More Than Friends

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“Hey, Cobb!”

Jayne switched off the blowtorch and raised the faceplate of the welding mask. “Yeah?” he yelled back, lookin’ over the railing at one of the yard messengers.

“Wave for you,” the man called up, pointin’ to the nearest terminal. Jayne lifted his hand in acknowledgement and set down the torch. Was probably just Mattie ready to harass him over messin’ up with Kaylee again; she’d been buggin’ him nonstop ever since. He thought she’d have a stroke when he told her he’d signed on to a transport last night, an’ she still was pretty mad at him for it even though she understood that he had to get on the move once again. Couldn’t stay here no more, that was for gorram sure.

He wiped an arm across his brow and set all his gear aside – Kaylee had gotten hurt the one time he didn’t take care, so now he was always extra cautious with it no matter what. Gorram it, lil’ Kaylee…wish you was here with me now. But he figured she didn’t want nothin’ to do with him by now, even if the others’d told her that Mattie was nothin’ but his mei mei. They might have done, but somehow he didn’t think so. He walked straight past the latest whore to try her luck and pressed his code in the Cortex screen. “Cobb, here.” He was expectin’ to see Mattie scowlin’ at him fit to kill, but damned if it wasn’t Wash.

“Jayne, am I glad to see you; they’ve all been taken by the Alliance and I need you to help us get-”

“Hang on a minute there, lil’ man…I ain’t helpin’ with nothing.” He reached for the “End” button, and Wash blurted out somethin’ to do with their hired gun and Kaylee. “Yeah, that’s cute, Wash. I got work needs doin’. Could care less that Kaylee’s got herself someone else.” He pressed the button and turned away disgustedly. Why’d he call him for that? Like he’d wanna know ‘bout his girl turnin’ away from him? He stopped to think on in, and bit his lip at the unworthiness of the thought, feelin’ guilty about just thinkin’ it. Kaylee weren’t like that at all, to just shack up with someone else simply on account of her feelings bein’ hurt…and he’d gotten a look at Arnie Higgins. Weren’t no way in hell that she’d even think about it, if any part of the praise she’d given him during their time together held any truth. Jayne walked back to the terminal and punched his code back in to return the call, feelin’ that something wasn’t right.

Wash’s face appeared suddenly, lookin’ surprised. “Oh, I was just putting the code back in to call you back-”

“Say it again, what you told me about Kaylee?” His jaw tightened as Wash gave him the whole story, and his fists clenched as he imagined them bein’ around Higgins’ fat neck. Gorramnit, but he was gonna kill that pile of trash if’n he so much as laid a finger on her… but how was he gonna get her, an’ the rest of the crew, out from the Alliance base they was takin’ ‘em to? Not to mention the contract he’d signed off on last night, for three months service aboard a 386 Daison transport. Well, he figured he’d deal with that when he got to it – first he needed some way to get his girl out of harm’s way. Because if’n she was anywhere near Simon and River, that meant them creepy men with blue hands was after ‘em…and they didn’t leave people alive to talk about ‘em. “When you landin’?” he asked. Maybe there was somethin’ he could do…might be a long shot, but better than nothin’.

Signin’ off to make a call to Haven, he loped back to stow his gear and tell the foreman he was leavin’…then he left a message with the Daison’s Second and got his tail back to Mattie. For a wonder, she thought it was gonna be the most fun they’d had since stealin’ the neighbor’s cat all them years ago, an’ took off to send some waves after leavin’ him with a few numbers of his own to try. If they were gonna do this, they had to do it right. No half-assed measures were gonna work with this much on the line…


_ _ _ _ _ _ _


Kaylee drew in a deep breath as one of the soldiers nudged her with the barrel of his gun to urge her up the ramp to the Alliance ship. Off to the side, Higgins sneered at her. “Wouldna happened if you’d just said yes, girl. But you was too high ‘n’ mighty for the likes of me, weren’tcha?” He followed them aboard, laughing cruelly as River’s screams of panic redoubled. She’d heard all about what had happened to the Alliance guards on Ariel when Jayne had turned in the Tams the first time, then tried to get them out…the first thought that had gone through her head was that Jayne had sold ‘em out a second time, but she’d stopped that real quick. Weren’t no way he’d do it again, even if he might still blame Simon for breakin’ the two of them up – he had a better sense of what was right and Kaylee knew that despite his prior grumblings about River and her peculiar brand of behavior, he considered the young girl somethin’ of a baby sister who drove him up the wall.

