Author's Note

I swear I haven't abandoned my other stories, but I owe my best friend a Christmas/Hanukkah gift and this is it. I decided to post it here as a sort of apology for leaving everything else hanging for so long. It has no relation to my other Firefly story.

At least a little knowledge of the plot of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is recommended. Mostly follows canon, but is AU in that Wash was not killed on Mr. Universe's moon, and that Kaylee and Simon did not become a couple at the end of Serenity. Word of caution: Contains descriptions of past war and injuries.

I may have messed up the Chinese, but try to bear with me. Translations are here:

Fei hua - Rubbish

Baobei - Sweetheart/Baby

Ai ya - Damn

Ni men dou shi shagua - Idiots. All of you.

Chapter One - The Operative's Ghost

The Operative was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. The capture that had recorded his death and those of his shipmates was discovered, along with their mostly-eaten bodies, by a rare Alliance patrol out in the border planets. And although it may fairly be said that the word of an Alliance patrol is not always worth much, in this case they did not lie. The Operative was, and had been for years, as dead as a pack of Reavers can make a man. And as all Rim folk know, that is pretty gorram dead.

Malcolm Reynolds knew he was dead. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? The Alliance had flashed the information across every news bulletin, to show all their viewers the fate of those who trusted or stood with rebels. Not that it was doing much to quash the New Independents, but regardless, Mal had seen the gruesome pictures on the Cortex. 'Course, one couldn't say he was dreadfully cut up by the sad event, seeing as he shrugged it off and continued with his plan to drop off stolen goods — in truth, honoring the day with an undoubted bargain.

There were other faces, of other dead, that haunted him far more. If he spent a scrap of grief on the Operative, he might get no sleep without dark dreams. Old dreams, of rosemary and bullets in kneecaps and an urge to believe in anything. Newer dreams, of rare smiles and a loose pink dress and a gun that found its mark with mathematical precision. The Operative and his talk of better worlds had shrunk to barely a blip on Mal's radar screen.

"God rest ye merry gentlemen, may nothing you dismay…"

Mal gave a wordless snarl and resisted the urge to throw his screwdriver across the room. It weren't as if the walls of his house needed any more dents. But he'd get Kaylee for this. How she'd managed to program his screen so that Christmas carols played whenever someone waved him, he didn't know. No more had he been able to discover how to fix the thing. His old mechanic knew what she was doing.

"Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day…"

Not that anyone had waved him much, lately. When he was forced to walk towards what passed for civilization nearby, he glared at the dirt road, argued for lower prices on everything from nails to auto-locks to eggs, and snapped at anyone who smiled. None of the out-of-work folks called on him for a credit or two, no settler ever asked him when the next ship to Jiangyin would be here, no passing-through company head ever inquired of him where to find a decent Companion. Certainly few came around to his small house anymore, not even to try and salvage any parts from the now-grounded Firefly back behind. Probably something about the 'Trespassers Will Be Shot' sign on the fence, along with the addendum 'Don't Even Think About It' scrawled beneath.

"To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray…"

But what did Mal care? It was the very thing he liked, now — to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.

"Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy…"

If he didn't answer the wave, the gadget Kaylee had stuck in there on her last visit would just keep singing, and most likely get twice as loud. Mal tossed his screwdriver back in the box, stomped into his cluttered living room, and punched the buttons that would patch him through to whoever was (unwisely) trying to contact him.

Wash's cheery, if pale, face appeared on the screen. "Hey, Mal. So what's this I've heard about you leading the local children's choir and growing a big garden full of daisies?"

Mal snorted. "I hope you didn't buy any stocks from whoever told you that."

"Oh, I don't speculate," Wash assured him. "I'm saving all my nonexistent credits for our currently nonexistent heat generator. You know, I think our local electrician wants to murder us. I'd sleep with one eye open to guard our backs, but Zoe says that makes my face look weird."

"Your heat's not on?"

Wash shrugged. "The winters here are pretty mild. We'll be alright. I've got faith."

"Really? And where's faith gotten you so far? Stranded on that backwards rock, stuck in your house all day while Zoe strikes deals with—"

"Don't you put blame on Zoe, Mal. She does what she has to so the other people on this backwards rock don't starve to death."

"Right, then." Mal made himself busy righting an overturned chair. "If that's your story, you go ahead and stick to it. 'Long as it makes you feel better and all."

"Look, as delightful and charming as these little fights are, that's not why I waved." Wash suddenly winced, going even whiter.

Abandoning the chair endeavor, Mal hurried back to the screen. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Wash rubbed his stump of a right leg, gone below the knee. "Just… infections flared up in the last few days."

"I thought that doctor you pulled in said they were gone."

