77) You Know That You Have Seen This All Before

Carolyn wasn't quite sure what was going on with Jayne and Jack. She could be pretty certain it was nothing romantic. It had been about three weeks (maybe, hard to tell in the Black unless she looked at a calendar) since Zoë had started to train Jack. Which meant three weeks of Riddick being pretty pissed off with his 'little sister'. Carolyn wasn't thrilled with the girl herself and she wished someone had mentioned what was going on. Maybe if both she and Riddick had been aware they might have caught it earlier.

But no one had mentioned it beyond saying 'hey if you see something of River's and it's not in her bunk go and put it back'. They didn't say how or why the girl's belongings would be scattered across the boat. She knew there was some big secret there, something to do with River and her being 'unwell'. No idea what it was, why illness would be something they needed to hide but since it was River's secret Mal probably felt like he couldn't say anything without the girl's permission.

So, no point in pushing and Mal had told her a lot already, as much, she'd thought, as he safely could without treading on someone else's doings. (To use some of her lover's unique phrasing.)

But the end result was Jack screwing with River's head for months and months until Riddick had figured it out. And Carolyn had never seen Riddick like he'd been when he came on the bridge and sent her back to the galley. She didn't really have the words for his expression. She'd just been extremely glad it wasn't aimed at her.

And the result of that little fracas was Jack going into boot camp or basic training, or whatever, with Zoë as her drill sergeant. Carolyn found herself very (Very, VERY) grateful that she was either on the bridge at dawn or in Mal's bunk asleep. Because however gently Zoë had been prepared to wake Jack up before her mind games had come to light, it had been completely discarded. Simon was bunking with Kaylee and River with Riddick, so it was really only Jack and Bea in the passenger dorms. And Mal was so irritated with Bea these days he said if she didn't like it, she could leave any time.

The good thing that came out of all the whole mess was apparently nobody was worried that River was going crazy (anymore?). Jayne had no idea what Jack had done, just that Riddick was supremely rú gěng zài hóu and it was over something Jack had done.

Mal had murmured something about making Jayne aware and Carolyn had shaken her head no. "She needs one person on the boat who isn't mad at her. Doesn't have any hidden, or not so hidden, agendas either. Jayne's pretty neutral. He took her with him to get the weights and work out stuff, said she had a good eye for useful things. And Kaylee and Simon seem to just be pretending they don't notice. Which they have, they're just leaving it alone." She was pretty sure of that much. Those two acted like they only saw each other but they noticed a lot more than they let on.

"You ain't worried about him gettin' ideas," Mal, for all that he'd given Jayne his old bunk, didn't seem to have a very high opinion of the man.

"He treats her like a kid sister, like Rick does, did," She corrected herself. "Still does I guess, just angrier with it. But no, I'm not worried about Jayne making a move on Jack." Mal kept looking at her in that patient way he had that said he'd wait all day for an answer if he needed to and Carolyn sighed, "That crush she has on Rick, don't think it's really gone away. That's why it kills her that he's so mad. Jayne's… well…" She shrugged.

"Oh… yóu zhān de tián mì mǔ qīn," Mal groaned. "You're not sayin'…"

"Jack's almost sixteen. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's past sixteen now, she just hasn't said when her birthday is," Carolyn shrugged. "When I was sixteen, having a boy pay attention to me, that always cheered me up."

"I can't…you're gonna break my brain," The Captain, who she'd seen face down bullets, Riddick and even Zoë, quailed in the face of teenage hormonal romance (or sex).

"I'd say that's likely going to be our biggest problem," Zoë agreed as she came in the galley with Emma in her basket. The baby was getting a little too big for her basket and they'd need to make another one soon actually. "Jack's scrubbing out the head," She added.

"You don't think she's gonna try to go kissing on Jayne too do you," Mal inquired in genuinely horrified tones.

"I hope not," Zoë shook her head. "But at sixteen, dirtside you're either working or in school, and there's boys and girls around. To flirt with or crush on or whatever. Everyone here is either paired up or completely inappropriate."

"We already know that Jack tends to gravitate towards guys, especially older men who can take care of themselves," Carolyn reminded the Captain.

"If it's any comfort at all, I think Jayne'd find that scenario just as horrifying, or more so, as you do," Zoë added.

"Emma darlin', you're not gonna grow up and put your old Captain through this are you," Mal pleaded as he picked up the baby and tickled her under her chin to make her laugh. "You're gonna stay little and cute and unable to talk back forever right?"

Riddick had actually unbent long enough to demonstrate (with River) a defense move that Jack simply wasn't getting. And he'd taken to observing her lessons now and then in the past week. Jayne had been doing the same, both men commenting on little things that could be done for Jack to improve.

Carolyn contented herself with the weight bench and turning her upper body into something that could hold Serenity steady but still look feminine. It wasn't as hard as she'd have thought really. Jayne had given her a few pointers. Jack too.

That had been interesting actually. Riddick had chuckled openly when Jack expressed her frustration with not being able to perform a move correctly. "Helps if you've got the muscle to back it up Jackie girl," He'd called over his shoulder as he went up to take his shift on the bridge.

