Title: That Which Shapes A Man Chapter Eleven: Resolution Author: hisgoodgirl

Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss. Just one woman’s take on the story. Rating: PG-15 for strong language Characters: Jayne, ofc, omc Pairing: Jayne/Kaylee in some chapters Setting: About the time of "Those Left Behind" Word Count: 3,278; chapter eleven of thirteen

A/N: From the first time I watched Firefly, I wondered what circumstances might have shaped the character of Jayne Cobb, an exceptionally complex man. This story emerged from the questions I asked.

Thanks to my excellent beta ArtemisPrime. To read previous chapters, click on my name above. Your comments are sincerely appreciated. Thanks!

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Chapter Eleven: Resolution

Outside, the wind roars, rushing down off the mountains and keening through the alleys, under eves and around the corners of buildings. The sound is haunting and mournful, much as the evening has felt, as Jayne now feels.

What th’ hell was I thinkin’, comin’ back here? Gorram sense of duty, poppin’ up in the damndest places. Don’t know what I was expectin’, but it sure wasn’t this.

The revelations of their conversation have been hard for Annalee Cobb, so soon on the heels of Mattie’s dying, and Jayne reckons her prolonged weeping is understandable. Her tears finally slow, and he persuades her to get some rest.

“Don’t worry, Ma, I’ll be right here,” he assures her, sitting back in the old armchair at her bedside until her even, deep breathing tells him she’s finally asleep. It hurts to realize how much his Ma has aged and how hard her life has been. Much as he’s tried to help, in many ways he’s only made things worse.

Ye soo, what a helluva day. I’d a just as soon get shot or chased by Reavers or baby sit Crazy Girl as go through this fei oo again. He rubs his aching head and stands. Guess I’d best lock up.

He gently closes his mother’s bedroom door and wanders into the parlor that all day was filled with people he didn’t know. Rachel’s pretentious husband had ensconced Annalee in the best chair and stood over her like a son, holding court. The preacher’d hovered like a gaunt stork, dour and righteous. And everywhere Jayne turned, he was in the way.

He latches the door and extinguishes the lamps, then heads for the kitchen, hoping to find something to ease the gnawing emptiness in his gut. He knows gorram well there won’t be a drop of spirits in his mother’s house, so no booze to take refuge in.

He’s restless and misplaced. No familiar faint humming ship sounds, or the low conversations and laughter of his crewmates, only the tick-tock of the old parlor clock. No guns to clean or weights to bench-press until he wears himself out. No prissy, pompous doctor to mock, no eerie-ass mind reader girl creepin’ silently through the ship, no ornery heroical Captain takin’ ‘em all into danger. No gooney pilot or dark, still, warrior woman holding hands under the dining table and giving one another secret grins, no Shepherd to share some peaceful late-night philosophizing with.

But hardest of all, no Kaylee, luminous, joyful and funny and as hot as any woman he’s ever bedded. Kaywinnit Lee Frye. His girl.

He’s been totally unprepared for how much he misses her, much as he doesn’t want to admit his longing. Misses more than the sexin’. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but there is something important about how he feels when he’s with that little gal, and this separation is challenging him to figure it out.

It’s not just how she looks at him, her laughing eyes twinkling suggestively or warm with compassion. It’s not just her touch, how she traces his jaw with a fingertip or presses her lips to his collarbone when no one’s looking, knowing it’ll get him instantly hard. It’s not her laughter, light and musical, or the horseplay they share during hoop-ball or on a rowdy night of drinking together. It ain’t even her blinding smiles and rosy cheeks, the joy she radiates like a beacon that illuminates them all.

Perhaps, he reflects, it’s how she makes him feel about himself. The man reflected in those eyes has possibilities, can be a good man, a man respected by others, a man depended on, not some hired killer, some two-bit gun-hand, thinkin’ only of himself. Kaylee sees what he can be, believes in him even when he can’t believe in himself, and somehow, the light of her faith in him is starting to show him the way.

As this realization comes to him, he grins and shakes his head. Quite a woman, that one.

Rooting quietly through the chiller, he pulls out a jug and pours himself a tall glass of milk. He quietly retrieves a plate from the cupboard and whacks off a big slice of the remaining chocolate cake still perched on his mother’s prized cut-glass cake stand. Covering the lonely remainder, he carries his glass and plate over to the table and sits down. Don’t need no fork, he determines, as he gathers up the rich chocolate delight with his work-roughened fingers, licking the cake and icing from them and chasing the sweetness with the icy milk.