"Sadly, they don't teach omnipotence in medical school. If he went to medical school. I'm starting to have my doubts about that."

"Hard to find anyone schooled in anything out where you are."

"True enough. And count on those Reavers to keep up their nastiness even after being sliced and diced by our own personal River, may she rest in peace." Wash sighed. "I guess we just really wanted the infections to be gone, but we probably should have listened to Simon when he told us it wasn't likely. Speaking of whom, you should tell him to, you know, sleep. Occasionally. In the spirit of Christmas and all."

Mal tapped his foot. "Tell him when? I don't see him. Why would I?"

"Oh, right." Wash nodded emphatically. "I remember. It was an accident that you handed over a bundle of credits the size of my head to get Serenity hauled to that particular planet. And it was a total and complete coincidence that Simon was helping run that hospital four miles away from the house you are inadvertently renting right now."

"It's out of Alliance sight," Mal snapped.

"Or it was, before that ship full of injured Unification veterans decided your town was a nice, fun place to be. Mal, you know you'd have cut out of there faster than Jayne confronted with a posse of nuns if it hadn't been for—"

"Not something I'm mighty interested in discussing."

"Fine. But listen. I know how you feel about this, but Zoe—"

There was a loud thump from Mal's porch. He rose, hand on his gun. Normally, he'd have relied on his lock to keep anyone out, but it had broken a week ago — he'd known all along the town's locksmith had overcharged him for the thing — and it was just possible there were a few daring thieves left. "Hold on. There's someone—"

The door swung open with a bang, and Kaylee burst in. "Merry Christmas, Captain! It's shiny to see you!"

Mal shoved his gun back in its holster. "Fei hua."

She had so heated herself with rapid walking in the fog and frost that she was all in a glow, her eyes sparkling and breath coming in clouds. And behind her came a smiling Inara, snowflakes caught in her black curls, blowing on her hands and stamping her feet to warm them.

"Christmas, fei hua?" Kaylee repeated, pulling off her pink knitted hat. "You don't mean that."

"I do." Mal dragged over the newly-righted chair over and dropped into it. "Merry Christmas, you say. What right have you to be merry? Hell, what reason have you to be merry? Going moonstruck over your bedding down while the 'verse falls to pieces."

"Come, then," returned Inara gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? No one can accuse you of, as you so poetically say, going moonstruck over bedding down with anyone."

Having no real answer to that, Mal had to be content with rolling his eyes. "Fei hua."

"Don't be cross, Captain!" Kaylee grabbed a crate and sat on it.

"What else can I be, when I live in a 'verse of idiots like this?" Mal scowled at the window over their heads. "Merry Christmas? To hell with merry Christmas. What's Christmas but a time for paying bills without coin, a time for looking at what's past and knowing that what's to come won't hardly be better, a time for reckoning up all the folk you've lost and finding you've met none who can replace 'em?"

"Mal." Inara took a step towards him. "We aren't forgetting River and Book."

"We just don't want to lose no one else," Kaylee added. "'Specially not you. Can't have you vanishin' on us."

"Yeah, listen to them," Wash put in from the screen. "You don't know that what's to come can't have its good points."

"Wash!" Kaylee grinned. "Didn't see you there before. How're the kids?"

"Thriving, naturally. After all, they inherited Zoe's smarts, beauty, gun aim, determination, and killing-with-pinkie abilities. Oh, and my dashing good looks, of course."

"Of course." Kaylee pointed at Mal. "Tell him. Christmas ain't no time to hide away alone."

"I'm in agreement. Still, I think if Mal could work his will, everyone who went about saying 'Merry Christmas' would be boiled in their own plum puddings and buried with stakes of holly through their hearts."

"That's sounding more appealing by the minute." Mal got up, kicked his chair over again, and went to his cupboard to get more screws.

"Come on, Captain."

"Kaylee, you celebrate Christmas your own way, and let me celebrate it in mine."

"Celebrate it?" Inara glanced around at the dingy room, where most of the chairs looked liable to collapse if sat on, and where the light strips were so clogged with dust as to render them pretty much useless. "But you don't celebrate it."

"Let me leave it be, then." Mal threw a few screws into the wrong compartments, just because. "Much good may it do you. Much good has it ever done you."

"There is are many things that do me good, though they may not help me balance my budget." Inara laid a hand on Kaylee's shoulder. "And yes, Christmas is among those. But it's the only time I know of, in all the year, when men and women open their shut-up hearts freely — when they realize that we're all bound on the same journey, that we live and die together, as humans. And therefore, Mal, though it has never added one credit to my bank account, I say that it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say, God bless it!"

Wash applauded, and Mal whipped around to glare at him. "You want me to disconnect you?" He turned back to Inara. "You're quite the powerful speaker, ain't you? They teach you that in Whore Academy?"

