I don't even know what inspired this, but I was feeling some Malnara tonight. Contains references of varied subtleness to various things outside of the episodes and movie.
House Madressa fitted the girls with a device to prevent this, but Inara discovered that it had passed its expiration date a bit too late. She had expected to return to the ship with ten more years of safety – there were permanent ones, but Companions valued their freedom and few actually made decisions they couldn't take back – and instead returned from her reproductive health specialist with vitamins and a list of things she could no longer eat. Thankfully, the food that slowed the progression of her disease was absent, both on her frantic initial scan and later, when she sat with her knees to her chest in her old shuttle, going through the forbidden items line by line, afraid she had missed something.
She told him after a few days. Things were still tense between them – after everything that had happened, a reconciliation was really only the first of many steps - but he had pulled her close and kissed her forehead and a stroke of her hair and a well, how about that later and she felt more relaxed around him than she had in the entire period since the night this had likely happened.
"You tell the others?"
"No. Secrets around here last about as long as bullets in Jayne's gun. I wanted to make sure you found out from me."
The implant stopped one's cycle, so she was a full third of the way through it before she even knew. "I did just find out myself."
The way he was looking at her reminded her of how they used to be. She was trained to read peop…she knew him well enough to know he wasn't the type of person to fake affection, not even in this situation. He had been wanting them to be close again. He just didn't know how to bridge that gap. Now, he had himself a reason.
The symptoms hit almost immediately afterward, as if brought about by her sudden clarity of the situation, set to a soundtrack of Emma asking her mother, constantly, if she had been like this, too. "Burn," she announced matter – of – factly every time Inara grunted and put a hand to her heart. "Burn."
Mal didn't always know how to help; she strongly suspected all of his good ideas for soothing her discomfort came from Simon. But he made an effort, and the hours they spent together in his bunk with him combing her hair, or with her belly exposed, him rubbing in cream or oil, gave them ample time to talk, to fully work through any lingering issues. "I don't want her to sense the tension," Mal said. "I don't want there to be any."
"We don't know that," Inara said.
"Don't know that there won't be no tension, or don't know it's a girl?"
Both, she supposed, but she meant the latter. Mal just smiled.
She only saw Zoe once or twice during her fourteen – hour ordeal in the large chair, but she could sense the woman's tension. They weren't too far from civilization, but none wanted a repeat of the events following Emma's birth. Zoe was the only one who knew of it all first hand.
Despite the ship's history, it hadn't occurred to Inara that she might die. For a decade now, she had known the way she would most likely lose her life, and her time running out in a way like this wasn't a thought she had entertained. This this wasn't bullets or knives or cannibals or noted in her medical history. But she could tell by the way Zoe paced, by the way Kaylee's big smile faded when she pressed her forehead against Simon's shoulder and thought Inara couldn't see, and by the way Mal stared at the monitors like he was navigating an asteroid field that it was preoccupying the entire ship.
Mal's hand never left hers during the worst of it. He had been right when he said he didn't see any more tension between them by this point. They were good, now. They were possibly the best they'd been, even before the schism. Although they had been together coming on three years by that point, she could count on one hand the times Mal had used the L word. He had never held back telling her I care for ya, 'Nara, or you sure make this sad heart less sad or if only I was as young as ya make me feel or even you ought'a know by now how strong these feelings I have are, but he'd always shied away from saying love, even though she knew that's what he meant.
The past few months he had almost seemed like a different person, and while Simon crouched the foot of the chair and Kaylee reminded her to breathe and somewhere on the ship River was distracting Emma with stories that were probably more traumatizing than this, Mal's lips were right near her ear, close enough for her to feel his breath, whispering encouragement with the word love being uttered in place of her name. Of all the changes to their relationship the last six months, all of them positive, Inara thought that that one was her favorite.
And then, in an instant, almost before she registered it, she was a mother to a daughter and Mal was right again. She held the newborn close against her skin, soothing her with her body and her voice, exhausted and tender and shaky but barely noticing because the child needed her to be calm. "Oh, Mal," she said when the baby quieted, tearing her eyes away to look up at who was, until moments ago, the biggest love of her life. "Isn't she beautiful?"
Mal frowned. "She's lookin' quite a lot like me. That's unfortunate."
She couldn't stop a small chuckle. "I like that I see you in her."
"I s'pose I can see you a bit. Wish it was more. She'd have an easier time of it." He reached over and lightly brushed his finger over the baby's forehead. "We never discussed names."
"I don't think there's a rush," Inara said. "For now, she's just ours."
"Ours." A small smile came over his face, and then his fingers were running through her hair. He nodded. "I'm sure we'll come up with somethin' appropriate." He shook his head. "Spent a month decorating the damn shuttle and never thought on names."
He continued muttering, but it faded out into the background when Inara looked back down at their daughter. "We love you," she whispered quietly. "And I still can't believe I'm saying this, but your father just might tell you."