Disclaimer: See chapter one.
A/N: A note on how this timeline compares to that of the BDM: When Mal & Co. are speaking with Mr. Universe regarding the code underlying the Oaty Bar commercial, Mr. Universe mentions he'd seen the code pop up for the last 'few weeks'. So, the timeline for this AU is rather early in that mentioned 'few weeks', which would be why it went down much earlier than timelines regarding the BDM and the series had it.
Dominoes
Chapter Twenty-Six: Inside and Outside
Mal stood, leaning against the starkly white tile wall of the infirmary's waiting area. Kaylee was sacked out in one of the recliners, which were made of some sort of fuzzy black synthetic that felt like velvet, and were far more comfortable than the armchairs and sofas available in the common areas of the Hall. Wash and Zoë had headed back to the suite to get some sleep. Jayne's kin, Les and Brenda, were sitting together in another recliner. Brenda had followed Kaylee's example, and was sleeping. From the drowsy look on Les' face, he wasn't far behind.
A half-wall of windows revealed a row of four beds, interspersed with medical equipment Mal had never bothered learning the names of. From his perspective, the beds were filled left-to-right by Jim, then River, then Jayne, and Simon was in the last. Mal smirked at the memory of the Hall's chief medico – a tall and wiry man in his seventies – sneakily sedating Simon when the boy refused to calm down and let him and his staff attend the patients.
Tora Ibsen, the medic for the Qianfeng, emerged from a side-door. "Good to see you again, Captain Reynolds, though I wish it were under different circumstances." She kept her voice quiet, out of respect for Kaylee and Brenda.
"Surely so," Mal agreed. "You takin' the night-shift?"
Tora nodded, tugging an imaginary wrinkle out of the black scrubs she wore. Much like her normal uniform, they also possessed the silver trim and decorations of her rank. Her long, red hair was braided and coiled on top of her head. "As I'm sure you've already been told, Dr. Tam will wake on his own in the morning. Probably around seven o'clock or so. Zhu Chirrak will be on-duty again by then, and if Simon doesn't calm down, Zhu Chirrak can and will keep him sedated." (1. master)
"I must admit the thought tickles me a bit," Mal replied, grinning.
Tora snorted, albeit quietly. "I think I can understand the sentiment," she said.
"Any word on the others?" Mal asked, quickly changing the topic and the tone to seriousness.
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, sir, but their conditions remain unchanged." Tora gently tucked her hand in Mal's elbow and led him back through the door she'd entered. It was an office area. "Have a seat," she said, turning on a wall of monitors. There were four columns, showing readouts from the various machines, with a vid-feed of the patient in question at the top of their column. A separate monitor to the side of the patient readouts showed a vid-feed of the waiting room. "We can speak in here without waking Kaylee or Zhu Cobb's niece," she needlessly explained.
Mal sank into one of the chairs that faced the desk while Tora perched on the desk itself. "I know that when we were on your ship, you had a powerful curiosity about just why Zhu Cobb is so respected among us."
"Yeah," Mal admitted. "Didn't fit none with what I'd seen from him over the time I've known him."
"What did you find out?"
Shrugging, Mal said, "Not a whole lot. Y'all are a close-mouthed lot. But I heard some stuff from whats-her-name… the married sniper? Woman about knee-high to a grasshopper?"
"Bo Lin," Tora chuckled at the description.
"Yeah. Missus Lin. Anyway, she lemme know how the education aspect fit in, described what some of y'all's decorations mean, and other stuff like that. Tried to talk with Jayne about it a time or two, but never did get much outta him."
Tora sighed. "Rather figured it'd be something along those lines. But I think that in order to understand at least a part of what you saw this morning, I'm going to have to break silence on the matter. Zhu Cobb won't like it, but I think it'd help in this case." She paused to grin impishly. "Besides, if he starts getting all angry about it, I'll just send either Lisette or Carmine after him."
"Lisette? I know that name…"
"The blonde communications officer in my company. She's got a thing for Zhu Cobb. Carmine… I don't think you'd have had the chance to meet her. She's one of our knife-fighting instructors and also one of Zhu Cobb's age-mates. They go way back, and have been known to get together every now and then 'for old time's sake'," she even made air quotes around the words.
