“It got spines?”

“No.”

“Scales?”

“No.”

“Stripes?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Jayne turned the new information over in his head. “So it's animal, bigger'n a breadbox, smaller'n an Alliance cruiser, got a tail, four legs, stripes...” Oddly enough, the game was helping him focus; or rather, it was helping him not focus on the ache in his head and the growing cramp in his side. Blinking sweat out of his eyes, he asked, “It a tiger?”

Simon didn't answer. The doctor had been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past hour, and the periods between wakefulness and unconsciousness were getting shorter and shorter. It was also getting harder to wake the younger man up, but Jayne didn't let that stop him.

“Hey!” he barked in Simon's ear. “Wake up! Answer the question!”

“Huh?” Simon looked up blearily. “Wha'...”

“I asked if you was thinkin' 'bout a tiger,” Jayne snapped.

“What? Oh... not really, no.”

Jayne frowned. “The hell you mean, not really? You was either thinkin' of a tiger or you wasn't.”

Simon's eyes closed. “Tiger,” he mumbled. “River had a kitten once. Siamese. Named him Tiger because she liked to be contrary.” His shoulders shifted as he chuckled quietly. “Such a little brat...”

“Yeah, well, some things never change, huh?” Jayne muttered, hoisting the doctor over a dip in the landscape; it was easier than trying to get the doctor's legs to move. Jayne's shoulder blades were itching at how slow they were moving. Those fellas with the guns were going to be after them still; he didn't trust them to let two wounded targets get away. Any moment now he expected to see the flicker of a laser sight in the corner of his eye, a split second before getting a bullet through the back of his head.

“I was going to be a veterinarian,” Simon rambled.

“Yeah? Ain't that fascinatin',” Jayne said, ignoring him to focus on the path ahead.

“Mm-hmm,” Simon affirmed with a vague nod of his head. “Till I was seven, I was going to be a veterinarian.” He gave an ambiguous wave of his hand, stumbling a little. “Would practice on my stuffed animals. Mom stopped buying me new ones when I did an autopsy on my teddy bear.”

“Shiny,” Jayne muttered.

“When River was born, I changed my mind,” Simon mumbled. “Read everything I could on babies and obstetrics.” He chuckled again, sounding more than a little off his rocker. “Some of those pictures... If I'd been older, I'd have gone off sex completely.”

Jayne snickered. “Nice.”

“Decided I wanted to be a surgeon,” the doctor continued, lost in his thoughts. “People... The way people are put together...” He shook his head, as if in amazement. “You wouldn't believe, Jayne. The intricacy. Like... like...” He grasped for a simile. “Like a gun,” he finally said, probably because he figured Jayne could understand that.

“A gun, huh?” Jayne humored him. If the doctor hadn't been at death's door, Jayne would have almost found his rambling funny. When they got out of this, he was going to have to get the younger man drunk, let him loose. That'd be a riot.

If they got out of this.

“Yeah,” Simon said, nodding again as he warmed to his topic. “Yeah, a gun. Bits and pieces that all....fit. And because of the way they fit, if one little thing is off, the whole mechanism stops working. It just... shuts down.”

“Or backfires,” Jayne muttered.

“Yeah,” Simon agreed hazily. “Yeah, sometimes it backfires...” His eyes went blank, and Jayne wondered if he was thinking of his sister.

“You still with me, Doc?” Jayne asked, giving the other man a little shake. The sun was lower on the horizon now, painting the landscape a brilliant orange, and it made the doctor's pale skin a sickly shade of yellow.

“Hmmm? Oh.” Simon rubbed his eyes. “What... what was I saying?”

“Something about people being guns.”

“Yeah... right... guns that work...” The doctor squinted, as if trying to see inside his own head to find the thread of his thoughts.

Jayne concentrated on their footsteps, ignoring the way the ground seemed to spin; ignoring the throbbing ache in his head from where that bullet had grazed him. His mouth felt like sandpaper and his eyes were burning from the struggle of fighting against the sun all afternoon. The cramp in his side from marching this far with no water while keeping Simon upright was starting to become unbearable. Not that he'd let Simon know that; Jayne Cobb wasn't a man who bent easy to any strain.

