Sometimes Mal wonders how she ended up with Wash. The man was noisy and loud and annoying; everything that she wasn't sometimes, but then he remembers the times when Wash was quiet, when Zoe went to him with darkness in her eyes and he just... understood.
Sometimes she thinks the 'verse is more messed up than ever; Mal has married River and Serenity is flying better than ever. She can't say the little girl didn't do good by her husband. She thinks Wash would have loved this... Mal is brighter now, happier, the darkness of the past is gone and when he smiles... it's not ironic. River is flourishing, she has found her niche, and if she cries, it's tears of her own pain, or Mal's echo's, and not the tears of the 'verse.
He knows the others will never understand why she never shed a tear, why she never grieved and why she won't let them replace the damaged pilot's chair where River now hunches. He gets her to replace the coverings.
She understands that things will never be the same; she understands that maybe they weren't meant to be. She smiles and she laughs as River brightens each day, as she calms, learns to control the gifts she has had forced upon her... And just that once, late at night when the girl came to her and cried, she forgave her. No one can see the future.
They were made for each other in ways he could list a thousand times over; their history, their moods and nature, their temperaments and passions. They survived the Battle of Serenity Valley together and they survived more. But for all of that he thinks the biggest way they are alike, is in their needs.(*)
No one understood why she didn't cry, they didn't know; Simon could have understood... if he'd tried. She'd told him long ago; once you've been in Serenity you never leave, you just learn to live there.
She hadn't told him the truth; that both her and Mal had needed more, they had needed something better to come of the words, of the name, of the memories. Serenity was their failure, so they made it their hope.
It isn't until her daughter is born that he understands, Mal never had to ask, and Simon watches her with open eyes. River is smiling, she knows, but she looks forward, looks to the future and Zoe takes comfort in the fact she's smiling about it.
Even Jayne understands, and hugs her tight when she holds up her daughter, Miranda. Zoe has found a new place to live.
(*) they are both very very alike, and so they both need something very different from what they are themselves.
This is very rough and confusing but I don't want to touch it, or change it. I was writing with tears in my eyes, and that can't be bad... Let me know what you think. It encourages writers, to write more!