Title: And In the End
(there are 15 chapters)
Author: Van Donovan
Pairings: (eventually) Wash/Jayne, Wash/Mal, Wash/Zoe.
Rating: PG-13 / Teen
Word Count: Roughly 75,000
Beta: John Arrowsmith
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Wash had never been so cold before in his life.

His body was numb all over, to the point where sitting up wasn't even an option because he couldn't feel his arms and legs to do it. It was hard enough just to open his eyes, and even once he had done that he wasn't sure they were open: all he saw was an endless field of white above him. The harder he stared, the less defined it seemed to be. There were no seams that he could make out, which led him to believe it wasn't a ceiling he was staring at, and yet, it didn't have the quality of the sky. It was completely unlike anywhere he'd ever been, and yet, it seemed vaguely familiar somehow.

He closed his eyes tightly and then reopened them. When he did, he managed to turn his head to the side. That brought into his vision a stark white wall and a door with a tiny window in it. That didn't seem right, either. There wasn't a room like this on Serenity. He groaned low in his chest and tried to sit up.

This time his body reacted but only with pain instead of moving. His chest screamed out in agony, and he ceased trying to move. His thoughts were scattered. Where the hell was he? How had he gotten there? The place felt like a medical facility, but he wasn't in a hospital room, he could tell. His worked his mouth a bit and found he was incredibly parched. He wet his lips with his tongue and then tried to speak.

"Hello?" he croaked and was astonished how dusty his voice sounded. "Is anybody there?" he called again. He was sure his voice hadn't carried far, but hearing it had been at least a little reassuring.

Several long minutes passed before he heard the loud metal groans of his door being unlocked. Fortunately he didn't have to move to watch the proceedings, as his head was already turned to the side. The door swung open on a thick metal hinge, and Wash was able to see it was made of solid steel. In the hall he could hear footsteps on the shiny, white floor.

"Number 1020 is awake, sir," a clipped voice said. Wash saw an arm wearing navy clothes gesture inside his cell.

Cell. The word came to him quickly as he realized that was exactly where he was. He was in a cell. He was fairly sure he'd been here before, too, and had already forgotten about it. The person in the hall, he quickly concluded, was not someone he wanted to see. Before he could shout, though, the man stepped into the room.

He seemed a black hole in a sea of light. The man had olive skin and dark hair and eyes. His dress was Alliance blue and seemed to repel the light. He wore a little hat with his rank on it and stood with his hands behind his back, observing Wash.

"You're finally awake," he stated. His voice was smooth but unconcerned.

After a second, Wash's vision went cross-eyed, and the man blurred out of focus. He tightly shut them and tried to make the world stop spinning. "Wish I weren't," he groaned. He wondered if he looked as bad as he sounded. "Where am I?"

"We'll be happy to answer your questions just as soon as you finish answering ours," the man stated. He pulled his hands out from behind him and gestured to someone out in the hall. In a heartbeat two other men entered the room. They were dressed identical to the man, but with lower rank signets.

One grabbed Wash by his arms and hauled him into a sitting position. The other man took out a penlight and flashed it in Wash's eyes. The repetitive motion caused Wash to sneeze, which sent a horrible, jarring pain ripping through his chest. "Seems to be holding this time, sir," the doctor said and straightened up.

Wash's arms were dead at his side, but he wanted to raise them to touch his chest. He felt hollow and empty, like he'd been cut off below the neck. He wanted to touch with his fingers to see if he was even still all there, but they wouldn't respond to him. "What do you want with me?" he croaked.

"Everything," the man said with a face that Wash instantly feared.

"Where is my wife?" he demanded, his eyes suddenly narrowing as he glared at the man. "Where are the others?"

He was rewarded with only laughter. "Doesn't matter where they are," the man replied. "They aren't here. And they're not coming for you, ever." He straightened out again and nodded to the two other men still standing in the room. "Good, send him to processing."

Before Wash could protest, the two men hauled him to his uncooperative feet. He tried to protest as they dragged him out of the room, but the fight had been torn out of him; although his mind was active, the rest of his body was still unresponsive. He couldn't seem to find the will to resist, even though he was angry and wanted to.

