Authors Note: I don't usually do fanfic but I got this idea for a Rayne story and the plot bunny would not go away until it was written. Starts out angsty…..but don't worry. No death warning. One shot. Also, Joss is boss, I own nothing.
Rivers Jayne
Im finding my way back to sanity again,
Though I dont really know what
Im gonna do when I get there.
Take a breath and hold on tight,
Spin around one more time,
And gracefully fall back in the arms of grace.
Lifehouse - Breathing
I'll never be this happy ever again; I don't want to remember this as the only happiness in my life. It will hurt all the more when I am sad. Like not knowing you are cold until you feel the warmth, not knowing you are hungry until you have eaten, not knowing you are thirsty until you drink, not knowing you are lonely until you have loved….
Wind was whipping through her hair, ripping it from her body and flinging it into the air like a living cape of a thousand strands. She tilted her head back and breathed in the air of Persephone, spreading her arms like an eagle and laughing at the joy welling up inside her. She wore a white dress, but she knew white was no longer appropriate for her. The stars were winking at her, and below a river bubbled through the canyon. Her face lowered gently, plump childish lips puckering out and her eyes spilling tears down her cheeks. "A river will die in this river. Then she will be happy because she was happy this one time."
Her belly still was quivering, her legs still sore. She tossed her head and felt the brush of her hair on her shoulders. He had played with her hair, marveled at the softness of it and ran his fingers through it again and again until it was like silk. She had felt it on her bare back, over her bare shoulders, her belly, and her breasts. He liked hair, and he had pressed hers to his nose and inhaled the smell.
So she could put that moment in a capsule in her mind to hold forever.
He was dreaming about her, about the way her eyes got so wide he thought he would fall into them, about the way her lips opened in a soft gasp, about the way she felt around him. His thoughts were racing on how to explain to the others, on how to make it all go okay. He was a merc, mercs don't need permission to do anything except bed a woman half their age and make her look at him with the eyes of a woman for the first time. Slowly he realized that the warmth that was beside him, she was one of those people who heated up like a furnace when she slept, was gone. His eyes opened slowly, and he frowned. "Hey? Where'd you go?" the room took his voice and flung it back to him. For the first time since he had left home, Jayne felt alone.
She was sitting on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling off like she was sitting on a bar stool at the ice cream shop. That was what had led to her moment of happiness. Ice cream. She liked mint and he like chocolate. When the ship would dock he would sneak her off and get her ice cream. She forgot when this ritual started. Sometimes after Miranda when there was a deep blanket of mourning on the crew. He took her out because he saw that the sadness was getting to her, and he wanted to be himself around someone for a change. She wanted to be herself around someone for a change. So they were themselves around each other, and at some point they were friends around each other.
Zoë was out on a date, first date after Wash died and everyone was so proud of her and saw how her eyes were so sad but sparkling just the same as though they sparkled for everyone else. River had walked up to her and said "Wash told me he wanted this". Zoë had looked so stricken for a brief second and then she smiled slowly and took River into her arms and hugged her. It was true. Wash had come to River in a dream and stood before her. He had looked at her and said matter of factually "you know, that blasted woman will never get over me dying. She's stubborn about everything, even about being depressed. She is going to be depressed and she is going to like it dammit! You be sure to let her know if you get the chance that I want her to be happy. God, I should be depressed, I'm the one who got skewered."
Inara was with a client, had gone waltzing off into the sunset and River had watched the shuttle leave thinking it so sad that a woman should lead a life where nothing was for love, only money. "Have you ever loved," she once asked, and Inara had looked whimsically at Mal, and then said it was not a companions place to love.
Simon and Kaylee had been curled up on the couch together, him rubbing her feet and her staring at him with dreamy eyes. "What is love," she had asked and Simon had told her about chemical attractions and about the human need to reproduce. Kaylee had put a hand over her mouth and her face had turned bright red as she laughed.
