River sat huddled in the corner of her bunk, shivering. It was early evening – Simon was with Kaylee, so she was alone with her thoughts. Which, currently, was not a happy place for her to be.
The afternoon's events had passed so quickly, initially they had been hard to remember. Afterwards, when she had run as fast as her boots would allow from the copse back to the safety of the ship, it had taken her several hours to unpick them in her mind. To separate one moment from the next. But now she had – she almost wished she hadn't.
She didn't know exactly when events had started to turn they way they did, but she knew that it had started after she had pulled the gun from his belt. His face changed. But it wasn't until he started to approach her that she started to feel some alarm. He had had a quiet, resolute determination in his eyes.
There had also been the low level vibrations from his mind. It had taken her a while to remember she had sensed these before. That time outside Wash and Zoe's quarters. At which point it came to her in a flash that Jayne had suddenly changed his immediate intentions towards her.
The waves she had felt with the pilot and his wife had been calming, although warm. But the ones that came to her from Jayne were more urgent, almost angry – like the rumbling, growing storm.
He meant to touch her, she realised.
This shocked her. She had come to the clearing with a view to fathoming what she could do. And from Jayne's prior communications to her, she had assumed he had wanted that too. To begin with, it had seemed liked that was what was to happen. But then she took the gun from him, and things changed.
In retrospect she realised she had been naïve to think he wouldn't have approached her sexually at some point. It had just been that, somehow, over the past few days she had overlooked the fact that he was at his core a very basic, physical creature. Which was probably the last thing she should have done given his growing unpredictability. She had been too focused on her need to find out what she was.
Her inpatient fingers on him, grabbing for that pistol had been, she now recognised, like a touchpaper to a dry bonfire.A bonfirethat she had already built that first night in the hold when she had stupidly tried to tease him.
That flicker of confliction on his face that night, she now realised, had been Jayne reining in the most basic of male urges. Something had had obviously been unable to do, or not of a mind to do, this afternoon.
As things turned out however, she never had the chance to find out exactly what he had planned to do once he had come close to her. She hadn't had time to sense whether he had been about to attack or confront her, or even if she should have shot him down there and then with the pistol which had become a heavy weight in her hand.
She had had the chance however, to find out what she was truly capable of.
Because just as he outstretched a long, muscular arm towards her waist, and opened his mouth to speak - she heard a crash and roar.
River had long known that there were strange things that lived in the terraform worlds.
Some of the planets had had life on them before they had been changed, some of which died – but some of which adapted, grotesquely. They generally lived in the outer edges, where the only risk they offered was to poor, local populations. They were naturally no priority for Alliance extermination.
So when one such towering,damaged creature had suddenly leapt out of the clearing and crashed into Jayne, it had taken her a second to process what it was. But it had taken her less than a second to aim, and fire.
Afterwards the thing laid on its side, cooling. From the pads and claws she could see, she assumed it had been a feline variant. She had no urge at that moment, however, to investigate further. She was too busy taking in what had just happened.
The mercenary meanwhile was prostrate on the ground, his torso leaking blood from what looked like a deep clawing wound. He was awake however, and breathing. She stared past him as he raised himself up enough so he could roll onto his elbows and face her.
She stood over him, the pistol still smoking in her hands.
"Gorram it, you killed a ruttin' desert cat!" he choked at her, hoarsely. Dragging himself slowly to his feet, and grabbing his chest, he then leaned unsteadily over the corpse. Presently, he turned back to face her. "And what's more, right between the gorram eyes."
River was at this point, beginning to go into shock. She became aware again of the gun in her hands, which was now slipping from her grip. "I…" she began.
Jayne, mistaking her shock for confusion, continued; "Don't you gorram see? You just took out a large moving target with a single shot - from little more than a popgun. Without gorram touching me. There ain't no mercenary in the Core that could do that eas'ly after a lifetime o' killin'.