“I killed my first patient.” Jayne blinked, coming out of his thoughts as Simon started talking again. The doctor didn't look like he was particularly paying attention to what he was saying. “He wasn't real,” he continued, in that same vague, half-awake tone. “He was a... what's it called... VR. Virtual reality. The whole thing, it felt real. Like I was really in the operating theater, nurses around, and the anesthesiologist was wearing really pretty perfume...” He chuckled, but it quickly turned into a sigh. “He was in for heart surgery. VR Man; heart surgery for a blocked artery. And I remember... I remember I was fine until we spread his ribs.” He shivered. “It's not like in books. The way things move....”

He slumped completely against Jayne. “I don't feel too good,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, well, you look like hell,” Jayne agreed. “We ain't stoppin' neither. Not till we find somewhere out of the way.” His shoulder blades were itching again.

“Twenty questions. Your turn,” Simon muttered as Jayne dragged him along.

“Busy,” Jayne grunted. “You go.”

“Tell me about the first man you killed?”

Jayne furrowed his brow. “That ain't how the game works, boy.”

“I told you mine. You tell me yours.”

Jayne sighed in irritation. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But just so's you know, all this talk don't mean we're bonding. I'm not gonna start braidin' yer hair at night or nothin'.”

“Perish the thought.”

Jayne snorted. “Yeah, well, anyway. He was a grunt for some high profile crime boss. Me and my crew at the time, we were s'posed to knock over this boss's vault, steal back some of our employer's hard earned coin. The grunt got in my way, so I shot him.” His lips skimmed back from his teeth as he grinned. “Got a nice bonus from that job. Went out and found me some mighty fine trim.”

Simon let out a huff of laughter. “You really are an ape,” he muttered, sounding more lucid than he had in hours.

“Hey, least I get some, Doc.”

“Okay, so how about the first man you saw die. Tell me about that.”

Jayne frowned down at the ground. The shadows cast by the setting sun were making it hard to gauge distance and depth. He had to step careful to keep from twisting his ankle on a loose stone. “What makes you think it ain't the same thing?” he asked.

“I realize you're a gun-obsessed freak of nature, but I doubt even you killed a man on your first job. You must have seen someone else do it first.”

Jayne grunted noncommittally. “Why're you so obsessed with death, huh?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the trail they were leaving. Gorrammit, a blind man with no feet could follow that.

“I'm dying,” Simon mumbled, voice fading again, his brief period of lucidity gone. “It's kind of on my mind...”

“Shut up,” Jayne snapped. “You think I’m gonna let you die, after draggin’ your scrawny ass all over hell's half acre?” He threw a glance over his shoulder and frowned. On the purple horizon, back the way they'd come, dust was rising.

Swearing under his breath he tightened his grip on the half-conscious man and tried to ignore the little voice in his head telling him to drop the Doc and make a run for it. “Stow it,” he hissed to himself, picking up speed. “Ain’t got time for this go se. We've got company.”

“They're going to kill us,” Simon murmured with a creepy little laugh. “We've been running all day, and they're going to kill us anyway.”

“Shut UP,” Jayne repeated. “They ain't gonna kill us.”

“What are you going to do to stop them?”

“I'll think of somethin',” Jayne muttered.

“Thought you said we’d find them here?” Zoe’s voice was stoic as she looked at Mal.

“They should be here. Patience said I knew the place, and this is it.”

“I recognize it, sir. But I don’t see ‘em.”

“That’s because they left,” River announced. She was standing to Mal and Zoe’s left, looking critically at a dead man whose brains had been blown out of the back of his head. “Jayne has no finesse,” she murmured to herself.

“I count five dead men,” Wash called loudly from the Firefly docking bay. “Seems the rumors of Jayne and Simon’s demise are highly misleading.”

“But where are they now?” Kaylee interrupted. She was standing beside Wash, her eyes puffy from crying. “They been gone all day and this place is a desert.”

“We’ll find them, mei-mei, don’t worry.” Inara’s voice was calm. “Jayne knows what he’s doing.”

“But Simon doesn’t!” the little mechanic retorted. “Besides, how do we know Jayne won’t just leave him behind?”

“’Cause I’d kill him if he did,” Mal replied as he climbed up the docking ramp, Zoe behind him. “Come on, River. We’ll never find them if we just sit around. They’re obviously not here.”

