BOOK ONE: The Beginning
Chapter Two: B is for Breakfast
AUTHOR: Mnemosyne
Disclaimer: No son mios!
SUMMARY: Immediately post-Serenity. The alphabet of hope, redemption, and loss. River/Jayne.
RATING: R for the series, PG this chapter
SPOILERS: Through the film, Serenity.
WARNINGS: Eventual character death
PAIRING: Rayne
NOTES:
I'm usually not this quick with my updates, but I was naughty and wrote this at work today so I'd have it ready to post tonight. Enjoy:) And thank you so much to all who have been so kind in their reviews so far – it's very much appreciated!
B is for breakfast the next morning, which was when the rest of the crew found out about their arrangement. It wasn't anything special, really, that breakfast; just pancakes, synthetic syrup, and a fundamental shift in universal truths as Jayne was forced to sit beside River and didn't seem to mind; at least, not at first. They were last to the table, which was odd in and of itself because Jayne always managed to be first to the feeding trough, except on those occasions when he was flat on his back with a hangover. On days like that, he was occasionally second.
"You feeling all right, Jayne?" Kaylee asked with curious concern as the hulking mercenary came into the room. Then, "Oh! River!" as the man took a seat at the communal table, revealing the slender girl standing behind him. "Didn't see you there!"
"Fine, Kaylee, just busy this morning is all. Gorammit, girl, sit!" Jayne snapped over his shoulder at River, who was still hovering behind him. "Bad enough you made me late for food with all your moanin' and carryin' on. Now you're making my shoulder blades itch, and when I start to itch there I'm liable to start shooting things."
River obediently took the seat beside him, pressing up close against his arm and laying her head on his shoulder. Jayne tried to shrug her off a couple of times to no avail, then gave up and dug into the heaping plate of pancakes Zoe had placed in front of him. The others stared at them, their own breakfast forgotten in the face of this new and slightly disturbing development.
"Um, Jayne?" Mal inquired after a few seconds of silence, broken only by the earthy sound of Jayne shoveling forkfuls of food into his face.
"Cap'n?" the mercenary responded around a mouthful.
"You got anything you feel like tellin' us?"
"Nope."
"You sure 'bout that?"
"Yep."
"I only ask because you appear to have a seventeen year-old girl attached to your hip what wasn't there yesterday mornin', nor yesterday night as I recollect."
"Better not have been there yesterday night," Simon snapped. He'd been staring at his sister in abject horror since she first appeared behind Jayne, and this was the first sensible thing he'd been able to say. Most logical thought had gone out the window when Jayne accused River of "moanin' and carryin' on." "Just what the hell are you doing with my sister, you pea-brained man ape!"
The table fell silent again; the kind of silence where the sound of a pin dropping would have been swallowed up by the collective silence of a bunch of people trying very hard to pretend they hadn't heard anything at all.
Jayne looked up from his breakfast and glared at the irate doctor. "I ain't doin' nothin' with her, Doc," he growled menacingly, fork hovering over his pancakes. "Case you didn't notice, she's the one won't get off me no matter what I try. I reckon that means you oughta be asking her what her gorram problem is, not me. Me, I ain't got no problem, less you want to make one."
The space between them could have been used to cool gas giants into planets. "River," Simon said, voice frosty with disdain as he refused to take his eyes away from Jayne. The mercenary sneered at him. "What are you doing with the mean, ugly gorilla?"
In the midst of all this, River had been idly picking bits of pancake off Jayne's plate, nibbling on them like a bird with seeds. Jayne noticed this and slapped her hand away, giving her a proprietorial glare and turning his back enough that he could move his plate out of her reach, shielding the remnants of his breakfast with his arm. She seemed unfazed. "Not a gorilla," she observed, leaning on Jayne's back and peering over his shoulder at the rapidly dwindling heap of pancakes. "A wall."
"Fine then. What are you doing with the mean, ugly wall?"
"Support."
"What?"
"Support."
"I heard you the first time, mei mei. Support for you or him?"
"Look, would the pair of you just quit yer yammering until I've finished my breakfast and can get the hell away from you?" Jayne snapped. River took the opportunity to sneak her hand under his arm and steal another sliver of pancake from his plate. "Hey now, cut it out! That there's mine! Get your own! No wonder you're skinny as a rail, you li'l vulture."
"Not a vulture. Butterfly. Butteflys dance, vultures digest."
"Sure, whatever. Shut up and don't eat my food."
"I can still kill you with my brain."
"Yeah, well I'm liable to give you a swift kick in the head if you keep eatin' what ain't yours."
