River wanders into his bunk sometime while Kaylee is setting up the engine to malfunction enough to fool the Reavers and the others are tying the bodies of their friends onto the nose of the ship itself. She stares at him with her big eyes, saner than she's been in weeks, and murmurs, "This is a good ending."
He stares at her for a long, long moment, not even able to tell if he's wondering how he got himself into this mess or considering shooting her and delivering her to the Alliance. Maybe he hates her for getting everyone who's ever helped him killed. Maybe he's grateful for getting this chance to fight back and maybe, just maybe, getting to win.
"Maybe" is such a strong word.
"Maybe you are E, all of the above," she whispers. With her crazy-girl ways, she touches the pulse in the side of his neck and forces his fingers to hers. "Will time tell that this was worth saving?"
For a split second he gets it: she means that they're both human, that they have the same heartbeat, that this is for every other person who was human that died at the hands of other humans who thought they knew what they were doing. She means that humanity has to pay the price for torturing itself. It is inevitable that the ones punishing humans would be human, and that the act being punished was the torture of humans by humans. She means that they are really all the same and blood beats through them all with the same desperation.
But then some part of his Mal-ness wakes up and reminds him he is a hard, simple man who knows things like this without describing them, because when you describe something this big the words get tangled up, and he draws his hand back and pulls hers away.
"Time will tell, little crazy girl," he says.
And he is able to walk back out as a captain again.