He turned when River didn’t respond, watching her as she stopped near a gritty puddle of half-dried blood. She leaned over it, her long hair almost trailing in it, before she turned to face him, her face stricken.

“River?”

“It’s Simon’s,” she whispered fiercely. “It’s Simon’s.”

Zoe stepped off the ramp and moved to River’s side, gently grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her away. “If he’s bleeding, means he’s still alive. Come on, River—we won’t find him if we stand around here.”

The boy under him was yelling and flailing, only occasionally getting in a lucky shot. Bennie’s face was all bloody and his nose was broken, but he was still mad and getting madder with every hit Jayne landed.

With a heave, Bennie knocked Jayne off balance enough to roll over, getting his knees under him and cracking Jayne in the eye with a fist.

The other boys surrounding them were yelling encouragement, voices sliding over each other and words disappearing into the noise in Jayne’s head.

He couldn’t even really remember why they were fighting, except that Bennie had said something about Mattie being too little to be good for anything except being a fink. And then Jayne had made some comments about Bennie’s sisters and their line of work, and the next thing Jayne knew, here they were, rolling around on the ground trying to beat the snot out of each other.

His ma was going to be mad about him fighting again, especially with his birthday only two days ago, and his pa depending on him now to take care of things when pa was off working on the rig. Fourteen year olds are considered old enough to make their own decisions, and the first thing Jayne had decided (besides the fact that Kelsey Wheeler was mighty pretty) was that he was done with school.

His Grandpa had laughed, clapping him on the back and wheezing. “Don’t need schooling for real life, boy!” he had said.

His ma hadn’t been happy.

But, getting in a fight over nothing two days after he called himself a man, well, Jayne was willing to admit it wasn’t the brightest thing he had done. But men fight, and right now, he was busy rubbing Bennie’s face in the dirt.

When Bennie finally kicked out at him, nearly catching him in the crotch, Jayne staggered back a few steps. He and Bennie blinked at each other.

“I gotta get home to my chores, Jayne,” the other boy panted. “Hurry up and fall down already.”

“I ain’t gonna fall down,” Jayne smirked. “I don’t fall down, and you don’t got the strength to knock me down, neither.”

Bennie rolled his eyes, touching the back of his hand to his split lip. “It’s getting dark, Jayne,” he said. His voice was nearly a whine. “I’m supposed to go over to Julie Beckett’s tonight and see her pa about something.”

“Well,” Jayne said thoughtfully, fists still up in front of him in case Bennie tried anything. “You look like hell.”

Bennie glared. “Can we finish this later?”

Jayne shrugged agreeably. “Your ma is still ugly.”

Bennie glared and took a step towards him, muttering under his breath, but Jayne just grinned, swiping at the blood on his forehead. Bennie stopped and glared, trying to get himself back under control.

Jayne smirked to himself as he headed back home. It was getting hard to find a decent tussle around town anymore. All the boys anywhere near his age knew what had happened to Nikolas Locke the last time he tried to start something. Jayne puffed his chest out with a little bit of guilty pride. That had been the first time he had sent someone to the hospital in a fight before. There had been a lot of blood.

His ma had been real upset, Jayne remembered. Even though Nikolas had deserved it.

He squinted at the figures in front of his house, trying to figure out why everybody was outside standing around. He could tell his ma, but there was another man standing there, looking like he was helping Janna to her feet. But it wasn’t pa or grandpa, and Jayne wasn’t sure who else would have come around. The Cobbs didn’t have much for visitors, and he didn’t think that ma’s sister would be over this late in the year.

The man’s hand moved on ma’s arm, and Jayne realized with alarm that he hadn’t been helping her up. He had been keeping her from running. Jayne hustled, sharp eyes studying the man with her. As he got closer, the man started to look a little bit familiar. He looked a little like one of the men who worked on the rig with pa. Some guy named Russell who his pa had told Jayne was one of those hungry men who didn’t want to work for their own money. They just wanted everything given to them.

And right now, it looked like one of those things Russell wanted given was Jayne’s ma. She slapped him hard, but he was stronger and had her arm bent back at a funny angle.

“Hey!” Jayne yelled, running across the yard towards the two of them. “You let her go!”

Russell laughed as he caught sight of Jayne, rotting teeth flashing. He looked more like a half crazed wolf than a man.

