Disclaimer: I don't own Mal, who is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon. Just having a bit of fun with him.
Author's note: This story was for the "Fairy Tale" challenge. That was actually quite a while ago, but, lazy bum that I am, I haven't uploaded the story until now. Thanks so much to shadowmoon1, Neroli, and Aya Rose for reviewing. It's always good to hear your writing is being enjoyed.
Once upon a time there lived a boy with his mother on a farm. The boy had no father—whether he was dead or had been cursed by evil witches or had simply vanished like the shoemaker's elves, his mother never said. Whenever he asked, she would tell the boy stories.
She told him the story of Hansel and Gretel one day. Saddened after hearing it, he asked his mother why the father would leave his children alone in the woods.
His mother pressed her lips together until they were almost white, looking strangely angry. In a cold, quavering voice, she said to him, "Everyone gets left behind sooner or later. You don't know where or who's gonna do it, but it happens to everyone."
The boy was frightened and fascinated by this prospect, but he knew his mother would never abandon him. Before long he forgot the whole thing, and after a while, he stopped asking about his father.
When the boy grew up, he was filled with a desire to go on a quest of his own, rescue his own princess and have his own happily ever after. When the Independent army came around, looking for volunteers to fight the Alliance, the boy quickly joined them, imagining himself as a knight in shining armor, a hero saving freedom and justice from the maw of the beast.
He was shocked to learn that war was nothing like the stories he'd been told as a boy. The people dying weren't the wicked stepmothers or malevolent trolls, they were the soldiers he'd eaten with, trained with, sat around the fire and told stories with. The dragons were huge starships and laser cannons; no matter how hard a man tried, it wasn't the kind of battle you emerged from as a hero.
Gradually, the soldier came to understand how wars like this were survived. He hardened himself to the dead but tied himself even closer to the ones who lived. He learned to laugh to keep himself from crying, and he learned to swallow his fear before it could sink in and tear him apart. He left his own trail of breadcrumbs to lead him away from the battlefield.
But no trail of breadcrumbs could lead him away from Serenity Valley. It was like he'd always imagined Hell being—full of fire and death and mud, full of screams and the shrill whine of lasers powering up, full of unhappy endings. The soldier clung to hope, telling himself that his army, his band of brothers, would never leave him behind. All he had to do was hold on.
He watched them fly away with tears in his eyes and muttered under his breath, "Well, Momma said it happens to everyone." He let out a cry, just one, and went to man his laser cannon.
He imagined the dead were the only ones on that battlefield who lived happily ever after. Everyone else was still lost in the woods.