trans_9 | [Not long after the last podpop]

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[Not long after the last podpop]

Of all the people in all the verse that Jayne got saddled with and it had to be him!

The only person more annoying would have been that pretty boy doctor, that would have been too rutten much.

After a sufficient amount of growling and grumbling and poking around Jayne had found his way to the hanger, sounded like there was all manner of trouble going on around this ship but it wasn't his problem...yet.

All he wanted was to see if he still had a bunk or if he'd have to find a new one.

Ships of all shapes and sizes greeted Jayne, and he allowed himself a pause to fantasize about stealing one for a joy ride. He was lousy at flying for more then a quick get away but it might be fun. Hell the rest of the gorram world was falling apart why not live it up? You were either making a joke and trying to survive or pissing your pants and crying in Jayne's opinion.

And then suddenly, there she was. Serenity in all its crappy outdated glory. The Ship looked like it had been through hell and back partially because it had. Jayne could even recognize some of the marks on it's hull from various close calls.

Everything was just Shiny.

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The cargo bay was a bit of a mess. With the rage virus having infected Kaylee as well, there had been quite a bit of redecorating before she had been quarantined. Boxes had been stuffed full of anything Kaylee had chucked out of the hold, from personal belongings to parts for the ship. Most of it was intact, simply put away in a hurry, but there were occasionally a few broken bits and pieces (oddly enough, mostly Simon's things) around as well.

The mechanic herself had settled down on the floor, with three boxes sitting around her that she was currently sorting through. The vaccine had done its job of taking the frustration and anger out of her, but now she was just embarrassed and ashamed that she'd let herself act in such a way.

Noise outside caused her to look to the cargo bay door. Approaching footsteps, familiar and from home, and she was probably just getting her hopes up but that was okay for now, because that definitely looked like Jayne coming up quick. She was still weak, but she couldn't seem to get up fast enough. Oh please...

"JAYNE!" It really was him. Kaylee couldn't think of a time when she'd been more pleased to see Jayne's mug. She jumped up and slammed into him--couldn't be helped--in the biggest hug she could manage. "Nǐ gēnběn bù zhīdào wǒ shì duōme gāoxìng jiàn dào nǐ!! Did you come out of this pop!?"

[[ Translation: "You have no idea how glad I am to see you!!"

Jayne's eyes went wide at hearing a familiar voice, he hadn't expected to hear anyone let alone Kaylee!

"Y-yeah just got here!" He managed an awkward hug back, hugs weren't typically Jayne's thing unless he was drunk but Kaylee was the exception to the rule. After a moment of feeling startled he gave her a more familiar squeeze, "Wash make it down here before I did?" He asked gently pushing back and giving the little mechanic a once over.

The exception to every rule, Kaylee. She hugged him tight as long as she could before allowing herself to be pushed back and looked over. A bit on the skinny side, maybe, especially seeing as she had just gotten back from Rage Disease Central, but altogether good and healthy.

She let him look at her. There was no use in fighting it--he was going to look no matter what she did, might as well get it over with. There was better news for her to react to, anyhow.

"Wash's here too!? You know where he was headed??"

"Yeah he uh...was supposed to be coming here." Jayne was starting to get a creepy feeling along his spine like he'd stepped into some kind of alternate universe. Wash had been dead for months and he'd made his peace with it...yet here he was fit and kicking.

"So anyone else here?" He asked peering passed her and around at the mess, "Buncha space monkeys escape?" He added.

"Just got back in here not too long ago myself. Might've missed him."

With a bit of a sheepish look, Kaylee glanced back into the hold. "Cap'n and 'Nara went back to the pods 'bout eight months ago now, I think it was, and Zoe soon after 'em. Simon popped for a bit, but he went back too. Just been me 'n Serenity the last few months. The uh. The mess is...bit harder to explain."

Jayne looked confused, "You mean we gotta go back in those things?" That led to a look of shock and possibly fear, "No one's shoving me back in a pod."

"You don't gotta, I don't think. Been here near ten months now, and I ain't had to go back. Don't know what causes it, really."

"Oh...well good." Jayne grunted and looked back to the stuff, "Hey this is my favorite mug!" He scooped up a copper drinking mug from the mess of things, "What's the big idea?"

Oh yeah, she definitely wasn't making eye contact now. "There was a bit of a virus goin' around...made you sick, like normal, but it also pushed things towards the angry side."

That took a minute to process, "Like what...like on Ariel?"

Another half a second, "Wait YOU did all this?" He seemed shocked...and then burst out laughing at the idea "You mad...that musta been a sight! Only time I ever seen you mad was when the Doc did somethin' stupid!"

"What do you mean?" she asked, head tilting to the side.

"Yeah...granted, I obviously wasn't feelin' myself at the time, but..." She broke off the moment he started laughing. Kaylee couldn't help but grin and give him a friendly punch in the arm.

Jayne laughed back and began picking through the rest of the parts, "Well this ain't my mess to clean up...less there's anything good." He added in a devious voice.

There was another pause while he was pretending to examine one of the Docs coats with a sneer, "How much you remember from before we got here?"

"No, it's. I'll have it cleaned up soon, just been stuck in quarantine up til now. Didn't want it spread around, y'know?"

And there was a question she hadn't been asked in a while. It had been ten months, but she knew the exact moment that she'd left. "It was just after Early, couple days later. We'd just had dinner, bit more to drink with it than normal, and I was on my way to go check up on the engine 'fore goin' to bed...next thing I knew I was wakin' up naked and covered in slime." She laughed. "Pleasant experience, ain't it?"

"Yeah, second time that happened to me." Jayne grunted in a weak attempt of a joke.

Behind it though he was reeling. How was this possible? How could all three of them be from different times?

