Disclaimer: characters and 'verse not mine, Joss's

Part #9:Considering

Deserted, River wandered mentally after Jayne but knew he didn’t want her to follow. So she applied herself to the task at hand and after gauging the humming washer/dryer from all angles, decided she could take it if it chose to attack her. She would have no warning of impending assault, however, being unable to read its thoughts, so she hurried as much as she could when the timer announced its cycles were completed. Feeling the warm softness of clean laundry against her skin calmed her on the walk back to her bunk. So once inside, she spread everything around on her mattress pad and lay down on it. She knew Inara might mention wrinkles, later, but this was now. Calmness was necessary.

She rolled her head over to hang it off the bunk; underneath, pushed way back in the corner, was the smallish white box she’d picked up on Shore’s Leave. She contemplated it morosely; it seemed she’d been beforehand in purchasing it. It might sit there for a very long time, until it was old and lonely and abandoned. She had been foolish that day.

There was a job to do that afternoon, and River was glad of it. She needed something to fill up the spaces of her mind that only wanted to consider a tall, dark-headed, sometimes obtuse Jayne. She arrived in the common room before anyone else, anxious to get on with it. Folding her legs into a lotus position on the floor beside the couch, she waited for the other players in the imminent criminal enterprise. She determinedly did not think about ridiculously sensuous lips or sexy rough beard stubble or the way his hair caressed the back of his neck.

“Woman does not live by testosterone alone,” she told the empty room, paraphrasing the Shepherd’s Book. Since his death she’d been trying to read it, more; he had been a mystery to her in ways most people were not, and she thought maybe his precious ancient literary work would give her some insight into who he had been. It had, actually, but not in ways she’d expected. Of course, lately all her thoughts had been taken up by one large mercenary. “It is not healthy,” she continued insisting aloud, trying to convince herself and the furniture. “I need a more varied mental diet.”

Unfortunately for her willpower, the next person into the room was Jayne. He hesitated at seeing her there on the floor, then seated himself on the end of the couch nearest her. She tipped her head back to look at him, while at the same time trying to throw up walls within her skull. She’d attempted to do it before, block out the thought impressions she got from others, with fluctuating levels of success.

This time it worked, and all she knew of what he was thinking came from his expression and body language. She wasn’t very fluent in that language, yet, having been bombarded with actual thoughts for so long. Now she was left wondering. Was he angry? Pulling back from her? No, he’d seated himself beside her. Maybe he wanted to tell her face-to-face, like a man, that it was over.

“It hasn’t even started yet,” she told him anxiously. He frowned down at her.

“What?” When she didn’t answer, he twisted his body and slanted his legs toward her. She couldn’t remember what that meant. Aggression? Defensiveness? She was about to drop those mental shields out of frustration.

“Lookit, River, we gotta talk.”

She pursed her lips at him. “Jayne is very feminine today.” She didn’t want to talk.

“Hey,” he pulled back, looking distressed, she could comprehend that; “I thought we were past the whole ‘Jayne is a girl’s name’ thing. I done told you”-

“No,” she interrupted, “Not the name. The line, it is usually in the woman’s purview.”

He shook his head. “No idea what yer sayin’. River”-

Zoë entered, and he shut up.

The three of them waited. And waited. And waited for the Captain. When he did finally show, slightly out of breath, River was pushed up against the wall at her back by the emotions radiating off him. Astonishment. Amusement. A little fear. But mostly, nearly overwhelming joy and . . . love? River stared at him, dazed, while Jayne made a disgusted remark about the time and Zoë questioned him with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry, I forgot,” he said somewhat sheepishly, offering them a grin that could only be termed goofy. River leaned toward him hungrily, basking in the flow of his thoughts. Her walls couldn’t keep them out. “Your miracle has happened,” she murmured, her expression dazed.

“Er – yeah,” he glanced a ‘keep quiet’ look at her. It seemed he wasn’t ready to talk, either. She sat back, and he set off on a description of the job that allowed no room for interruptions from Jayne’s or Zoë’s curiosity. River sat there wishing for her own miracle. She was beginning to see how much she and Jayne had to overcome to get to serious togetherness. His short-term approach to life and her long-term craziness were just the start of it. She recalled an excerpt from Shepherd’s Book that discussed miracles and belief, and determined to look it up when they got back from the job.

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If Mal had been in the mood to notice anything about any of his crew, which he wasn’t, he’d have noticed that Jayne’s behavior just got stranger and stranger. Inara had an excuse for being preoccupied, too, and thus not discerning the extra quietness, which might have denoted consideration, in River. Zoë, Kaylee, and Simon all took note, however.

