These are the things that brought them to this point.
When he saw her as more than just a crazy-girl, the first time he saw her as crew. It was late at night when he heard the screams like someone getting their fingernails torn out. He'd been up and on his feet with a pair of guns in his hands, up the ladder out of his bunk, before he even realised what was happening.
She was lying, curling in the corner, eyes wide open, her voice caught between screaming and sobbing. Simon knelt before her, hands out, desperate, with a soother in his hand. He couldn't get close to her; every time he tried, she screamed and lashed out. Her words, a strange melting pot of French, Chinese, Latin and English, bubbled from her mouth between wails. From what little Jayne could understand, she was back at the Academy, seeing the horror that was Miranda, and facing the Blue Hands.
He'd put his guns on the Crazy-girl's bed, stepped around Simon and grabbed her arms, holding her, pressing her face into his chest. She probably got a whole lot of needles back when they were cutting up her brain, didn't need to be seeing another one. So he'd held her, letting Simon get around the side to give her the soother, even as she bruised him fighting, and stopped himself from murmuring soothing calmness. He was a gorram merc, after all!
"Thank-you" Simon had said. Jayne had looked at the doc, with his bruised and puffy eyes, the slumped shoulders and the grey skin. The gratitude in his eyes and voice slammed into Jayne like a bullet; like at Ariel, there was the cutting knowledge he didn't deserve his thanks. He was a gorram merc.
"Jus' wanna git some gorram sleep is all" he muttered and stormed out.
But he'd lain in his bunk that night, and her terrified face kept exploding from behind his eyelids; those wide brown eyes, that tangled brown hair, those long, slender limbs that hide more strength that they looked able to handle. He'd been shocked by the wave of overwhelming need to protect her, stand by her, learn from her, reminiscent to the moment he'd laid eyes on her as the blast doors opened on Miranda. Her in her thin dress, wrapping around long, slender arms and legs, those delicate curves, spidery fingers wrapped around a pair of giant axes. Her tightening her hold, ready to fight and protect them again, as Alliance soldiers pointed guns at her again.
Then there was the day he realised she was his partner, the one to watch his back. Out on a job and she'd saved his life; shouting a warning that made him move, moments before the bullet struck. Their client had looked between them and asked him how long they'd been partners for.
"Wha- me'n tha Crazy? Partn'rs?" he'd needed to clarify, jerking his thumb at River, who gave him an answering glare. The client had nodded, apparently surprised by his indecision.
"You are, aren't you? I mean, the way you two fought back there, I'd have thought you'd been doing it for years"
He remembered the way he's looked back at River, thinking about it. Oh they were partners, alright. They watched each other's backs, kept each other alive. The look on her face, with one eyebrow cocked, as she waited for him to answer, was one he would always remember. Now, when he looks back at that calm moment of realisation, he realises that she already knew. She knew then what he would say and knew the path their feet had found. Crazy-girl wasn't so crazy after all.
"Aw, hell. I reckon she's been around for a few months or so now I guess. Known 'er for longer'n that though" Jayne had finally answered. That had been that. Armed with this new knowledge, it didn't come as such a great shock to him when he defended her, back her up, protected her.
Slowly, slowly after that, she'd become his friend. As Serenity filled up with kids and their lives got a whole lot more busy, he'd felt himself being drawn to this one person left who wasn't so gorram worried about bottles and diapers and first steps.
They were sitting in the cargo hold, and two year old Independence Reynolds was straddled on Jayne's weight bar as he pumped out the counts. He could count to three before he got mixed up and started throwing in random digits like 'eleventeen' and 'twenty-five' but he got along alright. It had taken Jayne awhile to be able to use those weights without thinking about Sheppard Book. Then Book Reynolds was born and suddenly, the old man didn't seem so far away anymore.
River was drawing, a green sundress tumbling around her newly discovered womanly curves, on her belly with her ankles crossed above her. There was a smile playing her face as the coloured pencils slid gracefully across the page. Finishing his set, Jayne had sat up and caught Independence with one arm as he slid off, giggling maniacally. Setting the boy on his feet and watching him run off, Jayne turned to River.
"Whatcha drawin' there, Crazy?" he rumbled, looking around for her towel. It hit him in the side of the neck as she threw it at him without looking up from her work.
"Working collection of trapezius, rhomboids and anterior deltoid, lateral deltoid, and posterior deltoid"
He frowned and waited less-than-patiently for her to explain. She finished a line with flourish and held it up. It was perfectly depicted, each line taunt and strong as it handled the weights plus Independence.
