All comments and disclaimers in full in Ch 1 (Simon), it's the usual fare: not mine. Comment or send feedback, wily_one24@yahoo.com.au

*** "That's the way it's always been. It all comes down to creating time. We don't always have to make it right. We'll all drive by in our hybrid lives. Chances are... chances are... We'll make it back." - Sheryl Crow.

***

He’d been doin’ some thinking and no one knows more’n he does how dangerous a pastime that is for him, but things had changed and even he can feel it, so he sat and sharpened the blade and suspected that she knew, even in her slowly healing but still batshit crazy mind, that he’s sharpening it for her, hell, they probably all knew, but ain’t no one gonna say anything if they know what’s good for ‘em.

Jayne held no false and fancy ideas about who he was. He don’t hold many things close, man like him can’t afford to, it’s a hand-to-mouth, hand-to-gun, or hand-to-grave-digging-shovel ‘verse out there. He does what he needs to get by, it’s something he keeps telling himself over and over again, just what’s strictly needed.

Don’t mean nothin’ that he stood up in the fight against those reavers, that he helped bring the almighty Alliance down a peg or two. He was only doin’ it, ‘cause Serenity is the finest gig he’s ever had and only a fool would risk losin’ it. They get regular pay, well, regular enough that he can eat decent most of the times, they get treated more’n fair and he has fun sometimes along the way. There ain’t nothin’ more a man needs.

He’s fair on sure it started way back with Kaylee, when she got shot and he couldn’t take his eyes off the operation, and only got worse when he, River and the doc were nabbed by those fed he’d tipped off in Ariel and he couldn’t get the girl’s face outta his head, mouth all stretched in terror like that. It weren’t right.

A man like Jayne gets shot at and faces death near on every day, that’s his choice, he chooses the life and he got no right to complain about it. But that kid never asked to be cut on like the doc said she was, and Kaylee never asked to be shot at, nor held at gun point by some dick who’s scared of dyin’ or threatened with rape by some hundan.

All it did, Jayne knew, all it did was make him want to stick around and make sure they didn’t get their asses into any more trouble. It started with them and Jayne just couldn’t tell when it slipped into something almost like worry when he saw how bad Zoe was hurtin’ and how bad he missed Wash and his sarcastic jokes or Book an’ his eerie ass knowledge of things ain’t no preacher ever knowed before.

He refused to say the word family, absolutely refused.

“Don’t need to say it.”

Jayne jumped about a mile and the knife he’d been holding slid clean through the pad of his thumb.

“Gorram it, girl.” He hissed as he sucked the coppery blood. “Don’t you come near me when I got knives. You hear?”

Damn if she ain’t smilin’ at him.

“Don’t scare me.”

It was like a challenge and he could see the glow in her eyes, she was enjoyin’ it.

“What’re you doin’ sneakin’ up on me, anyways, ain’t the doc rantin’ and ragin’ about somethin’ else Mal wants to take you on?”

She frowned.

“Can’t go in my feet. Not even Mal will let me go without shoes.”

Jayne looked at her for a full minute before he spelled it out slowly.

“So put on yer gorram boots, fool.”

She sighed and hefted the said boots onto the bench.

“Tried and tied and tried again. Can’t undo them. They won’t budge.”

He eyed the godawful knot in the laces and tried to figure out just how out of her mind she had to be to do that to some perfectly innocent boots. Weren’t nothin’ but one solution to a bind like that.

“You have to cut ‘em.”

She nodded sagely.

“Leather laces. No ordinary knives will do.”

River smiled at him and then floated away to join Simon and Kaylee across the cargo bay and left Jayne starin’ at some abandoned footwear. He’d be damned if he was just gonna play lackey and do her biddin’ ‘cause she asked, well, near on asked.

He sighed and let his eye slide down the blade in his hand.

Jayne’d been doin’ some thinking and no one knows more’n he does how dangerous a pastime that is for him, but things had changed and even he can feel it, so he sat and sharpened the blade and suspected that she knew, even in her slowly healing but still batshit crazy mind, that he’s sharpening it for her, hell, they probably all knew, but ain’t no one gonna say anything if they know what’s good for ‘em.

*** End Ch 4.