"Muscle," Jack groaned. "How'n the hell do I get more muscle than I've got."

Carolyn had sat up on the bench from where Jayne was spotting for her; he'd spotted for Riddick and Riddick for him. Jayne had been watching Jack and Zoë, and openly admiring Zoë from where he stood which Mal probably wouldn't like but he'd take that better than Jayne admiring Jack.

Of course, Jayne was cheerfully crude about every woman on the boat he actually considered a woman, with one exception. River. And not because she and Riddick were, as he put it, 'sparkin' on each other'. No, he had a healthy respect for River that was completely unattached to her relationship with Riddick. Carolyn wasn't so sure she wanted to know exactly why.

Now though Jayne just shrugged, "Gotta use the weights, build up your muscle." He told her, "Like Caro's doin' or me or Rick."

Zoë had captured Jack's attention again at that point but once the lesson was done Jack had looked at Jayne again. "Use the weights huh?"

"Yep," He nodded. "Resistance trainin's good when you ain't got weights. Pull ups an' push ups an' such. Sit ups where you got gravity workin' against you. That sorta thing."

Carolyn had chores to get to herself, so she didn't get to hear the rest of the conversation.

The girl weren't godawful at defendin' herself, Jayne could see that. She knew better'n most where to kick a man to bring him down, an' that weren't nothin'. Problem was she was so gorram skinny there's no weight behind any punch or kick. An' she just weren't fast enough to fight like River. She had the right build, but she didn't have the right outlook.

And she had no idea how to work out and actually build muscle. "You're killin' me," He told her finally as he watched her with the free weights. "Thought you looked this stuff up an' all?"

"I did, but there's a lotta different exercises and some of 'em are hard," Jack admitted. "I couldn't be sure what would work. And Simon got on me about trying to do too much and hurting myself."

"That a problem," Jayne hadn't considered that.

"I was usin' those big number ten cans for weights and my arms hurt real bad," Jack shrugged like it was nothing but if Simon had told her to lay off then it weren't nothin'.

"Well, these ain't as heavy as those," Jayne handed her a dumbbell a bit smaller than the one she'd been using so badly. "Which is what you want."

"Heavier's better I thought," She protested.

Damn she was such a cute kid, all curly hair, almost falling in her eyes, curls lightening to honey blonde at the ends. But she was so skinny. Teenagers were the bane of every adult's existence, and he had two younger sisters who'd proved that to him constantly when he'd been home. "Heavier's better for buildin' up muscle," He took the heavier weight away from her. "What you want, is to strengthen your muscles, and build 'em slowly."

"I've been goin' slow for six months," Jack protested.

"Uh huh, an' where's your way got you?" Jayne didn't know much but he knew how to argue with a teenager. God knew he'd had enough practice. "So now you try it my way."

"Fine," She damn near pouted and he rolled his eyes.

"That won't work on me," He told her flatly. "You're a cute kid but you're younger than both of my sisters and they got all the soft and gooey for pouts and big eyes worked out of me by the time I was twenty-five." She grimaced and he chuckled, "Yeah, you try bein' the oldest boy with two older sisters, two younger an' a little brother. I learned to sleep through screamin' fights over whose turn it was with the curlin' iron an' mirror."

Jack rolled her eyes, "That's just…stupid."

"Never said it wasn't," Jayne smirked back at her as she sat on the weight bench. "'Specially since neither one of 'em had hair that would take a curl. All those corkscrews in their hair just fell flat an' straight by lunch." He held the weight he'd taken from her in his hand and began to lift it slowly. "This's what you want to do. You raise it slowly, and you lower it." She imitated him and he shook his head, "No, don't just let it fall, you'll hurt yourself like that. You gotta control it goin' up and down."

"Okay…" She frowned and concentrated on doing what he'd told her for a moment. "So why's a smaller weight better for me?"

"Well for one, you ain't got a lot of muscle or weight to start off with," Jayne explained as he began his own little workout. "The more you lift, the more muscle you build. When you feel like those weights are too easy, you switch up to heavier ones." He pointed at one of the heaviest. "I use those normally after I do a few sets with these. That makes the muscles I built stronger."

"Okay…" He could tell she didn't quite get it. That was okay, he hadn't really either.

"Here," He watched her with the smaller weight. "You're gettin' tired a bit but it don't hurt none right?" Jack nodded and he took the weight and handed her a heavier one. "You lift this, you feel your muscles strain doncha? That's what builds strength. That strain, pushin' yerself. But you gotta build muscle first, or all you'll get is hurt."

"How do pushups and pullups and stuff like that figure in," Jack wondered as he gave her back the smaller weight.

"You start with stuff like that, 'cause you should be strong enough to lift your own body weight y'know," Jayne shrugged. "An' it loosens you up, builds muscle without havin' to buy weights." They'd been working on a weight bench, but they hadn't had any barbells or weights like he'd picked up. Some little free weights sized for Carolyn and River and Jack but that was it. "How'd Rick work out when ya'll didn't have this set up?"

