Author's Note: I thought, when I had finished writing 'Going On' that I had exorcised the demons the BDM had left me with. Not so much, as it turns out. All it did was shift my attention from Zoe to Inara. And then, when a friend of mine said that she could never 'ship Mal and Inara because they were too different and too inflexible, I seem to have taken that as a dare. Throw in a FF_Friday challenge about Shakespeare (don't ask) and this is the result. 'Leave of Absence' covers the same timeline as 'Going On' and weaves in and around the events of that story. Only this time, it's all about Mal and Inara.
Please drop me a review and let me know what you think.
Leave of Absence
Inara sat, knees drawn up, in a hideously uncomfortable hospital chair, watching Mal sleep. They'd had to operate to repair the damage done by the Operative's sword, and he'd be out for a while yet. Kaylee was asleep next door, recovering nicely from the Reaver poison. Simon was still in surgery. River was sedated. Jayne had accepted treatment for the bullet wound in his shoulder, then walked straight back out again, which gave her some hope the Alliance would keep their word. Inara herself had never felt so bone weary in all her life.
She was still in the state of blank horror that had carried her through the past few days. The memory loomed like a chasm she refused to look into. She wasn't ready to fall apart just yet. So she kept herself moving, cycling between hospital rooms, wielding her influence like a club. She was fairly sure she was grinding her reputation into the dust in the process, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
Mal awoke, groggy, in an Alliance med facility and for a long moment had no idea how he got there. Every part of him hurt in the kind of dim way that let him know it was going to hurt a lot more once the drugs wore off. He looked around, panicky, for Zoe; found Inara dozing in a nearby chair instead.
Not the war.
Memories slowly began to surface. Wash. Book. Miranda. Not the war, but not much better.
Inara stayed at the med facility until the last of the crew were released; Mal and Simon, with their belly wounds, were both kept several days longer than the others.
She was wading through paperwork and discharge formalities when Simon's surgeon approached, bowed over her hand, asked if he might be permitted to book some of her time. He was polite, respectable, well groomed. Alliance. The revulsion she felt, the rage, was overwhelming.
She put a pretty smile on her rejection, a well-trained silver tongue. He left feeling he'd been paid a better compliment than if she'd accepted.
She swallowed bile as he walked away.
"After the danger, the destruction, the upheaval you brought into the training house, do you really think you're in a position to ask for anything?"
"I ask for nothing. I am simply informing you, as a courtesy. There is nothing in Guild Law that forbids it."
"A Companion is who you are, Inara. You can't take a 'leave of absence' from that."
"As I said, I have personal matters that need my immediate attention."
"A true Companion has no personal matters."
Inara remained silent, ceding nothing.
"Take your 'leave of absence', then, if that's what you want. But Guild Law is very clear; you know what you owe in return."
"I know."
The face on the screen softened a little.
"Inara, as a friend… whatever or whoever it is – leaving it a year from now won't be any easier. You may want to consider a more… permanent solution."
"Thank you. But I've made my choice."
Mal was loathe to accept the Alliance's help with repairs, but the Operative had arranged for it, and he figured the Operative owed them plenty. And, for his part at least, he needed to be back in the sky sooner rather than later.
The nightmares were back, just like after the war – different faces dying in front of him, different faces doing the killing, but the same sickening feeling in his stomach when he woke. He didn't sleep much. Spent the night hours looking for work, for when they were ready. Wasn't much out there. Weren't many, among those the Operative hadn't killed, were willing to talk to him. They'd be walking the raggedy edge for a while.
It took him nearly the whole month Serenity was in dry dock before he found anything at all. Petty salvage, barely worth it. But when Serenity took off again, she'd have somewhere to go. And that was something.
"Ready to get off this heap and back to civilised life?"
"I…"
…am never leaving this ship again.
…don't know if I can live your kind of life.
...am afraid of being hit again, or shot, or raped, or killed.
…like civilised life, there's nothing wrong with that.
…can't go back until I can sleep through the night without screaming.
…don't trust you not to die.
…can't live with this kind of uncertainty.
…love you.
"…I don't know."
"Good answer."
Inara saw the faintest twinkle come back to Mal's eyes and found herself smiling for the first time in weeks. She watched him head up to the bridge, then turned and headed back to the kitchen to help Kaylee set the table.
But out in the black it was harder.
