Chapter 1: Instantaneous Conception

Disclaimer: This all belongs to Joss, I don't own any of it. Background: 6 months post-BDM. This is my first fanfic, please R&R and be constructive/kind. Thanks! Keep flying!

River Tam has one pair of boots, and rarely ever wears them. Got to be in touch with the ground, she reasoned. But today, on the cold and frozen ground of the mountains on an unusually crowded planet, far enough away from the reach of the Alliance, she had worn her boots. Almost as a way to placate Simon and keep him off her back. She sat to the left of and slightly behind her comrades. Zoë sat immediately next to Mal, with Jayne opposite of Mal. In these, the most Godless reaches of the ‘verse, their delivery was going to have meant something, and that meant plenty of coin for everybody. Sitting in front of Mal and half his crew were three bulky thugs named Bandero, Fritz and Bradley and one scrawny little runt who was obviously the leader. His name was Jackson. River counted the bricks in the road from the window and the number of bullets in Mal’s gun. Nothing added up. She pulled the metal alloy button on the very bottom of her woolen coat open to allow for movement. From the corner of his eyes, the mercenary to her right watched that subtle tell that they would all soon need to be able to move as freely as possible. Gorram, Jayne hissed in his head. She’s always expecting things to go wrong. Can’t say I blame the moonbrained woman. To throw their contacts on the planet off from the idea that River was purposefully taking off a movement-constricting piece of clothing in an extremely cold town, Jayne reached over to River’s side. With one hand trained as close as possible to his holster, he reached the other hand around the girl’s waist and let it trail in the most visible and obvious way down to her shapely rear and leaned in to nuzzle his bearded face against her neck. He then reached around front and unbuttoned another button, this on the topside of the fitted black garment. “Whatchya getting’ nekkid for, babydoll, we ain’t even back on the ship yet,” he pronounced aside from the main conversation, which was now getting heated over the subject of which percentages were due to whom. River turned her head toward the mercenary and pouted skillfully. “Just can’t wait to get back outside and play with our friend Vera,” she whispered softly into Jayne’s ear, her lip brushing the lobe of his ear. He cocked an eyebrow as he looked into her big doe eyes and saw her nod softly, almost too subtly for him to notice. He knew, right then, that she was expecting outside trouble to come in. Jayne’s saucy declaration had got the attention of Zoë as well as Jackson and his thugs, despite not exactly making it across to Mal. At the sight of River leaning closer to Jayne, Jackson made a cheap attempt to peer down her coat at the bit of cleavage that her dress allowed for. He did not even notice her before. Little bitty thing like her seemed to come out of nowhere, but if she wasn’t quite good looking and even though he couldn’t see all of her over this high table, he liked the cleavage at the very least. Zoë winced, her pained face unnoticed by the stinking group of thugs. “Now, Reynolds, you didn’t tell me that this saucy li’l bit of stuff was part of the deal. If you can encourage her to show us what’s under her, eh, coat, I suppose I could throw a bit more coin in your general direction,” Jackson said, licking his lips lecherously. Jayne was caught feeling a good amount of disgust, which shocked him. He still couldn’t wrap his head around what disgusted him so. Mal, horrified without ever revealing it, cleared his throat as he desperately racked his brain for some excuse why River’s predilection for removing clothing items was normal on a day like today. He came up empty-handed and panicking at that, as he now knew that his pilot was anxious and had a bit of sight about the circumstances at hand. “Now, there, we appreciate that you’re willin’ to be generous and such, but to be entirely honest, I don’t believe Mal would appreciate you takin’ advantage of his pilot on such an auspicious day.” Zoë lied like it was a conversation about the weather. “Auspicious, eh?” Jackson asked as he pushed another number across the table. “Sixty-forty.” “Well,” Mal straightened and scratched the side of his head, waving his hand nonchalantly as he pulled it away from his hair. He puffed his cheeks with air and released in a grand sigh, as if he were about to make a point that baffled and pained him. “You see, these two happy kids decided it was time enough to stop denying their obvious, albeit violent love for each other, and ran off to sanctify and make official-like their union this mornin’. So I’d like to keep my promise to give these two a proper wedding night, and give them their cut of our share of this job. Which is, by the way, seventy percent.” “And you don’t want to get our pilot’s husband angry about someone moving in on his bride,” Zoë finished plainly finished. The ice planet that was Jayne’s stomach started to melt and he nodded, stroked his gun, his eyes glowing in his best crazy look ever. Jackson’s thugs looked at each other, wondering if perhaps their