author: heartofthehouse
rating: PG-13ish for a some kissing and a little blood
category: angst/romance
characters: River and Jayne, mostly
pairing: River/Jayne
disclaimer: These characters are not mine, obviously. Also, I stole one phrase from Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. And my title is a lyric from Tori Amos's song "Concertina".
author's note: I make no promises about the quality of the writing within, but I did try, so there. ;-)
As Jayne walked through Serenity, he muttered to himself bitterly about being stuck on the ship during a job. And, as if that weren't enough, stuck on the ship during a job with no one but a crazy person and a preacher. He shook his head. Not that he minded Shepherd Book's company, of course. He'd grown to rather like the Shepherd, but it still said something about Jayne's present status with the captain that these were his only companions today. He couldn't really figure if this meant that Mal trusted him less, which is why he wouldn't take him with on the job, or if he trusted him more, which is why he let him stay on the boat with River and only one other person. Or maybe Mal was just looking to get Jayne to do something that would give him an excuse to toss him out for good. For once, Jayne was actually thinking too much. The others would've been proud.
Just as he came into the dining area, Jayne was faced with the strangest and most frightening thing he'd ever seen: a pool of blood on the floor flowing gently from the arm of a teenage girl holding a knife in her hand. After a pause to take in the sight and get a grip on what was happening, Jayne rushed over to the injured body, lifted it from the floor, and closed his hand around the knife-wielding wrist until the knife fell to the floor. He frantically tried to stop the flow of blood by wrapping his other hand around the wound, but it helped very little. He laid her on the floor and panicked. He knew he needed to do something to help her, but wasn't able to. Mostly he killed people rather than trying to save them. Or, if he did save someone, it was by killing someone else. He pulled a dishtowel off of the counter and used it as a tourniquet, but it was still only a partial solution. He needed to call for help, but had no way to go about it, except through radio. But just as he was about to run to the bridge to try to contact Mal and the others, he felt a tug on his arm.
River coughed as she tried to speak again, with decent results. "Don't tell," she pleaded.
Jayne sighed. Gorram girl was crazier every minute. But he looked at the makeshift tourniquet again and saw that most of the blood flow had stopped. Maybe the cut hadn't been as deep as it had first appeared. He shot her one last exasperated glare and helped her to her feet, so they could get down to the infirmary and at least improve the situation of her wound.
Once in the infirmary, Jayne laid River down on the table and uncovered her arm. The amount of blood had made the wound seem bigger than it actually was. It was only a small cut, moderately deep. Clearly River hadn't finished. Or she hadn't been trying as hard as she could have. For someone of her intelligence, it seemed a foolish mistake. All those wonderful achievements, only to fail when it was most important to her to succeed. Jayne winced.
River directed Jayne in getting the necessary materials and in the proper care of her arm. But she couldn't help feeling odd about the whole scene. Jayne was superficially cool, but on the inside she could see how disheveled and confused he was. Lost. She took comfort in the help she could give him, but he didn't. At the end of it all, he collapsed on the couch in the common room. River sat down next to him, but he wouldn't speak to her for a long time.
"Gonna tell me what you were doin' with the knife?" Jayne asked finally.
She shook her head and pulled the blanket he'd given her tighter around herself.
"Fine. Have it your way," he conceded. "Prolly woulda just spewed crazy talk anyway."
This time she nodded. For someone whose suicide attempt had just been foiled, she was acting unusually cheerful. Jayne wondered how she could be so happy after something like that. The entire concept of suicide was confusing to him, but her sanguinity just confused him more. But River wasn't happy because of anything except the fact that she had been saved. It wasn't what she had wanted, but it intrigued her nonetheless. And Jayne, of all people, had been her savior.
"Curiouser and curiouser," she mused.
"Got that right," Jayne laughed. Then he straightened and frowned. "You okay?"
River cocked her head and smiled. "Am now. An angel rescued me."
"I ain't no ruttin' angel," he said uncomfortably. "But that don't matter anyhow."
"Don't tell Daddy," River whispered suddenly.
"What? You mean Mal?"
She said nothing, but her face answered the question on its own.
"Well, all right," Jayne sighed. "But it's my head if you try it again, so none of that. You hear me? Or I'll run my mouth off 'bout this till my tongue swells up."
Just then, the door of the cargo bay lowered and the rest of Serenity's residents returned. Jayne glanced back at River and for the first time understood that it would be hard to explain away the cut on her arm, even with the bandage covering it. But he had no time to think about it. Simon had already seen it.
"Oh my God…River, what happened?" he exclaimed, hurrying over to her and examining the injury.
"I'm fine, silly," she assured him.
By then the entire crew had congregated in the cargo bay and had all noticed River's bandage. And most of them suspected that Jayne had more than a little to do with it, though neither of the pair was speaking.
"Jayne, what the hell happened?" the captain demanded.
Jayne stood, threw one last nervous glance at River, and decided what he needed to do. Luckily, it was one of the things he was at least pretty good at: lying. "I…We…" he said softly, stumbling over the words. "Nothing happened."
"Nothing?" Mal asked disbelievingly. "The girl's hurt! She ain't half so crazy as you, Jayne."
Mal proceeded to force Jayne across the room, to distance him from River. He couldn't think of any words, much less any punishment, that would adequately express his anger. In fact, he couldn't account for the gap in the story, like that Jayne had not only not followed through with the murder, but he had proceeded to patch up the living girl. And on top of that, River seemed perfectly at ease, even happy.
