Haven. Three years after Miranda…

Jayne stood over the graves. Silent, unmoving, eyes downcast. The graves lay before him, five in all. Five friends, comrades, crew. People he had known and trusted, people he had shed blood with.

One whom he loved more than anything in the ‘Verse, no, more than life itself.

“Been a year now, Kayleegirl.” He said with a small, sad smile. “Year to the day.” He brought the bottle to his lips, drank deeply of the clear, burning liquid, swallowed, and repeated the process. No matter how much he drank it would not leave him. No matter where he was, what he did, it would not go away.

The image in his mind tormented him beyond reason, drove him nearly to the point of madness.

He saw it in his sleep, in every friendly face that glanced his direction then avoided his haunted glare.

He drank again. The alcohol did nothing for his memories, intensified everything, and brought his suffering to fresh heights. That suffering was all he had now; Mal was gone, Zoe dead and Inara in hiding, the Tams beyond his care or concern. Friends and loved ones who cared for him, up until that night.

He closed his eyes, and the nightmare that was the past year played in his head all over again.

The job had gone so wrong as to be near comical in its failure. Not only did the information prove to be false, but the Feds were waiting, armed to the teeth, and ready to taste Browncoat blood on their lips.

Zoe’s status as a former Dust Devil was the trigger for it all. The escape from Pelorum only postponed her inevitable downfall, only made things more unrealistic in regard to their escaping. Ephraim Sanda notwithstanding, there were plenty more Alliance agents who wanted a piece of those terrorists.

They had cornered the crew, and in the ensuing gunfight, followed them back to Serenity while Mal and Jayne exchanged gunshots with them in the back of the Mule. It had gone all the way up to the ramp of the cargo bay, until Mal took a hit in his shoulder, leaving Jayne pinned down and returning an onslaught of gunfire from eight adrenaline pumped Alliance Ops techs that were itching for the final kill. Zoe had ducked behind the Mule as it slammed into the bay, returning shots with her mare’s leg. Jayne had jumped off earlier to gain a better advantage by hitting the gangplanks and aiming from on high. It was then that the day went from bad to nightmarish, that his life as he knew it ended and Jayne began his downward spiral towards utter damnation.

Kaylee heard the commotion and ran unhesitatingly out into the bay, thinking only that something had been damaged. Her path crossed with one of the Feds, and that sealed her fate. In his haze of rage, his disappointment with yet another job gone bad, another payday vanishing into the ether, Jayne cracked off shot after shot from the fullbore and his handgun. One of the Feds aimed and Jayne saw it from the corner of his eye. He had less than seconds-

His return shot found its mark, with harrowing accuracy.

The bullet slammed into Kaylee’s chest, propelling her backwards two feet and throwing her to the floor in a crumpled heap. She lay there, agony flooding her, every nerve on fire. She coughed and tasted blood.

Jayne screamed in denial and hatred, his rage eclipsing everything and he killed the remaining three Feds in scant seconds, only to rush to the mechanic’s side, forgetting everything but what he already knew in the still-firing logic center of his brain.

Simon could do no good here. She was gone and just didn’t know it yet, pure and simple.

Jayne’s face crumpled into grief as he knelt next to her, took her into his arms, rocking her in denial, wanting minutes on the clock to turn back. “Kaylee, oh my god, girl I-“

“Shssh,” she said weakly, her bloodied hand touching his face gently. “Ya didn’t see me, Jayne, I know.”

Zoe and the others had circled them, watching in mute horror, Simon pressed himself between her and the mercenary, giving Jayne the most hate-filled stare he could muster. He checked vitals, but everyone knew what he already confirmed. “Jayne, it’s not your fault.” The mechanic said, to her last breath she tried to console the mercenary. “Not your fault…Jayne. It’s all right, shssush, now. S’okay…” her weakened voice gave that final reassurance and her hand dropped into his lap. She was gone.

