GOING HOME

Firefly and all related elements, characters and indicia © Mutant Enemy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television, 2003. All Rights Reserved. All characters and situations—save those created by the authors for use solely on this website—are copyright Mutant Enemy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.

Abject gratitude to Tara O’Shea/LJC for her incredibly useful Mandarin glossary and for being such a damned good writer.

ONE

He was home.

After years of blood and dirt on a dozen battlefields; after nine weeks in an Alliance holding camp being “processed for release” (nice words for crowded holding cells, pointless debriefings, long hours in the dark thinking about what might have been and what was); after a hard two months hitching rides on any ship that would let him work off passage, he was finally back on Shadow, back at the ranch. Home.

It was the same as when he’d left, and yet everything was different.

He stood in the doorway of the old house, hand resting against the rough wood of the door frame. He could feel the layers of paint against the skin of his palm, reminders of the times his ma had ordered him to whitewash the trim on the doors and windows—“Keeping it fresh-lookin’,” she’d said, “So folks won’t think we’re no `count fèhuà as don’t care about the upkeep of the place.” What she’d say now, if she could see the dust and cobwebs . . . . He could imagine her, fists against her hips and arms akimbo, shaking her head in disgust. “Men is pigs,” she’d have muttered and gone off for a mop and pail.

The long hallway back to the kitchen was dark and quiet. So too was the kitchen, its broad table covered with a layer of dust that told how long it’d been since it had fed a dozen hungry ranch hands. His boots made a cold hard sound on the wood floor as he walked slowly up the narrow staircase, first to his old room—bed made, things put away by his ma after he’d flown off in his hurry to fight for Independence—and then to his ma’s. Someone had stripped the sheets off the bed, but left the curtains drawn as they must have been during those last days. The windows were closed, too, to keep out the flies. He thought he could smell a hint of alcohol or bleach, the sharp tang of a sickroom after it’s been cleaned up and emptied.

“Mal? You up there?”

He flinched, startled by the sound of the front door screen slapping and the call of Joe’s voice at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, Joe.” He turned, pulled the bedroom door shut, and moved back down the stairs to the man waiting for him at the bottom.

“Mal, xiâo dì dì!” Joe grabbed him in a broad bear hug, slapping him hard on the back. Those Johnstons grew their men big and strong, and none too gentle. “Wode tìan , boy, but it’s good to see you after all this time!”

He made sure there was a smile on his face before stepping back from the embrace. “Good to see you, too, Joe. Good to be back.”

“I ran into Chu Lin; he said he’d given you a ride in from town. I figgered I’d find ya here.” Joe glanced around, taking in the dust and silence. “Why didn’t’cha let us know you were comin’? We could’a give the place a once-over. No mind, though; you come stay down the hill with us. Everyone’s gonna want ta see you anyhow.” Joe took him by the arm, pulling him towards the door.

Mal hesitated only briefly. He couldn’t imagine a night alone in this house, empty except for reminders of what was gone. The Johnston’s place down at the southern end of the ranch would be filled with the bustle of Joe’s brothers and sisters, his parents Old Bill and Miss Maddy who had been like parents to Mal too sometimes. There’d be lively conversation, heaping plates of fresh food and good home-brewed whiskey; there, in the thick of his old friends and his old life, he might feel as if he were truly home again, the only home he’d known until he’d left for war two years ago. Maybe, for a bit, he could pretend he’d never left, that everything was as it had been before.

Who was he kidding?

TWO

It was a good two hours past sunrise when he woke up the next morning. His mouth was dry and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, the price of too many shots of Old Bill Johnston’s home recipe. Still, being drunk meant he’d been spared having to dream. It was generally the same one: bodies twisted and shattered; screams and moans and cries—for water, morphine, a bullet to end it. In the dream, Mal looked on helplessly, unable to move or speak; sometimes he was sinking in quicksand, and woke gasping for breath as it sucked him under, filling his mouth and lungs. Other times he was struggling to move a paralyzed hand towards his gun, even as he wasn’t sure where he’d aim it—at the dying begging for mercy, or at himself.

Moonshine was too easy to come by, on a ship or even in an Alliance holding camp. Sometimes it was all he could do not to drink himself silly at night, insurance against the dreaming. It was only the memory of his pa—the drunken rages, a belt pulled off to give a whipping to whoever was handy—that kept him from taking a jug back to his bunk at night. Whatever became of him, it wouldn’t be that. He preferred nightmares of the sleeping variety, thank you.

The sun filtered through the pale yellow curtains; he could feel the early warmth of what promised to be a hot, dry day, the kind that meant moving cattle to water and shade, out of heat that could drop a good milker to her knees. He hadn’t heard the riders leave for their daily work, hadn’t smelled the sizzling bacon on the kitchen griddle. Talking late into the night of matters on the ranch and in town, and his own exhaustion, had knocked him flat. That, and the feel of a warm, soft mattress, the silence of a room not shared with half a dozen other people—unlike the passenger dorms on the ships he’d ridden, or the holding cells at the Processing Center. They’d really packed ‘em in there: “Wúnéug de rén browncoats,” the guards said. “They’re lucky we don’t just kill the chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo ”—not caring who heard. Why should they? They were the winners.

He stood for a long while under the sting of a hot shower—when had he last had one of those?—leaning his throbbing forehead against the cool wall tiles, letting the water’s warmth penetrate his muscles and wash away the dirt of travel. He wished he could be truly clean, that the water could give him that; but some things couldn’t be washed away. Not forgotten. Or, he thought, forgiven.

