Chapter 7: Old Wounds


See Chapter 1 for disclaimers, etc.

Author's Note: This has been an intensely problematic chapter to write - it's been rewritten more often than any part of the series to date. I hope it works now - I'm at the point where I can't even tell any more. But in better news, I saw Jewel Staite at Supanova Pop Culture Expo and she signed my copy of 'Finding Serenity', which still makes me squee. She did a Q&A session as well, was funny and clever and articulate, and if any of my readers were actually there, you heard me speak - I was the one who blithered out the incoherent question about Zoe and Kaylee's relationship. (She said Kaylee saw Zoe as a Momma Bear - it's from the actor's mouth! It's Practically Canon! I am so putting that in!) Ahem - fangirl squealing aside, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. Must go finish 'Serenity Found' now, and if you don't have a copy, why not? It's Essays About Firefly! Goodness abounds!


Mal, despite a certain amount of evidence to the contrary, wasn't stupid.

He'd been a leader of men and women for a long time. He knew the relief of victory, that did away everyone's differences for a while because they were alive and safe and too happy to let little things annoy them. And he knew that it didn't last, and that tempers were like to get a little short for a while as his people tried to settle into their lives again.

He could sense tension now, and he wanted to get back into the Black. The crew would settle easier once things were back to normal. Jayne was testy this morning, and Inara had hinted that things weren't quite right with his family. River was too quiet, Simon was twitchy, and Zoe looked tired and wrung-out. She was spending nearly all her time either working on Serenity or at the hospital with Wash, and Mal conjured as she wouldn't be sleeping properly until her man was home and her home was fixed.

"One more full day, Captain, that's the minimum, and then only if you pay enough to double the men I have working. There's two sections of hull left to replace, and there's no way to fudge that or leave it for later. She'd come apart in re-entry, way she is now." Big blond 'Ric leaned against a newly repaired railing, looking down into a hold that now looked reasonably like itself again. "Three days, otherwise."

Mal frowned. His budget was holding better than he'd hoped so far - Javert had been generous in the rewards paid out for 'services to the Alliance' - but he'd hoped to save some against lean times in the future. On the other hand, he'd rather spend it now on getting his ship fixed than in two days on bailing Jayne out of jail or getting Simon put back together after he got himself broke for being aggressively Core-born. "You got the men?"

'Ric nodded. "Should be done tomorrow night at the latest, if that's what you want. You'll be leaving atmo by dawn day after tomorrow."

Mal nodded. "Do it." Kissing all that money goodbye hurt, but they were still all right. They had most of the cash from that gorram bank job left, and with Simon and River no longer wanted fugitives, work should be easier to find.

The ache in his wallet left him tetchy, though, and it didn't get any better when he found half of Jayne's multitudinous and noisy family all over his ship yet again, even though the clean-up had officially ended yesterday. "What the gorram hell are they doing here?" he demanded of Zoe, forgetting that he'd been meaning to go easy around her until Wash was tucked up in their quarters again.

"Bringing back laundry and so on, an' helping me move my stuff," Zoe said, a little sharply. "Sir."

Mal frowned. "Move what stuff?"

"All due respect, sir, how the hell do you think Wash would get up and down that gorram ladder with only one leg?" Zoe looked as startled at the shout that had come out of her own mouth as Mal had felt hearing it. "I... sorry, sir. I'm a little tense."

"Understandable." Mal touched her shoulder, forgiveness and apology all in one. "How you workin' things?"

"Simon's moving into one of the smaller passenger cabins, letting me and Wash take the bigger one. It was his idea - I wouldn't have put him out, but he insisted." Zoe's tense, weary expression softened some. "Wash is gonna need a lot of help for a while. Simon keeps remindin' me that he's right there if I need him. I'm like to smack him if he does it again, truth be told, but..."

Mal nodded, feeling his throat tighten a smidge. "Don't rightly know what we'd do without the doc, these days."

"Hard to recall, ain't it?" Zoe smiled slightly. "He and Kaylee might like the bigger cabin, if Jayne and River don't get to it first."

"We'll see." Mal sighed. "I paid 'Ric extra to get the job done. We should be clear to leave tomorrow night or first thing morning after. How soon until the crowd clears out?"

"Shouldn't be but a few hours more." Zoe sighed. "It'll be good to get home."

