There was laughter around the table as everyone told stories of jobs they once had. Wash told of his experience as a fry cook, Shepherd had stories of life at the abbey, Mal and Zoë had war stories. She hadn’t had much work before comin’ on Serenity so her stories didn’t take long. River had no stories and Simon, poor honey, his were just dull.

Kaylee noticed that while Jayne joined in the laughter and questions he offered no stories of his own. He never did. The only jobs she knew about were the one with Marco that Mal had hired him away from, and of course the job on Canton.

When everyone else had made their way to bed and she and Jayne were sharin’ the last of the booze, she cuddled up against his shoulder and asked him. “Don’t ya have any stories?”

“None that are good enough for ya to hear.” Jayne answered stunned by the warm feel of her cuddled up against him. Did she think he was the doc or somethin’? Cause he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d done that to him. Once, ‘n’ this was it.

Kaylee insistent voice interrupted his thoughts. “Aw come on Jayne. Ya must’ve had some jobs that weren’t that bad. That ya liked.”

Jayne was silent, he didn’t like thinkin’ much ‘bout his past. He’d done too many things he weren’t that proud of. Things he definitely couldn’t tell shiny Kaylee ‘bout. She was lookin’ at him all expectant like though, ‘n’ he’d had enough to drink to make him more talkative than usual.

What could he tell her that weren’t too bad?

His first job had actually been legitimate. At fourteen he’d been hired as a gopher on a cargo boat. He got three square meals a day, coin to send home to his ma and the captain weren’t bad. But the man got hisself killed six months into the job and the second in charge wanted a boy to share his bed.

Jayne weren’t interested in being sly. It was alright for them that were that way, but not him, he liked girls. So he jumped ship the first chance he got.

He took a breath. “Second job I ever had was at a #########