A/N: Joss and company's is the evil laugh and 'Verse. Mine is only a slightly disturbing chuckle. I suppose you could get Rayne out of this if you squint, but if you tilt your head the other direction, it's the equally unintentioned pairings of Jayne/Book and Tamcest, so I'll leave it at gen. The religion bits? To ad lib from The Proclaimers, go ask your author, I merely interpret the characters here.
Jayne had hoped to do this without witnesses, but River had yet to move from the monument. "Don't you have somewhere to go, Crazy?" he asked, although he was not in the mood for such talk.
"I didn't finish fixing it," the girl said, her hand atop a familiar small black object. "There were still so many factual errors and logical fallacies…"
"That don't matter none. It's right where it counts." The merc cut her off more in the hopes of getting this over with than comforting her. She had Simon for that.
"But it's riddled throughout with problems in its other aspects. If it's wrong everywhere else, then how could it have conceivably gotten so esoteric a concept as the continuation of a conscience correct?" Jayne wished that she wouldn't go on with all those big words and then stare at him accusingly with those big brown eyes. She was the gorram mind reader, not him.
"River, sometimes even you're right. Sometimes I even admit you're right. If that can happen, then why can't a book that's been around since Earth-that-Was have a smidge of truth in it?" That ought to give her something to ponder, even if it came perilously close to letting down his reputation.
River just snorted. "He wasn't nearly that old."
Jayne came up beside her, putting a hand on the wave-cap. Within its blue sphere, Derrial Book was smiling like someone half his age. "Nah," Jayne said. "The good go too young."