I'm back :) Sorry about the long delay, I've been off on the (wonderful) Browncoat Cruise and neglecting my writing duties ;) Without further ado, here is the next chapter.

~~~~~~

Wash blinked upward at the sky, holding the tangled mess of webbing connected to the survival pack that had been cut off him when he was taken prisoner, and the belt holster containing his now unloaded service pistol. His uniform was there too, but they’d warned him that wearing it might not be good for his health. In truth, he didn’t want to wear it, or any uniform. Maybe a hula skirt.

The sky shouldn’t look any different on this side of the wall, but it did. Bigger, brighter. Most likely should stop staring at it, but -

“Lieutenant Washburne?”

Wash startled and came back down to earth, sizing up the short, dark man making the inquiry. He held himself with an air of self-assured power that rankled; he’d had quite enough of commanding military types who expected deference and obedience just as much as they expected to breathe. “My name’s Wash.”

The man extended his hand. “Commander Tenaka.” Wash shook his hand, a little stunned. Tenaka was practically a household name in this quadrant. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” said Tenaka.

“That’s – very nice for you,” said Wash. “Did we skip over – um - why?” His eyes strayed; Matty stood next to a hovering taxi, wrapped tightly in the embrace of his wife and daughter. They were frozen in place, clinging to each other as if daring the universe to make them let go.

It caused him a pang of loneliness. Or maybe it was Tenaka, standing there like he expected Wash to invite him to dinner at the good old boy’s club. Sure. Just forget the others and chat up the enemy. Matty stepped into the taxi, waving to Wash as the vehicle skimmed away.

“Your attack took more guts and skill than any of us thought possible,” said Tenaka, slight irritation creeping into his voice over the realization that he was the last person on Wash’s mind. “I’m here to tell you in person how much I admire you, and to offer you a job. We could use a legend like you at the academy.”

It took Wash a minute to sort out just how royally pissed he was. “You admire me, I’m a legend, and you want me to work for you?” Tenaka wasn’t just a combat commander. It had been Tenaka that his interrogators reported to.

Tenaka nodded. “Tell you what, shall we discuss it over lunch? As one aviator to another, I’d love to pick your brain. I’ve got a car waiting -”

“No,” said Wash, his voice tight. “If I’m so special, maybe you could have said something back when I – uh – cared. Maybe before you guys decided to dump me in solitary confinement for weeks on end, and definitely before the six years in prison.”

Wash took a deep breath. “Go to hell.”

He started marching down the road, with Tenaka following on his heels. “Stop!” ordered Tenaka sharply.

“No!” Wash retorted without breaking stride.

Tenaka ran up to his side. “Hear me out.” Wash stopped and glared. “I’m sorry the interrogation was unpleasant. There were aviators keeping watch that you didn’t get transferred anywhere – covert. We were pretty desperate to find out if we were going to be facing an attack like that again.”

“Unpleasant?” Wash could barely talk through his rage. He’d not been this furious even with the people who’d done it to him. “You – you –just try going through the complete and utter misery of – having nobody listen to you or believe you when your world turns on that. Unpleasant won’t be the word.”

Tenaka’s face softened. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “The war’s over now, and we need to be mending fences. I’ll understand if you refuse my offer, but-”

“Refused,” said Wash. “Your legend just spent six years behind your fences. They need ripping down, not mending, and this whole warm and fuzzy with the enemy session might go a little smoother next time if you weren’t holding one of my best friends in that - abomination.”

His heart was pounding, and he hurried up the road, catching up to another group of soldiers who were making their way towards town. A truck whizzed by and he winced at the power of it. Noise. He’d forgotten it. Cool. He wanted to be overwhelmed, to launch himself into this world and forget.

The surroundings weren’t what you’d call pretty; the prison was planted in the middle of a flat expanse of land covered in scrub grass with untidy little bushes lying damply under heavy drops of water from the previous night’s rain. An easy field to catch any poor escapee who made it past the fence. Not pretty, but beautiful. Beautiful to raise his head and let his eyes see without running into a wall, to be able to look in every direction and see something different.

“The offer stands,” called Tenaka. “Any time you need a job, wave me.”

“Bein’ chased by the Alliance already?” joked a cheery soldier.

“Even scarier,” said Wash, slowing his stride and falling in beside the friendly stranger. “I think that’s my gorram past chasing me up the road, and that’s just waaay to literal to be any fun at all.”

Wash’s new friend grinned. “You know what’s literal?” He swept the horizon with his arm. “This. And no rutting guards.”

Wash looked, and couldn’t stop looking. The city ahead rose dully up out of the grey, but it promised noise and dirt and colors and smells. He shivered from the cold and an anticipation that was half fear and half pure excitement. Somewhere amidst a crowd in that city was a ship. He was going to fly again.

