Author: Rawles {rawles[dot]marie[at]gmail[dot]com} Type: Vaguely Het Genre: Drama Characters: Mal. Author’s Notes: I...really don't like this at all. I think my Mal is definitely off and I didn't achieve what I wanted to. While, I have a little thing for Mal/Zoe (Sue me.) I...don't generally believe Mal/Zoe, and I didn't make myself believe it with this fic either.

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Sometimes, late at night, Mal remembered a story he once heard. It was supposedly very, very old and he had no reason to figure differently. He didn’t know all the specifics but its origins were in an ancient culture back on Earth-that-was, one of the ones that had entire crews of gods instead of just one. Anyway, the story went that when those gods created people they made them with two head, four legs, four arms, and so on. Some mischeif followed and the gods got angry with people and smote them. There was a lot of that in those types of stories. This time, however, the smiting caused all the humans to be split in two and scattered across the Earth. So from then on they were like everyone knew them to be; one head, two arms, two legs. Then came the catch. See the gods had forgotten or just didn’t care, Mal didn’t remember which was the case, that their original humans, now in two parts each, only had one soul. So when they were rent into two that soul was split. The end result, you got a planet full of folk who spend their eternity incomplete, until they can somehow come across the other half of their soul.

Now Mal wasn’t one to believe in fairy tales and myths. And he didn’t believe in vengeful gods anymore than he believed in a benevolent one. Mal felt that life had proven to him that He didn’t give a damn about what was going on in the ‘verse. Which is why he’d never forgive Him. But be that as it was, that story always returned to Mal. Because there was times when he was certain that his search had been completed... and he hadn’t taken advantage of that fact.

He didn’t resent Wash, not exactly. He was sure he didn’t think the man deserved a woman like Zoe, but then, who did? There wasn’t another lady in the ‘verse like her. She was one of a kind and there had been a time when she’d been all Mal’s. Not in that way, of course, not really. There was a bond of love and friendship and respect that transcended physicality. But that didn’t mean he had never thought about it, of course, Mal had thought about a lot of things. No matter. It wasn’t the fact that Wash held Zoe’s body that bothered Mal. It was the part of her heart that she’d given away. There was a piece of Zoe that Mal couldn’t touch,held in reserve for her husband. He wasn’t used to sharing her. Maybe he did resent Wash.

But the larger part was that he was angry at Zoe. He felt ashamed sometimes that he’d allowed that emotion to take hold of him. How could he blame her? She had been brave enough to live on and take what she could get from life. She still had something inside her left to give. It wasn’t right for him to be angry about that, but he was. All Mal had was her. And he feared losing any of her, just as he feared taking anything else. If she had waited for him... well, there was no use thinking along those lines. She hadn’t. He would never have asked her to, but a part of him wished that she had taken it upon herself. Was that selfish?

He supposed it was. Be that as it may selfish thoughts were all a man had sometimes. Sometimes, Mal assured himself that a soul was eternal. He assured himself that they’d always be together. He assured himself nothing could ever change that. And sometimes late at night, once he’d seen Wash and Zoe head towards their bunk, hand in hand, eyes aglow with purpose, he needed to believe it.