Janna flinched away as he tried to pull her closer again. “Jayne, baby,” she ordered. “You stay out of this.”

“He’s hurting you, Ma.” Jayne never took his eyes off of the man in front of him. By the looks of it, Russell was well on his way to being stinking drunk, but he was still on his feet and still a danger.

“I’m fine,” she told him shortly, gasping with pain as Russell swung them around to face Jayne fully, Russell pulling out a six shooter and cocking it in one motion.

Jayne tried to stop, a thrill of fear running down his back as the gun swung up to point directly at Jayne’s forehead.

Janna moaned. “Please, Mr. Russell, he’s just a boy.” She tugged on his arm as well as she could and the gun wavered in Russell’s hand as he turned his attention towards her. “We don’t need to get violent,” she pleaded. “I’m sure we can find you something to eat, and then you can be on your way.”

“Your husband stole from me,” Russell spit. “I ain’t leaving ‘til I get it back.” He leered at Janna, pulling her closer so he could whisper in her ear. “Or something of equal value to me.”

She shuddered and Jayne couldn’t help it. “You chou wang ba dan,” the boy growled at the man in front of him. “Get your hands offa my ma.”

Russell brought the gun back up as Jayne stepped forward, pressing it to Jayne’s forehead. Jayne was almost mad enough not to care, but he stopped. He couldn’t do anything if he got his brains blown out by this sick piece of gou shi. He flinched at the cool feel of the steel, and Russell was pressing so hard he knew the barrel was going to leave a pretty good bruise.

If he got out of this without a hole in his head.

His ma was whimpering in fear, eyes fixed to the gun pressed to her son’s head, and she was begging Russell. Jayne couldn’t understand the words. He was fixated on the feel of steel and the mocking amusement in Russell’s eyes.

“You let that boy go.”

The drawling voice made Russell jump, the gun rubbing hard against Jayne’s brow bone as Russell’s attention shifted to the old man making his way slowly towards them. Adam was grizzled and more stooped than he used to be, but he was still a big man. And he didn’t take kindly to people holding guns on his kinfolk.

“Let him go,” Adam ordered again. “And get your ugly hands off of my son’s wife.”

Russell smirked, obviously not seeing the old man as a threat to whatever plan he had. “Why should I?” he asked, tightening his grip on Janna’s arm possessively. “Your son is a thief,” he spit. “Why should Cobb get a raise, when I’m the one been fired for no reason?” The gun swung away from Jayne for a second to focus on Adam. Jayne took a deep breath, trying to edge away. “No, you don’t, boy,” Russell ordered without even looking, gun swinging back abruptly. “You try and run and I shoot you.”

“Boy ain’t worth it.” Adam shook his head. “Boy ain’t worth wasting the ammo to kill him.”

Jayne flinched from his ’s words. Adam had always thought Jayne was too soft, too much of a boy to make it as a man. But Jayne thought that now, today, he’d have a chance to prove himself. Show him that he was strong and could take care of things.

But he never got the chance.

Russell laughed, looking over the boy in front of him. “Guess you’re right, old man.” The gun shifted from Jayne’s forehead, dropping and firing in one motion. Jayne grabbed his leg with a shout of pain as he fell to the ground. He could hear Russell laughing, and Jayne opened blurry eyes as another shot rang out.

The world went into slow motion as Adam fell, blood rolling down his face from the hole in his temple.

“No,” Jayne choked. “No!”

River was screaming--not just a little scream, either. It was the kind of scream that could melt the wax in a man's ears.

“Ren ci de shang di!” Mal exclaimed, jumping from his seat in the cockpit. “What the hell's goin' on? We crashing?”

“Not last I checked!” Wash called back, sticking his fingers in his ears and wincing against the sound.

The girl had been hovering in the cockpit door since they’d got back on Serenity, muttering to herself, while Kaylee stood ineffectually beside her, wringing her hands. Now, River’s mouth was distended from the scream. Mal hesitated a moment, then lunged for her, wrapping his arms around her waist and clapping a hand over her mouth. “Bi zui!” he barked into her face. She struggled against his hold but he didn't let go. “I've had a bad enough gorram day without you makin' it ten kinds of worse by splittin' my eardrums! Now shut it!”

