Mal groaned, blinking his eyes open and trying to focus through the blinding light. Heavy footsteps padded over, and Gray spoke with an obvious attempt to keep his voice low and soft. "Got a big cup of water and your pain meds here, might make downing 'em a priority."

"Got a gun?" Mal asked.

"Uh……no," said Gray.

"Cause –" Mal coughed and grabbed the water from Gray, "I wanna go shoot some Alliance. Lots – of 'em."

Gray grinned. "I like your attitude." He handed Mal the pain pills. "Might take these before you start, could be they'd improve your aim some."

Mal took them with a weak grin, and dragged himself upright to look around at the small, decidedly depressed collection of friends surrounding him. He frowned. "I imagine if I was to attend my own wake, it'd look something like this. Not a peaceable feeling."

"Well, it is a Sunday," Zeke said in a quiet voice. "I know your opinion of God isn’t the highest right now, but I've seen that cross in your locker. Ever given thought to attending service one of these times?"

"No," said Mal shortly.

"They're rather beautiful," said Zeke. "Run by Independent chaplains, no Alliance."

"Right," said Mal. "Because self-brainwashing is the best kind."

"Even if you don't want any part of God, Mal, love and hope are good things to be in the midst of. Keep a man going sometimes," said Zeke.

"I keep goin' by fighting, not by worshipping illusions – no offence." The look Mal gave Zeke said quite plainly that he didn't give a damn if offence were to be taken.

"And where does that leave you when you lose the fight?" challenged Zeke.

"In an Alliance prison, bein' evangelized to by you, apparently," retorted Mal. "I've walked through the valley of death, a mite too literally for my liking, and let me tell you it wasn't no experience left me wanting to worship."

Mal stood with a groan and walked outside. The whole facility was blanketed in a dense gray fog, lending it an air of peace, and Mal closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. The morning air was cool and fresh, and for the briefest of moments he was able to imagine himself free.

He opened his eyes and traced a finger idly along the dew-covered wires of the fence, letting the disturbed droplets join and trickle down his hand. When does it end? When do they run out of nightmares to hit me with?

It never will. Not unless you fight. If he still believed in a benevolent God, he might have thought it to be a supportive whisper in his head. As it was, he simply found a part of him he’d thought dead was stubbornly hanging on, nagging at him. Already did that. Didn’t end well.

So when did you surrender? The question startled him, snapping him into focus. He picked up a piece of the damp gravel and rolled it between his fingers. In a smooth motion, he tossed it upward into the hazy fog with calm certainty and anger fueled by every moment of grief and anguish and pain he'd suffered since the Alliance first bombed the ranch.

I don’t care what you do or how you hurt me. You’ve taken my home and the family I loved. You’ve taken my freedom and hurt me in more ways than I could’ve imagined. I’ve survived the worst you can do to any man, where do we go from here?

He looked up at the fog that rendered the sky and the rest of the world invisible. You might hold me in a cage, but there is one thing you can never take from me any more than you can take the sky from the planets. This may end with my death, but it won’t end with my surrender.

