“What do you mean, I’m doing the job?” Jayne could hear the disbelief in Simon’s voice as he walked into the kitchen. “Dammit, Captain, I’m a doctor, not a smuggler.”

Jayne smirked at that and dropped down into an empty chair. “You sending Doc to do the next job? Need someone to act sly for you again?”

Simon shot a veiled look at Jayne, before muttering under his breath. “I wasn’t the one that went on the date with Edwin and got hit on by a bunch of men.”

Jayne growled at him, “You sound jealous, Doc.”

“You’re an idiot,” Simon retorted. “An idiot with a big gun and very little brain matter.” He turned to glare at Mal. “And I’m not going to try selling knock-off shoes again, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Mal raised his hands. “No shoes, I swear it. And it’s not a dangerous job – you just need to drop off the goods and get the money. I ain’t expecting any problems.”

“Then why aren’t you doing it yourself?”

“’Cause it’s on Whitefall,” Mal replied bluntly. “And I’m too recognizable there.”

“Whitefall?” Simon repeated. “Weren’t you almost killed on Whitefall?”

“A couple of times,” Jayne inserted, before glowering at Mal. “Why are we goin' back?”

“Because the pay's good, and we need the money,” Mal replied. “’Sides which, Patience isn’t involved at all, and I want to keep it that way. She knows me and Zoe, so we can’t make the drop. But she don’t know Simon. Or you.”

Jayne just looked at him. “No way. I ain’t doing it.”

“Me and Jayne?” Simon looked horrified. “Once was bad enough.”

“Neither of you got much say-so in the matter,” Mal retorted. “This is my ship and I’m the captain. Ain’t no one else on board can do this, unless I send River.”

“You leave her out of this,” Simon interjected hotly.

“Planning to,” Mal replied. “I don’t send little girls to do a man’s job. Unless the man in question is too worried about getting his lily-white hands dirty…”

“What if something goes wrong, huh?” Jayne interrupted. “Doc couldn’t shoot his way out of a paper bag.”

“Which is why I’m sending you. Not that you’ll need to shoot anyone. I’m telling you, this will be a cake-walk. Ain’t no worries. This job is easy-peasy.”

“Easy-peasy my muscular ass,” Jayne grunted through clenched teeth. “I knew this was gonna be trouble.”

“Shut up and keep shooting,” Simon yelled. The doctor was armed with one of Jayne’s smaller six shooters and was doing his best, but Jayne was pretty sure a blind dog could have been a better shot.

“I’m just sayin'.” Jayne swore and ducked as a shot narrowly missed him. “What the hell was Mal thinking, coming back to Whitefall?” Bertha clicked ominously, and Jayne hurriedly reloaded. He never took his eyes off of the number of men slowly creeping closer. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and he had to squint to bring the shooters back into focus.

There were five men that he could see, and Jayne was betting there were another two or three somewhere just out of sight. Probably over on the rocks jutting out across the path. That’s where he would be waiting for someone stupid. Like the genius captain of Serenity, or the idiots he sent out for him.

He cursed Mal to the lowest depths of Hell for this one. “Easy money,” Jayne muttered to himself in a mocking voice. “It won’t be no problem, Jayne. You just take the doc and do the job, Patience don’t know neither of you.” He snorted and shook his head as another man fell from one of Bertha’s shots.

Another shot cracked across the valley, and one of the men grabbed his ankle, howling with pain. Jayne raised his eyebrows. The boy had finally actually hit something besides dirt. The doc was crouched behind an outcropping about five feet away from Jayne. His nice shirt was missing two buttons and he had sweat pouring down his face. If they weren’t being shot at, Jayne would be more than a little tickled to see the prissy man so unkempt.

He did have to admit to being kind of impressed at the steady stream of Mandarin the doc was spewing. Some of the phrases Jayne had never heard before. When they got out of here, he was going to have to ask if the doc would teach him some of the more colorful curses.

If Simon didn’t get them both killed first. Jayne almost wished Mal had sent River instead, as he’d threatened to do. At least she was a crack shot.

Jayne had to say, though, the doc’s hands weren’t shaking, and he didn’t look in the slightest bit scared. He did look about fourteen shades of pissed, but seeing as he'd been shang hai’d into this job, same as Jayne was, the merc couldn’t blame him.

He still couldn’t figure out how Mal had talked the doc into this. Hell, he didn’t know how Mal had talked him into it – other than the normal refrain of I’m the captain and what I say goes. Dumbass.

