Disclaimer: See chapter one.
A/N: Not over yet, but getting close.
Brompton Cocktail
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Radiant Cobb certainly lived up to her name. She met the crew as the airlock hatch slid open, standing a full inch taller than Mal, with long, curly black hair that was only just beginning to gain streaks of grey at the temples. Though she wore dusty jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, her posture made it seem as though she were wearing one of Inara's most expensive costumes. There was a quiet calmness about her, as though greeting spaceships in her back yard were an everyday occurrence, that was at war with the bright joy shining from eyes the exact same shade of blue as her son's. "Jaynie? That really you, baby?"
Jayne stepped out of the shadows of Serenity's cargo hold and ambled down the ramp. "Yeah, Ma. It's me," he said, approaching her. He stopped at arm's length and looked down, scuffing the toe of his boot in the dust. "I'm home," he murmured.
Radiant laid her hands on her boy's shoulders, taking note of the odd discoloration his face sported. "Never thought ta see ya again," she replied.
Jayne looked back up at his mom. "It's done," he stated. "All paid in full."
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. "Thank you," she prayed. Opening her eyes once again, she pulled Jayne into a tight hug. "You're a good boy, Jaynie. A good son."
Jayne burrowed his head into his mom's shoulder and breathed deeply of her scent – a combination of hay and fresh bread and apple cider that told him he was well and truly home. Eventually, though, he broke the embrace. "Come on, Ma, I got some folks 'at's waitin' ta meet ya."
Mal watched as Jayne greeted his mother, somewhat surprised as Radiant looked nothing at all like he'd pictured. He'd been expecting someone short and chubby and all smiles and crude humor, but the woman Jayne had his arm around was tall and slender and moved with the same self-contained grace her son had once possessed. "Ma," Jayne said, coming to a stop in front of Mal. "This is Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Mal, this is my mother, Radiant Cobb."
"Ma'am," he greeted her.
"Captain Reynolds," Radiant nodded at him. "Thank you for bringin' my boy home safe."
"Weren't no never mind, ma'am," he replied. "Least we could do. Jayne's crew."
She smiled a little. "I understand," she said. Mal was pretty sure she did, too, and not just the obvious. That is definitely one lady I don't wanna be on the wrong side of.
Jayne tugged his mom a couple of steps over and finished introducing the rest of the crew. Afterwards, Radiant and Jayne lead them to the two-story farmhouse. "Where's Kelly?" Jayne asked.
"She an' Harl an' the kids moved ta River Canyon when Mattie took sick," Radiant explained. "They come an' visit regular, but don't live on the home-place no more." They reached the house, and Jayne opened the door. Radiant stepped to one side and addressed the crew, "Make yourselves at home. There's juice an' water in the ice-box in the kitchen, glasses are in the cupboard by the sink. It's a mite early here for alcohol, but if you're late in your day, I got hard-cider, beer, and some whiskey if you'd rather."
It managed to surprise everyone how easily they fell into the welcoming and homey atmosphere of Jayne's mother's house. They congregated, by chance or design no one knew, in the kitchen, drinking an assortment of beverages and trading stories with Radiant about the man they all had in common. Jayne had excused himself pretty early on and headed outside. About fifty yards behind the barn, right on the edge of the forest line, stood the Cobb family cemetery. Jayne strolled through knee-high grass over to the corner where his family was buried.
It was well over an hour before anyone noticed Jayne's disappearance. Radiant was in the midst of preparing supper for them all, with flour up to her elbows, and had roped Kaylee into helping chop veggies. Mal drained his glass of cider and stood, saying he'd go look for him. It took him close to half an hour to find Jayne, and when he did, he couldn't decide whether or not to be surprised to find him apparently having an animated conversation with a tombstone.
"Jayne?" Mal called out.
Jayne looked over his shoulder and gave Mal a halfhearted smile. "Hey Mal. Ma send ya after me?"
"I volunteered," Mal replied. "Whacha doin'?"
"Just talkin'," Jayne said, gesturing to a chunk of marble that sported the name Kaida Cobb and a date nearly fifteen years earlier. A shallow carving of an exceptionally beautiful woman adorned the place where most modern markers had a holograph of the deceased.
"Who to?" Mal asked.
"Kaida," Jayne said, tracing the carved lines of the woman's face. "M'wife."
Mal had once thought that there was absolutely nothing left in the 'verse that could surprise him. I was wrong. "Your wife?"
Jayne nodded absently, and stepped to one side. He knelt and cleared the overgrown weeds away from the statue next to his wife's grave. Mal had, at first glance, thought this to be simply one of many cherubic statues that tended to pockmark any graveyard, but when he looked a little closer, the statue wasn't religious in nature. It showed a little boy of about three, holding a chubby, smiling little baby. The pedestal on which the pair sat said Morley Cobb and Adelaide Cobb with the same date as was on Kaida's stone.
