Blue Blood – Chapter Six I own no rights to Firefly, and make no money for my work. It’s all for fun! ----------------- Jayne was silent as Serenity glided through the black, on the way home to Argo. He had not once mentioned the sheriff, the Blue Hands, nor Mal’s decision to leave him behind. Anyone who didn’t know him would assume that his change in attitude over the past two years was responsible. River knew better. She could feel the waves of rage rolling off her lover like ocean waves. He was trying, she knew, to limit his fury, knowing that she could feel it, and that it hurt her. But he was almost overwhelmed by fury. Worse, not all of that fury was directed at Grippen. Some of it was for Mal, who had refused to allow Jayne to settle the issue with the sheriff before. And now, it was too late. Grippen had endangered the one person that Jayne loved in the ‘verse, and try as he might, he couldn’t help but blame Mal for his part in it. A dead sheriff, Jayne reasoned, couldn’t have waved the gorram Blue Hand freaks, and River would still be safe in anonymity, on a backwater agriculture moon, working on a little freighter that no one payed any attention to. “Jayne,” River said quietly. He looked up at her, guiltily. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m trying,” he added, forcing the thoughts away as best he could. “It’s all right,” River assured him. “But mustn’t blame Captain Daddy, Jayne,” she continued, and his eyes lit up again. “Was only doing what he thought was best.” “That’s always the excuse,” Jayne rumbled angrily. “The plain fact is that he’s squeamish. He talks a big fight, but when push comes to shove, if his back ain’t to the wall, then he walks. Only this time it ain’t him it’s cost. It’s us.” River blinked at the vehemence in his voice, and the ringing finality of the word us. “What do you mean?” River asked, confused. “I mean that we’re the ones who’ll have to find somewhere else to be,” Jayne told her flatly. “Everyone else will be fine, here. But you and me?” He looked at her sadly. “We’ll have to leave.” “Why?” River asked, alarm in her voice. “Why?” Jayne looked at her incredulously. “Because now the gorram Blue Freaks know where we are! After all that work on Persephone planting a false trail, one wave from a man that shouldn’t even still be alive has give us away.” “Jayne, if the Captain’s plan works, then they won’t know where we, I, am,” she told him. “And they may very well kill the sheriff, thinking he has lied to them.” “And if he manages to convince them he’s right? That we just switched out the crews for whatever reason? He brings them right to our door!” River turned away at that, not having reasoned things out so far, such was her confidence in Mal. “I’m sorry, Jayne,” she said softly, after a few minutes. He looked up sharply at that, seeing tears in her eyes. “Sorry for what?” he asked, alarmed. “Angel, what do you have to be sorry for?” He reached over and wrapped his arm around her, and she leaned into him, sobbing softly. “This is all my fault,” she whispered. “It’s always because of me!” “You hush that talk, right now,” he scolded gently, enveloping her completely in his arms, and she crawled into his lap, head nestled into the crook of his neck. “There ain’t none of this your fault, baby girl,” Jayne soothed. “And I never want to hear you say such again, you hear me? This is not your doing.” “But now, if we have to leave, it will cost you so much!” she cried softly, and he could feel her shuddering with sobs. He drew her away to look into her eyes. “What are you talking about?” he asked her. “Cost me what?” “You’re happy here!” she moaned. “And the jobs have been good, and the money good. Now, if I leave, and if you go with me, then you will have to give all that up!” “Hey, now, what do you mean ‘if I go with you?’. Of course I’m going with you! And I don’t care about the job, or the money! And yes, I’m happy here. Know why?” He lifted her chin gently so that she had to look into his eyes. “I’m happy because of you, River Tam. If you weren’t here, then it’d be just another job. And a boring one at that.” “Don’t let another thought like ‘if’, where I’m concerned, enter your head, dong ma? When it comes to you, River, there are no ‘ifs’. Not for me. You’re my whole life girl,” he almost whispered, his voice raw and husky with emotion. “You’re my reason for living. Without you, ain’t no point.” River looked at Jayne, reaching out to him in her mind. She loved him so much, and it hurt her to think she’d cost him anything. But in his mind she saw only her. She was his reason for living? She’d known that his love for her was strong. But never had she realized it was that strong. She’d never felt the raw emotion pouring off of him that she did now. He meant it, she realized. Without her, he had no life. No reason to live. With that, the careful little plan she had been forming since hearing that the Blue Hands had found her, went out the window. “I was thinking of going,” she admitted to him, now, and the look of pure fear on his face was almost painful. “Of leaving, going far away from all of you, so that you would be safe.” “River,” Jayne croaked, his voice suddenly gone. