Ghosts & Memories Past ~ Chapter 25

Disclaimer: Y'all know the deal by now. Nope, they ain't mine. Nope, ain't makin' coin off 'em. And yup, Joss is still Boss! Purely for fun, to satisfy the Muse…

Thanks to everyone following and commenting on this story. Y'all keep me going! Special thanks to jellie_rayneluv, kuryakingirl and vandevere for constant encouragement and help with this fic. All mistakes my own. ;D

.

.

Chapter Twenty-Five

.~.~.~.~.~

~Meade, Moon homeworld on the Rim~

.

.

No!

No! Don't say that…

The hoarse, anguished whisper echoes up from some faraway canyon between the mountains.

…It ain't true!

The bitty piece of his mind that hasn't froze and shattered on the hard floor under his knees is screaming at him that it's his own gorram voice, but he can't pay mind to that right now.

…It ain't…

He struggles to break the steel bands crushing around his lungs, grasps at the knowledge of what he knows is real.

…I'm yer son!

Thumping in his chest is so loud, damned near drowns out the sickly buzzing whine in his ears.

…I know it's so…

Helpless against the paralyzing white shroud of shock, he feels truth crumble through his fingers, plummets after the pieces, can't hold onto them, can't hold onto dust.

… Mother, don't… Please…

Can't be true, not true, but Mother don't lie, wouldn't lie about something like this, but if it's true, then it's all been a lie, can't be real…

…please…

"No!" Jayne begged hoarsely at her knee, grasping her hand gently, urgently. "No! Don't say that, it ain't true! It ain't… I'm yer son! I know it's so, Mother, don't…Please… please…"

Jayne's desperate plea for denial cut through the room as he buried his face in her lap, his big body bent double and shaking. Mother bowed her head, tears flowing down her face as she sobbed. She'd wanted to spare him this, but Mal could see how much it was breaking her as well. Something painful twisted in his own gut, seeing his rough gun hand sobbing quietly into his mother's lap. Mal turned his head back to the fire, blaming the burning sting in the corners of his eyes on soot or

"It was right near the end of the War," Mother said quietly, running her fingers through Jayne's short, dark hair. "I was in town when a man approached me. He was a Browncoat, like most of them from Meade. Said he… said he served with my son."

"Jayne said he didn't fight in the War," Mal murmured, looking to Zoe. They'd both been there, on a U-Day that seemed so long ago, when the man had said so from his own lips. Of course, just the other day on Whitefall, Jayne seemed downright perplexed when Mal brought that up.

Mother took a shuddery breath, gently lifting Jayne's head in her hands, holding onto his tear-filled, pleading eyes with her own watery gaze. "I love you, boy. Gotta make sure you know that. I'll always be your mother in my heart. Ain't nothin' gonna change that, son, not ever. But… you weren't born to me. I don't know who yer people were, or where you come from."

Jayne shook his head slowly, like a man trying to get his bearings after a grenade had gone off too close. The captain couldn't hardly blame him. Hard enough, knowing his own family back on Shadow were nothing but dust and memories, the whole planet an unliveable black rock thanks to the Alliance.

But for a man to have everything he held dear, every scrap of what he believed to be righteous truth just yanked out from under him? 'Specially when it was one of the few bits of something he even knew about himself? An uncomfortable tightness closed in on Mal's throat.

"That Browncoat, feller named Riggs, he found me up in Wilkerstown. Said he'd served with… served with my eldest boy, who got killed in the fightin' and Ellis come to tell me personal, wanted me to know. They hadn't sent the letters home already, but I already knew it was so. He hadn't written in months, and never missed a chance to… to let me know how he was doin'. Was nice of this Riggs to make the trip, though, an' I told him so.

"Said he had hated to impose, but there was somethin' real important he needed to ask, and could he come out to the farm the next day to talk about it. He didn't want folks to overhear, nor to see us talkin' fer long out in the street. I told him to come on, I'd listen, but wasn't gonna promise nothin'.

"Showed up right afore dawn the next day, lookin' nervous. Told me they had a feller they been lookin' after at one of their hospitals, but the fightin' was gettin' too close, too heavy. He wasn't shot up, nor nothin', but the man couldn't even see to his daily needs, had to be fed, dressed, cared for and looked after round the clock.

"Some powerful bad had happened to him, what-all they weren't sure. Couldn't hardly talk. Nor barely walk, much less run for cover if the Purple-Bellies started bombing closer, though Riggs said he was gettin' stronger every day.

"Poor man didn't have no folks they could send him to. Somebody had to look after him till he got his wits about him, got strong enough to do for himself.

Mal frowned. "If this feller couldn't talk, how'd they know he didn't have no folks to go home to? Surely somebody knew him, knew where he come from. Didn't nobody in his platoon know?"

Radiant shook her head sadly. "Weren't a soul among 'em could recall ever standin' beside him, nor seein' him neither."

