Title: How He Dies

Words: 922

Disclaimer: It’s all about Joss

Summary: How Mal Reynolds dies. Sorta.

Mal met his uncle Joe when he was a sixteen year old tough living on his mother’s ranch. Joe said he was a brother of Mal’s daddy, and his mama said so too. Mal wasn’t convinced of it. Joe looked nothing like the pictures he’d seen of his pa, and Mal said so. Joe just smiled, said that blood don’t make brothers. Mal never enquired any further. Truth be told, he could care less about his father and any man attached to him.

Joe stayed with them for a week before taking his leave. The night before he left, he took Mal aside and asked him, “Son, how do you think you’re gonna die?”

He sent letters to Mal sometimes. He always asked the question. Mal never responded to the letters, but he always answered the question.

Sixteen:

Mal Reynolds died an old man. His was tending to his land when his heart gave out. It wasn’t a big surprise. He’d been sick. His daughters had begged him to hire a few more hands so that he didn’t have to do the work himself, but Mal wouldn’t hear of it. He loved tending to the cows and chickens, loved working the horses, loved it all. A little less so, some said, since the death of his wife two years before, but it was love nonetheless. The whole town came to Mal’s funeral, all of them. He’d served as mayor for a while, some twenty years ago. He was beloved among them. After he was put in the earth, the old men got their whisky. They made a fire and told all stories to young boys gathered round, the stories of Malcolm Reynolds, Shadow’s Son.

Twenty-Two:

Mal Reynolds died in the field with his men. The death itself was unremarkable in war time. Men were shot and killed everyday, and that day was Mal’s day. It’d been a hell of a fight. Mal and his men had been holding the temple for three days, an incredible feet. They should have all died, but they hadn’t. Well, Mal had. But his men were still alive, and that mattered. He died, but the war would go on, the war for independenc