"Yeah." Mal itched to be free of dirty buildings and noisy strangers. He wanted sky around him and his own ship humming under his boots. "Wash clear to leave tomorrow?"

"Should be. Simon coulda signed him out a day or two ago, but he said a few more days of physiotherapy would help, while they're goin'."

"Well, good. You get it set up for him to be here tomorrow."


Jayne had successfully avoided Bess all morning. He figured he'd have to see her again at least once more, but if he held off until it was time to say goodbye, maybe she wouldn't pick no more fights.

He was keeping clear of River, too. They'd made up for last night's abstinence this morning, but once they were up and doing his bad mood had settled in again. He didn't want to snap at her, so he'd shooed her off to help Kaylee fiddle around with the post-repair calibrations and tidy-up. River had made it known that she wasn't offended by kissing him until he couldn't walk straight before she went, but she'd respected his wanting to be alone, which he appreciated.

Unfortunately, avoiding River and Bess hadn't left him any attention left for dodging his pa. It was the first time he and Flynn had been alone together since Jayne was fifteen. Since he'd left.

"You busy?" Flynn asked quietly, standing firmly between Jayne and any exits.

"Some." Jayne resisted the urge to look around for help. River'd come running if he really needed rescuing, he was reasonable sure of that, but sooner or later he was going to have to face this. Might as well get all the angry-makin' stuff over in one go. "Just shiftin' these crates. Techs got 'em stacked up all anyhow."

Most of the crates were empty. Some were filled with the odds and ends that he figured all smugglers picked up. Mal was never one to turn down a job lot of slightly-worn blankets, say, or a few water-filters. A buyer would show up some time, and having some legit cargo was always useful. Either way, Jayne had been stacking cargo in this hold for more'n two years now, and he didn't like having some dumb tech come and move all his crates about and making a mess.

Flynn nodded. "Can't have things lyin' all anyhow," he said quietly. "Saves work in the long run, keeping things neat."

He'd always said that, as long as Jayne could remember. Jayne had been twenty-two when he realized why he always kept his bunk reasonably tidy, and his girls spotless. He'd tried to learn messy out of sheer cussedness, but it hadn't worked. "Yeah. Kick them two little ones over to that side, wouldja?"

Flynn did, moving a shade slower than Jayne remembered. The old man was still in prime shape, for his age, but that age was coming up on sixty. If he'd worked the mines he'd have had to stop working years ago, but a skilled welder in a factory could hold on longer, training the youngsters and doing the fiddly things that took more skill than strength. Even so, he'd have to retire soon.

Gave Jayne an uncomfortableness, thinking on his Pa being too old to work.

"You're still set on going," Flynn said quietly. "You wouldn't be workin' so hard at dodgin' your ma otherwise."

"Ain't the only reason. She's got herself set against River, an' I ain't of a mood to explain myself on that subject." Jayne shifted the big crate over to its spot against the wall. It was empty, but Mal had held onto it on account of River liked to sit up there. He hadn't admitted it, of course, and Jayne hadn't said anything either, when he found a spot that commanded a view of the whole hold, and rigged a couple of clamps so it'd always be steady for little dancing feet.

"She'd take to River quicker if you settled, did the right thing by the girl." Flynn frowned. "Two of you are keepin' company, any fool could see that. I raised you better'n that."

"Yup." Jayne gritted his teeth on a few pithy comments that'd make his position a lot clearer. "I ain't the settlin' kind. She knows that."

"You may think she does," Flynn said, disapproval open in his voice now. "But she's young and crazy about you. You really think she's expecting you to have your way and move on?"

Jayne straightened up so fast his back twinged. "I ain't gonna! Why's everyone so gorram convinced I'm gonna treat her bad?" he shouted. "Only one don't think I'm a lecherous hun dan for takin' up with her is the gorram Shepherd, and if he thinks the right thing by River is takin' care of her and lettin' her get her feet back under her again, then that's what I'm gonna do!"

Flynn frowned, eyebrows lowering ominously. "If you're so damn set on the girl, why ain't you doing right by her and - "

"I am! We been involved two gorram weeks!" Jayne heard footsteps on the catwalk above him, but he ignored them. He'd had just about enough of this. "And I don't give a fucking damn what you think about us sharing a bunk! You think it's immoral an' Mal thinks I'm taking advantage and you know what? Screw you! You and your damn backwoods sanctimonious go se, so sure you know what's right and what's good and not knowing a damn thing!"

