A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who has reviewed...it really helps me to keep going with this fic! I still have no clue where exactly this fic is going, so the next chapter will probably take a long time to be written, just like this one. But I will do my best keep going and give this fic a proper ending. Hope you like the latest installment!

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Jayne squirms uncomfortably in his chair while Simon draws a blood sample…draws it more roughly than is necessary, if anyone'd been bothered to ask him. He's doin' his best to be patient. Mal had given him the long lecture about keepin' the peace aboard his boat and how makin' nice with the doctor would really be best in the long run. Hell, that little speech is the only thing that keeps Jayne from bolting out of the infirmary as fast as his feet can carry him and holing up in his bunk. He doesn't much like bleedin' even when he's getting' paid for it (scrapes and bullet wounds come standard with bein' a merc)…he'd be damned before he'd sit idly by while some prissy doc pokes him full of holes, and none to gently at that. Especially given the way the Doc has been lookin' at him since he caught Jayne with his sister slung over his shoulder in Inara's shuttle. Jayne's not too sure the Doc isn't plottin' to poison him. He eyes the needle in his arm with a nervous gulp. You couldn't poison someone and draw blood at the same time could you?

"That should do it," Simon says as he finishes extracting the blood he needs.

"Your bedside manner could use some improvin', Doc," Jayne growls, rubbing his arm theatrically as soon as Simon withdraws the needle.

"I'm just trying to communicate on the same level as my patient," Simon says coolly.

"Gorramit! What's that supposed to mean?" Jayne asks angrily, his chair clattering against the wall as he abruptly stands and moves towards Simon in a menacing manner.

"It means," Simon says calmly, "that you are a brute without an intelligent bone in your body. As such, I thought it would be best to communicate on a more…physical…level."

"Physical?" Jayne exclaims with a raise of his eyebrow. "Oh, we can get physical," he says as he grabs Simon by the front of his lab coat and pulls him forward.

Simon stares him in the eyes for several long seconds before plucking Jayne's hands off his coat as if he were removing a stray piece of trash. "Need I remind you that if you cause me to spill this blood sample, we will have to start all over again? Now, as much as I love seeing you bleed…and believe me, I love seeing you bleed…I would rather not spend a single second more than I have to in your presence. So, if you would kindly SIT DOWN, I will try to get this over with as quickly as possible."

Jayne clenches his fists and walks sullenly back to his chair. "Maybe this'd go a lot smoother if you'd stop being such a prissy hwoon dan and actually do your job. You're the one who was so insistent on me being here, after all."

Simon finishes inserting the blood sample into a piece of lab equipment before turning back to Jayne with a hate-filled glare. "Don't you think for one second that I'm happy about this so-called compromise!" he hisses, his calm demeanor finally cracking a bit. "Do you think I'm glad that my sister has decided she's in love with a piece of go-se like you? She's not some jien hwo that you can cast aside when you're done with her. She's sweet and innocent and so, so fragile. I don't care if the Captain thinks she's old enough to make her own mistakes. She needs medical treatment and careful observation. The last thing she needs is to be bunking with some merc who'd sell her to the nearest Alliance agent if the price was right. Luh suh like you doesn't deserve to be near her."

"Such language, Doc! My poor virgin ears can't take it," Jayne says with a derisive snort. "I'll have you know your 'sweet, innocent' mei-mei is a lot tougher than you give her credit for. And the Captain has a point…after the hell she's been through, she's earned the right to make a few choices of her own. And what she seems to want is for someone to treat her like a gorram human bein' instead of some lab rat. I reckon she's had enough of doctors pokin' and proddin' her brain to last a lifetime."

"As shiny as that sounds, you can't just close your eyes and wish her all better. I don't understand why I'm the only one who seems to realize that," Simon says with a sigh. Then after a pause, he adds, "Oh, and I highly doubt that there is anything virgin about you…ears included."

"Well, we can't all be as prudish as you, Doc. If everyone took things as slow as you an' Kaylee, the human race would go extinct."

