Determined: Chapter Two Author: hisgoodgirl

Disclaimer: All belong to Joss. I got nada. Paring: Jayne/Kaylee Rating: PG-15, for profanity Setting: Post BDM Word Count: 1560

A/N: Set on the same world as my Faith Trilogy. Hover for translation. Loved it? Hated it? Let me know what you think. Thanks. X-posted from my LiveJournal

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DETERMINED

Chapter Two On The Mountain

Jayne’s first awareness was of cold and pain.

Where the dì yù am I and what the fuck happened?

He struggled to open his eyes, head swimming, and found himself on his back, staring up at crumpled metal and insulation and sky. The flyer sat tilted at a slant with a big gash in the hull on the port side. He strained his neck and saw the viewscreen was shattered with dark green fir branches poking through and snow sifting in.

We musta flipped when we stopped skidding and my gorramn seat broke loose… Where’s Kaylee?

The other seat was still bolted in position and the mechanic hung limply in the harness.

“Kaylee, honey – are you ok?” he asked. No response. Jayne reached to unbuckle his safety harness and groaned at the blinding pain that radiated from his left forearm.

Damn thing’s cracked at the very least.

Using his right hand and arm, he hurriedly pushed himself free of the harness and seat and shifted over to check on his girl. She was breathing normally, although her pulse was still racing.

Musta not been out long.

He unbuckled her and gently leaned her back against the head cradle, carefully smoothing her hair back out of her face. The girl had a gash above her left eye where she’d struck the control panel upon impact. She’d probably have one hell of a black eye and he hoped she hadn’t hit hard enough to have any major head trauma.

He took her hand, his callused thumb rubbing over hers. “Kaylee, baby, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

The little mechanic groaned and opened blurry eyes. “J-Jayne…? W-what happened? We crash?”

The big man used his good hand to shove some of the debris out of the way. “Yeah. Hit a lot harder than I hoped to. You banged yer head an’ I think one a the bones in my arm’s cracked.”

Wiping the trickle of blood away from her brow with the back of her hand, Kaylee winced as she scrambled out of her seat. Confusion was evident in her battered face as she glanced around, struggling to take in the wreckage. In the impact, the small craft skidded a good distance before tumbling into a snow bank at the edge of the woods, and the cabin was total chaos, with liner panels, insulation, wiring and other stuff tossed everywhere.

Jayne surveyed the situation. We don’t sort this out pretty fast, we’re gonna freeze to death tonight. Need to give the girl somethin’ to do, keep her from panicking.

“Baby, I need you to pay attention to me. It’s gonna get dark soon and with that hull breach, probably cold as hell. You think you can splint my arm so’s I can work on gettin’ us through this night? There’s gotta be stuff here we can use and I need my arm stable enough I can use both hands.”

Kaylee looked up at him, her dark eyes dilated with fear, and swallowed hard. She’d watched Simon splint broken bones. She could do this.

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Jayne took stock of the items he and Kaylee had salvaged from the wrecked flier. There wasn’t much -- a blanket, basic first-aid kit, half a pack of snack bars, a partial bottle of water and a small flashlight. Kaylee stabilized his forearm with part of the metal frame from his broken seat and wrapped it snugly with strips of fabric cut from the upholstery, but the fractured bone still throbbed and ached.

The merc looked around the tumbled cabin. “The sun’s going down and ain't neither of us got a coat. If we’re gonna make it through the night, we need to conserve body heat. I’m gonna climb out, cut us some fir boughs. We can pad the hull with ‘em, even pile ‘em over us for warmth tonight. You clear that crap.” The merc pointed at a jumble of broken interior panels and insulation against the flier’s aft hull, now nearly horizontal. “Pull out the insulation. We’ll need it to pack the breaks in the windscreen and hull, make the space a little more weather tight.”

He rested his hand on her shoulder for just a moment. “Can you handle this, Kay?”

Kaylee nodded solemnly. “Yeah. I can manage.” She held out the blanket. ”Don’t you wanna wrap this ‘round you ‘fore you go out? It’d help you stay warm.”

