Ask Malcolm Reynolds what happened to the war and he'd tell you they lost, that after losing they caught a boat called Serenity, and took her where the Alliance couldn't follow. He'd convince you that there weren't nothing in between, that as fast as they'd been pinned to the valley ground, he'd gone and found their new home, their escape, in an old salvage yard on the graveyard fringes of Persephone.

He'd make these things sound like God's honest truth, but really the truth's only a part of it. And it's always the worst part, like a wound that lingers long after the bullet's been scored out and the scar faded to nothing. Sure, they lost a war, and sure, they found themselves running again, by their own rules and their own means of combat. But it weren't so fast. There's none so lost as a soldier, when a war's long done.

Mal might have continued to believe his own words, had he truly been alone after the skies of Hera had cleared. They'd been losing numbers steadily throughout, but the core had remained strong to the end, and Zoe, knowing her sergeant better than any of the others, though she was the last of the 57th to leave, she was also the first to stay. She stayed with Mal when they were pulled from the camp, with nowhere to go but the first bar in the first town where the Alliance were finally scarce. She'd waited for the inevitable, and like clockwork, it came. Mal picked a fight from literally nowhere; ten minutes, not even one lousy drink, and there he was on the ground, fist to jaw, swearing through bruised lips in Chinese too filthy to bear repeating. And Zoe, without a word, had picked him up and walked him out the door, away from the bar and the apathetic glances, looks drenched more in sympathy than anger, to a dark side-street where she pushed him against the wall and gazed at him as he'd coughed and wiped away blood.

"Can't be doin' this," she'd said, propping a hand to his shoulder as he began to slump, the adrenaline evaporating with speed and the pain, she imagined, the pain coming just as hard to replace it. "Gorramn it, sir, you can't."

Mal had mumbled something then, but she was too angry to hear it, and had stood back, arms folded, and waited for the explanation that she somehow knew would never come.

And so on it went.

For a month--maybe two--she fell into the old routine, rescuing him when the punches fell too hard, taking him away from the jeers and alcohol-fuelled threats, all empty, all groundless. They were Corporal Alleyne and Sergeant Reynolds, but this time without the badges of honour; in this world after battle, they were simply Zoe and Mal. He didn't seem to care anyway, and although Zoe tried not to let this worry her, it did. More than the not talking, more than the fights, it worried her in a place so deep it almost hurt. But she didn't tell him this, just as he didn't offer up any explanations aside from what she was able to read; of a man sick of losing and having no option but to throw his fists where they might actually win him some ground. And sometimes, when he did, even that did little to change things.

But then they reached Newhall, and, outside of the towns, they found a place where an old rancher was willing to pay the pair of them a good month's wage for a week rounding up the cattle that had strayed to the far boundaries of the property. Zoe accepted before Mal had even had a chance to say yes or no. She didn't want to wait and be disappointed again by which of the two it might be.

"Hell of a plan, Corporal," he muttered, swinging into the saddle with a thud. He looked at it with distaste, at the cracks and dusty hide. She wondered whether it was the boy in him, memories of the farm in that gaze, taught plainly to look after his tack and keep the leather spotless with oil and care. Mal must have sensed her looking at him, because he drew his eyes away from the old saddle and they met hers, narrowed and unreadable in the afternoon light. But Zoe ignored him, giving the straps on her pack one last tug and pulling her mount gently by the reins. The horizon seemed a long way away, but she knew there would be no bars out there, no fights to start except with each other. It wasn't much to hope for, but it was something. It was enough.

"Finch said to head north-west," Zoe said as they moved away from the ranch house and into the open fields. "Told me that the stragglers tend to hide up by the ridge there." She sat back, letting the horse rest on the bit, and she relaxed into the saddle, feeling nothing but the steady, four-beat rocking as her mount walked forward over the grassy earth. Behind her there was a snort. Zoe glanced over her shoulder, but Mal's face was as calm as the weather. She turned back before he could hear her sigh.

Finch, in fact, had made it clear that they'd be better off setting out the next morning, allowing for a full day to get to the cattle, but Zoe had shook her head and said they'd be fine. They'd made do with worse on Hera, and she didn't think of the camps, the holding cells where they'd been separated for weeks. Not anymore. Think that and she'd be as fucked as Mal was now; fuelled with the numb desire to break every anonymous face in the bars across the 'verse, those men who dared to speak out at the colour of their coats.

