Ursa Major, Ursa Minor

Chapter Thirty-Two:

Jayne and River finally pulled themselves out of their stupor and eyed their surroundings in confusion.

“How the hell did we get here?” Jayne wondered.

Mal handed him a cigar. “Question is, what the hell is the matter with you two?”

Jayne looked at the offering blankly—for a moment analyzing each part of it clinically and going through the ingredients in his mind. Half of them were chemicals he probably couldn’t spell. River heard the workings of his mind and reached over to tug on her brother’s shirt.

“Simon! Cannot stop information from flowing… My brain is seeping into his—inconsequential ramblings of my mind…”

“River.”

She jerked away from her brother and faced her fiancée. “Jayne?”

“It ain’t hurtin’ me none. It’s you in my head, darlin’—not everyone. Just you. We’re gonna be fine,” he bit off the end of the cigar and nabbed a lighter off the end table. “I’m gonna be fine,” he lit the cigar and took two puffs.

Mal laid a fatherly hand on River’s shoulder. “Gotta say, mei mei, he sounds fine. Looks fine, too.”

“Mal, I know you miss Nara and all, but I ain’t sure I like you talkin’ ‘bout me like that—I’m gonna be a married man.”

Kaylee snickered.

“Married?!” Mal gibbered.

Simon cleared his throat impatiently. “If I may?”

Everyone shut up—though Mal seemed to have lost control over his left foot and it bounced uselessly against the floor.

“I watched the security capture they recorded during your… I can’t call it a ‘procedure,’ but I can’t think of a word for it at them moment,” he sighed roughly and plopped down on the chaise lounge opposite the mercenary and his sister. Kaylee sat beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Jayne, I’m afraid they removed some brain matter,” he gestured at his own forehead in the same spot where Jayne sported a yellowish-green bruise, “before you stopped your own heart. The three needles they used afterward sent pulses into the removed tissue. I’m not certain about what this did to you, exactly, but I can hypothesize… It stimulated new growth and now you are using a part of your brain that you weren’t using before.”

“But I’m gonna be fine, right?” Jayne asked.

Simon nodded very slowly. “Though it seems like you’re getting ‘worse,’ you’re actually just going through some cellular growth. By now I would say you are at your new normal wavelength. Can you tell me what has changed, exactly?”

Jayne tucked River against his side. “Well, now I can hear River in my head and, uh, ‘talk’ back to her. And there’s this weird color thingy I can see sometimes when I’m lookin’ at her.”

“Aura,” River corrected.

“Whatever. I can see and feel her emotions. Just her. I tried with ya’ll, and it ain’t workin’,”

Mal let out a whistling breath and dropped his head between his knees. “So you’re little Siamese twin act there?”

“Jayne was trying to reassure me that Mother was not here to hurt me.”

“Yer ma’s here?” Zoë asked.

“She’s… On vacation,” said Simon. “She…”

“Misses her babies,” River finished. “Wants to keep in touch with us. Hurting herself inside because she didn’t help Simon any more than she did. Helped to pay the group that helped him get me out.”

Mal shifted in his seat and speared Simon with his most serious expression. “So, Doc, we gonna have a problem here? And what’s this about a marriage?”

“No problem. And I do believe that Jayne is the one who asked River to marry him.”

“Huh.”

Jayne squeezed his arm around River’s shoulders and grinned down at her. “See, sweetheart? Ain’t nothin’ wrong,” he looked up at the captain. “C’n we make a trip to Kerry again? My ma would be powerful mad if’n I didn’t get married in the traditional way.”

Mal sighed again. “Fine. We spend a few more days here, go get Kaylee some new parts, pick up Inara in orbit, and then we’ll head out to Kerry.”

River’s mood lifted intensely then. She clapped her hands together gleefully, leapt up from her perch beneath Jayne’s arm, and pressed a quick kiss to Mal’s cheek. “I love my captain!” she exclaimed.

Kaylee jumped in right behind her and bussed his opposite side. “I love my captain, too!”

Mal groaned and looked expectantly at Zoë.

She raised her hands. “Hey, you drank the last of the champagne. Ain’t feelin’ too lovin’ right now.”

Jayne laughed.

*

It wasn’t until noon the next day that Jayne and River crawled out of their incredibly comfortable bed and threw some clothes on. They had planned on going in town with Kaylee and the poor girl was still waiting down in the lobby as Simon caught up with his mother over tea.

Jayne’s hair was mussed in an appealing way that he didn’t seem to notice and he hadn’t bothered to shave before being dragged out of the room by River.

And he was sporting a huge hickey on the side of his neck.

“Ready to go, Kaylee-girl?”

She grinned—sunshine in tooth enamel—and took his free arm in hers. “Absolutely!” she exclaimed.

