Firefly - "Bushwhacked" - speculation

Been doing some more research for my next chapter of Book's Legacy. I'm really, really anxious about Mal's conversation with Inara-- my Muse doesn't want to deal with it any more than Mal himself likely does. I like her very much as her own character, but I have tremendous issues with the pairing; naturally, I'm afraid this is going to affect my writing. I want them to read natural, not as my mouthpieces, which, granted, they technically are, but still.

Anyway, I put in "Bushwhacked" before going to "Shindig" because I wanted to see again what she'd told the Alliance interrogator about staying aboard Serenity, and ended up getting snared by Mal's spookiness instead.

( Relevant Quotiness Under the Cut )

This bothers me. It makes all my writer's nerves itch. "It's the place he's going to live from now on." --> "You call him a survivor? He's not."

*cough* Serenity *cough*

I really want to know now -- and am probably doomed to write, though I doubt in this story because it's likely to be very much darker than the angsty-but-trending-toward-H.E.A. tale I'm trying to weave -- just exactly what the hell happened during the war that made Mal sympathize so heavily with the poor bastard, and if that's how he feels about it, then how the hell he managed to hammer himself back into a mostly-functional, mostly-good man in its aftermath. Got to be more than just the Valley itself to it. I'd hazard a guess that Zoë had a lot to do with that recovery, and that it's also part of the reason he and Zoë are such iron-clad good friends but haven't a spark of sexuality between them.

*rubbing forehead* Damnit. Must go watch "Shindig" now and try to get the Inara Muse back.