Mal was not one to be sitting around waiting to be rescued. He was the ‘act now, shoot now, fight now, ask questions later’ type of guy. Truth be told the only reason he hadn’t slit the throat of one of these hwoo dahn’s was because one he didn’t have a knife and two because it turned him on to no end to think of being rescued by Inara. That was the greater of the two reasons as to why he had waited this long without making a gorram move; would she even come?

She would never let him live it down, hell she would never let him die it down either, she’d follow him to the Gates just to see him squirm. ‘Mal the master escape artist being saved by a companion or as he would plainly put it, a whore’; he would never hear the end of it. Knowing she might have that little bit of power over him got him excited just thinking about it.

It would be a rare thing indeed because nobody in this ‘verse had power over Malcolm Reynolds, not even the gorram Alliance however much they might argue otherwise. He would never allow his underbelly to be shown to anyone, it made for too much of an easy target, but ‘Nara always found a way to expose his weaknesses. Damn he loved that women but hated what she did to him.

Mal’s life was confusing enough without that beautiful example of pure radiance causing him to have clouded vision. Mal was anything but a simple man, a fact not reflected in the simple life he led. True, he was a criminal but his life was very systematic, always had been.

First it was take care of the ranch and take care of Mama and when both disappeared from his life, wisps of what was, it became take care of himself, take care of Zoë, and take care of his platoon. When the war ended brutally it became take care of Serenity, take care of his crew; at times it seemed he wasn’t even doing that much. Now that Serenity housed his family it was get a job, make good on that job, get paid, and support his family the best he could.

Through the complex layers that folded around Mal to fo