Miss Maddy was waiting for him when he came downstairs. She’d helped raise him from a baby, by turns wiping his snotty nose, putting a switch to his rear end, and laughing at his stories of athletic feats and romantic conquests. She nodded briefly and slid a plate full of bacon and eggs in front of him, then poured him a steaming mug of coffee. Even through his hangover he took an appreciative inhale, savoring again the scent of fresh food. Four years of field rations and ship’s protein stores had made him nearly forget what a good meal could taste like.

“Mornin’, qin ài de,” she said as he tucked into the meal, and sat back down to mend a pair of overalls.

“Morning, Miss Maddy,” he replied around a mouthful of food. “Thanks for keeping breakfast for me. I wish you’d rousted me; I wanted to ride out today, see the herds.”

She shrugged. “Looked like you needed sleep more. You can catch up to the others later. Though from the looks of you, I don’t know how fast you’ll be movin’.”

He grinned. “Guess I’d forgotten that Bill’s brew has a kick like a pissed-off mule.”

There was silence then as he ate, silence that grew more pointed the longer it went on. He supposed she was waiting for him to ask, but he just didn’t know how. So he waited for her.

“Your mà mà, she went pretty peaceful at the end,” Maddy finally said, putting down her work and looking at him directly. “The Seavers and us, and Pastor Holliday, we took turns takin’ care of her, made sure she had what she needed.”

“Xièxie nî —you know I’m grateful.” What else was there to say? “I got your WAVE. I wish I could’a come home to say goodbye, but, well, I just couldn’t get a leave.”

“She understood.” Maddy paused, put down her work, and looked at him. “You know that she believed in what you were fightin’ for; she let you go willin’ and all, proud that you wanted to stand up against the Alliance.” Her lined face, aged by years of hard ranch work, took on a thoughtful look. “Maybe it’s a blessing she went before the war ended, and never knew the Independents lost. She died hopin’, and that’s a good way to go.”

Into his mind came an image, like his dream but all too real: a field camp, the ground littered with the bodies of dead and dying soldiers, believers in a cause. Those people—his people, his responsibility at the end—had died without hope, knowing that they’d lost and that it had all been for nothing.

What he’d come to learn was, hope was just another four-letter word.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After breakfast he saddled up Fat Flo—an opinionated old chestnut mare who’d dumped him on his backside many a time—and headed out to find one of the teams. He needed to feel horse and land under him again, needed to see the fields rolling by and smell clover grass trampled under hooves as he rode; maybe then he’d feel more at home and less like a stranger passing through.

It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out where there’d be riders and beasts; sure enough, he caught up with Joe, Dozy and Rey as they drove a hundred head of cattle south towards Meadow Pond. He found a spot off the left flank of the herd, settling in to work he’d once done without a thought for how, as natural as taking a leak. His body remembered, shifting with the rhythm of the mare’s slow trot. But his mind—that refused to let him go back to how it had been. His mind insisted on seeing the light brown of the summer grass and washed-out blue of the morning sky as if they were brand new. His mind wouldn’t just let him be.

After awhile, Joe reined in beside him. Mal nodded a greeting.

“Ni meí shì bà?” Joe asked. “You’re lookin’ a little green around the gills, xiâo péngyou.”

He offered a pained smile. “Wô hen hâo, ge ge . You know as well as I do that I can still drink the whole lot o’ you under the table when I take a mind to. I was just being polite last night so y’all wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the sense of your inferiority.”

Joe threw his head back in a laugh. “Oh, yeah, Mal, keep pilin’ on the fèhuà. You always were one to make a tale taller in the tellin’. Next you’ll be shinin’ me on with stories of how you bravely took on a whole platoon of Alliance troops and singlehandedly won the Battle of Bernadette.”

“Well, I don’t like to brag. . . .”

He pretended to go along with the joke, but it fell flat. Joe had never so much as set foot off Shadow, much less seen what a war was like, so he had no way of knowing about any of it, how battles were won or lost or what made a person brave. That was the thing about war, it was all about surprises: some found their courage, while others babbled and wept and fell apart. There was no way to know which would be which, either. He’d have pegged young Tracy for a weakling, but the boy had a cool head under fire and could eat a can of beans while shells popped mere feet away. That Lieutenant Hargrove, on the other hand. . . . People did the best they could, and no one could tell until they got there how they’d be. When it came down to it, courage and heroic deeds just meant getting through the day without turning into a gibbering baby.

“Uh-huh, why don’t you save it for when you see Junie Lovitz? I’m sure she’s just dyin’ to hear your stories; that is, after she rips your clothes off. ”

“Rip my clothes off, huh? Is that what I should be expecting?”

“Yup.” Joe’s grin was obscene. “That girl, she’s been goin’ on this past month about what she’s goin’ ta do to you when she sees you. I hope you have the stamina for it.”

Junie—there was still the matter of Junie. It’s not as if they were affianced . . . but when he’d left after his last visit home, there’d been a sort of understanding between them, that she’d keep waiting for him and that he’d come back to her. She’d seemingly kept to her part; he wasn’t so sure he’d kept to his.

“So—” Mal thought it best to change the subject “—how’s things been with the ranch? Ma’s WAVEs kept it pretty general, and didn’t say much about how the business was going. You been doing all right?’

