River watched Mal and Freya through the window of the infirmary, perched high on the catwalk, keeping still so they couldn’t see her.

She had almost destroyed it, killed two people with one stroke, for he would not have lived long after if she had died. Oh, his body might have continued to walk and talk, eventually laugh and play, but his spirit, his essence, his very Mal-ness, would not have survived.

Simon had said he didn’t hold it against her, but that wasn't the point. She held it against her. For being weak enough to let that man … she couldn’t even bear to think of his name … to let that man into her mind, to tear her fragile sanity into shreds and tatters, to make her hide from everything and everyone on this ship. From her family. The people who had borne her hadn’t loved her like these men and women did. Simon had to – he was her brother – but they loved her because they chose to.

Mal stroked an errant lock of hair from Freya’s forehead, and that simple gesture spoke of feelings so deep she didn’t have to reach for them. They hung in the air like a green summer mist, shot through with the bright scarlet of passion.

He hadn’t fired, hadn’t chosen to shoot the bullet that would pulverise her brain, turn her mind into squashed berries, dripping onto the stone tiles. Like blood from a blade. Freya’s blood.

She wanted to apologise, take it back, withdraw the edge until there was nothing but a spider’s web drawn across her belly, but turning time was not a gift she had. Instead Freya had lain on the cold floor, her hot blood making trailing patterns of death.

Still he hadn’t fired. For the rest of her life she would wonder why not. In the depths of nightmares she would wake, seeing his face, the reflection of another’s pain, and marvel at his control. She was willing to cut them all to pieces, but he wouldn’t kill if he didn’t have to. An honourable man.

He was smiling, laughing at something Freya had said. It didn’t matter what the words were, the meaning was clear. As he squeezed her hand the green mist was tinted with the gold of desire.

Their children would be strong. A wave of contentment spreading from the point of Serenity out into the ‘verse, lighting the dark and keeping the demons at bay.

She’d thought to step into the airlock, press the button and let the shadows take her. Make it something other than pain. But Freya had fought so hard against it, leaving rather than taking them with her, and she could do no less. And she needed to live to feel the guilt, to atone for what she had done, however unwillingly, to feel the agony of the stroke every time she looked into the other woman’s eyes …

Mal leaned down and kissed Freya, his lips soft and tender, hers warm and inviting, and she could watch no more. Sliding down the stairs she hurried to her room, but a small voice reached out and stopped her.

Such a little life. So small, so tenuous, so easily torn from this reality. Yet holding on with a grip much tighter than hers. She turned towards it.

Kaylee was sitting on the bed, her breast bare, her baby suckling. Madonna and child, the fulfilment of promise and youth, the great soother. She looked up, saw her standing there, and smiled. A beatific smile, a smile that warmed, a smile that … healed.