Shades of the Past – Chapter Three
Joss is the man, and owns it all! I'm just playing, working for the love of it, and not money. Thanks for the shiny toys, Joss!
The day after the 'dinner' incident, Simon was busy re-organizing his infirmary, still furious over last night's events. He was so engrossed in his fuming, he didn't notice River walk in behind him.
"You're a boob, Simon." The doctor screeched, jumping clear off the floor, and whirling on his sister.
"Don't do that!" he didn't quite scream.
"You're a boob," River repeated, eyeing him sternly. "It's time to stop, Simon. Stop being a boob, and start being Simon."
"Well, if Simon is a boob, then how can he stop?" Simon shot back. River smiled then, and Simon deflated. She was right.
"Of course I'm right," River said airily. "I'm a genius. Practically never wrong. It's time to think about what's really bothering you, Simon, and stop taking your moods out on Jayne. Whether you want to see it or not, Jayne has changed, and for the better. That means you, too, must change. At least where he is concerned."
"Why are you so fascinated with him?" Simon tried to keep the whine from his voice. He really didn't want to fight with his sister. Her behavior the previous night had stung him. It had also, he admitted, forced him to examine his own behavior.
River had always been loyal to him, even to a fault. If she had seen him as wrong the previous evening, then he had to at least accept the fact that he might have been wrong.
"I'm not fascinated by him, silly," River placed her hand on his arm, squeezing warmly. "But he is my friend, Simon. He helped me. Helped me escape from the burden of guilt over so much death and destruction on my behalf. Willing or not, wanting or not, many, many, people died because of me. It was a great weight, Simon and it was crushing me. Suffocating me."
Simone frowned at that. Since Miranda, he'd rarely had to give River meds, other than the standard cocktail he had finally settled on that helped her function almost normally. There were times when she was 'less there', as she called it, but there had been no episodes since Miranda. Lately she had talked normally, acted normally, practically been the sister he had so missed.
"Jayne is my friend, Simon," River repeated. "Faced his greatest fear to help me. Held me when I cried in the night, and watched over me while I slept, to make sure I was safe, and wouldn't wake up alone." Simon went red at that.
"What did he do, River! Why was he. . ."
"Stop it!" River screamed. Not in terror, or pain, as she once would have, but in plain, old fashioned annoyance. "Stop it, Simon. Nothing wrongful has happened, or will. Jayne would sleep in a chair, while I slept on the sofa. So that if I woke in the night, I wouldn't be alone. That's all. Jayne has no interest in me, Simon, other than as a friend." Her voice held an almost wistful note at that, which Simon chose to ignore.
"I fail to see how an illiterate, half-ape man could help you when. . ." he began.
"When you couldn't?" River finished for him, smiling sadly. "Because he listened, Simon, when I talked. When I cried. Instead of running to get a syringe filled with enough sedative to make me sleep for a day, trapped in a nightmare. He didn't ignore me when I said I wasn't crazy, I was confused. He didn't ignore me when I said I didn't need medicine, I just needed help." Simon stopped short on that one, his eyes dropping to the floor.
He had always thought, no, he'd always believed, that the key to fixing his sister was a proper dose of medicines, along with sedatives to stop her episodes of insanity. He had never listened to her when she tried to talk to him about her treatment. He was the doctor. He knew what was best.
Reflecting, he recalled very few times when he'd tried to make sense of what River said when she was. . .confused. She had told him once that she could hear in her mind clearly what she wanted to say, but the words always came out wrong. His face reddened as he recalled his response. A syringe with enough sedative to make her sleep at least twelve hours.
Tears flowed unbidden to his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He looked up at his sister, and his face was a study of contrition, sorrow, and self-loathing.
"I. . .I'm so sorry, River," he managed to stammer. "I thought. . ."
"You thought you could fix her," River's sad smile played across her face again. "It's okay, Simon. I can't be 'fixed', just helped. But you did save me, Simon. You came for me when I was lost, and hurting, so alone, and so very afraid. You did that Simon. And you loved me, even broken. And that's enough, Simon. It's more than enough. You gave up a very good life to save me, ge ge, and I love you so much for that and everything else you've done for me." She stepped forward and embraced him.
"Now, please, give me back the brother who saved me."
