Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.
- Brooke Foss Westcott
Men strive for peace, but it is their enemies that give them strength, and I think if man no longer had enemies, he would have to invent them, for his strength only grows from struggle.
- Louis L'Amour
*
There were some things that were not talked about in the Reynolds' household.
One of them was the battle of Serenity Valley. The scars that criss-crossed Mal's body like biological zippers were only visible at rare intervals of time. Inara and their son, Mal Jr., would not bring up the subject and if somehow the word slipped into casual conversation they would have to wait patiently for Mal to finish seemingly infinite rants.
The second was the death of Hoban Washburne. It was a subject lightly danced around by both Inara and Mal. Their son soon learned the rules of this too, as he had grown to befriend Wash's son Hoban Jr. (mostly because they were the only two in the community that were named after their fathers) and every time Father's Day came 'round he'd notcie the subtle pain that flashed in his friend's eyes. Wash, however, was constant in their lives and every so often he'd present himself in dialogue but Mal was careful to sidestep any unpleasent memories to keep the company laughing.
The third was the ugliness of the Serenity, which was parked inconveniently to the side of the house and cast a dark shadow over it during midday. Inara had begged Mal to move it, but he simply refused. Every waking minute of Mal Reynold's spare time was spent in that sad machine, tweaking a little there, fixing this and that. Mal Jr. would spend most of his time there to and then after a while as Mal Sr. grew older their conversations grew more philiosophical.
Every once in a while Mal Sr would mention, "She hasn't lost her charm, eh boy?"
And his son would come back with a sly reply which would end in fits of shallow laughter. But, he knew better than to insult the spacecraft his father loved so dearly. He had heard stories of how it had saved his life and the lives of many others. There were colorful tales of the ship surviving Godknowswhat in the untamed beauty of the space frontier.
And after a while, Mal Jr began feeling the same love his father had felt. Not for the ship itself, but more for the dream of the spacecraft. The idea of where it could take him and what he may find began filling his head with thoughts of getting off the dustbowl planet he'd been unjustly born on and into the life that was happening beyond the stars. Beyond the millions of stars.
So it was only fair that when the time came that he inherited the ship.
.