Usual huge thanks to Ceslas for the betaing, any remaining cock ups as usual are mine all mine. There is stuff going on with Zoë that will intrude from time to time in this series because of something that seemed like a good idea in part two.

Sing another song dang it

Paquin was a 24/7 place. At close to nine in the morning the streets were not exactly thronging but there were people out. The street entertainers were looking to take advantage of that.

A juggler tried to entertain Jayne. He was shoved on his ass, his balls going every which way.

There might have been repercussions but Jayne wasn't staying around to find out. He barrelled onwards, through the streets his grim expression a warning for wiser street entertainers.

The Lacy Garter wasn't a cathouse as such; the place belonged to four veterans of the night, three girls and a man. There was a saloon where a customer could get a drink while he or she was waiting, a motherly receptionist cum bartender named Morag and two heavies, Nigel and Juan who took shifts in hanging around looking intimidating.

Jayne looked up at the sign swinging in the breeze; it was a pretty picture of a curvy lady, her foot on a stool adjusting the source of the place's name. Since the district was nominally respectable, she was otherwise covered in some kind of frilly, pink wrap that Kaylee would have cooed over.

It wasn't cheapest place in the town, but because there was no madam, it wasn't the most expensive either.

Trudie and Jayne had a history dating back to his early years in the black and her first years at a fleapit of a cathouse. They'd got comfortable with each other. Trudie joked that his repeated custom had given her most of the cashy money to buy herself out of that hellhole.

Jayne thought it was somewhere around nine thirty in the morning. All the curtains of the house were shut; he'd hardly expect anyone to be up this early because he'd had Trudie booked from the start of business, eleven am.

He slouched around the corner and found the only open bar. It was a respectable place, so the best he could get was a cup of overpriced coffee. He got one to go, found himself a wall to prop up, lit an evil smelling cigar and settled down to wait.

His temper had wound down into a sullen simmer. He couldn't figure how he let himself get into this dumb assed situation, running around trying to make the girl like him. Well not like him exactly, just not be a threat to what Jayne wanted. That just made him madder; Jayne Cobb didn't get attached to a place or people. He went where the money was.

Of course Zoë would be dead if he hadn't been there. He wondered how many times he'd stopped them all getting dead?

But that wasn't his problem, they'd survived when he wasn't there and they'd do it again, especially now they had little miss Xi yīng xióng nǚ rén wú! wēi xiǎo gū niang.

What was irritating Jayne even more was bullfrogs, ever time he got a good head of mad going his mind kept giving him a picture of a sad eyed bullfrog looking up at him. What the hell was that all about?

8888

River felt encased in ice. The warm, fluffy pink cloud of her feelings for Jayne had evaporated. Like a super computer when someone finally remembered to turn the air conditioners on, her brain started to work at full efficiency. Processing, remembering, processing, remembering, processing. Slotting pieces together, analysing with a clinical eye.

"It's a girl. Cute, too, but I don't think she's all there. 'Course, not all of her has to be..." Terrifying and exciting, not then, then it was just terrifying. The excitement came when she looked back on it. He saw a girl; she came to want to be a girl so badly.

The fascination frightening her, thinking it was some horrible planted instinct she saw the sign on his chest and tried to cut it away.

"I'm a show her good an' all I got man parts," Goosebumps and a lurch of her stomach even through the scorn, he was such an ape!

Looking up into the belly of Serenity and seeing him in a halo of light, a hero come to smite the godly.

Stealing bread off his plate, Notice me! I'm a girl!

No soft, hot thoughts about her. Left out in the cold, pushed away by the curve of Zoë's ass, the soft weight of Kaylee's breasts and Inara's everything. Just an irritating pile of nothing useful on two legs.

She got in the way at Nandi's place, fascinated by the process of birth, but also trying not to think or hear what Jayne was doing. Feeling his hands on Helen's hips and the thrust…

After Miranda the animals went into the ark two by two. Zoë's mate there still, even if Wash was non corporeal. Inara and Mal part of a couple even if they hadn't taken the steps. Simon and Kaylee new and fresh and sparkling. River feeling separate and alone, her mind not a constant, boiling soup of every thought and impulse for the first time since boys had barely stopped being annoying and become something of interest.

Jayne was the polar opposite of everything she would have had if her life had been left alone. Simple and direct when everyone else was psychedelic fog. Past and future, wanting to but not. Jayne was binary code, yes or no while everyone else was some esoteric joke language with no instructions or manual.

She frowned, except Jayne's neat and uncluttered mind wasn't like that anymore. Gradually there was more and more fog and colours were starting to intrude. River didn't pry, because now she had at least some choice, but things came to her. When Jayne came to her now it was like a slew of disconnected words shouted all at once and she couldn't make sense of it.

Except when he was on the job, or mad, especially when he was mad.

She shook herself and made order out of chaos. Theoretically, available physically attractive male according to societal and biological norms plus frightened, damaged girl woman with stunted social development. Factor in girl's extreme intelligence, consequent isolation from her peers, unsatisfactory parental male role model replaced by brother, giving relationships with males of a of a suitable age (as perceived by society) an incestuous overtone.

Oh.

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At half past ten, someone drew the blinds at the Lacy Garter. Jayne pushed himself upright, stomped over to the door and hammered on it.