He was left in a large, metal chair for what felt like hours. During this time, some of his motor functions returned. It was enough to make him realize he was hungry and that he had to use the bathroom. It wasn't enough to get him to actually rise to his feet to do anything about it. He was able to wiggle his fingers and toes, though, which amused him far more than it ought to have.

Looking down, he was unpleased to see that he was dressed in the crisp, white linen uniform of a prisoner. His nails were long and yellow in comparison to the material, and they disgusted him; they were a stranger's hands, not his. His feet were bare and in the same condition, and he tried dragging his toes along the tile floor to break the nails. During this, a door behind him opened. It had the clanging, metallic sound of a steel door, too, which Wash was beginning to suspect all the doors in the facility were made from.

"Good morning, Number 1020." The voice belonged to the same man who had come to him earlier. "I'm Dr. Walker, and I have been assigned to you. I don't have time to waste, so let's get directly to the point." This was all said before he came into view. When Wash could see him, he found the man still in his Alliance uniform, but his eyes seemed changed; they were more aggressive-looking now.

" Qin wode pigu," Wash spat darkly.

Dr. Walker smirked and nodded. "Watch your language, 1020," he stated calmly. "You won't like me when I'm angry."

"Why can't I move?" Wash demanded. He wriggled his fingers ineffectually from where his arms lay on the steel chair's armrests.

Dr. Walker's smirk just deepened, somehow growing more sinister. "Tell me everything you know about River Tam," he stated without preamble.

"Qu di yu!" Wash empathetically retorted and then spat far enough that it didn't all land on his shirt.

Dr. Walker just nodded in agreement. "Oh, I'm sure, when the time comes, I will," he agreed. Then he took a step closer. "But you're already there."

The following day was much the same; Dr. Walker asked him questions about River, and Wash shouted various obscenities at him. By the third day, his motor skills had returned enough that they had to physically restrain him in the chair. It occurred to him then that they hadn't been drugging him to keep him subdued: somehow he had lost his ability to move and they had, seemingly, restored it. The thought didn't endear him to Dr. Walker or any of them, though.

A week after he had awoken was when he first saw Shepherd Book. It had been only for a moment while he was being led down the hall one way. He had just barely glimpsed Book's profile as two orderlies had led him off in another direction. He had shouted Book's name loudly but had been unable to turn to see if Book had heard him. There had been no reply, at least.

The vision fueled him on, though. It meant that he wasn't alone in the facility: the others were with him. He knew he wasn't very good at plotting and planning, but the others were. Zoe and Mal were very good at plotting and planning. If they were both trapped in this place with him, they'd break out and free him. If he really tried to plot anything on his own, he'd probably screw up their plans. All he needed to do was keep his mouth closed about River and sit tight. He could do that.

The other questions they asked, the ones not about River, were harder to resist. He spoke candidly about his time at the flight academy. He supplied them with endlessly boring vignettes of college life on Orion and his romantic exploits. The stories served as much to keep him as sane and grounded as it did to please them for information they wanted.

This posed problems for him, though. He was able to recall the name of every single person he had slept with in college, or had wanted to sleep with in college, but for some reason he couldn't remember his mother's name. He also couldn't remember if he had any siblings. He had memories of himself as a child, but he didn't know if the children he was interacting with in his memories were related to him or not. The gap of knowledge infuriated him as much as it did Dr. Walker.

There were other, larger gaps of memory missing, too. He had no idea how he'd gotten to this place. He couldn't even remember much leading up to it. His last clear memory was taking off from Persephone after Mal had negotiated a simple job with Badger for them to run on Fanty and Mingo's behalf. They were knocking over a storage hold or something. He remembered those details explicitly but not whether or not they'd pulled the mission off successfully.

He knew that Book hadn't been on Serenity when they'd started the mission and that they hadn't been anywhere near Haven. That fact haunted him. From time to time he caught glimpses of other prisoners, and he wondered if perhaps his vision hadn't just betrayed him; it blurred and faded in and out from time to time. He had only caught sight of Book for a brief second. Perhaps, in his desires to not be alone, he had made another man look like the Shepherd?

