Not mine. Wish they were.

This is for NewOldBrowncoat, who wanted a look at Book's thoughts. I hope this pleases. :)

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He woke to the sound of voices. Soft, hushed voices chattering about something in the dead of night.

The shepherd had seen the look in the boy’s eyes as he’d passed to go into bed. Serious, deep blue orbs brimming with guilt and sadness. What could the young man have to blame himself for this time? he wondered.

Bits of rumor had floated among the ship—Simon had managed to stick his feet in his mouth again during the post-jaunt with Kaylee. Book shook his head a little at the number of times that poor soul had tried to show the girl just how special to him she was, only to find it blowing up somehow in his face.

Lord, give that young man the strength to continue on this path, and the courage to overcome his obstacles—no matter how trivial they might seem.

The voices grew more hushed, and Book thought he could hear a sigh escaping the young doctor’s chest. He did so much of that before—before Ariel, before the job that nearly landed not only he and his sister but everyone else in jail. The shepherd remembered that wistful sadness the sighs usually brought about, and marveled.

I could have turned him in, Book thought. In my younger years, I wouldn’t have considered anything less. So much has the ways of the abbey and the Lord taught me.

It amused the man to no end when he would see the crew react to a suggestion of his—particularly when it involved him waxing poetical on some aspect of crime. It amused him more when people such as Jayne or the captain himself gave him that little look—the how in the gorram hell do you know that?! look. A smile crept over his face as he recalled such an occasion.

“One of these days you’re gonna explain to us how a shepherd knows so damn much about crime,” Jayne had said, seconds after Book had explained the concept of a net.

Perha