DISCLAIMER: Still don't own it. :)

Bear with me, I hope you like what I have so far, but I'm working out a fun bit o' story that I've had in my head a short bit. However, as I'm sure you can all sympathize, it's sometimes harder than planned to get that scripted out! :) Thank you all for reading! BROWNCOATS FOREVER!

"Well," Mal addressed the whole crew around the table in the mess "it looks like we'll be able to take off tomorrow. River you will be in the bridge with me learning to pilot this ship, Kaylee, stick close to the engine bay until we break atmo. Until then enjoy your night cause the inspector will be here tomorrow bright and early. The alliance cruiser would like to depart as well."

As happens with all families in times of unity through strife, the crew of Serenity came together later that night. Kaylee got a small fire going outside the ramp and Inara flavored some protein to taste like delicious hamburgers. Mal and Simon pulled crates outside so they could all sit around the fire. Not one of them could remember a time or a place where they felt more wanted and more needed. Zoe wrapped her duster around her. There was still nothing that could quite take the away the chill of suddenly being a widow. The crew always helped though, helped her remember that she was still alive.

"Look!" Kaylee handed River a small glass of engine wine "Jayne's brought his guitar out! I love it when he plays. Reminds me of sittin' at home listenin' to my brothers strum away."

The guitar kicked up a rugged tune and the crew jumped around the fire in appreciation. Simon took the chance to star at Kaylee. Her smile lit up the night with the appreciation she had for every moment in time. The life in her step and the love in her eyes – not just for him, for Serenity, for the crew, for the sky. Few had lived life as she had, in full awe and wonderment at every experience. How blessed he was that such a soul could love his soul back. She suddenly grabbed his waist with one arm and his hand with another and whisked him around in a brisk jig to the tempo of Jayne's guitar. He didn't have his sisters aptitude for dance, but the fancy-pants Core bred boy could definitely hold his own. She threw back her head and laughed as he paused to spin her into a dramatic dip like in the fancy movies.

"How bold!" She leaned up and kissed his cheek "Why, Simon, what would your friends think?"

"They'd think it's about damn time!" He laughed and continued spinning in their jig; her soft hair flowing with their every move. Finally the chords resolved and the song drew to an end. "This is a night we'll remember forever," Simon prophesized as he landed another kiss on her cheek.

Jayne rounded the notes into a soft soft ballad. The story behind this new song was one of peace. The songwriter had been a fierce warrior – he'd lost friends, gained allies, travelled months, even years on end. Finally the warrior returned home to his family, to those who'd loved him so many years before and now, despite the blood on his hands, were still overjoyed at his return. The notes resonated from the strings and warmed the places even the fire escaped. It was a song River knew from her dance studio. Homeward, she whispered the name. Her body fell into rhythm with the guitar. 4 beats per measure, in the key of G, adante tempo. These were the technical things she knew about the song but none of that inspired the movement in her body. As the song lifted, her legs tightened and pulled her body farther from the ground, only to have the song swoop to a low as she crouched with pointed toes and graceful bends and twists of the arms. The song lived in every fiber of her muscles, in every charge swimming along her neurons.

Jayne glanced from his hands as he knew the song by heart. Mal and Inara were clasping hands staring intently to their left, Kaylee and Simon were all but in each other's lap and were staring intently as well. Jayne followed their gaze past an equally enraptured Zoe to the small assassin. Her body writhed under the force of the instrument, the fluid motions connected in pure and powerful furor. His fingers played the music while her body sang the song.

She felt his gaze. The others appreciated her grace, Simon was of course pleased at how technically perfect each stance and move was executed, but she felt Jayne's gaze in her very core. She kept her eyes closed tight so the music had been the only stimulant she had, but his stare now inspired her movements. He saw the story she was telling. The warrior wasn't coming home after years at battle, a Captain was finding refuge in his own ship, from his own demons, and finding strength in the family he'd built. The heat of Jayne's stare left trails up her legs, over her torso, across her shoulders, it swept up her jawline, to the soft lids blocking out everything except the notes his fingers traced over the guitar. She danced for his eyes alone now.

He wanted to keep playing forever, to see the fury of the music coarse through her, to watch her desire for the next note enchant her mind and force her lithe form to sway at his every whim. She longed for the next note. Jayne, keep your fingers moving. I can't lose this right now. Play me a verse for his love. Play me a verse for the pilot lost. Just play. Her foot slid gracefully to the side and she bent into a challenging lunging stance she threw her body back opening herself up to the night sky, to the 'Verse. Take what you must, just leave me the sky.

