HUGE HONKIN' SPOILERS FOR THE BDM...

Pairing: Mal/River/Serenity (background Simon and Kaylee)

Summary: Events leading up to the end of the, ‘Big Damned Movie’ and where I think two certain people might find what they lost.

Disclaimer: We all know I am not working for the networks because, like the rest of you I’m not stupid enough to cancel something as fan supported as Firefly. I’m not Joss Whedon either so I am using his creation respectfully and with much praise for the creator.

Rating: E to AO

Author’s Note: This is going to be a slow build but will be rated adult only. It is going to build the friendship between the two in flashes…the scenes breaks may change the situation.

Betaed by gwenfrewi72, who thinks she’s incredibly lucky to be able to do this.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Mal slowly and painfully limped along the corridor toward the wounded and haggard remnants of his crew. The darkened corridor was quiet and made him dizzy with the tang of blood and sulfur clogging the air until his abused lungs thought they would burst. Walking into the midst of them, his blurry vision took stock of their wounded and battered faces, but one face was missing.

It was a face he hadn’t allowed himself to realize he would miss, a face that had in the last eight months become his albatross. The face he’d come to savor in the deeper and maybe darker recesses of his mind.

“Sir,” Zoë asked her breathing ragged.

“It’s done. Report!?” he stated firmly or at least what past for firm when you’d been shot in the back, beat to hell and back, and then run through with a sword. None of it hurt as badly as not seeing her face there with the others. His albatross… “River?”

The silence was answer enough and when Zoë couldn’t meet his eye, he felt a cold sorta despair well up inside him and then the blast doors rumbled open and there she was and he literally felt his heart stop. She was there and she was still standing, holding their ground. He’d never seen anything more beautiful, more fearfully beautif