boss had chosen people that were a bit too out of their gourd to be dealing with. A cold breeze hit River’s neck and her back arched, her eyes reduced to slits as the heated thoughts of a person with bad intentions for both parties involved gripped the door behind them. The heat and volume pressing down on her brain contrasted greatly with the deathly cold breeze. That same breeze seemed to swoop low and travel across the floor, twisting and then drafting upward suddenly, hitting the ends of her hair and fanning her locks out. It was a sight to see. Her left foot pushed out underneath the table and hooked to something. “There’s too much metal in here,” River sputtered out loudly in a veiled and confused warning. “Not good for my constitution.” “Jackson!” a gruff voice barked out. “I thought I told you never to show up here again or I’d kill you and whoever you were giving my money to!” The scraping of chairs and scrambling of combat boots accompanied by the shouts and squeals of bar patrons was the distraction that Mal and Zoë needed to be able to pull their guns and find adequate cover. Zoë had a bitterly serious look on her face as per always and Mal glanced over his shoulder as he and his crewmates fanned out and off to the left. “Friends of yours?” Mal questioned. “Only a former business partner to whom I owe a bit more than a lot of money,” Jackson nervously attempted to wave it off as if it were nothing. It was a mite bit larger than something, however, and Mal noticed that Jackson’s thugs had taken strategic places in front of him. “Oh that’s absolutely shiny,” Mal mused. Because I love being caught in someone else’s gorram troubles like I don’t have enough of my own. He glanced at the shaggy and bulky hundans who had walked in and pulled guns on them for no apparent reason other than Mal and his crew were getting the cashy-money that these guys wanted. “Perhaps we can work out another way of getting everybody their seven percent? Or is it too much to hope that I won’t get involved in your fussin’?” River, curiously enough, had not moved more than a few inches during these proceedings. She was still sitting in her chair. Her eyes darted around and settled on a hallway and a glimmering half-broken red light. Her pupils widened and she quietly sent up a prayer as she pulled her legs in and upended a water glass that she had been secreting between her legs. Returning it to the table, she looked at the ceiling. Oh please let this work. She was hoping that nobody had noticed her enough to notice what was wrong about what she was about to do. She screamed and clutched at her belly through her coat, which had grown considerably somehow in the past few minutes. She began to breathe deeply and winced visibly. “What in the hell is wrong with her?” Jackson peeked out from behind his thugs, his weapon trained on the hairy and ridiculously smelly bandit across the room. Jayne looked at River and the new curve of her belly and his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open just wide enough to get a gasp of disbelief out. “Tamade,” he muttered. River raised her hand out to him and made an attempt to pick herself up out of the chair, and groaned, feigning pain. “It’s happening,” she yelled out. “Ai ya, the levees have broken…” “Is there something…wrong…wo de ma!” Mal looked down at his pilot, who suddenly seemed as if she might be with child and in the way of delivering it. Turned to her, lowering his weapon. These past few minutes had required too much quick thinking for his liking. It was too cold and dark on this planet for quick thinking. “Jayne, your new bride seems to be in the way of giving birth to your firstborn…” The men who had come in through the door were now a bit uncomfortable. They were not about to shoot a pregnant woman. They had simply come here in order to retrieve a large amount of money stolen from them. Everybody wants his or her payday after all. Seeing this girl getting up from a chair that was soaked from what they believed was her water breaking, however, was a bit unexpected. “I understand your need to get your money,” Zoë softly but firmly reasoned on the fly to the men on all sides of her. Luckily she was better at thinking on her feet. Why was she not in charge? “But she has had a mighty difficult time with this child and if we don’t get back to our ship she might not be in the way to deliver safely.” At Mal’s gesturing, Jayne protectively moved in on River and raised his gun, wildly aiming at any person who might even make a peep. “I…uh…what about your share?” Jackson shook his head in disbelief. Who takes a pregnant woman on a job, anyway? “Look I just wanna get my ruttin’ wife to a doctor, money don’t mean anything to me. You folks can fight about the damn money until your cows become your dinner but if you’d be so kind,” Jayne lied out his teeth and gestured with his head toward River. River squeezed his free hand and groaned in her faked pain. “Xie xie, zhang fu…” River managed to gasp out before giving a loud scream. Then, a miracle, the men on all sides of her began waving their weapons toward the doors in a fashion that could only be interpreted as ‘Fine, go, get the screaming feng le girl out of here.’

