Title: That Which Shapes A Man Chapter Two: How It Was

Author: mercsgoodgirl Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss. Just one woman’s take on the story. No money exchanged and all that. Characters: Jayne/crew, ofc, omc, some Jayne/Kaylee – consider it my AU if you have issues with the pairing/timing Setting: Just prior to “Those Left behind”; also, twenty-eight years previously. Warning: PG-15 for strong language, angst and violence. Word Count: 3,423

To read the previous chapter, click on my name, above.

A/N: From the first time I watched Firefly, I wondered what circumstances might have shaped the character of Jayne Cobb, an exceptionally complex man. The given name “Jayne” was a common variant of “John” in Victorian England. This story emerged from the questions I asked.

Thanks to my excellent beta, ArtemisPrime, for making me dig deep. Also, to my dear friend Kristy Bartley, Ph.D., psychologist and therapist, who introduced me to the amazing work on intergenerational family dynamics done by Dr. Terrance Real and gave me insights into the forces that might have created the character we see.

Questions, thoughts and comments are sincerely appreciated. Thanks!

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Chapter Two: How It Was

“Hey, Kaylee.” Wash sticks his tousled head through the engine room doorway. “Got any idea when the others are due back on board?” His voice is unusually clipped and tight, the sound different enough from his usual playful tone that Kaylee quickly looks up from her work.

The mechanic is elbow-deep in Serenity’s main engine compressor. With an unconscious gesture, she pushes a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, smearing graphite across her forehead. “Don’t got no idea. Whenever they finish pickin’ up supplies an’ our post, I ‘magine.” She puts her wrench in the toolbox and begins to clean her hands on an old towel. “What’s up?”

The ginger-haired pilot steps over the door casing, his face unusually grave. A small slip of paper flutters in his hand.

“We got a wave from Jayne’s sister on Sunderland. His brother just died, and his family wants him home for the funeral. Said his ma’s taking it pretty hard.”

“Mattie’s dead?” Kaylee’s voice quavers. Jayne had spoken fondly of his frail younger brother, and she knows he often sends part of his pay home to help provide for his care.

Wash shrugs. “I guess so, unless he’s got more than one brother. Wasn’t Mattie sick with damp lung?”

“Yeah.” The young mechanic settles onto part of the engine housing, leaning her elbows on her knees, her dark eyes tearing up. “Jayne said it’s pretty common there, on account of the weather bein’ cold and wet. Mostly mines and factory work; make’s the air real dirty.”

She looks up at Wash, her lower lip trembling. “Best let me tell him when they get back on board.”

The pilot nods solemnly and hands her the note. “Hey, Kaylee, I’m sorry. Tell the big guy we’re all here for him. If Zo and I can do anything…”

Kaylee sighs and wipes her eyes. “Knowin’ Jayne, he’s more like to just clam up. Still, I’ll tell ’im.”

* * *

The small square of paper rustles in the side pocket of Kaylee’s overalls as she makes her way down the aft stairs to Serenity’s lower level. She nibbles her lower lip uncertainly, sorting out how best to tell Jayne about his brother’s death.

One thing’s for sure - I best do it in private, she concludes and plops down on the lumpy old couch in the lounge, tucking her boots up under herself. From there, she has a clear view of the cargo bay doors and can see when Jayne returns to the ship. Poor Jayne.

The young mechanic’s grubby fingers worry nervously with a lock of her thick chestnut hair. Her stomach churns. Getting the big merc to talk about his past is a task requiring sensitivity, patience and tenacity. He’s an extremely private man and this is especially true when the conversation involves anything to do with his family. Kaylee finds this sad and bewildering, as her own family is loud, loving and close-knit.

On rare occasions, usually when Jayne’s had a few drinks or after sexin’, he’ll relax his guard enough that Kaylee dares to risk a question. The mercenary never voluntarily shares anything personal, and the bits he’s let slip in those scattered unguarded moments left Kaylee pretty sure he’d grown up the hard way. The mere fact that he’d never gone home after leaving Sunderland at nineteen said a lot.

Twenty-two years is an awful long time to go without seein’ family, Kaylee thinks. Why, I was missin’ mine somethin’ fierce after the first six months. Wonder why he never once went back to visit? I know he writes his mother and she sometimes sends him presents.

She smiles as she thinks of the yellow and orange knitted hat he wears with pride, defying anyone to make wise cracks about the curious headgear. His affection for his Ma is apparent, at least.

She worries at her thumbnail with her teeth, thinking, Guess I’ll catch ‘im when he comes in. Wonder if I can get him to come down to his bunk with me? That way he don’t gotta worry ‘bout nobody starin’ or nothin’ when I tell ‘im.

She has a long wait.

* * *

With a heavy clank, the inner cargo ramp door swings back and Mal strides assertively into the bay, a small crate balanced on one shoulder.

