“Get Malcolm Reynolds, inmate INDVHSH5603 up to my office,” Lee ordered.

“Yes, sir,” the bored assistant replied. He poked his head back into the office a moment later. “Sir, he’s currently in medical. They’ll bring him up here next.”

~~~~~

"How are you feeling?" asked Kelli, probing carefully at the wound on Mal's forehead.

"Developin’ a phobia of dessert plates. You?" replied Mal with a mischievous grin. The nurse rolled her eyes. "Microwaves everywhere tremble at the sound of my name," she replied. "Looks like this is healing just fine," she said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "You being treated okay?" Mal got the impression the question was motivated by more than purely medical concern, and his eyes softened. "On the whole," he replied. A shadow crossed her face, and she answered him with a quiet touch.

"Honestly though, all tableware phobias aside – you feeling okay?" she asked.

Mal nodded. "You’re lookin’ at the picture of health.” She raised her eyebrows speculatively. “The picture of health has a gash on its forehead, an arm turning five shades of purple, and walks with a limp?”

“That it does,” affirmed Mal, his eyes sparkling.

She shook her head in affectionate frustration, pouting at him. “You’re impossible to deal with even when you’re bein’ nice and cooperative, you know that?”

“I got a reputation ta’ uphold,” replied Mal.

~~~~ Lee stood, handing Mal a crisply folded document without meeting his gaze. "That constitutes official notice that you stand charged with war crimes against the Alliance. You will be assigned an advocate, and your trial will take place a week from today." Mal unfolded the paper without any change of expression, despite the feeling that someone had slammed a baseball bat into his stomach. His eyes scanned the words without seeing them, and finally he spoke. "Come to the conclusion that wasn’t more’n a threat." "It wasn’t," said Lee. "Things changed. Politics have a way of doing that." "And the other threat?" asked Mal, his voice crisp and steady. "They going to execute me?" Lee shook his head. "Prosecutors aren't seeking the death penalty in these cases." In these cases. Mal's gut twisted, wondering who they'd killed and for what supposed offences. Lee's voice interrupted him. "Why don't you sit down, son." Mal walked to the couch and sat, wondering if Lee knew how the room was buzzing around him. "You don't seem overly surprised," said Lee. After an eternity wrenched between the futility of protesting and the drive to convey his innocence, Mal responded to the man sitting silently behind the desk. "I ain't a criminal," he said. "I'm a soldier. That's all." It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. To the Alliance, you sure as hell don’t matter. He leaned back against the softly cushioned couch. Welcome to civilization. Lee nodded. "I've always respected the rules of war, but the term – the notion there's a right and a wrong way to go about slaughtering people is a mockery of civilization. But this comes down to politics, not any deeper moral issue." "That's civilized," said Mal. The bitter sarcasm of his words wasn't aimed at Lee, and he didn't seem to take it as an insult. “You made mention of a trial. This going to be –“

Lee cut him off. “It will be a real trial,” he said. “You’ll be provided with an advocate, and present your defense to an impartial panel. But according to the law, you're guilty.” Mal listened silently.

“The question isn't your innocence," said Lee, studying Mal. "You did what we're charging. The larger question is whether those were acts you should in fact be punished for. Brings up unanswerable questions, trying to define what makes a good man or a criminal in time of war." "And your opinion, sir?" asked Mal bluntly. He supposed philosophizing about the ethics of war made a functional enough diversion from the shock, though he'd have preferred something with more punching. Lee took a deep breath. "Is irrelevant. In the end, this isn’t about justice or morality or any such noble concepts. It's about human beings as pawns in a game of chess between your former commanders and ours." "You know what it is I don't get about this civilization of yours, sir?" asked Mal. "For all its ideals, it most certainly doesn't seem ta' give a damn about people."

Lee stood and retrieved a flexi from the surface of his desk, walking over with a slight limp and handing it to Mal in a deft change of subject. “Like you to look this over, tell me if you take issue with anything on it. Contains the evidence we’ve been requested to provide, interrogation transcripts and the like.”

Mal started scrolling through the document. It was unsettling, seeing his words recited back to him. Finally he set the sheet aside. It wasn’t falsified to damn him; in fact it had been deftly edited in his favor. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Lee. “I’m a model prisoner?”

Lee didn’t smile, but he returned the look. “I might have fudged a few records. Could be I found it irrelevant that you managed to trick an interrogator into giving you the access overrides to the prison, or convince another there was a regiment of Independent forces concealed underground on Hera.”