That was gorram good! Much as Kay loves chocolate, she’d a surely loved this cake. Ai ya, I’m really missin’ that li’l gal. Never thought I’d let m’self care about anybody the way I do her, an’ yet here I am. He pinches up the few remaining crumbs of cake, including those that have landed in his beard and on his chest, then he holds the plate up and licks every smear of icing from the rose and cream china. Regarding it, he deems it finally clean. He tosses back the last swallow of milk, sets the glass and plate in the sink and blows out the lamp.

The big man wanders into Mattie’s room and stands, looking over the things around him. Although exhausted, he’s still too wound up from the turmoil of the day to be able to sleep. He’s not much for books, unless they’re gun catalogs or girlie mags, and there are neither among Mattie’s little library. A fat paperbound reference catches his eye, and he wiggles it loose from the shelf. Turning the spine of the reference into the light, he exclaims, “I’ll be damned!”

The title reads: "Technical Specifications and Maintenance for the Firefly Class Aught-Three Model Transport Vessel”.

“I bet Kaylee’d love to have this an’ that little Firefly model, too,” he concludes.

Next to it is a copy of “Astrophysics and Interstellar Navigation”. Jayne flips through that briefly, his face showing a mixture of confusion and disgust, and then he puts it back on the shelf. “Shit, I can’t even pronounce half them words.” He scratched his head. “Maybe Crazy’d like it, her bein’ a certifiable genius an’ all. She’s always bitchin’ we ain’t got enough real books.”

He moves around the small space, touching things, passing his big, rough hands over wood and paper and cloth and leather, as if he could somehow absorb the remaining essence of his dead brother through such a caress.

“I wonder if that old guitar’ll hold a tune?” Since Kaylee isn’t there to talk to, he’ll just have to talk to himself. He picks up the instrument and sits down on the chair by Mattie’s desk, gently strumming the strings to see if they need adjusting. To his surprise, they’re relatively new and mostly in tune.

“Mattie musta played this ol’ box right regular-like. She sounds good. Ain’t picked up a guitar in years but maybe it’s like sex an’ ya don’t ferget how.”

He cogitates for a minute, then remembers an old, old song from way back on Earth-That-Was that Jared used to sing. Poor ol’ Jared. Placing his big fingers clumsily on the fingerboard, he tentatively strums a G-chord and begins to hum, low and soft, gradually finding his way through the chords. The pattern comes back, his hands growing more nimble and sure, and this time he quietly sings the words in a plaintive, thoughtful baritone.

“As I walked out on the streets of Laredo, As I walked out in Lorado one day… I saw a young cowboy wrapped up in white linen, Wrapped up in white linen, as cold as the clay…”

That is when it really hits him, and he stops and places the guitar back in the corner and cradles his head in his hands.

They’re buryin’ my brother tomorrow. The preacher’s gonna say some words over what’s left in that pine box and then we’re gonna carry him to the graveyard and put him in the dirt.

Damn shame, Mattie boy. Damn shame.

* * *

Jayne spends another restless night on the old iron bed in a futile search for oblivion. Finally, the wind dies and the rain lightens up and the tension inside him uncoils enough for him to fall asleep.

He sits at a large, round table with several other men, playing a game of cards. In the background, some fool is playing honky-tonk piano while a trio of dance hall floozies in short ruffled skirts high-kick, showing off their unders up on the stage at the far end of the bar.

He knows the men are familiar, knows he should remember their names, and something about the whole situation sets his teeth on edge. Surreptitiously, he slides his right hand along his thigh under the table, moves it up to his pistol, flicks off the safety and frees the hammer.

Outside, a crowd begins to gather, and he cashes out, rises from the game, and makes his way to the door to see what the activity is all about. People are flooding up the street, headed toward a hill on the edge of town. Jayne pushes through the crowd, which gives way before his intimidating bulk, until ahead, he sees a gallows.

The corpses of three men are suspended by nooses, their features dark and bloated in death. Man by man, he knows them all, Les and Amos and Jared. They stare back at him, silent, unblinking.

