Okay, so I'm not quite done with school yet (so... close...) but I've been working on this story as a reward for getting stuff done, which has turned out to be a surprisingly effective system. So effective that I've managed to finish another chapter, which means I can put this up.

For anyone who was disappointed by a lack of Manara last chapter... here's hoping this one makes up for it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BROKEN

Snow fell thick and fast outside the barn windows. Mal grimaced. The walk to the transport depot would likely take close to two hours, in this weather. Assuming he didn't get lost in the storm on the way.

He hefted his satchel, lowered it to the floor. There wasn't much inside. A few pairs of clothing from back home, a blanket, his dog-eared Bible. Mal reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, and fingered the handful of 50-credit notes he'd tucked away. He'd withdrawn as much as the machine would let him take.

None of it made sense. He should have been fired already. Publicly whipped, put in stocks, locked up. Whatever they did on Sihnon to someone like him, who dared to touch someone like her.

But Davis seemed content to hold what he'd seen over Mal's head, and watch him like a hawk in the meantime. Hence the reason why it had taken Mal a week to find a moment where he could sneak away and access his account. After tomorrow, he couldn't make any move that left a trace. Nothing that could tell Jo and Moran where he was. And they'd surely be looking, when he failed to show up tomorrow, on the day of Elections. His deadline.

Mal didn't have much of a plan. Find passage back home, find Silas, explain that he'd screwed everything up. Again. Maybe he could hide in Hadley's basement for a couple months. Or he could find work somewhere else on Shadow. It was a sizeable planet, surely there was somewhere he could stow himself away until Mercey forgot about him.

Mal crossed the barn, to Babylon's stall. The horse was awake, watching him, silent and knowing. Mal leaned on the stall door. He sighed, rubbing Babylon's neck. Babylon huffed through his nostrils.

"What else can I do, Red?" Mal murmured. "I'm runnin' like a coward. But I'm done. Done disappointin' everyone."

He turned around, back braced against the stall door, and slid to the ground. He lay his forearms on his knees, and shut his eyes.

It was times like these that the old hurt flared. The hurt that had grown up with him, into whatever he was now. A boy in a shell. Mal drew his knees into his chest. He reached under the collar of his shirt, to pull out the silver cross. It dug into his palm.

He held his breath. All of him tensed, tuned to one pitch, straining to catch an echo.

He snapped his eyes open, emptied his lungs. Nothing. Her voice hadn't crossed the firmament to reach him, calling him her little colt. No phantom hands had cupped his face. She just… wasn't there.

The dim light inside the stables fractured at the edges of Mal's vision. He set his jaw, and got up. He slung his satchel over his shoulder.

He made one last pass around the barn, looking in on every stall, ensuring the horses were bedded down proper. There'd be another stable hand to replace him in no time at all, of course. Mal hoped the next one would be kind to them. And patient with Colossus, who'd gotten much easier to work with, but still had his days.

Again, Mal stopped at Babylon's stall. He pressed his hands into the gelding's cheeks, tilted forward to touch foreheads. He pulled in a deep breath, and turned away, gripping the strap of his bag in both hands. He took a step toward the door.

It burst open. Wind hissed inside, carrying a gust of snowflakes along with it. They parted around a slight, solitary form, glowing like an apparition.

The door slammed shut, and Inara stumbled into the barn. Arms wrapped tight around herself, glassy-eyed. She wasn't wearing her cloak. Only an ivory ball gown that looked like it was woven out of spider silk. It clung to her, leaving her shoulders bare.

Mal's bag slipped from his shoulder, and fell to the floor. He started toward her, then stopped. She looked… cold. The wind had pinked her cheeks and lips, and tugged half her curls free of some convoluted hairstyle with uncountable gleaming pins.

At last Mal found his voice. "Inara, what-"

Before he could do a thing to stop her, she crashed headlong into his chest, wrapping her arms around him. Her hands pressed into his shoulder blades, pulling him as close as physically possible.

Mal stood stiff, arms out at his sides, paralyzed. Then, slow and cautious, he put his arms around Inara's shoulders.

"I'm sorry." Her voice vibrated in his chest. It was such a novel sensation that Mal struggled to comprehend her words. "I shouldn't have come here, I know, what with Davis… I've already gotten you in so much trouble-" she cut off, on the edge of a sob.

"Whoa, hey now. It's okay." Mal rubbed her back, just below her shoulders. The action grounded him. Her breathing slowed. "What's goin' on?" he thought to ask, finally.

Inara didn't answer. She pulled back. Her eyes had landed on his satchel.

"Wǒ de tiān a. He did fire you."

Mal shook his head. "No, I…"

Inara stepped out of the circle of his arms. "Then you're quitting?"

"Look, will you just-" He huffed, and shrugged off his jacket. Old and patched, it suffered in comparison to Inara's adornments, but at least the flannel lining held his own body heat. "Here." Mal draped it over Inara's shoulders.

She snapped her head up. "You're going back to Shadow."

"Yeah." Mal spoke to the ground. "Reckon I shoulda gone a long time ago."

Inara grabbed his hand in both of hers, making him jump.

"Don't go back there. Please." She was breathless, wild, looking like someone Mal had never seen before. "Promise me."

"You got no call to ask me to stay." He tried to pull his hand away.

She wouldn't let go. "Leave here, leave Sihnon if you have to. Just don't leave the Core."

Mal knit his brow. "Why?"

"Because-" Her voice strained. "Just promise me."

Mal stared down at her. Goose bumps prickled up his arms. "Tell me why."