The first time Simon realized something was going on was when he was giving a hand (at the captain’s direction) to Jayne, sorting and re-stowing boxed cargo since they’d off-loaded some on their last job. River had entered, ignored them both in the way she sometimes had, and crossed to the stairs leading to the catwalk, all with her hair hanging forward to hide her expression. Once she was up to the next level, she started to dance.

Simon winced at what the grating would do to her bare toes and heels. But she looked so delicate, and lost in her inaudible music, that he didn’t have the heart to interrupt her. With a smile he watched her for a minute, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Jayne did the same thing. The hulking ape stood there kind of gaping in that way he had. Then he started, like he was coming out of a trance, reached into one of the many pockets his pants sported, and whipped out paper and pen.

He frowned down at the cream-colored scrap, pressed it out against the nearest box, and began laboriously scribing something unto it. His tongue was between his teeth in concentration; it seemed a big task for him. This was curious enough to draw Simon’s attention away from his sister. “Need some help with that?” he inquired half-seriously half-sarcastically, venturing nearer to get a look at what the paper held. Jayne snapped upright and stuffed it away, with a ferocious “cai bu shi”. Simon held his hands up in peace-offering. “Shide, just trying to be nice.”

Jayne rolled his eyes and hefted the box he’d used as a desk. “Get back to work.”

Simon told Kaylee about it later that night, and she chewed her lip a bit while listening. He watched her with growing suspicion as she glanced around her cabin and played with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Kaylee, what’s going on?”

She wrinkled her nose in a pleading, please-don’t-press-me way. “Simon, I think you need to talk to River.”

“Talk to River? About Jayne? You’re serious.”

She nodded. It was her serious face. He groaned. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

She shrugged and gave him a sympathetic smile.

Mal finally clued in to something not-back-to-normal with his merc following a job that had gone a bit south. Shooting had been involved, and River had had to drop-kick a few guys. She’d done it so smoothly and elegantly it had hardly even seemed like violence. They were able to salvage the pay, so all considered he felt pretty good when the four of them piled into the mule to head back to Serenity.

Zoë drove, and Mal half-turned in his seat to address a remark to the pair in the back. Jayne had a piece of paper out over his knee, and was bent writing on it, eyes narrowed in concentration. He looked up to snarl at Zoë when she whipped the mule around ninety degrees to turn in through the bay doors. Then he looked back down. “Think twelve is enough,” he muttered.

“Whatcha got there, Jayne?” enquired Mal lightly, having never seen the man with writing implements unless he was making out a letter to his ma. Jayne shook his head and tilted it away from prying eyes. He finished as Zoë cut power, and climbed off the mule with everyone else. Mal switched his gaze to River. She shook her head at him in a reprimanding fashion. “Do not ask me to know. I am experimenting with walls.” She walked off in one direction, Jayne in another. Mal reflected that at least the bizarre flirting thing had stopped.

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River had studied up on the miracles in Shepherd Book’s symbol, and decided that the teaching meant; one could not cause or force a miracle, but could perhaps inveigle one from a friendly deity. Upon its commencement, one then had to take advantage of the opportunity posed. So all she had to do was; endear herself to a Superior Being, convince that being that her cause was worthwhile, recognize the opportunity when it arrived, and effect whichever actions would afford the best outcome.

She didn’t need to be especially clear-headed to doubt the feasibleness of this sequence of events. Jayne had not interacted with her since that day with the laundry, except for polite hellos or nods. She was getting better at shielding her mind from everyone else’s thoughts, and tried not to invade privacies, so she didn’t know what he was thinking. However, she remembered how well his thoughts and words and actions usually melded. Her hopes for a future with Jayne wanted to fade off.

She clutched them stubbornly and forbade them to do so. She finally collected Kaylee and Inara in Inara’s shuttle and tried to compel them to change something about her to regain Jayne’s attention. Inara protested.

“Do you think that you want him if he only notices you when you’ve made an effort to be physically appealing?” she questioned as she poured tea. River shook her head, hands pressed to her sides. “No. But he still wants . . . I think . . . is just reacting to obstacles.” Her brows drew together. “I am not prepared to dither as long as you did,” she said flatly.

Inara, who had never considered herself a ditherer, was about to protest this too when Kaylee put a hand up to hide her smile. Sighing, she put the tea pot down and raised her steaming cup to her lips. “Yes, I suppose it was a long time.”

“But worth it!” Kaylee enthused.

“Oh, yes.” The tea cup lowered, revealing a full smile on Inara’s lips. “Every minute.”