“An’ then, ai ya, if the sumbitch didn’t say, ‘An’ I got one, too!’,” he declares. Zoë and Jayne follow him up the ramp, laughing uproariously and dragging hand trucks loaded with provisions and supplies.

Mal sets down the crate and closes the ramp door behind Jayne, then turns and hit the comm. “Back on the boat, Wash. Think I got us a job, so be lookin’ for a message from a fella name of Sherman Oakes. Wants us to haul some whisky to our buddy, Benning, over on Newhall.”

Wash’s slightly nasal voice resonates in the comm speaker, “Will do, Mal. And by the way, when you get a minute, step up to the bridge if you would.”

Mal raises an eyebrow and he looks curiously over his shoulder at Zoë, busily unstrapping flats of canned goods from the hand truck.

“How come,” he teases her, “that your husband’s makin’ a rendezvous with me?”

“Don’t rightly know, sir,” she replies dryly. “I wasn’t gone that long…”

Mal chortles, then turns and starts up the stairway to the bridge, calling back over his shoulder, “Jayne, make sure that ammunition’s safely packed away and then help Zoë get the foodstuff up to the galley. Guess I’d best go see what that little man in the awful shirt wants.”

* * *

Kaylee’s awakened by a cramp in her calf, and she quickly shifts her position on the old yellow couch so that she can stretch out the aching, knotted leg. How long has she been asleep there? Are the others back on board? Massaging the offending muscle briefly, the little mechanic stands up. No one in the cargo bay that she can tell, but she hears voices in the nearby medlab. Maybe Simon will know.

She sticks her head in the doorway. Across the room, Mal leans up against a cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest. In the cool, antiseptic blue-while room, his deep red shirt is the one point of warmth. Simon sits nearby, concern evident in his sensitive, intelligent face, his slender surgeon’s hand resting on River’s latest medical tests. Both men are clearly deep in conversation.

“Oh, uh, hi, Kaylee.” Simon’s face, as he looks up at her, is even more grave than usual. “Can I… do something for you?” He gestures vaguely.

“Well, uh, I was actually lookin’ for Jayne.” She turns to Mal. “He come back on board with you, Cap’n?”

Mal glances at Simon, and the doctor nods briefly. “Yeah, mei-mei, he’s back. In fact, he’s up in the galley with Zoë, storing away the provisions we just bought.”

The girl turns to leave but the Captain calls her back. “Kaylee, wait up.”

“Yeah, Cap?”

“Accordin’ to Wash, we got in a message that Jayne’s brother died. The man don’t know about it yet, his own self, and the doc an’ I was figurin’ it might go best for the Preacher to tell him after dinner. You know how kinda… volatile he can be.”

“That’s exactly why I already asked Wash to let me tell Jayne, “ she replies quietly, the hand in her overall pocket fingering the note. “No offense to Shepherd; I just figured Jayne’d take it better comin’ from me, an’ knowin’ him, I think he’d rather get the news in private.”

Mal again glances at Simon, who agrees. “Okay, then, you tell him however you think’s best. I’m guessin’ he’ll wanna go back to Sunderland for the funeral.”

Kaylee shakes her head as fresh tears well in her dark eyes. “Might feel he has to go back, but I doubt he’ll wanna.”

* * *

At the top of the aft stairwell, Kaylee sniffles and dries her tears on her sleeve before stepping into the galley.

Across the common space, the big, dark-haired man is stacking cases of canned goods on the rack in the ship’s storeroom as Zoë hands them to him.

Kaylee calls out, “Uh, Jayne…you got a minute?”

The girl’s voice sounds strange and he knows the minute he sees her face that she’d been crying. Piling the flat of cans on top of the previous ones, the merc grunts and shifts past Zoë. Stepping close, he slips a long arm around Kaylee’s shoulder and draws her against his side. “What’s the matter, darlin’?” he asks sharply, “That bèn de hún dàn of a doc say somethin’ got you all upset again?”

“Ain’t nothin’ Simon did.” Kaylee clarifies, wiping her nose on the cuff of her shirt.

As Zoe quickly steps back to pick up another flat of cans, the first mate’s keen eye takes in Kaylee’s distress.

The mechanic asks, “Look, Zoë, I got to talk with Jayne. You mind finishin’ up here on your own?”

“I’ll handle the rest of the supplies, Jayne. Looks like she needs you.”

The young mechanic’s eyes are dark and sad, her body rigid with anxiety as she looks up at him. “Can we go down in your bunk, Jayne? I got somethin’ I need to tell you an’ I’d rather do it there.”

He’s puzzled and more than a little concerned. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, babygirl.”

