Crimson Realizations
Rated: PG
Category: Mal/Inara UST, Mal/Wash/Zoë Friendship.
Spoilers: BDM.
Summary: Mal Tells Inara That 'It's Not Her Shuttle' When He Rescues Her. Perhaps There's A Bit More To That Statement Than Simple Ownership Rights, And Perhaps It Holds A Lesson.
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"What have you done to my shuttle?"
"It's not your shuttle."
I speak without thinking, hackles immediately rising, but I don't lie.
Not by a long shot.
I'd taken shuttle two to retrieve Inara, for good reason.
I hadn't stepped foot in 'her' shuttle since the night after she'd left.
Hell, it'd taken me an entire day, and a whole lot of bottled courage, to set foot in it then.
I'd done so on the pretense of inspecting it, of course, and I'd found exactly what I'd expected-not a stain or a spot anywhere. Everything neat and orderly. An empty shell of a machine, as lifeless as a tomb.
The only thing that bore the slightest witness to the fact that someone had made a home there for over a year was a small trunk in one corner, obviously forgotten.
I was drawn to it like a moth to flames.
I opened it, nearly against my will, and everything changed.
Steel grey was replaced by rich red.
I slammed the lid before it could consume me entirely, but it was too late.
Like a moth, I was incinerated.
The fire that splash of scarlet had started in my belly blazed across my brain, and that trunk never knew such a thrashing.
Neither did the shuttle's bulkhead.
No longer was it clean, sterile, or cold, but splashed with the crimson warmth of life itself.
Zoë'd sewn me up in silence that night.
Her work wasn't as pretty as Simon's, but it came without questions, and it came with Wash.
Wash, who'd been the one to find me, cradling my bruised and bleeding hand like a child.
Wash, who'd looked me in the eye with a simple understanding and without judgment or pity.
Wash, who'd meticulously restored the shuttle while his wife tended his lunatic captain.
I haven't thought about that night in a long while. I try not to, in fact… but Inara's accusation brought it back to me in detail, despite the circumstances, and a sudden, long overdue realization hits me.
Could be that Wash just might be good enough for Zoë after all.
He'd also taken Zoë's unspoken hint that night and had worked in an absolute silence that, as far as I know, has yet to be broken. That's worth some points in my book.
Huh. Food for thought.
The shuttle bumps into its dock before I know it, and I'm rudely jolted back to the now. Serenity's breaking atmo before my feet hit her deck, and I make it to the bridge just in time to see a last wisp of planet disappearing fast in our exhaust.
"Fire the dummy nav sats," I command, in my best captainy voice.
Wash turns in his seat at the helm to look at me. "Just did."
I grin like an idiot, and I so don't care.
Yep, good enough indeed.