"You're a gun," he continued, excitedly, "But what's more, I figure it seems you can only do this when it really matters. When it's life o' death. Which means that the rest o' the time you've got the world's best safety catch. You can't kill unless you're threatened first. "
"Gorram it, those guys who put you together were really sumthin'" He then leaned to his left precariously, before dropping heavily to the floor in a dead faint.
At which point, River had turned on her heel and run for the ship as quickly as her legs would carry her.
When she had got back, she hadn't immediately told any of the crew about Jayne's whereabouts. Her mind had been in such confusion, it had taken her a good hour to calm before she had been able to tell Mal where to find him. At which point he'd gone out with Zoe and brought him back. They'd dragged his huge bulk up the boat ramp for want of a stretcher.
Simon had patched him up. His wounds her been deep, but clean, so he would recover easily enough, he had said. Jayne was now strapped down, and out for the count, in the doctor's surgery.
There had been questions of course as to what had happened. But River had said nothing in between her wails and tears. As it was though, Mal had come to the conclusion that she'd simply witnessed Jayne shoot the creature and gone bug-housed in response. "Must've been a helluva fight to see. Jayne's an ape but that gorram cat was as large as a house," he'd said.
They had then left her to calm down where she now sat, shivering.
She had been shocked enough by the development with Jayne. That had unnerved her, created a new, upsetting confusion with her which she was at a loss to explain. But she had decided not to face that right now. Mainly because to her, it paled in comparison with the shooting.
Had Jayne been right? Was she really little more than a weapon for others' use – with no control of her actions? In which case how far did she need to be pushed before she retaliated? And could anyone push her – even if she cared and trusted them?
There were now more questions than ever before, she realised. And further more, she was afraid. For herself, and Serenity.
Jayne awoke with a start and looked at his surrounds. He was unsurprised to find himself in the surgery – afterall, in his line of work he was just as likely to wake up here than in his own bunk. So at least for a few seconds, he was unconcerned.
However as the full scale of this afternoon's events came back to him, he developed an ache of worry. His concern was mainly for himself, about what the day's events might mean. Although there was also, he noticed with a groan, a familiar throb of guilt.
Questions flew around in his head. He wondered what Mal knew about the afternoon. He figured that as they had found him they would've found the cat as well. And River? What had she said? "Hopefully nuthin' – they'd not understand her anyway," he grunted to himself.
He had to find out however, and quickly. If Mal had found out what he had been playin' at with the girl either by givin' her a gun or – other ways – he knew he'd be dead by the end of the day. Jayne rose up from the bed at the thought. In which case, he had toget out.
However, at that point, Mal's figure loomed in the doorway. Jayne tensed. His hand slowly moved towards his shorts, to seek out his emergency blade.
Mal breathed and opened his mouth. "How's our favourite kitty killer?"
Jayne pulled his hand back from his shorts. "Yeah, fine thanks Mal. Better anyways. Hell that moggy put up some fight!" He hoped he sounded convincin'.
"Yeah well you did a shiny groomin' job on it, for sure.", laughed Mal." Next time though, try not to murder pretty kitty when our resident sensitive genius is wandering around and likely to witness it, eh? She was mighty freaked out when she came back. Took us best part of an' hour to get her to calm down enough to tell us where the ruttin' hell you were."
Jayne looked up, with a confused look on his face. He hadn't even thought about that.
" Yeah," continued Mal, " but thanks be she was there to see it anyway, eh. Otherwise we might'a not found you at all, and kitty liked to scratch it seems. So you could say, she saved your life. Now how's that feel?"
"Uh – yeah, great." Jayne murmured. The throb of guilt that was pulsing in his chest moved up to his throat.
"Well, I didn't expect too much gratitude. But River might, so I think you should at least have the decency to thank the girl when you get back on your feet. Which is, by the way, an order. Which I am hopin' will happen real soon, as we're due in Persephone in six days – and I'll be needin' you fit an' well. You and I are goin' on a job." At which point, Mal turned and left.
Jayne sighed heavily, and lay back. At least he could now relax, he thought, about the shootin'. Mal had obviously come to a conclusion which on the face of it was the only one really likely, at least accordin' to what her knew about the girl. Furthermore, it din't seem as if the girl had tried to put him right in anyway.
