Inara didn't know what to make of Simon. That was unusual for her. A companion was trained to always understand their clients, to give them what they wanted before they even knew they wanted it. To do that they had to read people. Inara thought she understood Simon the earnest nature, the desire to save people as a doctor, the determination to help River, all wrapped up in the stilted mannerism of a socially awkward Core bred rich boy. Inara thought she had Simon read until one Unification Day.
Mal and Zoe had drunk too much and were telling war stories; not the good ones. Inara had been ready to leave the conversation, until she had glanced up and seen Simon's face. There had been such pain there, as Mal talked of winter campaigns and piles of bodies and burning skies. It wasn't sadness she had realised, that natural reaction to the tragedy of war, it was something deeper. An empathetic horror combined with memories of suffering. Inara was older than she looked but she knew that even with Core tech Simon wasn't old enough to have fought in the war and he hadn't lived near enough to the warzones to know anything about it beyond Alliance news reels. So she didn't understand why, when Mal and Zoe became lost in those horrible memories, Simon Tam looked at them like he understood.