Synopsis: Alternate ‘Verse ... When fate takes a turn and Simon is unable to liberate River from the Academy Jayne finds himself accidentally rescuing the crazy girl from her tormentors... consequently landing him knee deep in trouble with the Alliance.
 

In other words this is a very large and complicated Alternate 'Verse I'm attempting to write... 

It started when I wrote a very short story concerning another alternate universe with River and Jayne. In that short story Simon had been captured by the Feds but had managed to deliver River safely into the hands of Serenity. Without Simon Mal was able to use the Crazy Genius to further his exploits into crime, in order to better control her he paired her up with Jayne, thus the crime duo was first formed. Needless to say that one had quite a few plot holes and ended up in the recycle bin after three pages.

However the idea of a crime duo, of Jayne and River working together as partners lingered on in my head but without a format for exploitation. It then dawned on me... What would have happened

to River if Simon wasn't able to rescue her? What would Jayne have done if he hadn't taken that Job with Marco? With those two questions in hand I started to formulate...

First why wouldn't Simon have succeeded? Well if his plan had been discovered the blue hands would've prevented the escape in whatever manner possible. Leaving River in the academy and Simon sister-less or in prison. But what if Blue Hands didn't want to call attention to there little endeavor... might they just transport River to another facility. In that case she could manage an escape on her own provided the right opportunity...

But what about Jayne? Why would he be on a core? Well if he hadn't taken that Job with Marco he would've needed another form of support, so why not start working for the bigger criminals and under-lords of the core. It would've provided him ample work to suit his talents and perhaps the kind of payday he would've liked.

Now, how do I throw them together? The answer lay plainly through the episode 'Ariel,' Jayne's doing a job in a hospital stealing drugs, River's just managed to slip out of the grasp of her torturers. Bam, they run into each other and join forces to escape McGinnis and the blue hands.

Now why would Jayne keep the crazy girl? Money... after all a Mercenary cares solely for the advance of his own being and care. If he thought he could use her to gain an advantage over others or to make money he would keep the crazy girl around for a little longer. And how could he use her...if she'd proven her genius ability, her mind reading capabilities and the awesome, awe inspiring ability to kill with her eyes closed, and he thought he could control her... well then Jayne would keep her around.

Thus you have the story so far.

What follows will be of course be how the two adjust to each other and the trails and tribulations that they must face together. Such as doing crime together and dealing with River's crazy. Without Simon around to provide a semblance of stabilizing drugs River will remain at times uncontrollable. And Jayne will have to deal with these fits and perhaps find someone to temporally take over Simon's role of searching for a cure.

And then you eventually comes the complications of the addition of Serenity's crew. How will they react to the couple, the relationship that has already been established, or to River and her crazy fits. We'll have the addition of Simon some time after that. How will he react to the relationship between the older man and his younger sister. How will he be able to deal with the fact that someone else has cared for his sister, that he was unable to get her out or find her while she lived with a man that he does not exactly consider suitable. And finally to round things out we'll have the ever hunting Blue Hands in the picture, always on the tail of their most prized possession.

PERSONAL NOTES

Check out my Live Journal for continuous updates on progress. Thanks to SeaMagic for betaing Chapter One and Twitchy Louie for being the beta for all else... Taramonk for her brilliant insight. And an additional thanks to my number one fan girl (she knows who she is) whose continuous emailing and insight keeps me on task.