Joe nodded, and Mal could see from the set of his shoulders and the easy way he moved in the saddle that he was feeling proud, even a little smug. “I gotta say it, business has never been better—we been takin’ more stock to market than ever and our dairy production has just been gangbusters. It’s been all we could do just to keep up with orders as they come.”

The herd in front of them looked healthy and strong; Mal looked closer, and saw that there were some Redburns sprinkled in among the Jerseys. “Got some new milkers, huh? Shiny.”

“Yup. They cost more up front, but their milk output is so much higher that it’s worth it, and the capital outlay gets paid back right quick.”

Mal shook his head with a rueful grin. “You’ve become quite the businessman, Joe. It’s, well, lìngrén jingy” .

Joe shrugged, but he had a pleased look on his face. “Well, I guess I got the knack for it. And, you know, war’s been good for business. Armies got soldiers, and soldiers’ field rations got meat and dairy in `em sometimes, I guess.”

“You ain’t been sellin’ to Alliance?” Mal pulled Flo up sharply; Joe stopped, turned his horse sideways.

“Well, hell, Mal, we sell to whoever’s got money to pay. Me, I don’t tell the broker to ask about sides—I figure that a soldier’s a person, Alliance or Independent, and has to eat either way.”

Mal closed his eyes briefly, opened them, then kicked the mare forward with Joe moving in alongside him again. “You know the Alliance beat us because of superior numbers, right? And the reason they had those superior numbers is `cause they had the supply lines to feed `em and clothe `em. If they hadn’t’a had that, they wouldn’t’a had those superior numbers out there, and, well . . . maybe things would’a gone differently. Dong ma?”

“Look.” Joe’s voice was soft but firm, “I’m as sorry `bout how the war turned out as you are—”

“—I’m kinda doubting that—”

“But the world went on while you was fightin’, and it’s goin’ ta go on now that the fightin’s done. And in the meantime, pa and me has been runnin’ this ranch, lookin’ after your share, makin’ the biggest profits this place has seen since . . . well, since ever. So I’m sorry if maybe some of our goods got to folks that you’d rather have seen starve, but that’s just the way things is. That was the risk you took when you went gallivantin’ off to war and left everything to us to take care of.”

They rode in silence after that, Joe’s face turned resolutely towards the moving cattle in front of them. He didn’t look proud now; he looked hurt and angry.

And he was right to be. Joe and his pa were ranchers; they worked their herds, sent their goods to market, and took the money that the brokers sent back after. That was just how it went. If it were Mal, he might have done things differently—gone to the yards himself, made sure he knew who he was selling to and who’d benefit. Maybe. But he couldn’t expect the same from men who’d stayed home, supportive of the Independents but not willing to change their lives for the cause. That was just the reality of the world—people did what they had to do to get by. If he looked at it coldly, in the hard light of day, he supposed he’d have to do the same now.

The thought left him cold and empty.

THREE

She was waiting when he came in that evening for supper.

He swung through the screen door into the kitchen, and there she was—sitting at the table in a light summer dress, with her brown hair loose down her back. He stopped, uncertain what to say or do. “Hey, Junie.”

“Mal! Oh, Mal!” She was on him before he could find any words, arms around his neck, lips on his, breasts pressed hard against his chest. She smelled faintly of sweat and the beer-and-egg mix she used to wash her hair. He put his arms around her waist and kissed her back, waiting to feel the pleasure of it. He’d forgotten what it was like to have a woman’s body against his, warm and welcoming.

“Mal, xin gan” . She pulled her head back, smiling in the bright way he’d always liked. “When I heard you were home, I just couldn’t wait another minute! Let me see you, you shuai sishengzi” . She stepped back, looked him up and down appraisingly. “Looks to me like you lost some weight since I seen you last. Didn’t they feed you in those army camps?”

“They fed us, bao bei , don’t you worry.” He had to smile at her; she’d always been so practical-minded. “But being a soldier is hard work on a body.”

“Well, your body looks just fine to me.” She moved close to him again.

“Ahem!” Joe, standing behind Mal in the open doorway, cleared his throat. “Is this where the clothes-ripping commences? Because if it is, I’d kinda like to be excused.”

Junie smiled that flirtatious smile that had had men and boys lining up for her since she was barely into her `teens. “You’re just jealous, Joe Johnston, `cause it ain’t your clothes I’ll be rippin’ off.”

“Now, if there’s any clothes to be ripped off, I’d say the kitchen isn’t the place for it.” Miss Maddy came in from the pantry, wiping her hands on a towel. “Supper’s not on for a bit yet; why don’t you two go for a walk and get reacquainted?”

Mal bowed Junie out the door, let her put an arm around his waist and lead him down back to the run-down gazebo that sat in a little hollow at the bottom of the hill behind the house. She was chattering on about how she’d missed him and who was looking forward to seeing him, and all the visits he’d need to make now that he was home to stay. He let her go on; it gave him time to try to figure out how he was feeling and what he wanted.

When he’d gone to the war, he’d left thinking he was in love, or near enough anyway. Junie was a smart girl, a fun girl, and a firecracker between the sheets—he’d spent many a sleepless night in his corner of foxhole, remembering the feel of her hands and tongue. But time had passed and his world had changed until Shadow and everything to do with it seemed somehow unreal; he’d been in battles lost and won, made decisions that led to men and women suffering and dying for a cause that looked less and less like it could be won. He’d tried to answer her WAVEs when they came—which was less and less as the Independents lost ground and got cut off from all but basic supplies and contacts—and after awhile his desire for her had faded, like an old memory that comes back fainter and fainter each time.

