"River," Book laid a hand on the young woman's shoulder. "I've hardly had a chance speak with you this visit. Let's walk while they get the ship ready to go." He didn't miss the way her eyes cut to Jayne, or Jayne's brief nod before she allowed Book to lead her away from the activity in the cargo hold. They strolled back into the sunlight of Haven, the girl raising her arm over her eyes against the glare. "It does take some getting used to," he agreed.

"Preacher-man is pleased. He has landed in a good place, doing good work for good people."

He smiled. "I do find myself pleased with where my path has led me. There's some shade over here. Let's sit down." He started to lead her over to a spot where a crate sat in the shade of one of the buildings.

"Serenity was not a good place. Full of moral ambiguity. The goodness of the people questionable."

"Now that's just not so," he said sternly. "I have no doubts about the goodness of a single person on that ship. The moral ambiguity...that was a problem."

"Moral: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct, or the distinction between right and wrong. Ambiguity: The doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation. The possibility of interpreting in two different ways. The condition of admitting more than one meaning."

Book nodded as he sat and the girl climbed onto an old piece of equipment, the function of which he couldn't even guess.

"The pages are black and white, but their lives swirl with grey imperatives. Deadwood, Haven, a study of light and dark, sunlight and mineshafts. Simple people living simple lives, where good and bad are based on traditional ethical constructs. Serenity is a shell of grey in the Black. She shelters the people against the darkness. The people are grey shells, containing their own darkness. They carry it inside. Shells within shells, like matryoshka*. Wants and needs create a climate of moral complexity, complications of traditional ethics. 'If someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back.' Kill or be killed, which is the greater evil? Is it wrong to do wrong to prevent a wrong? Which wrong is more wrong? Which grey choice contains more black? Which grey choice will lead to a darker path? The shepherd became uncomfortable with the questioning. He should shut his mouth or catch flies."

Book shut his mouth, ran his fingers over the Bible in his pocket. "Is that what you think, River? That I ran from Serenity's morally complex climate to find a place where I wouldn't have to ask myself the hard questions? That I'm hiding?"

"Everyone is hiding."

Book tried to put his head back together. This was not what he had planned to discuss with the girl.

"I understand that you have been spending a great deal of time with Jayne since I left."

He didn't miss the way her eyes narrowed and her mouth went flat. "Jayne is helping."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. Only the three of us know how much you have in common. A closeness has developed between you that some might find...morally, or rather, ethically, complex."

She tilted her head. "Jayne is uncomfortable with complexity."

"He is. He's a simple man who likes to keep things simple."

"Relationships are transactional. Value for value. Gun for hire. Sex for money. What's in it for me?"

"I would call that an astute assessment of how Jayne relates to others."

"More complexity exists. Suffice it to say that Jayne doesn't seek where he does not expect to pay, and resents being asked where payment is not offered. Habituation to a mindset. Other styles of interaction create confusion on internal balance sheet."

"That's an interesting analogy."

"Not precisely analogy..." she waved her hand. "Jayne's relationship with the girl is not transactional. Multiple complexities exist. Layers and shading. He gives without expectation."

"That's a good thing."

"A relationship, in which one party has the expectation of receiving the bulk of the benefits, while the other is made to believe that his own needs are wrong, bad, and would be met with social retribution, is a good thing?"

"Well...when you put it like that...it's... It's a complicated issue, River."

"She is a broken girl, a broken woman. Broken people do not have rights to certain kinds of affection, relationships, contact, or feelings within the social construct. She must take without giving, he must give without taking, because she will always be seen as broken and less in the eyes of the social group."

"River, that's simply not true."

"Just because it is ugly, just because he doesn't want it to be true, does not make it so. She is broken, but she is not a child."

"I don't mean to insult you," he responded to her tone, trying to remember if he had called her a child.

"She is always 'the girl.' Even in her own mind. It is never meant as an insult."

"It's not...it's...we're not talking about biology, or intelligence. I suppose it's just a reference to your...innocence."

Her eyes went flat, her voice cold. "She has been stripped of innocence. She is the least innocent creature you have ever met."

"That is a wrongness and a tragedy, if that's so, but-"

"The shepherd did not transact with Jayne."

"Excuse me?" Book asked, confused by the change of subject.

"A preacher preaches, for the reward of spreading his message, the possibility of the message being accepted. The captain fears the message because he was betrayed. He was forsaken but still believes. Doesn't want to accept. Doesn't want to listen."

"Another astute observation."

"The message does not apply to Jayne. The message applies to people who are redeemable."

"Jayne is not beyond redemption. No man is."

"She refers to his inner construct, his own belief. The shepherd's message has a weight comparable with superstition. Odds against salvation as an achievable goal. Standards too high, out of reach to those who are tainted by 'kill or be killed' as a reality rather than an intellectual debate. Best not to believe in that case, live with the belief of certain damnation. Just in case there is a chance, however, knock wood, fingers crossed, 'put in a good word for me, Shepherd.'"

"I see..."

"The message was never for Jayne, and when the preacher-man spent time with Jayne, he preached little and talked more. He asked questions others never bothered asking. Helping with exercise or talking to pass time, transactional exchange but also not transaction. Shades of actual regard. Friendship."

"I do consider Jayne a friend."

"Jayne doesn't make friends. Jayne doesn't work for free. Jayne doesn't get involved with women who aren't professional." Her expression turned stormy. "Jayne would have called the preacher-man a friend, but it was all a lie. Shepherd's attentions were not about the man, but about the boy, the experiment."

Outrage flared. "That is not true."