Mal caught Zoe's eye, hesitant to even speak the thought that flashed across his brain. Rubbing his stomach meaningfully, he was surprised and reassured by her frown and slight shake of her head to the negative. She was fair certain, it seemed, that he wasn't some lost Purple-Belly soldier, but how she could be so sure of that he'd wait to find out.

The older lady caught his gesture as well. "Weren't no Alliance man, neither, Captain, you can rest easy on that. 'Sides, if'n he'd ever been, he weren't afterward no how."

"Don't mean to cast no aspersions, ma'am," Mal said carefully, not wanting to make the situation harder on his crewman than it already was. "Just sayin', it mighta explained how none of the Browncoats knowed of him."

Jayne flinched visibly, staring hard out the window at the oncoming storm. "Can't know that for sure, though, can I?" he said in a hoarse, tight voice. "Might be I was one o' them, maybe one o' the worst –"

"No! You wasn't no such thing, boy, an' don't you go thinkin' that!" Mother whispered fiercely, turning his head with a hand on his cheek to make him look her in the eye. "None of them boys on the line knew you, but Riggs… He told me how you'd come to be there with them. An' once I'd seen you, what all the man explained about you made sense."

"But Mothe –" Jayne stopped himself, his voice catching on the word. Looking lost, he asked in a small voice, "Do I… can I still call…"

"Told you, son, you'll always – always – be mine in my heart," she said quick. "I ain't no less your Mother than I been for nigh on a decade now, an' I ain't aimin' to just give that up, dong ma, Jayne? The knowin' of it ain't made a whit of difference in me lovin' you all this time. Up to you whether it… changes how you look on me."

Jayne stared at her a long minute, before a bit of the tension eased out of his broad shoulders.

"Mother," he said slowly, as if trying the word on his tongue to make sure it still fit. Apparently it did, as he straightened a touch and sighed, but his voice grew steadier. "Mother, how can ya be sure I weren't no Purple-Belly?"

"Riggs said he knowed where you'd been during the War, son. You weren't in no condition to fight for either side," she said. "You'd been…well, you'd been in one of them stasis boxes, he said."

"Stasis box? Like one of them… cryo freezer boxes, like we found River in?" He turned a perplexed frown to Mal, whose own face must have shown the same surprised look as Jayne and Zoe's. "Who the ruttin' hell'd wanna freeze me? Beg pardon," he added absently.

"Better question would be the why," Zoe said, looking nervous at Mal. "Especially after what the Doc…"

The three of them exchanged a wary glance, thinking on the device Simon had found hidden deep in Jayne's head.

"They didn't know who," Mother said, catching the looks they were shooting back and forth. "But he did say it had to be a fair bit of time since they'd done it. The doctors thought most of his troubles was from bein' froze so long, though he never said how long they thought that was. But anyhow, I said I'd meet their fella, see if we'd get on well together, if he was gonna be stayin' any amount of time."

"I take it y'all got on well together?" Mal smiled.

Mother shook her head, a whimsical smile playing on her lips. "Weren't expectin' what I found. Guess I figured on findin' some grizzled soldier, weary of all the fightin', hardened or feelin' sorry for his self, bitter an' hatin' the 'verse."

She chuckled, "Ain't what I found a'tall. There you sat straight an' tall outside your tent at that infirm'ry, just lookin' around at all the doin's with wide eyes. Like a little boy tryin' to figure out how everything works, an' payin' attention to it all. Nurses had give you a good shave and when we walked over, up you stood, all proper manners and respectful and smilin'. Had a cane to help you, but you did it, and Riggs seemed fair proud of you for it. You turned them sweet blue eyes on me, and my heart just went out to you, just up and made a special place for you right then and there."

She smoothed her fingers through Jayne's hair, her eyes tearing up again. "Ain't nothin' feels quite like the first time your new child is laid in yer arms. But that day, when I laid eyes on you, boy, was the closest thing to ever come to it. Told Riggs I'd make a home for you, long as you needed or wanted it. Decided then and there, to be a mother to you. Seemed right, you not having no people we knew of, me havin' … havin'done lost a son to the War."

Jayne looked sorrowful at that. "I never knowed you had… had another son. I'm… Mother, I'm sorry. I know I never knowed him, but… I'm sorry you lost him, is all. Don't reckon I made up fer him bein' gone, but…"

"Had to be hard on you, ma'am," Zoe said quietly, looking back to the mantle full of captures. Only two men stared back from the frame, one of them her crewmate. The other person in the captures she'd come to know was Mattie, at various ages over what looked to be about the past eight years or so. "Having to hide your other son's existence."

Mother's just smiled, her eyes far away. "He was a good, good boy, a good man. Believed hard in what he was fightin' for. What he died for. Was one of the reasons I did what I did, took you in… gave you his name, his ident, his… his life that he'd never get to finish. He'd have wanted that, son, to give you a chance in this 'verse, now that his was over."

