"Shouldn't take more than a few hours there and back," Zoe reminded the Captain as she stacked the last of the small boxes between Kaylee and Inara. Kaylee sighed in fresh delight each time she peeked at the beautifully woven fabric inside. The weaver on Persephone, an longtime friend of Inara's, had paid them a generous deposit to deliver her goods to the warehouse on Nautilus.

He tugged lightly on his mechanic's messy ponytail. "Don't dawdle over the fancies at this lady place, Kaylee, I'll put my crotchety face on and come lookin' for you."

"You always would, Cap'n," he felt Kaylee's smile as she kissed his cheek. He didn't

have the heart to make her stay on the boat and miss the drop off, some kind of gussied-up warehouse for women's things.

He saw Zoe smile, and looked away. A few minutes earlier, Wash had come tearing down from the bridge at a break neck pace, holding a small cloth bag out to his wife.

"Great ships in the sea, don't leave without this!" Wash had seemed genuinely aghast, and Mal had to wonder at the contents of the bag. He didn't have to wonder long. "You almost forgot the Slinky Fund!" The pilot stopped only inches from his wife's face and lowered his voice not at all. "For the Slinkies! A slinky dress - and all the slinky pieces that go under a slinky dress! Layers and layers of slinky!" This, plus the resulting giggles from Kaylee, had cured Mal of any desire to accompany the women to the drop.

Besides, they had Jayne with them. He had been the first on the shuttle that morning, poring over a much-edited shopping list. "Ma and 5 sisters, they got all the knives and whetstones they'll ever need. They like my presents, maybe they'll bring my mattress back in the house. They been lettin' the donkey bed down on it since last Christmas." It was a mark of his earnestness that even the slinky outburst had not budged his concentration from the list.

Soon the shuttle was gone. Simon was busying himself in the infirmary, Mal saw, between taking undoctory breaks to stare into the middle distance with a supremely silly look on his face. He ducked quickly by the door before the younger man could spring upon him and try to make him answer addlepated questions about "the ladies" when anyone could see he was talking about Kaylee. The bridge was out as well - Mal was certain Wash would abandon what little discretion he had when talking to the gorram dinosaurs about all things slinky.

He returned to his bunk and settled on updating Serenity's books, noting with satisfaction the coin already in the strong box from this job. Seeing that they had some extra money, Mal thought he'd take a look at Kaylee's engine parts wish list. He noted a few items that were both high priority and somewhat affordable, determining to speak to her about it when she returned.

Then he glanced at the time and his amusement at getting to play Engine Parts Santa for Kaylee evaporated. The hours had come and gone.

He belted his holster, climbed the stairs to the hall, pulled his door shut, and hastened to the bay. No sign of the shuttle or anyone from it. Cursing under his breath, Mal retrieved the coordinates for the drop from Zoe's log, and buzzed Wash on the bridge. "Womenfolk are runnin' late. You heard from the Mrs.?" Wash's reply was cut off by an incoming transmission from Zoe.

"Inara's customer wants to see you about doing some transportin' -short hops, sir. Legitimate. Her name's Bertha Harter. Seems she represents the community in these parts. Many of her neighbors got farms, small herds of animals, but takes a fair amount of time and effort getting the animals back and forth for breedin'. Don't want inbred stock, and the Alliance techs'd charge double or more to come out this far to do it artificial. Inara mentioned you'd grown up on a ranch, that's when the lady brought it up. Seems to think the animals'd take to you, sir."

Mal ignored his first mate's smooth-voiced jibe while he considered the idea. "Can't hurt none to talk to the lady. Tell her I'll be down in two shakes." He signaled Wash to take them to the surface. Mal doubted that the jobs would be particularly lucrative, but he didn't consider it prudent to pass up any offer.

Some time later he was approaching the edge of a small but prosperous-looking town. A small wood-framed house set behind a larger building he presumed was the storefront. He was surprised to see a few men and women in homespun clothing making for the door as well - apparently, Bertha must have put in some calls to the neighbors. They concluded their interview in short time with appointments set up for the next few weeks. Mal walked the short path back to Serenity laden with an unexpected luxury - real food. The farmers had asked about his upbringing on the ranch on Shadow, his ship, and other questions designed, Mal knew, to pass the time while they sized him up. Once they decided they liked the looks of him, various neighbors had proudly brought forth fresh eggs, cream and mild cheese, a generous slab of bacon, salad greens, cartons of dusky blueberries and a basket of peaches. Serenity wouldn't run on such fuel, he mused with a smile, but the farmers were paying with some coin as well. Besides, a few meals of this might help his crew get over having the ship smell like a barn for the time being.

Kaylee met him on the ramp to the cargo bay, eyeing the bags and packages. "What'd you get, Cap'n? Ooh, that lady had all manner of pretties at her place. Is there a present for -?"

He cut her off. "Just victuals. From the farmers what's payin' us. Let's get 'em stowed 'til morning."

Kaylee was suitably excited by the farmers' largesse, but ultimately would not be deterred. "Inara kept going back and lookin' at this set of chimes a lot. Made from stones polished all shiny - purple and grey, I bet she'd-"

"She's got clients could buy her the whole moon." Mal's voice was low and even. He'd seen all the jewels she wore. He didn't imagine rocks on a string would make them suffer by comparison. He was settling the eggs into a protected place in cool storage when he heard her derisive snort.

"Show's how much you know."