Jayne squinted and recounted. Patience was down to three men that Jayne could see, counting the one rolling around on the ground and crying about his ankle. Doc must have hit the bone and shattered it. Not bad shooting, except Jayne was dead positive Simon hadn’t done it on purpose.

Jayne was pretty sure that Patience herself wasn’t there anymore. She had taken off as soon as she’d told them her boys were going to kill them, laughing the whole time about getting even with Mal, gloating that he wouldn’t even see this coming. The part that bugged Jayne most was that he knew it was true--Mal had been adamant that Patience wouldn’t even know Serenity or any of her crew were nearby. Their contact, some hun dan by the name of Knoxy, had assured Mal that Patience wouldn’t even know they were on planet.

Obviously, they’d been set up. Patience had nabbed them after they’d made the drop and collected the money. She’d looked pretty damn pleased with herself about it, too. “That Captain of yours ain’t too bright,” she’d grinned at them as they’d been forced onto the back of her mule. “Maybe loosing his hired thug and his…” she squinted at Simon and leered, “…his whatever-you-are, he’ll learn that I’ll always have the upper hand. It’s a shame though. You’re almost too pretty to kill.”

And now, here they were. Back in that same gully where they’d been the last time Mal had brought them to this dung-heap planet. Only this time, Jayne wasn’t hiding high in the hills, acting as sniper. This time, he was the one getting sniped at and it was pissing him off.

Jayne glowered, shooting the man with the bum ankle in the head just to get him to stop screaming. The noise was throwing off his concentration. Not to mention hurting his head. He scowled again. He wasn’t happy that Patience had gotten the jump on the both of them, but truthfully, there was no way he could’ve gotten himself out of there with ten guys standing there, much less he and the doc. He didn’t understand why Patience hadn’t just shot them and been done with it. He supposed it was some female-revenge thing; like she wanted to avenge the deaths of her men by killing him and Simon in the same spot her guys had been killed. Whatever, it had been a stupid move on her part. Jayne wasn’t prepared to die, and it had been easy to knock out the guy at the back of the mule and push Simon off the moving vehicle before jumping after him. Of course, it didn’t mean they were going to survive this, but still…at least they had a shot now. No pun intended.

Simon had come in handy, bandaging up Jayne’s head so the blood didn’t drip down into his eyes and mess up his aim.

He risked a quick glance sideways, checking to make sure the doc hadn’t gotten dead somehow. Simon was trying to reload Annabeth and kept dropping bullets and having to scramble them up out of the dirt.

Jayne frowned. Idiot didn’t even know how to load a gun correctly.

There were only two visible left, and Serenity should start noticing that they weren’t back sometime within the next hour. Jayne was certain there were at least two other guys he just couldn’t see. Probably snipers.

He eyed the remaining men carefully, weighing options. Truth of it was, they only had so much ammo, and most of that was being wasted by shooting rocks and dirt by the doc. Two men left, two he couldn’t see, and no decent shots to be had to take them out.

Gorram it. They were gonna have to run for it. Jayne’s headache throbbed just thinking about running through the desert from dumbasses with guns.

“Alright, Doc,” he said grimly. “Here’s the plan.”

“Bad plan,” Simon said immediately. “We’ll get killed.”

“You don’t even KNOW the plan,” Jayne snarled. “Shut up and listen.”

Simon sighed, squeezing off another careful shot. And missing.

“And stop wasting ammo,” Jayne snapped. He shoved the bloody bandage back up his forehead, trying to think. “We gotta get outta here, and get somewhere where Serenity can find us.”

Simon snorted. “Yes, because that will work so well, with us being outnumbered and not knowing where the ship is located.” He squeezed the trigger again, cursing as Annabeth responded with an empty click.

“Look, you idiot,” Jayne snarled. “Mal will kill me if I leave you, but if you come back dead, he won’t know it wasn’t one of Patience’s men. So, let’s go.”

Simon glared, sweat streaking dirty lines down his face. “Fine, lead on,” he snapped.

“Ok. Ok,” Jayne nodded, mind racing. “Right. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Simon’s eyebrows rose in astonishment as the merc outlined his plan. “It’s suicide,” he said flatly. He shook his head, gesturing at the waiting men on the other side of the rocks. “They are waiting for us. If we try to rush them, they will shoot us, and we will die.” He sounded like he was trying to explain quantum physics to a toddler.

Jayne snarled at the other man. “You got a better idea? Its go out there and die, or stay here and die!” He slammed a new clip into Bertha, glaring at the doctor the whole time.

Simon groaned in frustration. “Fine, we’ll try it your way. But if I die, I’ll have River kill you with her brain.”