"Jayne!" Kaylee rebuked sharply, glancing nervously at Simon, who was turning a new shade of puce. "That ain't no way to talk! And at the breakfast table no less!"
"What?" the mercenary asked, affronted. "What'd I say? I ain't the one started with the threatenin'. That was her!" He pointed over his shoulder at River with his fork. "She went on and said she could kill me with her brain. You all heard her! Don't see none of you jumpin' on her back like a pack of hungry jackals 'cause of it. Don't see why I oughta get jumped on for threatenin' when I ain't the one with them assassinatory whatsits programmed into my head like what she's got."
"Are you saying my sister's a threat?" Simon snarled.
"Um, gosh, lemme think about this, YES."
"She is in complete control of her abilities now that the Miranda memories have been purged! You know that as well as everyone else!"
"Yeah? Well if that's so then why don't you go on and ask her what she needs a gorram wall for, huh? Ah, forget this." He stood up, jogging River back slightly and picking up his plate. "I'm gonna go eat in my room. Least there I don't gotta listen to you all whinin' at me."
They watched him go, River especially as she focused on his back with a piercing intensity he didn't seem to feel.
"Meatheaded clod," Simon muttered angrily, picking testily at his food. "Doesn't know anything about anything."
"Now I'm sure he didn't mean nothing by any of that, Simon," Kaylee reassured the doctor, rubbing his back soothingly.
"You do realize you're talking about Jayne, Kaylee, don't you?" Mal asked.
"Maybe one of us ought to have a talk with him, sir," Zoe observed.
"What about exactly?"
"Not sure, sir. Just a talk in a general. General talking points is what I mean."
"Things like Don't walk on the grass and Don't insult the Tams? That sort of thing?"
"In a nutshell, sir."
"Couldn't hurt, I s'pose."
Just then, they were interrupted by a soft whimper. All eyes turned in River's direction, and were shocked to see she was crying, eyes still fixed on the door where Jayne had disappeared. "River, honey?" Kaylee asked softly, reaching across the table towards the girl; River shied away before she could be touched. "You all right, sweetheart?"
"Hurts," River whispered.
"What hurts?" Simon asked, concerned.
"Just hurts."
"Come on, I'll take you to the Inf-" He didn't get to finish his comment, as with a flutter of chiffon, River leaped up from the table and darted for the door, disappearing into the dark corridor beyond.
"Well now, ain't that just a turn-up," Mal observed wryly.
Simon went to follow his sister, but a calming hand on his arm stopped him. "Let her go," Inara said with a comforting smile. She had remained silent during the proceedings, choosing instead to sit back, observe, and listen; Companions understood the importance of listening. "She'll be all right. He won't hurt her."
"He's a brute, Inara," Simon argued.
"He's just a man, Simon," she corrected him. "And for all his gruff exterior – and I'll admit, most of his interior – there's still a part of him that took that bullet in Mr. Universe's complex because it was the right thing to do. He'll look after your sister. And with all respect, Simon, I think she can take care of herself without your intervention."
Simon sat slowly, albeit unwillingly. "I just wish she'd tell me what's wrong," he said softly.
Kaylee wrapped her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. "Now you can't go expecting things like that, Simple Simon," she told him with a gentle smile. "Don't you know a girl's gotta have herself some secrets? Else where's the fun in anything?"
She found him in his bunk, angrily sopping up the last of his syrup with one final, forlorn piece of pancake. "You went away," she said, hovering just inside the doorway.
Jayne threw her an angry glare. "Yeah, I did. And that weren't your cue to come looking for me neither."
River drifted further into the room. "Things got loud when you left."
"Yeah, well, I 'spect I'll have Mal or Zoe givin' me an earful 'bout all this 'fore the day is out."
"I didn't mean their voices." Slowly, River sank to her knees beside the bed, arms limp at her sides, and rested her cheek on the mattress. She watched as a golden drip of syrup spilled over the edge of the plate onto his thumb.
"Ain't my problem," he muttered sullenly, though it didn't hold his usual rancor, and he didn't demand she leave.
After a minute, he asked, "You awake?"
Then a minute later, "You start sleepin' in here, you're gonna get us both in a heap o' trouble."
Then, "Hello?"
"You think I'm a threat," she murmured dreamily, silently calculating how long it would take for the syrup on his thumb to congeal.
"You bet your most valuable organs I do, girl." She almost smiled as he brought his thumb to his mouth and insolently sucked the syrup away.
"Good," she said, closing her eyes and relaxing in the yellow and black waves of his aura. "You should. The others always forget."
TBC...