That Moment in Time…
She felt the jab when she fell onto the corner of the bench, it mixed with the pain of Rance's elbow in her stomach. She felt a flash that something might not be quite right… but she couldn't take the time to think about it when Nandi was lying there hurt. She pushed it out of her mind and rushed over to the other women, just ahead of Malcolm rushing into the room.
Episode continues
At Nandi's funeral she focused on the ceremony, the words and the beautiful song. She felt warm, clammy, but she attributed it to the stress of the situation. It was natural for someone to feel out of sorts after a tense situation and the cathartic release of stress when it was all over. Her mind flickered to the morning before when she'd met Malcolm coming out of Nandi's room, pulling his shirt on as he went. She felt the anger, sadness and resignation. She realized that she hadn't been listening and she forced her thoughts back to the here and now. Unconsciously she placed a hand on her side, ignoring the sharp pains that were bothering her more increasingly. She expected some pain from being elbowed and falling on the wooden bench, but she thought that it would have dimmed by now. She would have to ask Simon about it when they got back on the ship.
She sighed silently as she thought about returning to the ship. She'd none for a while that it was time that she moved on. For the past few months she'd been holding on to some idea, some dream that she'd barely even revealed to herself. Usually she was the practical one on the ship, telling the truth and helping everyone else see what was right in front of them. Ironically the one thing that she should have been the most honest about was the thing that she hid the farthest inside her, not even examining her thoughts and feelings when she was alone.
As she wandered away from the funeral, taking a moment for herself, she thought about what she had to do. Living on the ship with Malcolm had been wonderful, and sometimes she had even fooled herself into thinking that it could have lasted forever. The only constant she'd ever had in her life had been her trade as a companion, until she'd met Malcolm Reynolds. From that first moment the man had gotten inside of her. She found herself imagining him when she was half asleep, dreaming about him in her sleep. She'd started using his ship as a home base. Even though she had her own shuttle, she'd always thought of it as a part of the entire ship. As time had gone on she'd relaxed into the family atmosphere of the ship, letting herself relax and make connections with the others. The little sister she'd always wanted in Kaylee, the little brother that she loved to tease in Simon, the older brother that she never understood in Jayne. River was an enigma, sometimes like a child that she took care of and sometimes the wisest one of them all.
She felt weaker and turned back to the house, suddenly finding that each step was difficult and her breathing very labored. The sun must have been in her eyes because the world was suddenly overly bright and harsh. She almost tripped over the stairs on her way up and anyone watching her would have thought her drunk with her exaggerated care and deliberate steps.
She heard voices coming towards her, but she couldn't focus enough to find out where they were. She couldn't see, the world was spinning too fast and she felt herself falling. She didn't hear the footsteps running toward her or Malcolm calling her name. She was already unconscious.
He stood by the tree as night fell, watching the white stones glow in the darkness. The others had gone inside long ago, leaving him to his musings. He felt most strongly anger, then despair and remorse. He had so many questions, but the person that he usually sought out to talk to was lying in the ground, covered by shovelfuls of dirt. He sank to the ground, his back braced against the tree.
He thought about the last time he'd seen her, falling so gracefully onto the wooden porch. He'd run towards her, trying to catch her before she hit the planks as he helplessly watched her crumple before him. He'd thought that the badness of the day was over, the only thing left was to collect themselves and prepare to go on. Now he couldn't imagine another even remotely good day, because they would all be without her.
He'd been calling for Simon as he gathered her in his arms, noticing at once that her usually tanned and rosy skin was pale and lifeless, her body clammy and warm. He tried calling her frantically, urgently, desperately. But she'd never awoken, never even moved.
Simon had talked about 'internal injuries'. Bleeding goin' on inside her that they couldn't have possibly seen. He said that Inara herself probably hadn't known anything was wrong until she collapsed. He thought about the fall that she'd taken after getting Jonah back from Burgess. He'd heard her fall against the door and Simon figured that was when she must have hit the wooden bench in the corner, causing somethin' inside her to rip or tear. She would have been bleeding the whole time they were standing over Nandi, grieving over their losses. Mal could tell from the look on the Doc's face the moment he started examining Inara that the he didn't expect to perform a miracle this time.