“Funny.”

On the count of three, they burst out from under their cover, Jayne aiming and shooting on the move. One more of the bad guys fell, clutching his chest with a gasp. One down, one to go. Plus the snipers.

Simon was running straight out for the last remaining man, empty gun clutched in one hand. His eyes were narrowed in concentration.

For a wimp, he could actually run when he thought he was about to die.

Simon took a running leap and knocked the other man to the ground, clobbering him with the butt of the gun he was holding.

Jayne scrambled to his feet as Simon knocked the remaining gunmen unconscious. Both men were panting and sweating as they ran hell for leather past the sniper point.

Two loud cracks rang out, and Simon stumbled. Jayne grabbed the doc’s arm and kept going, dragging the smaller man behind him. “Keep running! You stop and we’re dead!”

Simon made an odd noise, but staggered on.

They ran until they couldn’t hear the shots anymore, before coming to a stumbling halt. Jayne looked at the younger man, noting his pale face and his labored breathing, before his eyes drifted down to where Simon was clutching his leg. His hands were red with blood.

“You hit?” Jayne knew the question was stupid, all things considered, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Simon looked at him, eyes glazing in shock. “Safe to assume,” he agreed, before collapsing in a heap at Jayne’s feet.

“Where the hell are they?” Mal muttered, walking into the cockpit and glaring at Wash. “You heard anything yet?”

“Not a thing,” Wash replied. “Maybe they’ve decided to run off with the goods and escape this life of petty crime.”

Mal scowled, but before he could retort Zoe spoke up. “You think something’s happened, sir?”

“I don’t know,” Mal’s voice was tense. “They should have been back an hour ago. Gorramit, all they needed to do was find Knoxxy, give him the data sticks, and get the money. What’s so hard about that?”

“Things are always more difficult when Simon is involved,” River offered softly from her seat in the co-pilot’s chair. Her knees were drawn up under her chin, arms wrapped protectively around them. “He is unlucky in love and crime.”

Mal rolled his eyes. “You sound like a gorram pessimistic fortune cookie.”

“Want me to take the shuttle and go look for them, Captain?”

“Not yet, Zo. Patience knows you—don’t want to risk it.”

“You’re sure she doesn’t know Jayne, right?” Wash asked. “I mean, he’s sort of hard to miss, what with being so big and ugly and all.”

“Don’t see how she could,” Mal replied. “He’s never been visible when we’ve been here before.”

Wash cocked an eyebrow at that, before muttering. “Why is it that he’s always visible on the ship, then? Especially when he’s eating, or scratching his ass.”

Jayne blinked at the man sprawled on the ground for a second, trying to process what had just happened.

Simon was holding his leg, but his hands were shaking. Jayne was amazed that the younger man hadn’t passed out yet.

“Jayne,” Simon gasped, managing to look irritated and pleading at the same time. “I kind of need some help here.”

Jayne hesitated, turning to look back where they had run from. “They’re gonna come after us,” he stated. “They’s gonna catch up.” A calculating look stole over his face as he stared at the injured man. “You’re gonna slow me down. Why shouldn’t I leave you?” His voice was low and threatening.

The doctor glared up at him. “Should I give you the short list, involving my sister and a butcher knife, or the longer list, involving Mal shooting you himself?” Simon’s voice was weak, but the sarcasm came through clearly.

Jayne grinned suddenly. “Yeah, probably. Come on, then.” Reaching down, he hauled Simon to his feet with one arm. “We gotta find a place to hole up so your leg can be tended to.”

The younger man blinked at him, then frowned. “Were you just messing with me?” he asked suspiciously, having to lean heavily on the merc to hobble forward.

Jayne smirked. “That would be telling.”

“I hate you.”

Jayne tightened his grip on Simon’s shirt as the younger man’s leg gave out from under him.

“Doc?” The merc lowered the other man to the ground, examining how pale his face was under the sweat and dirt. Simon’s head lolled back as Jayne shook him. Jayne slapped the doc’s face lightly, but the man didn’t even stir.

“Shit.”

Jayne scrubbed dirty hands over his face. This damn job started out bad, and just keep getting worse. He nudged the unconscious man with the tip of his boot while he thought. He could leave the doc, easy as breathing. Tell Mal that Simon got shot and couldn’t do a thing to help. Bring ‘em back for the body, if the ones following left it, as a show of good faith. Ignore the crazy girl’s accusing looks and dodge her abilities with a butcher knife. And hope she didn’t know how to pick the lock to his bunk and kill him while he slept.

