Disclaimer: See chapter one.

A/N: A lepidopterist is someone who studies butterflies and moths. I only point this out now because I realize the term is not one commonly found in day-to-day life, and the first two times I stumbled on the word, I had to look it up.

Brompton Cocktail

Chapter Nine

Jayne had disappeared rather quickly, leaving most of his breakfast uneaten. Zoë was the only one who noticed that little detail, though. A cold grip seemed wrapped around her chest, nearly as bad as the one that had seized her on seeing that sharpened tree-trunk pin her husband to his chair like some sort of superior specimen in a lepidopterist's collection. Wonder if it's the news he got yesterday or if it's something else? The thought barely made it through her mind's repeating of three months three months three months.

For all that she hadn't trusted Jayne when they hired him out from under his previous employer, Zoë was having difficulty imagining life aboard Serenity without his crass presence. And this latest bit of news coming on top of what she now knew about his past… Can't he get a break? At all?

Her earlier determination to help him in his mission to seek out the men who'd taken his family resolved itself into something a bit more clear. She finished her own breakfast idly agreeing with everyone else that it was far better than she would have suspected of the mercenary. Just as she was about to take her dishes over to the sink, River beat her to it. "It's my day for clean-up," the girl said, peering at Zoë through her hair. "You found a temporary north. Stopped the needle spinning." A small smile softened the girl's face for a moment, then she and the empty dishes disappeared.

Zoë excused herself from the table, most of the others barely noticing, chatting with their latest acquisition. Oriole seemed a little overwhelmed by the attention, but Zoë figured she'd fit in well enough once she had time to find her feet. She headed in the direction Jayne had taken, down to the cargo bay. She'd expected to find him there, taking out frustrations on the punching-bag hanging under the stairs, or using his weights. He wasn't there, but the faint noise of high-pressure water pinging off of metal told her where she could find him.

She strolled down the ramp, noticing that the day was overcast and there was the feel of moisture in the air that heralded a storm in the not-too-distant future, then wandered around to the access ports for the ship's water and waste tanks. The strong stench of the waste tank indicated Jayne had already drained it and the hiss of a high-pressure hose told her he'd crawled inside and was rinsing the… chunky bits out. Just the thought was enough to knock Zoë a little lightheaded, tossing her back into some particularly nightmarish memories of the war. She stayed far enough from the portal to be able to avoid the majority of the stench by breathing through her mouth.

After only about twenty minutes of waiting, the hose noise ceased, and Jayne's boots appeared in the hatch, followed swiftly by the rest of him. He was damp from the waist up and soaked from the waist down, a pair of goggles making his short hair stick up in strange ways along the back of his head. Even without being able to see his eyes, Zoë could tell he wasn't feeling himself. He was moving slowly, to start with, lacking his customary assured grace. Jayne closed the hatch and resealed it, then moved over to the port for the fresh water tank. He attached a drain-pipe, then flipped a lever for it to do its thing. After about a minute, the pipe began sucking air, so he disconnected it and attached the blue-colored one that indicated potable water.

Every few seconds, he'd cease moving completely, then turn his head slightly to the left, let out an explosive sigh, shake his head, and go back to what he'd been doing. It took nearly ten repetitions of this odd quirk before it dawned on Zoë what he was doing. It's that blank spot the doctor said he'd have. He's not used to it yet.

"You just gonna stand there an' stare at me all day?" Jayne suddenly asked, startling her from her thoughts.

"Not sure what to say, Jayne," Zoë truthfully replied. "I followed you yesterday. Thought you might be out huntin' info on those men…"

Jayne finally looked over at her, pushing his goggles onto his forehead. "You know." It wasn't a question.

Zoë nodded. "Didn't mean to hear, but that doctor's got a vent to the alley next door, right next to a public cortex."

Jayne's forehead wrinkled and he rubbed lightly at his temples. Zoë usually only saw him do that when he was hungover. "Cao ni zuzong shiba dai," he grumbled under his breath. A little dinging noise indicated the tank was full, and he angrily knocked the lever down to turn off the flow. "Weren't nobody's business but m'own."

Zoë nodded again and stepped a little closer to him. "I know, but I can't say I'm sorry I know. Were you going to tell us? Or just wait for us to find you dead in your bunk one morning?"

Jayne paused in disconnecting the hose from the ship and looked over at her again, his face unreadable. "Ain't gonna happen that way."

"Oh? And how's it going to work, then?"

"Gonna do what I can, as I can. Then, if I manage to finish, I'm goin' home." He finished disconnecting the hose and let go of it to retract back to its storage place.

"Wo de ma," Zoë muttered with closed eyes. "God save us all from stubborn men." She opened her eyes and shook her head at the mercenary. "You won't be able to do it all by yourself."

"Been doin' fine so far." He turned and leaned against Serenity's hull as another bout of dizziness hit him.

Zoë quirked an eyebrow at his sudden sway. "Ain't doubting that, Jayne, just pointing out you ain't got as much time to finish it as before. Just offering a hand. I can find us something that takes us back to Jiangyin, something that won't make Mal ask questions."

Blatant skepticism flashed across Jayne's face. "You'd do that?" he asked, suddenly quiet, all trace of belligerence gone.

Zoë nodded. "And I can't promise anything, but I do know one of the guards at the prison. He owes me a favor. Might be I can get you in to see the guy you're after."

Jayne looked sharply at her. "Really?"

She continued as though he hadn't said anything, "And if it turns out he's really one of them, I know for a fact the guards can be cheaply bought into looking the other way, should someone manage to shank him in the yard."

Jayne scrubbed a hand through his hair, snagging the strap of his goggles in the process and tearing them off. Switching them to his other hand, he toyed with them for a moment before returning his attention to Serenity's first mate. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"What're you gettin' outta helpin' me?" he translated the essence of his question into something more concrete.

