Title: Eye of the Beholder – Jayne (3/6)

Author: CC62827

Summary: Five times River scared the crew, and one time she scared the Captain. Series of six short fics with a definite Mal/River bent.

A/N: Thank you so much for the feedback!


I was restless.

Shifting in the seat, I looked through the corner of my eye at my pilot. Usually the gorram girl couldn't sit still if you paid her to—flitting this way and that, dancing around, fiddling with knobs and dials and mysterious computerized thing-a-ma-bobs. But now, it seemed like she'd be perfectly content to have her backside fused to the co-pilot chair on a permanent kind of basis.

I shifted again. This time I twisted my back, trying to get it to crack. Nothing happened, which I have to say didn't come as any particular surprise. It was shaping up to be one of those days. Or nights. Whichever one it was. After a week planetside on Stax, where the days lasted 29 hours, I was having trouble getting myself adjusted back to Serenity's 24-hour schedule.

You wouldn't think five little hours made such a difference, but they did.

"Stop fidgeting." River's voice coming from beside me was exhasperated. "I'm trying to concentrate."

I shot her a look and raised an eyebrow. I tried to growl, but my heart wasn't really in it. "Last I checked this was still my boat, little one, and if I'm not mistaken, that gives me liscence to shift if I feel the need."

"Shifting would be once. You've been fidgeting at regular intervals for thirty-six minutes."

I grunted. I'd found that was the best response when she got numerical like that. Another few seconds of silence passed. When I spoke, the cantankerous was clear in my tone. I probably wasn't fit company. "What are you concentrating on, Albatross?"

She was staring out the glass, looking as far away as the stars. She answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Algebra, mostly. Polynomial equations, binary operations, a few inverse elements."

"Huh."

That was pretty much all I had to say about that, so I let the cockpit go quiet again. And I tried not to fidget. It wasn't easy. My bones ached from the pressure and gravity drive changes, and I felt itchy, cagey.

"Space lag."

I glanced at River again and nodded. "Been a long while since we were docked anywhere for that long a stretch as to cause it. Now I remember why we don't do it often."

Uncurling her legs, she stood up. "Walking will help. Come on."

"What about your algebra?"

"I can do it later—algebra's always there," River said, then reached down and grabbed my hand. I let her pull me out of the chair.

"Autopilot set?"

The look she sent me said she wasn't going to dignify that question with an answer, and I held up my hands surrender-style. "You're right. Never mind." That seemed to satisfy her, because she didn't say anything else.

There are only so many places on a ship you can go. River and I fell into step headed toward the cargo bay without talking about it. I don't know exactly when it happened that it got to where it felt natural to have her walking with me, but somewhere along the way it stopped being strange to be with her, and started being strange to be without her. I decided not to ponder that right now—my body already hurt, no since making my head sore, too—and used my mouth to distract my brain.

"You having any problem with lag?" The question sounded casual but had serious undertones. Any major change meant that River had to re-adjust what she did to block out the rest of our thoughts. She'd explained it to me just before we took off, asking me to watch her in case she went buggity at all. On Stax there were more people to block, but the open space diluted things. Back on Serenity, the images were concentrated again.

She hadn't wanted to tell Simon because he would have insisted on giving her a smoother just to be on the safe side. I understood her aversion to a medical sleep, and to the horse needles her brother came at her with in his efforts to help, so I was willing to be an aid and abetter. I'd kept a sharp watch for the first few hours and hadn't seen anything unusual, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

River tilted her head. "A little at first, but better than I expected."

"Good to know."

"Better everyday. Puzzle pieces coming together," she continued then paused, voice going wistful. "There'll still be cracks, though, even when it's finished."

I nodded slowly. "Reckon that's true enough, but I imagine you'll find that the cracks add character to the picture."

"Captain Profound."

I felt a flush creep up my neck. "Seems space lag makes me fidgety and philosophical both. All things being equal as far as nicknames go, I think I'd rather be Captain Tightpants."