"It's your shoulder and back" she said as though it were obvious. He laughed and the conversation began to progress. They argued about the proper method for landing a strong punch; River showed him that the strength should flow through from the back, using the entire weight of the body. In turn, Jayne showed her that the same effect could be had punching fast and numerously. After ten minutes arguing and some light sparring, they stopped. She dropped gracefully back to her papers on the ground and started drawing something else. Jayne watched her with another burst of the slow realisation; she was his friend. They could sit there in perfect harmony, talking, arguing, or simply sitting. Friends and partners and crewmates. The words flowed into each other easily. Too easily. Jayne had rubbed his stubble thoughtfully, making her look up.
There had been that look again, same as back when he realised they were partners. Knowing, amused, a little exasperated. Her brown eyes glittered with it.
"Events do not slow for discovery and analysis. Jayne Cobb needs to think faster"
With those words, she flowed to her feet and floated off, a bird taking flight, green wings fluttering serenely around her. A moment later, Mal shouted her name; faced with some impossible dilemma on the flight deck. It left Jayne by himself in the cargo bay, stumped, confused and a little irritated. Think faster, huh? Upstart little bit!
Even so, those words had stuck with him. He'd started thinking more; listening to what she was saying instead of fading out the long strings of technical jargon she spouted. He even understood some of it. The day Simon had been staring blankly at her, and it had been Jayne the Ape-Man Cobb who'd translated the Albatross's crazy-talk, she'd gifted him with a smile so brilliant he'd almost been blinded. At least, that was his excuse. As from that moment on, his entire perspective on River Bat-Shit-Crazy Tam twisted hard. Like a good bucking bull, it took him flying to the heavens, thinking he was bullet-proof, and then slammed him into the earth with the crack of bones and red blackness of pain.
Another day, another job. Before they had even set out that day, he'd been on the edge. River had suffered three episodes last night, meaning he'd gotten next to no sleep and then on top of that she'd made him swear not to tell the others; particularly not Simon or Mal. Simon because he'd 'worry and hurt her head' and Mal because he'd 'yell and do the same'.
So there he was, standing with his sniper rifle across his chest, watching her descend into the cargo bay; breeches, boots, black flowing blouse, belt with a hunting knife and handgun. Looking like a killer. Looking tired and haggard, even though nobody else noticed. Jayne blamed it on having new twins, Simon not seeing the difference in River. Or maybe...just maybe, he was more in tune with her than the rest of the crew.
She'd smiled tiredly and offered him her hand to help him into the mule. Her small, dainty hand in his, the feeling of her lean curves in his other hand as he'd lifted her effortlessly aboard...his heart stopped beating for a moment. He couldn't breathe; damn girl smelled so good, like meadows in spring, all fresh water and flowers and wet earth. His head was spinning because his thoughts were changing so rapidly.
Since when does Jayne Cobb give a damn enough to want to protect someone, since when does he have a partner that he would die for, since when does he have friends...since when does he wonder what it would be like to kiss that girl on the soft, warm mouth...
They'd pulled up at what was supposed to be the drop site. Pick and deliver, in and out, no talking, no negotiations. It was meant to be easy.
It wasn't.
There'd been guns everywhere. Jayne thanked his lucky stars he'd brought the gorram grenades, and tried to cover everyone, tried to be everywhere at once. The whole time, however, he knew and trusted that River would be there, doing the same, trusting him to have her back. So when she went flying across the line of fire and barrelled into Mal, just as a gun went off, Jayne felt his whole damn world collapse around him. The bullet meant for the back of the captain's head drilled her through the shoulder and ended its journey buried in the side of her breast. And, Wuh de ma if Jayne Cobb didn't feel the hot, burning agony himself...right in his heart and guts.
Zoe had grabbed the cash and they'd cut and run, Mal pushing the mule to the edge of his capability. But Jayne barely remembered the trip back; for a moment all he knew was that she was laying in his arm, bleeding, and she was his partner...she was his whole damn world.
While River lay unconscious in the infirmary, Jayne and Simon circled Mal like blood-thirsty dogs. If she hadn't awoken right when she had, Simon would have laid the captain out flat, and Jayne wouldn't have done a gorram thing about it. So he'd hung back, watching her with dark eyes, a silent, rough-around-the-edges fallen angel.
"He watches over her" she'd whispered as she'd fallen back to sleep.
A month later he'd knocked a man flying for looking at her, at her in a sinfully little red dress and bare feet, dancing and flying around the open dance floor on a dry Rim planet. She'd flown off the handle at him for it; and then she'd demanded to know why he'd done it. The problem was, he didn't know. And she did. But she didn't say a word.