Whichweren't surprisin' really either, considered Jayne. I mean, if I had just proved that I could kill sumthin' at least three times my size in the blink of an eye, and I wasn't sure how well that'd go down with the crew, who were already pretty suspicious of me, then I'd prob'ly not be too keen on tellin' the truth neither.
However, he mused, if he'd been in her position - he'd have been more'n likely not to have told 'em where he had been layin', bleedin'. He knew sumthin' about her now, that none of the others did. Which they might well like to know.
So why did she save him when she could'a let him die?
Jayne was stumped. "It don't make no sense," he said aloud. Especially – and the guilt started to throb even louder – after what he had tried.
It must've looked bad, he thought. To her, one minute he had been plannin' her second shootin' lesson, and the next he was movin' towards her with a view to sumthin' else. And she'd have had to be an idiot not to see what. He just hoped however that she hadn't jumped to the wrong conclusion.
He had never been a one to take without askin'. He was a basic, stupid dumbass, he knew, but he would never pressurise a woman into something she din't want to do. He wasn't a gorram monster. Only cowards took advantage of women. Not to mention – it weren't godly.
But she'd been standin' there, lookin' so damn mean and lovely, he figured somethin' in him had just decided he was gone see what the hell the score really was in terms of tail.
He hadn't known what he was gonna say exactly, but he did know that he was gonna ask her what the hell she thought she was doin' the other night, playin' with his urges like he was aruttin' teenage boy.
And who the hell did she think she was dealin' with, when she thought she could jus' take a gun off a man without askin' – and touchin' him close to a place no innocent girl's got means to touch?
From there, he guessed he would'a just waited to see her reaction. He figured that she din' t really know how far she had pushed his buttons, in which case hopefully she'd then have the good sense to stop. Jayne had self control up to a point, but he knew himself well enough that if he was gonna lose it over anything, it would be for women.
His John Thomas had taken over control on more than a few times before, and got him into all worlds of trouble. It was just that he liked women so much, and the way they felt inside. Soft, slippery and warm, on him, under him, around him.
But – and he had to admit he had guessed he'd been hopeful of this – she may well have surprised him. He knew he was a good-lookin' man. He also knew he was a brute, and that to some women sick of men who weren't no challenge, that he could be like ten Christmases at once. And on a good day, a few more.
So maybe she had been playin' with him as encouragement, but wanted him to make the first move. Or maybe she din't know what the hell she wanted. Hell, maybe that was it. Afterall she'd had a gun when he approached her, and he hadn't shot him.
It was probably likely he'd never know, now though, he thought, with disappointment. He guessed that she'd either be real scared of him now as she thought he'd been in a mind to rape – he grimaced at the thought – or worse, she'd be mad with him. In which case, he figured, he'd have to ensure he didn't give her any chance to think he was a threat to him – or she could retaliate. And hell, he thought – could she retaliate.
He felt a cool shiver of fear snake down his spine at the memory of her holdin' that gun. It felt weirdly pleasurable however, as it hit the heat that was once again growin' in the seat of his belly.
Maybe it wasn't all hopeless, however – he also knew somethin' about her. He knew what she was. He had a power over her, small but substantial. And - he was alive. She had kept him alive. So at the very least, she didn't want him dead, whatever she thought he'd done.
So maybe there was a chink of light here, he mused in findin' out if she did want him. He din't know if he'd act on it – I mean, there was still the substantial problem of putting his 10 percent at risk not to mention Mal's wrath.
But she was the meanest, sweetest gorram weapon he'd ever seen in his life. She could kill or cure, and it was an intoxicatin' mix he'd never come across in anyone, or anythin'.
Even her yammerin' didn't seem quite so bad now he knew what he did about her.
Gorram it, she made him hot as hell.
So whatever the risks, he needed to know if he was in with a chance of holding her, pushing inside her, making her shake and groan. And if she wanted to, he mused, whether she would do it a few times. 'Cos that was fine with him too.