Not Our War
A Firefly fan-fiction
C.A. Donnelly
The room went quiet when they walked in. Every patron turned in their sears and observed the pair standing in the doorway.
Which was, of course, typical. Their faces were known across the 'verse now, after their broadwave about Miranda. Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburn were, in a sense, the greatest war heroes of the new War for Independence.
Even though they refused to fight.
"Sir," Zoe said, seeing her Captain tense. "We can go somewhere else."
"No," Mal said, shaking off the feeling of so many eyes. "We'll get some rations and be on our merry."
He led Zoe toward a small table in the far corner of the room, as far away from the eyes as he could be. The waitress came over momentarily, and took one look at the two of them. "You're…" she started, eyes wide.
"No one," Zoe said, stopping her before she could continue. "We're no one. Just passing through."
Mal glanced at Zoe. "Right," he said. "We just want some food and drink, is all."
"Oh," the waitress said, her face falling before she could compose herself. "Well," she began again, "what can I get you?"
Mal and Zoe told the woman what they wanted, and she wrote it down while turning away.
"Thanks," Mal told his first mate.
Zoe just nodded, and turned back to the room. "Over there," she said at a length. "Blue shirt, tan pants. Keeps staring, like the others, but breaks eye contact when I look at him."
Mal looked in the direction Zoe had nodded at. The man sitting there quickly looked down at his plate when Mal's eyes passed over him.
"Problem?" Zoe asked, unsure of the next move.
Mal remained silent. Then he spoke. "Might, might not. Keep an eye on him."
Zoe nodded, again, and the two of them waited for their meals to arrive. The waitress returned soon, carrying with her a tray. She removed the meals for the two of them, and set them on the table, along with two tall glasses of water. Mal and Zoe had forgone beer; had been doing so for a while. Each had their reasons.
Zoe didn't want to dull her senses. And she didn't want the pain to go away. She was constantly fighting to keep on, and the pain of his absence helped her. If she dulled that pain, when it came back it would cripple her.
Mal, on the other hand, wasn't drinking if only to support Zoe. She'd lost almost everything; loth as he was to think it, he was the last thing she had. In the past months since Wash's death, Zoe had changed. He'd seen it. She was close to falling apart, and he couldn't have that.
So the two of them ate in peace, Zoe keeping a watchful eye on their blue shirted observer in across the room. She didn't notice when he handed something to the waitress, however.
A few moments later, the waitress came over with two long-stemmed bottles of beer. "From the gentleman in the blue shirt," she said, setting the beers and a small piece of paper on the table. "Enjoy."
Mal froze with his fork halfway to his mouth, and Zoe slowly set her glass down. They both turned to look at the man, but he was gone.
"Where'd he go?" Mal asked Zoe, finally setting his fork down.
"Out," Zoe said. Then Mal reached for the paper.
"Reynolds and Washburne," he read, "meet me behind the diner. I have an offer for you."
Zoe raised an eyebrow. "Trap?" she asked.
Mal leaned back in his seat. "I don't know," he said, thinking.
"Do we go?" Zoe asked.
Mal remained quiet. Then he lowered his right hand to his pistol. It was still there, the heavy metal a comfort to him. "Yes," he said at last. "Go out the front and head around. I'll find a back door. You see our man, lay low."
"Yes, sir," Zoe said, standing. Her long coat hid the Mare's Leg carbine strapped to her right thigh, but Mal knew it was there. Just like Zoe knew he was packing.
He waited until she had left the diner, and then placed some coin on the table. He didn't want to leave the poor waitress with nothing. Then he walked toward the rear of the diner, and pushed through a door marked Employees Only. The two beer bottles remained unopened on the table as he entered the kitchen.
"Hey!" someone shouted when he entered. "You can't be back here!"
Mal turned to see a short, beefy chef brandishing a spatula at him.
"I'm just looking for a back door," Mal said. The chef's eyes widened, and an expression of awe covered his face.
"Malcolm Reynolds," he said, taking a step backward. Mal nodded, slowly, and waited to see how it would play out. The Alliance had issued a dead or alive bounty on him, and his face was all over the news. Even rim planets like these had people out to get him.