Kaylee got up. "Don't be like that, Captain. Say you'll have dinner with us tomorrow. We came 'specially to invite you. Jayne's goin' to be there too, he's comin' all the way from Beylix!"

"Like hell I will."

"But why? Why do you keep—"

"Fine, little Kaylee, answer me this." Mal tossed the screws down on the table. "Why'd you quit shipping out with boats as are good enough for you? Why'd you ground yourself here, doing repair jobs for transporters that wouldn't know decent work if it kicked 'em in the ass, all so you could keep sharing a bed with a woman who's whoring for someone else, often as not?" He jerked his head at Inara. "Why'd you do that?"

"'Cause I fell in love."

"'Cause you fell in love," growled Mal. "About the only thing more ridiculous than a merry Christmas, I'd say."

"Me carin' 'bout 'Nara ain't ridiculous. 'Sides, you ain't said lovin' was silly when—"

"Baobei, just leave it." Inara peered at Mal. "We want nothing of you. We ask nothing of you. Why cannot we be friends?"

Mal turned away. "Have a nice, snowy walk back."

"I'm truly sorry, then." She looked at Kaylee. "But we'll keep our humor to the last, and you may count on that. So, a merry Christmas, Mal!"

"Cut the nice, then. Just have a snowy walk."

"And a happy New Year!" Kaylee pulled her hat back on.

"Mayhap a blizzard walk."

Inara took her gloves from her pocket. "Have a lovely holiday, Wash. Tell Zoe and your children we hope to come to visit you sometime."

"You'll be welcome. Tell Jayne merry Christmas. Oh, and if you can, try and somehow convey my utter shock that he's still alive without us to do public relations for him."

"I'll do my best." Inara winked, and she and Kaylee vanished out the door.

"And there's you." Mal walked back to the wave screen. "Arm and leg half torn off by Reavers, raising three lunatic kids out near the Rim, talking about a merry Christmas. Mayhap I should get the Alliance to haul me off to some nice, padded cell, 'cause you've all gone just as brain-soft here."

"My brain is very soft," Wash agreed solemnly. "Soft and fluffy and sweet. Like a marshmallow. Well, it's just as Jayne says. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and then while wrath is looking the other way, you elbow it real hard in the jaw."

"Jayne would say that."

"Listen, though. I want you to talk with Zoe."

Mal glowered at the row of switches just above the image of Wash's face. "'Cause that went so well last time. We're done. Might've thought you'd be right pleased. Weren't you always keen on her not taking orders from me?"

"I'm not happy about anything that makes Zoe as sad as this. She misses you, Mal. She doesn't need another husband, I've got enough commitment in my big toe to get us through the next fifty years. But she needs someone who knows about being a soldier." Wash paused. "Someone who went through that war with her. I can wake her up from the nightmares, but I wasn't there for the real thing. It'd mean more than you know if you'd wave her once in awhile. Or even just send a letter."

The sound of a door slamming echoed through from Wash's end of the wave, followed by approximately one hundred and fifty decibels of excited squealing — a level of noise Mal would have attributed to a close-up ship engine before he discovered that kids have superhuman vocal cords. Wash swung himself around in his chair, grinning. "Light of my life, song of my heart, destroyer of my poor, pitiable eardrums. How did your people do hauling that shipment of insulin over the bridge?"

Zoe came into view, balancing two-year-old Lumi on one hip. Despite himself, Mal squinted hard — Lumi was the only Washburne kid he'd never seen in person, and captures weren't no replacement. Fact was, he'd have loved to know how she looked for real. Plus, the wave screen were too small for him to see Rose or Benjamin even a bit, though he could hear them chattering away.

"Truth is, ain't a bridge no more." Zoe kissed the top of Wash's head. "It's a bunch of rotten boards as have gotten ten miles downstream by now, I reckon. Thing cracked right under us afore we got halfway across."

"Ai ya." Wash laid a hand on her arm. "What happened to your people?"

"Tomas got knocked out. Near drowned, too." Zoe ran fingers over a bruise on her own cheekbone. "We think he hit his head on a rock when he fell. He weren't awake yet when I left, family still watching him. Natasha's the one who dragged him to shore, and she's got a whole mess of cuts and bruises now. Chang and I did get most of the insulin afore the river swept it away, and the containers were waterproof, 'course. Still, if Tomas don't make it, his folks will have one hell of a time trying to farm without…" Zoe stopped, eyes alighting on the screen.

"Mal's going to talk to you," Wash said brightly.

"Says who?" Mal demanded.

"Says me. Or I'll put an add on the Cortex telling everyone there's a shiny brand new brothel right exactly where your house is."

"You're a horrible person."

