Disclaimer: The wonderful characters and the good ship Serenity all belong to Joss Whedon, or Mutant Enemy, or Fox, or whoever actually owns them, and that person or entity is definitely not me. Written for amusement purposes only. No copyright infringement intended or implied.

Rating: T, with rough language warning. May go up for later chapters.

Summary: Eight months after Miranda, the crew of Serenity still struggles to adapt to the "new normal." Constructing, and deconstructing, moments of her life, River attempts to assimilate her new and sometimes painful feelings for Jayne. - - Rayne, but will touch on other relationships. Post-BDM, of course.

Chapter 10: Eight

Kaylee moved cautiously into the sitting area, a little bundle wrapped in a yellow and white cotton blanket held protectively against her chest. The bundle squirmed slightly and made some small, squeaky noises. Kaylee, enchanted, looked up reluctantly as River ran excitedly down the stairs, followed more sedately by Inara and then Jayne.

The mechanic's golden brown eyes were shining as she tilted the wrapped infant so that they could see his little face.

"We got us a baby!" She squealed in hushed awe.

"Ohhhh!' River exclaimed in adoration as she saw the baby for the first time. He was so cute, but…oh dear…

"Ugh!" Jayne interjected almost simultaneously, jerking back in surprise. "What the hell happened to its head?"

"Don't let Zoë hear you!" Inara hissed at him furiously. "It's perfectly normal for the head to be a little elongated like that right after birth! It'll go away soon."

"Normal or not, kid still looks like a gorram alien," Jayne insisted, retreating from the baby a little bit, his expression distrustful and more than a little creepified. "Its - its eyes are … followin' me," he whispered.

The baby's dark eyes blinked their puffy lids in sleepy puzzlement – who the hell are all you people? – and he pursed his tiny mouth in a tiny circle, causing the women to coo excitedly.

"He's perfectly lovely," River breathed. "Fresh baby! Look at his little fingers!" She fawned over his miniscule hand, and then touched the tip of a gentle finger to the tiny bump of a nose in the middle of the baby's dusky red, wrinkled face. It made River smile to see little tufts of fair hair, still damp from Kaylee's wipe down, peeking out from under the blanket. "He's got blond hair!"

"You think he looks more like Wash or Zoë?" Kaylee asked River.

"Looks more like an alien," Jayne muttered. They ignored him.

"I can't tell, yet. He's so quiet. Has he cried at all?" River wondered. Wasn't it normal for babies to cry when they were born? Was something wrong? She didn't sense any sort of anxiety from Simon or Zoë.

Inara and Kaylee both laughed.

"Has he!" Inara remarked with a curious smile. "I can't believe you two didn't hear him upstairs!"

We were – distracted, River thought. Without raising her head she looked for Jayne. When their eyes met, he turned away uneasily. River wondered with an ache of disappointment exactly what would have happened if Inara hadn't decided to come and find her.

Mal came out of the infirmary with a rapid pace to his step, looking harassed.

"Uh, Kaylee, Simon needs you in there again. Right now."

"Probably for the episiotomy," Inara said serenely.

Mal winced. "That would be it."

"Oh, okay." Kaylee turned to River and held the baby out a little. "You want to hold him while I help Simon?"

River shook her head quickly and stepped back. "He's so little…" She didn't trust herself yet with anything so tiny and fragile. She was more comfortable with big things: spaceships, and…battle axes.

"Let's take him back to Zoë, Kaylee. Even if she can't hold him right now it will help her to see him." Inara held out her arms, and Kaylee carefully transferred the baby into them.

"Hey," Jayne called as they went into the infirmary, "she pick out a name yet?"

"Yes," Inara said unhelpfully, still annoyed with him, just as Kaylee closed the door behind them.

"Well, what is it?" Jayne demanded in frustration. He looked at Mal. "Do you know? I hope to god it ain't Simon."

"S'worse," Mal said with studied gloom. "I tried to talk her out of it."

