Title: The Cardinal Rule
Author: Manda
Rating: PG
Fandom: Firefly
A/N: Set inside and after events that took place during 'Heart of Gold'
The silence between them was like a whisper of a million things. It was the laughter of a friend of theirs both that they'd never hear again. It was passion and secrets, both of which neither would say to the other. It was a million questions and comments and things left in the dusty world they'd now put behind them. And yet they stared into each other eyes like there might be a life raft.
A way to stop all of this.
"Inara. I ain't looking from anything from you," Mal said calmly, his eyes never leaving her face. She was as beautiful and onry as any woman he'd ever met, and yet she was more graceful and accepting of almost anything than any woman he'd ever met or heard of existing.
And all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms. Not to do anything to her. Just to touch her, to know she was real underneath that calm exterior she'd had since Nandi had been buried. Like she'd fled deep within herself and wasn't going to come out for any of them. Like he hadn't just failed Nandi, but he'd somehow failed and lost Inara, too.
"I'm just kinda feeling truthsome right now and –uhh-" he paused, trying to keep himself from saying the million things he wanted to say to her, because he kept imagining it might be her body on that floor dead. Her voice that he might never hear again. "And life's just too damn short for if's and maybe's—"
"I learned something from Nandi. Not just from what happen, but from her." Inara said slowly, and he could see her there in the depths of her eyes. Quiet and so far away from him. So far beneath her cool act. "The family she made - the strength of her love- it's what kept them together. When you live with that kind of strength you get tied to it. You can't break away and you never want to."
She was so damned close and so closed off. She was turning this back on him. She was making him into the idea of Nandi's death. But she was also saying that she, along with everyone else on the Serenity, was part of his family. His family on Serenity. She was part of his family.
She was part of all of them, but even more she was saying she was also a part of him the way the girls were of Nandi. And he'd called her on lying about being glad he'd slept with Nandi before she died. Called her basically on lying before now, too, when he'd walked out of Nandi's bedroom that morning and she'd rebuffed his embarrassment and feeble attempts to explain or completely move the conversation from it with mumbo jumbo about companions, puritanical sex and loosing the need to get emotional over it.
Maybe after so long, after so many masks and games, they were finally going to get somewhere.
"There's something-" Inara started, but it got caught inside her. She almost pulled back when Mal shifted closer to her but she kept talking. She made her voice stay the same, neutral and duce let tone it almost always seemed to be. "There's something I should have done a long while ago. And I'm sorry for both of us that it took me so long. I'm—"
"—sorry, I didn't know anyon -" Nandi stopped mid her apology with the door still open. Her eyes settled on the scene before her. Inara on the ground, her outfit still looking pristine, but her skirt clutched in her hands and her face shining with the tears she'd so far been crying. "Inara?"
"I," Inara said, scurrying to get up really fast. "I'm sorry. If you'll give me a second."
"Are you alright? Did something happen?"
"Nothing," she said through a gust of air out of her lips as she tried to make all the tears go away. She walked a few feet, then sat down on the bed and started dabbing her face with the edges of her blanket. She cleared her throat trying to keep her voice neutral. "I saw Mal. Coming out of your room. He –he looked pleased. I'm glad….for the two of you."
"You never said a word," the redhead breathed after half a minute of silence, her back still up against the door. The look of quiet contentment in her bright eyes had turned to a hollow darkness and something that looked suspiciously like regret.
"I never thought-not really-not ever," Inara said turning her head to look back at the floor by her feet, still sitting on the side of the bed clutching the pillow tighter and tighter, not seeming to care. "I'd never-We'd never-" Her voice cracked once more and she stopped long enough to sniffle and raise one delicate hand to gracefully wipe away the still falling tears.
"Oh, darling," Nandi said, coming and sitting next to the raven-haired beauty. She maneuvered the woman's face with a few fingers under her chin, till their eyes met. Her was an amazing beauty even red eyed and looking like she'd lost every shred of sense. Even as her body began to shake, more tears falling as she pulled away and covered her face in her hands.
"If I'd known there was something between the two of you, I wouldn't have considered it-"
"No, no, don't say that." Inara blurted suddenly, even though the raw sound in her voice had jealousy mingled in it. "Mal chose to go to you. That's-that's his choice. We know that. W-we were taught that."
Nandi moved an arm behind Inara and pulled her in close when she didn't fight it but let her body be moved like she was only a rag doll. The hand around her back and shoulders stroked the long curly hair gently. "Silly girl. I left those rules behind a while ago. And besides this kind of thing doesn't exist within any rules anywhere."
At her words Inara's shoulders began to shake harder feeling the world inside her begin to explode in ways she couldn't understand or explain. The sounds that came out of her mouth even though they were muffled into the other woman's clothes was the sound of utter anguish and pain. The sounds that never came from her.
"There's no other way," Inara whispered finally. She stopped shivering inside Nandi's tight embrace suddenly. The last of her tears released fell down her face untouched, but her dark eyes followed streams of sunlight that poured in through the window with its curtains and boards. The sunlight was simple and pure with little particles catching the light inside of it.
"What's that?"
Her head rested on her friends' thin shoulder as though it were a wall to hold her up. A wall to banish all these emotions behind. A wall behind which she could hide everything she'd learned around herself today. "I'm-"
"-Leaving."
Those were the words she'd used. She'd made sure to look Mal right in the eyes. She'd made sure her spine was straight and that her posture was perfect. She'd made sure her ensemble looked pristine, so as not to arouse suspicion among the rest of Serenity's crew. She'd made sure not to let her voice tremor or contain an emotion that wasn't complete confidence and decisiveness.
It wasn't too hard honestly.
She was trained to do this from the moment she decided to be a companion. She had been trained how to walked. She'd been trained how stand. She had been trained what to wear, when to wear and when not to wear anything. She had been trained how to smile and laugh even when it didn't come natural till it did come natural. She had been trained how to do everything.
She'd even been trained how to respectfully and properly say goodbye.
And it had been the hardest thing she'd ever done.
But it needed to be done, Inara told herself.
Because she'd broken her own cardinal rule.
She'd fallen in love.