Mal let out a reluctant laugh. "Yeah. If Jayne's upset about it, I'm sure either of those ladies would prove an ample distraction."
"I see we understand each other, sir," Tora said, smiling some, but it quickly faded. She picked up a pen from the desk and began fidgeting with it. "But back to why I called you in here… What do you think of what you saw this morning?"
Mal frowned. "Don't know the hows or whys of it, but I'd swear that Jayne went and turned reaver on us."
Tora sat the pen down. "And you'd be right."
Mal looked down at his lap, then back at the medic. "If that's the case, why's he in there? Won't he be a danger when he wakes?"
"No," Tora disagreed. "He won't be a danger, Captain."
"Ain't never heard of no one turnin' reaver and comin' back from it."
"Zhu Cobb has," Tora said with a note of finality. "He's done it before, Captain. Come back, I mean."
Mal gaped. "What?"
"What he did is covered as a case study in several of our classes," Tora said, her gaze drifting over the rack of monitors, then back to Mal. "So everyone who's been through the hall in the last fourteen years knows about it. It's part of why he's so respected."
"What?" Mal repeated. It felt as though someone had pulled the plug on his thinking process.
"Fifteen years ago, Zhu Cobb was leader of his own company of skirmishers. It was a standard company – there was Zhu Cobb, his second, a communications expert, a medic, an interrogations officer, an intelligence officer, a three-man team of explosives experts, two sniper teams, and two trackers. Fifteen people in total, counting Zhu Cobb." Tora paused to scan the monitors again. "The last time Blue Sun and Kepler, Inc. went head-to-head over Ita, Blue Sun hired Guildsmen to do their dirty work. Zhu Cobb's company, to be precise, and for a few months, everything went well, with only acceptable losses according to Guild law. However, on completing a task set them by their contract – the killing of Kepler's then-CEO in a public and gruesome manner – everything went and leapt on the express train to hell."
"No hand-basket?" Mal tried to inject a little levity, but was glared at for the interruption. "Shutting up, ma'am."
"When Zhu Cobb returned to the base they'd been using, it was to find that Kepler's freelancers had found it first. The official report says that it'd been hit by a long-range missile. Everyone who'd not gone along on the mission had been killed by the explosion. Zhu Cobb's company at that moment was down to just himself, one of his sniper teams, and one of his trackers. He took them to a backup base and called in for extraction. It was going to take approximately two months for a ship to get there, so they hunkered down."
She stood and opened a mini-fridge hiding behind the desk. "Want one?" she asked, holding up a small bottle of drinking water.
"Sure," Mal replied.
Tora handed it to him across the desk, and then grabbed a second for herself. She resumed her perch on the desktop. "They were camped for about a week or so when it happened."
"I almost don't wanna know," Mal muttered, more to himself than to the medic.
"Reavers showed up. Was just a small scouting vessel, but this was way back at the beginning. Almost no one had ever seen them in action before. They got Zhu Cobb's sniper team first. Zhu Cobb took his remaining tracker and they tried to escape. Of course, the reavers wouldn't let them go so easily. They harpooned their shuttlecraft. Zhu Cobb did the only thing he could and allowed Molly Raybie the honor of jihi ya."
"Pardon?"
"Jihi ya. A quick, painless death. Mercy, in other words," Tora explained. "They caught Zhu Cobb before he could likewise render that same service to himself." She opened her bottle of water and took a drink. "Six weeks later, a beat-up Trans-U landed on the archery range out back. Zhu Cobb was the only living person aboard." She checked the monitors again. "From what the analysis of the inside of that ship told the investigators, the only conclusion they could make was that Zhu Cobb had somehow become the same mindless killing machine as those other bodies on the ship. Yet, when he finally awoke in the infirmary, he was in full control of himself."
Mal stared at his unopened bottle of water. "That's…" he didn't know what to say, so he simply let it drop.
"I know," Tora said. "It's unprecedented, in either direction. No one else, before or since, has gone to that dark place and returned. And that, Captain Reynolds, is the main reason he commands so much respect among us."
Mal couldn't help but think of that 'survivor' they'd tried to rescue off that derelict a few months back, and of the two or three other folk he'd seen fall into that dark pit. Not a one of them had been able to be saved. "Why d'ya think he come back when no one else's managed it?"
