Title: Floozies, Vixens and the Manner of Grief
author: Jmaria
Rating: FR-18
Disclaimer: Joss is god, I am a lowly worshipper.
Spoilers: The series, but not the big damn movie. Also, for Baby on Board, Just Unsettlin', Nightmare Seduction, Nucleus, Not Whole, Mama Cobb, Tiny Thing Like That, Family Matters, & Gathering, Hootenanny or a Shindig (part one and part two)
Summary: Emotions are running high, and ties are always binding.
A/N: Talk about life freakingly imitating art. Last night, when I went to post part two of G,H,oaS, this huge boom of thunder went off and scared the crap outta me. It was pouring all night long, and it had been cold but clear all night before that. So, I was freaked out at the weirdness (not that I'm saying I've got control over the weather. . .although, that would be cool).

Floozies, Vixens and the Manner of Grief

River raced across the half-deserted bar-room, heading straight for Jayne. She knelt beside him, taking his sluggishly bleeding head into her lap. Mal was yelling, but she ignored him and glared at the idiot holding his leg.

"Sad little peon, doomed to becoming carrion for things they cannot comprehend. Fights for misplaced honor. Lacks it. Picked the bones with little difficulty," River spat, her voice edging more towards a growl of anger.

"Moonbrain?" Jayne grumbled, blinking blood out of his eye as it trickled over his forehead. He didn't look at her, and for half a millisecond she feared. His eyes are on her 'victim'. "Thatcha?"

"That me," she crooned in response, smoothing back his bloodied hair with one hand, tracing Pop's scar with the other.

"Crazy bitch! Near shot off my gorram leg for nothing!"

"Not nothing!" River yells with more strength in her voice than the crew has heard there before. "Hit my Jayne, attack my family with your callous blunt objects for revenge you don't even believe in, because you've profited. All show, no depth, no reason. You're lucky to breathe."

"Yeah, she coulda killed ya with her brain or mathematics," Jayne laughs, low and rumbling. He centers her, without knowing, but he does.

"I reckon we'll leave him to his men to deal with," Shepherd Book says, helping pull Jayne to his feet.

It's no easy task, and they stumble under his weight. Wash is leaning on Zoe's arm as the three pass, and River pokes him hard in the shoulder. He cried out, and Zoe gave her an odd and slightly threatening look.

"Meant to stop it, but he played along. The captures are going to look bad now!" Is all she says.

"Well, I'm sorry? You never said I had to stop it. You can't stop the future, you know!" Wash cried at River's back.

"You knew?" Mal yelled, held up on one side by Logan and with a very wet Inara glaring at him.

"Not that you were gonna insult Inara. About Jayne and my lip?"

"An' Simon goin' ape-shit?"

"Ape-shit? Simon? Over what?" Kaylee asked, Simon limping beside her.

"That cretin has a child by a gun!" Simon yelled.

"Shut up, Simon!" River snapped.

"Huh?"

"He has no honor, he doesn't deserve -"

River had left Jayne then, slipping back to where Simon and Kaylee stood. Her hand lashed out, slapping him hard with tears in her eyes and her mouth set firmly.

"You don't know, can't understand. She would make you, if she could. Noble and true, hard to see, but there. Never speak of what you don't understand, walked in his moccasins. You call names, poke fun, and you don't see. You have to let me go, Simon. Let me be what I choose, or you're as bad as them."

Mother Cobb fretted. Not only over Jayne, because she always fretted after him, but mostly over Phoebe. The girl had gone all sullen and grumpy, and it went against her better nature. The fact that everyone was gettin' nervous over River's bolting outta her own party wasn't much help.

"Whaddya mean by 'condition'?" Phoebe asked suddenly.

"How much?" Evie asked, turning away from the doorway.

Brooke and Jasmine exchanged looks, the younger sister immediately seeking out Mattie and rushing the child from the room. Phoebe noticed this, and her face hardened in a defiant expression.

"The chit's with child?" Phoebe demanded loud enough for Mattie to hear.

"Hush, child."

"She is! Is he plannin' on leavin' it here like he did last time?"

"What's Pheebs talkin' about?" Mattie asked.

"He is!" Phoebe yelled, when Evie said nothing.

"Phoebe, leave it be. You've let the cherry wine go to yer head a bit -" Enid came forward, trying to lead her sister off.