Mal kicked his horse, and the old mare pinned her ears back and broke into a trot, passing Zoe with a flick of grey tail. "Then what are we stragglin' about here for?" he said, his voice sharp, looking back at her before giving the mare another kick. Zoe swore under her breath and followed. The ground was rough and her mount's short, bouncing lope even rougher. She bit down onto her lip and curled her fingers around the reins. They rode side by side, shoulder to shoulder, the ground swirling up dust beneath them so that it went into Zoe's eyes and mouth, making her cough. But Mal stared grimly forward, barely moving in the saddle, his hands steady, his focus straight. He said nothing when they slowed. But he did look at her, with genuine care, one of the few times in a long while she could recall him doing so.

"Keep your eyes up," he offered gruffly, nodding at the space between her horse's ears. "Follow his head, where he's lookin'. You'll find the dust don't get up there so much." And he smiled, just a little.

Zoe didn't speak. But she looked back, and when they took up pace again, she let him take the lead.

~~

With the beginning of the war came winter. She still remembered that first night, when nothing had happened, no shots fired, no orders given. That first night, the most vivid in her memory. She'd been counting the stars, or at least, trying to; it hadn't done a great deal to keep her warm. Nothing had, really, but she remembered how close they'd been. These soldiers she'd met only hours before, kids almost. So young. They'd seemed bewildered to be here, under the stars and the snow, guns in their laps and Mal's word to stay still. Stay still, stay quiet, or get shot. As a welcome it had made quite an impression, but to what end Zoe couldn't tell, because almost immediately after that it had started snowing.

She remembered one kid--Lewisham, his name was--huddled to her left, and shivering badly. It had taken him a while to settle in, not helped by the cold, and not helped by Mal's curt welcome to this new and makeshift home.

And Mal. Mal on her other side, still as a rock. He'd turned the collar of his coat up so that it covered his ears, but his hands and face were free to the elements. Zoe remembered how oblivious he'd been, except to her, and across the way, to the boy who couldn't stop shaking from fear and an all-too obvious homesickness. With the snow falling Mal had talked to them both, about nothing and everything. Insignificant things that mattered little but meant more than any of them knew. And she remembered how when he'd spoken, Lewisham had listened and Zoe, in between it all, had felt the cold disappear with the sound of her sergeant's voice. It was strange, and poetic, she knew; a rosy-hued memory. But it was real. It had seemed so real.

When sundown came they were about two hours' ride from the ridge. Neither had spotted any of the herd. At one point Mal had pointed to an undistinguished patch of earth, which was apparently dotted with tracks, but it must have been the farmer in him again, because Zoe could see nothing but grass and dirt. Dirt that had now turned a reddish colour from the setting sun, and she rolled out her pack over it, watching as Mal did the same nearby, the expression on his face so unreadable, and yet so familiar, that she almost felt sick with relief. She hated that it made her feel this way, and would've hated it more had it not been the staple of almost three years of service. Pulling Malcolm Reynolds from a bar in some backwater moon was no different than pulling him back from the spittle and whirr of Alliance shellfire. So many wrong, foolish decisions, ones that a commander straight from the enlisted rank and file would never have called his battalion into doing; and yet Mal had, and they'd seen victory almost every time. He was as stubborn as hell, but Zoe knew it was that stubbornness in him or nothing, nothing at all. Take it away, and she might as well have walked the deadweight drunk from that first bar, instead of her commanding officer. Take it away, and she might very well forget the war.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "I know you don't want to be here."

"Never said that." Mal flopped down onto his bedroll, propped his head on an elbow and considered her. And she thought he was going to say something more but he only turned around, pulled his coat over his ears, and closed his eyes.

Zoe looked at the horses, tethered and resting, muzzles close, and silent. One shook its head and the other jerked back, ears tensed and wary, and then both were still again. She watched them until the horizon fell dark, and her eyes, now heavy, could no longer distinguish their silhouettes against the sky.

~~

A hundred head of cattle, and to Zoe, it seemed as if each had their eyes pinned directly on her. She hadn't anticipated feeling this way, so nervous, like there were too many things to think about at once. Too many things that could go wrong at once. From far away, they'd looked the most benign of creatures, docile and calm, happy to be rounded up and cajoled into action by a single wave of her hand. But now she wasn't so sure. She realised why Finch had insisted on paying them so much. And why it was, as Mal had so neatly put it, a hell of a plan.