He was backing Flynn across the hold. He didn't care. True fury had a grip on him now. "You been ducking saying it ever since I got back, so go on! Say it! Tell me what you wanted to say twenty ruttin' years ago when you found out I was gone!"

Flynn stopped backing, fists clenched as tight as Jayne's were. "Things got heated then, Jayne, things got said as weren't meant - "

"I meant every word I said!"

"You ran out on your family!" Flynn shouted, stepping forward so they were all but nose to nose. Jayne realized faintly through the haze of fury that he was a shade taller. "We needed you!"

"That weren't my fault! Weren't my job to fend for them, it was yours!" Twenty years had scabbed over that bitter resentment so he'd almost forgotten it. Now Flynn had torn the scab off and it ran as hot as ever. "I spent four gorram years working every odd job I could find, trying to help out, but it didn't never stop, and you and Ma leaned on me harder and harder and then you wanted me to start workin' in the factory and I'da died first!"

"It was a good job - "

"I couldn't live like that!" Jayne shook his head, fighting for the words. Please, just this one time, let it come out right. "I'da gone stir-crazy in a week. You know how bad it was even before... the fights, and the thievin', and there was worse you never knew about. It's the way I am, Pa, an' not all the tryin' in the world will change it."

Flynn shook his head mulishly. "You weren't ever a bad kid, Jayne, just a bit wild. If you'd tried - "

"If he'd tried, he'd have broken someone's head inside a month," Mal said coolly, from somewhere above and to the left. "The one time I took Jayne to a company-run moon, weren't two days 'fore he'd been charged with grand theft, incitement to revolution, murder, and licentious behaviour in public. Can't speak to the licentious behaviour, havin' missed that, but wild Jayne is and is like to remain. Man don't change his nature."

Jayne nodded, the anger trickling away and leaving cold resentment in its wake. He'd never asked his family to be something else than what they were, not ever. And they'd never asked him for anything else. "Every family got its bad apple, Pa," he said, finding his throat hoarse from shouting. "I'm yours. Always was, always will be. I done what I could - I didn't ever bring any trouble of mine home to you, an' I sent money when I had it - but ain't no will or wishin' in the world could make a good man of me."

"That ain't true," Bess said, her voice trembling. Jayne turned, tracking her voice, and found her standing on the stairs. All the crew were there, standing around, and his sisters, and the only comfort in the world for him at that moment was seeing River there, looking at him with soft, understanding eyes as Bess continued. "It ain't, you're not..."

"I am," Jayne said, and shame was rising up through the resentment now. "Ain't no low-down thing in the 'verse I ain't done... 'cept I never did hurt a woman a-purpose, unless she attacked me first, nor a kid, neither. That much stayed with me. But I've lied and cheated and stole, spent most of my money on drink and whores, killed and tortured for pay and thrown my own partner outta a skiff 'cause it was him or the money. I signed on with Serenity when I had Mal an' Zoe at gun-point, 'cause they offered me a better deal than the man hired me to track them, an' I shot him when they paid me to."

The silence was awful. Jayne's stomach tightened until he was half-afraid he was going to be sick.

"That's not the whole story, of course," said a cool, Core-bred voice, and he turned to look at Simon in surprise. So did everyone else.

"I'm sorry to interrupt a family argument," Simon said, truly sounding apologetic. "But Jayne isn't being entirely truthful. I don't doubt that everything he said happened..." He glanced up at Mal and Zoe, who nodded agreement, "...but he didn't tell you everything. In the last eight months, he and I have agreed on anything maybe twice, so I'm sure I qualify as unbiased."

"Guess you would," Flynn said, and his voice had a strange, choked sound.

"I have seen him charge into a hopeless battle to rescue Mal from a psychotic despot, even though we all know he's long wanted to command Serenity himself," Simon said quietly. "I have seen him take on two Feds, even though he was battered and handcuffed, to protect myself and River, even though he despised both of us, because he knew they would hurt her if they took her away. He is braver than he will admit, and, in his way, fiercely protective of his crew."

"And he shows respect."

Jayne still felt as if he'd been turned upside-down and shaken, having Simon speak up for him like that. They'd had a moment or two of being able to stand each other lately, but it still made him feel a little sick to his stomach, after Ariel. He wasn't sure he'd ever be completely easy with the doc talking him up like he was some kind of hero.

