The door from the office eeked open and a familiar figure slipped through sideways. Recognition propelled Jayne to his feet with a very unmanly sense of relief. Kaylee all but ran over to his cell.

"Jayne, you alright?"

"Pretty good, considering I'll piss when I can't whistle."

"I haven't heard anybody say that since my grandpa died."

"Was he hanged?"

"No."

"Then he ain't really relevant to my current situation, is he?" Jayne tried not to grit his teeth or sound too brisk with Kaylee. "How'd you get in here?"

"River faked a nervous collapse on the sidewalk in front of the deputies and I slipped in, quiet as a ghost."

"Take it from a body who knows, Little Kaylee, this ain't a good rock to get into trouble on."

"I know, Jayne. I just needed-" Kaylee's sunny disposition dimmed a measure as she stepped closer. Idlyly, she reached out to hold the bars.

"Don't touch 'em," Jayne warned. Stopping dead, Kaylee examined the fortifications of the cell. What had seemed at a distance to be a spiral of polishing marks on the metal were actually raised and sharpened helixes the full length of each bar. To grab the bars would painfully and prolifically lacerate even the most calloused hand.

“Always looking out for your friends. Don't worry, I won't let on. There's just a couple or three things I wanted to say, in case Mal can't-"

"Mal won't. We already hashed that out. Turns out I'm not a worthwhile investment for his little enterprise. Now," he kept on as she opened her mouth to protest in her captain's defense, "say what it was you came to say and get your swai little tail outta here."

"Oh, Jayne," Kaylee couldn't believe she was really going to have this conversation, but if she didn't hurry, she'd never have the chance. "I know you're not all bad. Definitely not *this* bad. You got a code and you never do hurt without cause. And you’re such a good xiao ge ge to me. I heard about what you said the other night. You stood up for me when nobody believed me. Even my own brothers wouldn’t’ve done that. I mean, not that they would’ve ever taken credit for-”

“ Kaylee.” Jayne broke her ramble as it began to gain speed. It was her way, he knew, to talk without pause when she was upset, as if the constant stream of words could form a barrier around her and keep the pain at bay a little longer. “Do you think you could not be my xiao mei-mei… just for a second?” His voice grew softer as he spoke and Kaylee moved closer to him to hear.

“What do you mean?” she asked in the same hush.

Slowly, as he might approach a skittish animal, Jayne reached through the bars, even as they rasped the length of his forearm, drawing blood at the widest part. He gently cupped her cheek and focused his consciousness on that skin. His hands were roughened from the handle of a hammer and the grip of a gun, they had been all his life, and Kaylee’s warm cheek felt like satin. It was as if her softness could pass into him, skin to skin, and soften his flesh the same way her spirit, despite his best efforts, had mollified his heart.

Her eyes held the aspect of confusion behind the thin veil of tears that had been suspended there since she first arrived. Jayne did not like the look of either. It was like smoky clouds blotting out the sun. He drew her face closer, as close to his own as he could without risking the bars, and mercifully she kissed him. Jayne’s lips were strong against Kaylee’s and he kissed her as if he were trying to breathe her in.

A raven-tressed head appeared through the door. "The curtain is down and they're striking the set. Time for our exit, downstage left," River said, calmly but curtly.

Kaylee could not look at Jayne as she broke away from him and darted out the door. Jayne could not look at the tears streaming down her face. He was no more keen to die than he had been an hour before, but if Kaywinnit Frye was the last woman he kissed in this life, it took some of the sting out of death.

River stuck her head back in and looked Jayne up and down. "The reports of your death have been greatly exaggerated."

"That's tomorrow, ya kuang yi shagua," he said to the empty air.

River grabbed Kaylee's hand and pulled her along, past two unconscious deputies and out into the street.

"River, what did you do?!"

"They'll be okay. Achey, but okay." She dragged them into an alley and began to weave a hidden, convoluted path back to Serenity.

"Ain't that just gonna draw more heat?"

"Odds are in our favor. Two grown men won't admit being felled by a 50 kilo girl in a hand-me-down dress."

Kaylee ran silently behind her for a moment. "Yeah, we should be fine."

It was not long before the girls reached the lane that would take them directly to the docks. River skidded to a stop and Kaylee did likewise, though not nearly as agilely. They paused a moment for their labored breathing to slow and their hearts to stop pounding so thunderously. "Simon needs me. Be casual, don't draw undue attention. We'll see you for dinner."

“Zhen tama yaomin.”

“Dong ran.”

With that, the girls kissed each others' cheeks and diverged, one sprinting back the way they had come, the other ambling on with her fists jammed in her pockets, trying to appear inconspicuous.

River slipped into the room where she had felt Simon must be. It was almost like a homing instinct that led her to him, the sort of biological compulsion that moves animals thousands of miles from home, then thousands of miles back again. The remnants of gore and evidence of disuse were largely gone from the examination room, though a miasma hung on the air, tendrils of souls let go of their bodies too early. They drifted and swirled about like dust motes, threatening to settle on her. But Simon was there, Simon with his science and logic, exuding the tacit excitement of a professional challenge. She probably had not meant to startle him so, calling out his name. On the far side of the room, a dishy young man looked up from disinterestedly sweeping the floor.

“River, you're supposed to be on the ship. Who brought you here?”

