On his perch above the street, Mal wanted to curse aloud, but his breath was supremely occupied. He focused on taking deep breaths into his lungs and releasing them as slowly as possible as he monitored the gallows through his scope. It was one of the core lessons in sniper training - exhaling slows the heart, helping to still the body and steady the hands. He inhaled again as the deputy finishes speaking and stepped behind Jayne. There was only one narrow chance to make this shot. Too early and the hanging would be disrupted, but with Jayne still in the lawmens' custody. A second late and Jayne would be dead. The deputy put his boot on the prop and Mal began to exhale.
Deputy Stacey kicked the support out, Jayne dropped and Mal fired.
The bullet struck the dusty ground several meters behind the gallows, a complete miss. {Motherfucker!}"Gun ni mar!" Mal hissed and forcefully re-cocked the rifle. He had had half an hour to perfect the first shot and it had missed. Now he had to aim and fire in an instant, with the rope shaking as Jayne writhed and convulsed at the end of it. Mal sighted in the four inch by four inch beam that the rope was tied to. It was a larger target and if he could put a tight cluster of rounds into the middle of it, it might weaken under Jayne's weight and break.
Mal fired, the shot hit home, and the beam exploded, bursting into a hail of wooden shards. "Huh."
Jayne fell free to the ground, the noose taut around his neck. Immediately, Zoe burst forth from her place at the edge of the crowd and ran to him. She hauled him to his feet, clawing at the rope as she jammed a shoulder under his armpit. "I can't carry you, Cobb. Move your feet!" Feebly Jayne tried to obey, stumbling as much as walking and threatening to take Zoe down with him every few steps.
The first shot had Deputy Stacey reaching for his weapon and looking for its origin. The second, destructive shot sent both deputies scrambling down the steps, into the thick of the crowd as it pressed forward to see what was happening. Fighting their way through the crush was a losing prospect. By the time they reached the front of the crowd, their prisoner was gone.
Mumbling frantic prayers, Kaylee appeared at Jayne's other side. She was neither tall nor strong enough to help support him, but she tried.
"{Run!} Zou le!" Zoe shouted at her. "Get the engine running."
Kaylee raced to the near-by alley where the mule waited, her lug-soled boots tossing up puffs of dust. Jumping on, she cranked the engine and tore down the street to Zoe and a collapsing Jayne. Kaylee hopped as quickly off to help Zoe lower Jayne onto the wide, flat cargo platform, tucking his long legs up before they both climbed on, and she gunned the mule down a side street.
"You were supposed to stay with the mule," Zoe shouted over the engine. "Where were you?" Zoe turned and struggled with the noose. She felt for a pulse. It was there, almost hidden by the vibrations of the fractious old vehicle, but it felt frighteningly weak.
"I'm sorry...I just..." Kaylee turned down a parallel street, racing to rendezvous with their captain, "I couldn't see him."
"We'll talk about this later, believe it."
Tears stung at Kaylee's eyes as she hazarded a glance over her shoulder at Jayne. His color was bad and he lay perfectly still, save when a jostle of the mule made his vacant face tilt to one side. He was dying, or already dead, she just knew it. So bound was Kaylee with the ashen face behind her that she nearly ran over Mal. She whipped her head around in time to see him jump out of the way. Kaylee gasped as she pounded the brake.
{Goddamn} "Tsao gao! What the hell, Kaylee?!"
"Zoe's already gonna yell at me later."
Mal climbed on, snugging himself between the two women. Three people on the mule made for a very tight fit. It would have been fine fodder for a man's personal time, if not for the hulking gun-hand dying two feet behind him. "How's he doin'?"
"I think he's still alive."
"You think?"
"I think."
Within a few minutes, they had put the center of the settlement behind them as they raced for the remote landing site. For the entire trip, Zoe kept her station, twisted half around to keep one hand on Jayne. Even as the mule pitched and bounced on the rocky ground, he did not stir.
"Do we go after them?" Deputy Lonnie asked his brother.