On the long trip back to Shadow, he’d hoped that it would all come back: excitement, desire, the pleasure of being with her. Another part of him wondered if he could ever feel that way again. Everything was different, himself most of all, and he couldn’t imagine just going back and picking up his life where he’d left it off. Maybe that was the part of him that had died in Serenity Valley.

They walked down the path, he pretending to keep an eye on the footing, though in truth it was smooth enough. But it was easier than talking, and talking was what Junie was going to make him do, sooner or later. That was always the way with women—wanting to talk about it, when all the words in the world wouldn’t make a gorram bit of difference.

When they reached the gazebo, she pulled him down beside her on the bench, taking his hands in hers. “I am sorry, “ she said in a softer voice. “About the war and all. Four years of fightin’, no leave home in two years, and then to have the Alliance gain the day . . . well, I know you must be feelin’ badly about losing and all.”

It was a funny thing: it was the kindness and pity that were the hardest to take. They made him want to punch someone, or cry—or, maybe, both.

“It is what it is, bâobèi,” he answered. “Feelings don’t come into it.”

She looked at him, a measured and measuring stare. “Now, that’s a load of yúchûn gôu pì if I ever heard one, Malcolm Reynolds.”

“That’s as may be. But feelings don’t change things.”

“Well, you can act like it doesn’t matter if you want, but I know it does.” She put a hand to his face, pressing her palm to his cheek. “All I can say is: I know you tried your best. That’s all anyone could ever ask.”

He could think of half a million people who’d died that might not agree with her on that last point.

When he was silent, she tried again, slipping her arms around his waist and moving her face close to his. “Listen, xin gan , it’s been an awful long while since you `n me has seen each other, and it wouldn’t be the first time we made this little gazebo shake. What’s say we give each other a proper greetin’?”

“Maddy’s gonna call us in for supper soon—”

“Oh, I think we got a little bit of time. . . .” And she moved over him like a wave, tongue in his mouth, hands under his shirt, insistent. He felt his body responding, the ripple of muscles, the hungry ache as she unzipped his pants and slid a warm hand inside. It was so tempting to just let go, fall into that old rhythm where desire was everything and the moment took over.

He pulled back, took a deep breath. “Not now, Junie. It ain’t a good time.”

“Shénme? Ain’t a good time?” she echoed, and there was an angry look on her face. “You ain’t seen me in two years and now ain’t a good time to make love? When would be? Do you need to go check your busy social schedule first?”

He stood, moved to the gazebo entrance where he could feel the evening breeze, where he didn’t feel less trapped. “Duìbùqî , bâobèi. I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just—” he raised his hands, let them drop again. How could he explain it to her when he didn’t really understand it himself?

“Just what? Did you meet someone else—someone in the war? I know we never made each other any promises, but I been holdin’ a space for you for four of the best years of my life—”

“No, it ain’t that.”

“Well? What is it then? Used to be, you couldn’t keep your hands off me, and now you act like I’m as appealin’ as a two-day-dead cat. Is somethin’ different about me?”

“No.” He looked at her, the set of her jaw, her hair tangled across her shoulders. “No, you ain’t changed. But everything else has.”

She looked around, waved her hand towards the house. “But it ain’t, Mal. That house, this ranch—it’s been here while you were gone. I been here. You’re home now. Just be glad of that.”

He thought of trying to explain it to her. She’d been off-planet once or twice, but never far or for long. She didn’t know much difference between then and now, there and here. And she’d never had a political bone in her body, hadn’t cared who ran things on Shadow or anywhere else as long as she had her friends, her family, her day-to-day life. She wouldn’t understand what it meant to live in an Alliance `verse, where Alliance could go where it wanted, do what it wanted, telling everyone how to live and what they could say and where they could take a gosa . If Mal got hauled away tomorrow to an Alliance prison camp, she’d complain awhile, then find herself someone new to fill up the hole in her life and never think about the larger forces that had taken him from her.

She was watching him, silent for a moment, but she must have read something in his face, because she stood up, her mouth set in a hard line.

“I kept my bed mostly empty waitin’ on you, and that’s the ruttin’ best you can do? Cào nî zûxiān shí bâ dai , Malcolm Reynolds. I’m done waitin’.” She stood, and her face took on a mean look, the look of someone hurt and wanting to spread the hurt around. “My ma always said you’d turn out like your father, that useless piece of lèsè . I should’a listened to her.”

“Junie—I’m sorry,” he offered as she brushed past him and then started running up the hill. But he didn’t offer to follow.

FOUR

“Malcolm Reynolds, you qingwa cào de liúmáng , when’d you get home?”

That was how it went, as he, Joe, and Old Bill strolled down the dusty streets of Chester Town the next evening—old friends coming out to give him a friendly hug and a mock-insult of a greeting. He smiled, slapped their backs, nodded with interest as they talked of wives or husbands taken, children born, the good and bad of everyday life.

It had been Bill’s idea, after an early supper at the ranch the next day, to take the beat-up old rover into town for a drink and some talk at Chen Wing’s Tavern—the tavern where pretty much every thing that mattered got talked over and decided on, where people met to say hi or do business or just pass the time. At first glance, nothing in town seemed much changed: same dingy storefronts, same rutted road with people strolling along, enjoying the cooler evening air after a hot day’s work. But as he looked more closely, he could see the differences that had come on. The printer’s shop was gone, its glass display window empty and a big “OUT OF BUSINESS” sign posted on the door. Same too for the little local newspaper office—there wasn’t even a sign up there, just closed shutters and an empty paper rack outside. The biggest change was one he should have expected, but which made his jaw clench just the same: the Alliance flag flying its colors outside the sheriff’s office. He lengthened his stride as they walked past.

