Mal followed Wash out to the gate, hanging back slightly as Wash introduced him to the young guard standing outside. He seemed jovial enough, greeting Mal cheerfully.

“So, our Wash here has a new victim to inflict his shadow puppets –“ Khiloh stopped in mid-sentence, his eyes widening as a look of shock and fear crossed his face. He stared at Mal for several long seconds, looking deeply into his eyes before swallowing hard and excusing himself. He walked hurriedly away, leaving a befuddled Wash looking accusingly at the almost as puzzled Mal.

There was something vaguely, hazily familiar about the man. He knew those eyes from somewhere, and the sound of his voice was burned unpleasantly into Mal’s brain. With a sickening lurch of the stomach, he realized where he’d last seen Wash’s friend. “Wash,” he said, his voice coming out a mite squeaky, “mind giving us a few minutes? Alone?”

Wash nodded, looking rather disturbed. He opened his mouth to question, but was stopped short by the frightening glare Mal gave him. Mal listened as Wash’s footsteps on the gravel crunched away and vanished as the door of the housing unit closed behind him. He took a deep breath and approached the gate, leaning on it and looking down the long gravel corridor the guard was patrolling.

He saw Khiloh slow his return steps as he noticed Mal waiting for him. It would appear this was going to be a conversation neither wanted to have. No sense in avoiding it, though Mal found the notion of turning and running at high speed into the housing unit after Wash to be very appealing.

Khiloh stopped in front of the gate, looking hesitantly at Mal, his expression an odd mixture of fear and horror and happiness. Mal extended his hand through the bars of the gate. “Mal Reynolds,” he introduced himself quietly.

After a moment’s hesitation, Khiloh took his hand, and Mal could tell the young guard was trembling slightly. Khiloh stared down at the scars on Mal’s wrist for a long time before snapping to his senses and releasing his hand. “So – you didn’t do what they said,” Khiloh croaked. “You didn’t try to light those men on fire? You were just trying to rescue them?”

Mal nodded soberly. “You were – you were that kid I locked eyes with outside my cell, weren’t you?”

Khiloh nodded in return, hanging his head. “I –“ He hesitated for a long moment. “I – when you looked at me, you were tryin’ to talk. It haunted me after, I just couldn’t shake this feeling, like you were trying to tell me you didn’t do it.”

“I was,” said Mal quietly. “Your voice has been in my nightmares, ya’ know. Keep hearin’ you and that other fella’ talking ballgames an’ promotions an’ killing me.”

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Khiloh. “I’ve – it gave me nightmares too. I just couldn’t get you outa my mind, it seemed so cruel –“ his voice was shaky and Mal could see him fighting back the tears that threatened to come to his eyes. Khiloh swallowed. “I got off shift, I kept seeing you lying there, you were in such horrible pain – lying in your own blood, your arms dislocated, looked like you’d been beaten so bad you should be dead. It was just - I was watching a man die in agony. An’ I kept seein that - that look in your eyes.”

Something clicked in Mal’s mind. “You’re the one who went to Lee,” he said, the tone of his voice half questioning though he knew the answer.

A look of absolute terror on his face, Khiloh stared at Mal. “You – know?” he gasped, looking rapidly around for anyone who might be within earshot. The poor fellow looked like he wanted to turn and run for dear life. “You can’t tell anyone. Please don’t tell anyone, if the others find out-“

“Don’t worry, son,” said Mal firmly. “I understand what’s at stake for you, an’ I don’t turn on them that help me out. Lee made it real clear what you risked.”

Khiloh looked momentarily relieved, but the fear soon returned to his face. “I shouldn’t even be talkin’ to you,” he said, looking around again.

“You chat with Wash an’ the others much out here?” asked Mal. Khiloh nodded. “Then it might look a mite suspicious if you start avoidin’ me all conspicuous. Go take a round, an’ I’ll wander back an’ chat with you some more when you get back.”

Khiloh took off gratefully, and Mal paced about his own enclosure until the guard returned, looking somewhat more at ease.

“Son, you saved my life an’ you cut short a real displeasing day. I’m grateful, and there ain’t no way I’m gonna do you a bad turn. Dong ma?”

Khiloh nodded, the expression of fear that had been twitching the edges of his face since he’d recognized Mal finally fading. Horror and concern still remained, though, and Mal waited silently for the man to speak.

“What happened – after I left?” Khiloh asked timidly.

“New guys hung out and chatted for a bit, an’ I tried to die. Some point, couple of medics walked in, put a needle in my arm, an’ I woke up in Lee’s office. He talked to me a bit, an then sent me back to the hospital.”

“They take good care of you?” Khiloh asked.

