. . . Pain flared bright across already irritated nerves, and as Mal flickered between delirious reality and unconsciousness, a voice echoed in his head: “The real Malcolm Reynolds.”

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Reaching over to close the close the blankly staring eyes of an unknown soldier, only to have to riffle through her pockets looking for rations to feed them as were still alive.

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Lying on the cold ground at night listening to the groans and whimpers of the people around him. Daytime, they were louder and all, but the sightlessness and inactivity of darkness amplified everything.

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Pouring water into Sergeant Akio’s mouth in the tiniest of amounts, pushing the man’s grasping hands away as he fought with what little strength he had left to chug the entire canteen. Mal still had Morrison, Li, Chang, Stevens, and more to get to. He hadn’t planned on his own self drinking any that day, and knowing Zoe, who watched him like a hawk even while tending to others, she wouldn’t either.

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Hitting the scrounger who’d turned up one night and begun scavenging through Morrison’s pack with her too weak to keep him off. Zoe hit the backs of the man’s knees with her rifle, dropping him to the ground, and Mal hauled him up by grabbing a handful of Alliance uniform to punch him repeatedly, feeling the nose crack with the third strike. When the man struggled away, leaving the gray jacket still clenched in Mal’s fist, his clothing in the weak light of Zoe’s rifle scope was brown and red.

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Carrying the newly dead Chang away from their camp with Zoe. Mal always made sure to take the bodies from under the armpits, leaving Zoe the feet. Boots weren’t ever meant to feel alive. He meant it as one small kindness he could do for her that was too subtle for her to protest.

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Consciousness, when it returned, was still marked by acute pain as his heart thudded irregularly in a chest that burned and his legs and arms twitched with cramps. But this was only physical pain. He moved through it. “You want to meet the real me now?” . . .