To his surprise, River stopped screaming and went limp in his arms. “Uh... You done screamin' now?” he asked, because better safe than sorry.

She nodded glumly.

Very carefully, Mal took his hand away from the girl's mouth. When she didn't immediately start going banshee again, he cautiously released her and took a few steps away. She remained slumped in the doorway, looking lost.

“So, you want to explain what that little outburst was about?” Mal asked, leaning against the console as Wash took his fingers from his ears.

River gazed at them, those dark eyes of hers unblinking. “Disappearing,” she murmured. “Fading, like the sun.”

“You talkin' 'bout your brother?” Mal asked.

“Brother and the bear,” she murmured, nodding.

“I tell you what, pretty soon Jayne is going to have the market cornered on big hairy mammal similes,” Wash commented. Mal shot him a warning look.

“We're lookin' for 'em now, little witch,” Mal responded, turning back to the girl in the hatchway. “Soon as we find any sign of 'em, we'll let you know.”

River shook her head, eyes starting to shine a little. “Too late,” she whimpered. “Too late, too late, you'll take too long!”

With solid footsteps, she strode into the cockpit, stopped directly in front of Mal, and shot an arm out to the side, forcing Wash to sit back in his seat or risk getting punched in the nose.

She was pointing at a point on the navigation screen, staring up into Mal's face.

“We need to go here,” she told him firmly. Then, to impress her point, she added, “NOW.”

The patch of tall grass stuck out like a sore thumb on the bumpy landscape, but it was the nearest thing to cover Jayne could find. Of course that also meant it was the first place the hun dans on their tail were going to look when they got here, but hopefully by then Jayne would have some kind of plan for how he was going to kill them, as opposed to vice versa.

Simon had passed out already, loss of blood and the pain in his leg too much to handle. The mercenary unceremoniously dumped the doctor into the grass, where the younger man folded up like a rag doll. Jayne flopped down into the grass as well, trying not to concentrate on how glad his throbbing feet were that they didn't have to keep walking, or how happy his pounding head was that the sun was almost completely below the horizon.

Rolling onto his back with a groan, he stared up at the soft violet sky. Stars were already beginning to shine against their velvety backdrop. As the night got darker they'd get brighter; when he was a kid he used to think that was funny. Everything else got dark, but the stars just got brighter. His mama used to laugh with him about that; called him her bright-eyed boy.

His grandpa put a stop to that right quick.

He snorted. His grandpa had the right of it. Stars weren't something to be excited about; they were little spotlights. He'd killed enough men by starlight to know it was just as good as daylight to the right kind of eyes.

“Guess yer right, Doc,” he muttered. “We're gonna die. Bastards are gonna get us, and I don't got one single idea how the hell to stop 'em.”

He felt a moment of brilliant, incandescent anger. They shouldn't've ever even been on this gorram rock. Patience owned this moon; everyone knew that. Hell, Mal knew that better'n most; but he still went ahead and took the job. Jayne always knew an idiot decision was going to kill him, but he’d always somehow thought it would be his idiot decision that did the trick.

“I die here, Mal,” he muttered, “I swear, I'm comin' back and hauntin' yer ass.”

There didn't seem much else to do now but lie here and wait. He had a little ammo left, so they weren't totally defenseless. They'd be in good shape if the bad guys decided to attack armed with pom-poms and feather pillows.

Simon's breathing was raspy and shallow, and try as he might Jayne couldn't block it out. He didn't really fancy the idea of listening to the younger man die. Sure, he'd been around enough dead people that corpses didn't bother him much; well, not unless they were Reaver-done corpses. He didn't like to think about the Reaver-done corpses. But regular folk who died in regular ways he could handle: bullet holes; stab wounds; hell, old age. Usually he was the one who'd done the killin' in the first place, so he really didn't have much call to be getting skittish. But there was something creepy about watching someone fade away, especially when it wasn't someone who'd particularly done him wrong. In fact, on more than one occasion, Doc had even saved his life. His Grandpa had told him once that once someone saved your life, you owed them and, much as he hated to admit it, he owed Simon. The younger man might be an annoyance--a prissy, prettified, starch-collared, anal-retentive, pain in the ass annoyance--but still... Man hadn’t killed him when he’d had the chance that time on Belleraphon, and he knew how to stitch up holes without much of a scar. That kind of skill came in handy in Jayne's line of work. He might not have liked the doctor, but he didn't hate him. He even respected him a bit, if the truth be told.