“I brought myself. You need me.”

“I might very well, but you can't be out walking around on your own like that.” Simon thought to lower his voice, but glanced at Jin and remembered it was hardly necessary. “What if someone had seen you?”

“But I've been stuffed in your pocket for the last hundred days, cramped and caged. Dui bu qi, ge ge,” River said softly and cast her eyes down. This never failed to move Simon. It was almost as powerful as her puppy-dog look.

Simon sighed. Even in her weakened state, River was still a deft hand at manipulation. “Okay, since you're here.” He waved Jin over. “R-I-V-E-R,” he spelled with his fingers, “this is Jin, he's being punished by being assigned to help me with the inquest. Or I am, it's hard say.” River smiled, Jin nodded, and Simon ignored the light blush on his sister's cheeks. Simon checked his watch, well less than an hour before the body was supposed to be delivered to him and there was still much to do. Digging around in the drawers, he managed to find a broken pencil and a pad of paper, warped and wrinkled from having been wet, with water he could only hope.

“You're not ready,” River announced.

“I'm ready,” Simon corrected, “the room is not.” He pointed from Jin to the paper, “I N-E-E-D,” and began to write.

A dozen bowls/basins ladle ruler/caliper bolt cutters, or similar a scale, if you can borrow one the most precise saw you can find large needle, heavy thread

In the edge of Simon's vision, he saw Jin sign to River. “Specific explanations are forthcoming, the minutia is somewhat involved.” More signs. “He always does what he thinks is best, all else aside, so you can't really blame him.”

“River, there's no use in...,” Simon looked from River to Jin, “You can hear every word I'm saying, can't you?”

Jin just shrugged and nodded his head to one side.

“But you are non-verbal?”

Nod.

“Why? Why would you let people believe you're deaf?”

Jin rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly not interested in sharing his life story with a stranger who barely signed out, let alone could comprehend signs being made at him.

“Like a secret weapon,” River offered. “Clever mother. 'People will talk around him like they wouldn't if they thought he could here. Might be useful'.” River smiled softly at Jin's confused look and this time his face showed a hint of rosy color.

“Well, at least we can dispense with the time-consuming and embarrassing attempts at sign language. We need to get working. The body will be here soon. Even refrigerated, it's already more than a week postmortem.”

“Rapid decomposition.”

“Right. As it warms up, my time will decrease dramatically.”

“Autolysis, decay, putrefaction, butyria, and diagenesis.” A tightness pinched the skin around River's eyes.

Simon put a reassuring hand on her arm. “Mei mei, you don't have to do this.”

“Wanna help.” River took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Besides, you always forget the difference between 'putrification' and 'putrefaction'.”

“Brat.”

River darted her tongue out at Simon and snatched the list from his hands. He snatched it back from her and handed it to Jin. “Is there anything on there you don't understand?”

Jin turned the paper left and right, squinting dramatically at Simon's doctor handwriting, to River's amusement, but signed that he understood.

“Okay, I need you to get as much on the list as you can as quickly as you can. See if you can borrow what we need; it's not as if I have a per diem to spend here. River, I want you to wait here while I supervise the transport of the body.” Simon turned back to the worktop to rip another piece sheet of paper from the pad. Turning back mere seconds later, he found himself alone in the exam room, River and Jin having slipped stealthily out the door. A surge of panic rose in Simon at the thought of River unattended in a strange place. He rushed out the door. The hallway was empty. Hurrying through the side door of the building, Simon could see no sign of either teen. His watch buzzed. If he wanted to supervise the moving of the cadaver to monitor for additional damage, he would have to go now. River's safety was an alarm going off in his mind, warring with a klaxon that was Jayne's life.

'Borrow' was not a term that applied to Jin Takeda, as River would quickly learn. Widely regarded as a harmless pest most of his life, Jin found that many sins were automatically forgiven for the poor deaf boy who did not know any better. There was hardly a shop in town from which he had not helped himself to something he wanted. As he had grown older, though, and apparently less cute, those moves had to be made in a more furtive manner. Being so thoroughly ignored made it natural for him to slip through the background or periphery without drawing any conscious notice.

Jin found, too, that his partner in pretty crime surpassed him handily in the skill of stealth. River made no sound as she walked, gliding over to a shelf of plastic tableware and casually relieving the shop of a short stack of bowls. When reaching for certain items, River would stop and wait, or move aside and look at something else. Jin watched avidly as she employed this thieves' sixth sense to avoid detection by wide margins.

All the while maintaining the affect of a nonchalant browser, River would look over and see Jin watching her. He would look away directly each time her eyes caught his, but not before a breath of a smile arced his lips. There was a sense of exhilaration that did not come from their lawlessness and River reveled in it, sure she could hear his heart begin to pound as keenly as she felt her own.

The list was growing progressively smaller, only one item to fetch. This would prove the most wily of their prey. Shopkeepers did not watch all of their inventory all of the time, but there was no way around how often their eyes were on their scales, whether measuring out bolts, barley or bacon.

There was one place, Jin communicated to River, where they might be able to get a hanging scale without compromising all of the day's effort. In the open marketplace, semi-permanent vendor stalls lined the street, many of them with scales readily accessible. There was no reason they should not be, it was not like people went about stealing scales. 'Go the other way around,' he indicated, 'up the alley. This girl is working alone. I'll distract her at the counter.'

