Whelp, here's another.
Sometimes, when he looks at her, he remembers something his Ma told him once.
Radiant Cobb was a wise woman, and no one could or would ever say otherwise. She was a small thing, something he hadn't realized until he got into his teens and hit his growth spurt and ended up towering over her by the time he was fourteen, but she still commanded respect and she took care of her family with steel in her eyes, an iron spine, and a stern hand. When he'd been younger, a tiny thing that barely reached her hip, he'd sometimes sit with her when everyone else was off fighting or playing or working, and he'd watch her knit.
They'd never been able to afford any really good yarn like they always used in the real fancy stuff in the stores, but she always said she was happier with a fixed roof and yarn that only cost less than a handful of credits. Radiant Cobb, she declared, was not a woman for useless fancy things. But one time the woman who ran the supply store said they got in this supply of that fancy yarn his Ma had sometimes looked at though she had denied it, and she had told them that a couple of the things had got a touch of bleach on them, and that they couldn't exactly sell them for what they were going to.
And so that day Radiant had gone home with a few things of silk yarn in the darkest and richest green he had ever seen, though some had accidentally been speckled with bleach spots every now and then, and the promise to bring the best damn cobbler that woman had ever tasted in her life the next time they came down.
He knew that his Ma had been lying to all of them about not wanting fancier things just by the way she touched the yarn, brushing her fingers over its softness and smiling ever so quietly.
"I've never worked with somethin' so fine before. What if I go an' mess it up?" She asked his Pa, and the large man had shrugged, smiling at her.
"Things you make are always fine. This'll be no different." He had assured her, and she hadn't looked so sure for a moment before her face had hardened and her shoulders had straightened, the familiar face of a determined Radiant Cobb settling in on her features.
"All right then."
He remember how she'd worked on it for so long and so hard, making a shawl to wear to the town's annual dance, one that would be so fancy and fine that it would be the envy of the night. But before it was finished she'd gotten sick, a real sick that he'd never seen before and that made his Pa go out back when he thought no one would notice and cry because the doctor was coming back practically every day and Ma wasn't getting up from be and he'd never seen her looking so thin before or heard a cough that sounded so painful.
Their house had gotten so quiet after that, only broken by the sounds of that damned coughing and the creak of the floorboards as everyone walked. Everyone was sad like they were already preparing for her vigil and she wasn't getting better, and then he'd seen that yarn that his mother loved so much and the half done shawl, and he came up with a brilliant plan. He'd help her and finish her shawl, and she'd be so happy that she'd get better and his Pa wouldn't have to cry anymore and his older sister Josie could come home from the friend's house she was staying in because she just couldn't stop herself from getting a kind of angry/sad when she was at home and it made everyone feel worse, and Brent would maybe start talking to everyone again.
So he'd grabbed her stuff and had sat down quietly in the middle of the night, attempting to replicate the swift movements he had watched his mother make for years. And he thought he was doing pretty good, too, up until he looked at what he had done and had seen how utterly he had ruined everything.
His mother's part had this diamond shaped pattern on it that was real pretty and nice, but his was ragged and had a giant gaping hole about the size of a small fist. He'd ruined it, and he was sure in that moment that he'd also ruined any chance his Ma had of getting better. He'd shoved the thing under her chair and had hurried to his bed, crying into his pillow because he had destroyed everything.
Slowly but surely, despite how sure his ten year old self had been that she'd die and it would be his own doing, his mother had gotten better, and one day when the coughing had all but stopped and she was sitting up in bed with a thin smile on her face, she'd looked to him and asked if he could go get her knitting for her.
He hadn't wanted to, sure that she'd be upset and that she might even get sick again if she found out, but he felt too bad to lie to her and Radiant Cobb saw through anything you tried to pull on her anyways. So he'd gone to get the mess he'd made, brought it back, and had tearfully explained everything while she studied the damage he had wrought.
"Can you fix it? Are you mad?"
"Oh, baby, no. I ain't mad. Such a sweet thing you did for me, I could never be mad." She'd soothed as she'd pulled him up into the bed with her, pulling him into her side so that she could squeeze him tight just like she always did to make him feel better, though it wasn't as tight as it had always been since she was still a bit sick. "And as for fixing it… Well, I could, but I ain't gonna." She'd told him, and he couldn't believe her because it had been so pretty and fine and then he'd ruined it, so why was she just going to leave it alone?
"Why?"
"Because, just because something's a little messed up don't mean it's completely ruined. Things don't always work out the way they're meant to or were planned to do, but that don't mean they're not worth nothin' no more or that they should be thrown away. And if you change that thing, then it loses everything it got from being a little different. Like this," She told him, lifting up the shawl to show him his work, "If I just went back and took out everything you put in, I'd be getting rid of all that time and effort and love, and I don't want that. Just because you didn't do it right doesn't mean it won't turn out even better than if you left it alone. And you know what, baby, I'm sure it will."
His mother had gotten better and she'd finished the shawl while keeping his part in, and when she finally got to go to that dance and wear it with some of her finest clothes, the part he'd messed up had sat directly in the middle of her back, ugly when compared to the rest of it, but it was still a fine looking thing, and his Ma had worn it every year and swore up and down it was the prettiest thing she owned.
And River reminded him of what his Ma had said about that damned shawl.
River was real messed up in the head, and she wasn't ever going to be back to what she had been before she had come to them - that bored little Core girl that no one understood or knew what to do with - but the Alliance hadn't ruined her. They'd cracked her and hurt her and bent her all up inside, breaking little pieces off of her until she was jagged, but she wasn't ruined.
She was Serenity's pilot, and was one of its guards. She was deadly with or without a weapon and she was a genius psychic reader who scared each and every one of them sometimes. And she was a little cracked and scrambled in the head but she was probably the strongest of all of them.
Other than him, of course.
He knew that she and her brother would do anything, give up whatever they needed to if they could have a chance to go back and make sure that she never had to go to that Academy, but they couldn't and that was okay. Because she wasn't quite what she had been planned to be by all of those Core people all of those years ago, she wasn't what the Academy had planned, and she wasn't what she had planned for herself either, but that was fine because to Jayne's mind she was better than what had been mapped out for her. She was stronger and smarter and more capable, and sure she was a bit moon-brained but that didn't have to mean anything.
Because just like his Ma had, the girl was picking up the ruin of what the Alliance had done and was working herself back together. What the Academy had done to her was like that fist sized hole he had made all those years back, though a bit uglier and a lot meaner, but she was dealing with it and making herself better bit by bit. And Jayne was sure that when it was all said and done she'd be better than that little Core girl could ever have been.
They'd wanted her to be an obedient princess and then an assassin and a weapon, but she weren't none of those. She was a pretty little dagger all wrapped up in silk, smooth and sweet and fast and smart, able to take care of herself and never dancing to any other person's will ever again.
And Jayne was looking forward to seeing how she shined.
I don't really know. I didn't like it, then I deleted a few bits, and maybe I like it now? Eh, whatevs. Hope you enjoyed!