“Least if I die here, I ain't gonna get killed by yer loony sister, Doc,” Jayne sighed conversationally. “Don't think my ego could take that; gettin' myself killed by a slip of a crazy girl.” He pondered for a few seconds. “Course, I'd be dead, so in that case my ego couldn't give a hump. But my reputation...” He clucked his tongue. “Reputation wouldn't like it one bit.”

The violet sky was turning black, stars going from pinpricks of hazy silver to brilliant white. He could hear his grandfather by his ear, telling him to stand up, to face down the enemy. To leave the doctor here and head back into the desert; maybe the bad guys would settle for one head on their mantelpiece. Snap his neck like he should have done with that injured rabbit; end his suffering. After all, weren't like Simon was kin. He was just a whiny rich boy with soft hands; couldn't even load a gun correctly.

Yeah, but that's only 'cause no one's ever taught him, Jayne argued mentally, not sure why he was doing it except that he always liked to argue with someone, and his dead grandfather was as good a person as anyone. He ain't like me.

He ain't like me...

Simon moaned suddenly, shifting restlessly on the ground, causing Jayne to break off his internal monologue. “Jayne…” he murmured weakly. “Jayne? Don’t leave me here to die alone.”

Jayne reached out a large hand and placed it firmly on Simon’s shoulder. “I ain’t leaving you, boy. We go down, we go down together.”

He sat silently for a moment, trying to ignore the sick heat radiating from the younger man; trying to ignore the way Simon’s eyes twitched unseeingly in his face. He could almost smell the Doc’s fear and wished, for a brief moment, that there was some way he could assuage it.

“You know, Doc, I lied to you,” Jayne finally muttered. “Earlier. 'Bout the first man I killed.” He shook his head, staring up at the brightening stars. “Weren't like how I told you. I mean, yeah, I killed that fella I mentioned. Dumbass had it coming; walked right in front of my gun, I swear. Obviously didn't have the brains of a really dumb bug. But he weren't my first.”

Russell had laughed when Jayne walked up to him in that bar on Paquin; he'd thought it was cute, a little kid coming to get revenge for something done wrong to his family. He'd stopped laughing real quick when Jayne pulled out Lulabelle and pointed her square between the hun dan's eyes.

“See, you gotta know this, Doc, or you ain't gonna get nowhere in this black hole 'verse,” Jayne continued conversationally, as if they weren't about to die. “When it comes to gettin' things done, there ain't no better motivation than revenge. That's why them bastards've been after us all day; that's why Mal keeps you outta the hands o' the Alliance. Hell, it's half the reason you wanted us to knock over that hospital on Ariel. It's all 'bout revenge. You remember that and you'll go far. You'll still be a pissy little wuss, but least you'll be informed.”

Everyone in the bar had watched with some kind of grim fascination. No one thought he was going to do it, pull that trigger. A fifteen-year old boy? Hell, Jayne hadn't been sure he was going to pull it either. He could feel it in the air, the way the tension started to dissipate as the seconds ticked by. Folks started moving, whispering to each other. Russell even smiled. Sumbitch smiled, like it was all some gorram joke. And in his ear, Jayne remembered hearing, plain as day, “Boy ain't worth it.”

The click of the cocked hammer was still loud in his ears, to this very day.

“Betcha wish you'd killed me, don'tcha?” he'd said as he pulled the trigger and blown Russell's head off.

He hadn't expected that much blood.

“First man I killed, that was revenge,” he muttered, listening to Simon's raspy breathing. “My mama didn't want me to go, but I did it anyway. Boy reaches a certain age, he stops listening to his mother. Starts listening to his hands, and his feet, and other bits of himself that ain't half so polite.” He chuckled darkly. “Well I dunno, maybe that's just Rim boys. Cause I got a feelin' you don't listen much to yer pecker, Doc.”

He blinked his eyes. God he was tired. The day had been long, and he wasn't as young as he'd been all them years back. “Revenge ain't right, and it ain't wrong, Doc,” he muttered. “It just is. And once you've got a taste of it, you can't ever really go back. Things are too small back home. Mama's too frail. You never really find somewhere you fit in, till you find other folks've been in that same place. Then maybe you can scratch yourself out a corner. You know what I mean. You see.”

