Big Damn Hero

So we’re all back on one boat again, the nine of us. Serenity has both her shuttles nestled on her wings, the chicks back with mama bird, and we’re heading off once more into the Black to see what we can find, work-wise. The usual deal: whatever’s going, if it pays, we’ll take it. Sorry state of affairs, but that’s how it is. Ain’t a kind or just ’verse, and nobody’s owed a living.

Simon says my neck’s healing nicely. Rope burns won’t even leave a scar, thanks to his doctoring. Talking still hurts some, but on this boat, with Wash and Kaylee, to name but two, it ain’t as if there’s a scarcity of chitter-chatter.

Badger was rightly mad about his explosives. I pointed out that at least they’d blown up somewhere off my ship, ’cause if they’d destroyed Serenity and I hadn’t been on board, right now I’d be introducing him to the business end of a gun, shooting off little bits of him one after another; and if I had been on board, my ghost’d be haunting him till the day he died. Guess he feels I owe him one. Guess I feel we’re quits. Besides, Badger’ll get over it. He’s what you’d call the resilient type, too plain opportunistic or optimistic or whatever to burn a bridge permanently.

Elmira Atadema is a free woman now. Book’s pal Mika Wong didn’t even need to pay off her debt, what with Hunter Covington being buried under a mountain and no longer in a fit state to collect and all, so he was pleased about that. I met Elmira for all of five minutes, after we’d rendezvoused on Persephone with Book, Inara, and the Tams. Even in that brief span of time she made an impression. Despite all she’d been through as a bondswoman and a confidential informer, all that suffering and peril, she seemed as if she was coping and would be able to move on with her life. Like Badger, resilient. Also, unlike Badger, not a pain in the ass.

And now that we’re flying free, I’ve got time to think. About the past. About lost loves, damaged friendships and heart-wrenching regrets. I won’t ever be free of Jamie and Toby, I reckon. Wasn’t free of Jinny before. But it does seem as though some things that needed fixing have been fixed and some loose ends squared away. Maybe if Jinny and me had been honest with Toby from the start, none of this would have happened. It was Jinny’s call, though, and I went along with it because I respected her decision and I loved her. You can’t change the past and you can’t do aught but rue the way you sometimes acted back when you were young and stupid and thought you were immortal. Doesn’t prevent you from wishing you could.

I’ve been thinking about stopping by Shadow, although not sure I’m up for that. I hear there’s plants pushing up through the cinders now around the spot where the Adares’ cowshed stood. I might like to see that for myself, but then I mightn’t want to reopen those old wounds either. Might also pay a call on Sheriff Bundy, Governor Bundy, whatever his title is these days. Assuming the overweight bastard’s still alive and some clogged artery of his hasn’t popped. Maybe he and I can have words, get to the bottom of what happened… and if he did what I think he did, I’ll teach him the error of his ways.

Maybe some other time.

For now, we’ll do what we do.

Find a job. Keep flying.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds