Author's note: This is my first attempt at Firefly fanfiction. I've written a couple one-shots but I was always afraid that I wasn't getting their voices right. I think I've gotten better at it, and I really hope they seem true to character. I'd love some constructive criticism if you think it needs improvement. The rating may change later, I'm still in the process of writing this and I don't know for sure where it's headed.

Disclaimer: Firefly and Serenity do not belong to me and never will. Any recognizable characters do not belong to me.

First Impressions

The first time he saw her, she was on a small stage, singing her heart out. The banjos and guitars were going crazy, the man playing bass stomping his foot wildly along with the beat. She was just pouring her soul into it as she sang.

He sat in the corner, a seat that allowed him to see everyone else in the room and all the exits. He was looking for some trim, but he had time to waste. It wouldn't hurt to watch her just a while longer.

Jayne was not a smart man. He'd had no formal education. There was no school on Whittier, so he didn't even need to skip classes. He learned all he knew from his ma, and she'd learned it from his pa. His childhood memories all featured her. Crouching in tree limbs, waiting for animals to pass by them for an easy kill. Setting traps. Learning how to shoot, how to aim, how to take care of his guns and respect them. The most important thing she'd ever taught him was how to watch people. "Because they do need watching," she'd said once. "They can be up to all sorts of trouble without your knowin', so you have to learn to read them."

"Be a Reader?" Young Jayne had asked incredulously. Readers were creepifying. He wanted nothing to do with them.

"Better'n a Reader." She'd replied. "You don't need to know no one's thoughts, you just need to know their body. Every little thing they're up to can be seen in their body."

He'd left when he was sixteen. He was going to sneak out at night so there wouldn't be any fuss, but she'd read the signs in his body language as soon as he started making plans. She knew there was a ship in town that was looking for hard working crew. She knew he hated Whittier, hated the mines, hated the way the local boys would douse a rag in foul liquid and sneak up behind girls, covering their faces and knocking them out before they knew what was what. Hated that it had happened to his own sister, that Matty got sick from what she'd breathed in. Hell, his mother hated it, too. She hated seeing her little girl who'd once been so strong and proud all hunched over as she wheezed and coughed so long that she couldn't get any air in at all, until she started dry heaving. She knew he had to leave.

She was waiting for him, sitting by the front door. She handed him his pa's rifle, told him to keep himself alive, gave him a brisk hug with a strong pat on the back with her calloused hands, and watched him walk out the door.

She never did know his plans. She was surprised at the first letter home. Surprised he'd even written, let alone included some of his pay. It was then that she realized that this pay wasn't for food or warm clothes, because he knew she could earn just enough to cover that. The money was for hiding, for keeping until there was enough to get them all off that gorram planet and onto a nicer one, to pay for their passage and the supplies they would need for starting over.

Jayne shook himself out of his reverie. No good zoning out like that when you had just settled into a place. You needed to get your bearings first. About half the tables in the place were occupied with men who'd recently gotten out of work and were drinking the stress away. There was a woman waiting by the stairs, looking for a likely partner for the night. She noticed Jayne's look and gave him a wink. Maybe later. What really caught his attention was the man sitting at the table right next to the stage. He never took his eyes off the singer, lifting his mug to his mouth and drinking without ever moving his gaze. His body was tense, his knuckles turning white from his grip on the mug. That was one angry sonofabitch.

Jayne finished his drinking, even went upstairs with the woman who was waiting. Got some thrusts in and got rid of some of the tension that being around gorgeous women on a small ship instilled in him. He would never use them. Never ever hurt them. Just thinking on it made him hear Matty's wracking cough, reminded him of long nights of wheezing and coughing and dry heaving, the dark rings under her eyes, the tight lines already forming in her face. She was too young for it. Too young.

Inara was one gorgeous woman, Kaylee was all sorts of adorable wrapped up in a beautiful package, and Zoe was filled out in all the places that really got a man's attention. Even River got to him sometimes, her lithe body practicing ballet with an invisible partner in the cargo bay at night, her leaps and twists and turns. The tears running down her face. She danced when she thought no one would see, and he always wondered if she could read him up there, leaning against the railing and wishing she wasn't so much like Matty, or if she was so desperate to dance and feel like a real girl that she was actually able to stop reading for a while.

He walked slowly out of the building that night, adjusting his belt with a little swagger just to show every man in the room that he'd gotten some and it was damn good. He'd made her scream. Maybe it was the memory of Matty and his ma that made him take care of a woman, even a working woman. They might not really want him, might just need his money, but he was going to make damn sure they weren't doing it for nothing. He respected women. He never raised a fist to one unless they attacked him first, and even then, the attack had to be more then just a slap or punch. It had to involve a butcher's knife. It had to seriously hurt him, because he sure as hell couldn't feel most women's hands when they were trying to beat on him.

He heard a muffled cry from around the side of the building and his body immediately lost its looseness. He was a merc again, not just a man. He walked calmly so that if anyone were watching him they wouldn't notice the change. He casually turned the corner, walking until he saw shadows. He slowed, moving carefully, quietly. Even Zoe couldn't hear him coming when he was like this. He usually made a point of stomping along Serenity's walkways so he wouldn't startle anyone. The couple finally came into view, and it wasn't quite what he expected.

The angry man from the bar had a young boy in his arms. The boy was barely a toddler, and the man had him in a death grip, a blade to his throat. The woman who'd been singing was standing stock still. Her right eye was already bruising, her arm was red from where he'd grabbed her and dragged her along, and her nose was dripping blood onto her shirt, but she was standing so still that Jayne could hardly see her breathing.

