Disclaimer: Firefly and the characters belong to Joss Whedon. I'm just trying to honour his...honour with this little tale.

* * * * *

LIFTING WEIGHTS

Some of my most serene moments on Serenity have been during workouts with Jayne. There's something about physical exhaustion that soothes the troubled mind and something about aching muscles that eases pains of the heart. Lifting weights makes everything simple for while. Breathe in and lower the weight; breathe out and push it up. In, lower; out, up. Again and again. Focus on being, not on what you were or what you might become. There's a great peace in that. As there is in knowing a friend is there to spot you, help you out if you get into trouble. Someone who'll take the weight for you if it gets too heavy and give you a hand to get back on your feet when you feel too weary to stand.

Yes, I like lifting weights with Jayne. And I like Jayne. We've developed a rapport. Oh, I know some might smile at the idea of a frienship between a preacher and amercenary – and some might frown - but we've got more in common than most. Jayne's a lot like the man I used to be. And that makes me concerned for him. More than concerned.

A man carries his past on his back like a sack. And with each sin, he places a stone into that sack, making it ever harder to carry. When he is young, his sins are few. And even if they are big sins, he is young enough and strong enough to bear their weight. But the first sins are the dangerous ones, because, for a man in his prime, the weight of a little sin is as nothing. He hardly notices the gradual increase in his burden until one day he finds that age has sapped his strength and the sack is almost too heavy to carry.

Jayne's strong and fit now, and finds it easy to manage the weight of his past. And he figures in his line of work he'll die long before he ever has to struggle with it. A few more sins, a few more stones in the sack won't matter much. But it's beginning to trouble him even now. It digs into his muscles, drag