This chapter is dedicated (in apology) to Humbug. I know I said it would be soon but writers block knows no time table. Sorry guys. Hope ya’ll are having a happy new year so far!

Chapter 3-

The brief walk into town was mostly silent and Jayne was getting nervous, thinking Kaylee might still be mad enough to spend the whole afternoon not talking to him, despite the apple he had given her. He should have known better though. Kaylee couldn’t hold a grudge with a tractor beam and a dozen grapple hooks. Walking along she asked him suddenly, “You think the mountains here are pretty?” Jayne furrowed his brow with confusion but looked up to study the scenery. After several minutes he answered, “Yeah. I suppose.” She nodded absently to herself. He wanted to know why she asked but he had a pretty good idea it had to do with Simon and he didn’t want to hear that name pass her lips this afternoon. To change the subject he asked her if she had ever heard the one about the Shepard, the whore, and the malfunctioning anti-grav device. When he told her the joke, she laughed so hard she had to stop walking for a minute, bent over by the road holding her sides. The big man experienced a surge of gratification more powerful than anything he had felt in days. They spent the rest of the walk into town trading jokes, each trying to out do the other for sheer dirtiness. Kaylee knew several that would have reddened the ears of any normal man but had Jayne guffawing long and loud. There wasn’t much as far as shopping possibilities in town but there was a pretty fair junk yard that Kaylee seemed to hone in on almost magically. She made her way through the streets toward it so surely Jayne had to ask, “What? Can you smell spare parts or somethin’?” She smiled at him and he had to fight the instinct to smile back when she replied, “Naw. They just tend to be in the same place in any town.” Under a makeshift awning at the entrance of the yard sat a wrinkled old man, slowly cleaning out an equally old part. Without a lick of hesitation, Kaylee walked straight up to him and launched into a rapid discussion of what she was looking for, in both English and Chinese that included technical type terms Jayne had never even heard before. While Jayne surveyed the junkyard carefully for movement or any signs of treachery, the old man walked Kaylee to various piles of metal. They examined a few different potential parts before Kaylee settled on the one she wanted. Then the real discussion started. The old man opened with a price that was twice the amount Mal had given them both combined but Kaylee didn’t even blink. With smiles and teasing and an absolute refusal to budge from her counter-offer, she haggled the old man down . . . and down . . . and down until they had reached a price that would allow her to bring the Captain back his requested change. When the bargaining was done, the old man even wrapped the part in a scrap of brown paper, a service Jayne was sure not many people got. The junkyard man looked a little shell shocked but he managed to smile back a bit when Kaylee took the package and thanked him with her usual warmth. The whole process couldn’t have taken more than half an hour. As they walked away, Jayne studied Kaylee out of the corner of his eye. Finally he asked, “Where’d you learn to bargain like that, girl?” “It’s like everything, I suppose-” she said with an easy smile, “you know the value of what you’re askin’ for and the value of what you have ta offer.” Hearing her own words, she paused frowning. He watched for a second before interrupting, “C’mon, let me buy ya a beer.”

