**Holy smokes, y'all, I'm sorry this is so late. It seems I've built myself a fine case of writer's block. I'll try to get around it by writing 100 words a night until it goes away, but please accept my heartfelt apologies. And thanks, thanks, thanks again for all your kind words - they mean so much.**
She washed up on the shore of consciousness, coming to it like bits of a ship wreck: piece by piece. A warm surface. A net of sheets. A pervasive ache, like muscles limp and wasted after an influenza.
Artificial light prickled at her eyes. She opened them, saw him at his mess-strewn desk a few feet away, dressed and waiting for her. Like Superman, she used her X-ray vision to peek beneath his clothes.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked hoarsely, one hand sloughing through the covers to rest on her heart. His eyes flickered towards her, regarding her with warmth and caution.
"Few measly scratches ain't enough to het me up," he said with a careful smile. "You want my attention, go for the ears." Her lips twitched despite herself, and his face lit up like a candle.
"I love you," she said, rendered bare.
"Yeah, yeah," he grinned to himself, rubbing a hand over a stubbly chin. "Marriage, ten kids." She froze, considering. He watched the cogs in her machinery click through the implications of passing on her genes. Her amber eyes fixed on his feet. "Don't worry," he said in response to her silent alarm. "I know exactly what you mean." Slowly, trying to stifle it, she began to laugh. He threw back his head and laughed too, a long beautiful sound from the depths of his diaphragm. "Damn," he gasped, still chuckling.
"You should work on your abdominals," River observed clinically. He rolled his eyes as he got back his breath. "Yeah, I'll get right on that. Right after I fix this heap of a ship and find some new business partners." He climbed up out of his chair, rubbing his midsection. Then tipped her a wink. She flopped gracefully out of bed, seemingly unaware of the fact that she was mostly naked, although she felt a secret frisson of pleasure spark up her spine when Mal's eyes settled involuntarily on her ass. By the time she had located suitable clothing (a button-down shirt - his, and a pair of cotton shorts - also his), his face had turned a curious plum color.
"We should go help the others pack up for departure," she stated briskly. She rummaged in his chest of drawers, came up with an old water-proofed Glock he kept for the occasional concealed carry. She checked the chamber, engaged the safety and slid it into the waistband of her (his) shorts… and watched his brain completely short circuit.
"Ayuh?" he replied, staring.
"Inara wants to leave the ship and stay here," she said quietly. Once the words passed through his lust filter, his face clouded. But "Mmm," was all he said.
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He made his way up to the shuttle at noon port-time. Though he knew better than to doubt River's observations, it was still an unpleasant surprise to find most of Inara's things already in crates. He surveyed the exposed metal surfaces, hands on his hips. Behind him, almost stepping on his heels, Kaylee entered, then stumbled with a little gasp. "Cap'n!"
"Ma'am," he rejoined, one eyebrow lifting ironically. Kaylee took refuge in outrage.
"You skeered the crap out of me, Malcolm Reynolds!" she scolded, hugging herself for good measure.
"Well beggin' your gorramn pardon," he said, crossing his arms. "Thought I heard something go bump."
"Aw, well," she dithered, her accent going thick. "That were probably me." Despite the situation, he had to stifle a grin. Kaylee had a tendency to get increasingly cute when cornered. He gave it back to her in spades.
"So I'd a-gathered," he said, looking stern. "Plannin' a little elopement with that there companion, are we?"
"Shucks," said Kaylee, clearly better at this game than he. "Iyas just lendin' a helpin' hand, thassall!" That did it for him. He cracked up. She beamed, relieved.
"Well. Isn't this cheerful," said the companion in question, her tone venomous. Ah, Inara. She even looked serpentine. Gorgeous, sinuous, all ivory skin and emerald sari and flashing, almond eyes. A quick needle of near-regret pierced him. After everything that had happened, she really had no right to look that damn beautiful.
She watched the smile drain from his face and it burned her. Oh, it burned. She'd walked in to the remnants of her old life to find him, and Kaylee, effortlessly filling the space with the warmth and comfort she'd thought was gone from this room forever. Oh no, Inara, it's not the shuttle that's haunted. It's you.
"I heard you found a… permanent position on Beaumonde," he said neutrally, breaking their eye-lock to glance around the room. Hell. Was he giving her an out? In the course of their association, he had fought with her, spat at her, avoided her, and crowded her in turn, so that this new gracefulness from him made her want to scream. I don't want your kindness! she wanted to say. I never asked for an ounce of pity from you.
"It seemed prudent to cultivate my options here," she stated, her voice clipped. "After our discussion the other night." Now she waited for him to lie. To tell her she was always welcome on his ship. To tell her nothing had to change if she didn't want it to.
"You always were a savvy one," he said instead. He gave her a half-smile that broke her already wounded heart in two. "I always knew I never had to fear for ya. You'll do well no matter what or where. Just…" and here he had to pause to clear his throat and look away again, "…you know, call. If you need anything. We'd all like to hear your voice, any time." Across from the two of them, Kaylee gave a heaving, sniffling sort of sigh, and hurried past them out of the room, carrying a half-filled crate like a shield.
Inara knew she ought to let things lie where he had just cast them. That she should take the gift he was trying to give her now. She found, to her own dismay, that she could not. The black anger that had possessed her since yesterday surged to the surface, poison on her lips.
"I just want to know: what was it, in the end? What tipped the balance between me and the… teenager that currently warms your bed? Am I too old? Too experienced? Too independent? It's true I'll never need you the way she obviously does. And perhaps there are charms to her particular brand of madness that I simply cannot.. fathom." She wrapped her arms defensively beneath her breast, unable to stop the bitter chill that flooded her limbs.