“What can I say, sir,” said Mal. “Interrogations were all manner of boring, had to find some way ta’ keep awake.” He flashed Lee a grimace that might have passed for a grin in a man not facing prison. “Most of ‘em were seven shades of incompetent, considered it a matter of duty to train 'em up a bit. You should thank me, really.”

Lee sank down in the overstuffed chair across from Mal and leaned back. “Drink?” he asked, gesturing at a crystal decanter half filled with brandy. Mal nodded, and Lee poured shots for both of them.

Mal took the glass, thanking Lee as he wondered if the situation was fixing get any more bizarre. He closed his eyes momentarily as the brandy reached his stomach with a warm glow. He’d not partaken of anything alcoholic for a good while, and times like this, it was more than welcome. “I the only one charged?” he asked finally. His mind was numb, but slowly questions were trickling to the surface.

“No,” said Lee, sipping. “Your trial is the first, but the plan is to try every soldier who fought past the official cease-fire.”

Mal took a very large sip of whisky and focused his eyes on the table at Lee’s side, not wanting the other man to see the anger within them. In all reality, it simply looked as though Mal were furious at the selection of rare books on the table. “Every?” he asked shortly.

Lee swirled his glass and nodded. “To save you asking, yes, Corporal Alleyne is being charged. Her trial is about a month after yours.”

Mal sat upright on the couch. “What?” he asked. “She – anything she done, she done under my command, sir,” he protested. He might have lost the will to fight for his own self, but the notion of Zoe being charged jolted him out of his stupor.

“And ‘I was only following orders’ went out of fashion as a defense more than a few centuries ago, Sergeant,” rebuked Lee.

“So – charging infantry soldiers for obeying lawful orders when they had no rutting clue the war was over?” asked Mal, his grip tightening dangerously on his glass in helpless fury. “We had nothing. No communications, support, or any orders beyond holdin' that valley, an’ we –“

Lee interrupted him sharply. “That’s enough. I don’t like this, but I can’t change it. Neither can you.” Mal fell silent, staring at the Alliance flag hanging beside Lee’s desk like a silent, lurking metaphor.

"In the strict legal view, you are in fact a mass murderer," said Lee bluntly. "It would be a grave miscalculation on your part to expect to be viewed with leniency or sympathy." Mal turned his head back to look at Lee steadily. "Meaning no disrespect to you, sir – were them that destroyed Shadow viewed as mass murderers? Treated without leniency or sympathy?" Lee shook his head. "Let's keep this about you for the time being. The public is inherently sympathetic towards prisoners of war. Term conjures up images of noble, brave soldiers at the mercy of the enemy. But you're about to be labeled something far different. A war criminal is guilty by association of every heinous act of this war. People will clamor for your head on a stake, not preach mercy and understanding." "Shiny," said Mal coldly. "I'm not saying that to hurt you," said Lee. "Mal, I need you to listen to what I'm telling you and heed it very carefully. The judge doesn’t have to send you back here to serve your sentence." Mal looked at Lee in confusion for a few seconds until his words sunk in, and then he looked away, unable to respond. “I know you're miserable here, but-" "I could as easily be in hell," Mal finished his sentence for him. Lee nodded. "If he’s bored or feeling lenient, he’ll pass sentence without bothering to mandate where you serve it, in which case you come here. Otherwise, he’s apt to send you to a military brig or a penal moon. In the brig, the guards will be after your head, and the other prisoners will be enemy soldiers with a grudge, an-"

“I get the picture,” said Mal shortly. “Bow and scrape to the judge, make sure I don’t make the horrific mistake of actually defendin’ myself –"

“Stop,” ordered Lee. “You don’t get the picture. You are going to be convicted. When you find yourself tempted to tell those people what you think of them, you ponder on being away from friends, away from that young guard doing his level best to make your life easier, and away from me and anyone else who feels like you deserve better than to be treated as a criminal."