"He'd…" Jack pointed at the catwalk and railings. "He'd hang from there and do pullups and sit ups for like an hour at least. He'd run all over the ship, you couldn't even hear him, but he was fast. He'd do pushups in the bay sometimes." She grinned, "Once he got me to sit on his back, but he said I was too little to make much difference, so he got Carolyn to sit on him like she was doin' yoga while he did pushups. Said it would help with her balance." Jayne couldn't help chuckling as he pictured that and grinned back at her.

"Yeah, most of that's called resistance training," Jayne nodded, still grinning over the mental image. "Simple stuff that uses the weight of your own body to build muscle. Muscle's heavy. The more you build up, the heavier you get. No wonder the man's so gorram big."

"I'm never really gonna be able to do what him and Zoë can, am I," She asked quietly after they'd pumped iron for a while.

Hell, if he said no would she just quit? Now he had a real uncomfortableness. And she wasn't letting him off the hook either either, kept lookin' at him waitin' on an answer. "Well…I don't expect you'll be able to do everything they can Jackie girl," He said finally. "You ain't got the right build for it that I can see."

"Zoë is kinda…solid," Jack nodded slowly. "She ain't manly but she ain't like Carolyn or Inara neither."

"Wash useta call her his 'warrior woman'," Jayne recalled. "Little man wasn't much for guns or fightin', kinda like Carolyn y'know? He was strong, gotta be to fly Serenity. But Zoë was the fighter 'tween the two of 'em."

"Why'd you call him 'little man'," She frowned.

"Oh, he was shorter'n me an' Mal," Jayne shrugged and grinned at her. "An' it bugged him, so I just kept doin' it."

Jack laughed and shook her head at him, "You're like Rick, first few months on the boat he'd come up behind everybody, laugh when he made 'em jump. Even Carolyn an' me."

"River'd do that too," Jayne chuckled. "Drove the Doc nuts at first, turnin' around an' she's an inch away." He smirked remembering when she did it to Mal, "Made Mal jump a few times. Said he was gonna get her a bell."

"He said that about Rick too," Jack grinned. And for a minute Jayne thought he'd distracted her but then she proved him wrong, "So if I'm never gonna be able to fight like Zoë or Rick, or you I'm guessing, how'm I gonna learn?"

"Heard that River was teachin' you an' you didn't like it," Jayne tilted his head. "That 'cause you didn't understand her or because she an' Rick were sparkin' on each other an' you were jealous?" No harm in reminding her she'd been stupid. Part of the reason Zoë was puttin' her through military trainin' was she'd done somethin' stupid, an' even if he didn't know what, he'd lay three to one odds on his share of the next job it had to do with River.

"Kinda both," She admitted with a twist of her mouth. "It was all this slow stuff. And she'd say things that I didn't understand. And she'd just wait until I got somethin', didn't explain it anymore except she'd say 'watch' and I never saw what she was sayin' to see y'know?"

"Yeah, River speak ain't the easiest," Jayne had a few moments (okay more than a few) with River like that himself. "Simon can explain it better but…" He tried to think of a way to say it that wouldn't make River sound like she was ready for a bughouse (even though sometimes she was) but Jack would understand. "You ever see someone after they've had a seizure or stroke or somethin'?"

"There were a couple people I saw who were recovering from somethin' like that I think," Jack said slowly.

Best he could hope for he guessed, "River was kinda sick when she got here." He shrugged, "An' she talked all crazy. But to her it made sense. Just didn't come out so the rest of us could understand it." He spread his hands, "She's a lot better now but she still uses words I don't understand half the time. Mal has to ask her to say somethin' in 'Captain Dummy talk' all the time. Her an' Kaylee really. Simon too from what I seen."

"So she ain't doin' it on purpose to make me feel stupid," Jack considered that for a minute.

"Only person I ever seen her make feel stupid on purpose is her brother, an' that's just what little sisters do," Jayne smirked. "She just looks at him an' calls him a boob."

"Simon always looks so resigned when she does that," The skinny girl across from him grinned. "And Kaylee just pats his hand." Well that were some promisin', Jack finding River teasing Simon funny. Meant she wasn't strictly hating on River constant-like. Maybe there's hope for peace an' friendship on the boat yet. Before pigs flew anyway.

"Well, anyway, most of what Zoë's teachin' you is pretty basic," Jayne got back to their original (sort of) topic. "And you can adapt it to your size an' weight. So learnin' that'll be helpful until you can figure out what style of fighting works best for you." He gave her a half smile, "Ain't like you don't got time you know. Nobody's goin' anywheres."

"Yeah," That cheered her up some and he coached her through some more exercises with the weights.

Author's Note: So timing wise we've had a little bit of an overlap in chapters, mostly because the last one was strictly private and between Riddick and River. And I honestly wanted something slightly lighter. Making Mal uncomfortable with a teenager's behavior is always fun and this gave us some background on Jayne and his perspective.

Chinese Translations:

rú gěng zài hóu (lit. as if having a fish bone stuck in one's throat (idiom) / fig. very upset and needing to express one's displeasure)

yóu zhān de tián mì mǔ qīn (sweet mother of linoleum)