Zoe handed Lumi to someone, either Benjamin or Rose, outside the view of the screen. "Think you all should go see what's in the shed. Helena's been out with her mule all day, hauling Christmas trees, and it's my belief she made a stop here." More hundred-and-fifty-decibel-level squealing ensued, along with the thunder of feet as the Washburne kids shot for the shed. Wash grabbed his cane — despite multiple attempts, they'd never managed to find a prosthetic that worked well for him — and limped off after them.

Slowly, Zoe sat down in his abandoned chair. "How's life treating you, sir?"

Mal knew perfectly well that the 'sir' was more a result of habit than of continued respect, but tried to ignore the fact. "Been worse. Suppose as long as it's life and not death, that's something. You?"

"Taking it one day at a time." Zoe unbuckled her gun belt. "Only way to manage, if truth's told. Wash, he still misses flying and he's in more pain than he likes to admit. Plus, crop failed this year. Folks are starving and they look to me to make it right." She stared at her hands. "I'm mayor here, not God. We're borrowing against next year's rice yield, but if that don't come through…well. We'll manage, we always do."

"Kids okay?"

"Yeah." A mite more joy shown through Zoe's eyes. "You won't believe what Rose did the other day. Gezim — he's a kid she knows — took a tumble on some ice while they was out playing, broke his ankle. She put him in her sled and hauled him back, all by herself. And Ben, he started school this fall. Asked me before he left the first day by when he could expect to know everything, 'cause apparently old Isaiah down in town knows everything and Ben wants to be like him, but without growing a long white beard.Few days ago, it was, Lumi started talking like crazy. She's known some words for awhile, but now she's piping up near constant."

"Good." Mal paused. "Hear tell there's some fighting 'round your area. Ain't none of that touched you, has it?"

"Nah. Mayhap it'll even last. But there's a few hotheads in town who've been snarling at each other 'bout which side has the right of it. A few said they'd go fight for Unification, given the chance, few others said they'd join the New Independents, if it came to that."

"You told 'em, didn't you?" Mal leaned forward. "They ain't forgotten what the Alliance done, have they? Whole planet full of dead—"

"I told 'em, all of 'em, that they'd best put their minds to building something as would last longer than a war." Zoe gripped her gun belt. "Farm, shop, herd, family. All better choices, I said, than shipping out to get yourself shot."

"Zoe, we were those hotheads once, remember? Where'd we be, where'd the 'verse be, if we'd sat at home and let the Alliance run wild over everything we'd worked to build?"

"Don't rightly know where'd we'd be, sir, and if truth's told, neither do you. All I know is, my people work hard to farm every scrap of land they got, to ply any trade they can eke out. You and I, we've seen better than most how war rips a place to shreds. I don't care whose ships drop bombs no more — they're bombs and they kill folk no matter what."

Mal jumped up and kicked his chair away. "So you don't care if peace on your planet is paid for with other folks' blood? The Alliance might give with one hand, but they always take with the other. Serenity fell out of the sky 'cause of 'em. They put on a smiling face while they let thirty million people die, and that's even after all they tried to take from us. You might do well to remember that afore you go humbling yourself to 'em!"

Zoe sprang to her feet, voice quiet and furious. "That weren't no easy choice, so don't you dare act like I buckled right off. But I'd have failed the folk here, had I not. They were dropping like flies, with the fever and coughing up blood, and all I had to do to get doctors brought in was sign that tax contract."

"It puts you at their mercy, and we all know how much that's worth! I'd rather have coughed up blood 'til they put me in the grave than—"

"Every dirt farmer ain't you, and you ain't got the right to demand everyone lie down and die for your cause!"

"It was your cause too!" Mal yelled. "Afore you went and decided to shut your eyes to their wrong in exchange for a few plots of land, on a world as could go the same way as Miranda!"

"Fine." Zoe's voice was icy now. "Go out, get yourself a husband missing an arm, a leg, and his good health, plus two girls and a boy who ask for dinner every day, plus a town that comes to you with their every injury and quarrel. Then try to hang onto the high moral ground."

Mal opened his mouth, ready to shout some more, but just then Rose's head appeared in the wave screen. "Momma, what's going on? We heard folk yelling."

"Nothing, honey." Zoe gave Mal a cold stare. "Think we're done here."

"I'd say the same." Mal reached over and slapped down the nearest switch, cutting the connection.

He tried to calm himself, tamp down on the need to lash out, but the rage still simmered. To be fair, it took only a mite of provocation to bring it to the surface. Finally, Mal rubbed his face, re-sorted the few screws he'd thrown into the wrong sections, and went to the door to finish fixing his lock.

