Chapter Three: Where (nearly) everyone mourns.
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There had been a few times in Malcolm Reynold's life where a single moment, a solo event in time had imprinted itself so strongly and permanently on his mind that no matter how much time passed it could suddenly hit him again just as strongly as the first time it had happened in the most unguarded moments. Among them numbered a few moments from his youth that had once been sweet but turned painful with the destruction of his homeworld and his family. That first moment that he and Zoe had come into sync with each other's thoughts without a word spoken was one of the few that remained positive in his recollections. As much as that memory brought a happy feeling, he had thought for years now that nothing worse than those horrible moments from Serenity Valley where he'd had to accept it was really and truly over would find its way into his memories. And then there had been Miranda.
Surely that should have been enough for one man to have to bear, but it had become apparent that God enjoyed kicking him in particular around. Even in those frantic moments when it had been apparent that Inara's shuttle was inevitably going to crash he'd still hoped she'd somehow come out of it fine. It was the cut off scream they heard over the radio that both lodged itself just as firmly in his memory as those other defining moments and made a lie of that hope.
Simon rushed to gather any supplies he thought possibly useful to add to his portable medical kit. Kaylee went to gather any tools she might need to cut into the shuttle in case the hatch had jammed. Mal just continued to stand on the bridge while River took the ship down to the crash site. Much as he may have wanted to at a time like this, Mal wasn't the type for believing in pretty lies. He was already sure of what they would find.
The certainty didn't make it any easier to see, though. He made sure to keep Kaylee out of it, once she'd dealt with breaking open the hatch on the shuttle. For as bad as the crash had sounded, the exterior of the shuttle didn't look too terribly banged up. The interior was a very different story, however.
Although Inara hadn't gone back into active practice as a Companion, she had retrieved her things from the Training House to bring the shuttle back to its former splendor, though it was hard to tell that from the mess it was now. As disconcerting as it was to see Inara's always immaculately organized space completely tumbled about, it had nothing on the sight of what was left of the woman herself still strapped into the console seat. It wasn't immediately clear what in particular had happened to her. The control console was utterly wrecked, as if some part in it had blown or electrified. The formerly fuzzy pink seat cover was soaked in red, though whether it was more from the bits of the console that had exploded outward in shrapnel or the severe burns visible in several places wasn't clear. It was unquestionable that she was far past any possible help of Simon's. Some detached part of his mind registered that it wasn't the most terrible death he'd ever seen, but that hadn't been Inara.
He wouldn't allow himself the time to dwell now, not with the rest of the crew watching. So he immediately set to assigning tasks; keeping Kaylee away, moving the body, cleaning up the shuttle so that Kaylee could see if it was repairable. As much of a mess as it looked, they couldn't afford to lose it if there was any chance of it being functional again. There would be time to mourn properly later, in private.
As much as the crash and the immediate aftermath of rushing to find the downed shuttle stood out stark and utterly interminable in his mind, the time afterward blurred together unnaturally, only leaving a few moments of clarity here and there. Kaylee crying stood out bold in his mind, a few different times; sometimes while sorting through parts in her stash, and others sitting with her back against the console of the shuttle she'd pulled out from repairing because the tears were blurring her vision too badly. He hated to make her do such a task, but they had no choice. No one else on the crew could and they couldn't afford to take the loss of the shuttle if it could be avoided. He also hated that she didn't seem to resent him for it, either. If she was angrily blaming him, he wouldn't have to worry that she was secretly blaming herself for whatever had mechanically gone wrong with the shuttle.
Other actions of the crew intruded themselves on his awareness in that vague time of numbness. Simon's awkward hovering, that the boy somehow figured he didn't notice, annoyed him something fierce, but he didn't even feel he could rightly yell about it with the strain they were all under. Didn't stop him from doing so once or twice anyway, though. Zoe's calm presence, always there, kept him aware that not quite everything had changed. River's constant attempts to draw him out, either asking about things he was certain the girl already knew, or just brushing by on her way to somewhere else, layin' a hand on his arm or giving him a sympathetic look. Hell, even Jayne tried to convince him to take up weight liftin' to take his mind off things.
The crew had bounced back a lot since the events surrounding their broadcast of the secret of Miranda. As much as it had hurt that Wash and the Shepherd were gone, repairing their home had brought them all together. Mal didn't know a person in the whole turning 'verse stronger than Zoe. Kaylee and Simon, he and I-, well, they had all found that their bonds to one another were strong enough to weather the loss. Their way of life was in no way safe, but this was still enough of a new shock to knock them all backwards through months of rebuilding their lives.
