I can't resist an epilogue. I just can't.

Final confession – I slipped a lot of literary and pop culture references into each chapter. I'd challenge you all to find them, but… I forgot about half of them. Oops. If any of you caught them, then kudos to you!

"Gorram it, Doc, I said you can just leave it be!"

"If I don't attend to these stitches, they'll impede your ability to heal."

"So Mal's gotta get sewn up again? Ruttin' cool!"

"Just because you got us out does not mean I won't shoot you, Jayne."

"Wanna hold my hand, Cap'n?"

"Thanks, Kaylee, but I'm fine if – gorram it! Give a man some warning 'fore you stick him full of needles."

I ignored the circus and kept writing. Book peered at the words on the page. "What are you writing, child?" Shepherd Book has a voice like smooth pebble stones.

I am growing rather attached to allegories and similes.

"It's a fairy tale about a princess." I held up this journal so that he could see. "She was trapped in the tower by blue demons until her handsome prince rescued her. Only her handsome prince took his sweet time, so the demons got a lot of screaming out of her."

The Shepherd didn't look too comfortable about that, but he nodded and went to make sure Simon didn't break the Hippocratic oath.

Mal can make anybody mad if you give him an hour.

Let's see… is there anything I'm forgetting?

Inara got Mal's gun and shot Durran. Saffron's mighty pissed about that. It's funny – when people are angry, usually they run hot, but Inara ran cold; ice that burns.

"Come near my girl again and I will make half the men in the 'Verse widowers." Inara's eyes snapped like a whip cracking.

Ooh, that is a good description. I am getting better at this.

Inara kept the gun on Saffron while Jayne and Zoe loaded Mal onto the ship. I do hope no one makes the mistake of leaving those two alone, because they will surely kill each other, and then Mal will spiral into depression instead of just hovering on the edge of it, and I have enough trouble taking care of this crew as it is.

They need so much looking after.

"I'm sorry but if you move one more time I will put you under."

Everyone's been shooed out of the room by Inara. She's standing on one side while Simon works on the other, getting the bullet out of Mal. Her hand is resting mightily close to Mal's, but they aren't quite touching. Just… sharing space.

Silence reigns for three point eight seconds, but time is relative. Must look into that.

"Heard you protected River in there." Simon's words are stiff, starched and pressed before he slips them on. This is not easy. "She would've been taken. Sent back… I…"

I am daring to hope. This is more exciting than a fair! Or flying elephants!

"Just stitch me up proper, Tam, and we'll call it even."

"Will do."

"…She ain't too bad, you know. Not as bad as you think." Mal tries to nod, but it doesn't quite work out while he's stretched out like that. "Saved us, more'n we saved her."

"Well, thank you anyway."

Mal is like a wounded animal. Slink back to the cave, lick your wounds, don't let anyone see. Pain is earned. Wounds are deserved. Take care of yourself. He won't acknowledge it, but he thinks he deserves the pain, just a little. The blotted part of his soul thinks so. But fussing? That ain't right. Just slap on a bandage and get back in the fields, boy.

But he lies there, and doesn't complain for the rest of the time it takes for Simon to sew him up. And when they look at each other, their eyes aren't as hard. And while it might not seem much to Simon, Tam is better than Doc.

Baby steps, I suppose. Battle is won, but not the war. We must soldier on. They'll get there. Hopefully before Kaylee loses patience.

::::::::::::::::::::::

Simon insisted on Mal staying the night in the infirmary, so that's why he's still lying there. Which is why Inara is still there talking with him, and why I am crouching at the top of the stairs trying not to write too loudly.

Mal has powerful strong hearing.

"Ever shot a man before?"

"No."

There are long pauses between each exchange, like they've spent all their courage and have to brew more.

"I'm s… it shouldn't have come to that. Shouldnt've gotten you involved in the first place."

"Would you put that in writing? I do believe this is the first time you've apologized to me."

"Well, first time you could hear it."

This is most cumbersome. I have to cease writing each time they stop talking lest they hear me. Book has started me on Shakespeare. It is bleeding into my vocabulary.

Who thought up the word 'lest', anyhow?

"That girl means a lot to you, don't she?"

"She's sweet. And lost. And, frankly, growing on me. Everyone here is."

For a moment I'm tempted to think Mal has stopped breathing, but then his breath lets out in a gust and he finds his words.

"You saying that y… that you're reconsidering?"

"I have reconsidered."

"I see."

"Do you?"

I ain't the one that turned tail to run. Mal holds his tongue. Smart.

"You should rest."

Mal snatches her wrist so smoothly it looks slow. Inara could pull her hand away if she wanted with how loose and gentle he holds it.

"You ain't leavin' it at that, 'Nara. You always give me questions. Time I got an answer."

"What answer do you want?"

"River told me that you didn't kiss Saffron. So tell me this – how'd you get knocked out?"

It's the softest of touches, like a paintbrush on canvas or kiss of wind. There and gone, a smell you identify only after it's wafted past you. The lightest of kisses, not at all like the one she gave him when she found him in his bunk, thinking him dead. That was failure, a promise lost. This is a promise born.

