Chapter Four
Kaylee had been herded to her duties in the engine room by Mal. They still needed to land this thing, and domestic issues weren't going to stop them. Slow them down, yes, and mangle their innards a bit while they were at it. But under Mal's eye they were gonna crawl to the drop-off bleeding and dying, so long as they got their cut. It was important, especially now.
Mal and Zoe prepped the mule in the cargo bay. Simon fumed in the infirmary. Kaylee fumed in the engine room. Inara was putting her face on in her shuttle, unaware of the goings-on of the morning. River was piloting them down toward Haven's dusty face. Jayne and Wash watched.
Both of them perched just outside the cockpit, watching the girl go through the motions effortlessly, like she wasn't even trying. Wash shook his head, obviously impressed.
"She's good. She's really good. I'd say she makes me look like an idiot child, but I'm not one to make myself look bad. Why are we watching her?"
"Huh?" Jayne asked simply, eyes glued on the girl in the pilot's chair.
"She's not exactly the problem we're trying to solve here," Wash said, stepping forward and hovering over River like a protective father watching his child drive away with the family car. "I mean, she's a pretty problem, but we're working on Simon and Kaylee right now."
"Staring is impolite," River said quietly, not looking up from the controls.
Wash jumped, convinced that she'd heard him, but she didn't react. He nevertheless shuffled backward a few steps to the copilot's console. Jayne's mouth turned down.
"What'd ya hear?" he asked, skipping right to the point. He found no reason to be circuitous.
"Jayne was thinking about Wash," she said, flipping a series of three switches above her head and turned the chair to face Jayne. He revealed himself fully in the doorway, looking slightly unsettled. "That time of year."
He crossed his arms. This wasn't exactly what he'd wanted to hear. She knew this, and heard it from him.
"Why were you thinking about Wash in the present?" she asked. "Wash is Past."
Wash frowned slightly, crossing his own arms over the gaping reminder in his chest. "Don't have to rub my nose in it..."
"You're smart, and you ain't crazy no more. So you tell me," Jayne said in a noncommittal tone.
Her bare toes touched the cold metal beneath the chair, and she just barely shifted her weight to spin back and forth in a childlike manner. She watched her thumbs. And she waited.
Jayne rolled his eyes. "Or not."
"I don't have all the pieces yet," she told him, glancing up through a veil of hair. "When I do, I will tell you."
"Don't go yankin' my chain, girl," Jayne warned, stepping forward to assure his dominance in the situation, "or the dog's gonna come out barkin' and mad as hell."
She smiled up at him, looking impish. "But he's on a chain. And all the children with the poking sticks won't make the chain any longer."
"Ain't but one kid with a stick, 'n that's you, little... person..." He faltered at the end, but his accusatory finger was adamant.
"Good one," Wash inserted, settling down into the copilot's chair with a sarcastic, muted smirk. "I'm sure she's gonna be feeling that one tomorrow." Jayne resisted the urge to snap at the man.
River surprised them both again, turning to look directly at Wash. The ghost jumped back up with a start.
"What?" Jayne asked, looking from River to Wash as if he didn't know what she was looking at.
"Made a noise. The chair only groans when sat in. No one is in the chair." She turned back to Jayne, looking perplexed. "Doesn't make sense."
"So she can't hear me, but she can hear me?" Wash asked, scratching his scalp in thought. "Hey, can she hear this?" He leaned down to tap his fingers on the console, as he'd done in the galley to Mal earlier. River's eyebrows drew down. She tapped the console with her fingers in response.
"Jayne...?"
"You hear it, then?" Jayne asked. Someone else helping with this Wash problem was suddenly not sounding like a bad idea.
River's thoughts suddenly seemed to culminate, and her hand snapped back from the console as if it'd been fire-hot. She looked Jayne in the eye with a scared deer look, and she shook her head.
"Oh, Jayne, no. No, no..."
He pulled his lips straight in seriousness, but said nothing.
"What?" Wash asked, discontinuing the tapping and stepping away from the copilot's console. "Hey, I can't read minds, like some people in the room. Jayne?"
After a moment of silence, River turned the chair away from Jayne and persisted in pecking at the console. "I need to fly now," she said quietly. "Goodbye, Jayne."
Jayne growled a gruff sigh and motioned for Wash to follow him off the bridge.
"That was productive," Wash sighed, following alongside. After a brief pause, the ghost threw up his hands and exclaimed: "Except that it wasn't!"
"Don't gotta yell," Jayne reminded him.
"Right, because I'm going to wake someone up. Me, the spook."
"You're just a ray 'a sunshine right up my ass right now, Wash," Jayne growled. He glanced back over his shoulder, then shook his head. "Gorram, that girl gets under my skin, even if she ain't crazy no more. 'S just all kinda of unsettlin'... I liked it better when you was up there tellin' jokes when we were 'bout 't crash."
"Yeah, because I'm the funny one. River's the smart one who's apparently a wizard with aeronautics. You're the angry one with the guns."
"Damn straight."
"Okay, now that we don't have a psychic breathing down our necks, what's our next step?" Wash asked as they headed down toward the cargo bay.
"We're landin' in Haven in... I dunno, 'bout twenty I guess. We're bringin' supplies t' the new settlers."
"Right," Wash muttered, looking far-off again. "Because..."
Jayne just nodded, as they were coming into the wide bay, and his one-sided conversation would echo oddly, especially with Zoe and the Captain prepping the mule and the cargo below.
"Jayne!" Mal called as soon as the merc was in view. "How's our Li'l Albatross bringin' us in?"
"Hell if I know," Jayne grumbled back as he passed the both of them.