He'd never thought to ask Inara if she had any particular arrangements in mind for a funeral, even as much as they'd all been confronted with their own mortality when they lost those two parts of the crew. Mal briefly toyed with the thought of calling up the friend she'd so recently visited to ask, but in the end, he himself wasn't one for ceremonies and such – anymore, leastaways – and they just arranged a quiet affair amongst themselves. Kaylee insisted that the Guild kept track of all its people, even those what had left active Companioning, and she volunteered to send them off a wave letting them know.
Once it was done, and Kaylee had managed to get the shuttle fixed back into good enough shape to be hoisted up to attach to Serenity – they needed to get back on the job and have some income coming in too badly to wait for her to fix it completely – the whole crew was glad to see the back of this part of the system. The prospects they'd had of a job weren't much with the pall hanging over all their heads, but it was something, and it would somehow have to be enough.
Badger had been well enough known for not liking Mal much to avoid the ruthless culling of all their friendly contacts and had waved them. Fact of the matter was, the little rodent was probably going to attempt to stiff them or drastically underpay for their services, knowing how desperate they were, but as the ghost of the last argument he'd ever have with Inara flitted through his head, it was just as clear now as then they had to take what was being offered.
As time wore on, Kaylee seemed to settle into a less demonstrative kind of sad. There were still awkward, sad silences around the table and nobody was precisely acting happy, but life went on because it had to. Somewhere along the line, little River had started spending more and more time around Mal, which he plain couldn't understand, being anything but pleasant company, but he did appreciate the effort to cheer him up enough to try not to snap at the girl too much.
Some days, he could just push on through like he always did. Though there'd been a good long stretch of days after the Tams came onboard where things mostly came out well, he'd spent a lot of years after the war just pushing through day by day or sometimes hour by hour. He wasn't happy to find himself back with that feeling again, though a good part of him held no surprise. With the way his luck had always run, Mal figured that perhaps the stretch of good should have disconcerted him more than it had.
They managed to scrounge up a few more offers of jobs as time continued passing, though none of 'em were any better than the last had sounded, and all of them turned out trickier than that one had. He noticed that Zoe was keeping an eye on him, to make sure he wasn't gonna suddenly take it into his head to do anything terribly stupid as a way of making the pain go away. Although it irked him some, he said nothing about it. Mal couldn't say he hadn't done much the same thing to her the first month or so after Wash, and though he wouldn't be inclined to admit it to anyone, he was maybe a little grateful just knowing Zoe would kick his ass if it even looked like he was thinking about trying to get himself dead on purpose.
Mal was also mindful not to put any particular pressure on Kaylee to get the shuttle fixed any time soon. While they couldn't really afford to abandon it, they didn't often need the use of two shuttles, so once she'd assured him that it was fixed up enough to hoist into place and be reconnected up without causing any problems when they reattached the power, he left it up to her when to fix it. He knew Kaylee would get around to it eventually, but he certainly wasn't wanting to spend a minute more in there than he had to, and could imagine she felt much the same. The two of them had taken an afternoon to pack up all Inara's things, clearing the space out, hoping that would make it easier to stand to be in there for her to work on the consoles. It'd been about as painful as getting stabbed repeatedly with a sword, and he'd know. Still, if it made things eventually easier on Kaylee, it was worth it. His crew just kept getting smaller and smaller with nothing he could do about it. As much as he'd always figured he'd end up a lonely old hermit with nobody, it was never something he actually wanted.
For a little while, he'd convinced himself different. Inara was back and made every indication she was planning to stay permanent-like, no matter how ornery he'd been towards her. Simon had stopped pining so badly for that life he left behind in the Core and gave in for how he felt about Kaylee, and if maybe Zoe was less without Wash, any fears he'd had of her blamin' him or taking off had proven completely unfounded. Now though? Simon and Kaylee were back to drawing off by themselves again, and he expected any day for the two of them to declare they were off to settle down somewhere, taking the doc's sister with 'em. Which'd leave just him and Zoe and Jayne along with whoever they might manage to hire. Once upon a time, when he'd first found Serenity that might have sounded like enough to be going along with, but now it was more a thought that just didn't bear thinking on.