But that was nothing to hearing Inara speak up for him too. Everyone was looking at her now, looking like a perfect, flawless doll even in her simple blue robe. She looked down at Jayne with a softer expression than she'd ever turned on him before. "He shows respect," she said again. "Most men... even the best of men... are inclined to look down on women. Certain kinds of women, anyway." Standing beside her, Mal shifted uneasily.

"Jayne doesn't. I honestly don't think he realizes how rare it is - and I doubt many others in this cargo hold do, either - but when a prostitute remembers a client with real fondness, as someone who respects her and treats her with consideration, that says a lot about a man." Her eyes held Jayne's, and he squirmed guiltily inside, remembering a lot of not-at-all respectful thoughts he'd had about 'Nara, even if he hadn't said most of them aloud. "He's decent to those who many others think are below decency, and that counts for something."

"An' he's been so good to River," Kaylee said earnestly. "Long 'fore they was sweet on each other, he was talkin' to her and playin' with her and stuff. She got so much better when he started listening to her."

That was too much. Eloquence from Simon and Inara on his behalf had knotted his stomach up with guilt, but having sweet, sunny Kaylee take up for him again, talking on how good he'd been to River when what he'd been doing was making her into a killer like himself...

"Stop it. Just... stop it!" Kaylee froze, her mouth open, as he suddenly shouted again. "I know you're tryin' to help, but I ain't like that, an' you know it! Mal's always known I was gonna sell him out someday, and Zoe's known she'd be the one to shoot me when I did, and..." His voice cracked unmanfully, because it hurt worse than he could stand to have them talking on him like he was worth something when he knew he wasn't. "If you think all that's true, then you're stupider than them mudders back on Canton, 'cause at least they'd never met me in person an' you have! You know better!"

He couldn't stand the way they were all looking at him. He turned, shoving his way past Flynn and hurrying down the ramp. He had to get out, right now.


River couldn't go after Jayne when he stormed down the ramp. She wanted to, but if she let go of the railing she would hurt someone.

Part of her wanted to, the angry, uncontrolled part where the training was - they had hurt her stone, and her training screamed to hurt them all. Another part was crying, torn and bleeding as Jayne was bleeding inside, because they were so tied together now that she couldn't shut out his pain.

With no stone to ground her, she clung to the healing Serenity, listening for the song that echoed faintly through steel and ceramic.

"He's just... he's upset, is all," Kaylee was saying, worried because Jayne's mother was crying. "There's been so much goin' on..."

"River, are you all right?" Simon touched her, and she twitched away. Touching might make the angry part too loud to ignore. "River?"

"I told you," River whispered. "He walked proudly with virtue beside him, because he knew he didn't merit it. Knows he's bad, doesn't deserve soft words spoken on him."

Finally Simon was starting to understand her, and he nodded. "Is he going to be all right?"

River felt tears sting eyes that she knew were dry. "He hurts. Had to open up all the old wounds, let the poison out, but it makes him feel them all over again."

She let go of the rail slowly, ready to catch hold again if she had to. Jayne hurt, and it drew her to him, the sad part of her stronger than the angry part. "I'll go find him. We'll be gone a while." She went carefully down the stairs, passing Bess in silence and heading directly for the door.

David was there - he'd been helping, or complaining while pretending to help - and he caught her arm. "It ain't safe to - "

River yanked her arm out of his grip and dislocated his flapping jaw with a kick that had been powerful even before the Academy. He fell down, and she stepped daintily over him and continued walking.

"Yeah, it's not a good idea to grab River if she don't want you to," Zoe said behind her, with exquisite dryness. "Or any woman, for future reference."

River followed Jayne.

She was forced to discourage two men who wanted to press invitations upon her, which slowed her down. When she found Jayne, he was already settled at a corner table in a grimy bar, drinking fast and hard, hoping to numb the pain inside him. She watched for a little while, and then went over to him, sitting down silently beside him.

Jayne flinched away from her, which made her ache. "I can't talk on it," he whispered, almost desperate.

"Shh." She took the bottle and poured another measure for him. "Not talking now."

By pouring the drinks she managed to slow him a little, and he wasn't too drunk when the next act began. She put the bottle aside, and he spoke for the first time in an hour. "Gimme that. Ain't done."

