Thanks again to my wonderful beta, Wen, love ya babe! What can I say it's been my most productive week yet, being stuck at the parentals for a week with out a solid connection to the world of binary, except for 5 minutes that I steal here and there.

Fractures

"You know how I feel about you being in harms way," Mal said as he trailed after the departing Inara who had been unsuccessful at avoiding him.

"Mal, may I remind you who supplied Grissbaum with what he needed to kill us all."

"That's so not fair, we..." Mal tried to protest, but Inara cut him off before he could finish his side of the argument, leaving him standing on the catwalk with his mouth agape slightly.

"Actually things always backfire when you commit a crime. Maybe it's time to look into a new profession."

"What like you? Whoring yourself out and fucking anyone who can afford your rates, criminal or not? Well hell, in that case maybe you and I should get it on."

In response he received a slap. A slap he well deserved. She hadn't deserved to be spoken to in that manner. "I'm sorry...I," he instantly regretted the words even as they flew from his mouth.

Inara held her hands up in protest, "No Mal, this, this is a shining example of why I should leave, why I'm going to leave."

"I..."

"No, bi zui. You are the most baffling man. One minute you're calling me a whore, the next your shish-kabobbing my clients."

"Just that one time."

"And contracting them."

"How was I supposed to know you and he were, I mean ..."

"I can't even see what I ever saw in you."

"If I had known that you two," he looked up sudden realization latching on to him like a rope thrown to a drowning man. "Did you just say...."

Inara had prepared long ago for this backpedal. She knew that when he got her angry, she would eventually screw up.

"When I rented this shuttle I thought that you would respect me and what I do, but all you have done is degrade me, devalue me." She couldn't let him know how she felt, not now. It would mean changing, everything.

He stepped closer. He knew what he had just heard and what Inara really meant, but he also knew that she was right about how he treated her. He grasped her arms and brought her close, mere centimeters away from his lips. This was the moment of decision – the time to tell her that the reason he didn't want her to be screwing some other person was that he really wanted her by his side. It was that or push her away for good, for her own sake.

The moment seemed to hover in the air. Lips seemingly coming closer. A kiss. A start. The beginning and an end. Her perfume wafted through his nasal passages while he savored the feel of her silk dress on his hands. The bounce to the curls of her hair and the shine in her eyes were the things he knew he could only take to his dreams. However this no dream, the moment was real, the both of them were real, it was all so real. Too real for him. Something, some where, some how would come and take it away from him. This is not something he could have.

He walked away from her, towards his cabin. What could he ever offer to her? She was a refined woman. He was a wanted man. A thief. What kind of future could they have? Why would he want to be that cruel of a bastard to make her give up her life of honest work for following him around the 'Verse. No, there was no way he was going to drag her into this. His hand jammed on the keypad inside his bunk as he told it to lock the hatch. He couldn't involve her anymore then she already was.

He was there. Right there and a few moments ago it all seemed shiny and now it was nothing more then ash to him. He glanced at his image in the mirror, an image he now abhorred. It's going wrong. Everything. Preachers, fugitives, reavers, botched jobs and love. The one thing in all the 'Verse that can bring a man down to his knees, turn him around and make him look at things differently. His fist launched at the glass and connected, shattering it. Shards spattered while blood flew everywhere, just like his life. He stared at the image left behind all fractured, missing key elements and blood.

-

Inara ran into her shuttle with tears stinging her eyes, only her pride and training keeping her from shedding them before she got to the sanctuary of her home. For the briefest of seconds it all came together and apart in so many different ways, changing, revolving, becoming, until it all stopped at this moment. Fear of leaving her trade and the sisterhood, the fear of a future with Mal, another without him, children, growing old, dying young. These were the thoughts that had raced through her mind in the space of time since she and Mal had stood together in the cargo hold. Parts of her rallied for release from the torment that she created within herself. Fears, dreams, hopes, nightmares, all cascaded upon her and now led to her real path. Mal had closed the door on their future and still her future was just as uncertain. The only difference was that now she felt that there was never meant to be a future in which she stood beside him; moreover, now that future could not include him at all.

She stared at the nicely decorated walls remembering the way they looked when she first arrived on this ship only now she feels as though they are closing in on her, mocking her with reminders of who she is and what she can never be. Looking down at herself, she sees her clothes as a symbol of the things that bind her to her profession and future; she was now trapped on a path that she doubted she really wanted to follow.

Turning to face the mirror, she stared at her reflection, another reminder of who and what she is. She must make a choice - stay or go. To torment herself with the cruel reality of what she can never have or to move on and be who she has trained to be. Thoughts of the future and the present racing through her head, she considered her options. She hated to part from her friends, but she didn't know if she could stand to constantly see Mal and always wonder what could have been?