"I swear to god, Lonnie, if you was any dumber, we'd have to water you. Yes, we got after them! You wanna tell Dad we let him get away?"
"Well, no, but-"
Stacey grabbed Lonnie by one shoulder and shoved him towards the truck.
Simon was prepped and waiting as Zoe and Mal hauled Jayne into the infirmary and on to the examination bed. Mal turned immediately to the intercom panel at the door. **beep** "Wash, how's that jammer holding up?
"In a word, fritzy, but it should keep us hidden from anything older than a Minear 3.0."
"{Understood.} Tingdong. Start the launch sequence. We need to de-ass this planet with quickness."
"She's hot and ready for you, Cap."**beep**
Jayne's body had barely come to a stop before Simon began scanning him. Automatically assuming her ostensibly mandatory role as nurse, Zoe strode to the main screen on the wall, "He was semi-conscious when we got him down. Pulse is up, resps and O2 are all low and dropping."
"Cerebral hypoxia, possible larygneal fracture and pharyngeal trauma," Simon thought aloud, looking at the portable scanner. "He needs an airway." Simon grabbed a lighted scope from a drawer at the same time Zoe produced the intubation kit from another. "Ai ya," Simon breathed harshly as he examined the tumescent tissue inside Jayne's throat.
"Are you gonna have to trake him?" Mal asked from his vigilant place at the doorway. Kaylee clung to the opposite doorjamb.
"Not if I can avoid it," Simon grabbed the tube from Zoe and positioned it within Jayne's slack mouth. With carefully measured force, Simon fed the tube down Jayne's throat, but the swollen tissues pressed hard against him. "I need cricoid pressure. Zoe, give me your hand." Her hand was hovering over Jayne before Simon could look up to reach for it. He placed her strong fingers on Jayne's adam's apple and pressed, "Back and up. If I can't get him intubated in the next 30 seconds, I'll have to crike him."
"Kaylee, you get up to the bridge and keep that jammer on if you have to hold the wires together with your teeth."
"But, Cap'n-"
"Now!"
With one last pained look at Jayne's still form, Kaylee turned and sprinted for the bridge.
The pressure of Zoe's hand bought Simon the scintilla of space he needed to cautiously coerce the tube down Jayne's throat, deep into his trachea. Zoe handed him the end of the tube from the reserve oxygen stored below the bed, which Simon attached in one fluid movement, perfected by repetition. Air hissed through the tube, raising the plane of Jayne's chest slightly. "Chest expansion," Simon announced. He grabbed his stethoscope from its nonchalant place across the back of his neck and listened to the lung, "Breath sounds good bilaterally."
"Sat's coming up," Zoe declared. In the doorway, Mal and Kaylee began to breathe again too.
"I'll start the high-def scan, to tell us if he needs surgical repair." With Jayne stable, Simon counted heads. "Where's River?"
"I sent her back to you."
"You what?!"
Mal hit the com again. **beep** "Wash, did River come back to the ship on her own?"
"Is she missing?"
"That's a no." **beep** Mal could barely get a calloused hand out to stop Simon as he stripped off his gloves and tried to rush from the infirmary. "Where are you going?"
"I've got to find River," Simon said, aghast.
"You've got a patient on the table."
"He's stable."
"Zoe or I can go look for her."
"I have a better chance of finding her."
"What if Jayne takes a turn?"
"Zoe, you got him?"
"Got him."
"Zoe's got him." Simon snatched the com unit from Mal's belt, causing Mal's hand to reflexively go to his gun. "Call me if his pulse ox drops below 85!" Simon yelled back as he raced through the ship.
"Why am I running?" Simon's mind demanded to know as the prairie sun made to scald him. "The mule was sitting right there. I forewent an all-terrain vehicle and am running to town on foot." Arms pumping and feet pounding in three-eight time, two more bubbles of thought burst, "Because I don't know how to drive it and I didn't have the keys," and "{Thank God}Gang zie shen for six years of track." He was a lost cause with a ball in his hand, but Simon could run.
