disclaimer: Joss Whedon owns them, not me. Not yet.

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"Kaylee," River said sweetly, "I told Mal and Zoe."

"What? Oh, no River, why?"

"Because we are going to help."

Kaylee bit her bottom lip. "Help? I thought we were helping?"

"We are. We help Simon and Jayne. Now we help Zoe and Mal."

"Help them what?"

"Help them make Simon and Jayne sly."

"What?" Kaylee giggled. "Why?"

River grinned widely. "Retaliation."

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Simon was sewing his vest lining while Jayne made comments every few minutes about what a woman he was. "Shut up," Simon said for what must have been the fourth time. "Knowing how to sew doesn't make me woman."

"Nah, it doesn't. But doing it when you have women on board who could do it for you, that makes you woman."

Simon glared at him. "So what do you want?"

"Well, thought I saw something earlier you might be interested in."

"Was it Kaylee naked? Because as interesting as that is, I've seen it."

"Nah, it weren't that. Although if you can arrange a way that I can see it-"

"Get to the point, Jayne."

"I was trying to, 'till you put that image in my head." Jayne relished the image for a bit, then continued on. "But anyway, you know how we thought Zoe 'an Mal were giving each other strange looks over dinner the other night? Well, I was going down to cargo to mop the damn floor cuz Mal told me I wouldn't get paid on next job if I didn't-"

"And you need that money for me."

"Right. Well, anyway, I was on my way and I saw… least I think I saw… they hugged. I ain't never seen them make more contact than the occasional handshake."

"That is weird. And good. Very good." He tied off the stitch and snipped the thread. "I really think this is going to work, Jayne."

"I told you. And then you owe me a shiny new gun."

"That's okay, you owe me pay."

"And we owe dishes and a dress to the females."

"And how." Simon held up his vest to admire his work.

Jayne snatched it away from him, inspecting closely. "This is real good. You could be a seamstress, you woman." Simon rolled his eyes.

The intercom crackled loudly. Someone's garbled voice came on loudly, incomprehensible and screeching. Finally, it settled itself out and became a human on one end of a speaker instead some jumbled mass of noise. "Simon?" It was Malcolm.

"Yes," Simon said calmly.

"Jayne in there?"

"Uh huh." He let go of the button. "Why would he know that?" he whispered loudly.

"I dunno. What does he want?"

"Why?" Simon asked the intercom.

"We're cracklegarblenothingness the ship staticannoying air vents."

"What?"

"cracklestatic Clearing air vents. Something's wrong with the vents, we're testing them. You incomprehensiblegarble Jayne stay put, vacantair locking you in."

"You're, you're what? Locking us in?"

"Huh?"

"YOU'RE LOCKING US IS?"

"Yep. Sit tight."

"No, wait, what?" He pushed the button a few times, but the air was silent. He turned around to Jayne, who looked nowhere near as worried as Simon did. "They're locking us in."

"I heard that, woman."

"Why, why are they locking us in?" The door hissed unpleasantly, the airlocks taking over. Simon pulled on it weakly, expecting nothing and getting just that. "I don't believe this."

"Calm down, for hell's sake. They're just checking the air vents. We get locked in cuz the hallways won't have no air in 'em. Something we should be doing on the ground, but we don't."

"You mean… they're going to be locking up River, too?"

"Prob'ly."

"No, that's a really, really bad idea." He pushed the button again. "Mal!"

"He ain't gonna answer. She'll be fine."

"What if she's not? What if she has an episode, what if she starts acting out and she-"

"Doc, relax! She'll be all right."

"How can I relax?"

"I can knock you out. Sound good?"

He looked back at Jayne, torn between flabbergasted and angry. Upon seeing Jayne's face, though, he settled on relieved. "No, thanks anyway, though."

"Then shut it. We only get so much air in here, and I don't wanna have to kill you to get enough." He watched Simon pace for a few seconds. "You ain't scared of small spaces, are you?"

"Not usually," Simon said nervously, which didn't ease the poor merc's mind.

Up in the bridge, Kaylee, Mal, Zoe and River sat sipping water and smiling. "You think this'll work?" Mal asked.