He scowled again. “This is all your fault,” he accused the unconscious man. “I ain’t sure how just yet, but it must’ve been you that tipped off Patience that we was with Mal.” He squinted back the way they came, searching for telltale signs of people following them. He didn’t see any dust trails, so if they were tracking, and he was pretty sure they were, they were doing it on foot. Patience could hold a grudge longer than Jayne’s arm that was for sure. And she weren’t going to give up on two of Mal’s men easy.

Especially not if they were in the middle of the desert with no way of getting back to Serenity til Mal thought to come looking.

Which could be never. Man really couldn’t plan worth a damn.

Jayne’s attention shifted to the man on the ground in front of him again. With a roll of his eyes, he pulled a large Bowie knife from his boot and sliced the seam of Simon’s pant leg from ankle to mid-thigh, just above the nasty looking bullet hole. The Doc’s leg was a mess, but it looked like the bullet had gone clean through the meat and not hit bone. That meant nothing if any major arteries had been hit, of course, and from the way the wound was bleeding, that was a definite possibility. With a muttered curse, he leaned over and ripped the doc’s vest straight down the front, before slicing the material to ribbons and using the pieces as best he could to tie off the gaping hole. He didn’t know if it would do much good, but it was the only option available at the moment.

The doc moaned and lifted a hand to his head while Jayne finished tightening the makeshift tourniquet. “Ow.” He opened blurry eyes, looking up at Jayne. “If I’m dead, and you’re here, I must be in hell.”

“You ain’t dead,” Jayne informed him shortly, checking the bullet wound with a practiced eye. “But you will be if we don’t get back to the ship.” Again, he hauled the doc to his feet. “Don’t think I’m doing this ‘cause I like you or anything,” he informed the injured man. “I’m doing this because I want someone who knows what he’s doing to be able to take bullets out of me next time I get shot.”

Simon wheezed out something that could have been a laugh. “I think, next time, that you should shoot them first.”

“Wow, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re an ape.” Simon was concentrating more on staying on his feet than delivering witty repartee.

“Oh, shut up.”

The two made their way in silence for a couple of minutes, Jayne’s longer stride hampered by the fact he was half carrying the smaller man, supporting the majority of the Doc’s weight.

“Jayne,” Simon said, panting with effort and pain. “Next time, let’s tell Mal that he can go do the job on Whitefall that he is absolutely positive doesn’t involve Patience.”

“Next time,” the merc grumbled, steadying Simon with one arm. “I’m telling him to go to hell.”

“Also a good idea.”

They staggered on in silence again, both sweating heavily under the noontime sun.

“Why the hell you so bad with a gun, anyhow?” Jayne asked, more to make sure the other man was still with him than because he actually cared.

“Never learned how to shoot,” Simon muttered. “Why would I need to?”

“You never went hunting or camping with your pa?” Curiosity crept into Jayne’s voice. He shot a glance at the man beside him.

“No,” Simon shook his head in amused denial. “My father is…was a very important man. He didn’t have time for camping or hunting.” He paused. “Plus, hunting is illegal on Osiris.”

“So?”

Simon sighed. “Never mind.” They stumbled over a rock, and the younger man stifled a groan of pain. “So, when did you learn to shoot?”

Jayne grunted. “Long time ago.”

“Granpa! Granpa! Lookit!” A small boy of about six held up a feebly kicking rabbit by the ears, a proud grin nearly splitting his face in two. “I got him fair and straight, just like you said!”

A big grizzled man squinted down at the boy. “You hit him, but you didn’t kill him.” The man struck a match against his thumbnail and lit his cigar. He nodded at the rabbit the boy was still holding. “You better wring his neck, quick now. No call letting fear and pain spoil the meat.”

The boy looked uncertainly down at the rabbit, then back up at his Grandfather. “You want me to breaks its neck?” He held the injured rabbit further away from him, eyes wide with unease.

“Go on, Jayne,” the man ordered impatiently. “You wanna be a man, don’t you?”

The little boy nodded and took a deep breath, little hands wrapping carefully around the rabbit’s neck. He squeezed and twisted, half cringing away from his own hands. The rabbit kicked unexpectedly as Jayne applied more pressure, startling the boy. He dropped the rabbit in fright, and within seconds the injured rabbit was attempting to escape.

The big man swore around his cigar. “Clumsy boy!” With practiced ease, he brought the shotgun up to his shoulder – aiming and shooting in one smooth motion.

The rabbit fell to the ground.

Jayne looked up at his grandfather with round eyes. “Sorry Granpa,” he whispered, looking down at the ground in shame.