Tora reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We don't really know," she said, then dropped her hand. "He won't talk about it. But, when I was going through the psychology unit in my medic courses, I formed a theory."
"And what's your theory?" Mal asked, finally cracking open the bottle of water he held.
"It's common knowledge, at least among Balanced Sun mercs, that Zhu Cobb's got a twin, and they're bound pretty tight. I think it was the fact he's linked to Jim that saved him. It's easy to understand if you look at it this way: How can you get lost in the dark if there's a perpetual light available? Or better still: How can you lose your mind if it's tied in place?"
"Guess that makes sense," Mal allowed. "At least as much sense as anything involving reavers can."
Tora took another drink from her own bottle and scanned the monitors again. "What concerns me at the moment is that Jim's out cold."
Mal could understand her point, now that he understood just why Jayne was held in such high esteem. "If he's what pulled Jayne back b'fore, then I can see why you're worried."
"As a precaution, all three of them – Zhu Cobb, his brother, and the girl – have been restrained. I've also got doses of powerful sedatives on standby, should they be needed."
"Sensible," Mal said.
"What I can't put my finger on, Captain, is why the girl attacked in the first place."
"I'd like to know that my own self," he stonily replied. And whether or not the doc knew what she was capable of. "Chirrak said the tranq was only s'posed to last an hour?"
"Yes," Tora replied, her eyes drifting to the monitors as she spoke. "It's a short-term formula, originally designed –" she cut herself off. "Excuse me, Captain." She hurried through the office's second door. Mal twisted and looked at the monitors.
Jim's eyes were open.
宁静
Jim heard footsteps. Turning his head, he saw a statuesque redhead wearing Guild scrubs heading his way. "Untie me, please," he said, his voice a little thick and gravelly.
Making a snap decision, Tora did as he asked, mainly because he seemed lucid. "Are you –"
"Ain't no time, kid," Jim said, swinging his feet off the med-bed. "Need a knife."
"A knife?"
"Shén de yǒnghéng de yóuqī shuā, woman! There ain't no time!" he shouted, startling Tora. "I need a gorram knife, and I need it yesterday!" (2. god's eternal paintbrush)
With her recent admission to Mal that she believed Jim to be the reason Zhu Cobb survived previously, she didn't ask any further questions. If Jim thinks it's needful, then… She couldn't finish the thought. Feeling somewhat saddened by the development, she sprinted to her locker and returned in short order with her Guild-issued bowie knife.
On returning to the treatment room wherein Jim was located, she found he'd unbuckled the restraining belts on the girl's bed and had shoved it closer to his brother's. He had also moved her left arm so that her hand now rested on Zhu Cobb's right shoulder, with his own large and paint-stained hand covering hers.
Tora unsheathed the bowie knife and handed it to Jim, he took it with his free hand. "I –"
"Bizui," Jim growled, shooting her a venomous glare. "I need to concentrate." (3. shut up)
Not knowing what else to do, Tora retreated back to the office and its side-by-side display of monitors. "What's goin' on?" Mal asked.
Examining the readouts, she shook her head. "I'm not sure."
"Well, what d'you think is goin' on?" Mal asked, somewhat impatiently.
Not looking away from the monitors, Tora winced. "I think, sir, that we're about to lose our bakufu." (4. temporary commander)
Though Mal didn't recognize the word, he knew she was talking about Jayne. He stepped up next to the medic. "How come?" The question was very quiet, barely a vibration in the air. For all that Mal had had his problems with Jayne, he didn't want the man dead. The thought was a shock to him. He really didn't want the man dead. He figured he likely never had, not really. Not even after Ariel. And not now.
Tora hit a couple of buttons on the rack of monitors and the camera trained on where River's bed had been shifted to show a slightly offset view of Jim, Jayne, and the girl. She hit similar commands on the monitor above Jayne's bed. Between the two, they now had a good view of what was going on, little though it was. Both Jayne and River were unconscious, with Jim standing between the heads of their angled beds, one hand holding River's hand to Jayne's shoulder, his other hand holding a knife in a white-knuckled grip. Jim's eyes were closed, and his forehead furrowed in concentration.