"Sure it will," Kaylee said brightly. "Once it gets hot in there, the clothes'll start coming off, and then-"

"Okay," he interrupted. "I don't need details."

"Yuck," River said sincerely.

"That's right," Mal agreed. "Yuck."

"It ain't yuck," Kaylee protested. "It's kinda hot, really."

River made a face. "Brother," she said curtly. "Yuck. Jayne… yuck."

"Thatta girl," Mal chuckled, "you stick by that."

Two and a half hours later…

"How long do they have to do this? I think we're going to suffocate."

"I dunno, I usually sleep through it but someone won't shut the hell up."

Simon sulked on his bed. "It just seems like an unnecessarily long time. It's been at least three hours." He pulled at the collar of his sticky shirt. "And it's ridiculously hot."

"Why don't you complain about it more, that seemed to be working the first two hours." Jayne pulled his damp shirt off over his head and threw it at his feet.

"What are you doing?"

Jayne gave him a look of blunt sincerity. "I'm getting naked in the hopes of taking you to bed, doc." Then he rolled his eyes. "I'm hot. You know, sometimes you really are yi guan ben dan."

"Oh, what an impressive vernacular."

"Uh, thanks?" He shifted uncomfortably. Maybe Simon was staring at him a bit too much. Whatever the vernacular was, he didn't really need compliments on it from the doctor.

"Vocabulary," Simon informed him, exasperated. Then to dumb it down more, he added "Words you say."

"I knew what it meant!" Jayne lied sorely.

"You're such a child," he marveled. "You get insulted so easily."

"Do not."

"Do so."

"Nuh uh."

"Uh huh suh!" They stared for a moment, then started laughing. "I'm sorry," Simon spat between chuckles. "I'm just sick of being in here."

"Really? I was enjoying it so much thought I was in a brothel."

"And it's really stuffy in here."

"So take off your shirt and stop bitchin' about it." Jayne's boots, socks and shirt were heaped by his feet in the middle of the room. He himself was semi-sprawled against the wall beside the door.

Simon hesitated for a good, long minute, the pulled his shirt over his head. The air hitting his sweaty chest felt much better than the sweat-soaked shirt had. He purred contentedly.

"Jeez, doc, you all right over there?"

"Yes," he blushed.

"You better not be enjoying this more than you should."

"I'm not."

"Good. Cuz I'm taking my pants off an' I don't need you getting all happy about it."

"Oh, must you?"

"Yep." Didn't matter much. Doc had seen him in just his undershorts before. Well, once. And he had been unconscious through most of it. Now he felt a little self-conscious. Maybe he shoulda kept 'em on. Something his ma had always told him but somehow he could just never listen. Course, she had always been saying it in reference to the neighborhood girls.

"What do you suppose River's doing?" he asked to draw attention from himself.

"Well, I guess she's all right since there hasn't been any noise of destruction that I've heard."

"And sure as hell we woulda heard some." He had never noticed it, but Simon had one bitchin scar running down his left shoulder. It was kinda hard to notice since it had faded so much, but with the sweat gleaming off it, it was very obvious. "Where'd you get that?"

"Huh? Get what?"

"That scar that makes you look halfway man-like."

Simon touched his shoulder softly. "Oh, that." His tone indicated he had forgotten all about it and was pleased to have done so.

Jayne, however, couldn't be swayed. "Where'd you get it?"

"Well, uh… I had a friend. Josh. He, uh… quite literally stabbed me in the back."

"With what?"

"I don't remember," he lied. "Something sharp."

Jayne got up and grabbed Simon's shoulders, studying the scar with weird interest. The doctor sat there patiently, knowing Jayne could hold him still no matter how much he protested. It was kind of a funny pattern- not smooth, per se, but an even and relatively straight line. "Looks like a serrated army issue General's knife," he determined at last. "For the Alliance, you know."

Simon whipped around fast. "Oh my God, that's exactly it. How did you know that?"

