Summary: Mal and Zoe. Kaylee and Jayne. A double wedding. Post Serenity movie. It's not quite what you think. Definitely Kaylee/Jayne. Maybe a hint of some other relationships. Told from many POVs. Not related to my other story "Meant to Be."

Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Never were. Never will be.

Warning: Fluff, fluff, fluff. Rated M in an overabundance of caution. Nothing too racy here.

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The mayor cocked his gun. "I don't think you understand. No woman comes into this town unclaimed. We had some problems with farm hands getting a little too itchy around any piece of skirt that looked available. We don't want any trouble. Now this one -" He paused for a moment and waved his gun in Inara's direction. "has an exemption on account of the fact she's a professional. But you two ladies better speak up right quick and let us know who your men folk are. Then we'll see to your accommodations. Two rooms. One man for each woman."

"What if we don't particularly like that plan?" Mal asked. It'd be interesting to see if the Captain could dance his way out of this one.

" If you don't do as I say, you're not taking another step."

Jayne felt his itchy trigger finger coming on. They couldn't step forward and couldn't step back. The boat was down so they couldn't leave. They wouldn't get parts until tomorrow and they wouldn't get no parts at all if this new relationship didn't go civil. Who the hell had the bright idea to all leave Serenity at once anyways?

Mal glanced at Zoe. They did that head bob thing to show they knew what the other person was thinking. That got damn annoying at times. Lord, Jayne could see how this was going to go. Mal would go all Big Daddy protective on Kaylee and he and Zoe would spend a night with knives at each others' throats. The things he did for a job.

Zoe started walking over to him real slow and casual like. It was clear she didn't relish the prospect of bunking together any more than he did.

Before she got to him, he felt a small hand loop over his bicep. "This here big hunk of man is all mine." Kaylee beamed up at him like he'd hung the moon and the stars. What the hell was that fool girl thinking?

Zoe made a show of walking past them and linking hands with Mal as if that had been her intention all along. Quick thinker that one.

"All right. Men follow me. Brides the other way. We'll fetch the preacher and make this official."

Brides. . .?

###
Kaylee sighed as she sunk into the big tub of water. "Well at least we all get a nice bath out of all this."

Zoe gave her the Look and she shut up right quick. Truth was, Zoe was the only person on Serenity that sometimes scared Kaylee. She was a woman of powerful strong feelings, but she kept them all inside. Being a widow had just seemed to add to the weight on her shoulders. Kaylee just hoped this plan worked and gave her something to smile about.

"Kaylee, if Jayne tries anything, anything at all, the Captain are I going to be right down the hall." Zoe whispered.

"Shiny. Although maybe you two will be too busy to help me." She winked, but Zoe didn't seem to get the point.

Okay, so maybe she hadn't been thinking too clear when she piped up and claimed Jayne. Things still might work out in the way she hoped. Besides, it was nice to have all these ladies fussing over them and bathing them. One of them was even reading a book.

"We wear white on this day to symbolize the purity and sanctity of the marriage bed." The older woman read out the words in a clear, loud tone.

Kaylee snorted. "Me and Zoe ain't hardly virgins if that's what you mean."

###
The whole wedding was a blur for Mal. Kaylee couldn't stop giggling and Jayne looked like he'd been poleaxed. Mal wasn't sure what that was about, but he could take a real good guess.

Zoe looked beautiful, but she always did. At the big moment, he gave her a peck on the cheek and she half smiled at him. She was doing her best to look happy for the crowd, but he knew she never had it in her to play pretend. She fed him a bite of date cake and took one in return. Then she smiled for real. He knew she was remembering how much Wash liked dates.

A cheer rose up from the crowd as they were presented as married couples. Fireworks lit the night air. Cymbals roared to life. These townfolk put on quite a party for people that were only staying a few days.

Jayne and Kaylee got carried away on a jiao to a separate tent. He wasn't too keen to have them out of his line of sight, but he supposed Jayne couldn't get up to much trouble surrounded by people. Well, not any different type of trouble than he usually got in.