The bar was dark and dirty and the beer tasted like goat piss but it did the job. Kaylee took a sip of her beer and winced, “This,” she announced, “is a . . . really bad beer.” Jayne took a huge gulp out of his own dirty mug, “Yeah,” he agreed. On her next drink, the girl imitated his gulp and managed not to wince. Instead she let out a delicate little burp and Jayne raised one eyebrow at her, smiling a little. “My daddy,” Kaylee told him confidentially, “always said, ‘the difference between a good beer and a bad beer is . . . two.’” Jayne opened his mouth to reply when the comm box on his belt beeped softly. Grimacing with sudden annoyance, he pulled it free and raising it to his face demanded, “Yeah?” “Jayne?” “Yeah, what?” “Are you in a secure location?” Zoë’s voice was sharp. Jayne looked around the dark virtually empty bar dryly. He and Kaylee were nestled into a nice intimate little corner with no company in earshot. “Yeah- get to it already.” Zoë ignored his tone of voice. “Patience wants a face-to-face to inspect the goods.” “You need us back at the ship?” “Not for a couple of hours. Just make sure you’re back here by 1600, planet side time.” “Okay.” “Serenity out.” Jayne turned back to Kaylee, “What were we talking ‘bout?” He asked. She frowned into her empty now empty mug, “I think we were saying that I need more beer.” Jayne grinned, “You got it.” They drank a couple more- enough for Jayne to feel pleasantly relaxed and get Kaylee buzzed. She was so pretty with the beer working in her; her cheeks flushed and her smile was wide and easy. “You know what?” She asked him as she finished her third beer. “What?” “My daddy was right.” She reached over the table and picked up his mug to take a sip. Jayne allowed it, enjoying the sight of Kaylee’s mouth pressed against the spot where his had been just moments before. Putting the cup down, Kaylee put her elbow on the table and rested her head against her hand. She studied him sideways from that position, one eye narrowed slightly like she was trying to bring him into focus over a long distance. “Why,” she began. “Yeah?” He raised one eyebrow at her. “were you chasing Simon-” “Gorram it, Kaylee!” Her face settled into an unpleasantly stubborn expression. “Don’t know why nobody’ll tell me anything. I’m not a little girl.” The pouty shape of her lips said otherwise. Jayne crossed his arms over his chest with equal stubbornness. “And I don’t know why you gotta be so gorram nosy about every little thing what goes on in that boat!” “She’s my boat!” “Hah! Mal’d like that one! You should tell him so!” “You know what I mean!” She was glaring outright at him now, “Tell me why you were chasing Simon.” When Jayne refused to answer she sat in sullen silence for a moment which he ignored. She gave him a deliberate glare but he wouldn’t even look at her. Studying him, she decided to try a new tactic. Arranging her face into a more pleasant expression, Kaylee asked in a sweet cajoling tone, “Please, Jayne? I just want to know why. Please?” Jayne relaxed a little in his chair, “Kaylee-” He sighed. “Please? I know!” She sat forward and smiled brightly, her eyes shinning just a little too much, “You’ll answer my question and I’ll answer one of yours- any question you want.” “What makes you think I wanna know anything about you?” “There’s gotta be something! Everybody’s curious ‘bout something.” A group of nearly a dozen men crowded into the bar and up to the counter, demanding drinks. Jayne eyed them carefully and recognized the obvious signs of fellow muscle. He shifted a little in his chair so that his favorite handgun ‘Lulu’ was under his fingers. The men made their way to a couple of nearby tables though and didn’t seem to even notice him an’ Kaylee, tucked away in their dark corner. So the big man relaxed a bit, turning his attention back to the Kaylee. What she proposed had some potential . . . and she hadn’t let go of her ragin’ curiosity to know what had passed between him an’ Simon like he thought she would. Maybe it would be best to give her a little something just so she’d drop it. “A’right.” He leaned back and gave her a look she couldn’t read, “What were you doin’ in the engine room last week when I found you with your boots off?” Kaylee looked startled. Of all the question she had expected that certainly wasn’t one of them. “Well,” she said slowly, “I was . . . I was listening to Serenity.” He looked confused but not like he thought what she said was strange or funny. Of course, Kaylee realized, he had his Vera so maybe he could understand a little. Her cheeks a blushing pink, Kaylee continued. “It’s somethin’ I do sometimes, when I know there’s a problem- I take off my shoes and I just open myself up so she can tell me what’s goin’ wrong but . . . ” She trailed off and he nodded to encourage her. “It didn’t work. Nothing’s working right lately.” She bit her lip. “Maybe,” she suggested in a very small voice, “maybe, she’s mad at me.” “Mad at you?” He demanded in an incredulous voice. “What in the gorram hell are you talking about, girl? Ain’t no one or nothing in this entire ‘verse could stay mad at you!” “But-” “Ain’t no buts about it.” There was something kinda reassuring about his absolute certainty. “Why were you chasing Simon?” She asked. Jayne shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “He stuck his tongue out at me when you wasn’t lookin’.” He said finally. “Simon stuck his tongue out at you.” She said in a doubting tone of voice. He nodded, looking sheepish and sullen. “And that’s it?” she demanded. “That’s what neither of you would tell me? That’s the silliest thing I ever heard!” She glared at him for a second, “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” “It weren’t none of your business.” He repeated stubbornly. Kaylee made a sound of disgust and opened her mouth to say something more when Jayne waved her quiet. The toughs behind them were making all kinds of noise suddenly. They both heard the word ‘firefly’ and a round of raucous laughter. “This here’s the plan so listen up! Patience,” A man with a jagged scar through his eyebrow explained when things got a little quieter, “got her eye on that boat for a while now an’ she’s decided to make it hers.” He lowered his voice and Jayne leaned back casually in his chair, “See Reynolds is cautious like a little mouse but the old lady’s got ‘em to agree to meet her for a transfer of goods way out in the middle of nowhere. He’ll come in low, looking for ambush but won’t see nobody ‘cause we’ll be hiding a couple of clicks off. She’ll keep him busy talking- ‘cause he loves the sound of his own voice- and then we ride in hell for leather, kill ‘em all, and take the boat and the goods and Patience’ll give us all our cut.” There was another round of laughter and shouting at this pronouncement and somebody called for more drinks. When Jayne looked back at Kaylee her face was pale and suddenly sober. “Whadda we do?” She asked him. “Act natural.” Jayne ordered another beer and drank it a little faster than usual. Then with almost exaggerated care he stood and motioned slightly for Kaylee to pick up her part and follow him. In the flurry of ordering another round and kinda drunk already none of Patience men saw them leave. Outside in the painfully bright daylight again, Jayne pulled Kaylee into the alleyway next to the bar. Creeping to the other end of it, they both noticed the large mule parked in the clearing out back, guarded by one heavily armed man. Jayne pulled out the comm but Kaylee grabbed his arm. “Wait! What are you doin’?” She demanded. “We gotta call Mal and let him know what’s going on.” He said. Wasn’t that obvious? “Did you see how many guys there were inside? Almost a dozen. Not even you an’ Mal an’ Zoe can handle that many all of a sudden. Lemme think a second. We-” The little mechanic was studying the mule absently as she talked when she stopped suddenly in the middle of what she had been saying to grin brilliantly at him. “I can fix it so that mule never makes it to the rendezvous- No mule, no men, problem solved.” She looked so pleased with herself. “Kaylee-” He didn’t want to ruin her plan but he had to be practical. “Yeah?” “We’re in town, what’s ta stop ‘em from grabbing another mule?” Kaylee looked at him blankly for a minute before blinking. “Whaddya suppose,” She asked him, “is between here and the rendezvous point?” Jayne’s lip curled contemptuously, “Whole lotta nothin’.” “Then I think that’s where they outta break down, don’t you?” A smile emerged on Jayne’s face. Kaylee surveyed the one heavily armed man guarding the transport with a frown, “But how are we gonna get close with that big oaf out there?” Jayne’s grin got a little wider, “Just you leave that to me, lil’ Kaylee.”

