All disclaimers apply

Ch.10- There's a New Kid in Town

It wasn't hard to find Jayne- follow the sound of the clanking metal. River watched from the cargo bay entrance as he loaded up the bar and started pushing. She walked over to stand behind the bar. He ignored her.

"Talk to me." She figured she would start out civilized; more than likely this conversation was going to deteriorate rapidly.

Jayne tried to continue ignoring her but he couldn't help himself.

"Don't need to. Ya busy talkin' already." He wanted to add, to another man, but didn't. He figured she could read it in his head if she'd a mind to.

But sometimes women do not need to be mind readers to know what's going on with their men. Sometimes, when they're irritated, they simply broadcast their displeasure through their actions. Jayne tended to reserve all his subtlety for jobs, not for the home front. River sighed. Time to play 'pacify the five year old'.

"Jayne," she started, "my talking to David doesn't mean anything. It's been a while since I've met anyone I could talk to about all the things I used to study, that's all."

Oops. Jayne practically tossed the barbell back into its rest, sat up straight and looked her in the eye.

"Well, that's real nice for ya. Finally meetin' someone who may be as smart as ya and can talk to ya 'bout all those things ya been missin'. Good for you." He stood up and walked away.

River was stunned. She tried to follow him but was stopped by a buffeting wall of emotion thrown back off him. A rolling shock wave of anger, jealousy, and sadly, depression. The last thing she 'heard' before the wall came back up was 'suppose it's good she met someone good enough for her'.

She wanted to run after him, but her head hurt from his lashing out. She heard footsteps enter the bay.

"Are you all right?" David asked softly from behind her. She didn't turn, she didn't want anyone seeing the tears in her eyes.

"Yes, thank you," she replied quietly. "I don't feel well, I think I'll go lie down."

David watched her leave the cargo bay, shaking his head. That girl was much too pretty and smart to be crying over some rough, crude, gorilla who probably didn't have the first clue how to treat a woman properly. Well maybe it was time someone did treat her properly.

&&&&&&&

Two days later…

Mal curled his hand around his glass and took another swig. "Don't know who he thinks he is anyways, he's even snottier than the Doc ever was," he declared to whoever would listen.

'Whoever', currently consisted of himself, Zoe, and, the apparently ex-snotty doctor himself. The three crewmates were having a couple and reviewing the last couple of days aboard their now routine free existence. Most of the complaints around that upheaval circled back to David 'Cosmo' Janek. Okay, not most, all of them did.

"She was having tea!" exclaimed Mal.

"Imagine that, Sir. Inara having tea." Zoe was trying to be stoic, but she was annoyed as well.

Inara had docked early the previous morning after Wash had swung by one of the system's wealthier outer moons to pick her up. Mal was miffed that not only did she look tanned and relaxed, but a new diamond necklace lay curled around the inside of her collarbone. And the 'Core-to-Core' connection that immediately struck up between her and David didn't help things either.

Zoe took another swig. "Meanwhile my man is falling in love with him!"

Mal's and Simon's heads whipped around. "Wha!" "Huh?"

Zoe ignored their shocked expressions and continued. "For two days it's been nothing but 'David thinks that wire configuration would work better if we did this' and 'David can increase our sensor array if we do that'. I'm sick of it!"

Mal waved an unsteady arm through the air. "Tha's nothin'. He was pinky wavin' the tea cup and ev'rything!"

Simon sighed. "Well, I'd be worried too with the amount of time he's been spending in the engine room supposedly working on 'efficiency', if he wasn't so taken with River." He reached for the bottle to refill his glass.

Mal and Zoe stopped short at that last comment to stare open-mouthed at Simon. In all the time they had known him, he had never once spoken in a positive manner about his sister and another man in the same sentence. This was definitely new.

And potentially dangerous. It wasn't any big secret that River and a certain large, volatile mercenary had been getting closer for some time now. While Mal wasn't sure it was the best idea, he knew Zoe had been keeping an eye on things, and as long as she kept making the effort to keep Mal from getting involved, he knew that everything was under control. He was content to let Zoe run the riot patrol on the boat, she was still intimidating to everyone, including Jayne. The best first mate ever. In the whole 'verse. Okay, maybe he had had one drink too many about now.

But he had to try and think straight, because if Simon was getting involved there could only be trouble on the horizon. Mal was sure that Jayne was tolerating Simon's presence of late in an effort to please River. Why would Simon butt in now and wreck the peace on the boat?

A very female giggle meandered in from the common area. Mal leaned back to glimpse River and David leaning over his laptop computer intently focused on something. He had heard lapses of conversations these past couple of days in which not one word had made sense. Way over his head, all of it. He looked back to Simon, who was leaning back and watching them as well, looking very pleased with himself.

Well, now it was crystal clear to Mal why he hadn't seen hide nor hair of his mercenary for nearly two days. He sighed and looked at Zoe. She looked over at the two kids huddled together on the couch, looked back at Mal, and shrugged.

"We gonna be putting out explosions?" Mal asked her in a low voice.

"Not that I can see sir," Zoe said, jerking her head in the direction of the opposite doorway.

Through which Jayne entered quietly, without saying a word. He went straight to the cabinets, grabbed a bag of protein snacks, went over to the fridge and grabbed a water, then turned to leave. As his head turned past the table Mal heard a muttered acknowledgement, "Cap'n, Zoe," then Jayne's eyes met Simon's. Jayne nodded at Simon who nodded back, like two friends that had an understanding. Jayne turned and left.

Mal was stupefied. "What was that?" he grilled Simon.

Simon shrugged. "Maybe Jayne just wants what's best for River, just like I do," he said. He looked back towards the common area. "And maybe he knows that maybe that's not him."