~~~~~

It didn’t take long to figure out he was both the highest ranked in the building and the oldest, or that the sick feeling in his stomach was shared by every person there. His own world might be crumbling in a about him, but he wasn’t the only one lost and hurting.

“Listen up,” said Mal, calling everyone to attention. “This hurts. Every one of us did our best in that war, and we lost. We all had to say goodbye to our friends today, and we got a scary road ahead of us.”

They were listening, evaluating. Every one of them had been defeated too many times to have any truck with glib speeches about how the world was gonna turn shiny and happy on them.

“War’s over. Only problem is, for us, it ain’t. We’re still gonna have to fight to hold it together. Don’t know ’bout you, but this scares me more than any battle I ever laid eyes on.”

There were nods of agreement, frightened gulps and set jaws. “Okay, we’re all scared,” said Mal, his voice soft. He waited a minute, while they acknowledged that. There was a comfort in realizing they were none of them alone in this.

They were all, in those quiet seconds, trying to evaluate what sort of leader he was going to be. Even Mal. “We’re gonna make it,” he said, trying to find those very few things he was certain of.

“Might not be happy or pretty, but we’ll endure this. We know how to fight, and we know how to stand together. We’ll find ways to get through each day and make this a life worth the living. Dong ma?”

“Yes, sir,” said a quiet redhead solemnly. Nobody looked any the less devastated, but their faces were softer, friendly looks being exchanged across the room. It took just those seconds to turn strangers into something far deeper.

“Good,” said Mal, returning the looks. The human capacity to hope and try never ceased to amaze. “Enemy here ain’t those guys outside the gates. We’re lucky, I imagine. Some of them give a damn. It’s something a lot more shadowy, something that doesn’t care about any one human being, that’s trying to crush the last bit of fight out of what’s left of our army. Don’t have any particular need to let them, my own self.”

The man lying on the corner bunk stirred for the first time, removing the pillow from his head and looking at Mal with pleading eyes. “I’m tired of fighting, sir. Just don’t think – I can take any more.” His voice failed and he looked away.

Mal came over and sat down next to him. “You get convicted yet?”

“Yeah.” The young man nodded. There was a deep scar on his cheek, and he was missing several fingers on the hand clutching the pillow. Fellow had given more than just his freedom to a loosing war. Mal took hold of his shoulder.

“A man can take a lot when he doesn’t got a choice,” said Mal. “Lot more than he might think.” He stood. “We don’t got a choice, but we got each other. We’ll come through.”

The boy smiled tightly, tears pooling in his eyes. “Thanks, sarge.”

Mal stood. Halfway back to the table, he turned and faced them with an order. “Everyone on your feet. Get in formation and stand at attention, ma shong.”

They obeyed, eleven unhappy men standing in two ragged lines. Too many orders given by unkind and careless men had made any command something to dread. “Private, hold your gorram head up,” he ordered one disheartened boy. “The rest of you, I said a formation, not a school roll-call.” With reluctance and not a little hidden fear, they gathered in a crisp formation and stood at attention.

He looked at them steadily, raising his hand in a salute. They rushed to return it instinctively. “Now that’s a beautiful sight,” he said, his voice soft. Not a man there doubted he meant it, and warmth crossed the disgruntled faces.

“Do you feel like soldiers?” he asked.

“Yes – sir,” came a few mumbled replies. Mal frowned in disapproval, a slight smile on his face. “Yes, sir!” they all said, almost in unison. Mal’s smile deepened to a grin at the way their stances straightened.

“You are,” said Mal in no uncertain terms. “Alliance sees fit to call us criminals. Doesn’t matter any more’n an insult in a schoolyard. You’re soldiers. It’s a thing of honor to stand here with you, and if need be we’ll give everything we have to live this with courage and dignity, just the way we would on a battlefield or anywhere else.”