She prayed that Wash had gotten her message an’ that he was on his way clear of this mess – weren’t much he could do to help ‘em, she didn’t think. What could he do, after all? If’n we’d still had Jayne, he wouldn’t’a let ‘em take us. She caught Mal’s eye and the captain tried to smile encouragingly at her – it was mightily hard to be cheerful, what with the way River was carryin’ on. Simon was just real pale, and looked about as scared as she’d ever seen; she reached a hand over to his and he gripped it gratefully. They’d long since made their peace about what had happened in the infirmary that day, and had settled comfortably into bein’ friends – truth to tell, she didn’t know what she would’ve done without him to talk to once Jayne had left. “We’ll get outta this somehow,” she promised him impulsively.

Simon just looked at her with a hopeless look on his face. “I think our luck has finally run out.” He glanced over at River, who was still struggling against her captors. “I just wish that they hadn’t taken the rest of you with us. I’m sorry, Kaylee. I never meant…”

“I know, Simon. I know.” Her fingers tightened around his an instant before they were ripped apart and a sullen-lookin’ Purplebelly was puttin’ some sort of shackles around their wrists. She heard Higgins gloatin’ some more over at Mal and jerked away when he came over to reach a grubby hand to grab at her breast. “That ain’t for you to touch,” she hissed angrily.

He leaned in close so she couldn’t miss the wave of carrion stink comin’ from his mouth. “Better be nice to me, saobi…I might can getcha out if’n you decide ol’ Arnie’s better’n bein’ shoved out the airlock.”

“Never,” she spat.

Higgins chuckled and reached for her again, this time grabbin’ her and squeezin’ hard enough to make her yell in pain. “You think your boy’s gonna come for you? Don’t think so, saohuo… what’s his name, anyhow – Cobb, right? That big ugly son’s gonna get his later – just told the commander his name an’ where he is. Man can’t weld ‘thout use of his hands, little Kaylee.” She gasped as he grabbed her again.

“Leave her be, Higgins – that wasn’t part of the deal,” her guard said suddenly, shiftin’ nervously. “Don’t hold with that sort of thing,” he muttered as he moved Kaylee farther into the ship and into one of the cells that already held an extremely het up Mal.

“Mei mei? He hurt you?” the captain asked sharply when he saw the way she winced as she sat down, her side brushin’ against the cell wall.

She tucked her knees up under her chin, no matter how much it hurt as her legs brushed against her chest. “Ain’t nothin’ much. Look, I tried to get a message out to Wash soon as I saw – don’t know if’n he got it, though.”

Mal reached his bound hands over to touch his knuckles to the side of her face gently. “Knowin’ Wash, he’s got some damn fool thing planned.”


_ _ _ _ _ _


Wash thanked Mr. Universe for the maps, managing not to roll his eyes at the other man’s gushes about his ‘new wife’. “I appreciate it, and if there’s anything we can ever do…” He signed off with a sigh and returned his attention to transmitting the landing codes to the shipyard at Silverhold. Jayne had said he had a plan… that in itself was nothing short of miraculous, if the man’s association with Kaylee had finally made some of the long-dormant neurons in his brain start firing.

“I’ve got a girl who will be by in an hour with the supplies Jayne asked for,” Inara informed him, swinging the co-pilot’s seat around to face him. “Though why he wanted seven sets of clothing, I don’t really understand. The sizes are completely wrong for Mal and the others.”

Partial understanding came when Wash opened the hatch and saw Jayne standing there with his sister and five other men roughly the size of small elephants from Earth That Was. “You got what I asked for?” the shaggy-haired merc asked brusquely, signaling for the men to start loading the stack of ammo cases that were sitting to one side.

“Um, yeah...but who are-oh,” Wash said in surprise as the first two men came past him and he saw the common stamp of shared genes on their features. “I take it these are your, um, little brothers?” He wasn’t so sure that Serenity could handle the weight of five men the same size as Jayne.

Jayne moved past him. “Put that over there,” he called. “Gorrammit! Ehren, no – over there! We gotta haul ass outta here so get yours in ruttin’ gear! Yeah, I got lucky they was all on leave together on Santo. Hey! Mattie, show that dumbass where to put those…” he strode off to the closest blue-eyed giant to help with the loading, and Wash retreated to the safety of the bridge to update Inara on their situation. Not to mention to warn her about the behemoths currently overrunning the ship.

They left Silverhold as soon as all the supplies were aboard, and Jayne left his siblings to check over the weapons as he came up to the bridge to outline his plan to rescue the others. After two hours, they had worked out contingency plans and obtained more charts and blueprints from Mr. Universe. This is going to be interesting, Wash thought.

He just hoped that it would work.


_ _ _ _ _ _


Jayne set out his knives on one end of the table and began to sharpen them, keeping an eye out for Ehren. Boy was always gettin’ into everything, if’n he weren’t watched – somethin’ like how Jayne had been when he was that age. Dhani and Kym were messin’ in the kitchen, Aden was runnin’ about wild somewhere, and Mattie had told him she was goin’ to trim Sascha’s hair. Course she threatened to shave him bald if’n he didn’t let her mess with his hair, but he figured he needed it cut so he didn’t try to put her off. A call from the kitchen made him sigh inwardly. “So, you got captures of this girl of your’n?”

He kept polishing. “She ain’t mine. Not no more.”

Kym kept pushin’. “But you’re gonna get her back. And you gotta have some captures so we can see her. Mattie said she was real cute…”

“We’ll see, I do, an’ she sure is.” Jayne sighed and put the knife down on the table. “Look, can ya just hold it til we see how it goes? Ain’t like I don’t appreciate all you comin’ to help, ‘cause I do an’ you know it.”

His little brother grinned at him and came over to jog his elbow. “Ma’s gonna kill you if’n you don’t bring her home afore you get hitched.”

Dhani chortled in agreement. “Yeah, she’ll have your sorry hide strung up to dry – ‘specially if you go plowin’ and plantin’ a field you ain’t got the deed to!”

He shook a fist at the both of ‘em and the fools went back to burnin’ whatever they were trying to cook.

Gorram little brothers.

All the same, it was real nice to have his family around once more. Inara came in to speak with him about the plan, and they all started fallin’ all over themselves to pull out a chair for her, just starin’ like she was food and they were starvin’ to death. He knew how they felt; he’d felt that way himself once. Weren’t no one that riled him up like Kaylee, though, so he just smiled to watch ‘em follow her around like a dog. Thinking on Kaylee killed the smile on his face and made him shift in his chair – if anything happened to her, he didn’t know what he’d do. Long days and nights alone had just made him realize that he couldn’t do without her; that girl was his whole ‘verse. Even if she don’t want me back, please just let her be well, he prayed silently to whoever was listening. Shepherd Book had given him the idea to save her – and the rest of ‘em, but it was Kaylee he was most worried over – so it had to have a chance at workin’ out.

Wouldn’t be long now, since Wash had picked up the Purplebellies’ trail and they were goin’ full burn to catch up. “Hey, can we practice some more?” he asked Inara suddenly. “I gotta be sure it comes out right.”