A month after his arrival, that fear was dispelled. He was awoken earlier than usual by his guard and dragged out into the hall. Instead of traveling the path to the interrogation chamber, however, he was led in the opposite direction. Two huge white steel doors opened before him, and he found himself in a large, open courtyard. There was no sky, but the vaulted ceiling gave the room the impression of being outside.

Standing in the open area were about twenty other men, all who looked like they'd been picked up starving from the streets. They had straggly hair and beards, long yellowed fingernails, and dead, haunted gazes in their eyes; some of them looked further gone than others. Wash knew without having to see a mirror that he looked as badly as they did.

That didn't matter, though. It took him only a few seconds to scan the crowd before his eyes landed on Book. The man looked horrible: far older than his years. He was hunched over and raggedly thin. He appeared eighty and moved like he was a hundred-twenty. Nevertheless, it was clearly Book.

No one else in the crowd looked familiar to Wash, which slightly depressed him. If Mal and the others had been captured, this sort of group setting would be the perfect time for him to plan his escape attack. He thought about a way to get Book's attention, but before he could, a doctor walked out and started belting out orders.

"In a line," she shouted. "Line up by your numbers!"

It was only then that Wash realized that on the back of each of the men's uniforms was their prison number. He had never been allowed to take off his uniform except to use the bathroom, so he'd never seen the back of his shirt. The men began shuffling around and Wash scanned digits, looking for where he'd fit.

Book was making his way over to him, and as soon as Wash realized it, he hurried to him, clasped his hands, and tried to pull him upright. A very quick glance showed him that Book was 1019. "Shepherd," he breathed eagerly, clutching to his frail hand tightly.

Book looked up at him, and after several seconds his eyes resolved into recognition. "They got you, too, my son?" he asked in a miserable voice. "No, no, my boy," he wailed and shook his head. "No." His grip tightened on Wash's but just for a moment.

"You're in front of me," Wash stated and lined Book up according to their numbers. "Where are we?" he asked in a whisper.

Book shook his head. "If we were lucky, this would be hell," he whispered back.

In front of them, the line was finished, and the proceedings began. Two orderlies grabbed the first man, 1009, and stripped him. A third orderly immediately stepped forward and shaved his hair and face clean. He was hosed down, his nails trimmed, and a new suit assigned to him. The process took only two minutes, and the line moved quickly.

"Where are the others?" Wash asked harshly, aware his time to speak was short.

Book shook his head. "Not here, we can hope," he answered with a fragile nod.

"Why don't they come for us?" he demanded and clutched at Book's hand tighter.

Book lifted his eyes to Wash, and the smile he gave looked like it had been cut out of the scorched earth itself. "They don't know we're here."

"But," Wash began to protest, "it's been a month," he added.

Book shook his head wretchedly. "They don't even know we're missing." He turned to look forward, watching the men in front of him as they were shaved.

Wash was silent for a time. He hadn't expected this reaction from Book. He had expected more vitality and hope. He had expected Book would have been relieved to see him and would have started plotting. He had hoped there would be a plan but Book seemed hardly able to talk, let alone walk. "What do they want from us?" Wash whispered fearfully.

Book turned to look at him, and his eyes were dark and unfathomable. "Information," he answered dryly. "Don't tell them anything."

"We have to get out of here. Now," Wash stated pointedly. "We have to escape."

Book actually laughed; it was a bitter and broken sound. "There's only one way out of here," he stated, "and it's not going to be while you're alive."

The man in front of Book stepped forward to get sheared, and a hint of panic rose in Wash's stomach; his time to talk to Book was fleeting. "What should I do?" he frantically asked the Shepherd.

"Pray to God for deliverance," Book answered with a peaceful tone. "Pray for death."

"I don't want to die," Wash protested weakly.

Book looked over his shoulder at Wash, his gaze intense. "You already have," he stated sorrowfully. Then the two orderlies grabbed him and dragged him forward. Wash stared as they stripped the preacher and shaved him. Naked, he appeared a horrible wreck, nothing more than a mass of skin and scars and bones.