"Back door's just through there," the chef said, pointing. "If anyone comes through here looking for you, I'll tell them you weren't here."
Mal nodded, and started walking. He reached the back door, and paused, drawing his pistol. This was either a trap, or a potential job. If the latter, Mal would be pleased. He and his hadn't worked in a time, and it was too risky to get jobs near the central planets.
He cocked back the hammer on his gun, and stepped through the door.
His head turned first right, and then left, looking for either the blue shirted man, or a group of Purplebellies waiting to take him in.
He saw neither. Instead, the alley behind the diner was empty, with drifts of desert sand blown against the walls of it and the adjourning buildings.
Mal exited the diner's back door completely, letting it swing shut with an eerie clang that echoed through the back alley. It was as quiet as a grave apart from that noise, and Mal kept his pistol out. He didn't like this.
He heard footsteps coming from the left opening of the alley, and turned quickly, gun aiming, and his sights resting on… Zoe.
She had her carbine leveled at him, and he his pistol at her. Both remained still for a moment, and Mal wondered who would win if it ever came down to this between them. Then he holstered his pistol. Zoe lowered her firearm, and walked toward him.
"The note did say to meet behind the diner, right?" Mal asked when she had reached him.
"Yes, sir," Zoe said. "I didn't see anyone when I came around. No footprints leading into the alley, either."
"Very intuitive, Corporal," a voice came from the doorway of the building opposite the diner. Mal and Zoe both turned to face the voice; Mal's hand dropping to his pistol and readying to draw, and Zoe bringing her carbine up and aiming it at the man's face.
It was blue shirt from the diner. Except now he was wearing a brown duster over his shirt. His face was marked with scars, and his eyes were haunted. Zoe knew the look. She saw it in her Captain every day. The eyes of someone that had seen horrible deeds done, and done them himself. Zoe probably carried those eyes; she didn't know. It was rare that she looked at her own face.
"Do I know you?" Mal asked, trying to place the man that had obviously fought for independence all those years ago.
The man stepped into the alley. It wasn't a large alley, and the single stride took him three feet from where Mal and Zoe stood. "Yes you do, Sarge."
Mal hadn't been called that in a long time. Years. Since Serenity Valley.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man smiled. Not a warm smile, either. A cold one. A knowing one.
"I'm a survivor of Serenity Valley. Thanks to you."
Mal looked at the man, trying to place him. By the end of the battle, he'd led two hundred men because he was the highest ranking officer alive. But he hadn't remember all their faces. He only remembered Zoe's. She was with him, the same unit. None of the others were.
"Colonel David Reed," the man said, extending a hand. "I'm in charge of this sector's Independent Movement."
Mal looked at the offered hand, and ignored it. "What movement?" he asked, knowing full well what David Reed was about to ask.
"Your broadwave sent the Independents into taking up arms. We're starting the fight again."
Mal just looked at the man. "That war's over," he said.
"No," David said. "It isn't. We're ready to fight, Sergeant Reynolds. But we need a leader."
Zoe stepped forward, but Mal held up a hand. "I've got this," he said to her. And then to David: "That war's over."
David looked from one soldier to the other. From Malcolm to Zoe. "You don't believe that."
"Even if it ain't, my part's done," Mal said. "It's not our war."
"Sergeant Reynolds, you fought to keep the Valley even after everyone else laid down arms. You didn't speak a word in the prison camp; not to the Alliance, at least, but you kept us all together. And now you've dealt a blow that the Alliance felt all the way to the Core."
"Ain't my war," Mal said. "Don't bring me back into it."
Mal turned to walk away. Zoe followed. The two of them moved down the alley, until the soft metallic click of a weapon being primed echoed.
"I could make a martyr out of you," David said. "I could tell everyone the Alliance had you put down."
Mal didn't even turn around. "You won't," he said. "You're loyal, I'll give you that. But if you pull that trigger, Zoe will kill you."
"I don't believe that you can't care!" David shouted.
Mal smiled. A cold, hard smiled. "Are you willing to die for that belief?" he whispered as he walked away. The two turned the corner, and no gunshot rang out.
"I didn't think so."