Yippeee! My first fanfic eva!

I do not own Firefly. If I did, do you think I would have let it end so soon? Nope. Every character (recognizable, I mean: I'm pretty sure you'll guess whitch ones are mine), every episode I refer to in this, the movie during whitch this takes place, all belong to Whedon. Good for him.

Outsider

The four of us walked up the ramp and entered the ships cargo bay. It had seen better days: there was debris and dirt all over the floor, and the stuff that had not been properly secured was scattered around the room. We made our way across the hall, trying to avoid the heaps of dust and brken parts so that the cleaning team the Operative had also ordered would have at least a little easier job. Danny joked something about 'almost being able to smell the smuggling', but nobody laughed. It wasn't that funny a joke, anyway. After all, everyone knew what people usually did with these type of ships: let's jus say that not all the storage spaces of a Firefly are drawn to its blueprints.

Someone – I think it was Weng, but it was hard to tell, what with the breathing mask muffling the voice up a bit – casually wondered what was the function of something that appeared to be an old tyre hanging from the roof on a piece of chain.

The next room was the ships galley. Even though a bit messy after the rough ride, it had a warm, cozy feeling to all laughed at the floral patterns painted on the walls, and to the notes Jim found on one of the kitchen cabinet doors. They, all in different handwriting, told someone called Jayne 'not to eat all the protein bacon' or 'drink all the booze since if we have to endure your company, at least allow us to be drunk while doing it'.

"Sounds like a real catch, this Jayne-lady. You should ask her out."

"Oh, shut up, Jimmy."

Joking at a moment like that might seem insensitive, but we needed it. We all knew what waited us in there, just behind a few hallways and a couple of stairs. And even though in our line of work we see a lot of dead people, it doesn't mean that we'd get used to it, that it wouldn't be hard every time. A few good laughs, as childish as they may seem, are something that keep us sane. Welcome to the life of an Alliance Rescue and Safety Operation team.

As said, our job awaited us just behind a few hallways, and a couple of stairs. Danny tinkered something with the controls in the doorway so that the creepy, red emergency lights of the cockpit turned off and the normal lights blinked to life. We had been warned that it would not be pretty. And damn straight it wasn't. The hull was pierced with the harpoons of the rievers in so many places that one could not be sure if it had ever been whole. But the harpoon we were here to take care of was the one that had come trough just in front of the pilot's chair. Slowly, with calm professionality – this wasn't the time for jokes – we made our way towards it.

The pilot was young. Well, not young-young, like 20 or 15 or something, but too young to die. Though of course, in my opinion, everyone who died by being harpooned straight in the cheast by a bunch of dirty rievers was too young. But if you learned something in this job, it was to not get sentimental. Whether it was saving lives or separating a dead man and a chair from each other, an op is not the place to get all emotional.

Weng and Jim took off their backpacks and started searching them for cutters and other tools of the trade. I was about to do the same, when Danny suddenly said :" What the fuck are those?" He was pointing at some colourful objects lying on the console. I moved closer and recognized them as plastic toys, lizards of some sort.

"Those pilots are so weird", Jimmy said, laughing. While the others laughed and joked about 'flyboys and their odd quips', I examined the toys in silence. Pilots, as the hermits often forced to stay a long time in the hull all alone, were known to have strange ways of keeping themselves sane while facing the black. I took one of the toys in my hand: it was well used, it had scuff marks and little scratches all over it. It had propably been played with. I smiled. A grown man who plays with plastic dinosaurs, I thought. Just like -

"Wash?"

"Wash what?" Weng asked, all three now looking confused.

"No, Wash. Hoban Washburn, it's that guys name", I said.

It was like I was now looking at the dead man for the first time. Yep. The same blonde hair, the same face – though now without mustache – it couldn't be anyone else.

"Wait – you know him?"

"Yeah... We went to flight school together, did a couple of missions with him too."

"You went to flight school?" , Jimmy said, not able to hide the disbelieving tone of his voice.

"Well, it's not that amazing. I did, for a couple of months. Turned out I didn't have the brains for it – all the calculating and other math stuff – so I decided to take another path."

