Author: Meltha

Rating: At this point, PG

Feedback: Yes, thank you. All of Firefly, possibly Serenity, and the entire novel Jane Eyre

Distribution: The Blackberry Patch and If you're interested, please let me know.

Summary: The great novle Jayne Eyre comes to life before your gorram eyes.

Author's Note: Why yes, I am insane. Thanks for noticing

Disclaimer: All Firefly/Serenity characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. The others along belong to the great and very late Charlotte Bronte. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.

Chapter 5

Sweet Jayne had never before been so happy in his life, for he had the love of dear Mr. Rochester, and would soon be his wife.

"I ain't nobody's wife!"

Husband?

"No!"

Ehm… significant other?

"Still ain't workin'."

George W. Bush's worst nightmare?

"Who?"

Let's simply say you are about to be wed and leave it at that, shall we? Preparations for the wedding were beginning, and though Jayne wished to keep the arrangements simple and without too much ostentation, Mr. Rochester wished to clothe his bride-to-be in the best raiment his ample money could provide.

"Gorramit, Rochester! I ain't wearin' no frilly frou frou weddin' dress! It's the plain black satin or nuthin', not that I'd mind nuthin', but it might upset the preacher some. Now, if you want to pop some dough for good eats and drinks that don't give you a headache just by lookin' at 'em, I'll be fine with that. By the way, what the hell is your first name?"

"Edward, my treasure," Mr. Rochester said sweetly, "though you usually prefer to call me Mr. Rochester or sir or perhaps master."

Jayne Eyre's countenance grew cloudy as the moors at this, and he spoke sternly, "I ain't callin' nobody master, got me, Ed?"

"Assuredly," Mr. Rochester agreed. "If you wish it, it shall be. Oh, I am glad that I've never been married before. Ever. To anyone. Really."

"Whatever," said Jayne, shoveling more Yorkshire pudding delicately into his mouth with a serving spoon then belching melodiously.

That night, Jayne had a fearful fright. He dreamed he saw a horrifying creature enter his room, one with long dark hair and a pale face lit with an insane need for revenge.

"It ain't River, is it? I swear I didn't mean to turn her and her brother in on Ariel, really I didn't, except, you know, that I did and all."

The figure was also corpulent.

"Oh. Well that ain't River then."

Jayne reached for his multitude of guns and grenades that stood by his bedside only to find he had already packed all of them in preparation for his wedding trip the next day. Wait… why are you taking guns and grenades on your honeymoon, Jayne?

"We all got our little fetishes."

I shall pretend I was unable to hear that. In any case, Jayne remained unmoving on the bed as the creature, which looked remarkably like the foul German ghoul, the vampyre…

"This a crossover now?"

No, Jayne. It's already a crossover, but not a triple one. As I was saying, the creature tried on Jayne's veil and looked in the mirror at its reflection.

"Hey, if it's got a reflection, it ain't no vampire or vampyre or what have you!"

I already assured you of that, Jayne.

"Yeah, but I don't trust you none."

I'm hurt. I shall try not to swoon at your insensitivity. Carrying on, the thing ripped the wedding veil in two, then wandered out of the room, laughing foully and in the same tone as the horrifying cackle Jayne had heard the night Mr. Rochester's bed burned, not that the incident in any way suggested a symbolical or Freudian connection between the two events whatsoever. Jayne then sprang from his bed and locked the door, thinking it would have been wise to bolt it by precaution before all this.

"But Sophie mighta stopped by for a goodbye tumble, or Blanche, or Mrs. Fairfax…"

Oh, God, I can't know that!

"Deal with it. And there's always the chance my betrothed might take a fancy to some premarital calesthenics, so rather than wake up the whole blamed house, I figured I'd leave the latch undone, well, at least until somebody showed up. Be pretty poor form to leave the door open and then have somebody walk in. It could lead to hurt feelings or somethin'."

If you will excuse me for a moment, I need a small cup of tea, or perhaps a large schooner of port to cleanse my brain. There. Much better.

"Are you drunk?"

Quite.

"You don't sound no different."

It's a narrator thing.

"Then what's the point?"

My dear Jayne, do you really believe any of this has a point? The dawn came up on Jayne's wedding day, and as he hurriedly dressed for the great event, he pondered what had happened the night before. He told Mr. Rochester all about it at breakfast.

"And then this lunatic woman ripped up my pretty veil. I'm gonna have to get hitched wearing some dumb thing called 'blond' that I made myself."

It's a pattern of interlocking hexagonal mesh, for your edification.

"And yet I do not care. Why the go se we got a crazy person running around Thornfield Hall?" Jayne said suspiciously.

"Ah, my love, I shall tell you all about it on our wedding trip," Mr. Rochester said evasively. "We have to hurry to the church now."

"Wait a tick. I thought the couple weren't supposed to see one another before the wedding ceremony? Ain't that bad luck?" Jayne asked.

"Oh, come now!" Mr. Rochester said, turning pale. "What could possibly happen?"

Mr. Rochester and Jayne sped out the front door quickly, taking no witnesses at all with them as they headed towards the church. The reverend looked a little aghast at the two of them, but proceeded on as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened and marrying a pair of bachelors, one happening to wear a tasteful black satin dress, was a common occurrence, and who knows, perhaps it was. One can never be to certain about the Victorians. Finally, the moment of truth came, and the reverend spoke the fateful words.

