Survival Guide

Chapter one

A Jayne Kaylee Story

By Belasera

NC-17, kiddies

A vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend: All recognizable characters, etc. belong not to me, but to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox, and no money is being made here. The story, however, is mine.

Archiving: Sure, just tell me where it is so I can send my baby care packages with funny hats.

This is my very first attempt at fan-fiction, and will be a multi chapter story. It is already outlined, but I would appreciate any and all feedback, positive and negative, to help me flesh out the story as well as my meager capabilities allow. This is brought to you without beta, folks.

Spoilers for Objects in Space

Serenity hummed, sleek and solid as she moved through the black. Space knew no night or day, but inside the ship her occupants imagined that a sun had set somewhere and so they slept. Most of them anyway.

Kaylee wandered the ship, listening to her breathing, her heartbeat, wanting desperately to be reassured by it. But Serenity, her Serenity, had betrayed her, had opened up and let in violence. Kaylee shuddered a bit as she remembered, only a week ago…Early. It was irrational, she knew, to blame the ship, only her hull had always seemed so secure, so safe. Before. Now Kaylee couldn’t sleep. With a mind to have a cup of tea, she headed toward the kitchen and saw that she wasn’t the only one. Jayne sat hunched over the table, a shirt in one hand and a needle in the other. He attacked his task with the same sort of focused energy that Kaylee had seen him use to crack safes and neutralize explosives. The sight made her smile, and Kaylee stood for a moment, watching him chew his lower lip, before she entered the room.

“Heya.”

Jayne looked up at that as he pulled his needle through the cotton, it was obvious that she hadn’t startled him; in fact he had probably heard her coming from the engine room. It nearly made Kaylee blush to realize he had known she was staring at him, but Jayne wasn’t the type to make a fuss over t