"So it's Malcolm, then?" Jayne asked sardonically, lifting an eyebrow.

Mal sighed dramatically. "Never thought a woman would be that cruel to her child, but seein' as how you two have gotten so close as of late…"

River suppressed a smile. She knew what Zoë had decided months ago if the baby was a boy. She watched as Jayne took the bait, his eyes lighting up in pleased surprise.

"You ain't sayin'…?" Jayne began slowly, and River could almost see him mouthing 'Li'l Jayne' to himself. Suddenly his narrowed gaze swept from Mal to River, and he made a sound of disgust. "Naw. Crazy here can't keep a straight face for nothin'. What is it really?"

River's surprise was reflected in her expression. Was she that easy to read?

Mal grinned. "Don't play no tall card with him, River."

"No one ever invites me to play, anyway," she shrugged.

"That would be because you can read their minds, darlin'."

River looked at Jayne. Not his, she thought. All she got from him was pure emotion, and that, rarely.

"Name a Zoë's baby?" Jayne prodded, making a rolling motion with his hand, indicating that Mal should get on with it.

"The reality is almost as bad as Little Jayne. I mean, the man can't have liked it. It ain't a coincidence that even I didn't know exactly what it was before I saw it on his gravemarker…" Mal mused.

"Derrial?" Jayne guessed, exasperated.

Mal relented, shaking his head with a laugh. "It really ain't never even crossed your mind, Jayne? You just met little Hoban Washburne, Jr."

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It was dim and strangely quiet in the infirmary after all the excitement of the last twenty-four hours. River was dozing in the second bed, on call for Zoë and the baby. She was going to spend the first part of the night there in case either of them needed anything. Kaylee had fallen asleep sitting up on the couch, and Simon had carried her to bed in Shepherd Book's former quarters. He intended to stay awake himself, until Inara shooed him off to join Kaylee with the promise that either she or River would wake him instantly if necessary. River had volunteered for first watch, and Inara said she would take the second.

Currently Mal was visiting Zoë, having waited patiently outside while Zoë nursed the baby. Now the captain was walking the contented infant around the room, held securely in his strong arms. River blinked and listened sleepily to their desultory conversation.

"You look strangely comfortable with a baby in your arms, sir," Zoë said with a worn-out smile.

"Well, I'm just naturally very nurturing," Mal answered, gazing down bemusedly into the baby's peacefully sleeping face. He rocked the infant gently. "Ain't I just?"

There was a small silence, and River tensed, suddenly wide awake. She knew what Zoë was going to say.

"I know you didn't want this," Zoë began, working hard to keep her voice even. "I know you didn't want a baby on the ship."

Mal studied her, noticing how weak and disheveled she seemed propped up against the pillows of the infirmary cot. Now that the crisis of the birth was over, her appearance disturbed him, and made him uncomfortable. She looked older, like…like somebody's mother.

"I really didn't," he admitted frankly. He thought of Nandi, when she told him he didn't like complications. A baby was definitely a complication.

Zoë met his eyes straight on, determined to get things out in the open.

"I waved Wash's sister. You remember, Fiona. Lives on Aten. Thought it was only right that she know about the baby comin' along."

"Yeah?" Mal asked warily, with an inkling of where this might be going.

"Her husband is some high stakes man in the Commodities Guild, and… they ain't hurtin' for credits. She offered us a home, sir. Me, and the baby," Zoë informed him quietly, watching the captain for his reaction. River could feel her great inner stress, and marveled that she had such self-control even after such an exhausting day.

River experienced the rush of feelings that coursed through the captain: anger, grief, betrayal, guilt. Zoë was his constant, his touchstone, his closest friend. He didn't want to lose her, but he didn't think that it was fair or right to make her try and raise a baby on a ship of thieves, either. Ship of fools, more like, he thought to himself. He contemplated the dangers that they faced all too frequently. He looked down at the warm bundle of life in his arms. Wash's son. Wash's son. How could he promise to protect the son, when he had failed so spectacularly at protecting the father?