Mal and Zoë followed behind Jayne as he picked River up gently and swiftly moved toward the door, closer and closer with every step to the mule. As they rushed out of the tavern and down the street and into the mule they could hear distinct yells and the beginnings of a shoot-out. Jayne deposited River softly in the front seat and jumped into the back with Mal, training both his guns toward the tavern. Firing up their four-person transport, Zoë grabbed the comm. “Kaylee…Kaylee…” A breathy voice answered. “Yeah…Simon stop…put that stuff down…Zoë?” “I hope you can get that boat fired up on your own by now. If you need Inara’s help, we sure could stand to have her warmed up when we get there…” “Are ya bein’ chased?” “No…but I have a feeling we might be if they attempt to grow a brain.” "Zoë chances are if they aren't following us by now, they've already all shot each other," Mal offered. “I have no doubt that…SIMON!” Kaylee's panic rose to a shrill peak. The radio fizzled and cut out. Mal leaned over and shook his fist. “They better not be breaking things on that ship! I pay them to FIX!”

The mule pulled into the cargo hold and stopped with a bucking halt. Simon closed the bay doors and ran over to the two men and two women nervously, making a beeline for his sister. “Mei mei, are you okay?” Simon spoke in a coughing panic. “She’s shiny, just help us get this boat off this rock,” Mal said, his stomach swimming in five different directions. Jayne leapt out of the mule and grimaced in Mal’s direction. “Shiny would have been us getting’ our ruttin’ share of the coin, Mal,” Jayne growled. “Not having extra guns pulled on us, or babies.” “I beg your pardon? What the hell?” Simon pulled at his face, confused. River chose that moment to place her hand delicately on Jayne’s shoulder and smile cryptically. She stood up to her full height in the mule and exposed her enlarged middle, and began to unbutton her coat. “River what happened!?” Kaylee Frye exclaimed loudly at the sight of her friend’s bump. River slipped her coat off, and handed it back to Zoë. From beneath her dress she removed the carefully stowed sack, which seemed to take the shape of a bulge against her actually flat stomach. She handed the sack to Jayne. “What…is that…what I think it is?” Jayne asked. “Presenting a bundle of joy,” River explained as she opened the sack in Jayne’s face and giggled. The mercenary’s eyes went wide and a Cheshire grin spread as he looked up to River in admiration, grabbed her down and began to spin around with her in his arms. Hugging her close to him, with the huge sack of untraceable bills sandwiched between them, he spun her wildly and whooped. “You gorram genius!” Jayne yelled, tossing the sack to Mal so that the rest of the crew might get a glimpse of what had made him so unJaynely and happy. As they gathered around Mal, their eyes successively lit up like a Christmas tree. Kaylee jumped up, grabbing Inara and Simon’s arms and began to clap. Everybody began to talk at once, all having designs on what they would use their own cut of what seemed to be their biggest payload ever. Jayne let River down as something inside him simply let go and surged forward. “Baobei,” Jayne whispered to River, looking her straight in her crazy eyes. He cleared his throat. “Thank you.” River simply looked up to him and smiled before jumping up into his arms and wrapping her long and slender legs around his athletic mercenary body. She wrapped one arm under his arm and around his back, her hand fisted against his muscles, and with the other hand she grabbed the back of his head and pulled it toward her. Pushing her body against his, she pressed her lips to his mouth, passing on every single ounce of every piece of River Tam that still existed. Every girlish fantasy and lost hope, every dream, every thread of sanity that she had ever clung to, she pushed against his lips, and sucked back his passion and anger and heat. Jayne’s hands held tightly to her back and her rear and every other part that he could grab onto, and for the first time in who knows how long, kissed a woman on the mouth. Moaning, they finally pulled their lips away from each other and managed to look each other in the eye. It was the look of love. Jayne knew he was in for the long haul, right then and there. What he didn’t see, was Simon’s fist coming at him