The mercenary watched as her movements pleaded for him to take notice; the subtle flicks of the wrist, the way that last twist caused the strain in her side, the care with which she pointed each toe. Thoughts crept into his head that he reserved for women not as graceful and not as talented as this beautiful muse. What an impassioned woman, what a heady demand for desire. He wished he could placate this magnificent being's thirst and quench a longing that brewed behind crazy eyes for so long. The last few months had told the story of a scared little girl frightened of the world, frightened that even breathing wrong could bring her whole world down around her. The last few moments , however, on this turbulent little moon, under the same skies that watched over their buried friends, River had turned into a graceful woman; her needs and yearnings on display before his very eyes. Simon just saw the dance moves his mei mei perfected years ago. However, Jayne, also a creature of passion, saw the raw, savage hunger that drove her arms to wrap around her chest just so, and twist her legs pulling the strained muscles in her leg even more taut. He followed the firm line of her thigh…

I'm sorry girl, but for my sake I gotta end the song. She sighed in acceptance and returned to standing as he resolved the last chord. The enchanted crew enthusiastically applauded the doctor's sister and slowly returned to their previous enthrallments. Simon returned to Kaylee, Mal revisited the earlier joke he was telling Inara, and Zoe pretended to be hypnotized with the fire.

"Jayne," River sat next to him on the crate as he began plucking at another soft song, "Thank you for that song." Her eyes caught his and she wouldn't let him look away. Why was her simple stare so commanding. She softly brought a hand to his face and rubbed a thumb over his cheek. "I AM quenched."

Has she heard every thought?

"It makes the girls so happy when you're here," Mal rubbed a thumb over Inara's hand. Gorram engine wine, makin' a man not know his own sense from a hole in a wall.

"What about the Cap'n?" Even Inara's words slurred under the effects of the homemade hooch.

"No! That doesn't make the girls happy at all," he joked with her. He drew her hand up and kissed the air right above it, "I might be a mite tipsy," he laughed at his lack of depth perception. Inara more than obliged his mishap with a hearty laugh. God, why is this happening to me? I can't fall in love, I was trained not to fall in love. But he felt so good. His body heat washed over her senses, she even loved the way his scent mixed with the fresh air, and the way his eyes held a softness for her that it reserved for no other person in the whole 'Verse. She wanted to lean her head on the strong shoulder, laugh and commune with his great mind, ease and heal his every wound. Gorramit, Malcolm Reynolds, this was a lot easier when you were a big chun zhu!

He loved the way her shoulders shook when she genuinely laughed. And he'd never seen anything like the way her eyes sparkled brighter than any stars in the night sky, in fact her eyes had to be suns. With their own solar systems because it'd be a shame if even one soul in the 'Verse didn't get to see the radiant light that she was. He risked a glance directly into the gravitational force of her stare and caught her gazing intently at him. As his view locked with hers, she realized she was gawking despite herself. She averted her eyes and stared directly at the fire.

"I won't tell anyone that you were staring if you can return the favor," he laughed and winked as she looked at him incredulously.

"What makes you think I was staring?"

"What's not to stare at?" Malcolm Reynolds was back, in full force.

"Oh see, there's the bi mu se ting wan nao we all know," she laughed at him. They never once pulled their hands from one another. They bickered for well over an hour as Jayne's music faded into the background and the fire blurred into an insignificant backdrop.

"Jayne," River came toward the gun hand as he began another ballad – he'd grown a new fondness of the slow songs. He imagined how her body would respond to each one. Even if Moony was still reading his every thought, he couldn't pull his mind away. "Will you teach me how to play?"

"Guitar? " He fortified his rough demeanor to compensate for the vile thoughts running through his brain "Hell, you're a ruttin' genius, you don't know how to play?"

"No, I've watched you and I have a basic idea. But to play like you." He knew exactly what she was talking about. He loved his guitar almost as much as he loved Vera. His hands caressed her as he'd never even felt a woman. His every decision elicited an exact response from her; and in a 'Verse where a man ain't listened to, that's a good feelin'.

"That's like askin' you to teach me to dance like you," he protested.

"You have no desire to dance like me," she stated with a puzzled look across her face.

"And why do you have a desire to learn to play?"

"You make it sound so beautiful."

"So why don't you let me play, and you just dance," he begged her body to move again and she saw right through the dismissive façade.

"Jayne," she proceeded as if he were a 10 year old. She honestly didn't know what to say. She had loved his eyes travelling the lengths of her body, she wanted him to look at her like he did. She wanted his hands to soothe the places his eyes singed. She wasn't entirely sure it had anything to do with the fact that it was him. If fact, she was rather pissed he'd tried to give her back to the damn feds, not once but twice! But it was damn intoxicating having her body ravaged by his stare.

"Don't be givin' me any talk I don't want," he warned against her condescending tone.

"What if you do want it?" she switched gears.

Did she just bite her bottom lip and wink? He'd seen plenty of girls do that. They all knew the cash he had in his pocket though. He stared at her bewildered forgetting the song that his fingers had been discovering. Surely the wine was having more of an effect than he thought. Surely…

"Fine," she sighed "If you won't teach me to play I'll go find other ways to… amuse myself." She felt a verile heat radiating from him. It was power knowing that you held Jayne Cobb by his… well.. didn't he wish? A devilish plan unfolded in her mind. For all the torture he'd put her and Simon through, this game had just begun. "I'll be in my bunk," she whispered hotly in his ear and slid off the crate.