Lord God, she better not be pregnant…

Zoë watches silently as the merc follows Kaylee up the stairs and through the fore corridor toward the entrance to his bunk. “Somethin’ sure not right there,“ she tells herself as they silently descend the ladder into the merc’s quarters and close the hatch.

* * *

Long before…

Every Friday evening, regular as clockwork, Jayne waits until his younger brother and sisters are tucked into bed and then hands off his pay to his Ma. Annalee thanks him and hides the coin in a small jar at the back of the pantry where Jedd is unlikely to look. The arrangement works well enough for over a year until one Sunday evening after supper. Jedd peers across his emptied plate and informs Jayne that he’s decided it is time his son learns to weld.

“Cobbs been welders for over two hundred years, and it’s high time you git to learnin’. Startin’ in the mornin’, you’ll be comin’ t’factory with me. I pulled some strings and got you a place as a ‘prentice welder.”

Jayne glances nervously at Annalee, his hesitant expression noted by his father.

“What?” Jedd raises his voice. “Don’t go lookin’ to her, boy. It’s time you was bringin’ in some cashy money, much as yer eatin’. Paymaster’ll be rollin’ yer wages in with mine, so’s I can make sure you ain’t spendin’ ‘em on candy and penny picture books.”

Jayne’s heart sinks. This arrangement means less money for his Ma and more to fuel his Pa’s drinkin’, for that’s surely where it will go. Besides, he likes working for Tom McKenny and has begun to have a real sense of accomplishment. He’s good with the horses and Tom is liberal with his praise.

Oh no! Can’t just not show up. I gotta find some way to let Mr. McKenny know why I can’t work for him no more. Maybe Lizzie can take him a note…

Later that night, after his parents have gone to bed and he can hear his father’s erratic snores, Jayne slips from Mattie’s side and tiptoes into the kitchen. He lights a candle, takes a small piece of paper from his father’s desk and finds a pencil stub.

“DER MR MCKENNY,” he prints in a childish hand, “MY PA IS PRENTISSIN ME AS A WELDR SO I KAINT WORK FUR YOU NO MOR. I AM SORRY. I LIKD MY JOB. THANK YOU FUR YUR HELP. JAYNE COBB.”

The lanky, rawboned boy grits his teeth, biting back the anger that rises within him. He folds the note, puts away the pencil, blows out the candle. Around him the house is dark and still. He silently returns to the room where his siblings lie sleeping and decides he’ll give the note to Lizzy first thing in the morning.

* * *

For over a year, Jayne rises each morning and follows his father down the hill and through the gate into the L&R Ironworks. At first, Jedd teaches him how to light the heavy oxy-acetylene torch and adjust the oxygen level for the hissing, blue-white flame that melts through the sheet iron like a hot knife through butter.

His father starts him off moving scrap and practicing at cutting through waste iron bars and pipes, then moves him on to cutting openings in scrap steel plate. The man is a hard taskmaster, making Jayne practice the cuts over and over until his eyes water from the strain and his shoulders ache from bracing the heavy torch. Never a word of praise. Just work him and collect the additional pay come Friday.

All the lifting and heavy work, at the stables and then at the ironworks, put muscle on Jayne’s slender frame. Soon enough, he’s topped six feet and grown noticeably bulkier. He’s always hungry, his growing body struggling to make do with the limited meals Annalee improvises. Without the assistance her son’s work for Tom McKenny provided, and with Jedd sharing precious little of Jayne’s prentice wages, Annalee finds herself challenged more and more just to meet the family’s barest needs. This is especially true when it comes to medical care for Mattie, ever prone to sickness.

To Jayne’s surprise, he takes quickly to the work and soon enough can cut as neatly as his father. Still, it’s a mixed blessing when the shift foreman stops by one Friday afternoon to check on his progress and announces, “Hell, Jedd, the boy can cut better’n you can! Move him on to weldin’ if you think you’re still able to teach him. Otherwise, I’ll put him with Bates Gillian.”

Jayne sees the shame and rage flashing in his father’s eyes as Jedd snaps out, “Damnit, Pete, ya know ruttin’ well I c’n teach ‘im. Didn’t get that 'Master Welder' certificate by whistlin’ ‘Dixie’ out my ass.”

The foreman looks at Jedd warily – everybody knows the reputation he has for a nasty temper. “I don’t doubt you earned that cert back in the day, Jedd, but that was before the accident. I’m just sayin’, the boy’s got a knack an’ I want him trained right.”

At shift change, Jedd and Jayne line up with the other men to file past the bursar’s window and pick up their wages. When Jedd gets his envelope, Jayne speaks up hesitantly. “Uh, Pa? Remember, Ma said she needed money to get more vittles and some syrup for Mattie’s cough.” He hopes to talk his father out of at least some of the coin, knowing how much Annalee needs it. Better that than have the bastard drink it all away, he thinks.

