Deserters
They had a lot of deserters in Serenity Valley. Some of 'em decent folk – they just didn't realize what they'd gotten into. Some were just pretty-pretties who thought they could handle a gun and a tank but left after shooting some poor zanghuo's leg clean off. If Zoe found a deserter, she didn't show any mercy – neither did Mal. You didn't care about deserters. They left their posts, they left their team, and caring about them wasn't even necessary. If a deserter ended up dead, well that was just his own gorram fault, wasn't it? You went on. Wasn't worth worrying about. Just deserter's desserts, they called it.
They told her, afterwards, that they'd carefully cleaned him up and buried him deep but she never remembered no body. To humor them she put on a fancy bit of frippery and lit the bottle rocket, but when Kaylee started in with the well-works she quickly corrected her. "Hush now," she admonished softly. "He ain't there. Nothin' to see."
With deserters the heart did not break, the heart did not suffer. Deserters gave you a reason to stay mad, and to keep fighting. No reason to shed tears, see. No reason to feel pain. No reason to feel anything but fury.
'Til death do us--
No, she thought violently. She threw a plastic dinosaur across their bedroom so hard that it shattered the vase Kaylee gave them for a wedding gift. She froze pain's harpoon before it ruptured her heart.
No.
He was, and always would be, a deserter.