We were coming up on the cargo bay when River stopped suddenly enough that if she'd been in front of me rather than by my side, I would have plowed right through her. "What are you—" I broke off when I realized she wasn't listening to me. Head tilted, she was doing the 1,000-yard stare again, but there were some differences from in the cockpit. This time she was looking at the wall instead of the stars. And the smile that spread across her face was all kinds of mischievous. I might even go so far as to say it was roguish.

"Jayne's playing with his toys in the cargo bay."

"Jayne's what?" But she wasn't listening. River grabbed my hand and threaded her fingers through mine, then took off like a shot. Either my whole self or my arm was going with her, and letting her yank my shoulder out of socket would have made all kinds of mess, so all of me followed her. The image of what kind of toys Jayne might have to play with was somewhat disturbing, though, so as River dragged me around the corner I felt compelled to call out a warning.

"Jayne, you better not be doing any deviant sexual acts in my cargo bay." Then we were there, and I felt my chin hit my chest. Sexual deviance aside, I don't think anything I could have seen would have surprised me more.

River, rather than being shocked, appeared delighted. She dropped my hand like she'd never been holding it and rushed forward. Her eyes fairly glowed with eagerness.

Jayne shot her a black look that stopped her in her tracks. "Now you just stop right there, Crazy. Don't you come no closer," he ordered.

Her face fell like a Capasin 5 out of the sky. "Can't I play, too? There's plenty to go around."

I didn't give him a chance to answer her. I'd had time to go from amazed to furious. "You have 30 seconds to get all of this go sea wi xao bin out of my cargo bay and off of my cargo! I don't know what you're playing at, Jayne, but you want to make this kind of mess you do it in your own cabin."

"Aw Mal, there ain't room in my cabin," he protested. "A man needs to spread out a job like this."

"They all came from in there, and I guarantee if you do them one at a time, there's more than enough room to get the job done and not trail it over half of my ship! Get. It. Gone. Now."

"I got me a system," he replied, defiant. "It's faster this way. I clean all the bores first, then the workings, then finish up with the stocks and casing. It's like one of them—" He broke off, scratching his head and searching his brain for the word.

"Assembly lines," River eagerly filled in the blank for him.

I didn't care. They hadn't yet invented the word for how angry I was. From the looks of it, Jayne taken every single gun he owned—and that was a large number—disassembled it, and stacked it on the boxes of jarred honey in the cargo bay. Expecting thought from Jayne was like asking a man to work with no tools, but this was—

Jayne's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Right, assembly line. So don't you get all prissy about the mess, Mal. I'll be done soon enough—couple of hours at the most," he said.

"And if we happen to hit a rough patch of space in those hours?" The words came out like I was chewing gravel.

"Them boxes ain't going anywhere, Mal, and you know it. We tied 'em down tighter than a nun's cu—"

"Jayne!" I interrupted.

He paused with a quick glance at River. "Well, tight, then."

"You know you're right," I drawled, fighting not to grind my teeth and letting him have a minute to look superior before I changed my tone. "But what do you suppose will happen to the glass jars in the crates if these weapons, which you might notice aren't tied down, all go flying around?" I picked up a heavy gun, not his largest by far, but still a hefty weight in my hand. "Here's an idea, how about you stand real close and let me throw this at your head. Just to test?"

Jayne blanched. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Get it cleaned up. Now. I want all of this out of here in 15 minutes or less."

"Fifteen minutes? Mal, you're crazier than Moonbrain if you think I can get all of these put together in—"

"I'm sorry, did something I said make you think I was interested in excuses? Fifteen minutes. I don't care if you have to scoop them all up, pile them in your bunk, and spend the next two years sorting out the pieces."

"Can't be done," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

"I'll help," River interjected, and then turned to me. "But we'll need at least 17 minutes."

Jayne burst into laughter. "Seventeen minutes? You think you can put all my stock together in seventeen minutes? This equipment ain't exactly simple in case you hadn't noticed. We're dealing with finely tuned mechanical weapon type things, here. It'd take you 17 minutes just on Vera."