True to his word, it took Jin only a moment to reign in the undivided attention of the farm family's teenage daughter. He signaled for pen and paper and she leaned in close to watch him write, smiling at him as she did, the hussy. River felt a flair of ...something, something new and bilious, yet unnamed, but her hands on the cool metal of the scale brought her back to focus on the task at hand. She lifted it deftly from its hook and ducked noiselessly behind the last row of shelves and along the alley.

The compact cloth bundle that had resided in Simon's jacket pocket was now unfurled on the worktop. On its inner face, narrow pockets snugly and neatly secured a carefully selected array of surgical implements . Scalpels, both straight and curved blades, forceps, long-fingers, scissors, and half a dozen hemostats, though the potential usefulness of the latter was dubious. There would be no bleeding veins, no spurting arteries to clamp in this patient, the heart having stopped pumping a week since.

Simon hung his jacket and vest behind the door, rolled up his pristine white sleeves and donned the full apron his sticky-fingered assistants had provided him. His reflection on the long glass doors of the standing cabinet looked at best like a high-end butcher. It was not entirely inappropriate, Simon thought as he pulled on the gloves, since a great many persons likened the cutting of dead bodies to butchery, only with a less favorable connotation. A thought of Jayne lept to mind, “I'm just sayin', gold.” Simon could only hope this autopsy subject would be more cooperative.

Pen ready in one hand, Simon began with the external examination. Jeremiah Boone was a small man, gaunt in his limbs but with a protruding stomach. 'He has a face like a pound of tripe', Simon though subjectively. His eyes were jaundiced yellow, his teeth were worn and cracked from grinding, and his knuckles bore a web of overlapping scars, as likely from a long-held affinity for violence as a life of manual labor. His body was also no stranger to bruises. Most were in various stages of healing, but it was the darkest, freshest specimens that demanded Simon's attention. They were scattered about Boone's torso and abdomen, with no small percentage on his face. Simon rested his fist above a few of the clearer examples. The bruises were larger than his hand would have made, but the darker impression of knuckles was visible. He measured the length and width of each one carefully, nothing the placement and dimension of each on the artless paper homunculus beside the body. He would have to measure Jayne's hands if he could have access to him, or perhaps Jayne's work gloves back on Serenity.

“Hey,” Jayne called to the deputy holding up a nearby wall. “’Sthere any way I could get something to write with?”

Deputy Stacey nodded and stepped out of view for a few seconds. He returned with a single sheet of ruled paper and an eraser-less pencil. “Writing up your will?”

“I’m guessing you’ve seen this before.”

“The odd time or two.” The deputy’s voice was flat with professional detachment.

Jayne nodded his thanks and sat on the floor, using the wooden bench seat as his writing desk.

Jayne folded the page as neatly as he could and stared at it's plain white face. When the sun set tomorrow, this would be all that remained of him. 'That and a festering corpse', he thought.

Unbidden in the stillness of his cell, a line of music, a few words and a melody, trickled through his sorrow and he took up the pencil again. He and some unsavory contemporaries had been casing a loan office adjacent a theater in a city far too fine for their ilk when he had heard it through the common wall. It had seemed like fluffy nonsense years before, but now it had gravity. On the outside of the paper, as cleanly as he could, he wrote a codicil, "Remember me, but forget my fate". Jayne levered himself from the floor and handed his will to the deputy.

“Monday’s a holiday, so the Clark of the Court won’t be in to record this until Tuesday.”

“I don’t suppose I’ll care by then,” Jayne said grimly, but fixed Deputy Stacey with a look to remind him how utterly moronic the comment had been.

"Did you have any requests for your last meal?"

"Y'all got any decent steak around here?"

"Budget don't allow for beef for prisoners, but I know a place that fries up a mean chicken. Good biscuits, too. That's what I'd want."

"Yeah, alright," Jayne nodded. His stomach didn't seem particularly interested in what he was eating tomorrow, no more so than it had been for the protein rations and grain bars he had been given thus far.

Regardless of manner of death, the pathology professor informed the second-year medical students on their first day of class, every person ultimately perishes from the same cause, a lack of oxygen to the brain. That was why the professor, and by extension Doctor Simon Tam, preferred to autopsy the brain before the body cavity. Soft and vulnerable, filled with fragile vessels often no thicker than a thread, dependent on a thin shell of bone for protection, the brain was uniquely, disproportionately likely to be the herald of fatal trauma or disease.

Simon incised the scalp from ear to ear over the crown of the head and reflected it back over Boone's face, obscuring his surly countenance in a manner that would have been comical if it were not so ghoulish. With the fine-toothed electric saw -- Jin had truly exceeded Simon's disheartened expectations – Simon made the coronal cut around the skull, scrutinizing the depth of the cutting blade so not to damage the soft tissue inside with this handyman's tool. Severing the brain stem with a scalpel, Simon lifted the brain carefully from the skull and set it in a basin. The human brain looses structure quickly after death and a brain eight days post-mortem it required especially delicate handling. He bisected the brain into its hemispheres and dissected it into its lobes, cutting several slices from each to search for evidence of bleeding. There was none, no indication of bleeding from natural disease or external trauma. It was in turns a disappointment, a relief, and a frustration. Simon made a note on the paper, 'brain unremarkable.'