A single noose remains ready for use, but for whom, he wonders? It is then that he notices the fetid smell of decay, of wet earth, the sickening sweetness of rotting flesh that surrounds him. He struggles to speak, to cry out and his mouth is full of dirt and the taste of death.

Jayne lurches upright in the bed and flings off the covers, shaking violently as the nightmare recedes.

* * *

Annalee has been fragile and distraught all afternoon and Jayne is grateful for the presence of his sisters. People move about the house in a sea of black mourning clothes. Jayne thinks about how, on other worlds, the color associated with death is white. More hopeful, he decides.

Shepherd Book’s flavor of religion is a wee bit less sulphurous than Annalee’s, yet still includes Heaven and Hell. The merc’s sinned about every way a man can at one time or another and he figures that he should consider converting to Buddhism, maybe hedge his bets on the whole damnation business.

Having had about as much of the mournful crowd as he can handle, Jayne takes refuge in Mattie’s room again. Looks like a flock a gorram crows out there, he thinks.

Rachel pokes her head in the door. “We’ll be leaving for the church in about fifteen minutes, Jayne,“ she advises him.

He doesn’t own a suit, but has dressed in his best clothing: black and white striped shirt, black trousers and matching waistcoat, has newly shined his boots. He reaches down to where his duffel rests by the bed and runs his hand over his revolver, itching to don his gunbelt. It feels downright reckless to go out in public without a weapon and yet this is one time he can’t go armed. Makes him remember Canton and how vulnerable he felt there.

He stands and plants his hat firmly on his head – at least he’s got that covered.

In a show of wealth, Wallace has arranged for the family to be transported to the church and back in glossy black carriages. As much as he dislikes his brother-in-law’s pretentiousness, Jayne concludes that, given the drizzle outside, the showy conveyances are probably a better option than open buggies.

Wallace announces, “Alright, everyone. It’s time,” and they line up under umbrellas and shuffle out to the vehicles. Annalee clings to Jayne’s arm like a drowning woman to a life raft.

* * *

The ride to the church takes about ten minutes. It’s the same small white frame structure Jayne remembers from his childhood, with high, plain windows and worn red carpet down the center isle. There are numerous members of the congregation and community present, more than Jayne might have expected.

The family gathers in the foyer where they’re joined by Maggie Holmes, Mattie’s intended. She wears her sorrow with simple dignity and is clearly loved by Annalee and Jayne’s sisters, who embrace her as a member of the family. At Annalee’s request, she takes her place with them and they file together into the sanctuary.

Before the altar, Mattie’s polished pine coffin is adorned with a plain wreath of blue and white flowers. A stout woman plays hymns on an old piano, and the sound of soft weeping can be heard. Jayne sits stiffly beside his mother, with Wallace and Rachel on her other side.

The service is long and tedious, with much reading of scriptures and a vehement sermon, followed up by an altar call. Annalee squeezes Jayne’s arm, hoping to prompt him into stepping forward for redemption, but he declines. Whatever his relationship with The Divine, he’s decided it’ll be on his terms.

When my time comes, I imagine they’ll just stick me in the dirt or space my corpse. A man could do worse than to float around forever under all them stars. Either option’s better than getting’ et by Reavers or rottin’ away in some gorram Alliance prison. Hellfire, if’n I got a choice in the matter, maybe I’ll kick off lovin' on Kaylee. Sure be a fine way to go.

The preacher offers a final benediction and everyone rises in respect. Annalee takes Maggie’s arm, and mother and wife-to-have-been walk straight-backed up the isle behind the coffin, with the remainder of the family behind them. Jayne brings up the rear, jaw clenched and mouth tight. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, avoiding contact with the folk in the pews, until near the back of the church. There, a lone figure, bent with age and worn by hard living, draws his glance.

Chou wang ba dan!

Jedd Cobb, rail-thin and haggard, sits huddled at the end of the final pew. He is bearded, dressed in worn, patched clothing. Jayne can see that his once powerful frame is wasted now and his piercing gray eyes are milky with age. Through all the intervening years, Jayne has remembered his father as a brutal giant of a man, and yet the frail, shriveled ghost before him now is but a shadow of that memory.

For the briefest moment their eyes meet and Jayne’s father rises unsteadily, extends an age-blotched hand in supplication.

“Son…” Jedd rasps out. He wants to explain, to plead for forgiveness.