"Now, Lillian, did you really think you could just waltz out and board a ship without me finding you?"

The man's voice was calm but icy. Jayne hated it when people spoke like that. Give him some regular old angry shouting anytime, but this coolness was just creepifying. The woman never looked away from the man's eyes, not even to look at the crying boy.

"I wasn't going anywhere." She spoke quietly but firmly. There was no tremble to her voice.

"I saw you looking at him. I saw you. You were making plans again, weren't you? Trying to run away with another lover? You just never learn, do you? You never learn." He laughed, and the sound sent shivers down Jayne's spine. "You're mine. You always have been and you always will be."

Jayne saw her starting to react. He expected tears, for her shoulders to slump as she wept and gave in. Instead, he watched her jaw tighten, her hands clench into fists.

"Let him go." She said slowly, murder in her voice. "You let him go and you can do what you want with me for as long as you want. But he's got nothing to do with this."

"He's got everything to do with this!" The man's cool was breaking. "He's not even mine, is he?"

"Of course he isn't." She gave a humorless laugh. "I was pregnant when I met you, you idiot. How could he be yours?"

The man tossed the boy to the ground and started toward her with the knife. It was the only opening Jayne needed. A chair leg, long separated from the chair, was scooped up from the ground, and before the man had taken two steps, Jayne had laid him out.

The woman was shocked. She hadn't even noticed him, hadn't realized there was another player in the game. The crying of her little boy broke her out of it, and she hurried over and scooped him up, cradling him to her chest.

"It's alright, Ben. It's okay, it's over." She soothed him, but Jayne could see that she was really trying to soothe herself, trying to convince herself that it was over and they were both alive.

"The kid alright?" He asked gruffly, dropping the chair leg and giving the fallen man a kick in the ribs for good measure.

She nodded. "He's fine. I owe you, sir."

"Jayne. My name's Jayne. And I ain't no sir."

"Jayne." She didn't make the usual comments about it being a girl's name. She just nodded. "I'm Lillian, and this here's Ben. I owe you both of our lives."

"Nah, don't start that. Just happened to be around. Wasn't like it was any trouble."

"Well, I sure as hell won't forget it." She held the little boy to her hip. Ben was sucking his thumb as he watched Jayne with big eyes. Jayne decided to ignore this statement.

"You got someplace safe to be? He gonna bother you again?"

"Oh, he won't stop bothering me until one of us is dead. I've got no place to be. I lived with him. He never let me leave."

Jayne's brow furrowed. "You ain't got no friends to stay with or nothing?" She just shook her head. "Chou ma niao." Jayne swore, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "I don't know what to do with you, girl."

She frowned, brushing a lock of auburn hair out of her eyes to give him the full effect of her glare. "You ain't doing nothing with me or my boy. I-"

"Bizui! I didn't mean-I meant for makin' sure you're safe, you feng le po fu."

The intensity of her glare lessened. "I don't need you to keep me safe."

He grunted, "Yeah, because you're doin' a hell of a job of doin' it by yourself. You're the one got stuck livin' with that nin hen bu ti tie de nan sheng." He paused, seeing that insulting her was getting him nowhere. "Think of your boy." He said in a low voice, ashamed to have to show his concern. "Gotta raise him...gotta raise him so he knows how to treat a woman, and that," He gestured angrily toward the unconscious body on the ground, "ain't no way to treat a woman. Ain't no way to raise a boy, he'll...he'll turn out all wrong, and that ain't no way to live."

She stared at him, speechless. Part of her was incredibly insulted that he was telling her how to raise her own son, but...well, part of her realized he was right. And she had nowhere to go. He'd find her no matter where she hid on this gorram planet. It was hard to pull the words from her throat, but she finally managed to say, "I need to get off world. He'll find me here, and he'll...well someone's gonna end up dead if he finds me and I don't want my boy seein' that, no matter which of us it is."

Jayne nodded, thinking. He was not a smart man. He had no formal education, and he knew exactly what people thought of him because of that. But he wasn't an idiot. He was educated in his own way. His mother's way. He was educated in the wilderness on how to live in the wilderness, and he was educated in town so he could live around people, no matter how much they might want him dead. This woman was sincere. She needed to get off world. And her little boy was scared, couldn't stop staring at the body on the ground. Couldn't stop touching the bruises on his mother's skin. Weren't no way to be raised, fearing for his mother's sake, and she clearly didn't want that to be the case. She'd made a mistake. It happens.

"You cook?" He suddenly asked. She stared at him for a second, not comprehending how this could possibly relate to the situation.

"Yeah. Usually cook at the bar."

"Know how to work with protein?"

"You kiddin'? It's all we got at the bar."

"Well. The captain of the ship I'm on has always been mumblin' 'bout wantin' a good cook. None of us can do it quite proper like. It always tastes just like protein. Don't know how he'll feel 'bout this, 'specially with your kid, but...aw, hell, it's worth a shot."

She stared at the brick wall over his shoulder as she thought, her hand absently stroking her child's hair. "Ain't never been in the black." She said it so quietly Jayne wasn't sure he heard her right. Before he could ask, she straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. "Give me some time to go back to the bar, grab some of my flavorings and what little real food they got stored there, get myself packed up, and we'll see what your captain says."


Chinese translations:

Chou ma niao : Stinking horse urine

Bizui! : Shut up

Feng le po fu : Insane harridan