River's brain was awash in vibrant sensations.  It was not the first time she experienced these feelings of lust and longing, demand and desire, but it was the first time in her new, changed life that these needs were her own.  She and Jin had duteously collected every item on Simon's list, or an appropriate analog, and it had been thrilling.  Skulking, slithering, darting, dodging, snatching, sneaking, and all the while catching snatches of smiles, flashes of glances.  Their ill-gotten booty dropped off at the side door of the clinic, they knocked like rabbid pranksters and sprinted away, neither about to submit to the rule of Dr. Tam and his prissy, fussy, tidy ways.  Jin led them to an eatery, his favorite, but instead of going in, he took her hand and led her down the cool shadows of the brick building, past a stack of crates, to a tiny little paradise of privacy.

The constant murmur of surrounding voices, like the supernumerary strains of a dissonant orchestra, faded into a single soft hum, a solitary chord that was Jin and River alone. The thoughts in her brain were simple and aligned in purpose, and River reveled in the way it suffused her with a feeling as thick and sweet as pudding. 'She reminds me of a deer, the way she moves and her big, brown eyes.' 'I like his smile.' 'She's a little weird.' 'He's just a little wicked.' 'If I try to kiss her, will she let me?' 'He'd better kiss me now. Tienna, please let him kiss me now.'

The soft, moist skin of hungry, nervous lips touched and melded, melted and moved together, and River's mind found an exalted silence.  There was only her body and it had no noise of its own.  Hands found faces, fingers wound into hair, chests, bellies and hips found their way against each other.  It was golden and glorious, and the more River tasted of it, the more she wanted.  She was finally coming to know the throbbing, burning hunger that drove everyone else, everyone who was still human inside.

Jin felt it, too.  River was sure, and sure she would have known it if she were senseless.  He wanted her, needed her, accepted her.  His fire made River's that much more fierce in the caller shade of the alley.

Relinquishing the pen in favor of a scalpel again, Simon began the internal exam. He cut from each shoulder to the base of the sternum, then down to the pubic bone. With the skin opened like an unlaced bodice, Simon took the heavy poultry shears and began to sequentially crunch through the cartilage binding the breastbone to the ribcage. He declined to think on how the proper owner would react to this re-purposing.

Drawing back the flaps of the abdominal skin like thick curtains, Simon startled to find the cavity filled to capacity with blood. 'Shensheng duh gaowhan,' he muttered to himself. Grabbing the large soup ladle and a bucket, Simon began to spoon out the excess blood. Scoop after scoop, it seemed as if it might continue indefinitely. By the time the abdominal cavity was drained down to a glaze of sluggish humour, the bucket contained an astounding two-and-a-quarter liters of blood, over half the volume of Boone's body. This was the cause of death, internal hypovolemia. The source of the bleeding remained a mystery, however.

Simon continued his investigation by examining the organs in situ, where they lay in the flayed body. He felt the surface of each organ thoroughly, checking for lacerations or edema. The liver was chirrotic, lumpy, pale and swollen, but intact. The spleen was also slightly enlarged and bedevillingly free of wounds. The liver and the spleen were the two organs most capable of unleashing such a life-sapping flood and both were fine. Sighing with resignation that his search for the elusive answer must continue, Simon began to dispatch the remaining organs and placed each into its own individual vessel. Lungs and heart were the first to be removed, weighed and opened for further examination. Again, the tissues yielded no clues. The lungs were dingy with tobacco and the arteries of the heart partially clogged with plaque, but neither finding was substantive. Stomach, liver, kidneys, bladder, coils of intestines large and small, all received similar treatment and yielded similar results. There was nothing to evidence Jayne's culpability but likewise there was nothing there to exonerate him.

There were two sides in opposition over the life, and death, of Jayne Cobb and it was time, Zoe felt, to educate herself on her adversaries. Thick tomes in a dusty hall of records would have provided a thorough and detailed chronicle of Tiberinus, but something more than dry history would be indispensable. To truly gauge the nature of the township and the shen zu who ruled it, she would need to seek out deeper intelligence. In any habitat, be it a cluster of huts or a metropolis built to the sky, the best place to find such details were the seats of women, the centers for news and gossip.

The women of the town warmed readily to the pretty stranger with her cool brown eyes, and once one woman began to talk about the Gibsons, gossip came in torrents.  They spoke of the rise of the founding patriarch, the scandals of each subsequent generation, the flagrant abuses of power, like the behavior of entitled children, and the state of family currently.  The talk turned wicked on the topic of the doctor and sheriff.  Even their physical appearance was not beyond the issue to the women in the salon - "all gut, no butt," said one, "Humpty Dumpty if he was perfectly flat on the back," another elaborated, to venomous laughter.  A hint of sadness entered the room when the deputy sons were brought up, some of the older woman simply shaking their heads.  With a careful ear, Zoe winnowed the likely facts from the colorful stories.  All it cost her was the price of a manicure. She returned to the ship armed with new ammunition and ten shiny, cherry red nails.