River spread her legs softly and touched the sore spot between them gently, twitching at the bit of pain that shot through her from that. There had been bleeding, and he had seen it and held her and apologized and rubbed her back in slow circles. But somehow, through that, beyond the physical activities, there was love. There was warmth, and sweetness, and tenderness. He had memorized her from head to toe, and she had memorized him. She knew about the scar on his right shoulder, and she knew about the small birthmark on his foot. She knew that he tasted of salt and dirt, but it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. Jayne liked prostitutes. They were broken in; he didn't need to be gentle. He could rip their clothes off, spank them, and ram into them as hard as he wanted and still know they had been through worse. And they always enjoyed it anyway. He didn't usually bed virgins. He never said this but she just knew. Not because he couldn't be rough, because he did like passionate and gentle sex once in a while, but because a girl puts so much in losing her virginity. He had stared at her after he was done, looking anxiously in her eyes for pain or hurt or regret. He saw none of it, only boundless joy and happiness. He would have been gentle with her no matter what. He made love to her. He did not have sex.
There were three Jaynes. There was the merc, strong and courageous and utterly idiotic. Had the mouth of a sailor, the morals of an ally cat and the body of a Greek god. There was the protector, the man who would fight to save the whole crew if he had to. Then there was her Jayne. One day her Jayne bought ice cream, and he laughed when she dabbed some on his nose. He had dabbed some on her nose playfully. "Well, don't you look cunnin with your nose painted green?" Then he had licked the little dab off, and both of them quieted in their laughter when he pulled back and stared at her. She stared at him.
Jayne was off the ship in a flash, hoping no one would notice it. He had always been drawn to the ones who were vulnerable. Prostitutes who were being hunted down, mudders who wanted a gentle touch, and a girl who had been locked in a box for months, and tortured for years before that. When he first saw her, he knew. Hell, couldn't let anyone else see it. Had to ignore her, had to be mean to her, had to push to get them off the ship. That's what their Jayne would do. he wouldn't go in at night to hold her while she screamed in her sleep, he wouldn't give her pads of paper and pencils to draw with, he wouldn't buy her ice cream. So at nights when he held her and hummed softly to her while she quieted, it wasn't him. When he gave her pencils and paper then watched fondly as she cooed over them and doodled endlessly, it wasn't him. When he took her to the ice cream shop just to watch her dangle those adorable feet off the stool and to see her with mint ice cream smeared on her mouth, it wasn't him.
She loved ice cream. She would take a spoonful and let it melt in her mouth before swallowing. Sometimes she got fudge on top. But it had to be done right and so far there was only one place she would let do it and that was on Persephone. Had to have three scoops of ice cream, all of them lined in a row like a banana split without the banana. Then the fudge was to be wound around the ice cream scoops, not over them. If it went over she wouldn't eat it. They had to be done just so. One cherry on top of each of them and some whipped cream made it her idea of a perfect sundae.
Persephone was hot today, the wind was whipping in hot gusts against him and he could almost smell her on it. Inara had let her use some kind of rose soap. He smelled it on her before. Some kind of oil he supposed. But there were a few spots on her that she smelled like……well just like her. Not like flowers, not like mints, not like vanilla – just the smell of her. And he had rooted in those spots for what felt like forever, not licking, not kissing. Just breathing her in and thinking if he inhaled deep enough he could keep a piece of her inside him forever and then he could comfort her when she was not near him. He tried to now, but got the odd feeling she didn't need comfort.
He made her feel safe. That was what it was. Sounded stupid to her now that she could take out an army of Reevers but still feel the need to be protected. But she wasn't that girl, she wasn't the weapon. When Mal had asked her if she was just a weapon everything in her screamed that she wasn't and never would be. The day after, while everyone was in the middle of recuperating, Jayne came into her room. This was not the first time. She felt him in her dreams sometimes. She felt him when she was tossing and turning and remembering her time at the academy. He would scoop her up, not attempt to wake her, just hold her and let her feel his heartbeat. "Shhhhhh, it's okay moon brain, no one will hurt you ever again." Sometimes she would open her eyes just enough to see his face, and he would be staring at her, stroking her cheek. Those eyes of his, without malice and without sarcasm or meanness, became the sight that could calm her down.
My Jayne.