River clasped her hand to throat, feeling the intense pain. Tears welled up in her eyes, tears these two would never allow themselves to shed.

"You gotta do what's best for the baby," the captain's voice was guttural with restrained emotion. "For both a you."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm sayin' that a nice home on Aten with Wash's family would be a fine thing for Wash's son," Mal stated softly.

She doesn't want to leave! She wants to stay here, and raise her son with her family! Tell her it's all right to stay! She needs to hear you say it. River wanted to reach out and shake him.

Zoë was silent for a minute, digesting his words.

"Never really lived settled in one place before. My folks were spacers," she said neutrally.

"Yeah, but you were what – eight ? – when you first went up. That's a big difference from tryin' to raise an infant out in the black. And your dad was a geologist, Zoë. Not a smuggler, a hired gun, nor a thief."

"My father was a drunk, sir. Let's get that straight. Drunk, died in a stupid fall down a crater that he had no business bein' near. My mother ran off when I was sixteen, and I was on my own until I joined up. Serenity is the longest I've ever lived any one place my whole life."

Mal accepted then that Zoë wanted to stay on Serenity with the baby. He moved closer to Zoë's bed, still unconsciously rocking the child, his jaw clenched.

"So how we gonna do this, huh? We gonna carry the baby like a papoose on our backs as we hold up a bank? Have Jayne strap 'im to his chest along with his bandoliers? Leave the little one to starve to death on the ship if we all get shot up somewhere?" He fired the questions at Zoë so fiercely that behind him River cringed and covered her ears, hoping to block each harsh word.

Zoë was made of sterner stuff.

"Most our jobs of late have been lawful." She kept her tone purposely mild, to deflate Mal's growing anger.

"Most. But not the lucrative ones. Not the big money ones. Not the ones that really keep this boat in the air," Mal said tightly.

"It's been workin' out all right with River and Jayne goin' on jobs. Just 'cause the baby's born now don't mean it'll stop workin'," Zoë said reasonably, but Mal didn't want to hear reasonable.

"You know that stayin' on the ship ain't no guarantee of safety. Violence leaks in everywhere, in everything we do. You ain't afraid you're gonna leave him an orphan the day you get shot up somewhere? You ain't afraid of that? Well, I am." The sound of Mal's voice was terrible, and River tried to squeeze her mind shut to keep it out.

"I ain't afraid," Zoë answered unequivocally, her dark eyes locked on Mal. "And as long as there's one member of Serenity's crew left alive, he ain't no orphan, sir."

Listen to her, River pleaded with him silently. Listen to what she's telling you.

Mal stared back at her, his blue eyes stunned. His arms tightened around the baby, and Little Hoban fussed a little in reaction. Mal looked down at the infant, swallowing hard against the thick lump that had risen in his throat. You are gonna be the verse's biggest pain in the ass, Hoban Washburne, Jr., and I thought Jayne took that prize, he said in his mind.

Very slowly, he leaned forward and placed the baby in Zoë's arms. Zoë cuddled her son against her breast, watching the captain tensely, knowing him well enough to see that he'd come to a decision. The anxiety she felt was because she didn't know which way he was going to go. Mal stood back and put his hands on his hips, looking down at them with an unreadable expression.

"We don't refuse any job just 'cause of the baby," he blustered abruptly.

"Understood, sir," Zoë's sudden, intense, inner happiness was like a ray of sunshine.

"And I ain't changin' diapers," Mal stated definitively, and turned and marched out of the room.

The tears that had been hovering just under her eyelids coursed down River's cheeks as she felt a wave of relief. She watched silently as Zoë leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the baby's forehead.

"Welcome to the rough and tumble, my love," she whispered with a smile.

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A/N: Whew! Feel like I just had a baby! Thanks for reading, and reviewing! Gem