She shrugged. "True for Jayne. Sat some nights with the shepherd, talking, listening, learning. Thought 'Maybe this is what it's like to have a father.'"

Her words punched into him, and he could see that she knew it. Her willingness to intentionally cause him pain shocked him. "Why are you telling me this?"

She was quiet for a moment. He wondered if she was struggling for words, or if she simply wasn't quite certain herself. "He should know what he did. Thought to unburden himself of his own secrets and stole Jayne's only friend. Jayne struggles, needs his friend, needs guidance from the father, and the preacher-man hides in his Haven where black is black and white is white, and the big decision is what to read on the seventh day!"

Book tried to maintain his outward calm, but her rising voice shook him. "You're angry."

"Of course she is angry! She is crazy and broken. Man was expelled from the garden, cut off from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, so they play at God to make the better world. He tortures the boy, cuts him off forever from his rightful place in the social construct, studies a book of contradictions and fallacious assertions and thinks that gives him the right to make judgments?"

"I'm not here to judge, I-"

"False! He came here asking for judgment. Asked the shepherd, wanted the father, it's all confused. Intellectual children of the father and his peers, they raped the girl. Peeled back the coverings of her secret places." As her voice strained, choked down to a painful whisper, she started to strike at her head with the heel of her hand. "Touched her with greedy hands, thrust in what wasn't wanted. Left their stain inside..."

"River, calm down." Book's heart pounded. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. He was probably the last one who should approach her, but he could see no one nearby, and he couldn't leave her by herself.

"They struggle to discern black and white on a barren moon that has no sun, in a pit where the only light leads to colorful horrors. Truths mixed with lies, real and not real. He helps her sort it out. True and not true, useful and not useful, safe and not safe. Why does he doubt? Why do they all doubt? Why are their minds so small? He" she pointed at Book, "is the false shepherd, the betraying father-friend, the grandfather of the pit. Why should he decide in what way the girl is allowed to be loved? DOES THAT SEEM RIGHT TO YOU?!"

"River, please, that's not-"

"It is! The mind of the touchstone writhes with snakes. Contradictions and fallacious assertions. Questions of worth and worthiness. Rules of a social construct that provides no shelter. The shepherd will decide based on the black and white pages, based the rules for broken things, and she will lose and be lost. Back to the pit, down the hole, Alice or Mary Ann, or Peter Pan, never to grow up, light fading because no one believes."

Footsteps pounded the sandy surface of the packed earth and Jayne came around the corner of the building at a run, barely slowing when he saw them, not stopping until he reached the girl and sought to pluck her from her perch. Book watched carefully. River was clawing at her hair, knocking one bent arm repeatedly into the side of her head, her feet in constant motion, sliding back and forth against the metal she was sitting on. Jayne wasn't gentle when he grabbed her arms and pinned them to her sides, but he also showed neither anger nor surprise when she kicked his jaw hard enough to snap his head to the side. He kept his hold on her arms and yanked her down, pulling her against him.

The shepherd stood, feeling finally freed from paralysis, intent on helping or going for help as a brief struggle ensued. Jayne took her to the ground. Sheltered from view by the equipment, he forced the girl into his lap, stilling her kicking legs by wrapping his own around them, and locking one arm around her upper body. The other hand crossed to hold her head in place, to keep her from banging it back against his chest. There was strain in every line of the man's body, but Book couldn't tell if it was effort to keep the girl from hurting either of them, or if was simply the tension. The one exception was the hand that cradled her head, the thumb that stroked across her wet cheek. Jayne's head was bent to her ear, speaking to the girl in a low voice, words the shepherd couldn't catch.

Book saw the moment the fight went out of her, when her head fell to the side, when Jayne's hold loosened. Book found himself sinking back to his own seat in relief. She turned into the big man's chest, and his hands were gentle as he helped her shift, gathered her to him, and held her while she cried out the rest of it. Something seethed beneath Jayne's surface, in the set of his jaw, but he said nothing, even when he pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned her face. It felt wrong to watch them, but Book couldn't look away.

Her head came up suddenly. "They're coming."

"I hear them."

They untangled themselves and rose. Jayne gave River a little nudge toward Book and took two big steps away from her. Jayne scowled, noticing that Book shifted away from her before Book noticed himself. Then Simon and Kaylee appeared.

"There you are! Mei-mei, we've been looking for you," Simon said, coming to take her hands.

"Cap'n says we're almost read to go," Kaylee added.

"You've been crying." Simon brushed back hair from her face, studying her eyes. He turned on Jayne. "What happened?"

Jayne shrugged. "Usual stuff."

"We were talking," Book said, trying to smooth things over, "and things became...confusing."

"Mythology of the symbol cannot be quantified. She does not comprehend."

"All right, let's get going and save theological debates for another visit, okay?"

River nodded and Simon put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her away. Kaylee fell into step behind them, but Jayne remained, watching them walk away.

"I'm sorry," Book said. "I could see she was agitated, but I didn't expect-I suppose I should have ended our discussion sooner."

Jayne shrugged. "Just comes outta nowhere sometimes. You know that."

Not out of nowhere. Books head spun with all she'd given him to think about.

"I can see nothing wrong in what you're doing, Jayne."

Book saw the way the other man's shoulders dropped, the relief his words gave, and he felt like a fraud. The girl was correct, he had no right to Jayne's respect. No right to judge what he didn't understand.

"That it?"

"She gave me a lot to think about. Perhaps we could talk again."

"Yeah, sure. Uh...thank you."

"Jayne..."

"Sounds like we're about ready to go. I'll see ya next time," Jayne said, the words barely carried back to Book as he walked away.

xxxxx

*matryoshka- Russian nesting dolls