"Now," Mal started, and Jayne grudgingly hauled himself to a stop and turned with a glare, "I don't know where you were brought-up, Jayne, but 'round here we have what we civilized people 'manners'."
"Really, sir?" Zoe asked half-interestedly from the mule as she loaded her up. "I wouldn't 'a noticed."
"That's why I keep her around," Mal said in confidential undertones. "Keeps me on my toes."
"I thought that was why you kept Jayne around," Zoe rebounded.
"No, he's t' keep you on your toes, Zoe," Mal said with a grin as he turned. Zoe managed a short smile and returned to her work.
"Touché, sir."
Wash remained deadly silent, staring up at his woman on the mule. He allowed a slow, fond smile to crawl over his face at her humor. As she packed the back seats of the mule with what appeared to be food rations, Wash stood and he watched, and he smiled.
"Back t' manners," Mal said quickly before Jayne could lumber away. "You ain't got any."
"Glad ya noticed," Jayne grumbled.
"Keep the sarcasm. I asked how River's doing bringing down our girl."
"Well, hell, Mal, she's done it a million gorram times! She oughta be a gao ming little... thingby now."
"Gao ming," Mal repeated, looking pensive. "That's awful nice of you, Jayne."
Jayne proceeded to growl something under his breath at his captain, most likely acidic and vulgar.
"What's that, Jayne? Volunteerin' t' carry all this off the ship?" Mal held a hand to his ear and leaned in slightly. "Stayin' with the cargo 'til we land? Why, we got ourselves a regular gentleman here, Zoe."
"Fancy that," Zoe gasped, finally smiling fully. "A gentleman onthis ship." Zoe laughed softly to herself when Mal joined Jayne in frowning, and went back to her work.
"I'm checkin' on Kaylee," Mal announced, looking cross. "Can't have our mechanic sobbin' into the works. Zoe, you're in charge here."
"I'll make sure the doctor's doin' all right," Zoe told Jayne as she hopped down off the mule. "You finish packin' in those rations and we should be almost done."
"Awright," Jayne obeyed grudgingly. Out of Mal and Zoe, he'd rather fight Mal. Zoe could take him.
As soon as Zoe was out of view, Jayne could take the time to notice Wash's smiling, bright-eyed face. "What're you lookin' at?"
Wash didn't fade. "You're my favorite," he said with a toothy grin.
"What? Why for?" Jayne's eyebrows drew down suspiciously. Wash's grin softened, and for the first time in a year, Wash almost looked alive.
"For making my wife smile."
For a moment, even Jayne allowed the edge of his mouth to curl up into a smile. It wasn't often he was anyone's favorite after all. He shrugged off the compliment and hauled himself up into the mule. It didn't take much effort to get the last of the cargo packed down, and only five minutes later, River landed Serenity in the dust of Haven as if she'd been a downy feather.
Jayne took a steeling breath. The last time they'd been on Haven was two months after Miranda. They'd helped clear up the debris and to set the framework for the new structures. There had been little talking, and less to talk about. That was the scary time in-between where no one knew what to say, leastways Jayne. Now there were settlers coming into Haven again, eager to make a new life from the death. AndSerenity and her crew were there to help again.
"This is good," Wash said as the engine began its slow power-down.
"Y' think so?" Jayne asked, barely glancing sideways at him. "We got Kaylee and the Doc runnin' around like they got their heads cut off, a little crazy girl givin' me them googly eyes, and this spook followin' me around. Sounds like a mess t' me."
"Haven's good for us," Wash said thoughtfully. "Gives everyone a chance to calm down, y'know?"
"Fat chance," Jayne grumbled. "This bunch is so high-strung you'd think they was hung up like a Christmas ham or somethin'. Have been ever since--" He broke off, furrowing his brow deep and making it a point not to look at Wash. After a moment, Jayne scuffed one boot on the ground and added: "You really think bein' on Haven'll help?"
"Sure," Wash said as he stretched, then shivered and crossed his arms over the hole in his chest.
As he said so, Zoe returned with Simon in tow. Jayne narrowed his eyes in the doctor's direction, and Simon chose to ignore the large, obstructive man standing by the mule.
"That is if you don't kill Simon before we get off the ship," Wash said in an undertone.
"Heard that," Jayne mumbled as Zoe and Simon passed them. Zoe raised an eyebrow at him and, without a word, moved up into the driver's seat of the mule. "You ridin' that thing solo?" He asked Zoe, looking at all of the supplies packed tightly into the small craft.
"Yep," she assured him, patting a small sliver of passenger seat. "Only rear could fit on here is River's, and she's helpin' you and the Captain haul out the big stuff."
When she turned away, Jayne only contemplated it for a moment. "Get on up there," he demanded to the specter beside him.
Wash blinked. "What?"
"You're a ghost. You'd just pass on through that stuff on the seat, right?"
He looked very tempted, looking up at his wife preparing to make way. "What about--"
Jayne just shook his head, pointed up to the mule's passenger seat, and stepped away to open the airlock. Wash smiled bright and full and hauled himself up carefully to sit beside his wife. In the quiet of preparation, he just sat and watched and smiled.
gao ming - brilliant; smart
AN: Hey guys! Sorry this one took so long, I said I'd get the Zodiac chapter up before I updated Spook again, and THAT took forever. BUT I'll probably have the next Zodiac chap up before November. Because NOVEMBER may be a month of semi-hiatus for me. That is National Novel Writing Month, and I'm participating full force this year. It has cowboys. Anyway, I'm still having a lot of fun writing this, and the character dynamics are upping themselves as we speak! Tell me what you think, leave some love, and as always, KEEP UP THE AWESOME!