“Nah. Don’t wanna risk gettin’ it wet. I’ll be okay. I need to get my gloves on, ‘though.” He pulled the pair from a pocket and Kaylee held them as he slid his hands in.

Jayne forced his way out of the flyer, thankful that the wind was still and there was no snow falling. From his vantagepoint outside he could see the long, dirty track the small ship had gouged across the snow-covered clearing and was grateful they’d slowed down by the time they hit the trees. He could also see they’d made it over the crest of the mountains. That meant they were still a long ways from Serenity, with a rough trek home. Realizing he was chilling fast, he got to work, holding the branches with his splinted hand and using his knife to lob the fragrant evergreen boughs from the thick firs and spruces around the flier.

While Jayne worked outside, Kaylee took handfuls of the soft, fluffy insulation and stuffed them into the gap in the viewscreen, wedging the stuff in place with some of the plastic liner panels. She wrangled the pilot’s chair back into its original location, then shoved the other debris aside to clear a small space on what was now, for all practical purposes, the floor.

Moving was good. It helped keep her circulation moving, although she kept having to blow on her fingers to warm them. Staying busy was good, too, keeping her mind off just how bad their situation really was. The sound of Jayne moving around outside was comforting. In her gut, she knew the merc was downplaying the danger.

The big man called in through the break in the flier’s hull, “Kay, I need you to grab the branches and pull ‘em through as I pass ‘em in to ya. Pile a bunch needle-side up for us to sleep on and set the rest off to one side.“

“Sure. Send ‘em on in.”

As the merc passed the greenery in to Kaylee, she layered the boughs over the cold metal hull, building up a thick, fragrant pad on the flat space she’d cleared, putting others aside to layer over them. It was nearly dark when Jayne returned through the gap in the hull, then reached back to drag more limbs into place over the outside of the tear. Studying the barrier, he overlaid more of the plastic liner across the inside of the gap then turned to Kaylee. His teeth were chattering and the mustache over his bluish lips was rimed with ice.

“Oh God, you’re freezin’!” Kaylee grabbed up the blanket.

“There’s a b-better way,” Jayne gasped. “Here, lay down next to me.” He stretched out on the pad of greenery with Kaylee close. After spreading the blanket over both of them, they dragged some of the ragged bats of insulation over the blanket and then placed the dense fir branches on top to help trap their body heat.

Jayne turned onto his right side and Kaylee wormed her backside close against his pelvis and pressed her back into the big body behind her so he could rest his injured arm on her hip. She knew he had to be hurting, although he didn’t mention it. Most times they’d snuggled for pleasure and the comfort of being close – how strange that now they snuggled to stay alive.

In a surprisingly short time, they’d both stopped shivering and begun to warm up under the insulating mound piled over them. Kaylee’d stuck a couple of the snack bars into her pocket and placed the water bottle close by, so they unwrapped them and ate in silence. After sharing a few sips of water, the mechanic finally asked, “Where are we and what’re we gonna do?”

Jayne thought about how best to answer her without increasing her fear. “Well, we made it over the mountains and come down near the snow line. Best I can figure, Serenity’s about nine or ten klicks due east of us, but we gotta make our way downslope through some pretty rough terrain. Did you check the radio to see if it’ll operate off the batteries?”

“Couldn’t get a signal, but I didn’t wanna keep trying an’ run the batteries down.”

“Good girl. Our best bet’s to stay warm as we can tonight and come morning, survey this wreck for anything we might can use, pack up, and start moving down and east.”

There was a long silence, then Kaylee asked, ”What about the Cap’n and Zoë?”

The big merc hesitated, wondering how much to tell her. They’re probably already off-world in some Alliance transport and we’ll be doin’ good to come out of this alive, he thought. Better to focus on their own survival. “We need to concentrate on making it back to Serenity, babygirl. Can’t do nothin’ ‘til then.” He pulled her closer, feeling her relax a little, and buried his face in the softness of her hair. “Best try to get some sleep.”

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To be continued…