Twenty minutes later, the new mechanism was securely in place. But even the confirmation that no one, but no one, would be able to burst in on him managed to rid Mal of the sting from the earlier visit and the wave. It was times like this he longed, more than usual, for a ship that still functioned. Flying out into the black rid him of itches like this, at least somewhat.

Without Serenity, he was better off alone. Too much rage he couldn't dispel.

Mayhap walking would help. Not near as good, but it weren't nothing, and it didn't look liable to snow hard until evening. Mal dragged his boots out from under the table and yanked them on, buttoned his coat, and marched outside.

Only to run headlong into Simon, who was clutching a smallish box and a bundle of papers covered in plastic, and appeared very much as if he'd crawled through three snowdrifts to get there. "Excellent. I was wondering if I'd have to climb in a window."

"In a — don't you have no sense of self-preservation?" Mal spluttered. "I shoot folk who climb in my windows without asking!"

"I'd have asked." Simon tried to brush the ice off his coat, mostly failing. "And then you'd have yelled at me to mind my own business, and I'd have ignored you and done it anyway." He peered at Mal. "You look like you're not eating enough. Either that or you need vitamin supplements. Maybe both."

"Why are you pulling medic's babble on me?" Mal tried his best to appear as if his yard fence was far more fascinating than Simon's concerned face. Unfortunately, he suspected his acting skills weren't up to a lie that big. "Ain't you got others as need help more?"

"I've spent years perfecting the ancient art of medical babbling. You clearly don't appreciate talent when you see it. And yes, I have others who need help more right now, but if you don't eat well, you won't have energy to fight it if you get sick."

"Don't plan on getting sick."

Simon shook his head. "And Tamara didn't plan on that horse fracturing her skull, Winston didn't plan on getting his hand caught in his ship's engine, and Yoshiko and Evan didn't plan on their twin babies coming down with ear infections. Danger doesn't only come from the wrong end of a gun, Mal."

"Well, you ain't looking top-notch yourself." Mal realized as the words came out of his mouth that they were actually true. Simon's eyes were dark with exhaustion and he was definitely thinner than he should be. "Wash says you ain't sleeping."

"I try. It's just — easier not to." Simon laughed a little, but there was a touch of bitterness in it. "There are nights I have to grab a blanket and lie down near my heat generator, because it rattles. That way I can almost fool myself into thinking I'm still on Serenity, that it's Serenity's engines vibrating. Otherwise I can't sleep at all."

Mal glanced briefly to the side of his house where his ship sat, far too quiet while it should've been humming with power. He weren't about to own up to Simon that he'd done exactly the same thing with his own generator more than once. "Ain't working no more. No point in wishing different." Even though he did.

"Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion,

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean."

Simon quoted the stanza so quietly Mal almost didn't understand the words. But he did, and wished he hadn't for sure. "Wouldn't have thought you'd miss it so much. Ain't you doing well enough for yourself, up at that hospital?"

"In many ways, yes. The funding is better this year, and we have a much more proficient psychiatrist on staff, though she's overworked. But River's vanishing."

Mal raised his eyebrows. "How's she going to vanish more? She's—" He cut himself off. Talking of River might make him snappish — he still harbored guilt for not stopping her when she'd left — but he hoped he had enough decency not to snap at her brother over it.

"Yes, I'm aware she's dead." Simon's face twisted with heartbreak, but so briefly Mal almost missed it. "That's not what I meant. Everything on Serenity just spoke to me of her. I could look at a control switch, or a door handle, or a pair of chopsticks, and remember, oh, River flipped that, or turned that, or used those to eat. It was just a little bit like having her there."

"Well, you could have brought the chopsticks with you." It was a painfully inept response and the knowledge of that only irked Mal more.

Simon didn't offer a response to that, not that it deserved one. "It's funny. Serenity almost felt alive, herself. I didn't realize that until I walked into my room in the house I rent with my colleague. I thought, I need pulmonary stimulators. This place isn't breathing."

"Oh, really? Thought all you needed was to stack a bunch of books against the wall and suddenly your home is your castle." Mal kicked himself, in mental knee joints and ribcage, the moment the words left his mouth. This was awkward enough without alluding to — well, he weren't even going to allude to it in his head.

"That works best when — never mind." Simon dropped his gaze to the papers in his hands. "You talked to Wash, then? How is he?"

Mal shrugged. "Can't say for sure. Them wave screens can make you look on the edge of death if you squint the wrong way. He might be fine."

"I don't think he is. He's managed to stay relatively healthy for so long, but those kinds of infections, from Reavers' spears and knives — I've seen some of them, since." Simon paused. "They don't always kill you, but his body went through a lot of trauma when he lost those limbs—"

"Wash ain't dying." Mal dug his nails into the palm of his hand. "And what're you doing, speaking of it so calm? Like you was reading a grocery list."