It had taken them almost the whole day to round up the herd into a set of twin corrals. Zoe had fallen off twice--nothing serious, but she was now riding around half-saturated in mud, and so tired that she could've simply dropped from the saddle with exhaustion.

But her sergeant, it seemed, was in his element. It was as if all the pent-up frustration over the last month or so had suddenly been transformed into boundless energy, as he galloped full-pelt around the cattle like a banshee, whooping orders and executing them with fantastic precision. Zoe, on the fringes of the action, could only watch and shake her head on wonder. Right now he was trailing a stray, which, for whatever reason, had felt it necessary to run from the pack and down towards the thin creek that threaded beneath the canopy of the steep ridge. The animal ran into the water and stood there, steam billowing off its hide, exhausted. Mal laugh and dismounted. He slapped the young steer on the rump and watched as it plodded out of the creek and loped towards the herd; and to Zoe, who opened the corral gate and guided it in.

"That the lot?"

He led his mount over, shirt dark with perspiration and eyes shining. "Yeah," Mal said.

"I sure hope they're worth it," Zoe said, watching as the cattle bellowed mournfully to each other. She grimaced and slid slowly from the saddle, her legs almost giving way as she hit the ground. Breathing deeply, she held onto the cantle until she was certain she could take a step without collapsing again.

"Hey." Mal's voice came from behind her, closer now; he had tied his own mount up and she felt his hand on her arm, steady, helping her stand. "Cattle always are," he said. "Mightn't look it, but they're worth every coin that rancher paid for 'em. He's no fool."

"No, I think that title belongs to me..." Zoe frowned, surveying her clothes with a weary sigh. The mud had dried and now cracked and flaked wherever she bent a limb.

And then he was laughing. He was actually laughing. "Sir!" she said, aghast. "It ain't funny."

"Remember when Holden thought he'd been shot but it turned out to be a flour bomb?"

She sighed. "Like it were yesterday, sir."

"Some kid in the Alliance camp must've got sick of holdin' his laser where it weren't ever gonna get a proper line o' sight." Mal grinned and turned Zoe gently around so he could brush the mud off her back. "Hell of a day," he said. "Hell of a day."

His hand was still on her arm; she couldn't feel it any more, but she looked down and watched the mud fall from her shirt, and thought again of the snow, and of Mal beside her, like he was now, still talking. Meaningless talk. He fell silent then, and she knew if she were to turn around he'd not lose his smile, but something in his eyes would leave her, return to the line of men on Hera and the orders of a stubborn bastard who couldn't imagine what it would be to lose so much. "Fuck," Mal said, and there was something in his voice that she hadn't heard before, something loose and terrible, and tired. So tired. She felt him move away.

When Zoe eventually did look back he was leading his horse from the corral to the shade of the trees; but strangely, all she could see was that the mud from her clothes had stuck, like blood, to the palm of his hand.

~~

There was a hut by the creek, a tiny cattleman's outpost, but it was decrepit and almost falling to pieces, and so they set up camp outside. For what it was worth, Mal did offer to kick out the family of rats that had taken up residence so Zoe could at least have the tiny luxury of a roof above her head, but she said no. It hadn't rained in this part of the world in weeks. And besides, she added, if the cows slept beneath the sky then so would they. Mal had done well not to smile too much at this, but his shrug told her that, if nothing else, the farmer in him approved her way of thinking.

As the evening turned dark it was still mild, and in this sheltered landscape the air underneath the canopy of trees was almost humid. It certainly wasn't beneficial to sleep. She sat on her bedroll with her arms around her knees, a cup of something Mal had brewed on the ground beside her, rapidly cooling. She'd taken a sip earlier on and wondered what he'd done to make the tealeaves taste so bitter.

There was a rustling nearby. Zoe turned, and in the firelight she could just make out Mal's dark form as he wandered over.

"How're they looking?" she asked.

He sat down beside her. "Bit fidgety." He surveyed her untouched mug of tea and raised an eyebrow, which Zoe ignored. "They'll be better when we move out. Don't like bein' cooped up so much. Too close for comfort. Cow confessional, tends to start fights."

She snorted. "Cow...confessional?"

"Well." Mal shrugged, embarrassed. "You know what I mean."