You fight by continuing to exist. A small smile spread across Mal’s face. He liked that part of him, very much. He walked back to the housing unit with his head held high and started the day. The revenge of the beaten comes in refusing to fall.

~~~~~

"Sir? You wanna be a friend to me, don't order me to lie down and take it when some sadist decides to have a go at me. You know I'll obey your orders, don't take advantage of that," said Mal firmly.

"But – I was trying to keep you from getting hurt!" protested Khiloh.

"Oh, I think it was plain from the start hurting me was the whole point of that little exercise," said Mal coolly. "Hurting you, actually. And I'd rather be taken down than just let someone do a thing like that to me, dong ma? I will respect your orders, to protect you if nothing else. But that was an order you shouldn't have given," said Mal, his rage and frustration towards Lambert spilling over.

Khiloh looked down. "I'm sorry," he said in a timid voice. His hands were clenched into tense fists, and he looked like he wanted to melt into the ground.

Mal had to chuckle at that. "Look – if you're gonna be my prison guard, order me to do any damn thing, and I'll obey you or not as I see fit. But if you're gonna be my friend, don't ask me to put myself in a situation like that."

"I was trying to protect you," said Khiloh, hurt and uncertain.

"From what? From a man I could take with one punch?" asked Mal. "You made me lie down at his mercy, that ain't protecting."

"From – from doing the punching! You were drunk and in shock and you wanted to fight him! You'd have wound up beaten bloody and spending the week before your trial in a solitary confinement cell, and Wash would have gotten out and had nobody to turn to, and I'd be transferred out to God knows where and maybe never seen you guys again! I – is it so horrible that I didn't want that to happen?"

Mal looked at him soberly. "Maybe that's one of the very few choices I have the freedom to make," he said. "Not saying I would've hit him, most likely would have just made him force me down. But a friend wouldn't take that choice from me."

"You looked like you wanted to kill him, Mal! And you were drunk, and I know you're capable of it-"

"Why does everyone in this gorram place insist on treating me like I'm suicidal?" asked Mal. "I know damn well the only fights I'm gonna get into here are the losing kind, and I'm not about to get myself killed on a matter of pride, dong ma? I'm not the least bit keen on getting beat on neither. I fought a war and led hundreds of men, I don't need saving from myself."

"I'm – very sorry, sir," said Khiloh, looking for all the world like a scared private being chewed on by his Sergeant. Something about the incongruity of it and the earnestness of his apology made Mal smile.

“It’s okay, son,” said Mal, consciously adopting his Sergeant’s role. Khiloh laughed, suddenly aware of the pure silliness of the situation. "You let too many people back you into a corner, you know that?" said Mal with affection.

“Will – you be my Sergeant?” pleaded Khiloh.

Mal’s face sobered. “Not much you can do about a bad leader,” he said calmly. “Just bear in mind he’ll get worse ‘til someone backs him down. Folk like him feed off keeping people shaken up.”

Khiloh nodded, his posture relaxing even though his face was sad. “Okay.” He extended a floridly colored object. “Would you give this to Wash for me, when he gets out?”

Mal nodded, taking it with a smile growing on his face. It was a soft fleece creature with appealing puppy-dog eyes……a puppet. He stroked it on the head with a grin; it was so very Wash.

Khiloh smiled at his reaction, his face sobering after a moment. “Brought you something too. You’ll want to keep this hidden, though.” He handed Mal a small object.

Taking it, Mal found himself locked in a bitter struggle with a lump in his throat. It was an Independent shoulder patch, with a single word inscribed in Chinese on the back: Hope. He opened his mouth to speak as he wrapped his hand around the precious object, but no words came out.

~~~~

"You're scared, aren't you?" asked Zeke.

Mal was sitting against the fence in the cool, thin sunlight. The fog had burned off, and Mal was enjoying it, knowing that if he were sent to some hellish prison, this might be one of the last days of his life spent in relative peace. He clutched the small green patch firmly in his hand, soaking up the light and smelling the fresh breeze. Wispy fragments of cloud coasted across the sky, and he watched them all, absorbing the moments into memories that couldn’t be taken away.

He shifted his gaze to Zeke. It wasn't a thing he was keen on admitting to anyone, let alone a man so humblingly stable and calm. But somehow he didn't have the heart to lie, so he just looked. You were willing to die in this fight. Remember that.

"Mal – I've been here for about five years,” said Zeke, sitting. “Knew when I got caught – well, I knew it was gonna be a long war. This place seemed like heaven after being with that unit, but –" he shook his head, firmly placing himself in the present. "Because I was good at escaping, they put me in maximum security when I got out of the hospital. That - I was more scared about spending the war in prison than by anything they did before I got here. I'd lie there in my cell and feel sick and want to scream."

"What happened?" asked Mal. "You get used to it?"

