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There's a whole slew of things she regrets about her life, but loving Hoban Washburne will never be one of them.
They shouldn't have worked. She'd have sworn he wasn't her type, and ugh, that chǒu'è mustache! But he'd been so gorram persistent, so sweet, and and yes, he'd shaved, and she's never been sorry she finally said yes.
They'd had a good life -- sure, there were lean times, but they had each other. They had Serenity, their home out in the black, and Mal and Kaylee and Jayne, and that was enough.
She'd sometimes thought about little ones, wanted them in a vague unshaped kind of way, but it never seemed to be the right time, so she kept the want inside. Wash never said anything, either, but it might be he was wanting as much as she was. Might be they were waiting for the day when they finally got tired of chasing the score, or for a time when they didn't need to chase it, or for some other fool thing like the proper alignment of the stars....
She'll never know, now, why they hadn't talked it out.
She's still not sure what it was that made her do it; she'd just felt it was time, so when it came down to it, she just didn't go to Simon for his magic pills. It hadn't taken long -- they'd always been good at rutting -- and she'd been on the verge of telling him when everything happened. She reckoned there would be time.
Until there wasn't.
She wishes now that she'd made the time. She reckons once he got over the shock of it, Wash would have been pleased as punch, fit to burst with pride.
She's feeling a bit lost, adrift with all the changes, and she wants to cling to something, someone, but she knows she can't do that, not when there's this spark inside.
So she says goodbye and leaves her regrets behind and looks forward to the day when the spark becomes a flame....