He grinned. “If the enemy has a problem with that, they can go stuff themselves. Dismissed.”

There were no more tears as they returned to their bunks, heads somehow held a little higher. There were even a few proud smiles, carefully hidden. The atmosphere shifted from shock and devastation to the comforting busywork of belongings being stowed in lockers, photos hesitantly shown to new neighbors, books being opened. Mal staked his claim to a bunk near the door and sat, leaning back with his own internal smile.

“That’s one – colorful – puppet there, sir,” said a man trying not to laugh as he pointed at it. “Is it a special – signal puppet?”

“Yes,” said Mal coolly. “It signals stay away from my bunk and let me sleep or you - die.”

“Made, our new Sarge is grumpy and lazy,” the soldier complained with a grin.

Mal grinned back. “It’s a nice combination. You should try it sometime.”

~~~~~

He was getting utterly sick of hearing himself called “the Independent prisoner tortured by officials at Tong Yi.” Couldn’t they call him, oh, maybe “the Sergeant who held Serenity Valley”? Mal glared at the cortex screen and put strangling a reporter on his list of things to do before he died.

“Look, it’s time for these criminals to pay the price,” asserted a blustering man.

“No,” said Lee flatly. “I will not treat these men as criminals.”

Mal almost pitied the glassy-eyed pitbull of a man sitting across from Lee; he suspected anyone trying to throw the cool-as-ice commander would soon regret the attempt. “If I wasn’t a generous man I’d think you was an Independent sympathizer.”

“No,” interrupted Lee flatly. “I love the ideals of the Alliance. I am completely loyal to the concept of a moral and just society. But I do sympathize with these men, and I’ve got a problem with the media branding them as monsters. I have thousands of prisoners under my command, and I haven’t met them all. But I have met a number of the men and women being charged, and they are honorable people being used as political footballs, nothing more.”

“Sounds like those are some lucky war criminals,” interjected the announcer dryly.

Lee raised his eyebrows. “Lucky?”

“When people are calling for them to be lined up along a fence and shot, yes, I’d you’re your touchy-feely attitude towards them pretty lucky,” said the increasingly red-faced man, fidgeting with defensive anger.

Lee stood and walked directly in front of him, to the announcer’s obvious dismay. “When I said I supported the ideals of the Alliance? I meant I supported ridding ignorant, cruel, and stupid people from power.”

The commander looked directly at the camera. All semblance of a debate was gone; he controlled the arena without question. “There used to be such a thing as honor in battle, hundreds of years ago before man set the bar so low we all became barbarians. Well, in this war, humanity regained a small piece of that honor. The saying that a society is judged by how it treats its prisoners is well known. For all the horrors of this war, both sides have treated their prisoners with decency.”

Lee paced briefly, thinking, ignoring the announcer’s feeble attempts to wave him back to his chair. “Maybe we really are on the brink of being able to say we live in a better world. Maybe the dreams of a people have a chance to come true, now. We fought for that. That’s why it’s a travesty to see politicians creating false truths and eating away at our shot at unity.”

“They’re prosecuting bloody war criminals!” snapped the red-faced man. “What on earth is the harm in that?”

“The harm?” asked Lee with deceptive softness. “Riots, threats of renewed rebellion against Alliance forces, I call that harm. Don’t forget the very honorable Sergeant we treated with unspeakable cruelty. When I walked into that young man’s cell, he greeted me with a smile. And while we walked out of the building where he was tortured, he spoke to me not as an enemy, but as a fellow soldier. He had the ability to separate the actions of a few from the intent of others. That’s what we as a society and a government need to do.”

The announcer smiled brightly, in the desperate hope of shutting him up. “We thank you for being here with us today, and –”

“You’re welcome,” said Lee with a scorching dose of angelic sweetness. “What we have to remember is that this was a civil war, a war of ideals. This was not a conflict between good and evil, it was about two differing beliefs of what was best for humanity. As with all wars, there were atrocities committed by both sides. But both sides were fighting for something good and true. As the victors, we need to behave with honor and display the values of civilization that we fought to bring to the Rim worlds, not allow ourselves to be trapped into petty revenge.”

The screen cut to a commercial. “You – you’ve met Lee?” asked Simms, a pleasant-looking young fellow who was peering down at Mal from the upper bunk, holding his glasses so they wouldn’t fall down. “What’s he like?”

Mal thought. “Unsettling,” he said honestly. “Don’t ever want to cross him. He’ll shoot you down with nary a twitch if he takes a mind to. But I reckon we can be thankful for him. Man has some serious ethics, and more to the point it seems he likes people. Not every man does.”

