A/N: I was watching Serenity for the three billionith time and this occured to me- just had to write it down. It takes place just after the crew has survived the Reaver attack on Mr. Universe's station.

Good To Be Alive-

The lights in the infirmary kept going on and off. They would flicker, blink off for a moment, relight, and then die again. Flicker, flicker, die, light, flicker, die to blackness, light again. There was no particular pattern to it and every time the lights would fail entirely Kaylee would jump a little. The drug Simon had recommended was beating through her system, making her hands shake, making her foot drum against the floor as it burned away whatever the reaver’s darts had put in her.

Jayne listened to the constant rustling she made from where he sat on the counter, leaning back with his eyes closed. Normally, the noise would irritate him but just now he found it more than a little comforting. She was alive. He was alive. Even the throbbing pain from the bullet wound in his shoulder was welcome- more proof that his heart was still doing its work. The noises Kaylee made also interrupted the images playing against the inside of his eyelids: cities full of the dried up dead, the walls of Serenity spinning around him as they fell from the sky, reavers- snarling and screaming like mad dogs . . . Kaylee falling back against the floor. He clenched his fist almost tight enough for his nails to draw blood and then relaxed his fingers.

Jayne heard the girl stand abruptly and he lifted one eyelid to see what she was up to. When the lights came back on he saw her pace quick across the room to look out the window and then back again. A lock of hair was clinging to her check and she pushed it away with an impatient gesture. The move seemed like a miracle suddenly. She was alive. The lights went down, then came back up flickering wildly. Jayne rubbed his face, felt the stubble against his palm, felt the calluses on his hand against his lips and then his cheekbone. He was alive, he reminded himself.

Zoë voice sounded in his ear, “He ain’t coming.” Wash was dead. They could all be dead. He slid off the counter, in the sudden darkness and moved toward her, feeling his way slow and careful. When the lights came up, Kaylee started yet again to find him suddenly so close. A question clear in her eyes, she looked up. Jayne could see a little trail of blood on her neck from the darts.

The lights went out.

As fast as a raider, he swept down on her, claiming her lips and pushing her body against the counter. Surprised, she froze a moment before her resistance fell away and she wrapped her arms around him in turn. To Jayne, all the glory of living and breathing appeared to reside in that kiss. Kaylee seemed to feel it too as she wrapped her fists so tightly in his shirt her arms almost stopped trembling. She pulled him hard to her and he could feel her pulse beating under his lips. Her body was burning all along the length of him. Her mouth came open suddenly and he could taste something salty and sweet like blood pass between them. Jayne slid one hand up to tangle in her hair and tilting her head back momentarily lost track of her mouth in the darkness. His lips glided over her cheekbone and he heard her make a desperate sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh. Using the sound and her breath as a guide he found her mouth again, delving even deeper this time. He couldn’t still his hands, wanting and needing to feel her alive under him and him alive against her.

The lights came on.

They fell away from one another as quickly as they had come together, both of them shaking and wobbledy kneed. Jayne turned sharply- away from the sight of Kaylee, her eyes wide and her fingertips pressed against her lips. One of his hands rested on the operating table like he couldn’t quite stand straight.

“Jayne?” Kaylee whispered, her voice strange and uncertain in the suddenly bright and steady light.

Watching Simon limp toward them through the window in the sickbay doors he said simply, “Good to be alive.” He made a fist with his other hand; felt the pain as his fingernails bit deep. Good to be alive.