They shuffled him out of the room, and Book didn't even try to look over his shoulder at Wash to say goodbye. They had Wash undressed and half shaved before he even realized he had been dragged forward. The water was ice cold but felt good and shocking against his nerve-deadened body.

He didn't resist; he just stood there while they efficiently cleaned him. It was only at the end when they handed him his new clothes that he looked down and saw the huge, thick purple circular scar on his chest. It was grotesque and bruised and yellowish on the edges. The sight of it was repellant and frightening. Yet, it was part of him, and he couldn't get away from it even though every cell in his body seemed to suddenly want to reject its presence.

He didn't know where it had come from or what purpose it served, but he knew it was not supposed to be there. Seeing it brought horrible, creepy feelings to him, ones he couldn't identify. His finger roughly touched it, and then he pulled his shirt over his head to hide it. They ushered him out of the room and led him back to his cell, but all he could think about was that scar. The blood pounding in his ears suddenly frightened him, and he didn't trust the beating of his heart as it steadily pumped behind that purple scar.

He wasn't sure how he managed to do it, but he held out for another month. He figured if he could do that, he'd get another chance to speak with Book. It would only be ten minutes, but he thought he could at least make some leeway in that amount of time. He needed to at least learn where Book was being held in relation to himself. Then if he ever broke free he could get to Book's cell, too, so they could escape together.

His vague plans for escape and the hope of seeing Book again were really the only things that kept him going. Thoughts of the outside world were too hard to remember. He knew the sky was blue, but he wasn't sure he remembered what that color blue looked like anymore. The Alliance didn't physically torture them, but they wasted them away, anyway. Their minds were going, and their bodies were crippling themselves in response.

He held on to hope, though. Book had been sick when Wash had seen him. He trusted that after Book realized he wasn't alone, he would have come around and realized they needed to help each other. Wash felt deeply that Book would have recovered and come up with a plan for escape when they met again.

When the next washing day arrived, he was excited for the first time since he could remember. He was led back out to the courtyard and made to stand with the other men. His eyes scanned for Book, but he didn't find the man. His spirits didn't plummet, though, until the washing began and Book still hadn't arrived.

A horrible, dull ache gnawed at him as he stared at the number 1018 in front of him. When he was taken and washed again, he turned around and stared at the man behind him. He was number 1022 and didn't react at all to Wash's staring at him.

Wash was back in his cell before he began processing it all. Book was gone, and so was 1021. Book had been 1019, he was 1020 and . . . and 1021 was missing, too. Who had been 1021?

He struggled to remember and knew he ought to, but he couldn't place a face. He just prayed that it hadn't been Zoe. A black despair gripped him, and some part of him deeply feared that had been her. The rest of him wondered what it mattered for, anyway. Book had prayed himself to death, and there was going to be no escape for him.

The next day, when they asked him about River, he told them everything he knew.

Time was impossible to measure. There was no sun, no windows, and no clocks. They didn't even have a lights-out period or a sleeping time. It was always bright and white, and he slept when he was tired. The daily interrogation sessions and the monthly cleaning operations were the only way he even could remotely keep track.

Eventually, though, the interrogations stopped. He was glad, because it was getting hard for him to walk to them. He had no mirror, but the way his legs looked to him, he knew he wasn't doing well. The men he had his monthly washing sessions with weren't any better looking. There were fewer men each time, too. Wash never spoke to any of them; his will to resist had long since been broken.

Day in and day out, he sat in his cell. Whatever information they had wanted from him had already been taken, apparently. They had no more use for him, but clearly he was too important to let go, so they held on to him. There were questions they had always asked him that he had no answers for. They wanted him to tell them about Miranda, but he knew no one by that name.

They wanted more information on Reavers, but what he told them did not satisfy them enough. They had questions on the Blue Sun Corporation as well as genetic and subliminal messages, none of which Wash could answer. They seemed to think he ought to know the answers and he overheard people suggesting that he had a mental block more than once. They apparently had hopes that someday he'd remember. He hoped he would, too, just so they could finally end him.