Jayne howled with grief and buried his face into her, his body racking with sobs. Simon tried to move her but the merc pawed his hands at the doctor to leave them be; he’d had her long enough. When Simon persisted, Jayne aimed the gun at him and told them all to go away or he’d shoot. He stayed with Kaylee, holding her and rocking her gently through the night. He told her what he’d always dreaded saying to her in person. How he felt, how he wished they’d had that life together, what he’d wanted to do to make her happy. He remained there, not moving, not leaving her though he knew her spirit was long gone. Crying, and hating himself for what he’d ruined. It wasn’t until near midday next when Mal snuck up behind him to knock him senseless, that they could take Kaylee from his grasp and get her ready for her final place of rest.

******

Her funeral was equally tormented, as they lit the rocket, and watched it shoot skyward; Mal turned to his gunhand and vented everything he’d been feeling for the last three days.

That he knew he would be the death of her, in one way or another. That he was uncaring, just a brute.

The fight lasted only long enough for Jayne to allow the enraged Captain to beat him nearly to death, in front of their buried compatriots, the mercenary so insensate to the blows from his own inner torment that he didn’t even put up a fight. It took the rest of the crew to pull Mal away from the gunhand. Simon tended Jayne’s wound with a practiced care, but only because Inara had begged him to. Despite his oath, the venom in his heart for the hulking thug would have allowed him to die right there, in front of their friends.

That had been three hundred sixty-two days ago. Jayne left the ship two days later, bags packed, no one speaking to him.

With Kaylee’s death, the crew’s luck changed only from bad to disastrous. Jayne saw Mal dead, the final victim of Badger’s many schemes. Zoe had followed, caught up by her past, and was executed as an example to the Verse of what happened to traitors. Simon and River escaped with the ship and were nowhere to be found. Inara gave up her life’s work and went into seclusion. The light, heart, and love that had kept that ship and her crew together had been extinguished, and once gone, could never be replaced.

Jayne saw it all through a veil of self-loathing, having sold all his guns but one to keep himself drunk, vowing never to use one again unless nothing could be done but fight.

He lost his will, his need to survive, everything. He wandered the trading lanes, only taking on menial work to get him to the next moon, where he could find a bottle and consign himself to oblivion. He was a shell, desolate, and just as dead to himself as his one and only love was.

******

His mind came back to reality, the never-ending nightmare that was his universe played out again.

Silent tears fell on his cold cheeks, but he cared little for how he looked; no one was there to see anyway. He looked up to the quickly gathering dark; he’d been unaware of how long he’d been standing there, replaying the horrors of the past year in his head, reliving every waking moment of his pain. There was one thing left to do, and then he could be free of it all. One last silent promise he’d made to her that day, while he sat there and his heart died with her name on it. One last job. “A year to the day, like I promised ya, sweet Kaylee,” he said thickly, his voice choked sorrow and his misery painted afresh on his face. He pulled one more swig from the bottle, and then emptied the remaining contents on her grave.

The gun was in his hands, loaded and primed. He’d not fired a single shot since that day, not in self-preservation or anger. Not for a job or to get what he wanted. In truth he’d kept the handgun only for one reason-

To keep his final promise.

“I miss you, Kaylee,” he said to the pedestal that held her image, the sweetly radiant smile that never seemed to leave her face, that had been etched in his memory, saving for the reality of her bloodied lips and pale, frightened features in the moments before she died, even with trying to tell Jayne she would never blame him. “I loved ya… but never could say it, cared, and all I ever did was tease. I’m so sorry, babygirl. For everything.”

He put the gun to his temple. The temple shot was never a sure thing, his rational mind told him.

Sometimes the gun blew only part of the head away, leaving its victim a vegetable, or the bullet simply lodged in there and failed to do its job.

He’d made certain, boring out the barrel to make room for one single shot, the grain of the slug so heavy it would have killed three men.

It wouldn’t matter to him anyway, he was certain of that; he’d died a year ago, and he just didn’t know it yet. Pure and simple.

He looked up, and saw a cloud in the sky, its shape faintly like that ship he’d lived on, fought for, watched his life die on. It was a sign, he said to himself, a blessing.

“For you, Kaylee.” He said simply. “A debt paid.” He pulled the trigger.

A shot echoed across the plains of Haven, bounced off the dead walls of the mining refinery, and then only silence prevailed.

End.