"He asked for a knife," Tora replied, her voice just as small as Mal's had been. "I don't think he would have done that, if Zhu Cobb were coming back this time."
宁静
Jim fell partway into his bond with his twin, his pulse hammering in his ears. Reaching out a tendril of himself, he sought out the flickering blue spark of his brother's presence at the back of his mind. Wrapping that fragile light with all the strength he could spare, he sent all his support and love for his brother into it. Come on, xiǎo jìngzi. (5. little mirror)
The small light brightened some. That's it, Alex. You can do this. I refuse to believe that thing is stronger than you are. You're the strongest person I've ever known. Only one I've seen who comes even close is your 'li'l bit'. He dug deep and sent another wave of support through their link. Di'shta, pelia. Di'shta. Di'shta v'meda. Nil ori kito vetharin'med. (6. Come back, brother. Come back. Come back to me. Don't make me keep my promise.)
宁静
Roger Henley watched as the small, sporty groundcar pulled through the gate. It stopped and a short, slim man, still wearing white hospital scrubs, exited. He tossed the key fob to Chance Ibsen. As the guard climbed in the car to pull it to a parking place, the scrub-clad man hurried over to Henley. "I came as soon as I could. Sorry it wasn't quicker, but I was in the middle of an orbitozygomatic craniotomy when your message was relayed to me." (7. see explanation below, if you're truly curious)
Hen just shook his head and motioned for the doctor to follow him. "Don't worry about it, Cody. I know you got here as soon as you could."
"So, what's the score?" Cody asked, tying his 'visitor' ribbon on as he followed his wife's grand-uncle into the Hall. Henley brought the neurologist up to speed as they hurried through the building to the hospital wing.
宁静
Mal startled some as the door to the office opened. Henley, Chirrak, and a man he'd not yet met crowded into the small space. "I'll leave you to it," Hen said, then disappeared before introductions could be made.
Chirrak motioned Tora off of the desk. "Ibsen, this is Cody Rakestraw. He's a neurologist, brought in by special request of Zhu Henley. Rakestraw, this is Tora Ibsen, one of our medics."
"Pleasure," Cody said, somewhat distractedly. His attention was focused on the monitors showing the medical readouts of the patients within the treatment room.
"Give him whatever assistance he requires," Chirrak concluded. "I'm going to return to my quarters. Call if you need me."
"Shi de, xiansheng," Tora replied. (8. yes sir)
With that, Chirrak also left the room, looking far more tired than Mal recalled from his earlier, albeit brief, interactions with Balanced Sun's head medical officer. Mal looked the newcomer over. The man was shorter than he was, topping out at about the same height as Kaylee, give or take a fraction. He was also extremely skinny, but had definite muscle-tone showing in his arms. Mal made a mental note not to underestimate his strength. The man had a solid fifteen or sixteen years on Mal, with a face sporting laugh and worry lines in equal measure and dark hair that had begun to grey in patches.
"Fascinating," the man said, peering at the readouts.
"What is?" Mal asked.
The man glanced at him. "Sorry – you are?"
"Mal Reynolds. Three of them in there are my crew. Other's the one's brother."
Cody grinned. "Ah, yes – pleasure to meet you, sir," he said, offering his hand. "You feature in quite a few of the stories Andy's sent home in his letters."
Mal reflexively shook the man's hand, noting he had a firm, dry grip. It was a good handshake. "Huh?"
"Oh, Jayne Alexander Cobb. My wife's mother is one of his sisters. Apparently, all of his sisters call him 'Andy', so that's what Gloria calls him, and resultantly the name I know him by," Cody explained.
Mal mentally wondered just how the man before him – a guy who appeared to be older than Jayne by a hand's span of years – could be married to Jayne's niece. He pushed the thought aside to think on later. "What's so fascinating?" he asked, directing the topic back to the most pressing concern.
Cody turned back to the monitors. "Well… May I call you Mal?"
"Sure," he agreed.
Cody nodded and pointed to the screens on the wall. "Take a look here, Mal. These lines show the patients' pulse and breathing rate."
Mal scooted a little so that Tora could join them at the bank of monitors. "Numbers are all the same, least for Jim, Jayne, and River."