Mal nodded. “They surely did. I’m thinkin’ they put an unseemly about of work into putting my old self back together, one operation at a time. Always treated me kind while I was conscious, an’ they made sure I wasn’t never hurtin.”

Mal stopped, realizing it was the first time the wall of bitterness and fear in his mind had cracked enough to acknowledge the effort and concern that had gone into treating him. From the tone of some of the conversations that had taken place around him in his drugged blur, it hadn’t been easy repairing the damage those clubs had done him. And though it hadn’t eased his misery one bit, he’d never woken up to anything but a soft voice and a gentle touch.

“I’m glad - I never knew what happened to you,” said Khiloh. “Didn’t know if you really had tried to kill your own guys, or if I even got to Lee in time, or if they went ahead and killed you anyway, or you just died in that cell-“

“You did a good thing,” said Mal gently. “I needed a good turn real bad just then, an’ I’m lucky you were out there.”

Khiloh smiled for the first time since Mal had met him, an expression of relief and joy on his face. “You doin’ okay now?” Khiloh asked.

Mal nodded. “Still a bit wobbly sometimes, an’ your kind tend to give me heart trouble when you get too close, but they patched me up good.” Mal could tell his frankness was finally relaxing Khiloh. Heck, it was relaxing him.

“Speakin’ of which –“ Khiloh looked down. “How your wrists? Does it hurt still, bein’ handcuffed?”

Mal shook his head, touched at the young guard’s concern. “Scares me some, but I’m healed up okay. They don’t hurt unless someone clamps the ruttin’ things down over much.”

Khiloh flinched. “Look, I’m the regular guard out here most days. Any time they move you, I’ll try to be the contact officer. Don’t fight me, I’ll never hurt you. I promise.”

A trace of a smile flickered across Mal’s face as he looked back at Khiloh, enjoying the revelation that there was a genuine, intelligent, caring human being behind that uniform he resented so bitterly and the voice that had seared itself so unpleasantly into his soul.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “Does it – are you worried ‘bout bein’ around me, my shootin’ those two guards?”

Khiloh looked at him sideways. “Wasn’t gonna say, but it does concern me a bit.”

Mal nodded. “Wasn’t something I was lookin’ to do, just had to. I’m no danger to you, or your friends.”

Khiloh smiled and extended his hand. “Glad to meet you, Mal.”

___________________________________________________________

Wash sat up to greet Mal when he walked back in, but as he opened his mouth to question, Mal cut him short with a glare that could have crumbled cement. Wash’s eyes widened and he shrunk back, a hurt and confused expression on his face. He spent the next hour huddled on his bunk, uncharacteristically silent as the rest of the group watched a bad show on the cortex screen. When it was over, Mal announced a need to go stretch his legs and wandered outside.

Wash soon joined him, walking up and facing Mal. “What the hell happened out there, Mal?” he asked, with no shortage of nervously fueled anger. “How do you two know each other, and how come you were both lookin’ like-“

Mal cut him short. “Listen,” he said, his voice cold and threatening. “You will do your friend, and me, a world of harm if you keep askin’ questions. This conversation ends now.”

Wash swallowed hard and stepped back unconsciously. He stared back at Mal for a long moment, finally turning and walking out of sight behind the building. After a few minutes, Mal started walking towards the entrance, but he found himself making a detour around to the opposite side. Wash was standing against the fence, looking out with his back to the yard and his head slumped dejectedly.

He felt a moment’s remorse, wishing he could explain the situation. Failing that, he silently joined Wash at the fence. Several tense minutes later, Wash looked at him, an expression of misery on his face. “Listen,” he said. “I won’t ask you a gorram thing, but you’re scaring me. I don’t know who you are, I just know I get to spend my life locked in a box with you. One of the very, very few tiny things that makes it even halfway tolerable is knowing that one of the guys I’m at the mercy of is a good, decent human being. I worry about Khiloh, an’ I worry about him not being here some day, an’ now because of you I’m worried about maybe he’s not the guy I thought he was. An the fellow I get to talk to about it is violent and cranky, and has some sort of history here that really, really scares me!”

Mal sighed, remembering the friendly, supportive way Wash had been walking with him to meals, and doing his level best to cheer him up and make him feel comfortable in a miserable situation. And now I’ve managed to hurt him, and there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it. “Look,” he said. “I can’t do nothing but ask you to trust me, an’ trust sometimes means accepting somethin’ without ever knowin’ why. You got no sort of history with me, an I got no way of earnin’ that, but it’s all I got.”

Wash looked back at him, a haunted look in his eyes. “I have to, Mal. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck in here. I know all about vulnerable, and there is no part of this that is the least bit reassuring.”

“I know,” said Mal, turning and walking back inside.