"I know knives," he said simply, turning the doc back around. "See, this line right here," he explained, tracing said line with his finger, "is kinda jagged, so it weren't a smooth knife like a sword or that scalpel you got. But it's damn sharp, so it ain't no kitchen knife." He spread his hands across Simon's shoulder blades. "Even cut means it ain't some hack job. This guy knew what to cut and how. Was going for your lungs, actually. One deep, quick stab just forty five degrees downward, angled like so," with the appropriate tracing on the skin, "and he'd have popped your lung like a young girl's cherry."

"Charming," Simon said tersely, flinching under Jayne's surprisingly gently touch.

"So it was either a hired man or an army man, and 'till you happened on this ship you weren't gonna be dealing with hired men. And all army Generals get a serrated knife for making the ranks." He shrugged. "Simple as that."

"Okay," Simon agreed, although to what he wasn't sure. All he was thinking was that Jayne was touching him and that was weird because it wasn't in a combat manner.

"So," Jayne said, flopping himself beside Simon on the bed, "why'd he stab ya?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Alright, fine." He grabbed a pillow and stuck it behind his bed. "So, you think your sister and Kaylee are layin on a bed together mostly naked?"

"Okay," Simon said quickly, "we were friends in college." Jayne smirked, knowing that would get the conversation going. Simon turned to face him, although he looked at the floor most of the time. "Actually, no," Simon corrected himself, "we were friends before that. My mother knew his through some function or another. You know how high class mothers are."

"Nope," Jayne said plainly. "But I got a few idears."

"Well, anyway, Josh and I kept in touch, basic friendship things. And I told him about River and how I had to get her out of there. He even agreed to help me. But… I can't even remember where we were going because I never got there… we were in a car and all of a sudden he grabbed my shoulder and stabbed me. And he said something like 'I serve the Alliance before all others', and then he tossed me out into the street. I'm glad we were in a city, I probably would have died. Someone found me in the middle of the road, bleeding."

"Ta ma de." He studied Simon a bit, letting things be awkward for as long as necessary. But Jayne ain't a patient man, so the silence only held so long. "I'm surprised you're alive, doc. Man with training like that shouldn't have missed."

"I don't think he wanted to kill me. Just warn me that... I don't know, that he wasn't going to be on my side. That I was starting a losing battle."

"Well, here you are. And although crazy, here's your sis. So I guess you won."

"I guess so." It sure didn't feel like it, though. He had forgotten about that scar since he never saw it. It brought out terrible memories for him. The symbolism was just too much to take. Josh had been one of his last friends, one of the only people he could talk to. And he had been stabbed in the back. God, irony was cruel.

"You want me to get Kaylee and have her make it all better with her naked self?"

Simon smiled. He had been about to cry, much to his chagrin, but that urge had passed. "No. Your nudity is distraction enough." Oh, damn. Had that come out wrong? He looked up at Jayne, embarrassed yet hopeful he hadn't implied what he thought he just had.

Jayne was giving him a funny, puzzled, slightly disturbed look. "I told you not to enjoy it," he scolded.

Now Simon laughed, relieved. "That came out wrong, I apologize."

"You know," Jayne said, sitting up, "we been in here for three hours now, and we ain't once talked about what we're doing to Zoe and Mal."

"You're right. I didn't even think about it."

"So what's the plan?"

"Hmm…" Actually, he had thought about it some. But his idea was too vague to tell everyone. "Well," he said slowly, "I don't know how yet, but I think we need to drop hints to both of them."

"Like how?"

"Plant ideas in their heads. For instance, make sure Zoe overhears a conversation we have about Mal saying something about her. Things like that."

"Sounds fine. Does that kinda thing work?"

"Of course. If someone hears something enough, it can't possibly not affect them."

The doors whooshed open, airlock letting go and Mal bursting in the door. He stood tall and proud, smirking at his crew. "Time's up," he grinned. "What were we doing in here?"

"Nothing," Simon blushed. "We were… waiting." He made a desperate grab for his shirt and frantically pulled it on. Backward.

Jayne, however, got up casually and straight as you pleased said "Sweating to death. Can we go now?"

"You gonna… remember your pants?"

"Nah. Thought I'd let the doc sew 'em up for me, got a rip in one of the knees." He looked over his shoulder, winked at Simon and strutted out of the room, pantless and grinning like he was on top of the world.