"And if everyone slept with as many whores as you, the whole population would be so disease-ridden that it wouldn't stand a chance."

"Gorramit, Doc!" Jayne yells. "I already told ya that I ain't sick. I'm not pissin' blood or any crazy go se like that, and I don't have no funny sores or bumps. I'm fit as a fiddle."

"Pardon me if I don't take your word for it," Simon says derisively. "I'm sure a merc like you has acquired vast amounts of medical knowledge over the years."

"I may not be some fancy, Alliance-bred doctor, but I know enough about my own body to be able to tell if I'm sick or not."

"When I was studying to be a doctor, I took a course on obscure diseases. It seems back on Earth-that-was, they had diseases that were symptomless for years on end before they struck, and then they killed mercilessly because there was no cure. And the funny thing about diseases is that no matter how thoroughly you think you've eradicated them, they have a nasty habit of turning up again…especially in the back-woods planets you're fond of frequenting. So you may not necessarily know if you're sick…you could be the picture of health and still be carrying a living time bomb inside your body."

"That ain't what you're really worried about, and you know it," Jayne replies. "Even the Cap'n realizes that this is a stall tactic. He only agreed in hopes of you quittin' you're yammerin'. You've just got your knickers in a knot because you can't stand the thought of River needin' anybody but you. That's what's really keepin' ya awake at night."

"I just want what's best for her," Simon says quietly. "And you're not it. She shouldn't even be allowed to associate with you, let alone copulate with you."

"That's not your decision to make," Jayne growls. "She's her own person with her own needs and wants."

"If these tests come back positive, then it is my decision to make," Simon replies venomously.

"And just how long is that gonna take?" Jayne asks, his patience wearing thin yet again.

"If we were in an Alliance medical center, I would have had the results practically the moment I inserted the sample, but Serenity's equipment is…slightly antiquated…to put it nicely. But we should know in a couple of minutes."

Rather than continue arguing, Jayne chooses to wait out the last few minutes in relative quiet. Better to sit in awkward silence than get the Doc any more riled up than he already is. Mal was right about one thing…it would be better for everyone involved if he and Simon could coexist in some sort of peace…for River's sake, if for nothing else.

After a couple stressful minutes, the machine that the blood sample is in makes a small chiming noise and Simon lets out a long sigh.

"You're free from any known sexually transmitted disease or infection contained in the database" Simon says in a weary, monotone voice. "As a matter of fact, you are free from any form of communicable disease at the moment, venereal or otherwise. You don't even have a cold. Your cholesterol is slightly above average, but that is hardly contagious."

Noticing Jayne's slightly bewildered expression, Simon chooses to sum things up for him in tiny words that even a man-ape like him can understand. "You're clean," he says softly, with obvious reluctance.

Jayne leaps from his seat and lets out a joyous holler. He is so caught up in his relief that he nearly pulls Simon into a fierce hug, but he stops himself just short of putting his arms around the doctor, choosing instead to take a step back, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder and shaking his hand.

"I gotta ask," Jayne says, a goofy grin still plastered on his face, "if it bothers ya so much, why didn't ya just lie to me about the results? I might as well ask questions of a rock for all the information I could get out of that fancy piece of tin. You could've told me just about anything and I woulda been none the wiser."

"Because I love her too," Simon says with a soft smile. "And she's somehow gotten it into her head that you're what makes her happy."

Simon pauses for a moment, then adds, "plus…she's a psychic."

"Now that's a reason I can believe," Jayne says with a laugh. "She does have this uncanny way of knowing when a man's up to no good."

"That's the one thing that gives me hope about this whole arrangement," Simon replies with a half-hearted smile.

Jayne gives Simon a nod before high-tailing it out of the infirmary. He's finally overcome the last obstacle standin' between him and River, and he isn't about to waste anymore time in the presence of her cantankerous brother. Come hell or high water, he is getting that girl into his bunk tonight.