    Deep in the still-bloody abdominal cavity, an anomaly grabbed Simon's eye as he began to excise the spleen and pancreas. Clinging to the splenic artery was a patch of yellow fat with no proper business being there. Slowly and gingerly, Simon peeled the adipose tissue back from the artery. Staring him in the face was the answer he had been searching for, up to his elbows in a cadaver.  A sense of relief poured over Simon, “Sheng li!” 

Sat at the galley table alone, Mal ruminated on the current discords with his beleaguered crew. His mechanic was not speaking to him, owing to his having roundly embarrassed her in front of people with whom she was trapped in a tiny, flying metal box. His first mate was openly questioning and defying him, and Mal could almost see her respect for him draining away like the grains of an hourglass. His mercenary was going to hang for something he may or may not have done. This thought had to be weighed against all of the sins and felonies Mal had witnessed the man commit first-hand, usually with a hedonistic grin and unbridled enthusiasm. The price of Jayne's freedom was more than Mal could hope to pay, even if he felt inclined to, a condition not in evidence just then.

He was still idly etching the grain of the table with his thumbnail when Inara entered. Mal could not think of any way he had specifically, recently or overtly roused the Companion's ire, but surely she had been talking to Kaylee, getting more and more cross at him with each passing hour. “Inara,” he said by way of an uninflected greeting, waiting for a response he could qualify.

“Mal.”

'Mal'. Not 'Captain Reynolds'. At least they were not past that rubicon, again. Mal watched as Inara went about the small steps of making herself tea. There was a grace in her every movement, each reach and retrieve, the delicate way she put the lid on the kettle with barely a sound. It was like watching a prima ballerina, only with more sari and less tutu. There was tea in her shuttle, sure, but she often came to drink the pedestrian leaf in the galley to socialize with the crew. Slumming, Mal sometimes thought. She came to sit a seat away from him at the table while her tea steeped.

“Any news on the Jayne situation?”

“Nothing productive. Lawmen have him dead to rights.” It was not the exact truth, but it stung less than opening the air to the implications that Mal was too poor, too selfish or too cowardly to free Jayne.

“Gou qiuan. Is there nothing that can be done?”

“Well...” The line of Mal's mouth squicked to one side as he debated how to begin the sentence. Allowing him time to collect himself, Inara left the table to collect her tea, resettling herself silently and waited. “There's no way, you'd ever...ya know...need... or want...”

Inara arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the captain. He groaned and scrubbed his face with both hands.

“Jayne floated the suggestion of you buying him out, which is to say into bonded service. There,” he blurted.

“Oh.” Inara's eye were wide for the briefest second before she composed her features, through muscle memory born of her extensive training, and blew gently on her tea. “It's not something I've ever considered.”

“Yeah, I knew it was chun.”

“It's not completely unheard of, a Companion traveling with a full-time bodyguard, especially so far into the ether. How much is the bail?” Inara took a sip from the simple mug...

“75,000.”

...and nearly sprayed her tea into the air, a few droplets dribbling down her chin to be caught by dainty fingers. Mal grinned but squelched it quickly.

“75,000?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Credit or platinum?”

“The cold, hard variety. Apropos, really.”

Inara cleared her throat and took a more careful sip of her tea. “That's ... substantial. With the caliber and irregular frequency of my clientele presently, minus rent and expenses, I'd be holding that bond note for two or three incarnations. Leaving aside the fact that I don't have those sorts of funds at my immediate disposal.”

“It's okay, bu yao jin, forget I brought it up.” Inwardly, Mal was glad the suggestion was off the table. He had done his bit and raised the point. Jayne was no more dead than he had been three minutes ago and now Mal did not have to do that terrible math, how many smarmy elitists Inara would have to service to save Jayne's boorish life.

The natural time for the township of Tiberinus was a few hours behind the artificial day and night cycles aboard Serenity and Jayne found himself awake well before dawn on what was scheduled to be his last day of his life. The sky outside the narrow window was an ideal exemplar of darkness, what of it Jayne could see between the raises of the neighboring buildings. Stars beyond his ability to count flickered brightly, as if valiantly struggling against the coming sun. How many of these stars had he passed in his years of traveling, never giving a second thought to the planets they might have warmed, unless of course there was money to be made there. His had been a life lived close to the bone, ruthless and with singular purity of purpose.

A hard-scrabble life of manual labor had held little appeal for Jayne as a young man. At the first opportunity he could make, he connived passage on a freighter and was gone. Even still, he had not abandoned his responsibilities back on that dingy moon. Every time he had coin or credits to his name, he sent a portion home to his mother, first and foremost. Then it was time to enjoy himself. He had earned it, after all. There was nary a port he pulled into where there was not a new gun to buy, a new poison to imbibe or a new woman to bury himself in.

Ah, the women. There had been dozens, maybe a hundred. Some were barflies that liked the scent of danger on him, but most were prostitutes, an occupation that had always sat with Jayne just fine. He was kind to the women he hired, perhaps not a particularly generous lover, but he never did them any harm and he always paid the extra fee for a shower when the house had facilities. Blond, brunettes, redheads, it made him no never mind, as long as they had all the right parts and could fake a smile at the prospect of loving on him for as long as the money held out.

