The first time Mal Reynolds believed in angels was because his Ma told him so. "Angels watch over you, boy," she told him, after he broke his leg falling out of the hay loft at age 10. "Seems to be their full-time job, keepin' you from harm." He liked the notion of angels keeping him from straying too far from righteousnes, although by the time he got his cherry good and busted in that same hayloft with Molly Sullivan several years later, it seemed as though they were sleeping on the job.

The second time Mal Reynolds believed in angels was right before they betrayed him at Serenity Valley. He was sure the angels were coming to rescue them. He believed those angels were looking out for him with the fierce desperation of a man who had lost everything else he could believe in. And then even that was ripped away from him.

The third time Mal Reynolds believed in angels was when Inara told him she was leaving. He wanted to summon them from on high. Make them do his bidding. Prevent her from walking away from him. Yet just as they had turned a blind eye to his tumble with Molly and to his pleas for rescue from the hell of that accursed Valley, they studiously ignored him now.

Mal Reynolds might not have had a fancy education, but he knew one thing. There would be no fourth time.