Adam Cobb looked down at his forlorn grandson and frowned. “You don’t learn to kill, boy, you ain’t gonna eat.” He fixed the boy with a stern look for a moment, watching the child in front of him fidget unhappily. He sighed, laying a hand on the boy’s head affectionately. “Go on and grab that rabbit and show your Ma your first kill.”

Jayne’s face brightened. “Mine?”

“Yours was the first shot.” He let a small smile flicked down at the boy, and patted him on the shoulder. “Next time, you’ll do it yourself.”

Jayne grabbed the dead rabbit by the ears again, not even flinching this time, and ran off for the house, hollering for his ma.

Adam shook his head in concern. “Better learn quick, boy,” he muttered to himself before following the path back to the small farmhouse standing in the clearing.

The boy and his ma were standing on the porch, Ma cheerfully admiring his kill.

“Nice shooting, Jayne baby,” she told him with a smile. “You gonna help me cook it up too?”

Jayne nodded enthusiastically. “Can we make stew? With potatoes and carrots?” He hopped excitedly from foot to foot. “Can we have cake for after?”

Janna Cobb smiled at her son’s enthusiasm. “Maybe, if we have time to make a cake. Go on and get your brother up from his nap, and we’ll get started.”

Adam shook his head in disapproval as the boy disappeared inside. “You’re making that boy soft,” he warned. “He couldn’t even wring that rabbit’s neck by himself. And you got him cooking and helping with the babies?” He scoffed. “Woman’s work. Aint nothing a boy needs to know.”

Janna rolled her eyes. “Learning how to cook ain’t never done anyone any harm, and he’s gonna need it ‘til he gets hisself a wife when he’s older.” She frowned in irritation, “And I don’t have to tell you that I ain’t never cared what you thought of nothing.”

Adam held his hands up defensively, “I know, I know. But it ain’t just the cooking, Janna.” He shook his head in frustration. “You got him helping you with the baby and making cakes, when he should already be down at the docks with the other boys, running errands for dimes and getting into scrapes.”

Janna’s eyes flashed. “That boy and his brother are the only two of my children to survive, and you want me to send him out to the docks where just yesterday, Haley’s boy got runned over by some idiot who had more horsepower than sense?” She shook her finger in her father in law’s face. “I ain’t having it. Not my boy. He’s gonna do better than this stinking planet. My little boy’s gonna be somebody.”

“Your little boy’s gonna get killed,” Adam said grimly, crossing his arms. “He needs to toughen up or this ‘verse is gonna chew him up and spit him out. It ain’t a pretty world out there. A man's gotta be able to take care of himself. And I ain’t gonna let that boy die if I can stop it.”

Neither of them saw the small boy in the doorway. Jayne looked down at the cookbook in his hands, before slowly putting it back on the kitchen counter.

He wasn’t gonna grow up to be soft. He was gonna be a man.

The crew members were all sitting in the kitchen, not talking to each other and trying to pretend there was nothing wrong, when the WAVE beeped. Since no one was expecting it, they all jumped. Mal rose and approached the small vid-screen in the wall, before sighing and tapping it on impatiently.

“Mal,” Patience smirked, her voice sounding tinny as it emitted from the speakers. “Wish I could say it was good to see you, but I kinda hoped you’d be dead by now. Like a couple of your crew members are. I’ll give you an hour to try to find the bodies, but after that won’t make any promises. And Mal? You come back here again, I’ll get the rest of you.”

Before Mal could respond, the older woman had severed the connection.

For a few seconds, no one said anything. The silence was broken by Kaylee’s soft moan.

“They can’t really be dead, can they?” Wash finally offered. “I mean…Patience didn’t even know who they were…”

The pilot’s stricken look and words went right to Mal’s gut, spurring him to action.

“Gorram gan ni niang! Zo’, prep the shuttle. We were set up.”

“Sir…” Zoe began, “Could be just what she wants.”

“I don’t care. We’re going after them.” He turned to glance at River, sitting calm and pale in her chair. He could feel regret churning in his gut like poison. Poor kid. “I’m sorry, River. For what it’s worth…”

“They’re not dead,” she interrupted. “Not yet, anyway. Not ever. Simon promised he’d never leave me alone again.” She raised her wide eyes to his and he tried not to flinch at the tears swimming in the corners of them. It was harder to ignore the faith the shone in them when she slid to her feet and smiled that gentle smile of hers. “You’ll find them, Captain. I trust you.”

Perhaps you shouldn’t, he thought to himself, before he turned and walked away. People who trust me have a weird way of ending up dead.

Continue to part two