Morag opened up looking irritated, an impassive Juan hovering in the background.

"Jayne Cobb! Ain't ya got nuthin' better ta do than make a body jump like that?"

Bad temper or not Jayne kissed the woman heartily on the cheek, "Gotta speak ta Trudie, Mog, got a problem."

"You ain't cancellin' on the girl are ya? I just bin lacin' her into a new corset." Mog grinned toothily at him, "She likes testin' stuff on ya, says yer the most appreciative audience she gets."

"Just let me up there Mog,"

Morag sighed, "Alright, but I got the feelin' she ain't gonna be pleased."

8888

Reparation needed to be made; this situation was not of his making. River scrabbled in a drawer and found the money she had saved to buy clothes, shrugged herself into a jacket and ran off the ship.

8888

When Trudie yelled 'come in.' Jayne opened the door to a sight that had him wanting to ring River's neck.

The woman was wearing a purple satin corset, the thing made her waist so tiny he could span it with his hands. Trudie's substantial breasts were pushed up high, he could have balanced a tray on the shelf they made and she had stockings on, genuine milky flesh above, just waiting to be played with stockings.

Jayne tried to strangle a growl, part mad, part starving man presented with a steak dinner.

Trudie gave him a startled look over her shoulder followed by a welcoming grin.

"Ain't you a sight fer sore eyes, an' your early, I like a man when he's keen."

It nearly killed Jayne to hold her off as she wiggled towards him.

Trudie frowned, "What's the problem? I'd kinda be expectin' ta be on ma back about now."

"Trudie, can't tell ya how sorry I am but there's a problem."

"Oh no," she folded her arms and gave him a look, "this better be good."

"Sumthin' came up an' it cost a lot more n' I was expectin' an' I can't pay ya what we agreed."

"Mighty decent of ya to tell me upfront Jayne." She frowned at him, irritably. "Damn, having you is damn near a holiday ta me, plus I ain't gonna get the business at short notice."

Jayne plopped down on the bed and drew Trudie with him onto his lap, taking a good, long wistful look at her cleavage in the process.

"Can't be sorrier than me Trudie," he dropped a kiss on the considerable swell of each breast. "I might'a run out on the bill in other places but I ain't gonna do that ta ya."

Trudie snorted, "Don't try an' pull the big, bad man act with me Jayne Cobb, you ain't ever stiffed a girl on the bill in your sorry life, you ain't got it in you."

Jayne looked faintly offended, "I ain't seen ya followin' me all around the verse girl, so how would you know?"

Trudie took his head in her hands and kissed his forehead affectionately, "I know ya, ya dumb Ox. So, not a penny ta ya name?"

"Naw, I got some, but it ain't but a third of what we agreed."

Trudie snuck her mouth around to his ear and gave it a nuzzle that had Jayne's hands tightening painfully around her waist. "We'll call it a deposit, you'll pay me the rest when you next hit this rock."

Jayne groaned, "Ya can't know that girl, might just take the sexin' and never come this way again."

Trudie sniggered at the unintentional double entendre, "Yeah ya will, an' pay me to." She moved her mouth down his neck, "I'm knowin' ya Jayne Cobb, better man n' ya know yerself."

"Huh," grunted Jayne, stroking her satin covered waist "Got me all figured out woman?"

Trudie's fingers tiptoed down his neck searching for buttons to undo. When she found the neck of a t-shirt she looked down in surprise.

"Where's ya good shirt?"

"Din't have time ta change," replied Jayne, apologetically.

Trudie pulled the neck of his t-shirt away from his body and stuck her nose in for a sniff, recoiling slightly with a wrinkled nose.

"I ever get ta meet this Captain of yourn I'm gonna give him such a smack. Damn near ever time ya come ta me ya stink like ya been paddlin' in a cess pit."

Jayne gave himself a sniff, "Can't smell nuthin', an' septic vac were yesterday, had me a shower n' everythin'."

"Maybe ya can't cos ya used to it, we got time," Trudie slid off his lap and stuck her hands on her considerable hips, "yer havin' a bath Jayne Cobb."

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River arrived a little out of breath at the Lacy Garter, thankful that the name of the place had been so clear in Jayne's head. She took a deep breath and opened up her mind, focusing, so the ever present background jumble coalesced into something she could understand. The experience was like peeling an onion, or rather it wasn't, but that was the best way she had of explaining it. First the dull murmur of the people around her, street vendors, locals and tourists. A man was about to buy a dubious gold plate Buddha, to part with twice its worth and River wanted to shout no! But she was busy.

Another layer off and the people on the street got louder and underneath them came the people in the houses near by. Breakfast, oatmeal and bacon. A baby cross, but not yet crying, his nappy wet. A woman called Mog, cussing because someone had spilled wine on a sofa and covered it with a cushion. A big impassive man, inside the head and out, checking the sports results.

Another layer peeled away and she found Jayne, not angry, not disappointed, not (she was thankful, because though she was about to enable him she didn't want to feel that) in the throes of passion, just content. River felt the lap of hot water against her skin, fingers rubbing soap into her hair and a half-decent cigar between her fingers. Trudie was obviously a kind hearted woman, but River knew Jayne would be happier if he could pay.

She pulled away, reassembled the onion layers, which was a much harder and more uncomfortable process and tapped nervously on the door.