Title: Happy Endings
By: Ria
Summary: short set after the BDM, finding comfort.
Ship: None
Unnecessary disclaimer: not mine, just playing
He didn't believe in perfect days or happy endings. Some days were better than others- some days they had cargo in the hold, and a little food on the table, and a few fuel cells to keep flying. Sometimes, they even had a little extra coin to go around.
Sometimes, though, sometimes it was hard just getting through the night. Hard to get past the cries of battle, the smell of rotten food and the decaying dead, the thousands slaughtered that sat at his feet in Serenity Valley. That tore at his dreams and wouldn't let go.
And if he did get past them, if he managed to shake himself from those dreams then came the ones with Book, or Wash, and a government scientist who couldn't eat the gun in time to stop the Reavers eating her.
It drove him to nothing. To the largest view of the black, and the millions of dancing stars, and the temporary relief of being surrounded by flashing lights, and dinosaurs and the knowledge that the night would end sometime.
'They're just projections.'
The small voice filled the quiet bridge, pulling him abruptly back to the present.
'What's that, lill witch?'
She ignored him, though, standing at the top of the stairway, looking out. 'They died a long time ago. Can only visualise them now.' She sighed, shaking her head, turning to sit in the pilot's seat in one graceful movement. 'They'll be gone soon.' She added.
Mal didn't have anything to say to that, so stayed quiet, studying her for a moment. She was ghostly pale, lit up only by the flashing lights of the console before her, her eyes the only part of her moving as they swept across the visible black.
It wasn't the first time that his memories had driven him to seek out the black, and it wasn't the first time that she had joined him there. More than once she'd even beaten him to it, already curled watching the silent black. She had her own dead who screamed noiselessly at her from the grave of Miranda.
Sometimes it was the only thing that got them through when the silence of the night had been shattered by the nightmares of the weary. Coming here to nothing. No thoughts, no smells, no sound, no vision. No screaming dead at his feet, and no silent dead filling the air. When only being clutched in Serenity's loving arms, held firm in the dead of space got them through the endless hours of night.
Only another person who knew such tragedy could understand the need for nothing, for silence, sitting in the dark surrounded by the flickering lights of Serenity's dash and the distant memories of stars from long ago.
There were no perfect days. No happy ending. But there were days with food, and fuel, and the occasional smile. And there were nights, lost in the black, surrounded by nothing in the company of perhaps the only person who could understand the need for it.