“Jayne is worth effort,” River inserted. Kaylee, who was all for the scheme anyway, clasped her hands and “awww”ed. Inara nodded in rather amused resignation.

So she instructed River in makeup application and apparel, admonishing that for River a natural look was best and not to overdo it. River followed direction industriously, noting color and style combinations. Inara nodded in satisfaction as she laid the last makeup brush down. “And now, for your hair,” she said, rising to her feet. She was unprepared for the reaction she received. River scooted out of her chair and backed toward the entrance.

“Not the hair! The hair is sacrosanct. Not to be up!” River used her hands and arms to try to cover it up, as though Inara might rip it from her head.

“That’s fine, it’s all right dear,” Inara soothed, surprised. “We can leave it down. But just a little trim, I think, to even out the ends?”

“And sparkles!” Kaylee put in, holding up some little shiny clips of her own.

It took a little more cajoling, but River came back to her chair and let them proceed.

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Later that evening, after they ate, Jayne found her down in the common room. Her brother was puttering about in the infirmary, so he waited around impatiently. River watched him standing against the wall with crossed arms. She didn’t speak. He didn’t say anything. Simon clunked something heavy down on the counter.

“You ‘bout done in there, doc?” Jayne called. Simon poked his head out the door.

“Very nearly,” he said politely. “Did you need something, Jayne?”

“Not from you,” Jayne snorted. Simon’s eyes drifted to River, sitting with her feet beneath her on the couch. She was looking at the floor and seemed unaware anyone else was in the room. Simon hung there a moment, debating with himself, then pulled back into the medical bay. He finished quickly, exited, shut the door behind him, and crossed to the common room exit, too. “Good night,” he said softly to the room at large, and left. Jayne blinked slowly.

“Huh.” He said. “That was diff’rent.” But only momentarily distracted from the reason he was here, he eyed the girl on the couch warily. They’d had little to say to each other for days. He wanted to know what she was thinking.

“What ya thinkin’?”

She stopped looking at the floor and started looking at him, which she hadn’t done in awhile. The impact hit him like a fist in his gut. He straightened away from the wall, hands in his pockets.

“I am wondering what you’re thinking,” she told him.

“Uh.” He moved over to her. She pulled her legs out from beneath her and rose. He’d missed being this close to her. “Wait,” he said, in case she’d been about to do something. “I’m, well, I made somethin’. Fer you.”

Her head tipped back in curiosity. His lips twitched, but didn’t quite make it to a grin, ‘cus he was nervous. “Here, just take it.” He pulled his hands from his pockets. In one was clenched a cream-colored bit of paper. She recognized it. She reached out, hesitantly, and he shoved it into her palm. Her fingers curved over it.

“Gotta read it,” he instructed, backing a step away. He didn’t have any idea what to expect as her reaction.

She opened the folded sheet and turned it right-side up. There were words there, in large slightly crude hand-written letters. She began at the top, felt her breath catch. It was a list. The words were misspelled and there were cross-outs and a hole in one place where the paper had been rubbed through by something. But slowly, she made it out.

REASONS I LIKE RIVER TAM (BESIDES HER LOOKIN’ GOOD)

ain’t like anybody else in the ‘verse only treats me like I’m stupid when I am puts up nice with her chunren brother dances like she means it fights like she dances thinks she can take care of me makes me want to protect her can protect her own damn self sees stuff nobody else does (kinda like but not the same as #1) brain’s pretty clear, considerin part of its missin, and all kinds of shiny makes me consider on things wouldn't matter who the pa was, would make beautiful babies Once she’d gotten to the bottom, she went back to the top and started over. Jayne stood and fidgeted, began to make growling noises, and finally reached out to snatch it back. But she was too fast for him, twirling away, pressing it close to her heart and fixing him with wide eyes and open mouth as she came full circle.

“He – you made this for me,” she got out, sounding as though she’d just finished a twenty-mile hike up steep hill country. He nodded.

“Don’t like hurtin’ ya,” he told her as he shuffled his feet. “Next time I do, kick me ‘r somethin’. Then read that there, maybe it’ll help.” He moved his shoulders around. Waited. She looked down again at the List.

“Well?” He queried. He sounded as though he was trying to make it impatient. But it came out as anxious.

“Well what?” She smiled at him, tilting her head up on that long neck, and his tight insides eased somewhat. Nevertheless, he huffed impatiently, because that was what Jayne did.

And that was how she liked him.

“Well, now what are ya thinkin’?”

Her smile left and she closed her eyes. Sensed the crinkles of the paper against the skin of her hands, and it felt like, felt like . . .