Mal let out a roar as he slowed to a frustrated stop on the cargo ramp, the back of Simon shrinking at a surprising clip.
Kaylee raced down the stairs from the bridge, Wash near behind, "{What's wrong?} Fa sheng shen me shi le?"
"River's bugged out and damn {fool's} shazi's took off after her," Mal gritted out, staring venomously out.
"Alone? By himself?"
"Yes, by himself! Who else is that-" the mule's starting holler severed his lambast. Mal spun around just in time to watch Kaylee speed past.
"Gorram it, am I still captain of this ship?!"
"You'll always be captain of my heart," Wash declared.
"Go be un-funny on the bridge, Wash, we're out of here the second the first one of them comes back."
Embers smoldered in Simon's chest and a fist was clenched in his side, and the town was still damnably far away, as the first real dubiety began to settle on Simon's pounding heart. Suddenly, like a noisy, dirty valkyrie, Kaylee pulled the mule alongside Simon in his ardent run. "Hop on!"
"Does this mean you forgive me?"
"You really want to talk about that now?"
Simon jumped on behind Kaylee, holding her waist as fear of being thrown off and run over proved more powerful than embarrassment or decorum.
If Simon had been honest with Mal, or even himself, he would admit that he did not know where to begin looking for River. She was just one small body in the sprawl of a town, assuming she had even stayed in town. Something inside Simon told him that she had while a seething, protective, brotherly feeling told him to look for Jin to find River. Keeping to alleys and deserted back streets, they meandered through the town as unobtrusively and inconspicuously as possible. Scanning the marketplace and peeping through the windows of shops had proved fruitless. Time was moving faster than they were, with no way to know how long Mal would wait for the last of the lambs to come home. Finally, Simon thought he spied a familiar figure in a cafe. He and Kaylee entered as casually as they could, moving along one wall and scanning for a boy matching Simon's description
"Is that him over there?" Kaylee asked.
Simon fixed his eyes where she pointed and could not stop his jaw as it dropped. "That's not a 'him'." In the corner of his vision, he saw Kaylee cover her mouth with both hands as she gasped. The skinny 'boy' in the out-sized clothed, with black hair cut short up around the ears, stared with wide, chocolate brown eyes to where Jin sat and smiled, making time with a lanky blond girl with a button nose. Simon watched River's fists clench as Jin leaned over and kissed the girl. Eyes shimmering with tears, River turned and hurried out.
"C'mon," Kayle said, dragging Simon by the arm. "We'll pick her up out back. You gotta act like you didn't see any of that."
"She's my sister and she's upset-"
"She just got her heart stomped on and doesn't need you and your {consistently useless} jing-tzahng mei yong-duh tongue right now. Just let me talk to her."
Kaylee pulled the mule up beside River, who dropped out of her run at the sound of their approach. "Hey, honey, I almost didn't recognize you. We need to get back to the ship {on the double} ma shang or Cap'n'll leave without us."
Lips set in a firm line, River only nodded and climbed on between her brother and her friend. They rode back to Serenity in silence.
Life is uncertain. Time is irrelevant. Even the concepts of light and dark become stupifyingly difficult for a brain deprived of oxygen. Jayne heard and saw, or imagined, he could not be sure. Comprehension was completely beyond him. Hands touched his body at some point, faces floated in front of him, then the darkness came up around him again, as if he were in tar, slow, heavy and inescapable. Sometimes sinking, sometimes floating, words found him like water snakes in a primal river.
"What you won't do to avoid work. Enjoy your sopor, 'cuz you're on septic vac til further notice."
"I've known necrotizing faciitis, and you, sir, are no necrotizing faciitis."
"Jayne Cobb, you've been judged and found wanting."
"Oh, that's just mean."
There was quiet cry -wasn't there?- and voices hushed politely. River's whisper sounded close enough that her breath should have been warm on his ear," {You're dead? Let me fix that with some reincarnation magic.}Ni bai sha she le? Rang wo yong shu lai she ni fu huo," before she faded into the murk as well.