Mal felt a focused, cold fury growing within. “Yeah, I’d miss bein’ beaten an’ handcuffed an’ watchin’ my friends get punished for protecting me from your psychotic guards. I’ll miss it, having ta' beg not to be tied down while your hospital patches up the latest damage, and where would I be without the stories. It’s shiny, gettin’ to know guys well enough to see how the Alliance destroyed each of their worlds in its own special way, an’ –"

“Mal,” interrupted Lee forcefully. “Talk like this at your trial, I won’t ever see you again. I try to run this place with kindness and humanity. Might not always feel like it, but I do. You go to a criminal facility, you're going to cope with a system that doesn't even know the definition of humane." Lee stood and towered over Mal. "I know you think you can survive whatever they throw at you. But you'll suffer greatly in the process, and it’ll get you nowhere. You'll be demeaned and punished by people who will feel completely justified in making your life miserable." "Gee, that sounds kinda familiar," said Mal. Truth be told, Lee was dead wrong. Mal was certain he’d not survive elsewhere. In body perhaps, but he knew well enough he was flirting with insanity even in a facility that wasn’t trying to break him. Lee's face hardened. "Not a thing to joke about, son. I visited a penal moon once, and seeing the conditions those men were living in was bad enough, but looking into their eyes –"

He shook his head and sat heavily, looking grimly at Mal. "After a few minutes there I couldn't do it, couldn't take the misery I saw in them. I – have regrets about some things that’ve happened here, but when I walk through these yards, even through the maximum security cells, I see living human beings. Not happy ones always, but they don't have helpless hatred and misery in their eyes, and they don't bow their heads and stop breathing when my guards approach them." "Sounds like hell, sir," said Mal softly. It made him sick enough just to see Wash flinch involuntarily, or to watch Gray try to hide from the world around him. Lee nodded with a familiar grave sadness. "I hate myself for walking out of there," he admitted. "Might you be able to change it?" asked Mal. Lee shook his head. "Not quickly, not it any meaningful way for the men suffering there now. Maybe eventually raise enough of a stir that people would actually care, but-" he shook his head again and looked away. "You deserve better." "Sir? Why is it you care?" asked Mal. "You don't strike me as an Independent sympathizer, and it's of interest to me how you come by your understanding." Lee shifted position and poured both of them more brandy. "You were a Sergeant, and to judge from the loyalty of your men, a very good one. You took your responsibility for them seriously, didn't you?" Mal nodded. Lee nodded in return. "Then – you'll understand this. I feel every bit as protective of my guards as I ever did troops on a battlefield. But imagine having responsibility for the lives of thousands of enemy soldiers." He sipped his drink. "Take a walk through the cells and realize they aren't just under your command, they're your prisoners and they rely on you for everything decent in their lives. You're as answerable to them as you are your own troops, and more. Might seem easy enough, vowing to care for them, right up until you realize the ones doing the caring are their sworn enemies. Throw in the uniquely twisted social situations you get when one group of people imprisons another, and you got yourself one top-of-the-line headache on your hands." "That'd be a thorny position, sir," said Mal with genuine understanding. Lee sighed. "Yes. It's a battle," he said bluntly. "Split loyalties are a bitch. Just understand, I might not always be able to keep you from harm. But I care, and I will protect you any way I can." "Xie xie, sir," said Mal. Lee nodded and changed the subject again. "There's not much I can offer in the way of comfort, but there's a thing I want you to consider. When a group uses hostages as a negotiation tool, they generally let the hostages go when all is said and done. When political winds shift in one direction, they can shift in another,” said Lee carefully.

“You sayin’ they might release us just the same?” asked Mal.

“Not saying anything,” said Lee meaningfully. “But I’d hate to see a man give up hope.”

Mal smiled darkly. "Think a second on what you're chargin' me with. I seem like the kind that gives up hope real easy?"

Lee chuckled quietly. "Knew there was a reason I liked you." He sobered. "I – get that you never tried to kill yourself. But there was a time I looked in your eyes and saw you'd died. I just hope you know there'll always be someone come along to make life worth living." "Why?" asked Mal sarcastically. "Because mankind is inherently good, and wonderful and fluffy?" Lee shook his head. "No. Based on what I know of history, of current events, the things I've seen behind these walls, mankind is inherently evil. Our default is violence and duplicity." Mal nodded, and Lee's eyes took on a faint smile. "Odd thing, though. For being wired to hurt each other, people have an odd capacity for honor, and loyalty. Even friendship and love. It can make it worthwhile, suffering through the rest." Mal lowered his head. "Not worthwhile," he said, falling silent. "No?" asked Lee softly. Mal looked up, his expression momentarily unguarded. "But worth going on, perhaps." Lee nodded. "We all see the same things a little differently," he said. "But when it comes right down to it, they are the same things." He leaned forward and refilled Mal's glass.

"Think it's a wise idea, gettin' me drunk?" asked Mal.

"Think it's a bad one?" asked Lee dryly.

"Not in particular," replied Mal with a grin. ~~~~