He didn't feel the tears running down his cheek as he ran one of her scarves through his hands. Kaylee had picked something for her to wear, had asked a couple of the girls to help prepare her according to customs that Inara had mentioned a few times. He'd never realized that they had talked about so much. He figured it had all been girl things, giggling and such. But Inara's mei-mei had known what to do and what Inara would have wanted. She had spoke at the ceremony, talking about the many things Inara had taught her that she would carry throughout her life. He wished he could say the same, but he'd spent so much time teasing her and trying to hide how he really felt that he'd never really talked to her. He'd never asked her what she wanted out of life, what her hopes and dreams were. And now it was too late.
He listened to the silence that drifted over the land, laying his head back against the tree. Throughout his years in the war he'd watched countless friends and allies die, pass away at the hands of disease, famine, other men and women and sometimes their own despair. But he'd never felt a loss so acutely. For once he felt that maybe, just maybe, this was something he might not be able to come back from. And certainly he wouldn't come back whole. Over all the times he'd had to fight and all the things that he'd had to give up in his life, none of the sacrifices suddenly seemed to matter. His life had been the best it could be, simply because she was still alive, safe and secure. Her eyes still alight with laughter at a joke he'd made even though she tried not to laugh, her cheeks rosy with a blush that he was so proud of himself for teasing out of her. All he could think about now was how cold she'd be in the coffin they'd made. How she would hate the cold, dank earth that was now her home. He'd never really thought about an afterlife, choosing to focus on the here and now so that he wasn't distracted, so that his mind wouldn't start wandering. But God, he hoped there was one now. He couldn't live with it if he had no way to picture her happy and existing in some other world. Even is he could never see her again, to know that she was happy and safe would be enough for him.
He lifted the scarf to his face, breathing in her scent, trying desperately to remember the last time he'd caught a whiff of it on the air. Trying to fool himself into thinking that he wasn't hoping against hope and reality that she would somehow come back. That she would walk up beside him and tell him to stop moping around.
"I can't!" He sobbed. "Wherever you are in the verse, you have to know that I can't just pick up and leave you here!" He flung the silk aside and watched it flutter over the dusty ground in the wind. The last time that he'd really talked to her she'd told him that she was 'glad' that he'd bedded Nandi, provided comfort to her. Now she and Nandi were both gone and he had nothing to show for it. He'd failed both of them, but at least Nandi had died for a cause that she believed in. She'd gone down protecting one of her girls. This hadn't even been Inara's fight. Yes, she'd answered the wave and agreed to the job, but he should have made sure that she was far away before any of the fighting. He always forgot how fragile she was and how she hadn't signed up for this lifestyle like the rest of his crew had. He had no one to blame but himself for ignoring the fact that she might have been injured and running off to shoot bad guys. Goramit, he hadn't even taken a few seconds to ask her if she was okay, to look into her eyes to find the real answer that she was too brave and stubborn to tell him. He looked at the stones again, wondering if Inara would have wanted white stones as her last mark, representing what she was like in life. He knew that she was by no means pure, but she was as close to an angel as he'd ever seen.
"Darlin', you may have been glad, but I wasn't."
He stood again, pacing a few steps toward the vast nothingness of the dark as he ran a hand through his hair.
"I was far from glad because I felt ashamed that you'd caught me. I felt like I'd betrayed you and hurt you and I couldn't live with that. But now, I could if you'd just come back to me. We could go back to pretending that you were glad and I was fine and I'd look after you this time."
He turned back to the grave. "I promise you! This time I'd be right there like I'd been missing all those times before. Because Darlin' you may have been glad that I provided comfort to your friend during her time of need, but who comforted you? Who the hell was with you in your time of need?!"
He kneeled down at her side, brushed a hand over the simply wooden marker they had erected.
"I failed you in every way, and I can never be glad again. I'll never forgive myself for letting you walk away that morning, for letting you get involved with all my nastiness and worst of all, for never letting you know how much I loved you. You deserved at least that much from me."
He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "I hope to heaven that you're still glad, wherever you are, because I won't ever be again."