"Truth?"

"Almost always for the best, even if it does tend ta piss folks off."

That right there is Jayne in a nutshell. A tiny smile cracked her solemn face. "Partly… I need something to do. Wash…" her voice hitched on his name. "Wash was always so good at distraction, and we were together long enough I think I've forgotten how to pass the time without him."

"An' the other part?"

Definitely not as stupid as his actions would claim. "An apology."

His confused expression was nothing new to Zoë, though she'd bet real cashy money that this time it was completely honest and not something used to deflect conversation or further entrench the 'I'm-just-a-dumb-merc' persona. "Thought ya already did. The chocolate."

"Not for yelling at you," Zoë could have smiled, but didn't. "For how we treated you."

"Weren't nothin' wrong with that," Jayne replied, knowing she was referring to his first few months aboard ship. "'Specially seein' as ta how ya hired me on. Can't say that shootin' a former employer's a good way ta give notice when a better offer comes along, but I knew that when I did it. Didn't expect none o' ya ta trust me none, ever. Ain't the way a merc runs."

Zoë made a small gesture that seemed to say 'you may have a point'. "Doesn't excuse the fact that Mal and I kept on treating you that way."

Jayne shrugged. "Didn't bother me none. Still don't. I chose my path, an' I don't aim ta be regrettin' none of it. Made m'peace with who I had ta become a long time ago." He didn't mention that a goodly portion of that peace was knowing his own mom had set him on this path, and what with his mom and Kaida having been so close, not even the ghostly voice of his wife that served as his conscience had any qualms with his life.

"Be that as it may, Jayne," Zoë was starting to get a little irritated at the man's blasé dismissal of her guilty feelings. "Shoulda been able to see through your hunzhang, particularly after all you did when the catalyzer blew. No one was payin' you to close off the seals, to reroute the available air to the bridge, nor to set out the exosuit for Mal." She'd wound up with a pretty accurate description of the events in question from Kaylee, Mal, and Inara. "And you actually paid when Niska took Wash and Mal."

"I had m'reasons for that," Jayne interrupted, feeling all sorts of uncomfortableness seeping into his bones from Zoë's recitation of what she saw as his good deeds. "An' they sure as hell ain't as noble as you're thinkin'."

The anger in his tone was easily interpreted as his usual reaction to any emotion that might remotely be considered 'unmanly', but Zoë was at a loss to explain the guilt shading his eyes. I hope I can get the full story on that someday, but now's not the time. "Fine, I'll give you that. But that still don't change the fact you voluntarily came with us through reaver space. I know they're probably the only things in the 'verse that actually scares you. I've seen how your hands shake when we've had close calls, so don't try and argue none on it."

"Hell, Zoë. Ain't nobody sane in the whole gorram 'verse that ain't scared o' reavers. 'Ceptin' those dumbass hundans who don't believe in 'em, o' course," the last bit was tagged on like an afterthought.

The pair fell into a somewhat uneasy silence that lasted for more than just a few breaths. Eventually, Zoë sighed. "So, you going to let me help you out?"

Remembering he wasn't quite finished with his self-appointed task, he turned around and hit the button to seal the fresh water tank's port, then closed the access panel. She made some good points, Jayne, Kaida's voice tickled the back of his mind. You don't have all the time in the 'verse. An' it ain't gonna be a bullet or a knife. He nodded to the echo of his wife, then turned back to face Zoë. "Maybehaps you got a point on the time-crunch."

The lingering remains of a tension she didn't realize she'd been carrying drained out of Zoë. "Good."

Jayne held up a hand. "One thing, though."

"Name it."

"The rest o' the crew don't find out about it. None of it. Not 'less it becomes absolutely necessary. M'past is mine, nobody else's business. An' I don't want fussin' on that other thing."

"That why you didn't go to Simon?" Zoë asked, honestly curious as to why he'd gone to Dr. Baker.

Jayne nodded. "Partly," the tiniest of smiles twitched his goatee. "Mostly it's 'cause I was pretty sure what it was. Kid's a good doc, sure, but he ain't learned a coupla hard lessons yet."

"Which lessons?"

"No matter how good he might be, he ain't learned he can't save ev'rybody. I ain't gonna be the one to make him realize that. Better if he learns it on someone he ain't lived with this last year."

"That all?" That's far sweeter than I would have thought Jayne capable of even three weeks ago. But then again, I should be getting used to the fact that the dumb-as-mud-merc routine is just that, a fake-out, something to keep people at arm's length. He's surprisingly sentimental. And he'd probably want to deck me if he could hear these thoughts. She repressed an urge to grin.

Jayne shrugged, unaware of her thoughts, and added, "He can't stop hisself from speakin' medic at folks, too. Drives me up the gorram wall. Baker's been patchin' up mercs long enough that he knows ta talk plain an' straight."

Zoë managed a little laugh, knowing exactly what Jayne meant – she'd had her own times when she wanted to shake Simon until he stopped yammering in medispeak. "I guess I can see your points. And you're right – Simon wouldn't be able to stop himself from trying to cure you."

"So… You'll help?"

Zoë nodded. "And I won't tell anyone, not unless it becomes necessary. Even then, I'll try to check with you first. Won't promise on that score, though. But if possible, I'll ask."

Though Jayne wanted to argue the point, he could all too easily imagine scenarios where knowledge of the virus he carried might need to be passed along without his okay. "More 'an I deserve," he muttered, unaware the thought had been spoken aloud. "Okay," he said, meeting Zoë's eyes. "What's the plan?"

A/N2: I don't know why I'm surprised, but Wikipedia has a particularly lovely list of Chinese cussing. It's all filthy and pretty and such; makes me want to cuddle it all close. I suggest everyone go have a look-see.

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