"If there is anyone here who can show just cause why these two cannot be joined in lawful matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace," he entoned in a bored voice.

"I can!" yelled a man in the back of the church.

The reverend stared at him. Jayne and Mr. Rochester turned and stared. An old lady who had wandered in turned and stared. Several stained glass figures pivoted their eyes towards the speaker, including a rather frighteningly inaccurate protrayal of a lion and an extremely angry-looking representation of St. Erasmus (though perhaps we can forgive the look as no one had the foggiest idea who he was and hadn't for several centuries).

"You can?" the reverend said, paging through his prayerbook's index in the vain hope of finding this situation listed. "Why?"

"Because he is married to my sister, who is still alive!" said the stranger.

Mr. Rochester gave him a look that suggested murder was on his mind, while Jayne simply looked confused.

"Come again?" Jayne said.

"Mr. Rochester married my sister Bertha in the Carribean many years ago. They remain married to this day, though none knows of it save myself," the man stated.

"This true, Ed?" Jayne asked, giving him the old stink eye.

"Indeed!" Mr. Rochester said loudly. "Bertha yet lives, and we shall go see my wife now if you wish! Come along everyone!"

It was a strange party that went up the road, comprised of Jayne, Mr. Rochester, the reverend, the unknown brother, and some other guy who no one took much notice of. Mr. Rochester blew through the doors of Thornfield, told Adele to stop congratulating him as Jayne took great offense to the pink rose petals she was flinging at him, and strode purposefully to the third floor, where he pushed aside a tapestry.

"This," he said, putting a gigantic key into an ancient lock, "is the abode of my wife. She's a simply delightful person! Come meet her!"

The door creaked open, and there stood the same woman with long black hair who had destroyed Jayne's wedding veil the night before! She was raving insanely, and at one look at Mr. Rochester, she upon him, strangling the life out of him and biting him savagely. The reverend knocked her over the head with his prayerbook, and she was out cold.

"My wife is out of her mind and has been since before our marriage, though that was concealed from me at the time," Mr. Rochester said flatly.

"I think I woulda figured that out all on my own first time I set eyes on her," Jayne said, taking in the foaming at the mouth and the way even in unsconsciousness she was flailing violently. "I mean, it ain't too hard to diagnose she's got a case of the loonies."

"Regardless, I was led into a trap by my father and brother, both of whom are most convienently dead now. Who can blame me for wanting to marry the delicate creature you see before you rather than cleave to this beast of thing that bears my name," Rochester said in an impassioned tone.

Everyone raised their hand, including Bertha.

"Oh," Rochester said, embarrassed.

The clergyman left. The brother left. The strange other man told Jayne that his uncle had died and might be leaving her a small fortune in Madiera, and then left. Jayne and Rochester also left, leaving Bertha rubbing her head dejectedly.

Jayne said nothing as they walked back down to the dining room, and Mr. Rochester wisely didn't push things. At last, Jayne turned to him and said, "Okay, so, that's your wife?"

"Yes," Mr. Rochester said.

"So you lied to me about that. I don't take with lyin', at least not when it's about whether or not you're married, particularly to your new fiance. Anything else I should know?" Jayne said coldly.

"Ehm," Mr. Rochester hemmed, "well, I've also had three mistresses: a German, an Italian, and a Frenchwoman, who is Adele's mother."

"So Adele's your kid?"

"I'm not really sure about that," Mr. Rochester said uncertainly. "Celine was a bit… unchaste, shall we say?"

"Pot? Meet kettle," Jayne replied, then clocked Mr. Rochester roundly in the nose.

"Ow!" cried Mr. Rochester.

What followed for the next thirty-five minutes and eighteen seconds was a one-sided grudge match that included, at various times, Mr. Rochester going face first into the fireplace, Mr. Rochester having his head used as a battering ram against old oaken panels, and Mr. Rochester being held by his ankles and swung around the room on a ceiling fan, even though those wouldn't be invented for nigh on a century. At the end of that time, Jayne said, "Well, guess we're even now."

"So you'll marry me, my dove?" Mr. Rochester said, not quite able to figure out which of the three Jaynes he was seeing was the genuine article.

"Hell no," Jayne said, backing away. "I may be a fornicating, blaspheming, train-robbing, granny-bilking, baby-candy-stealing, lazy, good-for-nothin' bandit, but I ain't no bigamist! No offense, Ed, but I gotta draw the line somewheres, and that there's it."

"But Jayne!" Mr. Rochester said, attempting to run after him but finding his beloved governess had given him a concussion that rendered walking in a straight line rather difficult. "Jayne! Come back, Jayne!"

For a moment, a very confused Alan Ladd appeared, then left again just as abruptly.

We leave our Jayne Eyre running through the dark night in the Yorkshire countryside, friendless, penniless, homeless, and helpless.

"Helpless? Didn't you see what I just done to Mr. Rochester back there?"

Perhaps not helpless then. But strange things were bound to come into Jayne's path, and even he had not idea how bizarre his life was about to become.

"That don't sound good."

Dreadfully sorry, dear, but that's the way Miss Bronte wrote it.