"No! Jayne's gonna leave his little legacies behind for Mama to rear? How's tha' fair!" Phoebe jerked away sharply from her sister.

"Phoebe Jane Cobb, you better check your mouth this instant," Evie snapped, her face drawn in an expression that scared little Mattie.

"I shan't! He left Vera heavy with child and now he's gonna leave - you'll be stuck with River's baby like you're stuck with Mattie!"

"Momma?" Mattie asked, her young face rapt with confusion.

"Jasmine, take her out." But the girl didn't have a chance to move.

"Whas' goin' on?" Jayne asked, as River and Book led him through the doorway.

"You! You've done nothin' but bring grief and -" Phoebe started on an angry rant, but tears started slipping down her cheeks and her fist lashed out as words failed her. "I hate yer guts, Jayne Cobb!"

River stumbled back with Jayne's weight and the rush of the teens anger. She blinked back her own tears and watched as little Mattie's face crumbled. The girl knew the answers that were to be kept hidden and buried. She looked at Jayne with wide eyes.

"It ain't true, say it ain't Mommy?" Mattie yelled, tears in her eyes.

"Oh, baby girl," Evie whispered.

"Mommy?"

"Perhaps we should leave Mrs. Cobb and Jayne to speak with young Mattie." Book led Jayne to the sofa nearest them.

"Or mayhap we go throttle Pheebs," Brooke hissed.

"Take yer husbands and sons home, girls. Get some rest, we've got the rehersal at noon," Evie said distractedly, pulling Mattie into a tight embrace.

"I'll speak with Phoebe. The wine's gone to her head, and her heart aches," River murmured so only Evie could hear.

"She - oh, I don't know what's come over her."

"I do."

Phoebe sobbed into her pillow, feeling more than a little sick. It was too close. Pop's anniversary was coming up, and Jayne's return with a blushing and pregnant bride hit too close to the nearly eight year old memories. Memories of Pop hitting Jayne when he was confronted with his year old daughter would be forever branded in the girl's mind.

"You blame the wrong people," River stood in the doorway, her face shadowed from the small light in the hall.

"Get out!"

"You blame a child for the parents actions, blame the effect for the cause."

"Ya talk in riddle's I can't wrap my head 'round," Phoebe yelled.

"She sees the frightened girl, Jayne falling down. The man that is gone, that loved you and Mattie equal, like the others - equal in everything. Best father Mattie could have had at the time, his -"

"She ain't his! She's Jayne's and he's gonna put this family through hell like he did last -"

"No. Not like this at all. My children, my rules, my family. I choose."

"What're -"

"Of my making. I put in motion that which brings balance, equal sums to be figured and dispensed."

"Huh?" Phoebe stared at the girl blankly.

"Not bartered, not traded. Didn't love you less, didn't quicken his passing. Watches you, in your dreams you see him."

"But if - just maybe -" Phoebe sobbed, staring at River hoping to find an answer. When had she become the all seeing oracle, who brought comfort or despair in her wake.

"No, it wouldn't have changed a thing. Some are set in stone that can't be made to feel," River crooned, taking the trembling teen in her arms.

"I - I didn't - I'm gonna' -" Phoebe felt her hair being pulled back just before she threw up the cherry wine she'd drank.

Jayne weaved in and out of sleep. He'd been one and a half sheets to the west before the brawl, and since then he'd been hit more times'n he could count. That weren't saying much. He knew Phoebe was pissed, 'course he hadn't been 'round her growin' up as much as he had with the other kids.

"I'll explain ta you as much as I can, Mattie. Jayne's still - Jayne, yer still bleedin'!" Evie cried.

"It'll set a spell, not bleedin' too bad. Tell her, Ma," Jayne brushed his mother's worried hands away.

"Oh, well. When Jayne was growin' up here, there was a girl he fell for. Her name was Vera, and she was Magistrate Weblin's only livin' heir. Man was old, lost three a his children to terra-formin' incidents and his wife in childbirth," Evie held back from saying that it should have given them a clue that Vera'd be weak. "Now, we weren't as well off back then, house were barely finished, and yer Pop was running hisself sick workin' the wood in these parts. Jayne went to the public school house, got taught readin' and some math and worked the land to help us out. Met Vera there, and she was a pretty little thing. Took a fancy to her, and I'd hoped they'd marry one day. But Magistrate thought boy like Jayne weren't the marryin' kind for his girl, and worked right hard to get him gone. Jayne left Cadence for the rest of the 'verse when Vera'd been matched to a rich fella on the other side of the world."