The solemn procession stops as all turn to watch the charged encounter.

Jayne stares the old man down. “You ain’t my Pa, lăo hàn. That man died thirty-odd years ago.”

* * *

The drizzle has ceased and the dull, bronzy light of the afternoon sun brakes through the clouds as the solemn procession follows Mattie’s coffin to the graveyard. There are more hymns, additional scriptures, the soft weeping of the womenfolk.

Jayne feels empty and numb, hat in hands. He notes that Jedd has not followed to the graveside and is somehow relieved. The service winds on and on. Thank goodness Shepherd Book’s not so heavy-handed with the prayers back on Serenity, Jayne decides, else Mal would have spaced him long ago. The merc’s not much of one for moderation, but in the case of religion, he thinks it’s a good idea.

The final prayer is said and friends and neighbors step forward to offer their condolences to Annalee Cobb and the family. Tommie tells Jayne, “Look, I’m gonna get Liza on home. She don’t need to get chilled in her condition,” then he guides his heavily pregnant wife to the carriage.

Jayne catches Rachel’s eye. “Look, Ray, I’m gonna stay behind awhile. I’ll walk back later. Let Ma know so she won’t fret, okay?”

“Of course, Jayne.”

“The old man had one helluva lot a nerve showin’ up back at th’ church, don’tcha think?” His voice is low and sullen, the hard set of his jaw reflecting his resentment.

Rachel notes her brother’s fists coiling and uncoiling. “I won’t say I was happy to see him there, but Mattie was his offspring, same as you and me and Liza, Jayne. It does no good to hold grudges. Just let it go.”

“Ain’t gonna happen, Ray. Ain’t never gonna happen.”

* * *

The graveyard is peaceful and silent. All the mourners, save one, have departed and fresh sod has been rolled over the low mound of Mattie Cobb’s grave. His headstone looks glaringly bright and fresh. Nearby, Jayne sprawls on a stone bench, his ass wet and cold, a cigar between his teeth. The ending day is cooling rapidly, and he’s glad he thought to bring his old olive green jacket along, although it drew looks of disdain from Wallace in his impeccable cutaway coat.

The merc zips up the front of the jacket and sticks his hands into the pockets against the chill. To his surprise, he feels something heavy he hasn’t noticed before. He slips his hand out and unbuttons the bottom inside pocket and fishes out the bundle, a heavy object wrapped in pink paper.

“Huh!” He turns the thing, examining it curiously. “What th’ fuck is this?”

The paper is twisted tightly and it takes his cold fingers a minute to find an edge and unwrap the object, which turns out to be a large nut and bolt. He smoothes the paper on his knee and turns it into the dimming light – the writing is Kaylee’s, all open loops and curlicues, with vines and flowers doodled across the top in several colors of ink.

“That gal…” he chuckles, fondly.

“Dearest Jayne,” he reads aloud and somewhat haltingly.

“Hey, ‘Dearest’. I like that!”

“I wonder if you’re missing me as much as I’ll be missing you? I hope you have a good visit home and plan on taking me along next time you go back. (Promise?)

Remember when you had me take that capture of you, right after you hired on Serenity - the one you sent Mattie? Well, I never told you, but he sent me back a real sweet ‘thank you’ note. He asked a bunch a smart questions about the ship. Said he’d always dreamed of getting out into space and seeing the black. (Did you know this?) Anyways, it made me sad that he never got to go.

Lotsa places, folk leave a stone on the grave of their loved one by way of saying they’ll always be remembered. This here’s a nut and bolt from Serenity. (Don’t worry none. It ain’t from nothing important – just a spare.) Seemed like it might be nice if you maybe left it on Mattie’s headstone. Just a thought.

You take care of yourself and we’ll see you on Monday. Lots of love and kisses, Your Kaylee.”

The big man raises the paper to his nose and inhales, grinning. Smells just like her – lavender and engine grease. Jayne folds the note and sticks it back into his pocket and tosses the nut and bolt up into the air, catching it as he shakes his head.

“Kaylee-girl, yer somethin’ special…”

He bends low over his brother’s grave, his nearly healed hand resting on the granite, and balances the token Kaylee has sent on the center of the stone.

“Have a good flight, squirt,” Jayne prays.

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Chapter eleven of thirteen