Imperfect, a firefly fanfic

A/N: May I first say that this came as a total surprise. I wasn't looking to write this, it just happened. Of course, in hindsight, I'm glad that it did, but it doesn't make me any less surprised about its existence.

For those of you who are wondering, the title is not just a commentary on… I don't know, the life Mal's been dealt. It's also the tense. In my French class, when we were learning "was, were, used to," my teacher told us that the imperfect tense was used to describe a repeated action.

So. Having divulged myself of that tidbit of information, I will go ahead and say that I do not own Firefly, or any of its characters, but if I ever met the man who did I would kick him for killing Wash. Enjoy.

Imperfect

Tani Hissatsu

Mal comes back, every single year.

Zoe came with him, the first few times. She'd be silent the whole way over, locked in her bunk, and then a drunken mess on the way back. Her last trip back she'd begged him, with slurred words and bloodshot eyes, not to ever bring her back there again, please no more. He hadn't.

The Alliance had laid off of Simon and River, more or less. As Operative had said, the damage was done. There wasn't no use in chasing them anymore. Besides, not like there's a power in the 'verse could take River anyplace she didn't want to go, these days, not since she's saned up some. Once Miranda was taken care of, a lot of her issues were dealt with; Simon had taken her and gone, gone to find something closer to the home he remembered her in. Mal reckoned it'd take him a year, maybe less, to figure out that River doesn't fit there anymore.

Mal had been hopeful about Inara. He really had – grandiose dreams of them working something out, getting anything like a happy ending. But once the glow of she's back she's really here had worn off, all the troubles came crashing down, and so did his white picket fence. He should have known; ain't no place for a fence on a ship. When she finally left the second time, she hated him so thoroughly he was sure he'd never see her again.

After the Operative had done his business, and a good number of folks was dead, nobody would touch Malcolm Reynold's crew with a ten foot pole. They were doomed. When the money stopped coming in, there was nothing to hold Jayne anymore. Nothing to hold Kaylee, either, and Mal told her flat that Serenity ain't gonna be going anywhere, let alone breaking down, so she might as well split. He still visits her sometimes. She's older now, lost some of that lighthouse beam she once had, but when they finally do manage to coordinate a meeting on some backwater planet, she always tells him that her new ship ain't nothing compared to Serenity. Last time he talked to her, she still had hopes that he'd fix her up, bring the crew back. Doesn't quite understand that only God could bring this crew back together now, and he ain't never looked highly on Malcolm Reynolds.

Once, he got a hat in the mail. Something atrocious, green with orange stripes and two little earflaps for those wintery planets. He'd hung it on his bedpost and every now and then runs his hand over the stitching, playing with the ties meant to keep him from losing it. The poetical portion of his brain knows he already has.

But every year, rain or shine, he makes it back here. Back to the people who've already abandoned him, but at the same time can't ever leave, because they've got no place to go. He spends a couple of days planet side, getting drunk all by his lonesome and alternating between laughing hysterically and screaming injustice to the world. He books a shuttle for the occasion. "Wash," he slurs, jerking his head towards the haphazardly parked ship, "I'd like to see you float around with this junker. Handles like a piece of gos se. I bet even you wouldn't be able to think of a good thing to say about her, Shepard." He takes another drink from the bottle, feels it burn its way down his throat. "Tell me something, Universe, was that Lovebot special somehow, or was she just the first one you made? Did you know she was the perfect machine, all the right parts in all the right places? Tell me!" He gets frustrated by the lack of response and spends a few minutes cursing under his breath. "Nee mun doh shr sagwa. You hear that? Idiots. Why did you even bother?"

A solid thirty minutes of hating everything around him ends in a bottle being thrown over the cliff. He waits long enough to hear the faint tinkling smash before slumping against Wash's tombstone. Silence, for a while, then: "Hey, remember that time? After you'd just signed on, with your shirts and that kuh-ooh duh moustache?"

A good hour of nostalgia and another bottle of whiskey would start the cycle over again. He was pretty sure he started repeating himself, but he was usually too drunk to care.

"I got a gray hair now, d'you know that? Saw it jus' t'other day. You lot put 'em in there, you know, can't say I'm s'prised. Pro'ly have your hair soon, Shepard. Without the funny braids. Never did like those."

Eventually, inevitably, he passes out. Wakes up with gravel imprinted in his face and a rock sticking into his back. "Tzao gao, that smarts." He thinks, as he does every year, that he really should remember the bedroll next time. It's his tenth year back, though, and he's managed to forget yet again, so he don't hold out much hope. Zoe always was the practical one.

He says his goodbyes, but it's always the same meaningless promises that he somehow never comes through on.

"I've still got those dinosaurs, Wash. I'll figure 'em all out sometime soon, I promise. And I'll look in on her."

"Don't reckon even you could blame me for not believing in much these days, Preacher, but I'll give it another shot."

"This'll be the year, Universe, I can feel it. The signal won't be stopped."

The year Mal doesn't come back is the year that all the dinosaurs are outfitted with stickers that say things like "Brontosaurus" and "Dimetrodon," and "Triceratops." Zoe calls him from Verbena and tells him hesitantly, smiling in the first time since he-can't-remember-when, that she's met someone. He smiles back through his teeth and wishes her happiness before hanging up and getting thoroughly shitfaced.

That year is the first time in a long time that Mal goes out on U-day, in his brown coat, and picks a fight for the old cause. Not quite the bar brawl it used to be, but he's one man now, and he has to choose his battles.

It's also the year that the Alliance, having fought for years to maintain control after the truth of Reavers finally came out, loses everything. The outer planets, first, then it works its way in until even the Core is resenting their presence. The last of Parliament crumbles to dust, leaving the planets to pick up their pieces and figure out how to stand on their own.

The year that Malcolm Reynolds doesn't come back is the year he never leaves, the year God smiles on him and Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne, Inara, River and Simon carry him home.