To impress a Companion you must be rich, attractive, debonair, well-spoken, and respectful. But all Malcolm Reynolds had to do was continue to breathe. Inara had always assumed that even if what she felt for Mal was strong- amazingly strong- it would never overcome her. She was controlled, she knew her own mind and she knew to control it. She knew it was needed, especially with him.
Normally, and Inara doesn't even admit this to herself, she waits for Mal's footsteps passing the shuttle. He walks heavily, she's noticed, but he never stomps. She thinks, sometimes, that he doesn't think she can hear him. But she reconsidered that months ago- she knows the captain would never be that- well, sensitive isn't the word, Mal Reynolds can be plenty sensitive when he needs to. There isn't quite a word for what Mal isn't, because she doesn't know any of the words for what he is.
So, that night, she's up a little later than usual. And all she can feel is his lips on hers. She knows that, if he knew, he'd be furious to the tenth degree. She wonders if it's because he couldn't experience it, or because she kissed him at all. And there's a certain point, as she's waiting for the heavy fall of him to pass by the room- or, less preferable but more likely, for him to come in uninvited- she realizes that for the first time in a very long time she kissed someone.
Mal didn't kiss her. Mal was unconscious it was none of his doing. There is no way she can put this down as giving the customer what he wants. Instinct. Except, of course, that this is instinct. Everyone else's instinct.
Inara wanted him.
Inara probably loved him.
And while it was a bit of a stretch to say she chose him- if she'd chosen to fall in love at all, it wouldn't have been with Mal. Not in a thousand years would she ever have chosen him, not even as a client. Mal was rash and impulsive and he consumed things, Mal would, if she ever allowed that desire to become the first thing on her mind again and if he knew it this time, consume her. And that idea frightened her. To be a Companion was to be free in the strangest sense- but the only thing Inara had ever relied on was what she could give- body and mind. To rely on a man was a romantic ideal, never something she believed in. But with Mal, she had a sense of all or nothing.
He would not share her and she knew that. She knew that if she were to fall in love with Mal Reynolds her life as a Companion would be over. Her life as she knew it would be over. And she was not yet so far gone that Mal would be reward for that.
Not yet.
Someday- someday, she knew that she would give in, or he would give in. And something in her told her it would be her. To fall to pieces one night, perhaps. To not be able to watch him lay dying and fall into all the what-ifs in the world, that would be her. She didn't get shot near enough for him to realize he would miss her.
Not to realize, no. To understand what it would be like to miss her. Mal can't – Mal sees Serenity Valley as the worst thing that could ever happen to him. He couldn't understand the pain of losing a lover because there was no way to compare the two- it wouldn't be better or worse than Serenity Valley. It would be in a different world- maybe equal, maybe better, maybe worse- but different.
Many people came to Inara after the loss of a loved one- parent, sometimes. More likely husband, wife, friend. Once a brother. The type of boy Simon is- loyal as anything, young, impulsive, rich. The sort of man a Companion should fall in love with. Well, if a Companion is to fall in love with anyone it would be a man like Simon- not a man like Mal.
Never a man like Mal.
In fact, never a man not like Mal either.
Apparently, just him.