********Warning - this contains major spoilers for the movie Serenity. Do not read if you don't want to be spoiled.*********

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Old Soldiers Never Die by Djinn

You can't bear to visit the cockpit anymore. Everything's wrong because Wash is gone. Even though his dinosaurs still sit on the pilot's station. Even though the smell of him is still there if you bury your face hard enough into the fabric of his chair. Even though there's still an image of you, tucked into a far recess where he could see it when he was underneath the panel working on the controls. He was crazy that way. Said he wanted you near him no matter where he was.

Now, you're nowhere near him. How could you have left him on Haven? You feel like you left more than just your heart there. You feel like most of your soul stayed back, too.

A lot of people didn't get you and Wash. They thought he was too silly, too weak, for you. But he was the strong part of you. He was the part that never gave up on people, that never gave up on life. He was the thing that kept you wishing you'd never been to war. That made you want to have a baby so that, between the two of you, you could teach that child everything he or she would ever need to know--both about the good and the bad of folks.

Now, there won't be a baby. Not ever. Not with Wash. The future's another thing you left on Haven.

You wander down to the galley. Only Jayne's there. He's sitting at the table, hunched over as if guarding his bowl of soup. He looks like some kind of mutant hawk, if hawks bristled with guns and bandoliers instead of feathers.

"There's more soup. I'll get you some." Jayne's up before you can tell him you don't want any soup. He's been unusually kind to you. It's unnerving, and you wish he'd just flip back to normal. As long as he treats you like you might break, you know you might just be on the verge of that.

Everything that was normal and strong about you seems to ha