It was a comfort, then, that inside Chen Wing’s was the same smell of stale beer and boiled peanuts, the same sawdust-covered floor and crowds around the pool tables. He waved to a few folks, shook hands here and there, then followed Bill and Joe to an empty table.

“Well, here’s to homecomings,” Bill said after their drinks had come, raising his glass. “Let’s hope they’re happy ones.”

“To homecomings.” Mal repeated the words, wishing he could feel what he ought to when he said them. He looked around. “Things look `bout the same as when I left.”

“Don’t let appearances fool you.” Bill leaned in, kept his voice low. “People know there’s changes comin’ with the end of the war, and not everyone’s takin’ it too well. Harry Boyd, the printer, is gone—took the lay of the land, figured that there’d be little business and less profit under the Alliance, and headed out. And Wu-shen Lee at the Gazette News, as wrote those editorials critical of the Alliance comin’ in—well, word is she cleared out fast one night, just before a couple of them méiyôu mûqin de xiao gôu feds showed up with a warrant for her.”

Joe shook his head. “Ah, but there’s others as likes the new ways—Alliance rules and regulations. They say it’ll keep us all safer, if there’s more law and order and strong authority over us. I heard Lolly Lovitz, Junie’s mom, sayin’ that the Alliance oughtta jail anyone with the nerve to speak up against good laws that protect upstanding citizens. Meanin’ herself, of course.”

Mal looked into his empty glass, thinking how she’d be feeling about him right about now; Junie had no doubt gone home in tears to tell her ma what a heartbreaker he was. “I don’t suppose she’d be including me among that number.”

Joe laughed. “No, I `spect she’s got you first on her list of those she’d like to see swing on a windy day. A troublemaker, she’s called you many a time.”

“Who, me?” Mal put on his best wide-eyed-innocence look. “Since when have I ever caused trouble?”

As if on cue, he heard a voice across the room say, “Gorram browncoats—I never met a one that weren’t a liúmáng of a nuòfu as didn’t deserve to be shot.”

There was a sudden hush: conversations halted, bodies stopped in mid-stride. Mal could feel the charge in the air, the waiting for someone to speak. He waited too.

The voice belonged to a man he didn’t know—some húndàn carpetbagger, new in town, looking all combed and spiffed and cocksure of where he stood. The kind who smells a shift in power on the air, swoops in looking for carrion to settle on and pick at.

The stranger stared back at the silent faces staring at him, waved his mug in the air. “Tamade gôushî bùrú —none of ‘em knew how to fight in the war, and won’t none of them do a thing now Alliance is in control, ‘cept maybe run cryin’ for mà mà to save their useless asses.”

Mal felt the weight of Bill’s hand on his arm. “Leave it be, son,” he said softly. Bill must have read Mal’s intentions from the way his shoulders had stiffened, the clench of his jaw. Otherwise, Mal kept his face bland, even smiling, as he stood up and moved to the bar. Leave it be? There were too many dead men and women standing behind him, whispering in his ear to teach this yúchûn zôugôu a lesson in respect.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Mal said, stepping close to the stranger, sizing him up. Some people talked a big game, but wilted when they had to meet a man’s eye. This one held his ground, confident with the power that came of being on the winning side.

Mal felt the eyes of the room on his back. “Now, I’m sure you didn’t mean to insult a bunch of good folk, who died fighting for something they believed in. It ain’t seemly, when you could be the gracious winner and all.” He waited a beat, smiling slightly, giving the man a chance. When he saw no change in the other’s eyes, he went on, still smiling: “’Sides, you look all kind of foolish, passing out insults while you’re standing their with your fly undone.”

A quick downward glance; in that moment, Mal hauled back and felt his fist connect with hard jaw bone. He watched, shaking his head, as the man landed hard on the sawdust floor and stayed there. “I never will understand how we didn’t win, when you feds are gorram dāì ruò mù jī . My greenest recruit wouldn’t’a fallen for that one.”

He turned his back—a deliberate insult, proof that his opponent was too poor an adversary to be any kind of threat—and headed back to his table. Bill and Joe had come to their feet, and were looking pointedly toward the door.

“I think we might want to be headin’ home,” was all Bill said.

“What? We just got here.” He looked around, noticed eyes avoiding his, bodies shifting subtly away towards the far ends of the big room. “Folks is acting like there ain’t never been a fist fight in this place. Seems I remember about one a week, back in the day.”

“Things is changed, Mal,” Joe said simply. “In more ways than you realize.”

He heard the squeak of hinges as the tavern door swung open. In stepped Polly Wong, wearing a crisp new Alliance uniform, even down to the shiny silver Law Division badge on her lapel. She looked unhappy as she moved towards them.

“Mal.”

“Polly!” He felt almost cheerful after laying that gorram tāmāde húndàn in the dirt. “That’s some new sheriff’s get-up you’re sporting. Good to see you.”

Her face said that she didn’t share the sentiment. “Let’s take walk over to the station.”

He let out a snort of disbelief. “Aw, c’mon Pol, I’ve seen some bottle-breaking, wall-slamming brawls in this tavern, and all you done after is dust people off and send ‘em home with a finger-wagging. I give one chunrén a well-deserved sock in the jaw, and you’re arresting me?”

