saw in Jayne he should share.
“He sang for me, he could see the dance when he sang for me. It lifted the curtain, cleared his eyes to see. His grace had frightened him… made him see red, she danced and he saw her… danced him back to her.”
“Mei mei, what do you mean, ‘back to her’?” Simon asked, slightly uncertain he wanted to hear her answer.
“He saw her again, not as he had been dreaming, not cut strings hanging across his arms, but her. He saw her as she is… it is all right, he is coming home soon.”
“No honey, it is not all right, happens that Jayne is bein’ in a place no one should be drawn into. He got no right to be pulling you with him…” Zoë tried to interject.
“He has not… I have brought him to me.” River’s voice held a quiet confidence, a tone she rarely used. There was a silence for a moment, an anticipation of something. No one knew what.
“Well, that does make this a mite more interesting.” Mal finished for them all. When Simon and Zoë both opened their mouths to speak, he held his hands up peremptorily, “Bì zuî .” Everyone gaped at him, “This is sure not the time ta be havin’ this conversation. I will be havin’ words with Jayne when I am good and ready to. For now, let it be, dong ma?”
River turned to her own thoughts when everyone had settled back to their own thoughts and feelings. She could tune them out with little effort when the crisis had passed. That left her free to hear his words, hear the hurt and anger in them, heard him say it meant nothing, it was nothing “Didn’t mean nothin’… What yer thinkin’, it meant nothin’. NO!” He had said no to emerging from his shadows, his red, had told her no. Silent tears trailed down her cheeks, her hair hiding her face from the others so no one saw her heart ache.