A/N: Firefly stories aren't much the thing these days, which just sad, to my way of thinking. This story settled itself in my head and doesn't want to let go. Hope there are a few of you out there who still care about these guys as much as I do. Lots of ideas, so generous responses will probably result in more story. Brain feeds on feedback; sad but true.

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"So, you ever gonna talk about what it is you done before you become a shepherd, Shepherd?"

"Sure, Jayne. Seems like time enough. And you seem to have your suspicions about me. Care to share any?"

Jayne snorted out a half laugh, holding the weighted bar close to his chest. He breathed out slowly as he pushed it away again. He didn't expect to get anything out of Book. He was just talkin'. "Oh, so I'm s'posed to guess? I figure you was some kind of Alliance officer. You ain't a grunt. Too educated, and you don't have the habit of lookin' to anyone to tell you what you think. Probly you was involved in the war in some way. The war changed a lot of people. Set you on becomin' a shepherd. That's how I figure it."

"Seems like you've put some real thought into my background. Should I be flattered?"

Jayne would have shrugged if he could have, but his endurance was wearing thin and he could feel the beginnings of shivering fatigue in his muscles. "Reckon you can be, if you want. Just as likely there's a lot of empty space in the Black a man's got to fill up thinkin' on somethin', so you don't gotta take it too personal. I ain't really tryin' to pry, Preacher."

"I appreciate the sentiment. Alliance, yes. After that incident on Jiangyin*, well, there's really no hiding that, is there? The captain's done a fair job of ignoring it so far, which I find surprising."

"Mal can ignore a lot of things, when he wants to," Jayne grunted.

"Hmm."

Jayne took that for agreement and couldn't read more into it. Maybe it was Book's way of lettin' this line of conversation die out. Thing was, much as Jayne respected a man's right to keep his privacy private, he was curious about the preacher. Jayne never was one for makin' friends. Took care not to make them, matter of fact, but Book had slipped in under his guard. Had a way about him like that-probly some preacher thing they taught at that shepherd school on Persephone. Still, preacher or no, people with secrets could be dangerous. He wasn't really inclined to let the topic go now he'd got the man talkin' a bit.

"Was it the war, then? What turned you all religious?"

"You assume there has to be some life-altering trauma in my past?"

"It's them vows. Figure a man doesn't give up his, er, earthly pursuits for the rest of his life without some big reason behind it."

Book laughed. "Some do. And that was rather delicately stated, by the way."

Jayne rolled his eyes. Weren't nothin' delicate about him. "For a big hun dan like me, you mean." And the preacher had side-stepped another question. Jayne put his concentration back on his workout, figuring he wasn't getting anything more out of the old man.

"The thing that changed me, it was before the war. Took a while for me work it through and make my decision. Most men are good at ignoring things they don't want to see, I think, and I was as I blind as I wanted to be in those days. I saw what I wanted to see, and I believed..."

"What did you believe?" Jayne prompted when Book fell silent.

"That's just it, son. I just...believed. Later, when I sat myself down and forced myself to look at what I was doing, what I had done, I didn't even know what it was I was believing in."

Stinging tendrils of fatigue wrapped Jayne's muscles, but he continued to force himself to lift as long as he could, unwilling to break the mood that had loosened the shepherd's tongue.

"I see God's hand in so many things. That I'm here, now, on this boat...that's part of His plan for me."

Something about that drew a creepy line of chill up Jayne's spine. "Why's that?"

"That girl, for one thing. What was done to her at the Academy. That's God showing me where we were headed, what I would have set my hand to if I hadn't allowed Him to show me another path."

"I don't follow."

"The Academy was hardly the first such program our government has been involved in, and it won't be the last. But I'll admit even I was shocked by what was done to our poor River."

"Ain't right," Jayne ground out. He knew it was true, about there bein' other programs. And it was bad enough when people with more power than scruple scooped up nameless, homeless, worthless kids with the promise of food and a safe place to sleep at night. But luring kids in with that shiny Academy? Genius, special kids like River, kids with a future? That was another level. And the cuttin' on their brains? Jayne wasn't never gonna forget Simon's words as he studied those pictures of the inside of River's head. "Ain't right what they did to her."

"No, it most certainly ain't right. Not when they did it to her. Not when we did it to you."

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*Incident on Jiangyin- from the episode "Safe" in which Book was injured and received medical attention from the Alliance through use of a mysterious ident card.

hun dan- bastard