A week after that, the entire crew bar Simon and Kaylee got really, really drunk. It was the dumbest thing he'd ever done and he knew it, right from the first shot he'd slugged. But she was under his skin, in his head, and he wanted the infuriated little woman out. A brawl had started and she'd gotten in the middle of it, of course, and he'd dragged her ass out of it. She was as mad as hell about it, slightly less so the next morning when she was suffering from her first hangovers.
She'd asked him if he loved her. He'd balked. He hadn't run, he still vehemently denies it to this day, but he'd sure as hell balked. He was all ready and willing to pack up his gear and get the hell of that ship. Then she'd kissed him...right in the corner of his mouth.
"She finds she is in agreement with Inara...however, you do not kiss them on the mouth"
When she'd gone to walk away then, leaving him there dumbstruck with one of two options, so far as he could see. One was watch her walk, leave well enough alone...and loose her. Two was grab her and make her explain just what in the hell she meant by that explanation. However, she couldn't. She couldn't because she was crying, and the sight of her brown eyes full of tears because of him broke something fierce in Jayne.
"You ain't a gorram whore girl!"
Then he'd done the dumbest, genius thing of his entire life;
He'd kissed River Moonbrain Tam; on the lips. Slowly, sweetly, softly, like they had forever. Yet he still didn't know why he'd done it. It nearly destroyed him, forcing himself to wonder what the hell he was doing, what the hell she was doing. Nearly twice her age and grumpy and grizzled and uneducated and crude and...her first.
Her first kiss; that day hidden by the walkway and the cargo in the hold.
Her first lover; the night she'd cried and begged him to make her forget.
So he finally said the words out loud, one night after a major breakdown, when it struck him like a thundercloud. Sweet realisation that tasted like her lips and tongue and pert little hands on his chest.
"Gorrammit River-girl. I love ya. Always will, for so long as ye'll have me"
And she'd said it back.
The next day, Simon's frantic voice awoke him, searching for River. Without knocking, Kaylee had thrown open the porthole to his bunk and shouted to him to get up and help them look for River.
"Ain't no gorram need to be waking folk with ye hollerin' an' bangin' Kay. She's right 'ere" Jayne had grouched. What he didn't expect however, was Mal to come leaping into his room and behold the sight of a very naked, half-asleep Jayne with a gloriously warm and safe and...naked River tucked against his chest. Captain Malcolm Reynolds, for the first and only time in a long and varied career, had passed out cold. However, in a very Mal-like fashion, he'd come awake swinging and baying like a bloodhouse for the merc's blood.
It had been an awkward, high-tension conversation in the kitchen, all children banished to the cargo hold with, to everyone's intense surprise, Simon!
"Well, wait on now doc, I was thinking you of all people would wanna be hearing this?" Mal had exclaimed. The doctor smiled and shrugged, saying nothing and walking the excited children out of the door. Jayne had immediately looked at River for an explanation with a sinking feeling in his gut.
"I said I would get a prescription from my doctor, Jayne" she teased his slack jaw.
"You said doctor! I didn't think you'd mean that doctor! So he's known since...?"
She'd smiled. Then they'd had to quickly divert attentions to Mal, who was in the middle of having an aneurism. A big one.
"IS THERE ANY OTHER GORRAM SEXING BEEN GOING ON THIS KWONG-JUH DUH BOAT THE CAPTAIN SHOULD BE KNOWING ABOUT?"
It had taken awhile, but they'd managed to calm him. River explained, thoughtfully, that it was mostly the thought of her getting sexed at all that was setting him off, rather than the thought of Jayne sexing her. Of course, with those words, the good captain had been off on another tangent. But finally, with a civilised exchange of threats and warnings from all sides, Serenity welcomed her newest couple.
It was years later when River lay curled in bed, acting strangely clingy to aforementioned furniture and muttering about 'tiny feet' that Jayne was struck with a whole new vision of his River-girl.
Mother.
Which made him a father. Which was a prospect that scared the holy guay out of him. Even after helping raise Washburn Alleyne, Tai-Ao and Shuai-Dan Tam and Book and Independence Reynolds, kids, his own kids, stopped him cold. When River told him, taking his hands and laying them on her lean abdomen, for the first time in his long and varied career, Jayne Cobb passed out cold.
The minute he'd awoken, he didn't say a word to anyone. He'd just left and landfall. The speculation was flying when he walked back. There were few people relieved to see him back; as though there was any doubt that he wasn't! Those same people were hanging 'inconspicuously' around the door as he walked into the kitchen, kissed her, gone down on one knee and asked her to marry him.
