clio: I think yours is quite close to how Joss would have done it...HEE!

zz: Mal seems to have got away with the banana peel story, doesn't he? Apart from Inara. But I'll go with that, seeing as you have them together and alone, being the crazy--mad Mal/Inara shipper that I am. ;)

Mal (entering mess): Jayne's dead.
All: What? How?
Mal: Said something about a complication out the airlock. Leapt through the doors to – eh – fix it, I reckon. Kaylee, you might want to – er, check on that.
Kaylee: Uh – sure, cap'n.
Zoe: You say Jayne did that, sir?
Mal: Man was loyal to the core.
Simon: Oh, that's wonderful! I mean – that he fixed it. What a tremendous – legacy.
Wash: Complication? Mal, there was no report at the console in the bridge of any problems.
Mal: Said the man was loyal, not bright.
Inara: Mal! Don't speak of him that way! After such a brave action!
Book: The special hell, Mal.
Simon: It IS true, though. Nobody would accuse him of being in the top 3% of his class.
River: Banoffe pie.

Mal: (entering mess) Jayne’s dead
All: (gasping) OH NO!!
Zoe: (phlegmatically) What happened?
Mal: Slipped on a banana peal and hit the “Open” button while trying to stop himself from failing!
Book: (sympathetically) That’s terrible!
Mal: (sternly) Sure is now we can’t get free booze in Canton anymore!
Kaylee: ( irritated) Mal you’re heartless!
Mal: Comes with the territory.
Simon: (unemotionally) He was eating up all the groceries!
Wash: I miss Saffron’s cooking.
Zoe: Remember that sex we were planning on later. You can move in Jayne’s empty bunk.
River: Reaver bait!


LATER when they are alone.

Inara: Jayne didn’t slip on a banana peal did he?
Mal: No! Might have been one of them cow pies left over from the safe episode.

The End

Okay, so here's Bytemite's scene:

Mal: (entering mess) Jayne's dead.
All: (gasping) OH NO!
Zoe: (phlegmatically) What happened?
Mal: He sustained a fatal injury during the job on Ariel and I thought to save us all the trouble of a burial by dumping his body out of the airlock.
Book: (sternly) That was bad, Mal! Why did you do it?
Mal: (sentmentally) It was what he would have wanted.
Inara: (angrily) How could you?
Mal: Weren't difficult: dragged the body over, put it in the airlock, opened it and bob's your uncle.
Simon: (laughing happily) You did the right thing Mal, though I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to peform an autopsy!
River: Jaffa cakes.
Kaylee: (sadly) Poor Jayne. I really liked him.
Wash: (cheerfully) Oh well, never mind.

The End

If Mal was forced to kill Jayne anyway... I think considering that they'd worked together for a while, and because death makes Mal a little bit sentimental, that Mal would honor Jayne's last wish and make something up. Despite being completely pissed off.

Possibly he'd play off the story Simon has already told them about Jayne fighting off the Feds so they could get away, and Mal might tell them that Jayne sustained a heroic fatal injury during the fight that he finally succumbed to. It doesn't look to me like Simon has been in enough fights to see that for the lie it is, despite his impressive doctoring skills, and Simon is the only person Mal has to convince anyway, being he was the only coherent and sane person with Jayne in that entire sequence.