Author's Note: Okay, I know that this isn't the first time someone has used the lines of Firefly's theme to frame a story, but I hope you'll give it a chance, anyway.
Take my love
Malcolm Reynolds, eight years of age, sits in his favorite tree, looking up at the stars.
Someday, he promises himself. Someday, I'm gonna fly to every world out there, and ain't nothing in the 'verse gonna stop me.
"Mal?" His ma's voice pulls him back to reality. For the first time in several minutes, at least, he is conscious of the tears running down his cheeks. "Mal?" his mother's voice calls again. Mal knows from experience that she won't stop calling just 'cause he doesn't show, but he can't help it: he stays put. If I don't talk to her, maybe this'll all go away. I'll wake up safe and sound, and Pa will—but the thought of his pa only brings fresh pain and a renewed wave of tears.
A creak from the branch below his signals the arrival of his ma. "It's polite," she notes as her face comes up level with his, "to respond when someone is calling you."
"Sorry, Ma." Mal tries to say more, but the tears overwhelmed him again and he turns away.
His ma sighs and climbs up onto the branch beside him. Leaning against the trunk, she pulls him against her and holds him as he cries. "It'll be okay," she tells him, "it'll be okay."
Malcolm Reynolds, eight years of age, has just lost his father to disease. The elder Reynolds is not the only one to succumb; nearly one-third of the tiny moon's population of 5000 dies while almost as many are impaired in some way.
Years later, as a member of the Browncoats, Mal learns that the illness was caused by improper disposal of the waste of the terraforming machinery the Alliance used to make the moon habitable.