"Think I'm beginning to, sir."

He stretched out, kicking at the dirt with the heel of his boot so that it cluttered damply into the burning embers. She rested her cheek on her knees, watching the light through the flames, unblinking, until the heat hurt her eyes and she was forced to close them. One of her laces was undone and so she pulled at the knot, taking both boots off and sitting them by her knapsack. Beside her Mal did the same, except his method was methodical, one bootlace, one eyelet, unthread and place aside. He must have sensed her watching him because he smiled a little, and shook his head.

"Force of habit," he said. "You oughta remember that..."

She did. But in a way she didn't want to, either, and it irked her that he seemed so ready to remind her of it. "Why'd you not speak to me?" she asked.

Mal wiped a hand over his eyes. "Am I supposed to elaborate on when this lapse might've been?"

"In the camp."

He looked over sharply. "Not sure there were many an opportunity to speak, if I recall."

"You bastard," she said softly. She picked up the mug and tipped it into the fire. Sparks jumped up, falling onto Mal's outstretched legs. Zoe shook her head and looked at her hands. They were shaking.

"I'm sorry?" He was sitting up now, his body angled toward hers, and he leaned forward, his hands splayed on the ground between their two bedrolls.

"Sir! Do you know what it felt like to walk outta there an' see you whack the first sorry sumbitch who happened to look at you wrong? He had you on the ground without spillin' his drink. You were a mess. An' when I took you away, told you to lay off, d'you know what you said to me? Sir, do you know what you said?" She dropped her head, not wanting to have his eyes on her any more. "You said: I'm a dead man, Zoe. I oughta be dead."

Mal's jaw was tight. She could hear him breathing. He was angry, like her, and close. Too close.

"Well, I was right, weren't I? An' if you'd seen me in the camp, Zoe, you'd know why I didn't come near anyone, why I didn't speak to anyone. You shouldn't have followed me so easy. Meant I had to show some fucking spine, hit out when I could've just laid my head on that bar an' drank clear into the night."

"But why so silent? You could've told me--"

"How?"

"You could've told me. 'Stead we played the blind merry and undid all that work that would've...damn it, that would've won us back what we lost." She felt for his hand, felt in the dark and took it from the ground. "Sir, we didn't lose for nothin'. We lived. You're..."

Zoe withdrew her hand and laid it on his shoulder, on the brown coat, the fabric warm, always warm. "You're still wearin' this," she finished.

His eyes were on her; it felt as if they had never left, even in the camp, even when he'd been knocked out, again and again. "You say it as if it mattered."

"It does."

"Then how'd we lose?"

Something rose in her throat but she bit it back. She leaned forward until her forehead rested beside his. "I wish I knew, sir."

"I'm sorry," he murmured. His lips were against her ear. His coat, the collar of his coat, was stiff against her throat. She hadn't meant to stray so close but she couldn't move away. Not now. "I should've thanked you. You stayed, and I should've thanked you."

"I'll always stay."

"Three years. You don't think you've done your bit?"

"Not so much," Zoe said. It was such a silly thing to say that she smiled, sadly, and without thinking kissed him, took his face between her hands and kissed him. She'd meant it to be nothing more than a brief touch; but she realised too late that it was loneliness, and hunger, a quiet desperation that neither of them had wanted to speak of. And then Mal was moving his hands to settle on her body, her chest, following only by an innate sense of what was right, what she was. His fingers came to the gaps where her shirt bucked and her skin was exposed to the warm air, and it was this that made her freeze, that made her feel as if she were plummeting somewhere deep and wanted suddenly, badly, to move away before she fell too far.

So Zoe pulled back. She took his hands away and slowly undid the buttons of her shirt; and she wanted to close her eyes but she didn't, she watched him the whole time.

"It's okay..."

She reached for him. His head pressed into the warm hollow of her shoulder, skin to skin, and Zoe felt his hands across her spine, barely touching. She wondered if the mud was still there. She wondered how lonely he was.

"Zoe," he said. But his lips had left her neck, and now there was air between them, space between them in the darkness. "I can't be...we shouldn't."

"It's okay," she whispered, again. And she knew the assurance was no longer for him.

She felt for her shirt, and found it tangled by their feet, and dirty. Mal sat back, and he seemed to want to add something more, but the seconds passed and he must have realised, like her, that there was probably nothing more that could be said. He did look at her once, though, before he turned to sleep; even in the growing dark, she felt his gaze linger.