Simon glared. "I'd love to scream and break things, believe me, but sadly that's not a luxury I have. Getting paralyzed with grief is not exactly compatible with setting bones and pulling bullets out of patients."

"You're not just a doctor," Mal snapped. "Grieve on your own time."

"I forget."

"Forget what?"

"That I'm not just a doctor. It's not as if anyone reminds me."

Mal frowned at him, thrown. "What about Kaylee and 'Nara? Were you to take a fancy to visit 'em, I know they'd welcome you."

"They've got — they're happy. I'm still — I don't want to spoil that." Simon cleared his throat. "The only reason I brought up Wash is because I'm worried about Zoe, if anything happens to him."

"What?" Mal started. "Zoe can take care of herself. She already brings in all the coin that family has."

"Yes, she provides the income, but Wash provides psychological support. I get the sense she's fairly emotionally isolated apart from him. And mental health is vital to physical health."

Gorram doctor's jargon. Why did he have to miss that, of all things? "Alright, but what am I supposed to do about it? I ain't no good at providing any kind of emotionally-supporting-anything."

Simon looked straight at him. "You can be, when you try. I remember. You don't have to agree with what Zoe did, just don't act as if she betrayed you personally, because she didn't."

"Not a road you're wanting to go down with me right now."

"Yes, well, you have that figurative road barricaded with figurative 'Keep Out' signs and strewn with figurative land mines. If I don't walk down it, no one else is going to. Zoe's important to your well-being, I know she is. Losing her is like damaging your spinocerebellar tract. It causes problems with your proprioception."

"Tone down the medical talk and mayhap I'll understand."

"Fine. Oversimplified layperson's explanation. Without her, you don't know where your limbs are in the space around you."

"That don't make sense. Cut the doctor metaphors."

Simon rolled his eyes. "It was actually a simile, not a metaphor. The point is, you need Zoe as much as she needs you. I hate the Alliance, you know that, but your crew should be more important than refusing to touch anything they offer."

"Ain't none of the folks I flew with considering themselves my crew no more."

"Yes, they are."

Mal pressed his lips together. He'd lost Serenity, and the thought of trying to replace her just made him want to throw a wrench through the window. He was no man for others to follow anymore, and knowing that galled his soul. "Mayhap you'd best say what you came for, 'cause I'm reckoning it weren't just to bring up Wash and Zoe."

"True, it isn't only that. I'm visiting most of the houses on the south side of town." Simon chuckled a little. "We drew lots at the hospital and I came up short. I've been knocked into five piles of snow today, and Lela the wood carver chased me to her gate with an awl. Though as she doesn't particularly like anyone, I didn't take that to heart."

Mal eyed him warily. "What exactly are you doing?"

"We — the doctors and nurses at the hospital — we're trying to get a Christmas breakfast and dinner together for our patients. And we'd like it not to consist of packages where you add hot water and it tastes like sawdust, which is what they mostly have to eat in winter." Simon set down the box and peeled the plastic covering off his papers. "Many of the residents will have families coming in who'll bring them something, but the veterans are all from off-world and—"

"Wait one second. Veterans?"

Simon nodded. "There are quite a few of them. When they lose insurance, they flock to border planets with decent hospitals because you don't have to pay as much."

"The veterans that ship in from Londinium? You're collecting coin for them?" Mal stared, incredulous. "It ain't no wonder Lela chased you with an awl! Simon, they're Alliance. Fought for Unification. They murdered folk just for wanting some freedom, folk who couldn't fight back. They propped up the government that went and cut River's brain open."

"I'm completely aware of that." Simon held out his set of papers. "But an Independent hospital that's willing to treat Alliance veterans does a great deal more to change people's minds about us than leaving them out to freeze in the cold would. Besides, they're my patients as much as anyone, and I don't just owe good care to people I personally like."

Mal pushed the papers back into Simon's hands. "Ain't there any prisons for these veterans of yours?"

"Yes, there are plenty of prisons."

"What about work camps? Are those still 'round?"

"They are," Simon retorted. "I wish I could say they weren't."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Mal crossed his arms.

"Yes! What kind of Independents are we, if we're so independent we think people who are hurt don't need help?" Simon shot him a furious look. "You should understand. If this were an Alliance-controlled planet and you got sick, you'd be in the same basket!"

"I don't owe 'em nothing!"

"It's not about repaying a debt, it's about correcting an injustice. Besides, it's me who's doing the asking, not them, and I think you do owe me something. So what are you going to give?"

Mal shoved his hands in his pockets. "Nothing."

Simon raised his eyebrows. "You wish to remain anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone. Since you asked. If I've got no interest in being merry at Christmas myself, what makes you think I'm going to help killers be merry? If they're as bad off as you say, they can head to those prisons and work camps. At least they won't be fed off my coin."