He sighed again. “Don't know why I'm tellin' you this all,” he admitted. "Way I figure, man's about to die, he oughta confess his sins. I got too many for now, but this'll do." He shrugged. “Hell, I ain't even sure it's a sin to kill a kinslayer. Man stands by his kin, that's what Grandpa always said. I had to kill the man that killed him—wouldn’t have been right if I hadn’t. Man stands by his kin.”

He glanced at the unconscious doctor again.

“Guess you know 'bout that, too,” he muttered.

He turned his eyes back to the sky. “Hell, I'm glad I'm only gonna die the once,” he grumbled. “I ain't cut out for all this thinkin'.”

Squinting at the sky, he tried to find Regina; but there were too many stars, and they were all fuzzy blobs to his tired eyes. He couldn't tell one from the next. Blackness crept into the corners of his vision as the trials of the day's events finally caught up with him, and the stars faded to black as he slipped away.

When Jayne opened his eyes, he immediately closed them again. “Why the hell's it so bright in here?” he muttered. Taking a sniff, he added, “Heaven ain't s'posed to smell like a hospital.”

“I don't know what's funnier 'bout that sentence,” he heard Mal's voice say. “The fact that you just complained about it bein' too bright in Heaven, or the fact you think you'd actually make it there.”

Jayne growled, but didn't open his eyes. “Take it I ain't dead then?”

“To the dismay of reputable folk everywhere, no.”

“Simon?”

“Him neither.”

Jayne snorted. “How'd he manage that?”

“On account of havin' a sister who's crazy and more than a little scary when she wants to be. And because someone knows how to tie really tight tourniquets.”

Jayne let his eyes open slowly, and found himself flat on his back on one of the Infirmary sickbeds aboard Serenity. Mal was leaning against the wall just inside the door, near the window, while Zoe was busy checking the vitals of the room's other occupant. Simon was stretched out on the center bed, looking even paler in the Infirmary's cold blue light than he had on Whitefall's rocky surface. River was perched on a stool beside her brother's bed, a tube running from her arm to his. She had her head propped on his knee, her intense gaze shifting from her brothers face long enough to smile widely Jayne. Jayne tried to ignore her.

“Ain't givin' the doc his sister's blood a bad idea?” Jayne questioned, annoyed with how hoarse he sounded. “She might infect him with her crazy juice or somethin'.”

River stuck her tongue out at him. Jayne returned the gesture.

“Now children, settle down,” Zoe said, turning away from Simon's vitals but not looking up as she smoothed the doctor's blanket. “You especially, Jayne.”

“Don't see why,” he complained, tossing his blankets back and moving to stand up. “I'm fit as a fid...duhh...” He winched, grabbing for his head as he slumped back onto the bed.

“Bet that felt real good, didn't it?” Mal asked.

“Shut up, Mal,” Jayne grumbled as his head continued spinning.

“Then lie down and do like the nice lady tells you,” Mal said firmly. “Near as we can tell you had a little bit of a concussion from when that bullet creased your forehead. And both of you were dehydrated and sun-stroked.”

“We wouldn't've been any of that if you hadn't been a dumbass and taken the job in the first place,” Jayne muttered, irritated.

“Yeah,” River muttered her agreement from her spot at Simon's bedside. Jayne snickered.

“Patience is a one to hold a grudge,” Mal agreed testily, sounding annoyed from their joint accusation. “But I don't think she's going to be giving us any more trouble from now on.”

Jayne groaned, staring at the captain through heavy-lidded eyes. “Don't tell me you're gonna make us take another job on that rock,” he argued. “Dammit, Mal, ain't we been shot enough by them people?”

“I'm the captain here, Jayne, and I'm the one who'll say when we've been shot enough!” Pushing away from the wall, Mal crossed the brief distance between them and leaned over Jayne's bedside, peering into his face like a scientist looking through a microscope at a pinned moth.

Jayne flinched away from the captain's study, frowning. “What?” he demanded. “What is it?”

“Nothin',” Mal said absently, then straightened up. “Just checkin' to make sure you'll live. You will.”

“Goody goody,” Jayne muttered.

