Title: Give and Take

Author: hisgoodgirl

Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss.

Character: Jayne

Rating: G

Setting: During “Our Mrs. Reynolds”

A/N: Cross-posted from my LiveJournal. Your comments are sincerely appreciated. Just click on my name to see more of my work. Hover for translation.

*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*

GIVE AND TAKE

Jayne Cobb sat on the edge of his bunk, his brows knotted in consternation. The stub of a well-gnawed cigar was clinched in one corner of his mouth and he stared blankly down at the decking, contemplating the strange situation that presently existed on board Serenity. Somehow, Mal had gone and gotten himself hitched back on that little moon they’d just left. The woman claiming to be his wife wasn’t bad looking, either, all curvy in the right places, pale milky skin and copper hair. The strange part was, Cap’n didn’t seem to want her, although the why of that eluded Jayne.

The big mercenary knew that customs and social conventions varied a lot across the rim. Hell, maybe Mal grew up believing pretty women didn’t make good wives. That might help explain why he hadn’t never acted on his feelings for ’Nara. Or maybe Mal’d bought into his own yu ben duh idea that crew shouldn’t oughtta be fraternizing.

When it came right down to it, Jayne wasn’t so much interested in the fraternizing part as in just getting his ashes hauled regular like and Mal’s ‘wife’ looked like she could do that and then some. That gal might seem all innocent, but Jayne figured he could help relieve her of the burden of that, given a little time.

On Serenity, folk traded around stuff all the time. If Inara got tired of some bauble, she’d pass it on to li’l Kaylee. Zoe gave him a few spare clips that fit his favorite sniper rifle, just ’cause she didn’t need ’em and knew they were hard to come by. The general philosophy seemed to be that everything is useful to somebody. If Mal didn’t want th