In the meantime, he rotted in his cell. After ten washing cycles, he got a roommate. It was a shriveled man who might have been twenty or fifty. Wash didn't pay much attention to him. The man seemed as broken and dispirited as he was. They lived together without ever once exchanging words for two more washing cycles.

Wash hadn't been able to keep track very well, but he had counted twelve cycles and figured that roughly constituted an earth-year. He wished himself a silent happy birthday after the twelfth cycle and began to finally pray for death that night.

The thirteen washing cycle came sooner than Wash had expected it to. He didn't count the days, but he was fairly certain his nails weren't as long this time as they had been all the previous times. Nevertheless, he didn't resist. Maybe after a year he had worn out his welcome and was finally going to be eradicated.

It was apparent almost immediately that this trip was going to be different. They didn't take his roommate, for one, and they walked past the doors that opened to the courtyard, hauling him further along the corridor. For the first time since his arrival, he was led into an elevator, and he stared at his gangly, blurred reflection in the polished steel door. He didn't know the old man who stared back at him.

When the elevator opened, Wash was assaulted with a myriad of lights and noise and colors. They were on another level where sunlight poured in through the windows and people worked desk jobs and wore normal clothes. The sights and sounds were so offensive at first that Wash nearly threw up.

They hauled him outside, and there he found several more men in his condition. They were all being loaded into a large, prison transport shuttle. Wash was handcuffed and then steered into line. He didn't resist. He had trouble just walking forward as they loaded; escaping wasn't an option.

Once inside, he sat on a cot while the shuttle took off. He counted people and found there were ten of them. Some of the men he recognized from his washing sessions, but most of them he didn't know. Once the ship was airborne, a strange lull seemed to come over him. He recognized it after a time as the purr of a ship breaking orbit into space. It was a joyous feeling for him, something familiar and comfortable, the first of its kind he'd experienced in over a year.

He turned to the man beside him. "Where are we going?" he asked, but his voice was brittle and sounded like crumbling leaves. The man he spoke to didn't even move.

Across the room, another man in the crisp white prison uniform answered instead. "Funding ran out," he answered quietly. "We didn't die."

"Wanted to," Wash replied and wet his lips, trying to work his voice back into a semblance of normalcy. He wondered how many months had passed before he'd tried to speak to anyone.

"Probably should have," the other man answered. "Don't know where we're going, but I bet it's not a better place than where we were."

Wash's eyes went out of focus, and the man blurred intensely. He leaned back against the wall and let the room spin. "Guess I can wait to die there instead."

He had no idea how long the journey was; he was only aware of it ending. They were led out like cattle into the harsh, desert sun. The ground was red and barren, and not even weeds grew where they stood. Overhead, the sun scorched down, and a planet hung in the sky. Wash squinted at all the color; his eyes ached.

Once they were unloaded, the Alliance officers went back on the ship. There was nothing said to them. They were just unloaded, and then the ship powered back up and rose into the air. It circled once and zoomed off into the horizon, leaving all ten of them stranded on a scrap of dirt.

Nine men sat down in the dust where they were deposited. Wash teetered for a bit and then raised his hand to shield the sun from his eyes as he squinted in the direction the shuttle had flown off.

"Alliance is too cheap to even spare a bullet to kill us," stated the man Wash had spoken to on the ship.

Wash turned to look down at him. "They didn't leave us any water," he said with a hint of surprise in his voice.

"Because they want us to die of our own accord, so it's not on their consciences," the other man replied gruffly. He sighed and lay down, stretching out on his back. "Hate to play into their hands, but I think that's what I'm gonna do. Die right here."

Wash lowered his hand from his eyes. "I don't want to die," he stated. His legs gave out from under him against his own accord, and he collapsed to the ground. He sat there for a moment, and then his hand went out and scooped up a handful of red dirt. He smeared it into his white linens. "I want to live."

He spent the night rubbing dirt into his pants, and by morning they had turned a muddy red. It wasn't uniform or clean, but wearing a color other than the stark white pleased him greatly. He slept when the sun came up and only woke near noon when another transport came in. The fleeting hope that this ship would have food and supplies for them was quickly dashed as the Alliance officers marched off another ten white-clothed prisoners, all listless and empty-eyed.

