Title: Monument

Characters/Pairings: Mal/Inara

Spoilers: None

Rating: T (for minor suggestive adult themes)

Disclaimer: No profit for the lowly fanficcer – it is a poor life, but a rich one.

Summary: The ship sets down on Hera (site of the infamous Battle of Serenity Valley) and Mal takes to broodin'. Inara shows up to lighten his load.

Notes: The closing inscription is from Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg.

MONUMENT

She found him just as the light was dying in the valley. Inara approached slowly, exhaustion from the long hike making her feet drag against the earth. He heard her long before she touched his shoulder and settled down next to him, her sweet perfume making him breathe deep.

"I was expectin' Zoe," Mal said quietly, his eyes fixed on some distant point over the rolling hills and shadowed trees of Serenity Valley.

"She stayed onboard. With Wash. He'll be sore in the morning, but she'll feel better," Inara predicted, setting the burden she'd carried from the ship down at their feet. She unfurled a couple of blankets and unwrapped a jug of Kaylee's engine whiskey, uncorking the bottle and handing it to Mal. He sipped at the jug, coughing a little.

"Strong stuff."

Inara nodded, eyes sweeping over the landscape below. The fading sun cast the valley in hues of red and gold, the sky a purplish bruise above the hills. A faint cry of some sort of animal sounded in the dark, calling its mate or warning its prey. Everything was still.

She shivered a little in the wind, rubbing at her arms. "It's cold."

"Yeah, that's Hera for you. One of the little gifts of terraforming: temperature never gets much above freezing. Thanks for the blanket," Mal said, draping the cloth over his shoulders. It wasn't one of the scratchy army blankets from the locker aboard Serenity; this was one of hers, from the bed, maybe. He shook off the thought, turning his eyes back to the land.

"It's a curiosity," he found himself saying. "I thought there'd be something here. Some kind of memorial. All the things that died in this valley...seems the least they could do was put up a plaque."

"And what would it say?" Inara asked, trading back the jug he'd handed her. The fermented liquor burned her throat; the question sounded hoarse, her voice a husky drawl.

"You've got me there," Mal admitted, shaking his head. "Ain't much to say."

Silence fell between them as they watched the sun go out between the hills. The wind picked up a little more and Inara drew her own blanket closer around her shoulders, stealing a glance at Mal's face. He was somewhere else, still in the valley as he remembered it, still fighting his war.

"I supported Unification," she said, trying to gage his reaction in the darkness.

"You told me as much, first thing," Mal reminded her, taking a deep pull on the jug. The whiskey inside sloshed loudly, the only sound for miles. Inara imagined for a moment that it echoed.

"During the war we serviced mainly Alliance officers and politicians. We supported our friends, our clients. I don't think any of us knew what it meant."

"Not many did," Mal agreed. He stretched out his legs, working out the cramps collected during his lonely contemplation on the ridge. "And now? You still think it was a good idea?"

She shot him a look that was half consternation, half sorrow. How could he even think-? "Of course not. I've been beyond the core planets now; I know what life is like on the Rim. I've seen how those people live, what little they have eaten up by Alliance taxes and trade tariffs."

"The war was never about taxes," he said, ending her soft tirade. "That was only the face of it."

Silence again. Inara thought she would break under the force of it. There was so much in him that was good, but here in the place of his great defeat...Mal seemed as remote and dead as the soldiers he mourned.

"Tell me about it," she asked, putting her hand on his. He didn't start from her touch; his hand was cold. "Just once. I'll never ask again."

Mal didn't reply, didn't speak for so long that she was afraid he would get up and leave. Instead, he merely reclaimed his hand, took another pull on the whiskey jug and began to speak.

"They came up and over those hills," he pointed to one of the shadowed peaks in the distance. "Lit up the sky with their ships. We'd been expecting Independence air support, had prayed for it. Instead we got three hundred Alliance cruisers and short-range INP fighters. My battalion, or what was left after two months on Hera, was wiped out before news of the surrender even had time to reach the enlisted men."

He was holding the jug, and Inara could detect a faint tremble in his hand. Mal didn't seem to notice, his eyes fixed on something she couldn't see.

"I'd commanded four thousand; after the surrender, and a week waiting for any kind of aid, only a fraction were left. Lessn' a handful made it off this rock and survived the reeducation camps. Those that did..." he faltered, then continued, "they went home to farms and towns taken over by the Alliance. A lot of them starved, or ate their guns. The 'verse had changed; they didn't have no place to call home. What they'd fought for was just...gone."

Mal stopped, surprised to find his cheeks wet with tears. He hadn't cried since the Alliance marched what was left of his army out of this valley, six years ago. He'd been ashamed of his emotions then, the thought of the Alliance soldiers seeing how badly the defeat had hurt the only thing keeping him together. But up on this hill, with Inara, he didn't see any reason to disguise it.

"It twists me up inside to know that when the few of us who survived finally do meet our maker, there won't be a soul in the 'verse who knows what happened here," he said, wiping at his eyes. "All the history of this place'll be written down in books, and you know how they lie."

Inara shifted closer to him. Mal was shaking; she touched his knee. "And a plaque would help?"

"Least there would be something here. Down there, near that big rock?" he pointed. She found the place he'd indicated, and nodded. "They buried a hundred and fifty men. Didn't even leave bones to mark the battle."

She felt empty inside, used-up and torn apart. The Alliance she'd known on the core worlds bore little relation to the brutality of the war Mal described here, and yet she recognized the truth of what he'd said. He'd given his youth, his hopes and dreams, the best of himself to this valley. And nothing was left to mark his sacrifice.

Inara removed the blanket from her shoulders and spread it out on the ground behind her. Slowly, she eased Mal onto his back, pulling his blanket over top of them both. They lay together, not looking at the valley but up at the starry night sky.

"A monument won't change anything," she whispered, his arm and shoulder warm and solid beneath her head. "It would only be another lie. Nothing can describe what happened here, what you just told me."

She felt him let out a deep sigh, surprised when he rested gentle fingers in her hair. "I know. But knowing don't help none."

Inara listened to his heartbeat, thinking only of Mal and the parts of himself he'd left on the floor of the valley. She tried to picture the boy he had been, volunteering for the Independents, losing everything, existing in defeat. He was normally so alive, so vital, jovial and tender with his crew. But Serenity Valley was always there, always lurking in the shadows of this man.

"Zoe was right to stay behind at the ship. I'm bein' downright emotional," he tried, wanting to dispel the sorrow of the moment. He and Inara weren't sniping at each other, they'd shared some whiskey and they'd talked of things he'd only spoken of with others who'd fought in the war. Getting all morose on the woman certainly wouldn't help his cause, and Mal had suffered enough defeats in this valley.

"You in a hurry to get back?"

"Not at all," she said, graciously. "What did you have in mind?"

Serenity lifted off at daybreak, her engines sending up a fine shower of dust and debris. The wind picked up some of that dust, carrying it five miles south into the valley. It blew against an old boulder, pelting it with fine sand and bits of rock, the freshly-carved words sharp and clear despite the onslaught:

"We cannot dedicate,
We cannot consecrate,
We cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead
Who struggled here
Have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
But it can never forget what they did here."

END