"Fuck, Inara," he cursed, pinching the bridge of his nose. She waited for his rage to wash over her. She even welcomed it. But it didn't come, and when she looked at him again, she could see him tamping the last of it down, replacing it with a wretched kind of empathy. "I…" he began, then shook his head. "No, god dammit, I loved you. You're right. I loved you for years. And if you want to get right down to it, I still love you, in a sick kind of way." He began to pace, shoving his hands in his pockets savagely. "But don't you see, Inara? It is sick. It's a sick sort of love we had. And knowin' that, and taking you up on your… offer… it's as good as lockin' you in a cage, or shootin' myself in the foot to get out of my duty." He blew out a massive lungful of air. "Okay, so I ain't so good with the metaphors. But we both know what would happen. I'd kill your spirit, and you'd… you'd…"
"I'd what?" she spat. "Massacre your honor? Your dignity? Or just your soul?"
"Naw," he said tiredly. "I ain't got much of any of 'em left to stamp on."
"Then what?" she shrieked. "What is it!"
"My peace," he muttered at last, moving close so he could meet her eyes. "You bring out the wolf in me, Inara. And I can't. I can't be that man again." He folded her in a final embrace, then. At first she beat his chest with her fists. She slapped his cheek, hard enough to leave a stinging mark. She writhed and howled against the cage of his arms, maddened. Then, after he'd borne it silently for several minutes, she went limp against him, and the tears came. She cried into his shirt, and imagined (or did she?) she could feel his own warm saline marking her scalp. When he let her go, she was a snotty, unrecognizable mess. But it was okay. It would be okay.
"You call," he said stiffly as he walked away.
"I will," she whispered. Then reached up and began to re-pin her hair.
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After fifteen minutes of furious weeping, Kaylee decided that her residual energy might as well go towards something useful. Or at least, less depressing. She climbed up to the med bay, filled with a wicked sense of purpose. Hips settling against the doorframe in a sleek slide, she regarded her prey, who currently sat at his desk picking morosely at a pan of dragon's breath noodles, dark hair flopped over his brilliant forehead like a hood.
He noticed her with a start. He tried to hide it, but she saw him jump in his seat. It made her smile, although the expression was currently more feral than affectionate. Oh, he was ripe for a little fun. "How ya doin'?" was her seemingly innocent preamble.
"Just… you know, working through some things. H-how are you?"
"Bored." She widened her smile, favoring him with a line of gleaming predatory teeth. Don't think she didn't notice him squirming, either. Something to hide? "Say, I thought we might play a game."
"A game?" He raised one dark, perfect eyebrow. An action that never failed to… lubricate her gears. "I guess I could be up for that," he said. "What did you have in mind?"
"I thought we could play somethin' from back when I was a girl," she explained.
Half an hour later the overhead lights were short-circuited and she had him pinned up against a gurney, panting her name in frantic bursts. "Oh God!" he bit out, struggling to keep his hands on cold steel and out of her hair. "Please… please… whatever you do, don't stop…!"
She lifted her head immediately. He looked down at her, desperate. "Wha…?" The look in her eye was something he could only describe as evil. Evil incarnate.
"You didn't say 'Simon Says,'" she stated. And raised one perfect auburn eyebrow.
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Inara looked back at the dock with a mixture of sadness and something surprisingly akin to nostalgia. Leave it to Mal to give her that strange long-view of things, a perspective that made even this present agony seem ultimately harmonious. She shook her head, smiling in spite of herself.
"Lady Inara?" said an attendant. She smoothed her expression, trying to place this face. Ah, yes. One of the senator's aides.
"Forgive me," she said, replacing her expression with something warm and contrite. "I have a few valuables I must attend to, and then of course we must depart." She quickly gave a set of instructions to two cargo loaders, along with a signed storage contract and a discreet but generous tip. "Shall we?" she asked the aide.
Whisked away in a dark car. Old fashioned, rubberized wheels on the ground, heavy iron-based alloy construct, primitive shocks. Devastatingly expensive. She leaned into the cushioned seats with a faint, neutral sigh, relishing the feel of the road's imperfections jolting up through the old car's metal frame.
The penthouse was an oasis. She moved to the open platform that was her hired bower, using the darkened glass around her bed to check her face. No sign of tear-tracks. A trace of smeared kohl under her left eye. She rubbed it with one precise finger, blurring it into her supple skin. Then, exhaling, she slid out of her sari with a shrug, drifting nude down the steps to the lotus pool. It was then that she noticed the aide still standing, watching her.
A young woman with bright honey-blond hair. Straight bearing, crisp uniform, hands clasped behind her back and shoes clicked together. Attractive, in a conventional way. Blank in the face, as an aide should be. Inara considered her carefully. As an initiate Inara had never been much inclined towards romantic feelings for women, but a true Companion flowed like water into the channels of the Fate allotted her. Or him. And the Lady Inara, jewel among women, had been exquisitely trained. "May I help you, my dear?" she said gently, deliberately turning so that her nakedness lay natural and resplendent between them.
At the edge of the pool they stood, less than three feet apart from one another. Inara felt a sudden disquiet. How were they so close? The young woman reached out, her arms surprisingly long and toned. She pressed an arc-thrower to Inara's white, vulnerable neck.
"Oh yes, I believe you can help me," said the woman. The prongs of the thrower dug into Inara's jugular. "I've been observing you. Your companions are… interesting. Did you know that they didn't exist two weeks ago? Surely you did. You seem quite bright, after your own fashion." The woman's eyes bored through, utterly cold. She stepped into Inara's circle of body heat, her continuing politeness somehow overwhelming in conjunction with her implacable menace. "Tell me, Lady Inara," the blond breathed, the words tickling the skin of her ear.
"Who is Benjamin Wilde?"