Title: Need

Fandom: Firefly/Serenity

Pairing: Rayne

Disclaimer: Yeah. Right.

A/N: So I'm actually rather proud of this one. Hope it's not too OOC. Sort of thinking about expanding it to a two-shot, one from Jayne's point of view. Thoughts?

It didn't make sense.

She had mentally run through countless calculations, situations, examples and possibilities. She had studied and questioned and watched.

She knew things before they were. Bullets, Reavers, or bad weather - she saw it all.

But this, this…this…thing… She didn't understand it, hadn't expected it. It had just sprung up and attacked her out of nowhere.

Okay, so not completely out of nowhere. She had always hoped, and even come to expect, that her innocent curiosity and his grudging admiration would somehow combine and evolve into something...more. But the desire, the raging, fiery desire in all of its burning intensity, had caught her completely by surprise. Then she had almost gotten used to it, to the flame that spread through her entire body at even the slightest of his touches, when she realized that those feelings were once again giving way to something new. Yearning and craving and more than a little bit of lust (on both their parts) had somehow changed into a raw, passionate, all-consuming sense of pure need. It washed over her completely until she was certain she could never live without him, wasn't quite sure how she ever had.

Yes. She needed him, and it confused her.

She was used to needing the others, she had always needed the others (she had needed them before she even knew them, she thinks, and she knew them from the start). She needed Simon to keep her sane and she needed the Captain to keep her safe. She needed Kaylee and Inara because they taught her how to be a girl again. She needed Zoe and the memories of their Lost Ones, because it was from them that she learned how to truly grieve, and that moving on didn't mean forgetting.

She had always needed all of them, but now she only really needed him.

She needed him, not because of any one thing he said or did, but just because he was. Because he was Jayne and she was River. Because through their bickering and their teasing and their never-ending fights, they had managed to build something. Because with one touch, one whisper, he could simultaneously make her feel more vulnerable than she had ever been, and more at peace than she had ever thought was possible. Because he made her whole.

They had gone from the fiercest of opponents to one indestructible weapon, eternally locked in a deadly, feverish dance. They were partners, they were friends. He was her anchor and she was his light. And although it had taken quite some time before either was ready to admit it aloud, they both knew that they were better together than apart.

It didn't mean that they never fought anymore. He could be such a boob sometimes, and every once in a while she had to kick him hard so as to dislodge his head from his pi gu. But they kept each other on their toes and that made life exciting.

River and Jayne. The crazy girl and the big merc.

It didn't make any sense at all, and yet right in that moment -him down on one knee, fumbling for the right words and scared out of his mind- she saw that they made all the sense in the 'Verse.