Jedd ignores him. “You go on, boy. I’m gonna stop by Hallahan’s and have a few, then I’ll be on home. Yer Ma can manage jest fine on what I give her last week.”

The hell she can! Jayne thinks, furiously, his hands knotting at his sides. He knows better than to attempt to reason with his father, so he turns and trudges back up the hill, dirty and tired and wondering what he can do to help his mother.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Ma. I tried.” Jayne’s soot-smudged face shows his frustration. “I guess the hún dàn figures we can all live off gorram air.”

“Jayne Russert Cobb, I won’t have you usin’ that foul language in this house.” Annalee’s feet are planted well apart and her flour-covered hands braced on her hips. She frowns sternly up at her eldest. “It’s true your Pa don’t make things easy for us, him bein’ like he is, but he’s still yer father, and you’ll show him respect.”

Returning to the dough she is kneading, the wiry little woman continues, “You done what you could, son, and that’s that. I been prayin’ yer Pa’ll come to his senses, swear off the drink.” Annalee looks up at Jayne and her deep blue eyes take on a far-away look. “He weren’t always like he is now, you know. When we married, he was a good man, a religious man. Surely you remember how he was when you’uz little…”

“Yeah, Ma, I remember.”

Jayne snakes out an hand, hoping to snag a pinch of dough and Annalee smacks him sharply with the mixing spoon. “Ow!” he yelps, shocked that she’s nailed him. Most of the time he’s fast enough to get away with the petty theft.

“Ye’ll wait yer turn like the others,” she scolds him fondly. “Now go git washed up and help the children with their lessons ‘til this gets done.” Her strong hands fold the dough into a loaf and tuck it into a well-greased iron pan, then she stokes the coals in the old stove and slides the dough into the oven.

“An’ Jayne,” she hesitates, “…if’n yer Pa comes in soused again, please just stay in yer room.”

* * *

Jedd Cobb stumbles up the street toward home, mumbling to himself. How dare that ruttin’ sonuvabitch of a foreman suggest he couldn’t even teach his own son how to weld right? Him - Jedd Cobb, a Master Welder. An’ why the hell was the man makin’ such a fuss over Jayne’s work, when it was clear the kid was only just learnin’? Anyone could see Jayne’d never be half the welder his old man was, right? Boy’s gittin’ too big fer his britches, and Jedd figures it’s about time someone took him down a peg.

By the time he’s made his way home up Weaver Street hill, Jedd’s worked himself into a full-fledged rage. No doubt about it, the way he slams into the house. “Jayne, git th’ hell up! Git yer sorry ass outta th’ bed!”

Annalee throws on her robe, quickly stepping into the kitchen, hoping to calm Jedd, perhaps to distract him before things go too far. “Don’t be so loud, Jedd.” She fumbles at him, “Let me fix you somethin’ ta eat. I can make you some coffee…”

He pushes her away. “Shaddup, woman! I don’t want no ruttin’ coffee. Got me business to settle wi’ tha’ smartass boy a’yourn.“ His breath reeks of whisky. Stumbling toward the children’s room, he calls out, “Jayne, damnit, git your skinny butt out here!”

Annalee clutches at her husband’s arm. “Please leave the boy alone, Jedd. He ain’t done nothin’.”

“I thought told ya to shut th’ fuck up!” he snarls and shoves her to the floor, yanks open the door to the bedroom where his children huddle, wide-eyed and terrified, behind his eldest son.

With strength born from twenty-some years of working steel, Jedd Cobb grabs the front of Jayne’s long-johns in his gnarled fist and drags him back into the kitchen. There, ignoring Annalee’s pleas, he brutally and methodically beats the boy until the hurricane of his rage has blown itself out, and then stumbles off to bed.

* * *

When Jedd’s ragged snores assure Annalee that he’s asleep, she gets to her feet, weeping silently. Mattie and the girls cower on the floor in the farthest dark corner of their bedroom, the old yellow quilt pulled ’round them.

Pointing to the boys’ bed, she directs them, “Rachel, you pull those covers back and Liza, come help me lift your brother into bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is he dead?” Mattie ventures in a tiny voice, as his mother and sister somehow managed to shift Jayne’s lanky frame onto the mattress.

“Rachel, go wet a clean cloth and bring it here.” Annalee settles herself beside the battered youth. She checks his pulse and gently runs her hands over her son, feeling for broken bones.

“No, but it’s a miracle.” She dabs tenderly at Jayne’s bloodied nose and mouth, strokes his tousled, dark hair. “Right now yer brother’s unconscious an’ may well sleep on through the night, but he wakes up and needs anythin’, you come get me. I’m gonna curl up on th’ settee. Come, now, Mattie, back to bed. Girls…”

And with that, the oblivion of darkness settles over the Cobb household.

Chapter two of thirteen

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