"Do me a favor..." He wheezed, sinking against the cold glass, feeling the air burn in his lungs and the panic sting the back of his eyes. "Make something up. Don't tell them what I did."

He couldn't breathe.

They say when a man is fixin' ta die, his whole gorram life flashes before his eyes. But all he can taste is the dirt, the sweat, the blood. As the air starts burning in his lungs, and the trickle of sweat nosedives off his neck and down the channel of his spine, he remembers.

The way Mother cried when he gave her a birthday present even though they didn't have two creds to rub together. He didn't mean to make her cry in that raspy breath, it wasn't like that perfume was all high class although Matty liked the name. Don' make no difference that he didn't pay for it. He was only 13...

The stink of his own fear filling up his nose the first time he pulled a trigger, then he was wracked by shuddering sobs as he stared at his shaking hands. Man said he'd cheated, and like hell he had, it was an honest hand at cards, even though he knew he was s'posed to lose...

The way he held his breath the first time he was ever kissed, and his heart was ready to rip through his chest. He didn't know she was a whore, and that Billy and Tobe had paid for her but he loved her, and he loved his brothers even more...

And now...

He'd chosen money over Mal. Hell, it hadn't been like that, though he'd never get Mal to see it that way. Mal always said the important thing was to keep flying. To him, that wasn't it at all. To him, Serenity was the only place he could breathe clean, and without her, he couldn't breath at'all.

"Next time you decide to stab me in the back... have the balls to do it to my face."