In dry dock, Inara had taken on the job of putting their home to rights. With no mechanical skills it was the one job she could do. Sweeping up shards and debris, sorting broken items for repair or replacement, putting everything back where it belonged. Tidying. Organising. Planning. Dirty work, but it felt good. Once Simon had set the infirmary to rights he helped her, sometimes. Less and less often as he discovered that helping Kaylee was more fun. She didn't blame him.
As things approached a more normal state, she slipped herself into the empty space in the rotation of chores; cooking, washing dishes, cycling the disposal unit, cleaning the common areas. If anyone noticed, no one commented. And no one was forced to sit down and map out exactly how Wash's death had changed their everyday lives.
Once the inside was under control, she went to work on the outside. Repairs were nearly finished, any of them could have done it, but the crew named hers the steadiest hand, so she spent hours on a precarious scaff rig outside the ship painting Serenity's name on her hull. The symbolism of making this, her indelible mark on the ship, was not lost on her.
But out in the black it was harder.
"Kaylee, wait, I'll go with you."
"Oh, 'Nara, hey." Kaylee smiled. "But, I'm going to bargain for supplies. We can meet up after, maybe."
"No, I… I thought maybe I would go with you. And help."
"Oh. That's nice of you, but… um…" Kaylee's eyes flicked to Mal as he entered. "Cap'n!"
"Kaylee, why ain't you gone yet?"
"'Nara wants to come with."
"Did I say argue? Go on, we ain't got much time."
"Mal, let me help."
"You go with Kaylee, dressed like that, she'll end up paying twice what she coulda got alone."
Inara glanced down at the unadorned dark blue dress. "I'm sure you're exaggerating."
"Inara, you ain't goin', and that's final."
"Now you're just being stubborn."
"I am not. This ain't even your business."
"Of course it's my business. I live on this ship, too, Mal."
"You rent a shuttle. It ain't the same thing at all."
"So if I stopped paying rent and moved into one of the passenger dorms you'd take my advice?"
Kaylee looked from one to the other, grabbed her basket and headed down the ramp.
"I can't be having this argument with you every time we set down dirtside. We got no money and less time, and –"
"Then let me help. I can read body language, signals. I trained as a Companion, Mal, I-"
"Then go be a Companion and leave the rest of us to the real work."
Companions were taught, from day one, to be hard yet seem soft. Nandi told a good story, but in the end, it was that lie that had driven her out. Nandi had always needed to be who she was.
Inara found herself thinking about Nandi a lot these days.
It had been a long day, heaving heavy crates into the cargo bay for what was essentially a milk run, and the crew was largely silent at the dinner table. The fare was thin, mostly protein, but Kaylee had done a good enough job with it. Mal refused to admit how much he missed the Shepherd's skill with spices.
Mal pushed the food around on his plate, almost too tired to eat. Simon and Kaylee forced out another round of chatter, trying to lift the mood a little, cover their own self-consciousness. Jayne joined in half-heartedly, but Mal let it slide past, let his thoughts wander.
"Mal." Inara's hand on his arm startled him back to reality. Her tone told him it wasn't the first time she'd called him. "Can you please pass the tea?"
He reached across the table for the pot, handed it carefully to her, then found himself staring at her hands as she poured. Her skin was rough and dry, cracked across two of her knuckles. They looked like Kaylee's hands, or Zoe's. The thought made him uncomfortable.
"What?"
Inara had caught him staring, pulled her hands into the long sleeves of the sweater she had taken to wearing over her dresses against the cold. The gesture was almost self-conscious.
"Nothing."
"I expect you'll be glad to get back into your finery."
Inara's belongings arrived a few weeks after Serenity was airborne again, waiting for her at a space station depot. Mal and Jayne helped load them into her shuttle while Zoe put away the supplies, silent as ever.
Inara smiled at Mal, nodded, made some vague reply. But when she opened the trunks, everything seemed too bright, too gaudy. Too impractical.
She ran her fingers over the silks and satins. Her rough skin caught on the delicate material.
She pulled out a couple of the plainer, simpler dresses, a few shawls against the cold, and packed the rest away.
Mal never mentioned it again.
Inara had woken from another nightmare, and now she couldn't sleep and she couldn't sit still. It left too much time for thinking. She wound a shawl around her shoulders and stepped out onto the catwalk, leaving the shuttle door open behind her.
The corridors were dark and cool. Inara could feel the sleeping weight of the ship around her, let it begin to soothe her frayed nerves. She paced the catwalk with lingering steps, trailing her hand along the rail, then down the stairs, through the cargo bay, into the common room. She lingered there, folding the afghan, tidying away books, then continued her wandering, up the stairs again, to the aft corridor, the gentle throb of the engine sounding louder in the stillness.