There was a heartbeat of silence before River tilted her head. I felt a spark of alarm. The alarm grew into unease when she narrowed her eyes. And I turned down right apprehensive when she smiled, sweet as sugar, at Jayne.

"Wager?"

"Wager?" He sounded confused, not an uncommon state for him.

River rolled her eyes. "Wager, an agreement under which each bettor pledges a determined amount to the other depending on the outcome of an unsettled—"

"Gorram it, girl, I know what a wager is. I'm asking the terms."

"I get all your guns put back into working order in 17 minutes."

Jayne chortled. "Oh this is good. This is real good. What are you aiming to lose, Moonbrain? 'Cause that ain't humanly possible."

"I win, you take my clean-up shifts next week."

"And when I win? What's in it for me?"

River glanced at me and winked then looked back at Jayne. "I'll scrub out your bunk from top to bottom. You can watch while I do the hands and knees parts."

The mercenary's eyes lit up like a star gone supernova. "Bet's on!"

"No. No way are you—" The anger that welled up in me was not just unexpected, it was downright bizarre. It was directed at Jayne, but strangely at River, too.

"I've got this, Captain. Trust me."

Then she was moving.

And it was a beautiful thing to see. She was a blur of motion, almost dancing with the guns as she moved from pile to pile, never pausing to consider. No mistakes, not wasted movements, just smooth confidence, like watching an intricate ballet.

And my eyes weren't the only ones following her. Jayne stared at her, too. He looked surprised, then puzzled, then worried, and slowly, something else entered his expression. Something kind of like amazement, but more.

River finished with three minutes to spare. When she turned around, she was a little breathless and her eyes were glowing.

"Done!" She exclaimed.

Jayne didn't say anything for a long minute. His eyes went back and forth from each of his beautifully assembled guns to River and back. Then he shook his head slowly, like a man trying to wrap his brain around something and not able to do it.

River didn't seem to notice. "You've got dishes tonight, showers tomorrow, then laundry. Maybe I should make up a calendar for you, just to keep it straight," she teased. She might have gone on, but the proximity beacon went off before she could. Glancing up at me, she wrinkled her nose. "Duty calls. Too bad. I wasn't done taunting."

And then she was gone.

I figured I'd best go with her to make sure nothing was amiss, but before I followed after her, I glanced at Jayne. Had to get things clear on that end, too. "I don't want to hear any complaining. Get these put back in your bunk."

Jayne acted like he didn't hear me. He was still shaking his head. "Impossible. That should have taken hours. Flat impossible."

"Jayne, what part of get moving are you having trouble understanding?" I demanded.

This time, he looked at me. The confusion in his face actually gave me pause. When he spoke, he sounded shaken. "Mal, no one shoulda been able to do that. I know those guns better'n anybody, and I couldn't a done it, but she didn't even have to think about it."

"You've seen River do more amazing things than that," I said. Knowing he'd understand I was talking about the Reevers. "Don't see why this comes as such a shock."

"Fightin', that's one thing, but doin' that with my guns. That was—a kind of magic. That's the only explanation for it." He paused. "Does she ever scare you, Mal?"

I reached out and grabbed his shoulder hard, setting my jaw. "No. And there'll be no more talk like that, cho se ban? I won't have it on my ship. You go stirring up trouble, you'll find yourself in a world of discomfort mighty fast."

He looked at my face and saw how serious I was. It must have made an impression, because he nodded.

"Fine. You're the Captain." He shouldered past me and started gathering up guns. "You'd best go make sure we wasn't coming up on anything important. It'd be a damn shame if Moonbrain crashed us into an asteroid and killed us all before we get to Tamil. I got me some plans with my share of the payment."

Heading back toward the bridge sounded like an even finder idea now than when I started to follow her earlier. I didn't figure there was any worry of River crashing into anything, but I intended to have a word or two with her about the inappropriateness of her wagering away the right to watch her scrubbing the floor.

Jayne watching her all bent over like that with her backside up would—upset her brother.