She just stood there, waiting. With a shrug and a slight bow, he started towards the door. The crowd in the room parted for him as he passed, and he was shocked to see that they they looked scared.

He kept quiet on the short walk to the sheriff’s station, but once inside, with the door closed, he tried again. “Polly, what’s the fuss? Since when do you take a man in for throwing a punch in a bar?”

She sat down behind her desk, waited for him to take the chair opposite. Then she moved her head slightly, just enough to draw his eyes up to the security cam tucked up where wall and ceiling met. He felt something inside him harden.

“Things has changed a lot since you left, Mal,” she said simply. “We got rules, and my job is to enforce them.”

He said nothing then, just looked at her. There were those who left—like Harry Boyd—and those who jumped on the bandwagon, like Junie Lovitz’ mom. In between were Joe and Bill and Polly Wong, ordinary folk looking to survive and get along, not fight a battle that couldn’t be won. Who was he to have them choose otherwise?

“You’ll spend the night in lock-up, then go before the magistrate in the morning,” she told him. “Just sit there while I process you in.”

He knew about processing; he’d spent plenty of time, after the war ended, sitting in hard chairs while faceless bureaucrats processed him into this, that and the other cortex system. Recording forever the details of who he was; making sure he wouldn’t slip between any cracks, his every act catalogued and filed for future reference. He let himself just occupy space in the chair, empty of thought. Sometimes he wondered if the Alliance could record and process that too; if so, he was going to give them a whole lot of nothing for their files.

FIVE

“Ten days,” the magistrate said, and keyed a button on his viewscreen. Old Judge Horvitz had retired awhile back, Polly told Mal on the way to the courthouse. Instead there was this Judge Somebody-or-Other who’d come to Shadow during the war. He glanced dismissively at Mal, with the cold eyes of a man who’d backed the winning side, and had no use for those as hadn’t.

“I’m tempted to make it a month, Mr. Reynolds,” the magistrate continued, talking down to where Mal stood below the high desk. It had an Alliance flag plastered across its front, right at Mal’s eye level, where offenders such as himself would be sure to take the point. “Clearly you haven’t learned that what might have been permissible conduct before the war is now distinctly unacceptable. But the federation has already spent enough money on your upkeep of late. Law-abiding taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for you any more than is necessary to make you into one yourself. I sincerely hope you’ll use the next ten days to think on that.”

“Well, I s’pose it depends on whose laws you’re abiding by and whose taxes you’re paying,” Mal said softly, just loud enough for Polly to hear. She gave him a sharp look, as if to say, “Xiâoxin —you’re in enough trouble; don’t go jumping into more.” He took the hint.

So he was led—in handcuffs, like some petty criminal—back to the lockdown at the rear of the sheriff’s building. And there he was left, with a narrow cot, a skimpy blanket that barely reached his feet, and a toilet that smelled like chemicals and old urine. A little burg like Chester Town couldn’t afford cortex screens for jail cells, so Mal occupied the time by shifting between sitting or lying on the cot and pacing the four narrow strides from one end of the cell to the other. At least the food wasn’t the standard seal-packs they’d been given at the Processing Center after the war had ended; Polly didn’t say anything, but he knew that the fresh stews and sandwiches she brought him were from her own kitchen. Not that it mattered—it all tasted like ashes in his mouth.

It was on the second day that Pastor Holliday came to see him. Polly let the shepherd into Mal’s cell, brought a chair for the visitor, then left them alone.

“Mal, my boy!” The older man gave him a broad hug, then stepped back and looked him over. “I know you’re too old to have grown while you were gone, but I’d swear you’ve gained an inch on me.”

Mal couldn’t help but laugh. “Pastor, I’m about ten years past the age of growing. I think maybe it’s you who’s doing some shrinking.”

“If I am, it’s from being worn down by years of chasing you and that George Glover out of my orchards. If I’d thought you were after those apples for the money, I’d have had the law on you; but I guess you just couldn’t resist the taste of a delicacy, partly because you knew it was forbidden.”

“Yep, that’s me,” Mal said. “Can’t resist the fruit even when I’m told to let it be.” He took a seat on the narrow cot, then waited as the pastor moved his chair so they were face-to-face.

“I’m mighty sorry about your ma,” the shepherd said in a kind voice. “It must have grieved you sore not to be able to come home when she passed. But we made sure she got your WAVEs, and that meant a lot to her at the end. She was a good woman, and made the best of a hard start in life. Not many women could stand up to a man like your pa, see him go off, then take over a big ranch and keep it running.”

Mal rested his elbows on his knees, looked down at his scuffed boots on the worn wood floor. “Xièxie—I’m grateful for all you done, taking care of her an’ all.”

“She was a good woman; wasn’t nobody going to leave her on her own at the end. No one should have to be alone when their time comes.”

Mal looked up swiftly. “Everybody dies alone, Shepherd. If there’s anything I learned over the past two years, it’s that.”

The pastor blinked, clearly startled, then pulled himself together and offered a smile of comfort. “Oh, but God is there for each of us when our time comes.”

“Is he?” Mal stood, paced to the wall farthest from the shepherd, then turned. Yúchûn lâotou , he wanted to say. Don’t tell me you still believe that fèihuà. “Funny, I don’t remember him around much during the war. And I watched a lot of people die.”

“Well, you know what the Bible says: `He only sees who has eyes to look.’”