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t seem to speak. The very idea of her going without him seized his heart with fear the likes of which he’d never known in his entire life. Suddenly, River kissed him, hard and passionately, and he responded. When she drew back, her eyes were alight. “I won’t,” she told him. “I promise, I won’t. No matter what. I. . .I can’t live without you either, Sean,” she told him plainly, laying her head against his chest. “I’m sorry for even thinking it.” She knew his fears of attachment. Fears that he had overcome for her, to be with her. She now felt guilty about even considering leaving him, for whatever reason. “Promise me that you will wait for Captain Daddy, Sean,” she mumbled into Jayne’s chest. “Don’t do anything until he gets here. Please. Stay here with me. I’m so afraid.” He hugged her tighter in response. “I promise,” he told her softly, stroking her back with one large hand. “I won’t leave you alone. And you ain’t got to be afraid. I’ll be here if they show up, and they won’t take you. No matter what, you hear? They won’t take you.” He again raised her away from him, and looked at her, pleading in his eyes. “But you got to promise me, Angel. Promise me you won’t never, ever, leave me like that. I. . .River I can’t take it. I can’t live through it. I need to know that you won’t even consider something like that.” “I promise,” she said solemnly. “I promise you I’ll never leave you. Never.” He pulled her back to him, and she curled up in his arms, grateful for his presence. The two of them sat that way until both finally drifted off to sleep. ------------------- In the infirmary, Zoe sat looking at Goldie as he lay on the bed. He was breathing easier, and his color looked better since Simon had given him blood. He was still attached to all sorts of monitors, and she noted with relief that his blood pressure was improving. His heart beat was strong, too. “He’ll be fine, I think,” she heard Simon say from the doorway. She looked up at him. “He gets hurt almost as much as Mal does,” she said after a moment, and Simon chuckled. “I think he’s a bit short of that mark,” he replied drily. “But he’s working on it.” “Will he be. . .I mean will. . .” Zoe trailed off, at a loss as to how to ask what she wanted to know. “He’ll be fine,” Simon assured her, walking over a laying a hand on her shoulder. “He’ll need some time to recover fully, but he will recover fully.” “Thank you, Simon,” Zoe said finally, reaching up to pat the hand on her shoulder. “If you hadn’t been with us, over the years, most likely we’d all be dead at some point.” “Fate places us where we can do the most good, Zoe,” Simon told her quietly. “And where we have the chance to be happy.” He sat down on the stool next to her. “The way things happened in my life, and River’s, placed us here on Serenity. Where I met Kaylee, and River met Jayne.” He frowned a little for her benefit, and Zoe chuckled. “I imagine that still takes some getting used to,” she told him. “Not really,” Simon smiled. “I understand a great deal more about Jayne, now, than I did before. I know now where his animosity toward me came from, and I understand it. And I can’t deny, won’t deny, that much of River’s improvement is due to his influence. Three years ago, even two years ago, I would likely have hung myself had she announced that she and Jayne were together. Now?” He smiled. “If I had any doubts, which I really don’t think I did, he erased them for good on Persephone. He did something I couldn’t have done, and he did it for one reason. River. Not only did he wail the tar out of my father,” he smiled at that, “but he killed two of the Blue Hands that my father had called to take River back to the Academy.” “After that, there’s no doubt in my mind, at all, that Jayne loves my sister more than anything in the world. He deliberately placed himself between her and great danger. No one does that for someone they don’t care for a great deal.” “You’re right,” Zoe nodded. “And I know that Jayne loves her. You can see it when he looks at her. He’s so afraid of losing her that you can feel it in him whenever something happens.” “Yes,” Simon nodded. “Which is how I feel about Kaylee.” He looked closely at Zoe. “What about you, Zoe? You and Goldie?” Zoe looked at Simon for a moment, caught off guard by the change in subject. “I don’t know,” she finally answered, looking back to where Goldie lay. “Just before this happened, I told him that it wasn’t a good idea. That wasn’t what I had meant to say. It just. . .came out all on it’s own. I was trying to figure out a way to fix it, to figure out if I wanted to fix it, when this happened.” “Now, all I can think about is that the last words we spoke were a little cold.” “Well,” Simon stood, “you’ll have the chance to talk to him again. What you say, when you get that chance? That’s something you’ll have to decide. Call me if anything happens. Or,” he added, with a knowing look, “if you want to talk.” “Thanks, Simon,” Zoe smiled. Suddenly she stood, and hugged the younger man tightly. He returned the embrace warmly. “That’s what families are for, Zoe.” ------------------ Serenity eased onto the pad at Guilford’s, River touching down softly as she ever had. In minutes, Goldie was on his way to the hospital, willing hands from the loading crew carrying him gently toward the building. The employees of Guilford’s knew that the ship crews had saved their jobs, and likely some of their lives. Anything they needed was given willingly, even cheerfully. Zoe and Simon walked alongside the wheeled gurney, with Kaylee trailing. Jayne and River watched from the ramp. Jayne’s anger had cooled somewhat after his talk with River. He realized that he was going to have to temper himself in the future. For her benefit if nothing else. She took his hand gently, feeling the effort he was making on her behalf. He looked down at her, smiling. “Good to be home,” he said softly, and she nodded, laying her head against his arm. “It is,” River replied, and a wave of sadness passed over her at the thought of being forced to leave. “If we have to leave,” Jayne continued, “it doesn’t matter, River. Wherever the two of us are, together, will be home.” She sighed peacefully at that, and he moved his arm to wrap around her shoulders. She leaned further into him, her arms circling his waist. “That sounds so good,” she said softly, eyes closed as his love for her washed gently across her mind. The two of them stood there, just like that, in companionable silence, until long after the dock gang had moved Goldie inside. Just enjoying one another’s touch. It was, indeed, good to be home.