He turned around to say as much to his lovely bride, but he found that she had slipped away. Good. The woman had earned some peace and quiet. She might even shed some tears tonight. Lord knows she'd want her privacy. He'd known her long enough to understand that.

But there was another familiar face waiting for him. Inara. And she wasn't wearing bridal white. She wasn't wearing much of anything. Not only that, she was smirking. Damn the woman anyways.

"You can't seem to stop getting married every time we stop at a new planet."

"Thought you'd be pretty busy. Lots of lonely men here." He held out his arms and she stepped into them. Best not to hold onto her too tightly. He was a married man.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world. I always dreamed of dancing at your wedding." They swayed to an old familiar rhythm.

"This is serious." He leaned down and whispered the words in her ear. His lips hovered right where her skin looked soft and sensitive.

Inara leaned back a little bit and looked into his eyes. "You're worried about Kaylee. But she's a smarter girl than you think and Jayne wouldn't touch a hair on her head. He couldn't."

"Jayne Cobb is not sly or in any other way incapable around women." Mal shook his head in disbelief. For a companion, the woman wasn't always the brightest about men.

"I didn't say that. I just said he wouldn't touch her. Not the way you're thinking."

"Don't it amount to the same thing?"

Inara sighed. She couldn't explain it to Mal because he could never see what was right in front of him. He never could.

Choosing clients wasn't just about scanning databases and conducting interviews. You learned to gauge a man's temperature about sex, sense his proclivities before he said a word. It became second nature. She had seen how the big mercenary had looked at Kaylee with his eyelids half lowered, an intense look on his face. When no one was watching, he treated the tomboy mechanic like she was a delicate porcelain doll. He'd been like that ever since Simon and River had left one night without a word and it didn't look like it was going to change any time soon.

Touching Kaylee in any way sexual was probably about the one thing Jayne wouldn't let himself do.

###

After the festivities died down, Jayne found Mal stretched out under a tree. It was a wild, green spreading thing, not like the pitiful bushes that dotted the rock he grew up on.

Mal was smoking a cigar and staring down at the bunkhouse. There were only two rooms with lights on and it didn't take a genius to figure out which two rooms those were. Mal lit a second cigar and handed it over without a word.

Jayne took a long drag. This day was unsettling to say the least. He couldn't remember the last time he had a bath. He always thought that was a bit of peculiarity of folks that wanted to spend all their time dirtside. And wearing white like he was some kind of old time hero? Ridiculous.

Mal let out a long stream of smoke. "You so much as touch that girl's wrist and and as soon as this job is over, I will nail your balls up in the canteen. Is that clear?"

"When you going to see that girl is a woman and one with a powerful mind of her own? Hell, she's the one that got us in this."

Mal scratched at his cheek, cigar still clenched between his fingers. "Kaylee thinks life is one big adventure and everyone's good at heart. She's not like Zoe and Inara. One day she'll tire of this life and want to settle down. I'd like her to retire with at least some of her illusions intact."

Jayne had never thought about Kaylee leaving. It made sense. They'd come close enough to that when the gorram doc had been here. He felt a little hitch in his chest at the thought of never seeing Kaylee again. Then the full meaning of Mal's words sank in.

"Think I'd force myself on her if she wasn't willing?" He grabbed a stick and dug it into the ground. It was deep brown dirt, not yellow or red like the dirt he'd seen his whole life on every go se planet.

Mal tapped out some ash. "I don't know. Truly I don't. I've never been sure where the line is with you, Cobb."

"I take whores when I can afford them and willing women when I can't. That's it."

Jayne ground out the cigar and stood up, rubbing the dirt off of him.

"Where are you going?"

"Guess a man ought to spend his wedding night with his wife." He was waiting for Mal to say something, to argue with him. Flat out forbid him from going. Instead the Captain shrugged and took another drag on his cigar.