Jayne was lifting weights when Simon found him. The big man was working harder than ever, and his already formidable bulk had increased. Simon studied the mercenary carefully, as he struggled with more weight than was probably safe. Just when Simon was sure the weight would crush the man, Jayne grunted loudly and pressed the weight above him again, letting it come to rest in the rack above him. When Jayne sat up and grabbed his towel, he saw Simon.
"Evening, Doc," Jayne nodded amiably. Simon started, not expecting the man to speak to him at all, let alone in a friendly manner.
"Jayne," Simon nodded back, and walked across the bay to stand near the bench. He stood there for a full two minutes, trying to gather his thoughts about him. Finally, Jayne simply looked up at him.
"Something on yer mind, Doc?" he asked politely. The words broke the spell of silence, and Simon nodded.
"I owe you an apology, Jayne," Simon said without preamble. "I've been a complete ass to you of late, and you haven't deserved it."
"Sure I have, Simon," Jayne answered with a chuckle, surprising Simon. "I treated you pretty bad for a long time. And you mostly took it, seems to me. Gotta be a evening of the balance somewhere. Reckon this is it." Simon shook his head negatively.
"Your actions, right or wrong, are no excuse for my behavior, Jayne," Simon argued. Jayne shrugged.
"Had a lot on your plate, Doc," he said after a minute. "Sometimes it boils over. Nothing to be ashamed of. Ain't a man alive sometimes don't get saddled with more than he can carry. You been carrying a heavy weight for a long time. Ain't natural a man don't get tired after a while, and I reckon you got to be tired."
Simon gaped, at a complete loss for words. He'd never expected to hear anything of the sort from Jayne Cobb.
"Look, Doc," Jayne continued. "I don't like you. Never have, and like as not, I won't like you any in the future, though the future ain't set in stone, as Book liked to say. But that's my problem. Mine, and not yours. It ain't my place to judge you, for good or bad. So, I'm gonna accept you as you are, Simon. We're too different I reckon, to be real friends. But I 'spect we can be shipmates easy enough. If you're willing." Jayne rose, and offered his hand to Simon, a sign of respect. Simon took the pro-offered hand carefully, but Jayne simply grasped the hand briefly and released it.
"Jayne, I don't know what to say," Simon admitted.
"Say 'okay', Doc. Or not," Jayne shrugged. "I'm gonna treat you as a shipmate whether you treat me that way or not, Simon. Whatever you decided won't change that, so be honest with me, and with yourself."
"You know, I had this whole speech thought out," Simon sputtered. "About how I'd been an ass, how I was wrong. Now here I am, trying to do the right thing, as least as far as I can see the right thing at this point, and you just up and say don't worry over it! That's. . ."
"Not fair?" Jayne asked with a grin. "Mebbe not, Doc. But there ain't no call for any apology. Least not to me. I earned everything you said about me, and probably then some. Can't be sure of that, o' course. Don't rightly know what you been saying behind my back." His grin robbed the words of their sting. "But I'm done keeping score, Simon. Done trying to be one up on you, or anyone else. I just plain don't care for it no more."
"You being here has saved us all at least once, to my way o' thinking. More than once for most of us. Me included. You pull your weight, and that really oughta be all that matters. So far as I'm concerned, it is." Simon didn't know what stunned him more. That he and Jayne were actually having a civil conversation, or that the larger man had stated that Simon pulled his weight.
"Jayne, I. . .thank you," was all he could manage.
"No thanks needed, Doc," Jayne said, throwing his towel over his shoulder. "We have to look out for one another. Ain't got no one else to do it."
"That's true," Simon nodded. "And you have been looking out for us, Jayne. You went along with us to Miranda, and then to Mister Universe's, and never said a word. I never even said thanks for that."
"Like I said, no thanks are needed. We're shipmates. We're all in this together. Was my fight as much as yours. Now, all this bonding is really nice, but I'm bushed. I'm gonna hit the shower, then the rack. Night, Simon." Jayne started toward the stairs.
"Night, Jayne." Simon watched the man go, and decided that, yes, his mei-mei was a genius. She had seen there was perhaps more to Jayne than the big man allowed to show.
Or he had simply changed. Either way, Simon felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Now, if only facing Mal would be as simple.