Archive of Our Own

Mal stormed around Serenity, yelling at anyone who caught his eye. “Has anyone seen Jayne! We’re supposed to lift off and he’s gone missing!”

“He’s probably at the tavern, getting drunk,” Zoe said. “He said the negotiations for this job were the worst he’s ever had to go through.”

“Well why was he handling them alone?” Mal asked.

“The guy giving us the job was an acquaintance of Jayne’s,” Kaylee said. “He said for Jayne to come alone to the negotiations.”

“Otherwise I would have gone with him,” Zoe added.

“And why did we even agree to this?” Mal added.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Zoe said, standing up as if daring Mal to say anything about it. “You were out chasing down our payment for the Mortensen job, you left me in charge with orders to find us another job, and this was the only one that came up. It was either this job or nothing.”

Spotting the anger in Zoe’s eyes, Mal backed down a little bit. “So we’ve got a job, and that’s good,” he said, “but the fact remains that we’ve got a hold full off cargo that we can’t deliver because only Jayne knows where it’s supposed to go, but we also can’t return it and refuse the job because only Jayne knows where it came from, and now Jayne’s gone missing.” Just then he happened to notice that River was sitting on the floor in the corner, stroking a small fluffy dog. “And where did that dog come from?” he asked.

“We found him in Jayne’s bunk,” Kaylee said. “He’s taken a liking to River — won’t let anyone else go near him.”

“Look what he did me!” Simon said, holding up his left hand, which had bandages around his ring and middle fingers. 

“If memory serves,” Mal said, “you also don’t get along too well with horses or cows, doc. I’m thinkin’ maybe you should just stay away from animals altogether.”

“A girl named her hamster after him once,” Kaylee said.

Mal grunted. “Still doesn’t mean the hamster wouldn’t have taken a bite of him, given a chance.” He looked out the door of the ship. “Looks like we’ve got about two hours until sundown. Zoe, Kaylee, and I will split up and look for Jayne. We’ll be back by sunset. While we’re out, will also keep an ear out for anyone who’s missing a little dog like this one here. Simon, you give Inara a wave, let her know that we’ll be here at least until tomorrow, so she can taken another client or come back, whichever she prefers.” 

The dog lunged for Simon again, and River was just barely able to keep a grip on him.

“River, try to keep that dog from bitin’ your brother again,” Mal said.

River nodded. “I’ll take him to my bunk. I’ll take good care of him.”

“Okay,” Mal said as River walked off with the dog, “everyone got their assignments, let’s get to it.”

Zoe and Kaylee walked in just after midnight, and Mal walked in just after them. River and Simon came out to see them.

“Apparently no one found Jayne,” Simon said 

“Nope,” Zoe said. “Not even a clue.”

“Me neither,” Kaylee said.

“I don’t know how a man so big can vanish so completely in a town so small, but apparently Jayne’s managed to pull it off,” Mal said. He looked at Simon. “Doctor, were you able to get in touch with Inara?”

“I was,” Simon said. “She said since we’re not leaving until tomorrow, she has a client for tonight and she’ll be back morning.”

Kaylee looked around the hold. “River, where’s the dog?”

“He’s right here,” River said, before turning toward the crew bedrooms and calling out “Jayne!”

The dog came running around the corner, and River snatched him out of the air just as he launched himself toward Simon with his little teeth bared.

“He answers to his name?” Zoe asked.

“And you named him Jayne?” Kaylee asked.

River looked up from petting the dog, and nodded. “He’s just like the human Jayne,” she said. “He seems grumpy at first, but once you get to know him, he’s a sweetie.”

Zoe and Kaylee looked at each other, trying not to laugh at the idea of anyone calling Jayne a sweetie.

River looked over at Bao. “Oh, Captain,” she said, “I didn’t know if you’d get a chance to eat while you were out, so I made bao. They’re in a basket on the table, probably still warm.”

“Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Mal said.

“Hell, I think it’s the only good news I’ve heard all day,” Kaylee said.

River took the dog and shut it in her room, then returned to the table to eat with the others. 

“So Mal,” Simon was saying as she sat down, “I hate to ask this but. . . what happens if we don’t find Jayne tomorrow?”

“Well, we can’t sit around here forever,” Mal said. “We’ll have to take off.”

“What about the cargo?” Simon asked. “Jayne has all the delivery information.”

“That’s true,” Mal said, “but just because we don’t know where Jayne promised to deliver it doesn’t mean we can’t deliver it somewhere. We’ll just have to open it up after we lift off, then try to think of where we might be able to sell it, and in the meantime we’ll avoid this planet for a year or two, longer if we can.”

It was obvious that this answer didn’t sit right with Simon. “What about Jayne?” he asked. “I mean, not that I’m personally fond of him, but he is crew, isn’t he?”

“And he should have thought of that before he gone and got himself vanished,” Mal said. 

River could see that Simon was about to say something about this, but Kaylee tapped his hand and shook her head subtly, and apparently that was enough to get Simon to shut his mouth.

