If someone told me three years ago that I'd be here, I would laugh at them.

Three years ago, Mal and I were stuck in Niobrara, bombs going off over our heads, ammo growing scarce, and our only backup being two sectors away. I thought for sure we weren't going to make it. Serenity had happened, and we knew that the war was lost - it was just getting through the battles that made it trickier.

During a lull in the firefight, Mal called the unit down into the bunker and quickly took inventory. I'm good at shooting things, but Mal knew how to get things organized and done. In a few minutes, we knew how many resources we had left until reinforcements could arrive. He kept a cool head when things looked bad, and that earned my respect. Being in the colony militia, I was used to the dandies that had a fancy rank, but ran like rabbits when the shooting started, and the sergeants that tried to emulate them in the worst ways. I figured Mal had been the same until that incident. His cool head allowed us to hold position. We won that battle - of course, the officers took the credit.

Things went from bad to worse in the war, but I never saw that man quit. Not sure if he knows the meaning of the word. I have a hard time with it myself. When he found me again, I was working as a rich man's private guard and hated it. He convinced me to quit and pool my money with his to get a ship. He said that we could get a cook, a mechanic, a pilot...and start living like "real people."

I thought he was nuts. The war made a lot of people that way. The more I saw of Serenity, the more the concept grew on me, though. I could have a safe life as a wage slave, but we both knew I wouldn't be happy with it.

Besides, the ship itself wasn't the only thing to grow on me. First couple weeks I knew Wash, I wanted to deck him. The next couple weeks after that, I couldn't stop laughing at his jokes. A few weeks after that, we were sneaking off to each other's bunks. Before either of us knew it, we were saying, "I do.&qu