"Vera? The girl in the story?" Mattie asked, her eyes solemn and all seeing. It was moment's like that he saw Vera in her. "But if she married?"

"She married, found she couldn't have children with her husband. He was old, and sickly some. She stayed with him for fifteen years, until he passed away. Jayne had come home for a wedding, saw the girl as a woman, and her father'd gone on the same year as her husband."

"She were as pretty a girl, e'en better as a woman," Jayne grinned.

"Jayne couldn't stay here long, had a job needed doing. And Vera knew that. Came to me a few months later, tellin' me she was expectin'."

"Me."

"Yes, sweetie. Begged on me not to tell Jayne, so I bit my tongue and did as she wished. Birth ain't easy. You've heard Brooke and the others moan on and were there when Bethany had little Bri a year back."

The girl nodded solemnly, knowing her mother'd passed on in childbirth. Was common on the backwater planets to be cut down by childbirth, as doctors were few and far between 'cept in the Core.

"Well, Vera weren't strong like us Cobb women. Her mamma hadn't been neither. She fought real hard, but it weren't no use. She passed on, naming you for her mamma. Waved Jayne soon as we could, but it was a year 'fore he could get back. It was me'n Pop who decided you'd be ours."

"Promised yer life'd be better'n mine. Save up credits and cash to send fer you and fer Phoebe," Jayne rubbed at his jaw. Couldn't understand why the girl'd go ape-shit, but she weren't lackin' in muscle. Threw a damn decent punch.

"You'll sleep in the room with River and Kaylee tonight, so's Phoebe can get over this fit, and then tomorrow we'll talk again."

"Okay, momma," the girl said tiredly, slipping past the familiar strangers.

Jayne could see her stop and how Kaylee took her hand. She glared over her shoulder at Simon, but pulled the little girl in her arms and led her up the stairs. Evie Cobb's face was pale with anger and sadness.

"Phoebe, - why'd she -"

"Jayne, think of what day it'll be tomorrow," Ma said quietly.

"Gorrammitt."
"Five years, I'd hoped she'd gotten over it some, but it seems more clear to her now that he's gone and yer here for yer wedding."

"Still, don't give her the right ta do that ta little Mattie."

"Well, I - oh, I don't know." She rubbed tiredly at her face, before focusing on her son. "Yer bleedin' all over my sofa, boy. What kinda trouble you stir up at the Rusty Nail?"

"No kind! That little piece of go-se Weblin did it!"

"Hessian Weblin? Oh that no good - thought he was on the far side of the world. Who's that girl what come home wit ya?"

"Huh?"

"Dark little thing?"

"Don't know -" Jayne was cut off

"It doesn't matter, because you're never going to see me naked!"

"Who asked ya to get nekkid?"

"You did!"

"What -" Evie jumped out of her chair at this burst of yelling coming from her kitchen.

"'Nara?" Jayne slurred.

No one got to sleep early that night. Inara hit Mal a few times and they burst out into a yelling match more than once. Book, Zoe, and Evie worked on healing the collection of bruises, cuts and gashes the men had picked up in the bar. Inara took a shower. And then exhaustion kicked in. Rather than riding the mule in the rainstorm, the crew found themselves sleeping either in the old Cobb children's bedrooms or on one of the three sofas.

Jayne winced in pain when he woke up. He could smell what he thought was breakfast being made down in the kitchen. Simon must have smelt it too, because the prissified doctor was all but moanin' in his sleep.

"You boys plannin' on ever wakin' up?" Kaylee asked from the doorway.

"Why you in a dress? Goin' to another one of 'em shindigs?" Jayne yawned.

"No, well, less'n you call your rehearsal a shindig. It's in a few hours. Cap'n wondered why you two weren't up yet."

"Yet? What time is it? What day is it?" Simon moaned from the other bed.

"Nearin' five o'clock. You slept the whole day away. Figgered since you two got hurt the most at the fight you started, it might be best to let you all sleep longer. Course, Cap'n wanted to wake you up at five this mornin', like he was."
"He was?"