An alien individual sat tight to the wall of the bottom step of the rear stairs. Freezing at the top, Mal reached for his gun. Being a three days in the black, however, he did not have it. Irrespective of that, he still had his strength - command presence. "Don't take kindly to stowaways," he warned
"Not stowaway, castaway," the dove-like voice sniffled quietly.
"River?" Cautiously, Mal descended, his eyes adjusting to the dim. Simon and Kaylee had, separately, taken pains to avoid him outside of any interaction inescapably job-related. He had only had report from Wash that River had been recovered, she having kept herself entirely to herself since, which suited him fine. Now he found her sitting alone, staring at nothing in particular, her hair trimmed sharp like a pixie's. Something had definitely happened. Not that he cared. The girl and her brother and his own besotted mechanic had been more than their fair share of trouble. Still, he did cut a pathetic figure, sat there all downcast. He sat on the step below hers. "Who cut your hair?"
"I did, then Inara."
Mal did not relish the idea of River with sharp things in her hand, whether she meant to use them on herself or someone else. "We gonna need a 'no touching scissors' rule around here?"
"It was a razor. Fell out of the Shepherd's bag." It has lain there on the floor of the passenger dorm corridor, a spark of inspiration, a beacon drawing her. It was slightly open, just enough for the blade to glint in the light, parted and tempting like the legs of a lover. River picked it up, holding it with gentle guidance like a cello bow, as it spoke to her. 'I am here,' it said, 'I will help you. Trust in me.'
"So, what's his name?"
The beamish voice yanked River out of her memory. Her head immediately snapped to Mal, 'How did you know?' so plain on her face.
"Can't think of anything else would make a seventeen year old do something so drastic," he smiled beatifically.
"Jin," the pang of adolescent sorrow dominated the syllable.
"Ah well, I wouldn't worry too much on the losing then. Jin's a girl's name anyway."
A grin nearly animated River's mouth, but she trapped it, the effort making a cute pout of her lips, "No, it's not."
"Of course it is. I had a great-aunt Jean."
"That's not the same; homonym."
"What did you call me?"
The grin outfoxed River this time and grew into a full-blown smile. Mal smiled too, to see the girl under all the hardship and sorrow. They sat in silence for a while, listening as the climate control cycled on with a dull chunk and air whispered through the ducts.
"Incendiary round. Nice touch, by the way."
"Even Shepherd "Keep 'Em Guessing" Book couldn't make that shot."
"That was in the plan? You knew I'd miss, but you let me take the shot anyway, and you reckoned I'd shoot for the beam next?"
River shrugged one shoulder.
"Sure'n I don't know what's going on anymore."
"You never did."
Someone was singing when Jayne reached the surface again. "Oh, you've got green eyes/
Oh, you've got blue eyes/
Oh, you've got gray eyes/
And I've never seen anyone quite like you before/
No, I've never met anyone quite like you before." It was surely no church hymn Jayne had ever heard, so he reasoned that he must still be alive. The next thing he was consciously, and immediately, aware of was the fire in his throat. Yes, he was definitely alive. He rallied the strength to creak open one eye. The infirmary shifted into focus. His gaze landed on River where she sat on the counter bed, looking seraphic with a gold scarf, surely one of Inara's, draping her head. "Ah," she said knowingly, "the sleeper wakes."
Simon appeared above Jayne, pulling his up his eyelids and blinding him with a vindictive sun in the form of a pen-light. "Don't try to talk. You've got a tube down your throat to help you breath. Do you understand?" Jayne's head twitched in the affirmative. Holding up two fingers, like V for victory, Simon asked, "Show me how many fingers you see." Lifting his forearms from the bed, Jayne held up two fingers, one on each hand. Simon smirked, "Prognosis is good."
The ship was largely settled for the night when a noise caught Jayne's ear. From his compulsory place on the bed, Jayne lifted his head to see Zoe slid into the infirmary. She was already dressed to retire, a style in which she would normally not be seen, in a silky kimono that stopped scandalously shy of mid-thigh. She came to stand beside his shoulder, "How are you feeling?"