"What's your game?"
River jumped up and ran over to Jayne. She tugged at his arm as she pled. "Don't," she whimpered, addressing Mal as much as Jayne.
Jayne ignored her. "No game. Nothing happened," he told Mal calmly.
"And yet my sister is still wounded." Simon said sarcastically.
He looked away, which was, unfortunately for him, to where River was. Tears welled up in her eyes as she gripped his arm.
"You're falling from the sky," she lamented. "So far down…"
"Gotta admit, Jayne," Mal said slowly, "Your story's got an awful lot of holes."
"It's the gorram truth, Mal," Jayne shouted defensively.
"Just sit the hell down and stay put for a spell! Everyone else to the dining room now."
"I don't find it hard to buy that Jayne lost it and tried to kill River," Mal said quietly. "In fact, I wouldn't put premeditation past him when it comes to her. But this story's full of inconsistencies. And people tend to be most inconsistent when they're lyin', so…"
"It's obvious that she's hurt," Simon pointed out. "So now we know he tried to murder my sister and we just wanna talk about it?
"Mal's right," Inara interjected. "We don't know anything."
Zoe raised an eyebrow. "Why would he lie about it?"
"Why does he do anything?" Wash asked rhetorically. "He's a complex machine that runs on sheer stupidity."
"Let's assume he was trying to kill the girl," Book reasoned calmly. "Why not shoot her?"
"Knife was all that was around?" Mal suggested.
"Then why cut her arm and not her throat? Or why not stab her? Any number of ways would've been surer than the one chosen. It doesn't make sense."
"Jayne ain't too bright, preacher," Zoe reminded him.
River now joined the conversation. "Shouldn't talk about angels this way. It's not right."
Mal rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the matter at hand. "This brings us to the other thing that don't add up," he said, indicating River.
"Could be her medicine. I'm trying a new one today and this could be a side affect. Or the result of several. Like disassociation and restlessness…"
"Medicine made me sad," River said, hugging her arm close to her body. "I couldn't feel anything. And I wanted to see if I was still real…"
Jayne, who had come in while the girl was speaking, much to the dismay of the others, spoke quietly but urgently to her. "Shut your trap, girl. I ain't doin' this for fun, y'know."
"Doin' what, Jayne?"
"Tellin' the truth," he lied.
"That's just it," Mal said. "Y'ain't tellin' us the truth."
"Well, that's not really a consensus yet," Wash said.
"But nothing happened," Jayne insisted, upset that his lie wasn't going over well, though it was hardly an unexpected outcome, given his record.
Mal sighed. "Somethin' did happen. It must've. Girl's got herself a cut. Maybe you're innocent, but…"
"Hell, I ain't innocent. You know I tried to kill her."
"No you didn't," Mal protested incredulously.
"You know what I mean," Jayne said pointedly, deliberately attempting to throw Mal off.
Zoe jumped in. "Gonna tell us what did happen today?"
"No," he answered shortly.
"Told you," said River, a hint of pride in her voice. "My protector."
"Shut it, girl," Jayne hissed. "I ain't protectin' you from nothin'. Remember that."
"I don't care what it is you're after, Jayne, but I don't believe you."
"So?" Simon demanded.
"So that's it," Mal said, staring Jayne down, who returned the gesture with equal intensity. "No accusation, no crime."
Despite what the captain had said, a good portion of the crew considered Jayne to be guilty of something. Simon especially had this problem. He watched his sister carefully when Jayne was around, though she was prone to coming as close to him as possible. Jayne didn't seem to mind; in fact, he seemed to be watching her too. At every chance she got, she was showing him her healing wound and talking to him, though he rarely, if ever, replied. Still, they both seemed happy with the way things were. Which, of course, made Simon even unhappier because of the unfounded jealousy being added to his well founded, though incorrect, hatred and suspicions.
Not more than two weeks after the incident, Jayne was again left alone with River. But not nearly as alone as before. Simon, Book, and Kaylee were all still aboard with them. The shepherd and Jayne were working out in the cargo bay, as they were wont to do. And River and Kaylee were playing a game together across the room. Simon was watching them intently, curious as to the aspects of the game that these two had invented and were trying to teach him.
Kaylee was, naturally, very flirtatious and playful in her attempts to teach Simon her game. And he was returning the sentiments. They were very soon so caught up in their own conversation, which had strayed far beyond the game, that they hardly noticed when River rose and went to observe Book and Jayne's exercising. She stood next to Jayne, who was spotting the shepherd.
"Peekaboo," she whispered, poking his upper arm.
"Hi," Jayne laughed. He paused, not knowing how to ask what he wanted to. "How ya doin'? You're not, um…you're happy, right?"
She beamed. "Very."
"Good," he replied, nodding approvingly.
After helping the Shepherd finish his set and watching him walk off, headed for his room for some less-sweat-drenched clothes, Jayne sat down on the stairs and sighed heavily. But it was a sigh less of melancholy and more of bittersweet contentment. River sat down on the step next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She took his hand and intertwined their fingers delicately. Even though he wasn't looking at her face, Jayne knew she was smiling, and he liked that he had made her happy. There was an odd feeling in his chest, like everything would be all right. He wondered if that was what love felt like, though he knew without a doubt that it was.
Fin