She shook her head. "I can't. I just need you to promise."

Mal tore his hand free, and stepped back. "Look, I'm sorry if it ain't what you want, but I'm goin' back home. On the first ship I can find."

"Mal." She drew her mouth together, lifted damp eyes to his. At last, barely loud enough to be heard, she said, "There's going to be an attack. On Shadow."

The air closed around Mal's ears. It pushed into him, filled his head like a scream. He couldn't hear his own voice, as he breathed out, "What?"

"I overheard my father arguing with the Vice Minister, in his study. After they left, I managed to get inside, and his personal tablet was right there, on his desk where he always keeps it. It was open to some kind of plan-" She stopped.

"When?" Mal managed, hoarsely. "How?"

"After- that is, if he's elected. I don't know how, exactly. It didn't all make sense, but- The plan said something about a blast radius. Expected mortality rates. It sounded like… bombs."

Mal's mouth went dry, scoured out. "But that'd be war."

Inara nodded. "It's not just Shadow. Hera, and Newhall, too. They're targeting areas with known Independent activity."

"The peace treaty," Mal muttered, voice cold. "It was all a lie. I knew, gorram it, I knew." He gripped Inara hard by the shoulders, ignored her wide-eyed gasp. "Was Birdseye on the list of targets?"

"I don't know. There were so many." Her voice caught. "Thousands."

He let go of her. He stumbled a step back, and turned away.

Jo and Moran had to know about those plans. There would be no running from his mission. Not now.

He lost awareness of himself, shoulders hunched, hands pressed to his face, until he felt a hand on his arm. Mal jerked up straight. Inara stood close, not speaking a word. He closed his eyes again. Jaw clenched, holding himself brutally still.

"Mal." Her voice settled over him, soft. "I'm so sorry."

He couldn't move. He couldn't trust himself to look at her.

"Is Birdseye your hometown?"

He nodded.

"Perhaps you could warn them somehow, tell them to get to safety…"

Mal pulled away from her. Heat rose fast, thick in his chest. "Safety? Where would that be? How're they s'posed to get to safety if no one knows when or where the attack is comin' from?"

Inara's hands fell to her sides, twisting in the fabric of her dress. She said nothing.

"No." Mal shook his head. "There ain't no safety for us. And y'know what? Even if, somehow, someone got a message out, and ordered every human soul on Shadow to evacuate, most of 'em wouldn't leave. They'd rather die on their land."

Inara kept quiet. It was a special kind of quiet, one Mal had come to recognize. It pulled the words out of him in a long, tangled strand.

"'Bout a decade back, the big Core Ag conglomerates started circlin' us." He didn't look at her as he spoke. "They bought out local companies, property, our own politicians, and the Alliance was right behind 'em. They patented seeds so they could charge for replanting rights every season. You couldn't pay, Alliance took your property. So folk on Shadow, them as still got their own land, they had to fight to keep it."

Understanding twisted Inara's face. Mal had to turn away. He looked down at his hands.

"My mama-" The words choked him. He swallowed, tried again. "My mama didn't have crops. She was a rancher. But soon as it became clear that our government weren't workin' for us anymore, she stopped payin' taxes, in protest."

"She must be a very brave woman," said Inara.

"Yeah. She was." Mal lifted his head, staring hard into nothing. "She stood up to them, when they came for our ranch. She fought." He held onto his voice, just long enough to finish. "Right up 'til an Alliance officer shot her in the chest."

"Oh." Inara lifted a hand to her mouth. "Mal." She took a step toward him, then stopped. "I'm so-"

"Don't," he growled. The heat came flooding back, better anger than emptiness. He whirled on her. "Don't you dare say you're sorry. Not when it's your liáng xīn bèi gǒu chī le father who's doin' this, not when- you…"

She kept quiet, let his voice dissolve into the air between them. Inara took Mal's hands in hers. She held his gaze, blinking fast, but unwavering, unwilling to look away. Mal was the one who broke, dropping his eyes.

He didn't move, as she drew closer. She slid her hands up his arms, and he let her. He let his head fall forward. He unraveled under her touch, his breath shuddering out of his mouth.

"It's not right," she murmured, into his shoulder. "We aren't made to carry all this weight." Her breath burned through his shirt. "You can't carry it all, Mal."

He could tell her. How easy it would be, to come clean about his mission, lay it all out before her. Trust her to forgive him, to understand.

But he couldn't speak. Their breath mingled, and the tug of something stronger than gravity bent his head toward her.

Mal wouldn't have moved, if she hadn't. He would have stayed like that, breathing her in, just to keep her there, hands pressed to his chest.

Inara lifted herself into him. Blood hummed in Mal's ears. He didn't think, not about his mission, or his home. There was not a single thought in his head.

His stillness was surrender, as Inara pressed her mouth to his.

translations:

Wǒ de tiān a - Good heavens, Oh my goodness

liáng xīn bèi gǒu chī le - cruel, inhuman [lit. "conscience was eaten by a dog"]

YEAH. Um. That... happened. *internal screaming* I'm sorry to end on such a cliffhanger (*cough* okay, not too sorry, I love cliffhangers) but I had to split up this scene into two chapters. Which is to say: the scene is far from over... Oh boy, I was nervous about posting this chapter, but I'm terrified to post the next one. Yikes!

This chapter did give me some trouble, so I would love to hear any and all thoughts on how it turned out. Constructive critique is more than welcome! I hope to screw my courage to the sticking place and get the next chapter up soon. Until then, stay shiny!