Note: My first fanfic. Feedback is welcome, particularly the genuinely critical kind.

Disclaimer: Firefly belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and the Fox Corp.

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RSVP

It was the first genuine moment of clarity he had had since he first shoved open the doors to Serenity’s cargo bay. Standing there, on the bridge of his ship, feeling Zoe’s fingers slide through and out of his, Mal was certain that his life would forever be unclear. These short, small glimpses were all he was ever going to get again.

His first moment had come on the ranch, on Shadow, when he was young. He was trying to break a pony that had gone wild. Cropping the horse wasn’t working. No amount of wrestling, feeding, cooing was doing the trick. The horse was wild and would stay wild. Live free, he though, as he reached in to cut the rope from the horse’s neck. The horse whipped past him on its way out of the corral, bounding toward open country.

Then, there was the war. News came over the Cortex continually. News and orders to join the Alliance. Give the Alliance taxes due. Provide the Alliance with able bodied men and more and more and more resources. Live free, he thought, pulling on his brown coat and holstering his weapon.

Next, his angels betrayed him. Until that moment he had not known a cynical part of himself. He would have said that such did not exist. But he watched as the air support, his last, best hope landed softly on the ridge above Serenity Valley. He ripped the crucifix from around his neck, dropped it, and used his heel to grind it into the dirt. He screamed, firing off round after round, into the air, at the cruisers, toward the oncoming Alliance tanks.

Two years later that crucifix showed up quietly on the desk in his bunk. It was bent and tarnished. It had no chain. He opened a drawer and swept it in. Then he didn’t so much talk to Zoe for a couple days. When he finally did speak again, all he said was, “We need to find us a pilot and I got us a lead. Remember Zoe, them as wa