“Hiya!” Kaylee walked straight up to the man standing next to the mule and gave him her brightest smile, “Is that a Capisen 38 engine in there?” Before the man could reply, Jayne appeared behind him only to bring his fist down sharply on the top of the guard’s head. Kaylee saw his eyes cross briefly before he slumped to the ground and she winced in sympathy. Jayne leaned over and reaching into the man’s coat, cleaned out his pockets. “Jayne!” Kaylee protested in a shocked whisper. “Gotta make it look like a robbery, otherwise they’ll get suspicious.” The big man explained, sliding the cash into his own pocket. Moving quickly Jayne pulled the unconscious and now broke guard behind some nearby crates. When the big man returned, he found Kaylee frowning at some anonymous panel that looked the same as every other gorram panel on the gorram mule. “Give me your knife.” Kaylee demanded absently. The big man gave her a startled glance and then looked down at the massive and sharp piece of steel on his hip, “Kaylee, I ain’t so sure that’s a good-” With an impatient sound, the mechanic turned and snatched the knife from his belt. Sliding it under the edge of the panel, she popped the metal loose and then used the blades edge to deftly peel the casing off some wires. She cross connected them carefully and then closed the panel, pounding it in tight with the butt of the knife. The whole process took less than a minute. She offered the knife back to him, handle first. “There, let’s get back to the ship.” Jayne nodded his agreement and took the knife carefully. He glanced at the panel she had just closed, “That’s it?” “That’s it.” She said easily. “Damn girl,” Jayne said in an earnest kind of awe, “God, hisself could probably learn a thing or two ‘bout way stuff is put together from you.” Kaylee protested with an embarrassed shake of her head, going red again. “Ain’t nothing.” She said, walking away quickly. Jayne trailed after and glancing down at Kaylee’s petit frame disagreed softly, “Oh, it’s something alright.”

They made it back to Serenity just in time to take off for the rendezvous. Somehow Kaylee was needed in the engine room and Jayne had to prep for the meeting and there just wasn’t time to explain what they had done in town. After the captain, Zoë, and Jayne had left the ship to meet Patience, Kaylee puttered around the cargo bay, absently adjusting the mechanism on the bay crane while she waited for them to return. It only took half and hour or so before Mal and Zoë came in frowning and talking intently. Jayne followed behind whistling to himself. “What happened?” Kaylee asked anxiously. “Is everybody okay?” The Captain nodded, “Yeah, everything went just fine. Just like Patience said it would.” He frowned, “I don’t trust it. Patience always tries to screw us- that’s what she does. How’d this one deal actually go off smooth?” Jayne and Kaylee avoided each other’s eye. “We got the money and nobody got hurt, sir,” Zoë observed, “That’s all that matters right?” “I suppose,” Mal conceded, “It just don’t seem right is all- what can you trust in this crazy ‘verse if people like Patience are gonna start keeping their word?” The captain pounded the comm button, “Wash,” He said irritably, “take us off this dog-humping piece of rock.” The ship was on its way. Jayne let Mal stew until dinner when he finally related the story of Kaylee’s sabotage to everyone’s glee. Kaylee blushed furiously as everyone turned to look at her, “It’s those Capisen 38 engines-” she explained with a mischievous little smile, “they fall right outta the sky.”

Next Chapter- the competition gets rough.