Outside the window, inky black gave way to slate gray, which in turn yielded to deepest blue, the first suggestions of color returning to the world. A heavy jingling of keys and the curmudgeonly hinges of the anteroom door drew Jayne back from the sky. Lonnie was the first deputy to arrive, as he had been the previous morning, going about the starting tasks of the day with a quiet contentment. Stacey would be in a little later and Sheriff Gibson not until after ten.

“You doin' okay?”

“Tol'able.”

“Warm enough last night?”

“Yeah, it was fine.”

“Good.” A halt. “Meal schedule's different today, so no breakfast.”

“Okay.” There was a cast of discomfort to Deputy Lonnie's body language Jayne noticed, a frequent fidgeting and repeated resettling of his gaze. “There something you wanna say?” he asked after a long pause.

Lonnie just fidgeted more, picking at the design on his belt buckle, “I was wondering...” after a breath, he finally looked Jayne in the eye, “how did it feel when you killed Jeremiah?”

“It's still my considered opinion that I didn't.”

“Oh,” Lonnie sounded almost disappointed. “Well, you ever kill anybody else?”

Arching an eyebrow at Lonnie's newfound and morbid curiosity, Jayne leaned back against the wall. “When the situation called for it.”

“Like what?” With no seats outside the cells, Lonnie unself-consciously sat lotus style on the floor, as if he were settling in for a story.

    The frustrating, perplexing and very tardily rewarding autopsy had consumed the entire evening and part of the night, to say nothing of devouring much of Simon's strength.  By and by, River had found her way back to him, having the decency to look properly chastised as he lectured her on the understood dangers of wandering unescorted in an unfamiliar place, especially one where they were already tallying enemies so quickly.  It would be River, when they were safe home on Serenity, who depleted the last of Simon's elan.  She had accepted her evening medication with aplomb, seeming content and even inwardly pleased as she settled herself into bed.  It was in the scant hours remaining of the morning that her terrors began -  horrible dreams of vivid vivisections, living people cut open and pulled apart, Kaylee, Simon, herself, and she thrashed to get away.  Still a light sleeper from the dictates of his past life, Simon was with her almost immediately after her arm knocked against the shared wall of their berths and he heard the panicked gasping of his little sister through the gauzy membrane of sleep.  River panicked at the feeling of hands grabbing her shoulders and she struggled that much harder until her half-open eyes finally registered the honest, concerned, if haggard, face of her brother.  It took over an hour to lull  River back into a fitful sleep.  Simon could only hold her and hope that the nightmares were done, if only for tonight.

Kaylee found Simon collapsed on the broken-in old sofa that was equidistant to the infirmary and the passenger dorms.  He lay belly down, his face turned out, with one arm dragging on the floor as if he had been unceremoniously dropped there.  For a moment, Kaylee just stood and watched him sleep, taking in the sight of the brilliant doctor and courageous defender, drooling slightly from the corner of his mouth.  She could not help but smile at the way the mere sight of him warmed her heart, even as she tried to remind herself that she was cross with him. 

Simon had not believed her.  That was the most painful betrayal for Kaylee, that he chose his meters and instruments over a friend, over her.  Then again, how could she blame him?  Medicine was his native language.  Still, he had compounded the hurt with abandonment, not speaking to Kaylee if he could avoid it, not even being in the same room if he could help it.  Silence could be the most cruel punishment of all and it had cut Kaylee right to her heart.  Although, Simon had begun to apologize, during her examination, putting it off so he could do it properly.  Then Jayne was taken and there was no time for "I'm sorry" or "please forgive me" or "I was a fool."  Still, all Kaylee wanted in that moment was to cover him with a blanket and brush the sleek black hair back from his temple to kiss him good-night.  But Zoe had sent her to gather everyone together for a briefing before breakfast and Simon's input would probably be the most crucial.

Kaylee leaned down close to him, "Simon," to which he mumbled something patently incomprehensible.  "Dr Tam," she said a little louder.

"Just cross-clamp the aorta, I'm going for a coffee."

"So much for your high patient care standards," Kaylee said very clearly.

"Wha-huh?"  Simon struggled to right himself, trying to convince his body that 'up' was not in fact the direction he was facing, lest he wind up with deck plating imprinted on his nose and cheek bone.  "Kaylee," he scrubbed both hands over his face, "what time is it?"

"Almost breakfast and time to figure out what we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it."

Simon nodded as he fought against an enormous yawn and lost.

"Up late, huh?"

"The autopsy ran into overtime, then River..."

"Yeah.  All that doctoring don't leave a lot of time for anything else...like personal...things."

"Kaylee," Simon scooted over slightly, hoping she would accept the silent invitation to sit next to him.  Thankfully, she did, though not as closely as she would have before and Simon lamented the little space.  It felt like a mile, that foot of threadbare upholstery.  There was a distance between them now, a cold and vacuous space where their growing friendship had once flourished.  "I'm ...I..."  He looked at her and the view before him was dim, devoid of the smile that seemed to shine its own light on him.  Simon had caused her to suffer and he knew it.  There was no simply justification for his behavior towards her, even as self-preserving logic howled like a wolf at his door.  He had been cast out from the light.  What right did he even have to ask her to forgive him?  "I'd like you to stop by the infirmary, later, when things settle down a little, when you have time, for a follow-up."