River pointed dramatically towards the door. “To the parts shop!”

“And places beyond!” Jayne added.

They marched out of the resort to the sound of Regan Tam’s amused laughter and Simon’s exasperated groans.

*

While the girls haggled over prices with the cashier on duty, Jayne quietly slipped out of the shop and headed two doors down to the jewelers. He knew his mother was planning on giving him both her wedding band and his father’s to use when he finally settled down, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spend some of his recently acquired cashy money on a nice engagement ring for River.

He browsed through a row of silver jewelry until a piece caught his eye.

It was simple—a plain silver band with a square cut diamond set low inside the metal. No frills to catch on weapons or snag on clothing.

The sales woman who’d been watching him with that leery eye that suggested thoughts of shooing him outside suddenly perked up when he pointed at the ring. “Is this a size six?” he asked in his best “Core” voice.

She gathered her long brown hair behind one ear and unlocked the case to pull out the ring in question. “Yes, it is. Is this for a special occasion, sir?”

Jayne smiled as charmingly as capable and nodded. “Engagement, actually. I was specifically looking for a ring that wouldn’t snag on anything.”

“It’s a lovely choice, sir. Do you want—”

“How much is it, ma’am?” Jayne interrupted.

“2,000 platinum, sir. If you need to make a down payment, I can arrange a for—”

“I can pay for it now.”

She inwardly crowed with joy at the thought of the commission she’d get with this sale.

“Perfect,” she said. “Let me ring this up.”

*

Kaylee had about ten bags she needed moving and was about to yell for Jayne when he popped up beside her and grabbed three for each hand.

“Ai ya, girl! Did’ja buy a whole new engine in pieces er somethin’?”

Kaylee hefted two bags and smacked him with one.

“Just half,” River quipped. “Where did you go?”

Jayne just grinned and formed a blank slate in his mind to give nothing away. She looked a mite perturbed at the feel of it and pushed her lower lip out in a pout.

Kaylee grinned suddenly—seeing what shops were down the row from the parts store.

“C’mon. We need to get this stuff back to Serenity,” she said—wisely changing the topic.

Jayne raised an eyebrow at her. “I ain’t walkin’ my pi gu all the way out to the docks with this heavy le se!”

“It ain’t ‘le se,’ Jayne! Them parts’re the best out there available fer a Firefly! ‘Sides, it ain’t that far.”

“It’s half a ruttin’ mile, Kaylee-girl.”

“Oh, like yer arms can’t handle a teeny workout. I seen you lift, Jayne Cobb. Them bags ain’t nothin’ compared to that gorram bar.”

River nudged Jayne’s belly with her elbow. “She is right, huan ren. Besides, it’s a beautiful day out and I am in need of some sun.”

Jayne gave up and started trudging toward the docks.

*

It wasn’t until after the crew had sat down to dinner that River pulled her brother aside and told him about wanting her tubal ligation reversed. He’d been unbelievably shocked to hear that the procedure had been forced upon her by the Academy, but calmed when she gave him that sad smile of resignation.

“In the past, Simon. Future will be better.”

He nodded, “Much better.”

River smiled and hugged him hard—almost to the point where her arms made his back crack. “I love you, Simon.”

Simon smiled into his sister’s hair and squeezed back just as hard. “I love you too, River.”

*

Three days later, Regan Tam followed the crew of Serenity to the docks and had to fight the initial groan of disapproval at the sight of the Firefly. Several recriminating remarks were cycling through her head, but one look at her daughter told her that saying any of them aloud would result in disaster.

You came here in that? You’re braver than I thought, was the last thing Regan thought of—an old memory of watching classic films on the cortex with her baby girl resurfacing long enough to make River snort out a laugh at the quoted thought.

“I love you, Pebble,” Regan said as the crew boarded—finally kissing her daughter’s cheeks. “Be safe and remember to send me a wave.”

“I will, Mama.”

Regan quickly swiped a few escaping tears away from her cheeks and accepted a hug from her son. “Oh, Simon…”

“I love you too, Mama,” he admitted. “Be safe?”

She nodded into his sweater and reluctantly let him go.

Regan Tam stayed on the docks and didn’t leave until she couldn’t tell Serenity from sky.

*

By nature, River hated to be sedated. Instead, she had Simon give her a local anesthetic and made Jayne sit beside her while her brother made quick work of the microsurgery it took to reverse what the Alliance had done to her.

He told her the stories of how his sisters Amber and Jenny had gotten married and how his brother Carl had almost been stood up by his wife. Sleepily, River smiled at his tales and gripped his hands hard enough to grind his finger bones together. He didn’t mind—not when the skin-warmed silver on her left hand dug into his flesh and left a mark.

Anything for his girl.

TBC

Two chapters left, gang!