evilmaniclaugh

Serenity finally stops flying eight years after Jayne and Simon rejoin the crew. 2528 proves to be a bad year for them all: Inara loses the baby she and Mal had been so desperate to love and, just two months after that, Derrial Book is killed trying to negotiate with an Alliance officer. It happens because of a stupid misunderstanding which makes the loss of the gentle enigma that was the shepherd all the more difficult to bear. Unable to cope with any more sadness and with Serenity on her last legs, the crew make the difficult decision to go their separate ways.

Mal and Inara settle on Sihnon, bringing up three children and bickering happily every single day of their lives. Kaylee returns home and ends up marrying her first ever boyfriend, the man who was responsible for instilling her with that life long love of engines. Zoë and Wash set up a haulage company -- one hundred percent legitimate to Mal’s disgust. And River, finally cleared of her refugee status, becomes a lecturer in behavioural psychology at the Academy in Capital City.

Simon has always known where he wants to live out his days and it isn’t one of the central planets with a controlled weather system and every luxury available on tap. Jayne is in complete agreement with him and they return to that unlisted, unnamed rock in the spring of 2529 to find it as deserted as they had left it.

It takes a lot of effort and a large amount of money but finally they turn Love Knot Farm into a working ranch. With communications in place, they run a small but successful business for eighteen years and Simon is never happier than when family comes to visit them.

At age sixty eight, Jayne’s heart suddenly falls silent and Simon is thankful. Thankful for every minute they spent together. Thankful for being brave enough to seize that chance of happiness offered them by the elusive fates.

Gratitude, however, is not the first emotion to overwhelm him. Bitter, angry and full of despair, he howls out his anguish, and with tears staining his face he rides out to the long meadow, stopping near to the tree where Jayne first taught him to shoot. Tethering his horse, he scrapes away the covering of grass and roots then begins to shovel blindly at soft, pungent earth. It takes him six hours to dig a grave big enough to hold that body and when he’s finally finished he looks at the hole in the ground and howls once again like a wounded animal at the thought of having to bury the man he loves. He leads his horse home, too broken to remember how to ride her, and once she’s stabled for the night he has to face a horrifying reality as he walks into the farmhouse alone. There are things that need doing. Tenderly washing Jayne, he lays his body out then sleeps next to him one last time.

Simon makes a brief call to River on the Telefonix and is stunned when, one by one, everyone turns up at the farm. They’re here to help him load Jayne onto the trailer of the mule. They’re here to help him lower Jayne into the ground. And, most importantly of all, they’re here to help him find a way through his grief when that reality hits home and his world falls apart.

Jayne Cobb’s place of birth is listed as a set of co-ordinates and it seems appropriate that records show his place of death to be a similar set of numbers. The two couldn’t be more different.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in -- Robert Frost.


Done