Jayne wobbled a spread hand. The breathing tube had been removed, which felt rather like vomiting a welding torch, but he still could not speak. A clutch of scrap paper and a pen sat on the counter nearby to facilitate communication. He was prone to breathing troubles and fainting spells and so was shackled by Simon's orders to stay in the infirmary on the monitors.
In atypical tenderness, Zoe's hand came to rest on Jayne's arm. "Good work not dying. The place wouldn't have been the same without you." Jayne looked from Zoe's hand back to her face, at the light in her eyes he simply could not rate. "You say something sexual; I say something violent. You try to see me naked in the shower; I try to break you nose." She picked a piece of fluff from his hair with dexterous fingertips and smiled down at him softly. "I like the system we've got." Moving down to the end of the bed, Zoe trailed her fingers along Jayne's leg, "Actually there's a lot about you I like." She stood poised with her hands on the sash of her kimono. "Now is your chance, Jayne Cobb. After years of chasing, it's time for the kill. All you have to do I say it, say you want me." With that, she threw open her kimono, exposing her creamy bronze glory. Zoe tried not to smirk as Jayne's eyes bulged out of his head. "Don't you want me, Jayne?"
Jayne's mouth opened, but only a gravelly rattle issued forth.
Zoe snapped her kimono closed and tied the sash tightly. "Well, I can't say I'm not a little disappointed. Maybe in the next life. Good night, Jayne."
Jayne grunted and groaned, frantically reaching for his pen, as Zoe turned on her heel and strode out, laughing wickedly.
In the cockpit, Mal's head snapped towards the strange cacophony in his ship. "What in the name of {God} Tien and sonny {Jesus} Yesoo is that?"
"That," Wash could not help but smirk, "if I had to venture a guess, would be my Zoe's sadistic sexy-evil laugh."
"You might have to stop smiling there, chippy."
{Huh?}"Shen me?"
"If you're in here with me, who's she doing sexy-evil laugh for in there?"
Two weeks since taking off from Tiberinus for the final time, there was laughter in the dim evening light of the galley as Serenity's crew gathered together for their supper, though the din was missing a certain baritone. His voice still suffering the effects of the aborted hanging, Jayne was forced to meter his talking, saving his vocal strength for only the choicest snipes and innuendo. Swallowing was difficult from time to time, so due attention had to be paid to thoroughly chewing solid food. They were fair exchanges, Jayne knew, for the price of his life.
Mal took a sip from his mug to keep from choking as he maintained the effort to talk, laugh and eat simultaneously. "I know the womenfolk accuse us of being led around by the {dangly piece of meat} zhandou de yi kuai rou, but damn, Jayne, don't you even get a vote?"
Another wave of laughter crested and Jayne swatted it down with his hand. Everyone quieted a little to listen. Jayne spoke with a gravely hoarseness that wore off a bit more each day, "I ain't tumbled Wash yet."
Tittering and eating simultaneously caught up with Inara too, who coughed around a dainty morsel of bread. Mal patted her back, his hand lingering warmly between her shoulders. All eyes turned to Wash, who sat looking something between horrified and dejected. "You said it was special, you said I was the only one!" Sobbing dramatically, fists over his eyes, Wash turned against his wife's shoulder.
"There, there,{precious} baobei, he said the same thing to me."
Now the crew could hardly speak for want of breath as the hilarity overtook them again. At the other end of the table, River basked in the golden, sparkling euphonia. Each peel of joyous noise was like the ringing of a bell, clear and bold through the mist. Another note joined it in harmony. Next to her, beneath the table, Kaylee reached over tentatively and took Simon's hand. Tentatively too, Simon interlaced his fingers with hers and dared a sidelong glance to see her smile.
Silently, Serenity glided through the vast, black expanses of space, her heart glowing.
Fin
;~',~
Words alone are not do enough to thank that marvelous blaxploitation librarian Adverbia Jones for all her help, especially not my words.
Dedicated to Alan Francis, who is now officially a bigger procrastinator than me.