"They are, and that's what I find fascinating." He reached up and fiddled with a couple of the controls. The displays for Jayne, Jim, and River switched out. "Even more curious," he said.
"Their brainwaves are synched on three different levels," Tora explained, seeing Mal's blank look from the corner of her eye.
"Huh," Mal grunted, then stepped back from the monitors, and retaking his seat.
Cody brought up a different display, then took a seat behind the desk. "I believe you've got some scans for me?" he spoke to Tora.
Tora nodded and grabbed a memory tab from a shelf near the door to the treatment room. "Yes. We've got Zhu Cobb's standard scan from the last time he was here – unfortunately, it's over four years old at this point. He's not yet had the time to stop by to update it."
"That's alright. Barring fast-acting tumors or traumatic injuries, very little changes in an adult's neurological architecture, even over so long a time-frame."
"And the scan of the girl is a few months old, or so I was informed. I've not yet had the chance to look it over, personally."
"Should I even be here?" Mal asked.
Cody nodded as he took the memory tab from Tora. "Yes, Mal. I understand that Andy's been working under your contract for the last few years, and the girl, too, is part of your crew. I need someone who can answer at least a few questions for me. Right now, you're the best one available." He booted up the computer workstation inbuilt to the desk.
"Do what I can," Mal said, settling back in his chair.
It took a couple of minutes for the contents of the memory tab to load. Once the computer chirped its readiness, Cody set to inputting commands. The holoprojector flickered to life, showing a three-dimensional still of River's head. The image zoomed out, loosing a bit of detail as it cycled through the layered scan of the girl's innards. A few more clicks of the command panel and everything but her nervous system had faded to a ghostly blue-white transparency. "Damn, but I hate full-body scans," Cody rumbled.
Tora let out a chuckle, and said, "No one likes them."
Mal was deeply confused. "Why's that?"
Cody looked up at him, through the projection. "Mainly because everyone has at least a half-dozen irregularities that'll show up on a full scan, but only one in every ten thousand or so are issues that need to be addressed. I'll use myself as an example – I've got a fused vertebra in my lower back. The bottom-most piece of my spine never separated from my pelvis. Never caused me a problem, other than I'm not quite as flexible there as someone else. Never even knew about it until a few years back. I got thrown from a horse and landed awkwardly on a rail fence."
Mal winced. He'd been thrown a time or two himself and knew how much it must've hurt. "It gonna be any use to you in that case?" he asked, motioning towards the scan.
Cody hit a few more commands and the image zoomed dizzyingly on the brain itself. "I think so, Mal." The layers of the brain faded down to the brain stem. Mal stayed silent. Cody noticed. "You can still talk, Mal. I'm pretty good at multitasking. Right now, I'm simply gathering data."
"What're you lookin' for? Anything in specific?"
"Not yet, though I've a suspicion that I'll find something truly remarkable and very rare, based on what Andy's told us in his letters," Cody replied, cycling the view out a step.
"And that'd be?"
"I've taken to calling it the praenuntiatio junction," Cody said. "It's a unique nodule in the brain, a subsection of the corpus callosum – the neural tissue which connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain. It ties directly into the areas of the brain which govern both instinct and forethought, as well as sensory perception."
"It's a psychic bead, ain't it?" Mal might not know all the medispeak the man used, but it was pretty clear what he was talking about. Besides, Rakestraw was one of the few docs he'd met who translated as he went. "It's what makes a reader."
"Very good, Mal," Cody smiled. It was bright and happy. "It's extremely tiny. Only about a hundred individual cells or so. And of the thousands of patients I've had in the course of my career, I've only ever seen it four times." He shifted the display once more. "Now, I can make that five times." A tiny little flashing light embedded in the brain-holoprojection drew Mal's gaze.
"I first came across it rather early in my career. I had a patient who presented with symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, but who wasn't responding to the traditional therapies. The patient claimed he 'saw ghosts'. His primary referred him to me, to see if it might not have been an atypical symptom of a tumor or perhaps faulty oxygen delivery to the brain. The only abnormality in his brain was this tiny junction of nerves." Cody fiddled with the controls again, zooming in on a different area. "Now, I'd seen Andy's scan previously. Benefit of being family, I suppose. Andy's got this same junction, as does Jim. I knew Andy and Jim had their twin-bond. With the man's symptoms, I started to form a theory. About six, eight years ago, I got some more supporting evidence."