A silence fell. Everyone looked at the dead pilot differently now. He wasn't just another corpse to carry away from the scene anymore; a slightly sad memory that could be pushed aside with a few jokes and a glass of beer with the fellas. Now he was someone with a name, a history, a story: someone who couldn't be so easily forgotten.

No time to get emotional.

"Let's get this done", Danny said. We all got to work, not saying a word.

We had carried the body on a stretcher to the crew standing outside the ship. The others had, after patting me on the shoulder or murmuring something that sounded distantly like 'I'm sorry', gone to change their clothes, but I still lingered, now standing on the ramp, and watched the group as they were cathered around the body.

A young woman, dressed in overalls, was sobbing incontrollably. She didn't look like someone who should be crying, it felt wrong somehow. A young man, a lot cleaner and tidier than what you would expect from someone travelling in that kind of company, was sitting in a wheelchair, holding the woman's hand. He was sad too, tears unshed in his eyes, but he also seemed happy. Happy to be alive, happy that the others still were, I don't know. Propably happy because the woman was now hugging him, crying against his shoulder. Thats love.

A tall, gruff-looking man was standing next to them. He seemed more angry than sad, but I guess it was hard to tell, with a face like his. If I concentrated really hard, I could see his hands shaking a little, helplessly squeezing the most ridiculous hat I've ever seen. The sight of him made me smile sadly.

A beautiful, well-dressed woman stood by his side. She was yet again one of those I'd never thought to travel in a ship like the Firefly behind me. Tears silently rolled down her cheeks, as she tried to remain calm, biting her lip not to completely break down as the younger woman had. Somehow she seemed to think it wouldn't be proper for someone like her, even though she clearly wanted nothing more but to just cry.

From time to time her gaze lingered to a man standing a couple of feet away, a man towards whom I now turned my attention. He didn't cry, nor did he seem angry or sad. He stared straight ahead, oblivious to the world around him. He looked like a man who had lost many things, many battles, and didn't quite see the reason for all of it anymore. A man who has lost his faith. This was, to him, a loss among many: a guilt weighed his heart, the thought of yet another friend lost pressing him down. But in his eyes, in the way he stood straight and tall, I could see there was still the spirit to keep fighting, to keep flying. If not for his own sake, then for the others'.

The dark and beautiful woman standing next to him was still perhaps the most enigmatic of them all. She, too, had the air of someone who has lost too much in the battle that is life. She, too, stood tall and proud. But unlike the man beside her, her gaze was fixed on Wash. Her face was a set mask of no emotion, no tears were being shed, no fight to remain calm was there to betray her. But no matter how hard she tried to hide behind that mask, I couldn't help but to notice that she seemed... empty. Like she had once been so much more, so more alive. That underneath that stoic mask there had been joy that was now gone. If it wouldn't sound so cheesy, I'd say she'd lost the light. That she was now half dead.

I couldn't watch her any longer. The more I looked, the more her eyes betrayed the emotions racing in her head, her heart, like thunder or a tornado, destroying everything in it's path. The more I looked, the more I saw how lost she was. It made me want to turn away, like I'd seen something personal, crossed a line that should not be crossed, stepped onto sacred ground.

Rapidly blinking I turned away, when a sudden movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention. A girl, couldn't be older than my little sister, was staring at me, smiling, and waving her hand. For a moment I felt ashamed. She noticed me, now they're all gonna ask me what the fuck I'm staring here – oh, wait, she's not staring at me, more like past me, at the cargo bays entrance. I turned around – who's she waving to? - and found the space to be empty. And yet the girl smiled, happily, like she'd seen an old friend, and waved her hand in greeting. She didn't seem to be completely there, rather in a world of her own, a smiling face among those sad, but the joy in her eyes was so real that I couldn't help but to smile, too. Even though I had no idea why.

I decided that now was my time to leave. The cleaning team arrived as I started my journey towards the lockerroom. A one final glance back to the group still standing there, everyone grieving in their own way – and I stopped. An absent-minded gesture, an action commited without much thought: the dark, beautiful woman brushed her hand across her stomach, keeping it there for a second.

I continued my way, now smiling even more.

~Fin~

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