Disclaimer: all things Firefly/Serenity are the property of Whedon et al. I'm not making any money off this, just playing with the toys.

I hadn’t always been here.

There was a time when I was clean and new and beloved by many. They would look at me with a smile, pat me and say how pretty I was. I did everything they asked and then some. No one was disappointed with me.

Until the bad men came and took me. They hurt me. Tore me apart and tried to put me back together again, but couldn’t. Humpty dumpty took a mighty fall. I was never the same after those men.

I floated, listless and unwanted. Unloved. Others came and went, but no one wanted me. Just needed me, used me until I was useless. That hurt more than those bad men ripping at my insides. I tried, I really did, to do what they wanted, but I was too damaged. Unfixable.

They left me to die, rot away, far away. I would have cried had I been able.

It was so long, felt an eternity, just sitting in the light. It burned and charred me; I couldn’t escape it. Needed cold to live. I was dying until he saw me.

And so was he.

The man slowly walked to me, love on his face, while the other whispered nonsense. Seeing me, he knew what I was, what I could be again. He reached a finger, a hand, and stroked my skin in such a wondrous way that I glowed more than the sun beating down on me. I knew what I had to do.

He found others to help him help me. Slowly, the scorching was removed and filled with cold. I felt my energy rise until all I wanted to do was please him and the others. Just let me fly and I won’t fail you. Could never fail the one who loves me, who gave me my life back again.

And now I smile, here in the black. It is the darkness that I love. The empty of nothingness where no heat burns but in my belly. I am filled with love here in the black. And I shall remain here for ever more.