Zeke nodded. "In a way. We're an adaptable species, humans. Made friends with Wash and a few others, come to find even life in a cell could be worth living. Then – when they moved Wash out of maximum, Wash moved heaven and earth to convince them to let me out too. The guards liked us both, and in the end I got to come out here."

His eyes flickered down for an instant. "If Khiloh hadn't covered for us when Straaker tried that escape business, I'd be back in max for good."

"That scares you, doesn't it?" Mal asked, a faint smile on his face. It faded as Zeke's words sunk in. Wash? Wash in maximum security? What the…..

A shiver of realization ran down his spine. Wash’s almost blindly trusting attitude, his easygoing contentment amid the constant tension and uncertainty of prison life, his sudden flashes of fear and anger….all started to make sense. Mal shuddered internally.

Please don't tell me that's what I'm gonna have to do to survive in here. It made him furious inside, every time he forced himself to put up with being treated like a criminal or held back from punching out a sadist with a gun. But at least the fury told him he was still sane; the thought of simply accepting it was about as palatable as standing aside and letting the Alliance take over the universe without a fight.

~~~~~

Wash's face was calm and quiet, and there was a sober sadness in his eyes. His expression as he looked up at Mal was grave and stoic, and something about that wrenched Mal's heart. It was a gentle, pleasant expression, but not one that belonged on the carefree pilot. It was as close to broken as he'd ever seen his friend.

“Wash?” Mal kept his voice soft. "You doin'-"

“Not now, Mal,” said Wash. He looked away, his entire posture that of a man who wished he could vanish off the face of the earth. Mal nodded and went inside. Sitting down on his bunk, he picked up the colorful puppet and ran his fingers across it in thought, ignoring the questions on the faces of the other prisoners.

~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

Author's Note: I appear to have been worrying some with how dark this tale has become…..and that has worried me a bit. The thing is, it's fixing to get even darker over the course of probably the next five chapters or so. In fact, consider this a formal warning. I recently considered changing the outline of the story to lighten it up a bit, but it just doesn't work.

This story has always been about what shaped Mal into who he was in the series, and it will continue to be about that. Careful readers will see him slowly changing into the character as we know him, and if I change the course of the immediate future of this story…..it'll play havoc with my plans to have him emerge as Mal.

I love Mal more than I really care to admit, and there have been and will be parts of this story that are really hard for me to write. The best I can do is ask you to have faith in where this is going. This story has never, ever been written as an exercise in hurting him or Wash. I love and adore Mal, and I'm very much looking forward to writing happier times ahead. I hope my readers are still around to read as Mal savors his freedom and Wash learns about the wonders of goose-juggling. Believe it or not, this has always been an exploration of how Mal emerged from the devastation of the war as that confident, snarky, lovable captain we all adore.

I want to thank all of you who commented on this chapter and in response to my log entry. I'm not sure where exactly it happened, but somewhere in reading your comments and thinking about them, I figured this out.

This story is the first time I've attempted to write fiction as an adult, and it has been rather like experimenting, poking around in the dark and seeing how people react and what I should do. I've always had a firm grasp on the story I wanted to tell, but not how to tell it. I think I'm getting how to tell it, thanks to all of you – your help this time and in the past.

I do plan to go through and re-write, or edit this when it's complete. There are parts that make me cringe, parts I'm very proud of, and parts that need a little tweaking. There are dynamics I didn't set up quite right or devote enough time to. There are things I want to add, things I want to cut, and things I want to present a little differently or move around. There's a story thread or two that I haven't woven in the way I intended.

The main thing I'm realizing is what a learning experience this has been. One major thing I've realized I need to work on and learn is creating characters. Confession time: I don't like OCs. I skim them in other people's fics, and I really didn't want them in mine!