Not like Kaylee and Simon. Not like Captain Daddy and Inara. Not like Zoë and Wash. It was its own, different. It was good. Her eyes opened again, and were very very bright.

“I’m thinking”, her words were solemn; “this is the most precious piece of paper in the ‘verse.” _________________________________________________

Part 10: Gifts

The quiet on the boat was deep and still, the homey thrum of the engine and the various lighting and heating elements the only noise. If elsewhere anyone was still up, they remained in their bunks, and the two in the common room weren’t aware of them.

“What things do I make you consider, Jayne?” River still held her gift clutched to her breast.

He opened his mouth, and then closed it. Her eyes dropped to the next, final item on the list.

“Children? Do you consider children, when you think about me?”

He sighed air out his nostrils, forcefully. “Yeah. I do.” He appeared perturbed by this information. She lifted up and down on her toes once, wanting to dance. But this needed tending.

“You think things, about the future? Far from now?”

“Yeah, farther than I’ve ever thought before.” He was tired of being so distant from her and stepped in close. Really close. She had to tip her head back to see him, so all her lovely hair brushed his bare arm as he slowly wrapped it around her waist, tentative, as though she was going to leap away like a startled rabbit.

When she didn’t, he fisted his hand in her dress and hauled her up close against him. Her lithe softness crushed into his broad hardness, and her hands were caught between their bodies. She twisted them out, guarding the List jealously, and bent backward over his arm in an agile move he never could’ve managed, to lay it carefully on the couch behind her. Her abdomen pressed into his groin when she did that, and he hissed out a breath. He moved both hands to tangle in her hair and pulled her back up, roughly. His fingers and palms entirely encased the back of her head. She’s so little, he sighed mentally, while dainty fingers landed on his shoulders.

“Or maybe you’re just big,” River answered out loud, and it didn’t bother him, that she’d read that. The fingers on his shoulders hesitated, then slid downward. River slanted her neck to one side to watch herself, stroking her hand down his t-shirt sleeve until it ended and she hit real skin. She let out a moan of contentment when she felt the hard bulge of the muscle there, tensed around her. His own hand was sliding below her waist when she leaned her head in where she’d been looking. He felt her wet tongue land on him and lap slowly down into his elbow. Groaning out loud, he cupped her buttocks, small but round, and lifted her to grind her pelvis into his. She wrapped both arms up around his shoulders and turned her head to nuzzle it into the hollow of his shoulder, switching her attention to his neck. He paused to wonder through a red-heat-haze where she’d learned the thing she was doing with her hips.

“Hey, River,” he gritted out, “you done this before?”

“No,” she told him, “but I’ve seen lots. In your head.”

He winced and jerked a space away from her. “That seems really wrong,” he said, staring down at her. She stared back up, eyebrows lifted.

“Why?”

He shook his head. “Those weren’t – those women – they weren’t you. I don’t want you bein’ like them.”

She furrowed her brow in perplexity. “I believe there are a finite number of ways to do this,” she said.

Now he had frown lines between his eyes. “Finite?”

“Limited.” She raised her fingers and began to tick them off. “Standing unsupported, as we are now. Standing supported, as in up against a wall. Seated, female on top. Seated, male on top”- she had to stop talking, because any further words would have been unintelligible. Jayne’s hand was clamped hard over her mouth.

“I get it, moonbrain.” Then his smile was wolfish. “Maybe so, but on that limited number of ways, there can be ifn – infinite variations.”

She smiled back. “You will teach me? So that I am following your directions, instead of copying the others. The others are gone. I will be me, and you will be you.” He was reaching for her again when she reached out to hold his forearms off. “They are gone, my Jayne? They will be no more?”

He folded his arms in to just lie along hers, and stroked her elbows lightly. “Don’t need ‘em, if I got you,” he told her softly. Her glinting smile was his reward. But she still held him off, and then backed away.

“I have a gift for you, too,” she whispered, and stopped a moment to snatch her List off the couch, before dashing out. Leaving him standing there, now truly impatient. He didn’t want a gift, he wanted sexin’, and thought he’d been mighty gorram patient about it too. He thought about following her to her bunk, but figured clomping around the boat might wake somebody up he didn’t want awake. So he dropped down on the couch, sprawled his legs out, and waited for her return with the fingers of one hand drumming out his edginess on his other arm.

It wasn’t really that long before she was back. There was a white box cradled in her hands. She looked at him all starry-eyed and he couldn’t hold back a grudging smile in return. Especially when she crawled up to straddle his thighs, box in her lap, and manually uncrossed his arms so she could push the container into his keeping. But she held his fingers down over the lid.