Mal barked a humorless laugh. “I’ve got a pretty sharp pair of eyes—kept me alive when the ordnance was flying fast and thick—and I can say with some certainty that God kept his distance from the Battle of Serenity Valley. There was plenty of dying going on there; maybe he got overloaded and couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

“Just because you didn’t see Him doesn’t mean He wasn’t there.”

“And if those folks who were suffering and dying, if they couldn’t see or feel him—then what was the good of him being there?”

The shepherd watched him thoughtfully. “How do you know they couldn’t see or feel Him? How do you know He wasn’t in their hearts in those last moments?”

“Well, maybe it was because of all the screaming and crying to God ‘Let me die, please, let me die’ while he took his sweet time about it. And the ones who gave up on God and begged me—me—to be their God, put a bullet in their brains and end it for them.”

He stopped, feeling the pounding of his heart in his chest. For a moment he was back at Serenity Valley, kneeling in the dirt, while Lacey held to his jacket and begged over and over in a tortured whisper, “Please, Sarge, please, finish the job. Please, Sarge, I can’t stand it anymore. Please, Sarge, please. . . .”

Pastor Holliday was silent, his head bowed. On impulse, Mal reached for his coat, which was draped over the foot of his cot, dug into an inner pocket, and pulled out the silver crucifix he’d worn throughout the war tucked safely under his shirt. He’d taken it off during that week of armistice negotiations, after days and nights of praying for mercy to a God who hadn’t seen fit to give any; he’d shoved it into a pocket and left it there. He’d never gotten around to tossing the thing, though he’d made a plan to many a time. Maybe he hadn’t been ready to let go of it altogether.

He was ready now.

“Here you go,” he said, and dropped the pendant in the older man’s lap. “I ain’t got no use for it anymore. Maybe you can find someone as does.”

“Oh, Mal.”

There was such sorrow in those two words; for a moment Mal felt regret, wished he could take back the cross and all he’d said. But that would mean feeling differently, and he was long past that.

“My boy, I’m so sorry it’s come to this. When you’ve lost your faith, you’ve lost everything.”

Mal had expected righteous anger, maybe a sermon; the sadness in the shepherd’s tone took the edge off his own simmering rage.

“I’d like to pray for you, my boy. Maybe together we can find some of what you’ve lost.”

“I appreciate the thought, Pastor, but no, thanks. As far as I’m concerned, it’d be wasted breath.” He moved to the cell door, put his hand to it—as if he had any power to open it. “You’re welcome here, but your God ain’t, and if you’re going to bring him along, well, I’d as soon be alone. Polly! The shepherd’s ready to go.”

Pastor Holliday stood, took a deep breath, then walked to Mal and put his hands on Mal’s shoulders. They were thick, gnarled with years of working in his orchard and helping out on parishioner’s ranches. Once upon a time, Mal had found their touch comforting; now they were heavy, like a weight on him.

“You’re a good man, Malcolm Reynolds.” The shepherd held his gaze. “I’ll be praying for you to get back what you’ve lost. I can’t see how you’ll be happy until you do. Until then, may God bless you, even if you don’t believe He will.”

SIX

Eight days later, Mal stood in the street outside the jail. Free to go, Polly had said as she’d processed him out. Free. Where on Shadow, or any of the Alliance-owned worlds, would he be free?

He caught a lift from Sid Searcy the blacksmith, who was on his way past the ranch. Sid had never been much for talking, which was a mercy, as Mal didn’t think he could manage pleasant chitchat about the weather, or the state of business, or who’d married who. He was glad to leave it at a nod of thanks when Sid dropped him at the by-road to the ranch, where he started on foot down the rutted road.

Then it occurred to him to wonder, as he kicked up dust in the late morning heat: where exactly was he going?

The road climbed a rise, then forked—south to the Reynolds’, west and downhill to the Johnstons’. Mal struck off on a narrow path to the north, that climbed up a through a thin grove of birch and elm. It peaked on a broad hilltop, treeless but for an old half torn-up corpse of an elm, all that was left of some rough lightning blast years back. From that height he had a wide view of the ranch, its swells and flats green and brown under the summer sun. There was a drowsy breeze in the leaves of the trees below, and the faint hum from a tractor in the far distance. It was as close to a place of peace as any he’d known in a long while.

He sat on the scored, grey trunk, ran his hand along the ruined wood. He felt like the old tree—a husk, no more. The shepherd had been right: he’d lost everything, everything that had ever mattered, including his belief in the future.

Which took him right back to his question: where was he going?

Back to the Johnston house? They were generous hosts, and like family, but only like—he’d no place living with them, and wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he tried. Besides, they had enough to do with all those grown and growing young adults to feed and house. He was a grown man, and ought to be on his own.

There was the main house, of course; his ma’s house, and now his, by law and by right. It was full of dust and ashes and nothing else—not a home anymore.

He’d always thought of coming back to the ranch after the war, to take up the work he’d been taught since he was big enough to hold reins and bounce along in the saddle. There was a whole big `verse out there, he knew—he’d seen it, battlefield by battlefield, planet to planet. But he’d always thought that Shadow was home, the place he’d come back to when it was all over. Of course, he’d mostly thought the Independents would win. And when he’d come to know that they wouldn’t, well, he hadn’t let himself think ahead to the consequences, even though he’d known what they’d be. After all, that was what he’d gone to fight against: the things that would happen to places like Shadow if the Alliance won.

