Missing
A.N.: This has been living on my computer for too long! Just a drabble-esque piece for Firefly -- a conversation we missed, and an opportunity they missed. Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly. Gorram it.
Suggested listening: Yet another fic inspired by Britney Spears, "Out from Under". No lie.
She watches him quietly. She was always watching him, whether he knew it or not. He would walk into the room, and her eyes would gravitate towards him. And in her line of work, that was dangerous. She couldn't afford the distraction of the hopeless yearning. But neither could she bring herself to do what she knew she should.
She knew she had to go.
The cat and mouse, moth to flame dance they'd been doing would only lead to ruin for them both. As much as she wanted to cross the line, she knew he couldn't cross his.
"I think it's time for me to go," she whispers.
His eyes snap to hers, and for the barest moment his emotions are written plainly on his face. His eyes, his all-too-expressive eyes, register the wound before he locks his feelings up again.
"If that's what you think, I ain't fixin' to stop you," he replies nonchalantly. If Inara hadn't known better, she would have believed the chill in his voice. But if there was anything she'd learned in her time with Mal, it was that he rarely said what he felt -- and that more than likely it was the opposite.
So she nods, and stands from the table. "Let me know when it would be convenient for me to launch my shuttle." Walking over to him, she gently takes his face in her hands to force him to meet her gaze. "And if you change your mind about stopping me, you know where I'll be."
He looks away then, breaking her hold. She drops her hands with a sigh, shaking her head as she walks out of the room. She knows she can't force him to do anything. She never could and never will.
Only ruin, and at least one broken heart.
He watched her. Checked Serenity's logs to see where she went, how long she stayed. It was sick, and twisted, and wrong. She was a gorram companion.
And he couldn't shake her. Couldn't banish her from his thoughts no matter what he tried. Compared every other woman to her. Ended up sounding like a jealous boyfriend more than once.
She made him feel, gorram it, and he couldn't afford that. If he started to feel, then he'd be open to things like love, and he couldn't afford that neither.
Love made you weak. And a wanted man captaining a pirate ship of refugees and cons couldn't be weak.
But still, he watched her. She was his Achilles' heel. The yearning for love and family he could ill afford tugged at him every time he looked at her. And yet, he couldn't seem to look away.
"I think it's time for me to go," she says, and he can feel himself break in two. "Don't go," his heart screams. But, his brain wins. He's too stubborn and too scared for it not to.
"If that's what you think, I ain't fixin' to stop you," he says, trying to put distance between them, to hurt her the way her declaration is clawing at him.
But Inara knows him, and that was worst of all. She knows him, and offers him the chance to stop her.
He doesn't. He won't. He can't.
He tells her he wouldn't stop her, and breaks his own heart instead.
A.N. Hope you enjoyed. :)