Kaylee had not thought she could feel much worse on Simon, but a hope growing secretly inside had just been crushed.  "Of course, Doc.  But I know you got all them parasites out the first time.  You always take good care of me."  A thread of quavering emotion touched her voice and Kaylee sealed her lips tight against it.  He did not deserve it, did not deserve to hear her upset, to know he could affect her so.

It felt as if a fist has clenched around Simon's windpipe, but he held his face in schooled composure.  If it was Kaylee's choice to treat each other as crewmates, as doctor and patient, he would have to find a way to learn to respect that.  As badly as he wanted to profess his contrition, he opened his mouth and, "I was just so relieved at the outcome," came out.

When a man steps out onto the ice of a frozen river and it is strained beyond its limits, an unmistakable creaking, groaning noise preceeds his catastophic plunge into hypothermia.  Even if he had never heard the sound before, he would know it instinctively the instant it reaches his ears.  If someone had asked Simon, he would have sworn wholehearedly that he had heard such a sound as Kaylee's expression darkened into the lines of irritation and disappointment.

"Huh.  Yeah, I bet you were really relieved.  Which part was the most relief-making for you, that I wasn't knocked-up with some little backwater bastard or that Jayne wouldn't be the one to see me through it?"  Kaylee crossed her arms over her chest and Simon's head dropped into his hands.  "As long as you're feeling better, that's what counts," her voice was as hard and cold as the metal walls that encased them.  Kaylee rose up sharply from the couch, but Simon grabbed her wrist.  She stared as his hand, surprised at his daring and the way his fingers gripped her tightly, not painfully but not allowing her to move.  Their arms stretched out between them, as much holding them apart as bridging them together.

Simon stood and looked at Kaylee, his blue eyes dark and intense in the scant light.  "I was relieved to have gotten rid of the infestation.  I was relieved that you didn't develop an infection, and that this hadn't gone unnoticed and resulted in anemia, peritonitis or internal bleeding, any one of which could have been fatal.  I'm relieved that you're going to be okay."  Slowly, his fingers loosened and Kaylee's arm dropped to her side, though she did not move.  "And, yes, I'm relieved that you won't have to depend on someone like Jayne for help." 

"Someone like Jayne?"

There was that sound again.  The ice had felt solid under his feet but it gave way again.  It was his own damn fool fault for venturing out in the first place.

"You mean an honest, dirty, working-class type?"

Defeated, Simon rolled his eyes until his face tilted up to the ceiling.  "Kaylee, that's not-"

"Bi zui.  Zoe wants everybody in the galley, neighborhood of now."

Kaylee stomped away, her flip-flops slapping the soles on her feet in self-righteous indignation.  Simon sighed and followed a safe distance behind her.

Lonnie had been enrapt by Jayne's answers to his questions, never interrupting and staring up with mooning eyes.  It was like the hero-worship Jayne had tried to evade on Canton.  Once, he would have thought that his scoundrelly exploits meant something, gave his life substance.  Now, with his judgement so near at hand, he was forced to consider the legacy they had created for him.  Heavy thoughts, frightening thoughts, so Jayne distracted himself, while simultaneously refocusing the conversation by asking Lonnie about himself and his family.

"Just the two boys?"

"Yeah, me and Stacey.  He's my big brother," Lonnie grinned to mention him.

“Can't say he's the nicest brother I've ever seen.”

“Stacey? He's not so bad. I'll tell you a secret,” Lonnie actually dropped his voice, as though they could be heard through half-meter thick walls of steel-reinforced stone, “Stacey never lets nobody else say nothin' bad to me. He says he can all he wants, 'cuz he's my brother.”

Jayne snorted a little sound of concession and nodded. There was a strange similarity between Deputy Stacey's logic and a speech Jayne had given Maddie on the footrace home from school one day, trying to get there in time to explain the fight to his mother before the teacher waved her.

Jayne regarded Lonnie, a simple man to be sure, but in an inculpable, almost child-like way. He father and brother treated him like a sub-human cretin, but he always found some small thing to smile about.

The life of a deputy did not seem to suit either of the sheriff's sons. One was not well suited for the job, the other acted as if the job was not well suited to him, resentful and vexed by it. If a father had a good position and could give his sons jobs, it was not their place to be particular. Jayne wondered what path his life might have taken if his father had had one set skill or trade to share with him, instead of an unceasing procession of menial labor.

Lonnie joined Jayne in watching the sun begin to rise in the vertical shaft between the buildings outside. “I'm sorry we have to hang you.” There was no sarcasm in his words, no derision or mockery.

"Yeah.” Jayne did not take his eyes from the window. “Me too.”

This gathering of the crew was not compulsory -- only those who doubted Jayne's guilt, if only in this narrow circumstance, and were willing to throw their lot in for his deliverance.  Zoe smiled to herself to see every available body, save one, at the galley table, some bleary-eyed but all attentive.  Even River was there, looking deep in thought as her eyes focused targetedly on the table.  The only person missing was the captain himself, who had made no bones about his position on the matter of Jayne and his ever-nearing date with destiny.  Nevertheless, Mal haunted the adjacent corridor, where he thought he was out of Zoe's sight, listening.  Zoe stood at the head of the table and looked around at her crewmates.