But the Alliance had won, and Shadow was coming to be as he’d feared. If he stayed, he’d have to change who he was, become like Polly Wong or Joe Johnston—avoiding trouble, turning a blind eye and going along. Enough time doing that, and he really would be a dead husk. Enough time doing that, and he’d come to hate Shadow. He’d rather leave before it came to that, and at least have the memory of home, even if he couldn’t have the real thing.

He thought of his ma, who’d worked so hard to keep the ranch going after his pa had left, shown him all its workings and ways. How would she feel if he walked away from all that? Would he be betraying her as his pa had when he’d fallen into drink and meanness and finally left wife and son to make it on their own? Or would she understand, as she’d understood when he’d signed up with the Independents and gone off to fight?

The shepherd was right; he’d lost everything. But that made him free, too—free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone he wanted to be. He should be grateful, to be alive and to have such choices.

So why, instead of rejoicing in his freedom, did he feel so alone?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It was coming on dusk when he finally walked down the hill to the Johnston’s. He could see the glow of evening lights through the windows, smell the tang of grilled meat. When he slipped in quietly through the screen door, there were Old Bill and Joe at the table. He could tell that the others had eaten and gone off; these two were waiting for him. There was a full plate at Mal’s spot.

With a nod of thanks, he sat and began to eat. He let them take their time getting to whatever it was they wanted to say to him.

“Well, I see it this way, Mal,” Old Bill said at last. “Your ma left you her share of the place, and you’d be mighty welcome if you saw fit to stay and take it on. But I get the feelin’ things isn’t going to work out that way.”

Mal said nothing.

“So, Joe and me, we’ve got a proposition for you. We’d like to buy your share of the ranch.”

“Buy me out?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Where you gonna get the money to do that?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Joe replied. He slid a piece of paper across the table—it was a cortex printout, a bank statement.

Joe was right; the balance was an astonishment, even with everything Joe had said about the ranch’s good fortune these past few years. “Now, how’d you come by that? You been running some black market operation I don’t know about?” He was joking, but only barely.

“We been careful, scrimped and saved over the years,” Bill said. “And as you know, the ranch has done well, and your ma was more than fair with our share. Whatever came to pass, we wanted our children to have the chance at a place of their own one day. We’d always assumed it’d be some other place, once you took over and began your own family. But—“ he let the sentence go unfinished.

So. Here it was, made easy for him. He could walk away, leave the ranch in hands he trusted, that his ma had trusted and loved. If Mal had been killed in the war, his share would have gone to the Johnstons anyway. In a way, it was as if he had died—at least, the part of him that would have been able to make a life for himself here. Selling it to the Johnstons would be like letting it pass to its rightful owners, out of the hands of someone no longer fit to care for it.

“You should think on it awhile, of course,” Joe said, mistaking Mal’s silence for hesitation. “We wouldn’t expect you to decide right away—“

“It’s yours.” They looked startled. “The ranch—it’s yours, at any fair price you care to give.”

“Mal, you need to think on this. It’s a big move. Not that you wouldn’t be welcome back here anytime, but it wouldn’t be the same. Don’t go rushin’ into choices that’ll change your life forever.”

His life had changed forever, that day on Hera when the angels of deliverance he’d been expecting had turned out to be angels of death, raining down destruction on him and his, destroying their last hope of freedom. Everything since had been marking time, waiting for him to realize that his old life was gone.

It was time to move on.

SEVEN

The Eavesdown Docks were crowded, full of the smells of cooking meat and the sounds of people bargaining for goods, passage, whatever they could find to get by. Mal had passed through Persephone every time he’d left Shadow. This time was different; he might come to Persephone again, maybe even visit Shadow one day, but going there would never be going home again. He was more on his own than he’d ever been.

He’d spent a good six months knocking about the galaxy since leaving Shadow—working a job here and there, looking for a place where the Alliance presence was small and where he might make himself at home. But it seemed to him that everywhere he went, even to the most out-of-the-way backwater, there was the mark of the Federation. Short of going out with a settlement group and colonizing a world from scratch, there was no place that felt right to him. And that credit chit, the price the Johnstons had paid him for the ranch, was burning a hole in his wallet.

Just outside the docks, off in a dusty field, he found what he was looking for. It wasn’t a junkyard, although it had something of that look—old ships sat scattered on landing pads, looking less than spaceworthy. But it wasn’t as if the price of the ranch could buy him a fancy cruiser, fresh out of the factory. Not that he cared. As long as it could take him out of the world and into the black . . . well, the rest was just icing on the cake.

He wandered around a bit, looking at boats that’d seen better days, some that might never see space again despite a salesman’s best pitch. It wasn’t long before the fat, overdressed owner, seeing him and a possible sale, had buttonholed him.

“Yep. A real beauty, ain't she?” the man said, gesturing at some big, yellow monstrosity. “Yes, sir. A right smart purchase, this vessel.”

Mal was looking past him and his smart purchase.

“Son? Hey, son? You hear a word I been saying?”

The ship that sat across the field looked dirty and broken-down, like it’d seen hard times and somehow come through, survived to fly again. Just like him, he thought. Beat down, but not out.

He’d figured it out, knocking around from planet to planet. There was no place to go that wasn’t or wouldn’t soon be Alliance, except a ship—his ship. A ship would be his own little world, his own piece of independence. He could keep moving, off the Alliance radar as much as possible, out in the one place they couldn’t absolutely regulate and control. The sky was the one place they couldn’t take from him.

He was home.