She paused at the top of the stairs, surprised to find light coming from the kitchen.
Mal was sitting at the table, lamp burning at his elbow, the battered ledgers he used for tracking Serenity's finances spread across the table in front of him. The weight of the world on his shoulders.
He looked up as she came in. "What are you doin' up at this hour?"
"Going stir crazy."
Mal nodded, turning back to his books. "Coffee's on the stove."
Inara poured herself a cup. "How bad is it?"
"The coffee?"
"The books."
Mal looked up again as she settled herself at the table across from him. She expected him to bluster the question off, but he simply sighed. "It ain't good." He sat back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his eyes.
"Can I see?"
Mal shrugged and shoved the ledger across the table at her. "Numbers only add up so many ways."
"You're cold."
"I'm fine."
Mal looked around for his jacket, but he had come up to the kitchen in only his shirtsleeves.
"I've got Kaylee running the life support at minimum, trying to conserve on fuel cells."
"Is it helping?"
"A little." Mal shrugged. "River's doing a fine job, but she can't get the same mileage…"
Inara nodded, not needing him to finish. "Really, I'm fine."
"More coffee, then?"
Inara smiled. "Please."
Mal took her cup and his own and went to put the coffee pot back on the burner.
"Mal… I have contacts. Wealthy contacts. I'm sure there's work—"
"No."
"There are legitimate shipping contracts to be had—"
"I said no. 'Sides, I ain't payin' taxes and duty to the Alliance. Never again." He looked at her, looked away. "Kinda surprised you're still lookin' on them all rosy, after…"
"My opinions about the Alliance are none of your business. I'm talking about work. We need to eat. You'll deal with Niska, but not with them?"
"And next time you're choosing clients, I'll just come on over and help you pick 'em, shall I?"
Inara got up and walked out, choking on all the things she refused to say.
Wash would have noticed. And one day, if he had run across her in the kitchen or the common room when no one else was around, he would have called her on it, gentle and joking. He would even have covered for her, if she had asked him to.
Inara missed him for that. And a thousand other things. Serenity wasn't the same without him.
Zoe should have noticed. Should have been watching her like a hawk. Might even have brought it up, in her calm, practical manner. But these days Zoe was only half-there herself.
Kaylee might eventually notice, but for the moment she and Simon were engaged only with each other, with the newness of their love affair, and their self-consciousness in the face of Zoe's broken heart.
Serenity wasn't the same at all; after the extensive repairs she didn't even sound, didn't feel, the same. And Inara, different, now, herself, no longer knew where she fit in. She was beginning to think it had been a mistake to stay.
Inara woke to the conviction that there was someone else in her shuttle with her. She sat up in the darkness, reaching for her nightstand, memories of Reavers, of Jubal Early, pressing close.
"'Nara."
"Ta ma de, Mal, you scared me. What are you doing in here?"
Inara reached out again, this time for the lights and brought them up low. He was sitting in the shuttle's pilot chair, watching her, his face completely blank.
"Mal, what's wrong?"
"Zoe's pregnant."
Mal and Inara sat opposite each other at one end of the kitchen table. The warming coffee pot burbled into the silence.
"Put this on."
"I'm fine."
"You're cold. Put it on."
Inara rolled her eyes, but put her shawl aside and pulled Mal's coat around her shoulders instead. It was far too big for her, but the leather was still warm. She threaded her arms through the sleeves.
"Do the others know yet?"
"I just found out my own self."
"How far along is she?"
"She didn't say. Four months, maybe five. I don't think she knew, until after…"
Inara nodded, found herself pushing back a wave of tears. Mal reached for the ledgers, stacked beside him, but couldn't seem to find the strength to open them.
"She's going to need better food. Fresh fruits, vegetables. Fish, if we can get it."
"She's gonna need a lot of things."
The coffee pot rattled on the stove, and Mal pushed himself up to pour them each a cup. He fussed with mugs and spoons and sweetener for a long moment.
"'Nara.' His back was still to her. "If you still know folk might have work… I'll talk to 'em."
"I'll make some calls."
"Good."
He was still stirring, facing away.
"You should know…" Talking to his back was easier. "I've taken a leave of absence from the Guild."
"I know." Mal dropped the spoon into the sink and brought the mugs back to the table. "We'll make it work."