Twenty Hours

Part One

By Tyloric

Warnings: Slash. Mal/Jayne

Things to Note: Sequel to Bed Rest, though reading Bed Rest is optional. Most of this is from Jayne’s point of view. This was originally titled The Evolution of Jayne Cobb but I thought that sounded corny. Also, I have no idea how one goes about making tea, so I just kind of babbled my way through it. Sorry. Inara isn’t in this story just cause I don’t like writing about her. Yay laziness. I was also basing the lay out of the ship on the layout from the Firefly wiki.

Dedicated to my friend, Sumaya. Just ‘cause.

Beta read by the lovely youroctober, as always. Thanks, hun.

***

He had been counting the seconds in his head. Of course, he had lost track after the first few hundred, and so he had resorted to pacing around the common room. This steadied his nerves for a while, but eventually, the restlessness came back.

To try to quell it again, he showered and put on clean clothes, hoping it would refresh him. It didn’t.

He was aching to do something, anything, rather than wait here. So he brought his girls into the common area and started to clean ‘em.

After they had broken atmo, Kaylee had come to sit with him. She was probably just as worried as he was, and to be honest, Jayne enjoyed the company. He continued to cast nervous glances at the closed doors of the infirmary, which were now tinted so that no one could see inside.

It’ll be an easy job, Mal had said. Like he always said. Every time, like clockwork. Easy, his voice chimed in Jayne’s ears.

Kaylee gripped his forearm with her hand. “He’ll be fine,” she comforted, “Simon’ll fix’em up good as new. You’ll see.”

Jayne wasn’t nearly as confident. Mal had pushed him out of the way, and he had looked up just in time to see the rain of bullets rip into Mal’s chest and abdomen, a fine mist of blood spurting after each hit. Tianna, the blood. There had been so much of it that you wouldn’t have known Mal’s blue shirt was blue. Crimson stained his entire torso, a small trickle lea