It was a bad day for River Tam. Her throat was sore from yelling and everything was fuzzy. Her room was suffocating her, but she couldn't move to leave it.
"I gotta look where?" Jayne shouted into the radio.
"Oh, I just like telling you to do it!" Simon shouted in return. "Would you just look and see if the tian sha de baby is crowing?"
It was a bad day for Jayne Cobb, too. Stuck on Serenity with the girl who wasn't supposed to be in labor for another couple of weeks wasn't his idea of a good day spent. This was certainly not what he'd had in mind a couple hours earlier when he'd thought about getting some trim. But Simon had needed to buy supplies himself- things for the delivery, no less- and everyone else had things that they had to do themselves… whoring just wasn't a priority with some people.
"Yeah," he grumbled into the radio. "It is."
Simon swore again and Jayne found himself impressed by the up-tight doctor's vocabulary. "We're not going to be back in time. Jayne, tell River to push and be ready to catch the baby."
At that moment, River screamed again and knocked the radio out of Jayne's hand. "Ni ta ma de tian-xia suo-you de ren dou gai si!" she screeched. "Jayne Cobb, just catch my gorram baby!"
River was more than a little terrifying at that volume, and Jayne had no problem admitting it. He turned back to do as he was ordered and very shortly afterward, he was holding the tiniest person he had ever seen.
The instant she was delivered of the baby, River feel limply back against her pillow, and for a second, Jayne thought she was dead. But she opened her eyes and said, "Cut the umbilical cord or she won't start breathing."
Jayne tied it off and cut the cord with the knife strapped to his ankle. River was instructing him on the proper way of cleaning off the baby when she pitched forward again, clearly in pain but not shouting.
"That's the placenta- it's perfectly normal," Simon said, running in, Kaylee and the rest of the crew on his heels. Aborsbed with being a doctor, he quickly checked his sister over, then smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "Good work, mei-mei." Kaylee and Inara took the baby from Jayne to clean her properly, and then Simon did something wholly unexpected. He shook Jayne's hand and said, "Thank you, Jayne. Thank you for being here for River."
He shifted rather uncomfortably at the sincerity on Simon's face and muttered, "Weren't nuthin.'"
Rather uncomfortable with sight of a nearly-naked River, Mal stood uncomfortably in the doorway, looking up at the ceiling. "So, lil' Albatross, you gonna finally tell us this girl's name, or we stickin' with nian qing-de?"
The world was much better now. River nodded and smiled tiredly as Inara placed the clean and tightly wrapped baby in her arms and Kaylee tucked a blanket around her to keep the Captain from being so twitchy. She was so new, and so quiet. "Meadow Jayne Tam." She looked slyly up and Jayne and said, "See? Jayne's a girl's name."
>>>>
tian sha de : goddamned
Ni ta ma de tian-xia suo-you de ren dou gai si: Fuck everyone in the universe to death
nian qing-de: young one