The Companion smiled and put her hand on his knee reassuringly, a touch he probably would’ve died for when he’d first come aboard. “Of course. Repeat after me…”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Alliance transport docked several hours later at some sort of station and Mal touched Kaylee’s face to wake her from where she was dozing, her head pillowed on his thigh, as their guards came back to escort them to their newest prison. He’d seen how carefully she’d lain down, and made him see red to know that Higgins had laid his hands on his mechanic – with any luck since they’d been allowed in a cell together, he could stay with her and make sure the man kept his distance. Mal had known that the man wasn’t to be trusted from the start, but he hadn’t quite figured on how badly he’d misjudged him. From what he gathered from Kaylee, Higgins had let her be until now because the hundan had thought she was someone’s property, and that if he touched her there might be consequences. Of course, when he’d found out that she’d cut Jayne loose back on Silverhold, he’d figured her to be easy prey. The fact that he’d gleaned the information about Simon and River when he was trying to gain her trust was just a bonus – but one he’d decided to use when Kaylee had rejected him.

Mal had no idea why Higgins had found that to be so unexpected; the pile of sludge had only three teeth, five strands of hair on his misshapen head, a pot belly, and was uglier than sin on a Sunday mornin’. The kind of man who’d try anything behind a person’s back, but never to their face and never in any kind of fair fight. Right now, the only thing makin’ Higgins as brave as he was being was the fact that he thought he’d be paid for his troubles…he’d yet to learn that a deal made with the Alliance was only of benefit to the Alliance and that they didn’t part with their cashy money if they didn’t have to. Mal wasn’t too worried about what was going to happen to Higgins but even so, he was glad they didn’t run into him on their way to be interrogated for what seemed like the sixtieth gorram time.

Questions were the same: did they know they were transporting fugitives, did they know just what kind of trouble they were in, did they know the penalty for… he really was running out of smart mouthed answers to all this. For a wonder, they were all put together in the same cell after they’d finished telling new people the same answers – well, except for River. Simon was pacin’ something fierce and from what they already knew about his sister, none of them could really blame him. Zoë was about the only one sittin’ calmly, like she knew something they didn’t – Mal tried his best to relax outwardly and make like there was nothing to worry on, but truth to tell, he was a bit nervous about this whole mess. They all knew by now about the men with blue hands, and exactly how dead a man could get by crossin’ ‘em… so the question on Mal’s mind was where they were and how long it would take for the men to show up.

They took turns napping through the night, but let Kaylee sleep as much as she could – Zoë had seen whatever hurt it was she was hidin’ and Mal could almost feel sorry for Higgins if they ever got out and his Second ever got her hands on him. It seemed like it was forever before the guards surrounding the cell started to move about again, then they were herded out and down several levels and into an even smaller holding area with bars on all sides and no blank walls for any of them to get their backs against. A request to get their shackles unlocked was ignored, so he didn’t press the issue even though his wrists ached from the pressure bands. They spent several more hours in silence while Simon resumed pacing before a returning officer alerted them to a change in their situation. “You, there,” and he gestured to one of the guards. “Get the corridors cleared. They’re here.”

Kaylee sucked in a worried breath and drew her legs up to her chest again. “What’s gonna happen to us, Cap’n?” she asked, soundin’ impossibly young and plenty scared.

“I dunno, bao bei. I suppose we’ll see in a bit.” He tried to sound reassuring, but he was sure it came out wrong… he could hear the heavy tread of multiple boots coming from one of the walkways and knew that it wasn’t just a simple changing of the guard. From where their cell was situated, he had a clear view of the six biggest Alliance officers he’d ever seen in his life walking from the catwalks that led to the lift platforms.


_ _ _ _ _ _


Kaylee instinctively tried to make herself as small as possible as she heard the men comin’ for ‘em. Mal and Zoë stiffened as they got closer and she didn’t dare look up to see what they looked like, figurin’ that she’d see who was come to kill ‘em soon enough and she needn’t get all het up about it before it was her time. Oh, Jayne…I wish you was here with me now, to tell me not to be scared. I never did tell you proper how much I love you, ya big...