"No more time for drinking," she whispered. "Listen. The music's starting."

He looked around, and she saw him realize where they were. A low bar, near to the spaceport. Crews of many ships. The kind of place that long habit had brought him to... and the kind of place it wasn't wise to be just now. Even as they watched, a man whose coverall showed the patches of an Alliance transport brushed past a man in the grimy canvas and leather of a Rim trader, jostling him.

"Spark," River whispered.

Jayne's blood raced. A fight would help. A good, dirty fight, a rush of adrenaline to block out the guilt and shame. It had worked for years, and even drunk, he knew it would help him now. But he tried to rein himself in, even though it hurt, looking down at her anxiously. He wasn't sure she could handle it yet.

She lifted the bottle he'd been drinking from, taking a good mouthful to remind her not to taste the blood, then grinned up at him. "I want to dance."

So they danced.

She'd seen in his dreams how she looked to him, when she fought. Not a killing-machine, not a monster... his deadly killer-woman, dancing with death, touching the fire that was always in him. Jayne loved this dance. He heard a song that was like and unlike Serenity's... a fast, passionate concerto, this, the music of adrenaline and pain and unthinking action, from the arpeggio of breaking glass to the driving beat of a pounding heart.

He'd wanted to dance it with her, then, even in her madness.

Now they danced together, through a brawl that might have been the tinder to the pyre that was the city, and left silence in their wake. She didn't kill, or at least she tried not to - it muddied the fight, lessened the purity of the dance. She and Jayne moved around and through each other, the third new way they'd joined, and none could stand before them.

And then they stood, the only ones left standing, and looked at each other.

And River laughed. "No power in the 'verse can stop me."

He grinned back, reaching out to catch her hand and drawing her to him. "Last thing I want is t' stop you."

They left the bar, and barely reached the minimal privacy of an alley before the fire in their blood overwhelmed them both. They coupled urgently, earning scrapes from the rough wall and bruises from clutching fingers, neither caring. The boarding-house was too far away and they found a room that wasn't clean but was private enough to finish what had only been begun in the alley.

As soon as passion was sated, she nestled into his arms and they slipped free of weary flesh into their own private world.


Jayne had hoped he'd be too tired to dream. He should have known better.

Although this one was new.

"I tried to make it concrete," River said from behind him, as he looked around. "It's easier for you if you can see things. Did I get it right?"

It took him a minute to work out what she meant. At first the place had just looked weird - a lot of roads twisting around each other like noodles, going through empty space. There were a bunch higher up than where he was standing - on one of the highest, he saw Kaylee and Simon walking hand-in-hand in the sunlight, on a path with lots of little flowers and stuff. A bit further down, Inara was strolling along a shady path that was all green and alive. Zoe and Wash were sitting on the edge of the same one, talking, but Mal was lower still. His road wasn't so pretty, but he kept looking up at Inara like he was trying to figure a way to get to hers.

"Life paths." River tucked her hand into his, and he felt her cheek brush his arm. "No darkness in Simon and Kaylee. They walk in sunshine. There are shadows for Inara, but peace, too. Wash found his way up there from one of the bad paths, and Zoe followed him. Ba ba hasn't found the way yet, but he's close."

Jayne looked at the road he was on. Weren't no plants or flowers for him, just grimy concrete. A few spent shells were scattered across the ground, gleaming dully, and further on he saw a huddled body. He swallowed hard. He knew this was what he deserved. One of the bad paths. He'd picked it his own self, hadn't he? "I don't want you comin' down on this one with me," he said quietly. "I ain't a good man, bao bei." He'd never used the endearment aloud before, not even in their dreams.

"I know." She tugged on his arm, so he turned to look at her proper, and he realized she looked the way she had on Universe's moon, afterwards... blood soaking her green shirt, sticking her loose hair to her face, covering her boots so she left bloody footprints. "What use would a good man be to me?"

Jayne hadn't thought on it like that before, but he shook his head. "What use would I be to you? I mean, I take care of you good, but..."

River sighed gustily. "Shh. I'll show you so it makes sense." She snuggled up to his arm again. "You need nice simple metaphors, I've noticed that. But it's all right. Visual metaphor is easier for me than rhetoric, anyway."

"What-or-rick?"