Zoe tried to close her eyes, but found that it was useless. She could hear too much; the trees, and that damned, rotting cabin, still threatening to fall apart. A log, glowing deeply, rolled from the flames with a soft thud, scattering embers. She sat by the fire while Mal slept, and waited until it burned out to black.

~~

"Well, you got 'em back in one piece. More than I can say for you, I'm guessin'."

Zoe smiled, took the wad of cash from Caspar Finch's outstretched hand and shrugged gamely. "Few bumps and bruises," she said. "Nothin' to worry too much about."

The old rancher eyed her beneath shaggy brows, his wrinkled eyes a clear blue, and of a shade so pale it seemed as if they'd been bleached clean by the sun. "No," he mused, looking Zoe over. "Don't expect there's nothin' much that'd worry folk like you two. Still, get a job done, just so--you'll be remembered for doin' that. You will indeed."

"Thank you, sir."

He nodded, but his eyes shifted beyond her, to Mal standing alone on the porch, his hands in the pockets of his long coat and his gaze out to the fringes of the town, where civilization began again. "Ah," said Finch, but added nothing to this, waving an arm to indicate that she was dismissed. And she looked down to the cash, tightly bundled in her hand. It was a lot. Too much for the job. She wondered if this is where all the kindness had gotten to, this tiny, weather-beaten man and his hundred odd head of cattle.

Zoe tucked the payment away. She turned the latch on the door, and left the house.

~~

On the outskirts of town they stopped at a bar, and that's when he told her.

"You're leaving?"

Mal shifted uneasily in his chair. "Not exactly," he said. "I just--there's somethin' I need to do."

"Right. Sir."

He looked at her intently, in the way he so often had on Hera, waiting for her reaction.

"I'll wave you."

"Yes, sir."

"Zoe--"

"It's okay." She tried to smile at him. It sounded familiar to them both, those words, but the assurance seemed to be missing. She felt something hard in her belly, a warning. A regret. "You don't have to explain."

He nodded. She knew he believed this, at least.

~~

A week passed, and that week turned into two, and then three. Zoe stayed on Newhall. She waited, as he had asked, as she had promised. She tried not to wonder.

~~

He was on Persephone. The wave, when it finally came, was short, and not exactly clear. Something about him finding a ride. But he was being purposely cryptic, the old Mal, and they had exchanged smiles across the ghosting comm-link. Zoe let it slide, happy to see him. She hadn't expected to feel that way, so soon again.

"I want you on the next transport outta there," he said, and it actually sounded like an order. And she thought, Maybe now it's somewhere we're goin'...and for once that somewhere ain't back.

~~

The place was crowded. Incredibly so. But still, she had never known these docks not to be; it was the port of call for hundreds of travellers through this part of the 'verse, and if it weren't crowded here, it weren't Eavesdown.

She spotted him almost immediately. That brown coat, those long, dark boots. And that look on his face that made the hard thud in her belly press instinctively. Knowingly. He looked good. This was definitely a man with something that needed telling.

"Zoe," he said. And then, "Sergeant."

She folded her arms, one eyebrow raised. "Promotion, sir?"

"Maybe. Depends on you wantin' to work for it." And she wondered why he was smiling, what this smile, a smile that was so him, so Mal, could possibly be for. His hands had been in his pockets but now he withdrew them, swung them through the air with a strange bonhomie. "I've, uh, found us a boat."

"A...what?"

"Firefly class. She's a little green, a little broken. Needs some work, but Zoe, you've gotta see her. You've gotta see her like I did. Then you'll know."

"But what do we want a boat for?"

He was still looking at her, testing her reaction. At last Zoe threw her arms out in frustration. "Well, are you gonna just stand there, or are you gonna tell me? Sir?"

But Mal said nothing, only continued to smile, mysteriously, and she became strangely aware that maybe he wasn't looking at her at all now, but through her, past her even. Zoe turned, following his gaze. The clouds had parted, and then she saw it, and thought, I know. She realised what Mal had seen, on that first night on Hera, by the ridge at the edge old Finch's property, his head by hers, his faith in the black above them both. And he wasn't testing her, because he had known she would see it too, and understand where he just couldn't find words. He was her sergeant, her captain. He was looking beyond the world.