River had seen though the plan within seconds, of course. She knew Jayne well enough to know he would not do anything without it having an immediate benefit to himself.
She'd also – rather surprisingly, she thought - managed to successfully translate her concerns to him, with a mixture of a few words and facial expressions. "The sea always comes back to itself," she had muttered. Naturally, he tried to appear as if he has misunderstood.
"Gorram moonb-..! I mean, uhm, I'm not getting' it. Just give me a yes or no! I mean, uh – please." His attempts at charm however were less successful, she noted.
However, despite herself, she had been impressed. Schooled and subtle Jayne was certainly not, but he was also far from stupid.
She did not press him with her doubts however. Jayne obviously thought he was tricking her into revealing something to the others, she mused. However she made her mind up to agree anyway – afterall, Jayne's plan offered her a means of finding out at the very least what she was capable of. Maybe she did have something to reveal. Something that the others had been keen not to investigate. To them, it seemed, she was little more than a minor mind reader, and occasional psychic – but not really, well, a real person.
So she had agreed, and now found herself slipping along the corridor as planned, towards the hold. It was in the early hours, and the ship was eerily quiet, save for the ship's warm, constant, comforting hum.
Lightly, with a dancers grace, she patted down the steel staircase towards the bowels of the ship. The hold was dark, and appeared empty. For a moment, she thought she had been set up. Perhaps one of Jayne's childish games, she thought with growing irritation, remembering how he had got Simon to first don a spacesuit - despite his fear of enclosure.
However, just as her toes touched the floor, the lights glowed on. They were dim, but revealed enough.
The big one was standing, resolutely, in the middle of the hold floor. He was wearing his usual close fitting shirt and cargo pants, but was also, she noticed, bedecked from head to feet with artillery - and a few choice knives. A substantial-looking Vera was cradled in his arms. This is obviously meant to make a point, she thought to herself. He's in charge.
She had to admit, though, he looked pretty mean. And, the burgeoning woman within her noticed, very much a man. He was certainly not unattractive, for all of his…how did Simon describe it? Ah. Ape-like qualities.
At this very thought, she also became aware she hadn't fully thought out this unfolding chain of events. Here she was, little more than a girl, standing in a dark hold, alone, with a man who was at least twice her size. Not to mention a very untrustworthy, selfish and generally violent man who had actually tried to hand her over to the very men who had –
It was too much to think about. Too painful. But she had scared herself. Urgently, she started to back away.
Jayne's face meanwhile changed from he hoped had been manly determination, to confusion, to alarm. "Whoah!" he hissed. He held up a hand, as if to wave a white flag.
"What'cha doin', gorram fr-" he began, although stopped mid sentence. With a slow realisation, it dawned on him that perhaps he had made rather too much of an impression. He looked at the small creature that was backing away from him, dressed in her normal childish, white skirts, and grimaced.
Earlier, when she had agreed to the plan, she has seemed totally unfazed, and unafraid. If anything he had sensed she was keen to try his experiment, although he also sensed she didn't exactly trust his motives. He had, he'd admitted, been impressed. But looking now at her – with her already pale face sheet-white with terror, and with the glimmer of tears in her sad eyes - he wondered if he was truly doing the right thing.
Perhaps she was simply permanently bug-housed, he wondered. She sent out one signal, and then turned it on its head. But although she bugged him – and he was aware he was feelin' mighty irritated as well as uncertain right now at this turn of events - he wasn't quite sure he wanted to be responsible for her tipping over the edge.
Partly because he'd get the blame but also – although he did not consciously admit it - because he didn't want to be directly responsible for causing her any more pain. Since he'd found out about the brain cuttin', he'd just wanted rid of her – not, rid of her. I mean, he wasn't that much of a gorram black dog.
For a moment, they both stood totally still, watching each other like two creatures prepared for fight – or flight. River's mind was racing, wondering if she could trust this man, or whether by working with him she was effectively sending herself back to ….them. She visibly shivered, her small body quaking gently in the thin fabric of her dress.
Jayne's meanwhile had predictably stopped focusing on her and returned to his own situation. He begun to fret whether the scrap of a thing was just about to run upstairs and rat him out to the crew. He was also wondering whether he really wanted to trust her with one of his weapons anyway – jus' in case she decided to take a pot-shot at his ruttin' head. Which would jus' be shiny.
But presently, it was Jayne that made the first move. Whether through grit or dumbheadedness, he wasn't sure, he gently lowered himself to his knees with his hands in the air. Then, with a steady movement, he lowered a hand up to his shoulder, and unlocked his artillery belt. At once, his numerous guns and knives all fell away from his body, and landed with a muffled thump on the ground. Then he stood up again, took two steps back and then fixed her directly in the eye. "Choose one," he murmured.
River just stared. She was amazed. She had already sensed that Jayne was having second thoughts about the wisdom of this plan – although she could not quite figure out why. She could not however work out why in gorram hell he had just basically laid himself bare.
Jayne meanwhile, was trying hard to loo nonchalant, despite the nervous tension that was now building in his gut. However, his mind was racing too. It wasn't just because he was so gorram well keen to be rid of her, or to grab the limelight for figurin' her out, he was realising. He actually needed to know what she was capable of, he had finally realised. The girl bothered him mainly because she may be dangerous. And although he hated to admit it, and vowed never to admit it again, he was just ever so slightly – afraid.
River meanwhile was considering her next move. As she stood at the bottom of the staircase, one foot on a stair, the other rooted to the ground, she knew that although by trusting this man she had much to lose – she also had potentially much to gain. No one else was offering to help her find out what she was capable of. What she was.
For what seemed an age, she looked directly into his cool blue eyes, trying to sense his purpose. He looked back into her own dark pools, unblinkingly. Something had to give.
Eventually, ever so cautiously, she moved silently towards the pile of guns. She finally reached it, and for a moment stood over it, considering her next move. She already knew she was going to choose the smallest pistol she could find, because she knew that anything bigger could potentially flip Jayne into full-out attack. Which she was very keen to avoid.
However - now that she was standing over this great pile of weaponry, she was felt ever so slightly more at ease. Her body took on a more confident stance, and a small smile came to her lips, as she realised she had him in a position of reduced power. A strange, illogical impulse came to her.
Slowly, deliberately, she leaned over and reached out a slim, pale arm. But before she grasped hold of the small silver gun she had already spotted at the bottom of the pile, she ran her fingers gently, and slowly, along Vera's barrels.
Not wishing to overstep the mark however, she soon gripped the silver pistol's stock, and stepped back, pointing it safely at the ground. She looked up. Jayne was looking at her though his brows with a strange intensity – although he was also, she noticed, visibly deflating with relief.
River saw that between the two of them, they had agreed to trust each other. What she had failed to see however was Jayne pull his hand away from his shorts – from the small throwing blade he always kept for emergencies.
Clearing his throat, he muttered: "Good choice. If you take a pot-shot at me with that thing, the worst I'll get is a ruttin' body piercing."
"I'll aim to avoid it," she murmured, with a surprising clarity. "Let's begin."