The layover was short and fast, and the transport was taking off just as quickly as the first one had. When the dust resettled, there were now twice as many hungry, helpless men on the barren moon as before. Wash noticed, as the other men walked around trying to orient themselves, that two of the men who had arrived with him from the previous night had already died. One was the man he'd tried speak to on the transport.

By evening, they were all ravenous. They had gone two days without food, and it seemed like no one was coming to provide for them. Number 0987, the man who had replied to Wash on the transport, recruited two other men from the new arrivals, and they set off in the direction the ships had flown off, promising to return if they found a town or food or other provisions.

Wash watched them go and would have followed if his body had supported him. He found that if he stood or walked for more than ten minutes, however, his body would give out, and he'd collapse. He was in far worse shape than the three who had set out and knew his walking gait would have slowed them down, anyway. He had no desire to die, but it seemed they would all starve to death soon if they didn't do something.

Four more men had died by noon the next day when the prisoner transport arrived. Incensed, Wash clamored to his feet and demanded the Alliance officers provide them with food and water. He was easily shoved away, falling onto his backside, ignored. The Alliance officers loaded up the six dead men but said nothing.

The prisoners they unloaded this time wore slate blue. Their eyes weren't glassy, nor were their bodies fragile from atrophy. They were hardened criminals with unpleasant looking scars and violent tempers. They each had small packs loaded with their person effects as well-a luxury none of the other prisoners had had.

For the most part, the men Wash had arrived with didn't move or even acknowledge the new arrivals. They were dead and dying and didn't seem to care anymore. Wash, however, got back to his feet. He was dehydrated and hungry and very weak, but he felt he had to try. The prison transport ship flew off, and he soon found himself surrounded by twenty angry criminals, all of whom seemed extremely unhappy to be where they were.

"What's this?" one of the men asked. He directed his attention to Wash, as he was the only man standing who had been there prior to their arrival.

"The place where men go to die," Wash stated in his broken, dusty voice.

"Ain't planning on dying," the man replied. "Where's the warden?"

"Don't have one," Wash answered dustily. "What you see is all there is." He gestured lamely and felt his legs starting to tremble; he was going to fall over soon.

"No warden?" the man asked. "You mean we're free?"

Wash managed a laugh and was surprised by it; he hadn't laughed in what felt like a lifetime. "If you consider starving to death to be freedom, then yes, you're free now. Congratulations."

The new arrivals all looked around them, taking in their bleak surroundings and the barrenness of the land. "There's no food?" one of them asked.

Wash gestured again. "Do you see any?"

The first man studied Wash carefully, taking in his thin frame and gaunt face. "How long you been out here?"

Wash stumbled a little and sat down as his legs finally gave out. "Four days, I think." He honestly didn't remember, nor did he particularly care.

A faint murmur went up among the new arrivals. "Without food or water?" the first man asked in disbelief, staring down at him skeptically.

Wash nodded. "Six have already died."

That evening was different than the previous ones had been. The criminals weren't passive like the others had been. They plotted and schemed and did not want to die out on this barren moon. After another of the men Wash had arrived with just fell over and died, a flurry of activity began.

Wash watched dully. His senses were no longer sharpened. His vision had been blurring on and off for months, but it seemed to have finally settled into a blurry state. He could think of little else beside how hungry and thirsty he was. Things glinted around him like little slivers of metal in the moonlight, but he paid them little mind. Voices murmured around him, but he ignored them as best he could.

It wasn't until he heard, "We'll have to kill the pilot," that he came to.

"What?" he asked, staggering to his feet with a sudden, irrational fear for his life.

A group of the criminals had gathered in a small circle not far from him, and they were scheming. To his surprise, Wash realized that most of them held some sort of handmade weapon—knives made from carefully pressed, ration pack tinfoil and sharpened bits of cracked leather. They looked up at him as he stood. Their expression proved to him that they thought he was delirious; maybe he was.

"Transport comes tomorrow," one of them explained. "We're gonna kill the Alliance on it and take over th'ship."