Him; the uncultured old merc with nothing to give but his heart. He didn't do romance, at least not on purpose. Her; the beautiful genius Reader from the Core. She was still a little crazy, but she was far more stable than she had been in a long time.
She'd looked damn beautiful the day she'd walked down the middle of the aisle at the church of Haven; rebuilt especially for this day. There was a bump in her belly that made her glow like no amount of making up would. Framed either side by Inara and Zoe, with Kaylee and Shuai-Dan stepped softly behind, it felt right. Felt like the little place with Serenity's crew and their children, plus those few men and women who had survived the fallout from the Miranda secret, and become friends was bulging with faces. All those who could no longer stand with them, were standing with them on that day. Sheppard Book and Wash and Mr Universe and Tracey. Mal looked almost respectable, standing at the altar; River refused to get married by any preacher that wasn't Sheppard Book, so Ship's Captain had to do as a substitute.
He'd been pretty useless at the birth, too. Panic like nothing he'd ever felt before boiled in his chest and he couldn't think straight. All he could do was stand there; clutching River's grasping hand, and blabbering to no ends. He blabbered so much, as a matter of fact, that Simon sent him out of the infirmary to down a few shots of Kaylee's engine brew.
Phoenix Vera Tam-Cobb was a tiny thing with a red face and a mop of very dark hair paired with the bluest pair of eyes he'd ever seen in his life. He'd held her for the first time; in one hand, tears in his hardened mercenary eyes. He'd kissed River like she was the air he breathed, and he'd held this tiny new life.
Phoenix was nine when the unanimously heart-breaking decision came. It was time to retire Serenity. They were all getting older. The elder kids had left...well, home by this stage, but River and Jayne had started late, as Kaylee had so delicately pointed out.
The Cobb-Tam's staked a patch on a newly terraformed community in the outer Core. It was a bit close for comfort, but Jayne and River agreed that it was better to be close to danger than miles from help. Besides, the Serra-Reynolds family returned to the Reynolds holdings which was a day-and-a-half from them, and the Tam-Frye's were in another town on the same planet.
As Jayne swept his hat from his head and clumped into the house he'd built with his own two hands, he could hear the sound of singing in the kitchen.
Seren Tam-Cobb was three to his big sister's twelve. He played on the tiles with a pair of wooden trucks and squealed happily as Jayne scooped him up and launched him into the air. Phoenix hugged him around the waist, still in her school clothes. She danced around in her bare feet as he laughed and swooped to kiss her forehead.
"How's my best girl?" he chuckled.
"I am offended, Jayne Cobb" came a voice he would have recognised from a million miles away, through a tunnel, across a waterfall, time and space itself. He turned and smirked at her.
River Tam's was not a figure to change after the birth of two children. She stepped down the stairs from her office, where she worked on the Cortex doing things Jayne had no idea how to start explaining with her superior intellect. He pulled her in and kissed her hard.
"You're me best lady" he said against her lips, oblivious to their daughter's sounds of disgust. She played teasingly with her tongue against his bottom lip and pulled away.
"I had better be" she warned mockingly, taking Seren and cooing at him, walking into the kitchen. Jayne laughed.
"I saw a Mosquito breaking atmo when I pushed them cattle through"
She nodded, wetting a cloth to deal with Seren's dirty face.
"Shuai-Dan and Washburn...are you going to be rude to Washburn for taking her as his mate?"
He grumbled negative.
"I jus' don't see why the two of 'em had to sneak about it. Downright shift if yore askin' my opinion"
River laughed.
"Do you recall before we began sharing a bunk? The sneaky, the being sly?"
He curled his lip in distaste as Phoenix suddenly squealed.
"Mamma, Dad! Its Serenity!"
River stepped up behind her daughter at the window and watched the Firefly class descend. She leaned back onto Jayne's shoulder. Behind it, a smaller, faster vessel known as a Mosquito class had landed smoothly. He kissed her neck.
"Do you miss the stars?" he asked quietly. Phoenix was rushing out the front door as the gangplank thudded to earth and Mal limped down with Kaylee and Simon. Tai-Ao was with them as well, having hitched a ride. He lived in Persephone and had taken over Badger's patch when an unfortunate series of events saw him locked up.
River smiled.
"I have the stars in your eyes, Jayne Cobb" she murmured.
This was the point; his family, his land, his home. There were a million moments, a thousand decisions, a hundred mistakes that brought them here, to this house on this land, with their family gathering around them.
Those were the things that brought them to this moment.