River shook her head and pointed. "This is how it was."

He saw her and Simon, much younger, on another path he hadn't noticed before. This one was kind of nice - lots of square stones and carved stone lanterns and things - but there weren't no growing things. River was dancing, and Simon was moving on ahead, calling to her over his shoulder, and then... some kind of big thing, that Jayne couldn't see proper and knew he didn't want to, snatched River off the path and dragged her down.

He expected her to wind up on the road they were on now, but they kept going down. Leaning over, he saw a whole mess more paths and roads below his, which was reasonable bright for all there weren't no sunlight. The thing dragged River onto a path made of blue glass and machine-parts, and the Blue Hands he and River had killed grabbed her.

Jayne reacted without thinking, reaching for his gun... and finding nothing. He looked at River in surprise - she'd always dreamed his guns up for him before.

"Shh," she said sadly, holding tight to his hand as she watched. "It's all past now. Can't help. Just watch."

Simon ran back and forth on his own path, looking down at River. He called to her, holding out his hand, but she was a hundred metres below him. He dropped a rope, after a while, and seemed to pull River out of the grabbing hands, but she was still on the bad blue path and she couldn't seem to get up the rope, nor Simon down.

Kaylee showed up, on a bend of the flower-path that came close to Simon's one, and she called him and tried to get him to come up. Simon looked up at her like he wanted to, but he was still holding his useless rope and wouldn't budge.

"Now you see," River said seriously. "He tried and tried, but he couldn't go where I was. Couldn't understand the darkness because he has none."

Down below, River had abandoned the rope and found a staircase. That got her off the blue path, but the path she'd found was all jumbled rocks and weird flashing lights that did nothing to make the road less dark. A crazy road?

"Very crazy. And Simon can't even find that one, see?" Simon was looking lost, up on his prim stone road. Kaylee looked sad, kneeling down and reaching towards him. Simon was close enough to take her hand if he wanted to, but he kept looking for River instead.

River picked her way along the crazy road for a while, cutting up her hands and feet on the stones, whimpering sometimes and other times going all blank-eyed. Everyone tried to reach her - Inara and Zoe and Wash from the grassy road, Mal from his sandy, scrubby one, even Kaylee from up so high she couldn't hardly even see River, and Book from a twisty one made of all stairs going up and up and up, but never getting anyplace.

But they were too far away. The only road that did go close to the crazy road was Jayne's, and after a minute he saw himself stop like he heard something, then turn around and go over to the edge. River shouted something he was too far away to hear, and the other Jayne nodded, kneeling on the edge of his road and fiddling with something. He dropped down a rope ladder, and River tried to climb it, but her hands were slick with blood and she couldn't hold on.

Jayne could see his own mouth moving and his eyes rolling up to heaven, and just knew he was swearing, but the other Jayne still climbed down the ladder, hoisted River over his shoulder, and dragged her back up to the bleak road he'd been on all along. River looked kind of lost, but the other Jayne handed her a gun and took her free hand, leading her along.

"You see?" His own River looked up at him. "Fell too far, couldn't climb back up, and nobody from the upper reaches could find me. Needed someone near the middle, who isn't afraid of the dark."

Jayne nodded. Maybe he should be ashamed of needing her to make such a big complicated dream, but it was easier to understand this way. Someone as gentle and sunshiny as Kaylee... or someone as prissy but noble as Simon... just plain couldn't find River in the dark place where she'd been. She'd needed someone who could understand what the Academy had done to the little girl who'd been dancing along in Simon's wake.

She nodded. "I can't undo what they did," she said seriously. "Can't be the dancer again, innocent and joyful. I've been changed." She looked down at herself, all covered with blood, and back up at him. "This is what I am. You saw it and you weren't afraid."

"Only thing scared me was that I mighta lost you," Jayne said quietly, because it was true.

"You couldn't make my nightmares go away." River touched his cheek lightly. "But you taught me how to stop them from being nightmares. You put weapons in my hands and told me I could choose when to use them, you put my feet on the ground and showed me that fighting could be a dance too. Fallen, but not damned."

Jayne swallowed on a most unmanful tightness in his throat. "Wish I was a better man, even so," he said, wrapping her up in his arms and holding her close. He liked how she fitted in his arms, small enough to wrap right up and hide against him. "For you."

