It's all so different now. From Sihnon to Serenity was such a big change, then leaving Serenity to go back to planetary life... you're not sure which hurt worse. This strangeness, though-- this disconnected emptiness-- is something you never expected to feel.

You've always fought with Mal; he never stops talking, never stopped making you crazy. Now he seems quiet and more thoughtful, and it's like he's gone further away than you could ever get from him.

Separated by the loss of dear friends, people you can never replace, the two of you are truly apart at last. You wonder how you could ever have thought it might work.

Someday, you're sure, you'll look back and think differently, wondering how you could have been so selfish. To think of yourself and Mal on a day like this, with the cool breeze blowing just a little sand on the hilltop and the graves laid out before you: Wash and the Shepherd, along with Mister Universe, casualties of a war they never asked to join...

And you'll know, in the end, why it is that you feel this way. Why he confuses you so.

You'll know.