"Someone else showed up with this bead." Mal picked up his abandoned water bottle and finished it off.
"Yep. Had a woman who'd needed an aneurysm – a weak spot in the blood vessels – repaired before it killed her. However, her family had an inherited hypersensitivity to anesthesia, which increased her risk of harmful side-effects to near-certainty. She still gave the go-ahead on the repair. Kept saying how all the worrying was flattering, but she knew it'd be fine. She was right. Despite what her genetics told my staff, she came through the surgery in better condition than the textbooks claim. On her way home, she stopped by to say 'thanks' and told me not to drive my groundcar home. I almost didn't listen to her, but recalled she had that same junction and that she'd been right about the surgery."
"What was wrong with your car?"
"Recall on the brakes," Cody replied, nodding to himself. "The recall notice itself didn't come until the next week, but by then I'd already had it taken to a mechanic. Mechanic was surprised I hadn't crashed it already." He hit a few more commands, and the projection turned off. Leaning back in the chair, Cody tucked his hands behind his head and kicked his feet up on the desk. "Alright, so… What sort of psychic ability has your crewman shown?"
Mal snorted. "Damn near all of what I ever heard about."
"Humor me," Cody said. "A list would be appreciated."
"Well," Mal thought it over. "I dunno if she sees 'em or just hears 'em, but she's mentioned ghosts a fair few times. Also has an uncanny knack to know what a body's thinkin'. She saw a fire a few minutes before it happened." Mal didn't know whether or not the next bit was what the doc was aiming for, but added it anyway. "Always goin' on about hearin' colors and tastin' emotions."
"Synesthesia," Cody muttered.
"Pardon?"
Tora spoke up, "It's what it's called when someone's senses are all jumbled up. A synesthetic might see music, for example, or hear a flavor."
"It's not a psychic phenomena," Cody said. "Do you know if the synesthetic symptoms were present prior to her unwilling neural stripping?"
"Can't rightly say for sure," Mal admitted, "but I don't think so. Simon, her brother, gets twitchier when she's goin' on like that."
"Anything else?" Cody asked.
"Well, most recently, she went an' got herself stuck in Jayne's head. I ain't got a real great idea just what that means, nor how it might've worked, though."
"I'd imagine it would be similar to how Jim and Andy communicate through their twin-bond," Cody replied. "But I'll confirm that once I've the chance to speak with them directly." He looked past Mal to the monitors. "I definitely have my work cut out for me."
宁静
River stood, rooted to the spot, as the space around her twisted, shimmered, and vanished. She found herself surrounded by total absence, save for Jayne and his dark mirror. She wanted to help, but couldn't move.
Jayne's opponent was, as could be expected, physically a copy of Jayne, save for a few small details. It possessed slightly less muscle, though River was sure that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. It wore a bloody pair of cargo pants, the left leg of which had been torn away, leaving only the waistband on that side. The absence of that side of its pants revealed a leg which had been stripped of skin, straight to the underlying muscle, from his groin to his ankle. A long gash traced the front of its right arm, from shoulder to wrist. A footprint-shaped indentation shadowed its ribs under its injured arm. Its short hair was matted with gore, as was its facial hair.
The only difference between it and a true reaver that River could see was the lack of ornamentation.
Jayne rushed it, only to be met halfway by a thudding swipe of its table-leg club to his stomach. He let out an oof, but recovered quickly.
The pair fought with a brutal efficiency which some deep part of River recognized. And as she'd assessed – they were evenly matched.
Or so it had appeared at first.
Each landed an equal number of blows on the other, the club trading owners every fifth or sixth strike.
But with each strike Jayne scored on his opponent, it seemed to grow stronger.
And with each blow that connected with Jayne, he grew incrementally weaker.
"This isn't right," River said, barely able to hear herself through her own panic. "Jayne!" she shouted, praying he could hear her and wishing she could move. "Quit fighting it!"
Jayne paused, his head cocked to the side.
"It's part of you!" River screamed the words as loud as she could. "Quit fighting it, or it's going to win!"