"I wish I were a better girl," River said. "We'll work on it. But you're not a bad man. Not good, not bad... just a man, whole and flawed. Amoral and sentimental, kind and selfish. Middling."

Jayne managed a little laugh. "You sayin' I'm average, girl?"

"Sometimes." She rubbed her cheek against his grimy t-shirt. "Done bad things. Done some good ones, too. Work in progress."

Jayne knew he wasn't a good man. It had pained him to hear Kaylee and Simon, who were so damn innocent still, talking on him like he was. But having River, who ought to know, tell him that he wasn't so bad, that he was kind of middling, maybe set to get better in time... he could believe that. Could live with it.

"Good. It hurt, having you all angry and sad inside." River kissed his chest, and tipped her head back to smile up at him. "And look where our path goes."

Jayne looked. Theirs made a big loop, sloping up some, all around the paths where the others were - except Book, who'd found himself a level place and was preaching to a collection of folk Jayne recognized from Haven. "I guess that means we're on guard, huh?"

"Keep the sunshine safe." River nodded, giving Simon and Kaylee a fond look. "We'll be Rangers."

He blinked. "We'll be what?"

"A story from Earth That Was. A country full of little people who were happy and kind and peaceful, but only safe because the Rangers guarded them and killed anyone who wanted to hurt them." River nodded. "We'll be Rangers, and there'll be little Washlings and Simonlets who won't be afraid of the dark because they'll know we're in it, looking after them."

"Simonlets, huh?" Jayne grinned. "You know he's fixin' to propose already?"

"Simon is a hopeless romantic." River grinned back at him. "There's no certainty yet, but he's improving his odds by the minute."

"Good. Kaylee deserves someone who'll court her proper, make her feel like a girl 'steada just a mechanic." It was easier to say such softlike things when they were dream-talking. "Did you want to?"

River rolled her eyes at him. "Jayne, we dream each other's dreams and clean each other's guns. Further commitment would be completely superfluous."

He snickered. "Well, yeah, but I woulda if you really wanted to."

"The thought is appreciated." River sighed. "I cannot reciprocate," she said, looking sad all of a sudden. "There will be no Jayneling or Riverlet, even if you really want one."

Jayne blinked. "Well, good, 'cause I don't. I left home on account of I couldn't stand being held responsible for anyone but my own self. I'll bend that some for you, on account of I know you'll look out for me as much as I will for you, but I draw the line at spawnin'. Never wanted 'em, never will."

River looked relieved. "Really?"

"Never could see the appeal," Jayne admitted. "They're stinky, they're noisy, and they suck the life and the money right outta you. I can put up with 'em all right when they're old enough to talk to, but I'll leave havin' 'em to the crazy folk who actually like the things."

River nodded, giving him a tight hug around the middle. "I think I'll like babies," she said, a little doubtfully. "When I meet some. But if the Academy comes back in ten years or twenty, they'll find no new Rivers to toy with, not from me. And there are too many people in me already. I don't think adding another would be wise."

Jayne nodded, ducking down to kiss the top of her crowded little head. "Good, then it's all settled. No spawn for us. We'll just guard the Washlings and Simonlets." He paused. "How many is there gonna be?"

River shrugged. "All just probabilities, at this point. But most likely at least one of each."

Jayne thought about little baby wails in the middle of the night, the clatter of tiny feet on decking, endless repetitions of 'why' and 'no'... and he grinned. "Mal's gonna hate it."

"Mal is the patriarch of a clan, and must accept the necessity of little spawnlings." River grinned. "He'll get used to it."


dong ma - you understand?

Wu dong - I understand

Ba ba - daddy

Ju guei - giant tortoise

xiao teng - little dragon

Da Ge oldest brother

Bu Jing Chuan - whale-hunting vessel, whale-chaser

Bu Lai - good, fine

You Xiu Li - Excellent Repairs

Hui zhen - Poisonous filth (I think)

Yao guai - monsters, demons

luan qi ba zao - a huge mess.

d sha gua - fool, idiot, jerk, or 'big silly melon'. (I swear, that's what the translation said!)

mei mei - little sister

ge ge - older brother

Feng Guang - Scenic View, the POW camp where Wash was held during the war.

Bao tu - thug

Pigu - ass

Jing Ai - respectful love

Go se - dog excrement

Bao bei - beloved, sweetheart