"Many of them can't go there. And most would choose to die instead."

War memories were hammering at Mal's head now. Faces of those who'd shot his soldiers a moment later and laughed. "So why don't they go ahead and die?" He pushed past Simon and started down the path. "Too many folk like them already."

No answer came, and Mal had walked a good bit past the gate before his anger let up enough for him to glance behind. Simon was still standing by the porch, staring at the papers in his hands with a miserable expression. It was far harder than Mal would have reckoned not to turn around and go back.

But he didn't.

He wandered aimlessly, for how long he couldn't of said for sure. The slushy path led towards town — a town which, 'specially in its poorer parts, always appeared about ready to tumble down if you sneezed on it, or even breathed too hard. Yet now, even folk with no collateral but their own two hands seemed to have scraped up at least a pine bough or two and a ribbon to decorate their flimsy doors. Mal passed a huddle of laborers around a coal brazier. He knew their custom was to be sullen if not outright quarrelsome, and yet they were now trying out harmonies on some rousing Christmas carol. Trying, and apparently not caring how badly they failed.

Any dripping water was fast becoming ice, making paved roads just as perilous as muddy ones. Still, more than a dozen vendors were flocking through the streets, searching for that customer who needed a string of sausages for Christmas dinner, or a cheap gilt jewelry box for a gift, or a bottle of off-world whiskey to keep the relatives happy and drunk, or a folded paper star for the top of their tree. Eventually Mal got sick of the cheer and made his way back to farm country, but regardless…

"Hey, you with the brown coat! Look this way!"

Mal glanced up at the sound of a boy's voice, and immediately got smacked from the other direction by a snowball. Whirling around, he saw a girl laughing fit to burst, with another snowball just prepped. He ducked, but that had the unintended consequence of getting snow all in one ear instead of on his shoulder. Another whacked his back from a third direction. "Ni men dou shi shagua! Go away!"

The only response was two more snowballs. Snarling, Mal took to his heels and got out of range. Glancing up at the sky, he realized with shock that the sun was nearly down. He'd best be getting back before the temperature really started to drop. Despite his hurry, though, it was almost completely dark by the time he arrived on his own, now empty, porch.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it still existed at all, since the previous owners of Mal's house had torn off most any fancy trappings for a bit of extra coin. It is also a fact that Mal's imagination, when in use, was mostly used to imagine all the ways in which a given scenario could get worse, and used not at all on said fancy trappings. Let it also be kept in mind that Mal had not bestowed one thought on the Operative since a month or so ago, when an old and hardly recognizable image of him had been sent up on the Cortex. And then let anyone explain, if they can, how it could be that Mal, giving the knocker a passing glance as he pulled out his key, saw not a knocker, but the Operative's face.

The Operative's face, not shadowed as everything else in the yard was, but lit with a dismal light, like an engine running on nothing but fumes. It seemed neither angry nor ferocious, but though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That and the odd glow made it horrible, but the horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than part of its own expression.

As Mal looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

It would be untrue to say he weren't startled, or that he didn't get the same sense he'd gotten at times in the war, of being sighted as a target for a gun. But he pushed that away, unlocked the door, and switched on the dim lighting strips.

He did pause, with a moment's hesitation, before he shut the door, and he did peer cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected the back of the Operative's head to be sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws that held the knocker on, so Mal snorted and slammed the door with a bang. Still, as he yanked off his boots and threw his snow-covered coat over a chair, he was privately glad he hadn't waited to put the new lock on the door.

If truth were to be told, Mal would've been glad enough for some of his anger to return now, for it was preferable to the nervous tension that seemed to be settling over him, like he was gearing up for a dash through enemy territory. The wave screen was decidedly blank now, the windows were warped and black with the night, and one of the lighting strips was burned out — and yet, there seemed to be a copy of the Operative's face reflected in every one of them.

"Gorram it," muttered Mal, pacing across the room.

Abruptly, the burned-out lighting strip flickered on with a hiss, then off again. A still-fueled one next to it began flashing. It was with great astonishment, and an inexplicable dread, that Mal saw the whole row of lights begin to dim, then brighten, then crackle and spark. Soon they shone so bright he had to squeeze his eyes shut, but he could still hear the electrical snapping, on and off, on and off, of every lighting strip in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The lights ceased their flickering all at once, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, around the back of the house, as if some person was dragging a heavy chain over the broken crates Mal had thrown outside. Then it changed to the sound of metal on stone, rattling against the foundations of the side of the house, then to a clang like chain hitting the side of Serenity, and then to a thunder on the wooden stairs just outside his door.