But she had never been happy before. She stared down at herself and felt an odd tightness in her chest that she hadn't felt for a long time. It started in her chest and went to her throat and she tried to swallow it but soon sobs were crackling through the night air and she was raking her nails through her hair, across her face. She had learned from the good times before. When Kaylee and she had played that one time so long ago, her running from Kaylee and holding an apple over her head and laughing with glee, then she had thrown up. Happiness was not safe. She didn't want to lose this now, this feeling. The blue gloves had stared at her naked body before, seeing what could be improved and what could be modified. Jayne though, he had seen her beneath him and she saw nothing in his eyes but acceptance and kindness. His hands had touched her with nothing but eagerness to learn how she felt under his skin. The sun was coming up, kissing the land with fire and breathing warmth into the air. She closed her eyes. Time to die.
How had it happened? He tried to replay in his head each detail of it. They had been alone on the ship, and he remembered that he had just enough money to buy them both ice creams. So he had taken her into town, and they had walked back to the ship eating, and then she had said he always got the same thing. "Regimented recreational eating." He had laughed and said he just liked chocolate. She had jumped in front of him on the steps, standing eye level to him, and pushed her spoon into his mouth. No one was in the ship. He remembered having the raging argument with himself even as his arms went around her waist and even as he lifted her and carried her, even as he sealed his lips over hers and even as he reveled in the taste of mint and the taste of her. She was just a baby, but her body was the body of a woman. She did not make a move to protest, she did not try to stop him, she only learned from him. Simon said she can learn anything and soon she learns it so well it comes as naturally as breathing.
She gasped and winced and then cried out. They learned what the other was made of. She was made of soft silk and sweetness; he was made of grit and strength.
Then after, she stared at him, and she smiled. Then she laughed. Then she cried. He noticed blood on the sheets and he scooped her into his arms saying over and over how sorry he was but she was so happy she couldn't stop laughing and he knew then and there that he loved her more than anything. Now he had to find her to tell her. And his heart stopped when he saw her standing on the edge of a cliff. "River?"
She tensed up, turned slowly looking guilty, as though caught with her hand in a cookie jar. The look he should have had. "Called me my name. You never call me my name."
He had brought Vera, but he set her aside and stepped closer. River didn't try to move away. "Why you out here?"
She looked over the edge of the cliff, staring at the river rushing below. "Three hundred feet down and a ninety eight point three percent chance of death, one percent of paralysis."
He cocked his head. "What about the other point seven percent?"
"I could have a heart attack and die before I land."
"I see. Why you wanna jump?"
"Because I'm happy."
"People usually jump because they're sad. That's why they kill themselves."
The look on her face at that moment made his heart ache. "But I didn't know I was sad until I was happy, and now I know that being happy means I'm sad, because people get sad during the hard times. This was a hard time."
He frowned. "Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head. "No, the appendage did a little bit though."
"The appen….." he glanced down, "oh."
Now her eyes were fixed on him, and he found it impossible to look away. "Bad things will happen now, now that I am happy I will know the bad things that are happening and they will not be commonplace and so I will know that they are bad. I will not feel safe anymore." She stared resolutely at the cliff.
"So you're gonna jump so you always remember what it is like to be happy?" She nodded. He frowned. "Pretty stupid. You're gonna be dead. You won't remember a gorran thing."
Her eyebrows furrowed. "The girl did not think of this. I will have to live in misery then, to hold onto the memory."
He grabbed her around the shoulders suddenly, gripping so hard she yelped. "No! Listen to me! I will make you happy! Yeah things get bad, it happens to people all the time but you have got to stay with me! You can't leave now that I see the real you, now that I have a friend!" Then he was looking into her eyes, and she was staring at him and her lips were pouting out. He felt that part of her inside him that he had inhaled through her skin; and it was swelling and tears were running down his face. "I love you."
"You will keep me safe?"
He nodded, and then smiled. "If you keep me safe."
"What about the others?"
"You took out an army of Reevers, you really think Mal and Simon are going to be that bad?"
Simon had once told on her to their father because she had released all the frogs in school to keep them from being dissected. She had not been allowed to read for three days. Cruelty of Simon went further than that, this was just once example. "Yes."
Then he was laughing, holding her close to him and stroking her hair. "That's the first crazy thing you have ever said!"
River stepped back then, looking at him in genuine confusion. "So then…..you really do look good in red?"