"Inara and he got into another fight. He called her a whore in his sleep, and well, -"

"I missed him gettin' sumthin chucked at his head?"

"Yup," Kaylee sighed. "Why can't they ever get along? Why's there always gotta be so much hostility betwixt 'em?"

"They're runnin' hot fer each other. Both see it, just too stubborn to act on it. Not unlike some prissified big city doctors and wee little mechanics who oughta know better."

Jayne shuffled past Kaylee and headed down to the kitchen, memories of Phoebe's fight ringing clear in his head. Ma was down there, with Mattie, River, and Phoebe. The younger two girls were wrapping silverware in tight white linen napkins, and River was laughing.

Girl looked kinda cute when she was laughing. He hadn't noticed that before. River blushed, her eyes hooded as she smiled at him.

"Mornin' ladies," Jayne grinned at his women. His women. Felt all manner a nice to say that, or rather, think it.

"Evenin', Jayne. Girls, could you take them out to the tables yer brothers set up this afternoon?"

"Yes, Ma." Phoebe and Mattie scurried out of the kitchen as if nothin' had happened the night before.

"The fittings, Zoe's going to hate the frou-fa-rou," River slipped easily from the chair and up the stairs where Jayne could hear Kaylee and Inara laughing.

"Sit down, son. Give ya something to ease yer stomach 'afore the rehearsal."

"That don't sound good. Sendin' off the little ones, -"

"Went inta town this mornin' get some things we'd forgot to get and passed by a couple of old holo's they were takin' down. Wanted posters."

"Gorrammitt, Ma -"
"She's a fugee, told me so herself this mornin'. Said some bad men cut on her, and that brother a hers rescued her. Not a Tam, but a Cobb - never find her that way. Her words 'course."

"Ma. . ."

"Then she told me how it weren't you who got her in the family way. She forced herself on you against your judgment. Told this to Phoebe as well." Evie laughed. "Imagine big Jayne Cobb gettin' duped by that little thing. Reminds me a your pop."

"Huh?"

"I was two months along with Brooke 'afore yer Pop gave in, after hemmin' and hawin' over me from a distance. But there was love with us. This girl, Jayne. She loves you more'n Vera did."

"Ma, she ain't seen nuff the world to know what love is," Jayne grumbled.

"No, that ain't so. Deserves love, her brother weren't wrong about that. I know you'll love on the children, the twins when they're born, but'll you love on her?"

"I - can't say."

"Better learn how to say. Girl's been through some awful things, deserves good lovin'. Now, eat on up. Got the rehearsal in a few hours."

The rehearsal went smooth enough, until Shepherd Book mentioned that Jayne and River'd requested to write their own vows.

"But I ain't good with words!" Jayne had snapped.

"They'll come when you need them," River had whispered.

Inara and Mal'd been civil to each other, which weren't sayin' much. The night sped onward, and Jayne spent half of it scratching out bits of nothing on a piece of paper. The womenfolk had all bunkered down at the Cobb home, and the menfolk had been shuffled off to Serenity.

Morning came, and he still didn't know what the hell he was gonna say about this girl. He wore one of his Pop's old dress coats Ma'd been working on all week to fit him. His Pop had been big, but Jayne was a bit bigger than him. Mal and Wash wore coats and ties, their boots all shined up like Jayne's knives. His sisters all wore pink, cept for Phoebe and Mattie. First one down the aisle was Zoe, in a deep red slinky dress that had Mal blinking, and Wash grinnin' ear to ear. Phoebe followed next, in a lighter red dress with a bit of frills and flounces on it. Then came little Mattie in a pale red dress and little roses being thrown from a woven basket.

Jayne grinned at this, even though his knees were shaking. His knees never knocked like this. The music changed, and everybody got to their feet. Kaylee stood in front of River in a dress nearly as fancy and frilly as the one she'd worn to that shindig Mal'd gotten in a brawl at. His eyes weren't focused on her for long, because Simon, dressed much like he'd been when they'd picked him up on Persephone was holding out his arm for River. The girl stepped forward, her long dark hair done up in some intricate fashion that Inara must have done for her. Her dress was white, and once again bore the touches of Inara and his mother. Her eyes were hidden behind a half veil, but she smiled at him. Simon led her forward as the Brautchor played on.