This story is inspired by, and a gift for, ladlebasking. It takes place during Chapter 1 of her excellent Firefly fic Chosen Family. Title is taken from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, specifically his Mrs. Coulter.

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The glass is thick, and has a strange distortion - crash-proof, she supposes dully, or meant to withstand the burn of atmo and the impact of unsecured objects. The faint reflection of herself in the observation window is warped and colourless. Perhaps for the best; it hides the strain on her face and the scuffed and soiled state of her silk. The training can't be shed; all the while she is watching the masked surgeons, and thinking of blood, and screams, and the truth now streaming out into the 'Verse, another part of her is maintaining her posture and carefully considering how her dress looks from each angle. Presence and composure may be needed here. The fine strips of the weave pull slightly over her cheekbone; to have walked away, alone, almost untouched feels so unlikely that another part of her mind keeps sweeping over her body in search of breaches, holes, voids.

River is improbably perched on the window's narrow ledge, arms wrapped around one bent knee. No-one had been able to get her to submit to the medics or to move more than six feet from the stretcher that the Alliance soldiers had loaded Simon onto, and her arms are still streaked from wrist to elbow with crumbling spatters of red. She hasn't spoken or moved in at least twenty minutes, her eyes fixed on the limp white hand lying palm-up on the operating table. Simon's body is largely hidden by the three white-gowned figures gathered around it and the pristine surgical drapes, but the wet shreds of the rough sweater they'd cut off him have been dumped on the table under the hot white lights.

She hadn't wanted to walk away from the crew in the recovery ward, with Kaylee out cold but breathing, Mal still being stitched and Zoe staring blankly at the wall, but Mal had said, through gritted teeth, "Watch 'em - can't trust here…" and she'd followed River following Simon, for all the good her slim influence may be able to do if the Alliance is bent on enforcing their warrants.

All of it cycles, as she breathes in, out, to a steady practiced count of four - the raw terror of the crash, the shock of being still strapped in and alive, the stale-smelling concrete walls of the bunker, the singing tension of the bow and sight to the tip of her arrow, the rank smell of the body on top of her, the cold white light on a child's placid red-stained face…

The ledge by the window is empty; River's gone. Fear steals upward into her throat; River is impossible to find if she doesn't want to be found, especially in the warren of an unfamiliar ship. River is undoubtedly wanted most of all, but Simon is helpless. Why would River go? As soon as she'd dropped the weapons in the pile of Reavers, she'd run for Simon's side, and obstinately refused to leave it since. Why would she have left now?

It's clear she's not going to have time to make a choice. Footsteps in the corridor; footsteps that, on some level, she knows. She remembers the first time she heard those steps, walking up her own stairs, to her own training house, how he had come as a client, a guest, and threatened her with utter ruthlessness and a gentle smile. Threatened her with Mal. And she poured him tea while he spoke.

Inara braces hard against the ledge and summons the bearing of a Companion as he rounds the corner. His leather breastplate is scuffed and cut; he moves awkwardly, and pain is lurking underneath his careful steps and the creases of his eyes. But he is as serene as when he walked up the steps to her House and smiled at her with precise, regretful cruelty. Good, she thinks, with a viciousness that shocks her. I hope he hurt you to the bone.

"Miss Serra."

At times like this, one really wishes for a man's name, one that can be infused with every bit of disdain and rage you have to offer. She fumbles discreetly by her side for a grip on the window ledge. "I'm at a loss," she says, with a flash of sarcasm, "to understand how you dare address me again."

"My regrets for disturbing you," he says, with what seems like real feeling. "I had a curiosity…" He turns his eyes to the scene behind the window, and for a long breath there is simply nothing to be said.

"You shouldn't be here."

"We have laid down our weapons, all of us." He leans his arm against the glass, and shifts his weight uncomfortably. "You have my word, as a civilised man, that every one of you will walk from here when you choose."

"I have no regard for your word as a civilised man."

He smiles briefly, just a curl of the lip. "My understanding of what is civilised has changed today. I accept your correction. You have my word, then as a penitent man. One who owes a debt."

Inara has no response, but she can't walk away. She looks at the surgeons.

"He's an extraordinary man," he says, to his own reflection in the glass.

Surprise bubbles up. "The captain?"

He smiles without shifting his gaze. "Your captain, yes, but… I was speaking of Dr. Tam. He has a rare capacity for sacrifice."

Inara feels another upwelling of guilt. This is why she had left - why her better judgement still tells her insistently that she cannot afford to stay. She cannot afford to become enmeshed in Mal. She can't afford to lose her judgment in the face of… of whatever he is. She had sat on the floor of that concrete hallway and let Simon bleed out, not even been able to keep pressure on his wound, because all she could think of was Mal Mal Mal. Because all she could do was strain for the sound of the elevator returning.

It was Simon who had thrown that Reaver off her, and shot it.

She's very thoughtful, this man had said to Mal.

"Yes," she says, with an aching clarity. "He is."

"They could not predict him." He glances at her sideways, a quizzical look on his face that fills her with new rage. "It never occurred to Mathias, to the architects of the Academy Programme, that a human being might exist who would give up their entire world. For love."

"Yes," she says again, around the painful lump in her throat.

"I wanted to see. A foolish impulse, but I had to see his face, as well as your captain's." He lets his hand drop from the glass. "They will both recover, I understand."

"Many won't," she says, hearing a betraying shake in her voice. "So many… how you could…"

"I did what I believed was necessary." He sighs. "I had reason, and only reason. I am sorry."

"I think you should go now," she says, in cold dismissal. "Please go."

"And Miss Tam?" He looks at her keenly. "I imagine she isn't far. I would like to see her, just once."

For a second the Companion is lost, drowned, in a wave of true fury. "How dare you come into this place and ask that," she hisses, and she's two steps closer to him without realising. "How dare you. River will always be beyond you. You will never see her. Now go."

He is completely unruffled by her anger. "You are a woman of gifts too, Miss Serra. I paid, myself, for underestimating you, when last we met. I trespassed on your hospitality then, because it was what I needed to get to your captain. I will trespass no more. I am finished."

"Go," she says, letting her voice waver, hating the lie of it, hating the truth. "Just go."

He bows to her, practised, as though they are at a ball. And he goes.

She's played with this life like a toy, until now. Always able to pretend that she walks through it without being in it. To make a game of being better than it. And she is not extraordinary, in that way.

River has crept out, apparently, from a vent in the wall, and Inara feels a gush of relief that almost brings her to tears. Why can't she be a Companion today? "He's gone," she informs Inara solemnly. "His fangs fell out, and he can't find them any more. He can't sleep until he sees the wind." She scrambles back onto the windowledge and fixes her eyes on Simon.

"I see, sweetie." Inara touches her shoulder, as much for her own benefit as River's, strokes over the blood matted in the long dark hair. "I'm… going to check on the others in the recovery room. Will you be all right here with your brother?"

"Shì." River folds her arms around her knees again. "I ride the wind."

Inara shakes her head helplessly and lets it drop. She needs to see Kaylee. She needs to see them all.

The smell of the Reaver still clings to her arms.