Disclaimer: Not mine, just playing in Joss' sandbox.
A/N: Isn't it amazing how getting your heart broken can give you a monster case of writer's block? Especially when what you're writing is a love story. Oh well, maybe now that I've started writing and actually finished this one I can get back to 'No Power in the 'Verse". This is not beta-ed so any mistakes or problems are mine and mine alone. Enjoy, and please R&R. Let me know if it was worth breaking thru the writer's block.
Five First Times
The First Time Jayne Noticed River
She'd gone thru the doors. Thru the doors. Towards the Reavers. The only thing in this life Jayne Cobb was afraid of was Reavers and the Moonbrain had gone running thru the doors stopping only long enough to toss the Doc's bag between the closing doors before she turned to face his demons. As if she didn't have enough of her own.But she'd dove thru the doors with no apparent thought to the monsters waiting for her on the other side and she'd won. That was the truly amazing part, not only had she willingly tried to sacrifice herself for the crew of Serenity but she'd emerged victorious. He stared at her. Standing there, holding those weapons, dripping with blood and almost none of it hers. Jayne felt a feeling of possessiveness come over him. When she'd run out he'd felt empty somehow. As if she'd taken the air out of the room with her. Now leaning against the wall that was the only thing holding him upright he could breathe again. River was alright. And she was looking all kinds of shiny. Jayne had always had a thing for weapons. They were sexy to him in a way he'd never been able to explain even to himself. And it wasn't as if he'd never noticed River before. He had seen her crawl out of that box after all, and well…he was Jayne. And he'd begun to realize her capabilities after the fight in the Maidenhead. But seeing her standing in the midst of the remains of all those Reavers he saw her in a different way. She wasn't just a girl. No make that woman. And she wasn't just a weapon. She was River.
The First Time River Noticed Jayne
River had always noticed Jayne.
When she had crawled out of that box in the cargo hold she'd been naked and had eight unfamiliar voices filling her mind. There was also one familiar one who she's recognized as Simon and one ocean of calm that in time she had come to associate with Jayne.
Jayne wasn't stupid. That's what's no one realized. He had not had much in the way of formal schooling but the school of life had more than made up for that with life experience. And he wasn't really as uncouth and ignorant as he seemed. In the life he led there was no room for an intelligent merc. Bosses don't want someone with too many brain cells being the muscle, they might decide that they have a better plan and proceed to take over. So Jayne learned to act like the rest of the muscle. And he hid his native intelligence away.
River had always noticed Jayne but there came a day when she noticed him in a way she had never noticed anyone before.
It was almost a week after the Operative had let them go. Everyone except River, Jayne and Inara were still in the Alliance run hospital recovering from their wounds. They were beginning the slow process of putting Serenity back together. Looking up from the panel she was rewiring she saw Jayne watching her. He had a look on his face she'd had to think for a moment to place.
It was the look he got when he was looking at a new weapon he was particularly keen on. It was the look he got right before leaving the ship to visit his favorite whore. It was the look he got when he had just finished a workout and had done one set too many. It was a look that spoke of love and lust and exhaustion all at the same time.
That was the look that made River notice Jayne as more than just Jayne. Suddenly he was no longer the man who had turned her and her brother in on Ariel. Although, in true she had long ago stopped thinking of him that way. And he was no longer simply her friend Jayne, the man with the girl's name. He was Jayne the man. And suddenly she wanted something she'd never wanted before.
The First Time Jayne and River Noticed Each Other
Slowly the remaining crew of Serenity had returned to her. As soon as they could convince the Alliance doctors and Simon that they were stable enough they each hightailed it home as if someone or something was calling them. And perhaps something was for it was in healing the physical wounds of Serenity that the survivors were able to begin to heal themselves.
As the physical damage to the ship began to be healed through the time and love given to her by the survivors among her crew, so too did the emotional scars of the survivors begin to heal and the pain to lessen.
It became a habit for the crew to sit around the lounge after dinner engaging in various activities. Sometimes they would joke, telling funny stories about past escapades and sometimes they would simply sit in silence allowing the presence of their adopted family to act as a balm to their tired aching souls.
It was on one of those nights when River and Jayne were seated at opposite ends of the couch that it happened. Jayne was in one corner flipping through one of his gun magazines. It was clear to anyone who cared to look that he wasn't paying attention to the magazine as he was flipping the pages too fast for even River to have been able to glean any information.
River, on the other hand, was curled up at the other end drawing furiously in her sketchpad with a very intent look on her face. From time to time she would glance up at Jayne and study him for a moment before returning to the sketchpad with renewed effort.
One of the times she glanced up at Jayne to find him staring at her with a look of something on his face that surprised her. One part of her wanted to run out of the lounge at top speed and hid under her bunk behind a locked door. The other part of her wanted nothing more from this life than to sit right there, on that couch, and have Jayne continue to look at her that way.
Before she was able to sort out her feelings enough to decide on a course of action the decision was made for her. Suddenly, Jayne's magazine had gone flying through the air and hit Mal in the side of his head. Before Mal could turn around to discover the source of the flying magazine Jayne had pulled River into his arms, thrown her over his shoulder, and left the lounge for the cargo hold.
"Well, that was…not exactly unexpected. So who won the pool?"
The First Kiss
While the rest of the crew had been arguing over who had placed the closest bet in the 'when will they get together and who will make the first move' pool, Jayne reached the cargo bay with River still hanging over his shoulder.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs he put his hands around her waist and slowly lowered her to the ground and took a step back putting a small amount of space between them. They stood there frozen for a moment staring into each other's eyes.
"I…umm…" Jayne wanted to tell her what was on his mind. What had been on his mind since Miranda but now that he'd gotten her alone he had no idea of what to say.
His actions had been so unexpected that River was frozen. It had been a long time since someone's actions had come as such a complete surprise to her. Usually she tried not to read the crew but she normally got enough of an impression to not be taken unawares by a person's actions. But Jayne's scooping her into his arms and carrying her to the cargo bay over his shoulder had been totally unexpected. And now all she was sensing was uncertainty and confusion. And for her life she could not have said which emotion was coming from which of them.
Afterwards neither one knew which one of them had made the first move. All they were sure of was that one moment they were standing a pace apart as if they were statues, neither certain of what to do or how to move the situation forward. And then they were in each other's arms.
As they stood staring into each other's eyes all the uncertainty and confusion melted away. Suddenly, they were both absolutely certain that they were exactly where they were meant to be.
"River, I…" Jayne's whispered words were halted by River's finger against his lips.
"Words later, now we stop fighting ourselves."
And then they were kissing and there were no words for what that felt like.
The First Time Jayne Made River Cry
"Aww, River, I wouldn't have asked ya ifn I thought it was gonna make you cry. Look just forget I asked ok?"
"Not crying due to unhappy feelings. Sometimes tears come from joy and not from sadness."
Jayne hesitated for a moment puzzling that out. It had gotten to be a habit, taking a minute to decode what River was saying. She was better but sometimes, especially when she was emotional, her language slipped back into crazy-genius speak.
"Does that mean yes?"
River looked up from the small box she was holding. "Yes, Jayne Cobb, I will marry you."