It was the opening the creature had been searching for. It lunged and caught Jayne in a choking grip. Jayne's hands scrabbled at its grip, trying to break it, but they couldn't find purchase.
River's view of the fight slowly faded out. "No!"
宁静
Jim focused on Alex's soul-spark, gently feeding it as much as he dared. Come on, you can do this. I know you can.
The spark suddenly grew very dim and faint, then flared a sickly and sullen red.
No! Jayne Alexander! You gorram fool – don't let it win! You're better than it is and you know it! And if you don't know it, then trust that I know it. Reaching deeper than he'd ever gone before, he found a small reserve of energy and shoved it down the link to his brother.
宁静
Jayne knew he'd lost.
Even as his hands tried to find purchase on the bloody claws of his younger self, he knew this was it.
At least I tried.
It was cold comfort.
As his vision darkened, he saw the fury and grief in his own eyes and felt a stab of pity.
Ne'er meant for it ta happen.
His hands fell limply to his sides.
Go on, then. Finish me. Ain't like yer gonna last long. Not as ya are.
Even though this thing had been his personal demon for damn near forever, he couldn't help but feel sorrow for it.
For himself.
His nightmare startled and released his neck.
Jayne felt a small surge of new energy.
It tasted like apples.
"I'm sorry," he said to himself. "I tried. Ya know I tried."
The thing stumbled back, new blood starting to seep from its old wounds.
"Sometimes, though, shit gets outta control. I ain't ta blame fer what happened ta Anne. Were just bad luck. Mayhap fate. But it weren't my fault."
The blood started to trickle from the gash in its arm.
"Ain't my fault what happened ta Ruby, neither. I might've sent her on that supply-run, but I ain't the one what killed her. That sumbitch is dead."
The trickle grew stronger, joined by a steadier seepage from its skinned leg.
"An' I ain't the one what bombed the cabin. We all know the risks we take in this life. 'S disrespectful ta Mac an' Kit an' Starla an' Shon. Disrespectful ta Dog, Penny, Tony, Opal, an' Jack. They knew the risks, same as me. Weren't my fault."
The blood flowed thick and fast now.
"An' it ain't my fault them reavers showed. Ain't hardly anyone knew what they was at the time. I ain't seen 'em afore then. Din't know what they was, what they could do. An' even iffen I had, ain't a damn thing I coulda done fer Matt an' Bill. They was too far away at the time."
It fell to its knees, swaying and crying.
Jayne stepped up next to it and knelt next to his younger self.
"An' I did my best fer Molly. Were the only thing I coulda done, an' I did my best."
Jayne laid a hand on his own shoulder, just above where the gash started. I did what I had ta, an' survivin' ain't no crime. He repeated it out loud. "Survivin' ain't no crime. I s'pose it's 'bout time ta forgive m'self for it."
The dark double dissipated into a cloud of smoke.
A/N2: The parts focusing on Jayne's fight with himself were written to White Lion's 'When the Children Cry' on repeat. I find it a source of unending fascination the weird ways my brain utilizes various pieces of music in ways that seem to be counterintuitive. I'm also not too proud to admit that I was sorta maybe sniffling a little at the end there.
Translations are as follows:
1.) Zhu – 'master', (Google). Chinese.
2.) Shén de yǒnghéng de yóuqī shuā – 'god's eternal paintbrush', (Google). Chinese.
3.) Bizui – 'Shut up', (browncoats-dot-com). Chinese.
4.) Bakufu – literally 'tent government'. Used in the current real world to refer to the military government of feudal Japan (1192-1868), (source: New World Encyclopedia). I've taken the word and slid its meaning to refer to the temporary office created when Jayne enacted Article 13 and assumed control of the Guild.
5.) Xiǎo jìngzi – 'little mirror', (from Google). Chinese.
6.) Di'shta, pelia. Di'shta. Di'shta v'meda. Nil ori kitoveth. – 'Come back, brother. Come back. Come back to me. Don't make me keep my promise.', (completely made up). Twinspeak.
7.) Orbitozygomatic craniotomy – this is the medical term for a specific type of surgery used to remove brain tumors and treat aneurysms. For more information, see Johns Hopkins website, WebMD, and so forth.
8.) Shi de, xiansheng – 'yes sir', translation by Google.