“Are they ready to be released to us?” a male voice asked. Lord, even the Alliance officers sounded a bit like Jayne now she was thinkin’ on him. “I was told that there were five of them, as well – where is the other?” Simon made some sort of strange noise, and she glanced over at him but he was starin’ at his shoes like he couldn’t believe his eyes or somethin’. Another voice, not as deep, started askin’ ‘bout if they’d been fed rations, if they’d cooperated… her lips parted in surprise when her eyes focused on their boots – they weren’t matched up. In fact, the ones nearest to her looked just like…like…

She looked up, and up, and up some more until her lyin’ eyes were lookin’ right at Jayne. All the curls he’d had on Silverhold were gone, cut real close to his head so that he looked like just some soldier – his face was clean shaven, too, but it was him. Oh, Tien, it was him. She opened her mouth without thought to call to him, make him look over at her, but a nudge from Zoë called her back to herself. Kaylee just sat and stared up at him, longin’ for him to just look at her…just once would be fine, but he was intent on talkin’ to their jailor in some kind of fancy Core accent that sounded just plain odd comin’ from his mouth. And his outfit…! She’d certainly never thought to see Jayne Cobb all fancied up in an Alliance outfit, that was for gorram sure. Looked like he had to be hunchin’ his shoulders to keep from rippin’ a seam.

Kaylee tried her best not to gape as she looked at the other five men with him – they all had the same haircuts an’ uniforms and if they weren’t his little brothers he’d told her about, she’d eat Badger’s hat. She couldn’t even hear what else was goin’ on and spare the others a second thought, though… Jayne was all she could see. Even if he had gone and found himself another girl, he’d come for her.

“Open the door, we’ll take them from here…” Jayne trailed off as the monitors hangin’ in the ceiling suddenly shorted out with a popping sound, and pulled his sidearm on the guard closest to him. The others had their guns out just as fast, and the remaining Alliance officer – the only real one in the room – held up his hands in surrender. “Get that ruttin’ door open,” Jayne hissed, slidin’ the safety off. The man turned pure white and struggled with the key cards until he found the correct one and the cell door cycled open silently. “Heya, Mal. Heard you was in some trouble ‘round these parts.”

Mal grinned over at Zoë, who finally let a smile break over her face. “’Bout time you got your lazy pi gu out here. Mind lettin’ us out of these contraptions?”

Jayne sighed and shook his head regretfully. “We gotta leave ‘em on ‘til we get back to Serenity – Wash says he can get you outta them things.” He still wasn’t lookin’ at her, but the others were and grinnin’ fit to break their faces. “Sascha, you an’ Kym scout ahead while we deal with these lumps of gos se. Stay with her,” he ordered the youngest brother as he turned away to herd the guards into their cell.

“So, you’re Kaylee? I’m Ehren,” the young man said earnestly. “Boy, they sure wasn’t lyin’ when they said you was a looker – Mattie just couldn’t say enough ‘bout you. Your bands too tight? Might wanna wiggle your fingers about so’s you don’t lose no feelin’ in ‘em and you gotta cut your hands off – that’s what Ma always says happens to prison folk.” She blinked at the flood of words comin’ from him an’ cast a glance over at Jayne. Ehren caught her lookin’ and sighed. “He’s been actin’ worse’n a horse who got into the sour apples; wouldn’t even-”

“Ehren! Shut your mouth, she don’t need to hear you yappin’,” Jayne said suddenly. “Let’s move.” The mask of Alliance officer slid back over his face an’ he walked ‘em down the corridor, his hand on Mal’s arm like he was steerin’ him along. They got to the lifts an’ had to split up because there was too many of ‘em, and Ehren quickly urged her onto the platform beside Jayne and Mal.

They rode a few levels up in silence before Kaylee couldn’t take it anymore and turned to him. “Jayne-”

He cut her off, still starin’ straight ahead. “That was my sister. If’n you woulda stayed an’ listened, that was what I was tryin’ to tell ya.”

She blinked. “Your…that was Mattie?”

“Ain’t got no other sister but the one,” he reminded her.

“Well, you shoulda said somethin’!”

“I weren’t the one turned tail and scampered without listenin’ to what I was sayin’,” Jayne said, raisin’ his voice as he started gettin’ mad at her again before he stopped and thought of somethin’. “Hey….where’s Moonbrain at?”

tbc…
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A/N: Looks like the rescue operation just got a bit more complicated…