Session Twenty One: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
"You can't stay here, Inara," Mal said. "No, listen. This isn't your fight. Ain't got nothin' to do with you. You can take your shuttle and..."
Mal trailed off, staring at the mirror. Even his reflection didn't look convinced.
"Well," he muttered to himself. "That ain't exactly a thought to inspire confidence."
He grimaced, then stepped out of his cabin and out into the corridor, taking a steadying breath as he walked. It wasn't that he didn't want to go to Clairvoyance. This felt like a fight worth fighting, not just for River's sake but because the verse was already small enough as it was and he didn't need it getting any smaller. But he'd faced the Alliance before, and seen just what they were capable of. He knew exactly how dangerous this fight would be. And he didn't want Inara getting involved. Hell, the plan didn't really need her or her shuttle.
Speaking of, he was almost there. He moved across the crosswalk, then stopped as the door to her shuttle opened and Spike stepped out.
Mal wasn't totally sure how to describe what happened in his mind then. Like his thoughts were flinching. But flinching from what? From images like lightning flashing in a norm, bodies intertwined in Inara's shuttle with the incense hanging thick like a cloud of-
"You messin' with my crew?" Mal said aloud, trying to force the memories back.
Spike studied him for a moment, leaning back onto Inara's door. "Messin' with?" Spike repeated. "Companions choose their own company, remember?"
Mal had launched himself towards Spike before he quite knew what he was doing. Spike stepped into his lung, so their faces were almost touching. They froze as though ordered to, staring at each other.
"I don't want you near my crew," Mal whispered, anger flaming through him so he could barely see through it.
"Is she on your crew, Sergeant Reynolds?" Spike asked. "Seems to be me she's just along for the...ride."
There was venom in Spike's tone, a barb that should have slipped through Mal's ribs and pierced his heart. But instead, it somehow calmed him down, banished his anger so he felt he could see right through Spike, uncapped a well of memories that he rarely looked in anymore and let it flow so he understood everything about this speck of a man.
"I knew guys like you during the war," Mal said, speaking from instinct and intuition, speaking with a certainty that was vindicating. "Guys who'd been fighting too long, who couldn't remember what it was like not to fight. Mad dogs bitin' at anything that came near'em. That's all you are, ain't it? A gorram dog who doesn't know where he's supposed to be or who he's supposed to fight."
Spike blinked, then closed his eyes. "Heh," he breathed. "There was a time you weren't wrong, Sergeant."
"Don't call me that," Mal said.
Spike nodded. "Ain't a mad dog anymore, Captain," Spike said. "I bled that part of myself away a long time ago."
"That's what you tell yourself," Mal said. "That's the lie you cling to, because you don't want to believe you could be the same. But it's still there. Waitin' for you to slip up and let him off the leash."
"Yeah?" Spike asked, opening his eyes and staring at Mal as though he had him laid out on a microscope. "What part of yourself do you keep leashed up, Captain?"
"The part that ain't shooting you stand," Mal said.
"And why do you want to shoot me, Captain?" Spike asked.
"You know why," Mal said.
"Do you?" Spike asked.
Mal's calm shattered, splintering like a boat on the rocks. Suddenly he was floundering, more confused than angry, fighting to orient himself. Why?
"I-" Mal started, and didn't know what he was trying to say.
"The part you keep leashed," Spike said. "That's the soldier, right? The one who fought in the war. The one who risked his life because he believed in the cause. The one who died."
Died? He didn't die. At the time, he'd wished for death. Those days spent on that ruined planet among the dead, waiting for someone to figure out what to do with'em. No serenity to be found, nothing but desperation and death, stomach pangs and your throat always aching with thirst.
"'Cept he didn't die, die he?" Spike said. "You just made sure he couldn't get out. 'Cause you didn't every want to hurt like that again. So every cause worth dying for, every cause ya might want to risk your neck for, that gets shoved to wayside. It's the desire of a dead man. But he ain't dead, Captain Reynolds. He's you."
Me. Yeah, old soldier keeping the watch. Except he knew too well how easy it was for the people who followed you to die. Believe in any cause you like, but who says that cause means a damn thing? Who says that cause won't get everyone killed? Only cause worth following was in keeping those people safe. In keeping your crew safe.
The ship snapped back together. Mal felt stable and calm again.
"Julia," Mal said aloud.
Spike flinched as though struck. Mal couldn't help but feel satisfied.
"She's worth killing for," Mal said. "She's worth dying for. She's worth tearing apart the whole damn verse for. But I get the feeling you ain't seen her in a long damn time."
"What's your point?" Spike asked.
"You're trying so hard to remember her, ain't ya?" Mal said. "Trying to remember the person who made ya forget you were a mad dog. And every day you go without seeing her, that dog wakes up a little more. How long before you for get what she was like, Spike? How long before that dog comes roaring back?"
Spike closed his eyes and said nothing. Mal smiled a little, though it felt like a grimace.
"You think I don't know why you were talking to Inara?" Mal said. "You want to remember what it's like. You want to make sure it wasn't just a gorram dream."
"Is that how she makes you feel, Captain?" Spike asked. "Like you're waking up from a dream?"
Mal took a steadying breath, hating the weak slimy feeling in his guts. "What?"
"Like you had your ship," Spike said. "Your little consolation prize, your way of sticking to your guns even though the Alliance had taken everything else from you. You built your crew and you started finding a way of life you could swallow down, and then all the sudden she comes waltzing in and you realize none of it means a damn, not even the war, because there she is."
Inara, proud and unbowed and absolute, like something out of a storybook, something from a whole 'nother world. In his shuttle, in his ship, a waft of perfume in the air that almost brought tears to his eyes and he never knew why.
"Did I do something to piss you off?" Mal asked.
"She's right there," Spike said. "And you're too chickenshit to do anything about it."
Mal stared at Spike, and laughed.
It surprised Spike, Mal saw that on his face. Hell, it surprised Mal; he hadn't know he was going to do it until he was doubled over, shaking with it, clutching at the railing for support. His laughter carried out over the cargo bay.
"What's so funny?" Spike asked.
"I...I didn't..." Mal gasped, tears pooling in his eyes. "I didn't take you for such a gorram romantic."
This deadly dancer, this killer who moved like a lethal wind, who could duel a born and bred assassin to a stalemate—he was outraged over love. Livid with it. That was funny, no two ways about it.
"Romantic," Spike repeated. "Huh." He grinned. "Truth be told, I never thought of myself that way, but...hell."
Mal wiped the tears from his eyes, chortling still. "How'd you get to be like that?" Mal asked.
"Same way you got to be so scared," Spike said. "One day you just...wake up."
And that made a strange sense to Mal. He remembered seeing those ships come down over the Serenity Valley. He remembered realizing they were never going to win, that all he'd fought and sacrificed for her was as dead and broken as Shadow. He remembered tearing the cross off his neck and leaving it in the dust of that godforsaken valley. He remembered those weary days as prisoner then vagabond, until he and Zoe found this ship and real freedom.
But hell, maybe Spike was right. Maybe all he'd been doing was running. Running from the fact that the right side of the war had lost. Running from the fact that you couldn't have faith in a God who could let all that hurt mean so little.
And he remembered Inara, absolute and unflinching, nothing like he'd expected. The thought of her was every bit as infectious and maddening as the cause of independence had ever been.
"There's things worth getting hurt for, Sergeant," Spike said. "Take it from a romantic."
Spike strolled off down the walkway. Mal watched him go, then turned his eyes towards Inara's door.
He stared at that door for a long, long time.