from the side now that Jayne’s face was far away enough from his sister. Catching him off guard, Jayne dropped his hands and subsequently River and growled out in anger. “Son of a whore,” Simon yelled. It seemed he yelled that a lot at the men on this ship. “You keep away from my sister, you hear me?” Mal moved forward quickly, putting a firm hand against Jayne’s chest to hold him back when Jayne tried to rush Simon to hit him back. Kaylee came forward and tugged at Simon’s arm to pull him away. Zoë and Inara came to River, picking her up and ushering her toward the stairwell. “Jayne! You keep your cool and help me with counting this money, dong ma?” “Mal, he hit me!” Jayne was like a boy on a school playground. “You…you touched my sister!” Simon shrieked like a tea kettle. Jayne scoffed at the idea. C'mon, doc, that was way gorram more than touchin'. “Come on, Simon, he didn’t mean no harm! It was kind of cute!” Kaylee made it seem as if she knew, as though she had always known. “Don’t you go joining his side, too, Kaylee!” Simon didn't see why nobody was offering to back him up. “Jayne, the money?” Mal pointed to the sack that until so recently had served as River's youngling. “Ok, fine, but if he tries to come at me again, I don’t care if she’s his sister, I’ll hit him so gorram hard…” Jayne was still sizing up the scrawny doctor in hopes of making him good and truly afraid. Not that it had ever worked. “River, honey, let’s get you up to the bridge so that we can take off and get out of here…” Inara made a somewhat weak attempt at coaxing River up the stairs. Not that it really mattered; Mal had been right, and the men from whom they'd liberated this sack of money were all dead, having been trigger-happy enough to shoot each other. It didn't matter to Inara. The farther apart Simon and Jayne were, the more likely they were to have cooled down. And at the very least they would be on their way to whichever moon or planet was to be their next job. “Why you gotta be so mean all the time?” Kaylee whined at Simon. River had finally been able to have so few episodes that even when she got really bad it wasn't a fraction of what she'd had at the Maidenhead and afterward. And now that River had a chance at happiness, even if it was with an ape-man like Jayne...she couldn't very well deny River a chance to be a happy person. Kaylee stalked off to make fiddle with a coil. The engine of the ship, at the very least, was temperamental and fussy for a reason. She walked past River on her way up the stairs and gave her a sad but sympathetic smile. “Kaylee…Kaylee…I didn’t mean it like that! Ah, go se.” Simon followed her. Schoolboy. “Simon, you boob,” River softly reprimanded, not really harshly enough for him to hear. “I should like to have a few words with you, too, Jayne," Mal seized the opportunity to give his fatherly speech of good intentions, and to pass on Book's old talk about the 'special kind of hell'. “Zoë can you take River? I’m going to go speak with Kaylee," Inara bit her lip and followed after Simon and Kaylee. “Sure,” Zoë was more than eager to get into the air at this point. She shook her head. Love complicates things, so very much. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about, I got the money for us…” River flicked at a few switches as soon as they got onto the bridge and mapped a course for nowhere in particular. Pulling on the controls, she pulled Serenity into the air and away from the Godless mountains they had been stowed away in. "Yeah...you were expecting trouble today, weren't you?" Zoë sat down in the copilot's seat and took one of Wash's plastic dinosaurs into her hands, rubbing at the toy for comfort. "How could you tell?" River looked to Zoë with an arched eyebrow. She hadn't been able to read that coming from Zoë at all. "Why else would you land Serenity in the middle of 'no' and 'where', as Mal likes to put it, where nobody could find her but us?" Zoë gave her that 'Who Do You Think You're Kidding?' look, before standing up, setting the dinosaur down gently, and walking off the bridge to go find the captain. Now, Mal was most likely somewhere speaking down to Jayne about hellfire and damnation that Mal didn't even believe in. And as Zoë walked away, they sped off into the black, leaving River to shrug and mutter something about the "best laid plans of mice."