"I don't believe this—" Mal began, though who he was talking to, he didn't know, when through the solid door came the clanking noise, and with it— "You."

The same face, the very same. The Operative in his body armor, without the marks the Reavers had to have left on him, but somehow appearing not a mite better for that. The chain he wore was draped over his shoulders and clasped around his waist. It dragged on the floor like a tail and from it hung guns and bullets, trackers and grenades, fighter ships wrought in steel, and the long sword he'd carried in life.

Mal would have been mighty happy to believe the vision was naught but his mind giving out, but he weren't one to doubt his senses without good reason. He heard the clank of the chain, he saw the body, incorporeal as it was, and felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes. Still, if he hadn't shown fear to the living Operative, he surely weren't going to show it to the dead one — much as it disturbed him to realize a bullet was unlikely to have much effect. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!" The Operative's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Who were you, then?"

"In life I was the Operative who was to track River Tam." The Ghost observed him. "I did not expect you to believe in me directly."

"I ain't had a history of seeing what ain't there." Mal tapped his gun, wishing it would be of use. He weren't sure what harm the Ghost could do, but he hated feeling helpless. "Though I guess I might be lacking in vitamin supplements or some such thing. But I ain't going to go out of my mind with fear at the sight of you, so if that's your aim—"

"It is not."

"Then why is your — spirit — walking the worlds? And why're you coming to me?"

The Ghost fixed him with a gaze. "We are all given eyes and minds and hearts, and we are required to use them — by God, by some law of the universe, whatever it is you believe in. If we forgo the chance to see clearly when we are alive, we are doomed to do so after death. We learn the lessons, but we learn them too late to get any joy from it." The chain rattled on the wooden floor.

"You're shackled up." Mal tried to keep his tone calm. "Why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life." The Operative's voice went measured and blank. "I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

"Yes. I ain't like you—" But Mal choked on the words as his eyes alighted again on the guns. The bullets. The grenades.

The Operative took a ponderous step forward. "Would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It is not as long as mine, but I assure you, it is just as heavy, and may yet be heavier before you are called to wear it."

"Why are you here?" Mal spat. "I want nothing to do with you."

"I cannot tell you all I would. Very little more is left to me. I cannot rest, or stay, or linger anywhere. How it is I am able to appear in a shape you can see, I do not know. I have sat invisible beside you many a day."

This was in no way an agreeable idea. Mal would have shivered and wiped sweat from his forehead, but he didn't intend to give the Ghost the satisfaction.

"I want to give you a chance, Malcolm Reynolds. A hope of escaping my fate."

"Right. I brought a hungry group of Reavers on you and your people, and forced you to hear some news as tore down your happy little illusions, and I'm supposed to believe you want to help me. 'Cause my brain's gone rotten, it has."

"Though I did not like what you told me, I was not ungrateful to learn it. But it is not only you I want to help." The Operative's chain clattered in some wind Mal could not feel. "If you will not listen to me for your own sake, listen for the sake of your crew."

"What're you talking about?"

"They need aid. I cannot show you how, that is not my task. Only others can."

Mal gripped the handle of his gun. "You mean there's more out there like you? That sure makes me feel happy and cheerful."

The Operative's form now seemed to be fading in and out, parts of it solid, others completely invisible. "You will be haunted by three Spirits."

"You call that a chance and hope?"

"Yes."

"I'm thinking I'd rather not."

The Ghost nodded. "Perhaps. But you will not say no. They will come to you, one at a time. You may not trust me, and with good reason, but I think you will go with them. I can promise, at least, that you won't see me again." He moved backwards towards the window, which slowly opened as he drew nearer.

"Well, at least that's something to be glad—" Mal stopped as sounds began pouring through his opening window — strange shrieking and moaning and clattering. Cautiously, he followed the Ghost until he could see outside.

The air was filled with phantoms, shackled like the Operative, shedding their dismal light on the snow. Some had iron safes and locks dangling from their chains, and others were weighed down with bloody or charred bodies. Still others wore the beakers and vials and scalpels of scientists, more yet bore what seemed to be news bulletins and propaganda posters. Many had guns and bombs, a few were chained to other ghosts, none were free.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when he had walked home.

Mal slammed the window shut, and examined the door which the Operative's Ghost had entered through. It was locked as before, undisturbed. He tried to say, "Fei hua," but stopped at the first syllable. And, hardly knowing what he did, Mal stumbled to a chair to sit, and fell asleep in an instant.

Author's Note

As you may recall, in Serenity the film the Operative calls River an albatross, to which Mal responds: "Way I remember it, albatross was a ship's good luck 'til some idiot killed it." He then adds to Inara: "Yes, I read a poem. Try not to faint." The poem he's referring to is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and that is the origin of the stanza which Simon quotes in this chapter.

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