The big man seemed to struggle with that new enlightenment, his brow furrowed deep.

"Did Mattie… did he ever miss him?" Jayne asked, eying the captures. "His real brother?"

"You are his real brother," Mother said sternly, giving his big hand a squeeze. "Only brother he's ever knowed, Jayne. He weren't barely past a toddler when the War started, and too young to really remember my other Jayne afore he went off to the Browncoats. When you came to us, he was only eleven. Done lived through more out here on the Rim than most young'uns on central planets live in a lifetime. War blockades and rationing, medical shortages, attacks on our home from Feds and bandits and Reavers. Little man had been through so much, I didn't want to put more on his shoulders. So…"

"So you never told him no different," Mal said.

Mother shook her head, looking again for her youngest boy, and perking up a bit at what she saw out the window. "I never told him no different. Already had enough to worry on, without having to keep a huge secret that could cost his brother his freedom or his life. Reckon he's old enough now, though. Keepin' it from him now just puts him in as much risk as keepin' it from you, Jayne."

Jayne nodded grimly, though the worry about what Mattie would make of it all was clear in his troubled blue eyes.

Mal fidgeted with the fire again, as much to have a use for his hands as to coax a bit more warmth into the room. Something bout Jayne's ordeal still nagged at him, though he was hard pressed to put a finger on it.

"That Riggs feller, he say anything 'bout … they think anybody'd been..." Mal hedged, trying to be a gentle for the elderly lady's sake as he could, "that maybe somebody'd been messin' with Jayne's… with his –"

"Did they think whoever put him in cryostasis had… experimented on him, ma'am," Zoe asked gently, and Mal shot her a thankful look for her tact at getting it out when he couldn't.

But Mother didn't seem overly surprised at the idea, nodding sadly as she brushed her fingers over Jayne's hair. "Said they suspected some such, but who nor what, none of them could say for certain. Said you had… had some scars, faint but there all the same, up under your hair. And the shape you was in when they found you, not able to talk nor walk nor take care of yourself, like you didn't know a thing bout the 'verse a'tall. 'Sall I know, and all Riggs seemed to let on about, either."

Her mouth drew together in anger, her soft green eyes taking on an emerald fire. "We ever find out who done all this to you, son, they'll see there's more than one Cobb in this family knows which end of a rifle to use."

Jayne's mouth stretched into a wide grin, a welcome sight to see. "Yes, ma'am, Mother. I s'pect they will."

"I'll hold yer shawl for ya, ma'am," Mal added, his brain still whirring away on the missing piece he felt was right in front of them. "Did he ever say much about that box? Where they found it, or any markings to let on where it mighta come from?"

Her forehead wrinkled a bit in concentration. "I ain't schooled in all them high-tech things, but he did say the type of box weren't what they'd ever seen used by Alliance folk. Somethin' else, though I ain't sure how it matters. Weren't no markings but what was wrote in English on the thing, he said."

"Every rock spinnin' tags everything twice, 'specially anything official," Mal said. "By law, English and Chinese both, needed or not. Been that way since… well, ever since I can recall hearin' about."

"Ain't but a few places I even heard of don't use both, and that's all just local-moved cargo, closed off communities that don't intermingle much," Zoe said. "Been cross-tagged since just after the first permanent colonies got legs under them, when what was left of the governments from Earth-that-Was decided they'd better work together if everyone was gonna survive."

"Mattie!" Mother breathed, the tightness of her shoulders loosening up a bit. "Thank God, he made it back before the snow!"

The four of them crowded to peer out the window glass. Off at the edge of the farthest field, a horse and rider appeared, leading another pack horse behind. Jayne let out a sigh of relief, his face relaxing for an instant before worry snuck back between his drawn brows.

"It'll all be fine, son," Mother assured him, rubbing the expanse between his shoulder blades and giving him a pat.

Mal felt a pang roll through him, though he hated the idea of what the scene made him feel. How many times, after getting tossed from a horse, or his heart stomped by a pretty girl, or the boys at school teasin' him cause he didn't have no Pa running the ranch… how many times had Sharon Reynolds patted her son's back just like that?

The corner of his mouth lifted at the memories of his own Ma comforting him, and the pang of jealousy slid away. Ma wouldn't have wanted him to be bitter toward what Jayne still had. She'd have been the first to point out to Mal that he should think on what he did have. Miss you, Ma, he thought, shoving the sting of loss back into its special box in his gut. You'd have liked Mrs. Cobb.

"Well, folks, I think me an' Zoe'll just… head out to the barn, get things ready for Mattie when he gets here," he said, signaling to the first mate with his head that they should head outside.

"Hang on, Mal, I'll give you a hand," Jayne started, rising to his feet and giving a sniff to collect himself.