“So'll this one, sir,” Zoe said from Simon's bedside. “Matter of fact, he’s starting to look better already.”

“Thanks to little River here,” Mal said, proudly clapping the girl on the back. River gave him a hazy smile. “Oh yeah, that reminds me, Jayne,” Mal added, looking over his shoulder at the mercenary. “You owe River your life. She showed us where you were at.”

Jayne groaned. “Wo de ma, Mal, ain't you got no sympathy?” He tried to glare at River, who was watching him with half-asleep eyes, but found it difficult to focus. “And what took you so gorram long, huh? We was in that desert all day!”

“The girl saved your life, Jayne,” Zoe reminded him. “You should say thank you, not grill her like a game of Twenty Questions.”

Jayne frowned. “Right. Whatever.” He gave River a terse nod. “Thanks.”

She nodded back, smiling vaguely. “You're welcome. Thank you for keeping Simon alive.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied gruffly.

“Where am I, and if I'm dead, why do I hurt so much?” Everyone looked up as Simon spoke. The doctor's heavy eyes opened slowly, blinking against the clinical light of the Infirmary. “What happened?” he asked blearily.

“You were severely wounded in a firefight, then made to walk miles across open country in the blazing sun,” River chimed in helpfully.

“Ah,” Simon croaked, voice hoarse. “Crime.”

“How you feelin', Doc?” Mal asked.

“As though I've been hit repeatedly with lead pipes. And woozy. Other than that, fine.” He cleared his throat to clear the rasp. “Jayne?”

“Here, Doc,” Jayne answered, staring up at the ceiling.

“See you made it too,” Simon noted wryly.

“You can't kill me that easy, Doc.”

“No, you're rather like a cockroach in that regard.”

“You two quit yakkin' and heal up,” Mal said firmly. “We've got another job comin' up and I'm gonna need my mercenary. And probably my medic, because we usually do.”

Simon gave a weary salute. “Aye aye,” he mumbled.

Jayne just grunted.

A few minutes later, once everyone else except River had left, Jayne spoke again, “Doc?”

“Hmm? What?” Simon sounded half asleep.

“What'd you mean, I remind you of a cockroach?”

“You live in a dirty hole in the wall and scuttle when someone turns the light on.”

Jayne glared at the doctor. “I was bein' serious,” he growled.

“I wasn't?”

“Difficult to get rid of,” River interrupted, and Jayne shifted his attention down to her. She was watching him with those big eyes of hers, and it made him uncomfortable.

“And cockroaches are hard to get gone, huh?” he asked gruffly.

River nodded dreamily. “They say that when nuclear holocaust befalls the legions of mankind, the only survivors will be the roaches,” she told him.

“So I'm a survivor?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

There was silence for a few more moments, before Simon decided to say something of his own. “I understand all about revenge.”

Jayne sighd. Figured the little hun dan wouldn’t have the courtesy to forget what Jayne had told him. “You do, do you?” he finally grunted.

“Yes,” Simon stated firmly.

“He’s talking about me,” River added, from her spot at Simon’s side. “He’d kill for me, though not a killer.”

“Mei-mei…”

“Go to sleep, Simon,” she whispered in return. “Don’t think about killing—think about being a cockroach, like Jayne. Let’s all be survivors.”

Jayne looked up at the ceiling, pondering on moon-brain's soft words. Maybe she was right. After all, Jayne'd killed a man in cold blood at the age of fifteen, and he was still alive and kicking all these years later. He was a fighter; a survivor. Once upon a time, back when he'd been his mama's bright-eyed boy, maybe he hadn't been those things. Would he still be alive today if he'd stayed that kid?

Boy ain't worth it. That's what his Grandpa had said.

Huh, he thought, a grim little smile touching his lips. Maybe I wasn't worth the bullet back then. But gorram it Grandpa, I sure as hell am now.

Discuss this episode

Title: He Ain't Heavy
Writers: Aliaspiral & Literary Lemming
Executive Producers: Michelle Makariak (Michmak)
& Jen Hook (Mistress Shiny)
Producer: Michelle Makariak (Michmak)
art:
Special edits: Michelle Makariak
Dialog: Sophie Richard
Proofing: Sophie Richards, Jen Hookand Michelle Makariak
Animations: Taerowyn