There was no way he was going to be the one to tell Kaylee what happened on Miranda, and even if he thought Wash had the right to know he wasn't about to do it there either.

Best keep it to himself, time travel was too much for a practical guy like Jayne to wrap his head around.

"So...what do we do? Sit on our hands till the bug things show up?"

Kaylee watched him carefully for a moment, hands busily reorganizing one of the boxes. There was something on his mind that he didn't want to talk about, so she wasn't about to press, but she couldn't help feel the ping of curiosity.

She shifted the box over to start on the next, and gave Jayne a shrug. "All depends. I've been workin' for the Engineerin' department, workin' down on Stacy's engines. There're trainin' classes for combat that go on, too. You'll be wantin' to find Kang or Ronan for one of those. Other things too. Ship's got its own security force, if you'd be interested at all in that..."

Jayne snorted in contempt at the idea of him working with the law for a change...then he realized she wasn't kidding.

"What about money?" He inquired giving her a hard look, he'd been on the wrong side of the law so long it was hard to imagine actually trying to uphold it for a change.

"No money to worry about. 'Course, that's got a downside too. Food's awful as all get out, worse'n protein packs." He wouldn't be happy about that point, she knew. "I do, however, spend a bit of time workin' at Kang's tavern down in the city, so I know for a fact the alcohol round here's worth the while."

Crappy food? Day ruined.

Free Booze? Day saved!

"Wait...wait...wait..back up." He put a hand on her shoulder and met eye to eye as this was a matter of life or death, "You tellin' me...that there's quality booze on this boat...and I don't have to pay for it?"

Laughing, Kaylee nodded. "You heard me right, don't worry. Biggest rule of Kang's is no fightin' and no harassin' the servers." Like Kaylee.

Jayne's face fell into a pout, "That's half the fun!" He complained but straightened up, "Least this place isn't all crap." He declared as if that made it law. After he made sure his bedroom was in order he'd be paying that tavern a visit.

...and might never leave.

"Not all, no. And it tends to get excitin' when missions start up." He'd be glad to know, when he got to his bunk, that the only things Kaylee's rampage had touched were those in the cargo hold. She had carefully made sure, several times over the previous ten months, that everything was in order should one of her crewmates show up again.

Wash was pretty sure he heard voices coming from the cargo bay before he ducked into it - one voice in particular, the one he'd been looking all over the place for.

"There you are," he said as he walked up the ramp. "Figured you wouldn't be far from the boat for long."

Kaylee had been excited to see Jayne, to say the least, but seeing Wash as well was like having her birthday eight months early.

Her reaction to Wash was much the same as it was to Jayne: a shout of his name, and a giant hug with the force of a bear. "Not long at all, if I can help it. Couldn't leave her for anythin'."

Wash wrapped her up in a hug with just about as much squeezing, even if he had, from his perspective, not seen her all that long ago. "Same thing goes for you too, mèimei. How long have you been here for?"

If it was up to Kaylee, she'd never let either of them out of her sight. She'd missed the big brother hugs and the silly conversations and...basically everything from home.

"Near ten months," she replied Wash's his chest. Nope, not ever letting go.

"Shénme - ten months?" Wash asked, shocked. He looked down at Kaylee, pulling experimentally to see if he could break her grip. Nope - their mechanic was stronger than she looked. "Kaylee sweetie, I get that you missed me but if you keep hugging so hard I'm not going to be able to breathe."

Ten months. No wonder she had flown at him when he walked through the door. How long had she been here with nobody from the crew to keep her company?

"There about, yeah." With a last squeeze, Kaylee released Wash, and took instead to grinning up at him from about arm's length. It hadn't been a bad ten months, necessarily. Different, but in a way no worse than anything they might have gone through on Serenity.

"Well we're here to keep you company now - although you could probably wish for better company than the walking man mountain over there." Even stuck in an unfamiliar location with truly weird people, Wash was never going to stop making fun of Jayne.

"I know we're not your fancy doctor," he continued, "but I think we're good enough, don't you?"

"Any other day I might've said so, but I don't think I could be happier to see anybody if I tried. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, apparently."

Kaylee stopped at 'fancy doctor' and gave Wash a sheepish smile. "Aah, y'see....'bout that...there's this uh. Dean. 'N he..."

"Woah, really?" Wash asked, eyebrows raised. "You got yourself a new sweetheart, huh?"

He couldn't say he was displeased - it wasn't fun to watch Kaylee walk around moonbrained over Simon when Simon was too oblivious to do anything about it. But still... "You know this means I have to threaten him with manly violence, right?"

She was beyond glad that Wash didn't require too much of a broken sentence to understand her. "Sure did. I'll introduce ya, he stops by the ship on occasion. He...don't sleep well."

It's a relief to tell at least half the crew. Telling Jayne would be harder, she knew, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to it. "Your kinda manly violence I don't mind so much," she laughed, "so long as you don't set the gorilla on him."

"If you actually like the guy, that would be counterproductive. Jayne might return him with some missing limbs. Or other missing important bits. I'll just threaten to return him with missing limbs."

Anyone who actually knew Wash probably wouldn't be put off by threats of missing limbs, but this Dean guy didn't know him. Effective threats would hopefully be effective.

"It'd be appreciated. Couple healthy little limb-threats might not hurt." Dean would be able to handle it, she knew. It would have been pretty pathetic if he couldn't.

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[Not long after the last podpop]

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I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you meant Miranda...

...I'm very tired. please forgive ;_:

Totally and completely forgiven :Db

As sweet as your muse <3

No, but she'd probably kill me if I didn't, so. XD <3

I shall purchase you many Fruity Oaty bars to keep you happy

Yessssss. My delicious day shall be complete~

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