Once they finished eating, Zoe helped River with the dishes, then everyone retired to their bunks for the night. When River walked into her room, she saw that Jayne had dragged a bunch of her clothes into a pile next to her bed, made himself a nest in it, and fallen asleep. River stroked him some more before climbing into her bed and falling asleep with one arm hanging over the side, touching Jayne’s fur.

The next morning River woke up early — the rumble of Serenity’s engine’s normally rocked her to sleep, but when they were planetside, the absence of that comforting sound always led her wake up early. She looked around her room for the puppy, but didn’t see any sign of him. She looked over and noticed that the door to her room was open — maybe he’d been whining during the night and someone had opened the door to let him out. She threw on her clothes and headed to the kitchen, where she made herself a cup of tea as she waited for the rest of the crew to wake up.

After a few minutes, Kaylee walked into the kitchen. “Morning, River!” Kaylee said. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

River shook her head. “Never can when we’re planetside.” She took a sip of her tea, then asked “Have you seen Jayne?”

Kaylee shook her head. “The ship’s monitors show that the hatches weren’t opened overnight, so he’s still somewhere out there.

“Not Jayne the human,” River said. “Jayne the puppy. Someone opened my door and he got out.”

“He’s got to be somewhere around the ship, though,” Kaylee said. “You’d better go find him, before he makes a mess and the captain steps in it.”

Nodding thoughtfully, River put down her tea and got up from the table. She decided to start with searching the hold. While she was in the hold, River heard the clank of Inara’s ship docking. She waited until Inara came down the stairs into the main part of the ship.

“Still no sign of Jayne?” Inara asked.

River shook her head. “No. He was in my room when I went to sleep last night, but someone opened the door during the night and he got out.”

“Jayne was in your room?” Inara asked, surprised. “I’ll bet Simon just loved that!”

“Oh, no, Simon was happy about it — Jayne bit him yesterday—” River sudden stopped, her eyes getting wide, and she laughed. “You were talking about Jayne the human! No, I was talking about Jayne the puppy. Anyway, both Jaynes are still missing. The human is still somewhere on the planet, and the puppy is somewhere on the ship. Kaylee’s in the kitchen if you want someone to keep you company while I search for the puppy.”

Leaving Inara behind, River started searching the crew quarters. She checked her room again, in case the puppy had gone back in, then checked Kaylee and Simon’s rooms — Simon was a light sleeper, but even so, River was quiet enough to search his room for the puppy without waking him up. After closing Simon’s door, River headed further up the corridor, wishing she didn’t have to go into Mal’s room, or Zoe’s. Either one had the potential to be unpleasant or dangerous or both if she accidentally woke up them. Suddenly she stopped short: She heard something behind Jayne’s door. How had the puppy managed to get in there. She opened the door and walked in, only to stop short, her eyes shooting open and her jaw dropping in surprise. Standing in front of her, naked as the day he was born, was Jayne. The human Jayne. 

As if they had planned to synchronize it, River and Jayne screamed simultaneously, before she turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her, sprinting toward the kitchen.

Kaylee and Inara looked up as River ran into the kitchen, yelling “He’s in his bunk!” When they didn’t respond, she elaborated “Jayne! He’s in his bunk!”

Seeking to avoid a repeat of their miscommunication in the hold, Inara asked “Jayne the human?”

“Yes, Jayne the human,” River said, exasperated. “Jayne the puppy didn’t have a bunk!”

Just then Jayne — the human — walked into the kitchen, having taken a moment to throw on a shirt and some pants, followed closely by Mal and Zoe. “What the hell happened?” Jayne asked. The last thing I remember I was leaving the negotiation for the job, and the next thing I know, River’s walking in on me when I’m in my altogethers.”

“The hatches were shut all night, Captain,” Kaylee said before Mal had a chance to ask. By this time Simon had joined the crew in the kitchen, and they were all at a loss to explain where Jayne had gone and how he had returned to the ship.

Suddenly, Inara’s eyes lit up. “River, did you ever find the puppy?” she asked.

River shook her head. “No, it’s like he just vanished.

“And the puppy was about this big?” She held her hands a little less than a foot apart. 

River nodded.

“And it’s fur was white and light brown?”

River nodded again.

Inara turned his attention to Jayne. “Jayne, what were the negotiations like yesterday?”

Startled by the sudden change of course of the conversation, Jayne blinked a couple of times before answering. “They were rough,” he said. “The boys were all kinds of twitchy, and it was rough to convince them to give us the contract.”

Inara nodded. “That kind of dog is called a Pomeranian,” she said. “And there’s a legend that says that when people get too upset, they can turn into a Pomeranian, and they won’t turn back until the people around them give them enough positive attention.”

“You mean, I fixed Jayne?” River asked.

“Inara, surely you don’t believe this kind of crackpot legend,” Mal said.

Seeing Inara about to get indignant, and hoping to head off a fight, Zoe said “Whether she does or not, Captain, the fact is that Jayne is back, so we can get on our way as soon as Jayne gives you the coordinates and you get us underway.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Mal said. “Jayne, follow me.”

If anyone but River noticed Jayne scratching behind his ear as he followed Mal out of the room, no one said anything about it.