"You're a grown man. But the minute we hit the Black, these marriages are getting annulled. I wouldn't do anything to endanger that if I were you."

Hell, a man could spend all night sleeping outside if he cared to, but Jayne had never considered himself a coward. Not when it came to women.

Still he couldn't deny it. He hoped that Kaylee would be long asleep before he made it back to bunkhouse. No such luck.

Instead she was sitting up in bed, cross legged with that white dress spread all around her. One big bed. No other place to sleep. No chairs either.

"Thought I'd seen the last of you today. "

"You're just lucky, I guess." He took his guns off and slung his holsters over the bedposts.

"I always figured you for the type that slept with your guns on."

"Not on my wedding night." And he was only here because he was all kinds of stupid.

She gave him a shaky smile. "I never thought I'd get married. Not like this anyways."

"Well damn if this day isn't full of surprises." Jayne grabbed a blanket off the bed and spread it out on the floor.

"I thought maybe me and Simon. . ."

She started to tear up. Damn it, why did women have to cry anyway? He searched the room. They didn't exactly have hankies at hand. He whipped his shirt off, balled it up and tossed it at her. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve.

"He wasn't good enough for you." He didn't look up at her, just got out his knives and started to arrange them. And if some prissy doctor from the Core wasn't good enough for her, what did that say about him? Kaylee was ten times too good for Simon Tam, that meant she was a hundred times too good for him.

"I thought we'd have to spend the night in the same room. I'd never thought we'd have to get married and all. I'm so sorry, Jayne."

"What the blazes were you thinking anyways?"

"Zoe's been so lonely with Wash gone. It's not good for a woman to go too long without a man in her bed. I know that for sure. Thought maybe if the two of them had a night alone, something might happen. I'm not saying it would be anything more than sex, but sometimes that's enough."

Jayne carefully turned away from her so he wasn't staring. The way she was sitting with her legs open, talking sex, was making him crazy. He couldn't see a thing he hadn't seen before, but his imagination was working just fine.

She let out a loud sniff. "I don't know why Captain's so mad about it. I was just thinking of him and Zoe."

"Your plan was about the stupidest in all creation. Zoe's probably crying in her bunk alone. The Captain's sleeping in a tree like a monkey and he's madder than hell because you just stuck yourself with me. All night long. And I am a Big, Bad, Man." He sharpened the knife with every word to emphasize his meaning.

"So?"

"You're not afraid of me?" He turned around.

Laughter bubbled out of her. "Hell no, Jayne."

"You should be." The girl was aggravating. How could she not be afraid of him? He ran his finger along the edge of the blade gave her his best scowl.

She didn't say anything at first. It seemed like she was turning something over in her brain.

"Afraid of you. Why?"

"Girl. I am twice your size. I could flip you on your back and take you ten different ways from Sunday."

"Oh that." She flapped her hand like she was shooing away a fly. "You'd never do that. You might pay for a woman, but you'd never her take her without her say so."

"You seem to be the only one who thinks I'm not capable of it." And why did she see that if no else did?

"Is that what they're all worried about? Whew." She huffed out a sigh of relief. "That's the last thing on my mind."

"Me too. Just want to get some sleep." Good thing he was a gorram good liar.

"I figured we could stay up and you could teach me how to take apart Vera or something, but if you're tired, turn the light out and crawl up. I can keep my hands to myself."

He wasn't sure he could say the same, but he wasn't about to admit it. Instead he shook his head and smoothed his hand over the blanket again. "No, I don't think so. I'm fine here."

Kaylee stretched and yawned with all the satisfaction of a cat. "Suit yourself."

He packed up his knives quietly and blew out the lantern. They laid in the darkness. It was so quiet, he could hear her breathe. Hell, he could hear his own heartbeat.

After a moment, Kaylee spoke in a sleepy satisfied voice. "It might be nice to live like this. Everything's real green. Grow things. Like strawberries. Own some land."

Jayne grunted. "Only thing a man can own is a gun. Even that can get taken away from him if he's not careful."