"You have to rest."

She slips away and Mal lets her, because there will be more. More time, more kisses, more answers. More…

::::::::::::::::::::::

Forgive me for the sudden break in my writing. I had to scurry up the steps and dash into my bunk so that Inara would not catch me as she came up the stairs. I think she knows I was watching, though. But I will wait for her to say something, in case I am merely being paranoid.

Philosophers debate the deepest questions, but it seems to me that the questions are simple ones. They only become complicated when you look at them too closely. What is life? Breathing, of course, your blood pumping, lungs working… consciousness. Is there a God? Well, somebody's out to get me.

What is happiness?

Happiness is watching two cats, haunches raised, circling and circling, sit down and eat a meal in the same room without snarling once. Happiness is knowing the boy is not entirely lost in the man. Happiness is seeing that a marriage is a journey, and the foot is raised for the next step. Happiness is playing tag through the bowels of a ship, screaming to hear your voice ricochet from one wall to another, bouncing as erratically as you breathe because you're laughing too hard. Happiness is the smile on the Shepherd's face because you listened to the hour lecture Sunday morning even though you wanted to fall asleep. Happiness is a glimmer in the darkness, the light from the bottom of the well.

Happiness is fluid. It changes, just as our beliefs and missions and dreams shift and transform throughout our lives. But right now, happiness is here. It is curled up in my chest, sitting with me in my bunk as I write these words. Happiness has eight names, and one extra that I do not yet know.

I must be sure to write to Saffron and thank her.

::::::::::::::::::::::

Inara is determined to make ladies out of Kaylee and me. Not companions, she insists. She says that if she catches us signing up for the Guild she will get Mal to tan our hides. She teaches us how to wash, and walk properly, and make polite conversation.

Kaylee loves it. I am more reluctant. But Inara is dying to so I play along. Who knows? I might have to pretend to be a lady or a companion on a job that we do. Inara says that we will find these skills useful, especially when we are married. Kaylee blushes and Inara winks and I tell her that I am never getting married.

Mal will not ask Inara to marry him.

Shepherd Book is annoyed but I don't think it matters.

Zoe's stomach is getting real big. Wash is always worried about her, checking that she's okay, and giving her pillows to sit on, and generally driving her crazy. Simon is checking on the baby and I check on her too.

It will be a girl. Simon says it's too early to tell but I know. Zoe likes it when I put my ear to her tummy and listen and I tell her what her daughter is thinking. It's our secret. She says I'm a baby whisperer.

I want to help deliver the baby. It was such fun to watch baby Jonas being born. I want to see it happen again.

Jayne is the same as ever.

Saffron will be back, causing trouble. I've seen it.

Kaylee and Simon have lots of sex in the engine room. I have not watched since the first time. I learned everything that I need to know. Now Simon buys her presents all of the time. He buys me presents too so that I don't feel left out.

I do not feel left out, but I don't say so because I like presents.

Shepherd Book is still not satisfied with himself, but he is content for now.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we are happy.

Of course, this means that something is going to happen. Maybe the gorram buffer panel will fall off of the ship for no gorram reason.

::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was meditating. I'm getting very good at it, on focusing on nothing until I see everything. Usually it helps me to remember what is from the Academy and what is from before, what I used to know and what I never really knew but they tried to make me think I know. It helps to banish the voices in my head.

Today was different.

Perhaps it was because everything was peaceful now that we are finished with the Reavers and Durran and Saffron's games. I don't know. I saw so many things… things that have not happened. Images that floated in front of my mind, pictures that I could sense and feel rather than see.

A girl with caramel skin and chocolate eyes, asking Zoe about her father…

Shepherd Book begging Mal to believe in something…

A dark man with a light sword, killing people by making them kill themselves…

Mal in bed, holding Inara, but Inara is gone and it is only a shell…

A woman who is not a woman, speaking the words of a dead man…

Simon with a hand on Kaylee's rounded belly, looking happier than I have ever seen him…

My own face reflected in the glass of the cockpit as I sit with Mal, looking out into the black as we prepare to fly….

Mal's words echoing in my head…

It ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Love. You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down; tell you she's hurting 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.

And the whispers and hisses in my head seem to hear him, because they become louder and louder and merge into one word, one crying, wailing scream, and I know what they have been trying to tell me for so long. I don't know what it means, or what we have to do, but I know what they want me to hear.

I jumped up and raced into Simon's room. He and Kaylee weren't wearing any shirts and they didn't seem very prepared to receive any visitors but I couldn't wait. When I told them, they calmed down and understood why I was in such a hurry. They know how long I've waited to understand the whispers. So I told them what the whispers told me.

The whispers told me Miranda.

Hee hee hee. I'm going to the special hell for that. Hee hee hee…

I must admit that I am exhausted. Drained. Worn out. Wrung dry. Tired. Out of gas. This is the most difficult story that I have ever written. To all of you, with your kind words and encouragement and your stupid, ridiculous belief in me… thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You carried me when I couldn't crawl, and I'd do the same for any of you. Thank you!