This is the story of Mal’s experiences directly after the war, up to the point of his purchase of Serenity…..that long gap never filled in by the series.   Wash and Zoe are an important part of the story as well.  It begins with Mal in an Alliance internment camp at the end of the war, [...]

Mal sat on the edge of his bunk, mind churning. Zoe was still following him, and he was in no shape to lead. He took a deep breath. “Well, son, you’re just gonna have to change that,” he told himself. “Buckle down and keep going, ’cause there ain’t no way around it.”

“Do you hate me now?” Lee’s voice startled Zoe ; she’d not been aware of his presence in the storeroom a guard had abruptly shoved her into.

Mal’s cell beeped open and he turned his head to inspect his visitor, eyes widening slightly as he registered the poised woman being ushered in. Zoe. She was looking good, he noticed with some gratification, recalling the exhausted figure covered in dirt, sweat, and dried blood from his last memories. The woman standing before him [...]

Aside from the unending boredom, recurring nightmares, and constant soreness, Mal wasn’t doing half badly. He’d been moved out of the main hospital into the recovery ward, which near as he could tell was a prisoner housing unit; only difference was, you got nurses instead of guards, and they poked needles into you and muttered [...]

Lee hadn’t been kidding about those doctors and their surgeries. Funny how men who, as Lee had put it “took an oath to do no harm” enjoyed cutting holes in folk as their primary hobby.

Mal awoke to find himself lying on a couch in a quiet, warmly lit room. For a fleeting moment he thought himself home on Shadow, waking from a peaceful sleep. He spent several seconds trying to fit pieces together in his head, cringing internally as he recalled his last conscious hours. Interesting surprise, finding himself [...]

Mal had no way of knowing it, but he’d been unconscious for nearly 16 hours when he slowly became aware of his existence again. It wasn’t so much his existence he was aware of as the hurt that invaded every fiber of his body.

The fantasies that once wandered his imagination had hardened into reality. For the first time since before the war ended, Mal felt his mind snap clearly into focus with a deep sense of relief from the helpless inability to control his destiny.

Mal didn’t really see the point of the endless series of interrogations he was being subjected to. The war was over; the Alliance was unquestionably victorious, and it wasn’t like an infantry leader like him had been privy to any mystifying secrets of the universe.

So this was the moment he’d spent two agonizing weeks waiting for; now, after hope had become a distant memory, the enemy was descending from the sky to their rescue.