Kaylee yawned. "Maybe make some babies. This looks like a nice planet for babies."

Now he sure as shit wasn't going to sleep. Kaylee might be spending the night with the baddest hombre in 'verse, but he was the one who was terrified now.

###
Kaylee had spent her life around men. It was the best way for a girl to learn about engines and darn if you didn't pick up a few other bits of knowledge on the way. She thought she had Jayne figured out, but now she was wondering if she was wrong. Everyone was acting like he had some powerful urge to bed with her, but if he did, she didn't see it. He was disgusting and made jokes some times, but that was just most men's way. She'd learned to pay no mind to that a long time ago. Simon had been different, but then again Simon was a gentleman.

That was one thing Jayne was definitely not. He talked direct about pretty much anything and everything. Of course at the moment he was acting more like her Great Aunt Gert than his usual crude self. If he had wanted sexing, wouldn't he just flat out say so? She wasn't shy when she was feeling needful, why would he be?

She stared down at the mass of manhood sleeping on the floor. Things with Simon had been sweet, but not real interesting after a spell. She had a feeling that things with Jayne would be a mite different. Come to think of it, it had been an awful long time since a man had been in her own bed. She had no moral objections to taking care of business herself, but there was something about a man's arms wrapped around you that felt nice.

Jayne had big arms. Right now he smelled good too, which was a rarity for him. He wasn't wearing a shirt and if she reached out she could just graze her fingers along his chest. . .

###

The woman was going to be the death of him. He didn't even need to open his eyes to feel her looking at him.

"Quit staring at me and go to sleep."

"Why?"

"Why what?" He gave up and opened his eyes. Not like he was going to sleep with her jabbering on.

"Why is everybody so sure that something is going to happen between me and you?'

"Because you're a woman and I'm a man. Ain't that enough?"

"We've known each other for long time now."

"Years." Two years, three months and five days.

"Wouldn't it have happened if it was going to happen?"

"Maybe so." He desperately wished he had another cigar, hooch, someone to punch, anything to get his mind off his conversation and the woman he was having it with.

Truth be told, he'd been working out how to get into Kaylee's overalls when Mr. Fancy Doc had shown up. He wasn't above stealing another man's woman, but then she had seemed so gone on him. What was the point? How was he going to compete with a pretty boy from Osiris who could give her all the things he couldn't?

"Jayne?"

"Gorram, woman. What is it now?"

"Did you think I looked pretty today, in a dress and all?" She sounded nervous.

He knew jack all about women, but something pinged inside of him and told him this was important. He propped himself up on one arm. His eyes had adjusted to the dark now and he could see she was lying on her side, her face tilted towards him.

He could still remember the moment of her walking toward him, the evening sunlight shifting through her hair and the breeze stirring at her long dress. She had worn a giddy smile as if this whole thing was a joke that only the two of them understood. He'd been afraid to kiss her, really kiss her in the moment, so he settled for a peck on the lips. She felt soft and warm and tasted like dates. He knew he'd never forget it in a million years. But he couldn't possibly get all the right words in the right order, so he just settled for the simplest truest thing.

"Ai Ren, you looked so beautiful it hurt."

There was a loud thump as she slid down onto the floor beside him.

"What the hell you doing, Mei Mei?"

"Mei Mei? Just a minute ago you were calling me your lover." She pressed a quick kiss on his lips. Nimble little fingers started working at his belt buckle.

"Well, I wasn't quite in my right mind at that moment." He tried to wrestle her hands away from him, but she was slippery and quick and he wasn't trying to fight her nearly as hard as he should. Her breasts were pressed up high and tight against his chest and he bit down a groan.

"You feel all right to me." She'd worked the belt buckle free.

In about five seconds, there weren't no way he was going to convince her that he wasn't interested in her in every meaning of the word.

"Kaylee, stop." He grabbed her wrists. "Before we do something we can't fix."

"Don't worry. I'll fix it. I'm good with my hands."

El Fin/The End Maybe?