“Jayne.”

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

His lips pursed together and he breathed in deeply, but didn’t reply. She clenched her fingers tightly around his, around the box. “Please,” she uttered quietly.

He muttered something in the direction of her toes. She angled her head in and under his, looking up, just like some gorram duck – or swan, or something.

“Didn’t hear,” she said with wide-eyed earnestness.

“You’re a gorram mind reader! You need out-loud words?”

”I like to hear you say it.”

“Well, I said-.” He had to stop to relax his jaw, and finished quieter but audibly - “always will.”

Just like that. It had been scary, but not so difficult when he got to the actual doin’ of it.

Her brilliant smile heated his soul.

“The emotion is reflected back, full-force," she returned.

He leaned in to pull her to him, but she stiff-armed him away. He let out a howl of frustration. Now she was the one covering up his mouth, and she was giggling. “Will wake the boat. Captain Daddy will arrive, and bluster. Brother Simon will see, and stutter.”

He nodded. She dropped her hand, and lifted his, the now slightly crushed container still there. “First things first.”

He sighed with great forbearance, and pulled the lid off. Pushed aside some concealing tissue. Stopped dead. His mouth dried right out, instantaneously.

“Erm. River.” How did he say this?

Her dark head obscured his vision for a moment, as she peeked into the box.

“It is for insertion and stimulation,” she informed him, “as preparation. I had it made to order. At first the craftsman was rather recalcitrant, but after I drew him a picture and became very specific about size, he acquiesced. I believe the dimensions are correct, bigger than me but smaller than you.”

“Yeah. River, I’m pretty sure you know your ‘natomy better’n I know mine, but let me just say, I’m the man here. The MAN. And you don’t – you don’t – in my ‘verse, those are for women. Women only.” He pointed a finger at the box. His legs under her were tense, though she could tell he was aroused just by the sight of it.

“Yes,” she affirmed, rooting through the paper to pull the phallic shape out, “it is for me.”

He relaxed a little. “Then why are you givin’ it to me?” His mind wobbled, trying to wrap around the image of her drawing this out for some sales clerk, earnestly attaching length and width measurements. Wait a minute, smaller than him? How did she know –?

She smacked him lightly on the chest. She wasn’t using her mental shielding at all. “Silly. Jayne thinks about it a lot. You feel that size is very important.”

She held it up in front of his face. He flinched back a bit. She grinned at his reaction.

“The answer to your question; you said so before. I am small. You are very big.” He couldn’t help his smug smirk. She shook her head but smiled back. “It will be less difficult, if I am made ready for you. You will not have to go as slow. You will not have to worry about being as gentle.” She laid the dildo back down in the box and leaned into him, her hands linking behind his neck. He moved the container on her lap down to the floor, grabbed her hips in his hands, and pulled her flush against him. “All right, then,” he rumbled at her sexily, “if that’s what it’s fer, then I guess its fer me. Thanks.”

She sighed contentedly. “I know you like it rough,” her breath tickled his ear. He laughed, and she treasured the sound.

“Sometimes,” he acknowledged. “But not always.”

He leaned his head back, and smoothed her hair away from her face. The strands didn’t want to stay, and he struggled with them awkwardly until they obeyed. She watched his face.

“River,” he said hesitantly, fingernails caressing the bone ridges he found below her scalp. He discovered one line that was longish and puckered. A scar, from where the Academy had mutilated her brain. He gently rubbed his forefinger over it while she leaned back into his touch, eyelids shuttering in catlike contentment.

“Yes?” a little grin, self-satisfied, tipped her lips at what she knew he was thinking.

“Wanna kiss ya.”

Her eyes re-opened, and she leveled her chin to look at him square on. “On the mouth?”

His twitched up at the corners, while he eyed hers. “Yeah.”

“That would be . . . good,” she breathed. His smile turned full-fledged. “Uh-huh,” he agreed, and angled her chin, and angled his, and touched her that way. Lips just open, glancing off each other, barely moving. Then returning, tender and deeper as he flicked his tongue across the underside of her top lip and she gasped at the sensation. When he nudged her mouth further open to let him in, she met his wet heat with her own, slipping her tongue under and around his and swallowing the vibrations of his groan. Reveling in the feel of him, she pressed up as close as she could get with her feet and thighs and chest and arms, trying to take him into her soul. He chuckled low as he wrapped both arms tight around her, never leaving his ministrations to her mouth. He tilted them over sideways unto the couch cushion and they were lost.

And found.

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