I created the OCs in my story grudgingly because they had to be there, but I didn't want to pay attention to them. Come to find out that's not how it works...and I'm slowly learning about how to create them and how to convey the picture I have in my mind of the character and their motivations. I'm learning that the story suffers if you view your OCs as obligations – surprise surprise!. So, been doing a lot of reading and thinking about that. In the re-write, I want to do a much better job introducing and fleshing out the OCs.

Khiloh – a lot of people like him, a lot have reservations about him, and setting his character up a lot better will be a big part of the re-write. He's one of two characters that I envisioned as fundamentally good people with off-kilter social skills. I've always had a certain image of him in my head, which never wound up being portrayed right in the story. Very good-hearted and stable, but also insecure, desperate for friendship and support, and a bit lacking in the social skills department – to wit, him trying to comfort Mal and be his friend, but instead creeping him out….and never even bothering to find out if Mal was the slightest bit open to trusting him and being his friend in the first place.

In this recent chapter – the stark contrast between the sweet and kind to the point of being almost creepy Khiloh and the completely sadistic Lambert was very intentional, as is most of the completely random and contradictory behavior of the people Mal encounters at the prison, and the bewildering shades of gray. What remains to be seen is if I can do a good enough job of showing the reader why. *I* know exactly why…but I won't know until later if I'm conveying it right.

The story unevenness is a combination of factors. The fact that the chapter breaks interfere with the flow of the story is part of it. My experimentation as a writer, trying to find my stride, is part of it. Responding to feedback and beta readers is part of it. And there is some of it that's deliberate......

Guildsister said:

There's kindness and general consideration, but the talk about friendship in this chapter seemed a bit over the top. Rather than as a criticism of the portrayal in this chapter, I added this to the growing sense of the scenario in the entirety of the work, with its weaving of people, problems, and events building to a whole image of people disfunctional and damaged on *both* sides of the conflict. In that viewpoint it all works.

As to the new abuse of Mal in this chapter, it's rather the same way. There's the contrast between this extreme kindness and caring and the equally extreme cruelty and abuse. Khiloh--somewhat psychotically desperate to be nice--on the one extreme, and Lambert--psychotically and seemingly randomly cruel--on the other extreme. They're the extremes Mal and the others are having to deal with, along with their own extremes (Mal's own behavior and thoughts range toward both ends of the spectrum, too, with nothing neutral in the middle). This is, in short, the basis of the story you're telling, and IT WORKS.

You do have a middle ground in people, events, and characters, in your story, but it's in the shadows, transluscent and hard to see, yet there. This also works for the story, for you're not telling a tale of even-keel moderation, casual indifference, or well-adjusted people, but of extremes.

You hit the nail on the head. There are no perfect people in this story, although there are some (i.e. Khiloh and Straaker) desperately trying to be and failing. They are all in a stressful and untenable situation, and it's tempting insanity for the lot of them. Everyone in that building with the possible exception of Zeke is on the brink of losing it completely.

And yes, how Mal and the others are treated - with kindness, with cruelty, or with indifference - is a big part of the inherent conflict of the story. If Mal knew he could expect nothing but harshness from them, he'd shut down and find a way to cope with it a lot easier. Having to evaluate each person as an individual and not a faceless symbol of the Alliance takes a lot more.

As it stands, he's forced to learn to take everything on an individual basis, and how to deal with the helplessness of never knowing what comes next. Mal is recovering from losing the war and with it everything he believed and stood for. He's having to rebuild himself from scratch into a person he recognizes and a person who can go on in this new world, and at the same time try to maintain his sanity. He has to evaluate the Alliance, the world around him, and his own newly-forming outlooks on it all. It's all broken, it's all dysfunctional, and he has to find his own clear path through it.

Anyway, lots learned and lots to work on. AMDOBELL, slumming, nbz, ncbrowncoat, Katesfriend, Guildsister, BlueEyedBrigadier, CosmicFugitive, mal4prez, and HeWhoKicksALot.......thanks for sharing your time and wisdom. I truly appreciate all of you - taking the time out of your day to offer help, support, and input. It helps a great deal.