~~~~

The new Sergeant had a pleasant, unguarded face, and he addressed them with respect. Mal warmed to him instantly. “Greetings, men,” he said, glancing at Khiloh. “Can we get this gate opened?”

Khiloh nodded and slid it open. The Sergeant walked into the yard, observing the row of men quietly, meeting each pair of eyes with a pleasant nod. “Greetings – ruthless war criminals.” It was said with an arch humor that sparked several smiles in the cautious formation. He stopped in front of Mal, looking him up and down. “Sergeant Reynolds, I presume?”

“Yes, sir.”

Daniels studied him for a long time. It wasn’t an unfriendly examination, and Mal returned it. “Sergeant Daniels,” he said finally. “Heard a lot about you. Mind if I speak to your men?”

Mal decided then and there that maybehaps they could live with this guy. “No, sir. Appreciate the courtesy, sir.”

Daniels gave him a knowing nod and moved down the line, scrutinizing each of them, introducing himself, spending an extra few moments to set the most obviously tense of them at ease. His manner bespoke genuine curiosity, of a very benevolent sort. Lee, thought Mal. Lee gave us this guy. Nobody treats war criminals this way, I wouldn’t. Lee moved heaven and earth to do this for us.

The sergeant stepped a few paces back. “This isn’t an easy situation for men to be in, and I’m sure we’ll have some serious problems. I’d like to ask something of all of you, though. We are all human beings. I believe each one of you deserves our respect and consideration, and I’d like to ask you to extend that courtesy to us as well.”

He stopped and looked at them for a minute. “I’m sure I’ll get to know each of you as time goes on, but I imagine I should introduce myself with where I come from. About six months ago, I was released from the Independent POW camp I spent the last two and a half years of the war in. It was possibly the hardest thing I’ve faced in my life. It was – very different from this prison, but – what you need to know was that it was an honor to serve in there.”

Daniels’ voice softened, and there was something very sincere in his eyes. “The friendships I made with the other prisoners, I’ll have forever and I’ll remember long after the hardships fade. The respect I had for our guards is something I never expected, and my hope here is to be worthy of that kind of respect.” He smiled. “I may mess it up horribly. But if you’re game, I’d like to try. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it’s like to stand in your shoes.”

He was met with a line of smiles in return, and he saluted them. “Thank you. That’s all I can ask.”

~~~~~

They had reached the suburbs, those first outcroppings of warehouses and factories and homes that had long since seen better days, the edges of civilization that the city forgot. A light dusting of snow began to fall, and Wash looked back. The prison blended into the landscape at this distance, barely distinguishable from scrub and grain silos. The tall admin building glinted in the light, the one thing that marked the sprawling complex as existing.

Wash wasn’t the only one looking. Their straggling line was pausing in a final, wordless goodbye. He blinked the snow out of his eyes as the gentle flakes obscured the view entirely. It was though it didn’t even exist, and a chill ran straight down his spine. It had never been so plainly obvious how easily people could just – disappear. Mal could die in there, his life not even a figment in anyone’s imagination, an unseen figure in an invisible building out in the grey horizon.

He heard a quiet sniff, and turned his head to see a slender waif of a girl peering through the snow. He touched her on the arm. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “No.” Wash wasn’t entirely sure how it happened that she ended up in his arms, crying. Just that it was about the most endearing thing he’d experienced in years. He wouldn’t have guessed there was room for a person amidst all that gear he was holding, but somehow it worked, and he held on tightly to this stranger who wasn’t. “It’s like they’re gone,” she said quietly. “Like – we take one more step away, they’ll just be forgotten.”

Wash found himself smiling as he held firmly to a small, soft human being and remembered just how much there was in this world that was worth experiencing. “I sure won’t be doing the forgetting,” he said, following her gaze into the blur. “I don’t think you will either. Unless we get hit on the head really hard.”