Peering even closer at the stone faces of the children, Mal could see the resemblance to the carved face of Jayne's wife as well as echoes of Jayne himself. He recalled that Jayne had said he hadn't been home in fourteen years. Seeing the graves in front of him told him why. "Wo de ma he ta de fengkuang de waisheng dou," he breathed. "How come you ain't never talked about them?"
"Weren't anybody's business," Jayne said simply. He finished his task and stood, facing Mal once more. "An' 'sides, wouldja've believed me iffen I had?"
Mal's shoulders slumped. "Prolly not," he admitted.
Jayne just smiled at him. He stood next to the captain for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts, staring at the stones. Eventually, he pulled himself back and bumped Mal's shoulder with his own. "Come on. I been dreamin' of Ma's pot-pies for nigh on ten years now. Let's go see if they're ready."
"…ya don't gotta dance around it any," Radiant's voice carried through the screen door as they approached. "I know right well how m'boy's been earnin' the money he sent home. Has my full approval on it, too."
"Wait," Simon interjected as Mal and Jayne entered. "Let me see if I have this straight – you actually approve of the fact that your son gets paid to kill people?"
"Why would I disapprove?" Radiant asked, crimping the crust closed on the last pie. "Ain't seein' as ta how it's any different than a soldier, an' the last time I heard, a momma had the right ta be proud of a son what was a soldier."
"But there's a world of difference between the two," Simon argued.
"No, there isn't," River stuck her tongue out at her brother. "Radiant is right and you're wrong, Simon. Besides, it's not your place to say either way on it."
"The more I learn about how things are out here," he muttered, "the less I understand."
"Ah, ain't no bother, Simon," Jayne said, sitting next to the doctor. "It'll make sense for ya someday."
"I can only hope so," Simon replied, making most of the people seated at the big table in the Cobb kitchen laugh.
Supper was as delicious as Jayne's memory had promised. Dessert – apple cobbler – was even better. But the best part, in his opinion, was finding out that not only did his mom like the crew, but that they seemed to truly like her, too. Radiant set them up in rooms that once belonged to her sons and daughter, along with a guest room, and a pull-out bed in her sewing room. It was a little crowded, but everyone fit. Stuffed with good food, better beer, and feeling lazy from the oven-like heat of a hot summer day, nearly everyone found bed early.
Jayne sat on the porch swing, sipping a glass of cold cider, staring not at the sky as he had when he was a boy, but out across the land he'd grown up on. "Your momma made noises 'bout takin' ya ta see a doctor tomorrow. But Simon pulled her aside and talked with her for quite a while," Zoë's voice was quiet, underscored by crickets.
Jayne nodded. "Thank him for me, wouldja?"
"I will," Zoë replied.
Jayne finished off the cider and sat the glass on a small glass-topped table next to the swing. "Forgot how pretty it was here."
"It is beautiful. Hot," Zoë chuckled. "But pretty."
"Think I'll sleep out here," Jayne murmured. "Ain't slept outside in longer 'an I can recall." He yawned.
Zoë settled onto the swing next to him. "Sounds like a plan to me," she said, propping her feet on the porch rail. The swing creaked a little, a gentle and perfect accompaniment to the sounds of crickets and the wind sighing through dry grass. Zoë's eyes took in the darkened yard, then tracked upwards as a meteorite flashed across the sky.
"Make a wish," Jayne said.
"Shen me?"
"'S an old custom, from Earth-that-Was. Called meteorites 'fallin' stars'. Any time ya seen one, you're s'posed ta make a wish. Don't tell nobody what it is, though, else it won't come true."
"Think I like that custom," Zoë said, making her wish.
Jayne yawned again. He stretched his long legs out and hooked his ankles over the rail next to Zoë's toes. "'S gettin' late. Ya might wanna go find 'at bed Ma give ya."
"I will, in a bit. Just want to sit here a while longer."
Jayne nodded. "Don't mind if I fall asleep on ya?"
"No, Jayne, I don't mind."
Zoë didn't know how long she sat there, watching the night and hearing the unfamiliar but comforting sounds of wind and crickets and the occasional lowing moo from a cow in the Cobb's barn. As the night deepened, she could feel Jayne's breathing coming slower and slower. She took his blackened hand in her own. "Always did think Mal was wrong," she whispered. "Ain't nobody gotta die alone."
She hung on to his hand until his breathing quit altogether.
The eastern sky was just barely stained pink.
A/N2: Still ain't over, folks. Still got a li'l more ta come on this one.
Please lemme know what y'all're thinkin'. Thanks.