"To get right into the meat," Zoe began, "Jayne Cobb is set to hang today for the murder of a local man hereabouts.  Now I hold some objection to that and, looking around, I see I'm not the only one."  Around her, heads nodded and murmurs assented.   "I spent some time on the ground yesterday, sponging up what I could about the folks that would rather kill a man than have to do a lot of paperwork.  Lazy as pigs but not nearly as smart."  With that, she apprised the crew of the more credible snips of intelligence she had acquired.  Even still, it was hard to avoid getting into personalities and some details of a juicy nature regarding the ruling family did trickle in, “Lady of the house disappeared under curious circumstances a few years back.  She was barely fifteen when she had eldest, had the younger one the following year.”

“They start early around here,” Wash said, suppressing a pre-breakfast yawn.

“If there's grass on the field, play ball.” All eyes, and modestly shocked faces, turned to Simon, who looked surprised his own self. “Jayne would say... if he were here.”

Zoe broke the spell of incredulity.  “It's a little early to be invoking the man's spirit, Doctor. He's still using it.”  Bereft of explanation, Simon shrugged and shook his head mutely.  Kaylee cut mean eyes at him, even while everyone else returned their attention to Zoe.  In the corridor, Mal smirked and inched into the doorway.  “Scuttlebutt tells that the younger boy, Lonnie, is the product of incest, his uncle's get,” Zoe paused for the “eww”s she had expected.

“Pretty bad planet,” River said sidelong to Simon.

“And by lucky happenstance, that brother is the same man they want Jayne to dance for killing.”

Wash ruffled his feral hair, “What good fortune.  Fifty men in that bar and Jayne goes and kills the sheriff's brother-in-law.”

"The evidence doesn't support a conviction," Simon said.  "Not that they bothered to look."

Zoe nodded.  "They did him in on that woman's ID and I'd say her credibility runs to the debatable.”

"How debatable?" Kaylee asked.

Feeling suddenly relevant, Mal spoke up, “She had the earmarks of a whore.”

Kaylee fumed, “You just think every woman's a zang de tchenhwa slut, don't you?”

Unprepared for her angry outburst, Mal stood there with his mouth open as his brain scrambled for a defense. As happened often in his life, Zoe rescued him.

“No, honey. There were actual marks in her ears, notches. They do that in some places to set aside women for legal prostitution or to shame the ones who get caught on the game.”

“They put notches in her ears?” Kaylee's mild horror was plain on her face, “You mean, like a slaughter hog?”

“See?” Mal's voice re-emerged, “I ain't the worst hoodun out there'.”

“No, not the worst,” Kaylee conceded, then muttered acerbicly, "but you're right up there."

Zoe hid her amusement at Mal's discomfort, "Getting back on point, we need to formulate what we plan to do and how we plan to do it."

“We could bust him out," Kaylee declared.

“Who 'we' – you, me and Simon?”

"I will sit here with the engines idling courageously," Wash interjected gustily.

“Well, yeah. I mean, this ain't a skyplex.”

“Honey, that ain't much of a rescue team.  Simon's likely to shoot himself female, though at least he's pretty enough to find a husband.  No offense, Doc."

"No, I, what?  No."  Simon forced out a short breath, "Leaving that aside, I need to present my findings to the authorities."

"The dead man tells you Jayne didn't do it?" Zoe asked.

"Incontrovertibly."

"Anyone giving odds on the sheriff not listening?" Mal asked from his position supporting the bulkhead.

Without a twinge of reaction, Zoe ignored Mal's question, rhetorical and inane, and forged ahead.  "The best case here would be Simon shows the town doctor and sheriff what he's found and they overturn Jayne's conviction.  All the same, anyone who's been on this boat more than ten minutes knows we haven't seen a best case scenario quan xin shi.

"Black mandrake sprang beneath the tree as it will where the seed of the hanged falls," River intoned fluidly, her voice as even and smooth as glass, "and in spring a new branch pierced his breast and flowered in green boutonnière perennial beneath his yellow grin."

"Mei mei, that's on point...sort of...but it's not very helpful."  Simon reached out to lay his hand on hers, but River pulled her hand into her lap, looking up for the first time.  Her eyes were clear and intense.

"No, helpful mei mei is the very point."

Simon opened his mouth to gently object, but Zoe forestalled him with a move of her hand.  "What's on your mind for this, River?"

"Oh, I like where this is going," Mal snarked.  "So River will make the plan and you all will carry out her every order like flying monkeys?  Nice to see we all had a visit from the Crazy Fairy last night."

When Zoe turned to Mal, her gaze was like flint, hard, cold and dark.  "It was my understanding you weren't keen to be involved here."

"Don't mean I can't point out the gargantuan flaws in the planning."

"That's a higher level of participation than I was expecting, so if you would very kindly let us continue our conference, sir."  There was no hiding the inflexibility of her order, couched as a request, even with its customary title of respect.  Mal held her stare a moment, then prowled back the bridge.

"We're going to hear the particulars of River's plan before we decide, right?" Simon asked trepidatiously, which earned him a silent look of supreme irritation from his sister and a quiet scoff from Kaylee.

"Of course," Zoe answered flatly.

"It's like they say," Wash chipped in, "five heads are better than four."

"Who says that?" Simon asked.

"I did, just now."

'And Operation This Will End Badly is a go,' Zoe thought to herself.