"No, no, we can see to it, if that's all right by you, ma'am? I reckon y'all might want a bit of time to… catch up… without everybody hoverin', so..." nodding politely to the lady and Jayne, Mal and Zoe made an exit, leaving their crewman and his mother some privacy.

Neither of them said a word as they crossed the grassy yard between the house and the wooden barn, though Zoe's questioning look kept pinging on the side of his head. Closing the barn door to keep out the growing wind, he turned to find her standing three feet away, arms crossed, and an eyebrow arched, just waiting.

"So…"

"Hmmm. Right, so…" he answered, looking around for the most obvious stalls to prepare for Mattie's animals. Grabbing a pitchfork, he laid into the straw bedding lining the floor, turning it over to check for old leavings. Mattie apparently took the job seriously, though, and Mal just ended up shifting the straw from one pile to another as Zoe leaned in the stall doorway. "There's…."

"Something about that gorram box that don't seem right, sir?" she asked neutrally.

"Exactly!" he crowed, glad it wasn't just his own imaginings. "But I ain't got clue one as to what it is don't sit solid, dong ma?"

She nodded, uncrossing her arms and heading over to the feed box. Filling the small bucket inside with oats, she brought them in, pausing to give Mal a look at the contents. "Bout right?"

"Yeah, bout normal, I reckon," he approved the measure. She may have been around critters since they'd known each other, but she'd grown up on a ship in the Black, while he'd been raised on a working ranch all his days until the War. "You got any thoughts on this development? What ain't we seein', Zo?"

Zoe sighed as she poured the oats into the feed trough attached to the wall. "May not be nothing, but…"

"Nothin' ain't generally never nothin'," he said, heading up the ladder in search of hay. She didn't say anything more as he reached the loft, and found a neat wall of stacked two-foot long square bales. "Comin' down," he yelled before tossing a bale by its tied strings, rewarded by the heavy, muffled thwump it made on hard packed dirt below.

"Just think it's a little odd," she finally said, slicing through the string as he climbed back down.

"Odd?" he laughed. "What about these last few days ain't been odd?"

She paused to give him the eye, and Mal held his hands up in mock surrender. "I know, I know. But what?"

"Box that man said they found Jayne in was marked in English," she said, stepping aside to let Mal break off a few flakes of the packed hay.

"Mmmm-hmmm," he murmured, letting the sweet smell of dried alfalfa and timothy grass take him back for a moment to happier days, before battle and crime and crewmen with mysterious origins. A grin threatened to slip up on him as he thought about the many searing hot days on the Shadow prairie, when he'd fussed about having to work the hay. His young arms and legs and back had been flat worn out, muscles strained and achy from liftin' and haulin' and stackin' the precious hay supply away for the ranch's horses during winter. Never dreamed then he'd miss that, but there it was. "English. Like we're speakin' now."

"Just English," she said pointedly. "Like Jayne's book, his 'symbol' as River called it. Just English."

Mal let that tumble around his head for a minute. She was onto something, he knew she was, but where that was leading didn't…

"Don't make no gorram sense," he muttered out loud.

"Look at the facts," she said, her dark brown eyes worrying on something he was sure he didn't want to look at, but there weren't no help for it. "Riggs said they thought he'd been in stasis for a long while. Ain't the sort of thing they'd remark on unless it'd been a long while. And the cryo box wasn't familiar to the doctors, who probably had been working with Alliance tech not just a few years back."

"War didn't last that long," he said, a hint of bitterness creeping into the words, though he tried to keep it out. "Couldn't have been more than ten years earlier since they'd all been happily employed by Fed-friendly facilities, right? Alliance technology would be familiar to them, but this thing, this box, wasn't."

"All worlds spinnin' require both English and Chinese for tagging, labeling, everything. Been that way since – "

"Since…"

"A long damned time, Mal," she huffed, her arms crossed again. "Since anybody can recall hearing of. Since… since damned near the beginning of the colonies from Earth-that-Was. But that box… and… and his journal…"

Mal barked out a laugh, wishing the idea squirming around his head seemed more comical and outlandish than it was beginning to feel. "You ain't sayin'… I mean, really, Zoe, he can't be…"

"Just sayin' what the facts are, Mal. I ain't telling you how to add 'em up," she said plainly, a hint of tremble in her voice. "But I ain't sayin' I think your math's wrong, either."

Mal stood there in the stall just looking back at her, racking his brain for some argument to counter the conclusion staring back at him. "You don't think…?"

Zoe just shrugged. Mal absently tossed the hay into the rack above the feed pan, dumbfuzzled by the picture the puzzle pieces were painting. "Huh!"

To be continued…

A/N: I'll try to get at least one more update of this story before NaNoWriMo. Much more to come, thanks for sticking with me on this one. Reviews are greatly appreciated, ;D