"Get us off this rock," one of the other men said.

Wash tried to sort this out in his mind so it would make sense. He finally asked, "You're going to kill the pilot?"

The men nodded. "We'll have to. Can't risk him flying us back to prison or crashing the ship or something."

Wash's eyes widened as he looked at the blurry figures before him. He shook his head and blinked fiercely until they started to resolve into faces. "Can any of you actually fly a transport vessel?"

"Danes thinks he can," one man said, gesturing to whom Wash assumed was Danes. The man was burly and huge and seemed rather oafish.

"Stole shuttles back when I was a boy. How hard can it be?" he asked. His voice was low and gravelly.

Wash stared incredulously at them all. There was a host of things he wanted to say but he couldn't seem to phrase them. Flying shuttles wasn't the least bit like flying a transport vessel. If these guys managed to actually hijack the transport ship, they'd probably get a hundred yards away before they crashed and exploded. He wanted to tell them this, but all that he managed to blurt out was, "I graduated from the Orion Flight Academy!"

They fed and watered him with what they had in their personal packs. It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd had in days, and it did well to revive him. By noon the following day, their plan of action was set. Wash wasn't to fight; he was too important to lose. The plan itself was crude—when one man gave the signal, all the other men would attack.

Wash didn't have high hopes for its success, so when they managed to slit the throats of all the Alliance officers and storm the ship, he was duly impressed. The new arrivals immediately caught on to what was happening, and with their added help, they were able to overpower the guards and take command of the vessel by sheer volume.

Those who wanted to come were loaded up. They spent several minutes raiding the food and water provisions, of which Wash got a fair share before he was steered into the cockpit to earn his worth.

He settled down in the pilot's chair and scanned the controls. It felt like he'd only ever flown ships in a past life, yet when he put his hand on the yoke, things seemed to come back to him automatically. His other hand began flipping switches, and the ship made noises that sounded promising—it was powering to life.

The prisoners crowded in the cockpit behind him and watched with baited breath as Wash worked out the sequences, and the roar of approval when he lifted the ship off the ground did much to revive his spirits. The feeling of soaring through the air in a ship was as life-giving to him as sucking water was after four days without it.

He was free. After over a year trapped in a strange medical facility and praying nightly for death, he was finally free.

They landed the ship in a remote area on a nearby planet. Towns were scattered around their location, and the plan was that several groups of men would set off in different directions to each of the towns—they'd have better chances that way and would look less suspicious. Wash considered staying with the ship and trying to find Serenity using its navigation system, but he knew that was a foolish idea. If he were captured again, he wouldn't get a second chance to escape.

Instead, they stripped the ship. About twenty men had escaped along with him, most of them with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and their few items in their bags. The things on the ship, if sold into the black market, might provide them with enough money to start a new life. Wash was given a fair cut of the items on the ship, as he had been instrumental to their escape and had been the only man from the medical prisoners to reach freedom.

Wash packed his things into an Alliance duffel bag and exchanged his white prison shirt for the gray, tank-style undershirt of an Alliance uniform. It didn't go well with his red stained pants, but it didn't have 1020 emblazoned on the back of it, either.

His bag was filled with a few ration packets, water, and several electronic items that most of the other prisoners didn't know were worth anything. It wasn't much, not by a long shot, but he hoped it would get him off the planet. His goal was to eventually reach Persephone City.

Standing in front of the ship, he inspected the horizon where he was supposed to be headed. He hoped their scans had been right, because he saw no sign of a town beyond him and didn't think he could walk too long to find it. Many of the other prisoners had already started off in separate directions, though, and there was no chance he was going to get to come back and check; the remains of the ship had been rigged to self destruct in two hours time. They wanted no clues left behind for the Alliance.

The two men heading to the same town as Wash came up beside him and nodded that they were ready to go. They started off, walking easily and eagerly towards their freedom. Wash sighed heavily and cast his eyes up towards the brilliant, blue sky, memorizing the color. He'd come this far already; he wasn't going to let a little walking keep him from the rest of his life. He hoisted his pack over his back and started after them.