Disclaimer: Joss Whedon, you are amazing. I love you.

A/N: I'm really sorry this one took so long, guys. Me and my folks were all caught up trying to move my sister into her new dorm room, and I'm a really good procrastinator. I hope this part doesn't go too fast, but I'm not quite sure if my spacing's spot on. I tried. I still don't have a beta reader so all faults are my own. Hope you guys enjoy! Sorry it's so short, but we're gearing down here.

Chapter 8:The Truths Come Out

As soon as Serenity was out of atmo and secured on autopilot, River retreated to her room. She was having trouble thinking, feeling, making sense. Felt sick. She kept replaying the scene in her mind.

Matty was standing for the first time in a month. Sophie and Ma were crying, Lilly was hovering around him, Erinn and Jayne were just standing there, staring.

River huddled in the next room, torn between the happiness, the relief, the serenity, and too many voices in her head. Jayne staggered into the room, sliding down to sit beside on the wall. River started counting in her head.

He didn't talk for 347 seconds.

"I love you."

Where had that gorram come from?Jayne asked himself, holed away in his own bunk. So maybe it was true, maybe he'd been thinking it for a gorram while. Maybe he'd wanted to say it, but couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't.

Maybe she felt it too.

Maybe.

Course he didn't know. She hadn't said anything, not one word to him since then. She had just stared at him, mouth open in shock. He did chuckle a little at that, thinking back on it. He'd surprised the Crazy Moonbrain Reader. Not many people could do that.

And then he had run. Run out of the room, out of the house, just kept running. He ran to the lake, plunging in and holding his breath in the cold water until his lungs couldn't take it anymore.

He didn't even see her again until Serenity docked on Iaceli and even then she'd just ignored him.

"Jayne!" Mal shouted from outside his bunk. "Case yah fergot when yah were visitin' yer family, we have dinner together! Get yer pi gu up here."

"This oughta be fun." Jayne sarcastically said to himself as he peeled himself off his bed.

As he entered the kitchen, everybody else was already seated.

"Mei mei," Simon was saying, basically trying to force-feed River. "You have got to eat something."

"No. She feels sick." It took everything Jayne had not to correct her third person speech. He slopped food onto his place from the counter in the kitchen, keeping his head down, eyes off the table. He had protein of just about every color.

"River, I tested you for every illness I can. There's nothing wrong with you. You need to eat something."

"She's not sick, Simon." River replied. "Just feels sick."

"Wait, mei mei," Simon halted. "Do you know what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing wrong, boob."

"Then why are you so sick?" Simon insisted. Jayne began to walk towards the table, keeping an ear on the conversation but his eyes down.

River sighed, pondering her food in disgust. "Not sick, Simon!"

"Then what?"

"I've got another voice in me."

"What?"

"Another voice." She emphasized. "A second being. A new life."

"What?" Simon repeated.

She split her answer almost into two words, giving him her trademark you're-such-a-boob. "Preg-nant."

Zoё halted, not moving not breathing.

Kaylee started crying. Hormones.

Inara just looked back and forth between Mal, Simon and River. She'd suspected something had been going on with her newest mei-mei for a few months, but she hadn't known this.

Mal choked, gagging and coughing until he turned blue.

Simon opened his mouth and shut it, again and again, not breathing.

River just continued to stare at the food.

There was a loud thud as Jayne's head hit the floor and he fainted.

"She truly hopes her child does not share her father's biological affinity for fainting spells."

He woke up only three minutes later. No one had moved. Well, besides River, who had carefully put a bite of purplish protein into her mouth and spitting it out.

"Pregnant?" Jayne asked from the floor, holding his head.

"That's what she said." River replied, studying her food. He didn't even have to ask. He knew it was his.

Before anyone else knew what was happening, Jayne was on his feet and next to the Moonbrain.

"Pregnant, bao bei, really?" Jayne smiled, lowering down to one knee to reach her eye level, but she still wouldn't look at him.

"Really." She whispered, and he reached to turn her face toward his.

"Will ya marry me, darlin'?"

A/N: Psst! This isn't the end. Don't worry! Critiques and comments are welcome. (As are compliments! Hint, hint!)