Mal told himself he was not accustomed to being snorted at on his own ship. Much. "What does that mean?" He busied himself wrapping layers of foil around the bacon as he went on. "No secret the waves she gets from very fine gentlemen - and ladies - all about the Core, inquirin' after when she'll be back their way. You're the one's always askin' about all the rich fellas vyin' for her attention with precious and whatnot, tryin' to sweep her away or convince her to marry." If the last word was gravelly and hard to choke out, Kaylee had the grace to ignore hearing it.

"All I been talkin' about lately is the goods she's been takin' to the shopkeepers, the merchants she's been meetin', the families payin' her to help 'em get their fancy households runnin' right. She learned all that stuff" Kaylee made a vague, irritated gesture that encompassed the galley and dining table "growin' up in the Training House dorms. What'ya think I keep bringin' it up for? If nobody else is - I'm just sayin', a body had ought take some notice what's happenin' on his own boat."

"Speak plainly, little Kaylee." She was frowning at him like he was Jayne in the engine room, looking left while she pointed right.

Kaylee lowered her voice to a whisper, more like a hiss. "How long since we been anywhere near Ariel, Cap'n? And can ya count ta 12?"

Ariel had been a touchy subject for much of the crew. Even now, Mal understood why Kaylee didn't want them overheard. But what did that have to do with Inara? She hadn't seen clients on Ariel. He was gentler with sweet Kaylee than with anyone, but she was going to take a bit of teasing for this. "I remember, little flibbertigibbet - nothin' on Ariel for 'Nara that time 'cept the exams the Companions have to...oh." A year had passed, with some weeks to spare, since Inara's last examination - without which she couldn't renew her license.

Mal had grown accustomed, again, to seeing Inara at breakfast each morning and around the ship most days, though she'd still taken the shuttle to meet clients. He knew she'd been arranging transport between crafters and merchants, but had refused to allow himself to assign any meaning to her actions. He still remembered how it had been without her, after the Heart of Gold.

There had been no day, during that time, that he couldn't make worse, much worse, courtesy of his own bitter imagination. He'd be eating chalky protein and eating it alone, having driven his crew from the table with his piss-poor disposition. And the images would come. Different every gorram time. Inara with some stranger, naked; under some unpleasant and anonymous hun dan, body arched, crying out; in the grip of some man who'd make damn sure he took every liberty he was paying for; acting out a depraved charade for a client's greedy eyes; looking hot-eyed and encouraging through her lashes as the man breathed foul, filthy desire at her, emboldened by the price he'd paid, not even troubling to whisper.

He'd welcomed the corrosive sting of these thoughts, compared to the dreams that came at night when he slept and could not defend himself. Worse than nightmares of Reavers and Miranda - at least from those, his brain had the sense to wake him. Inara, tucked under his arm. Knees across his lap, slippers on the floor. Head on his shoulder, one warm hand on his chest, laughing at some joke he made, smiling, gazing up at him in unveiled adoration. Helping her down from a horse - his favorite mare from boyhood, long gone - his hands around her waist and hers on his shoulders, the loving kiss she gave him for the favor. Sharing his bed with her, rallying her desire with kisses and ardent hands, in her eyes equal measures of need and sweet trust. A moment of joy, before waking, that had only added to his lacerating self-disgust.

"She's had no contact with the Guild since that one night they first took you to the hospital. Got some waves from her girls at the school, the young ones, time to time." The gaze Kaylee turned on him was highly speculative. "Ain't ya curious why?"

"I expect I'll hear from her if she's got anything she wants me to know." Mal replied absently. Most of his attention at the time was focused on ignoring the improbable ideas chasing each other through his mind.

Kaylee let that remark go officially unanswered, choosing instead to stare at him pointedly for several moments. Mal used those moments to inspect the blueberries as acutely as if they'd been ticking. He heard his mechanic snort, again, then stalk off, muttering all-too-audibly about his being dumber than a stump.

The peaches were still in the basket, filling the whole galley with the promise of their sunrise flesh. Mal considered them for a time, passing his fingers across the fuzzy pink cheek of one, before wrapping it in a clean cloth, settling it carefully into the pocket of his trousers and striding out of the kitchen.

He heard a gasp and much giggling as he stepped into Inara's shuttle. She was alone, but apparently finishing a wave from three remarkably sharp-eyed, excitable little girls.

"I saw him! Ooh, he's so - " the last bit was mercifully unintelligible. Much shrieking. Grabbing each other's hands. Mal caught the abbreviated glance Inara sent over her shoulder.

"That's the Captain! That's Mistress Serra's Captain!" Jumping up and down. And shrieking. Alternately hiding their eyes while giggling, and staring with uncanny boldness. Mal figured it was safest to stand perfectly still.

"Mistress Serra, I see your - "

"Yes, my dears, that's ... yes." Inara's bemused voice was warm with affection, but the girls also heard the limit she set. Still clutching at each other's hands but with a minimum of wiggling and sidelong glances, the children renewed their good-byes in earnest soprano chorus.

"I miss you!"

"I wish you could come back today and stay forever!"

"My mama won't tell me when I can go back to school, it's no fun studying at home!"

A short pause, and when she spoke, Inara's voice carried something new. "Miriam, if your parents want you at home, I am sure that is for the best. Please give them my regards. Goodbye, little ones." Inara terminated the wave but sat as she had been, facing away from Mal.

"Well, that was certainly...excruciating. Those little birds don't put much stock in subtle, do they? Don't they care their mamas'll hear?"

Inara remained facing the empty screen. "I'm counting on it." With both hands she smoothed the skirt of the embroidered blue gown.

"Not quite sure I follow that - you're not tryin' to find another -"

The half-question brought Inara around suddenly, and she rose. "No, I won't return to the Training House." She shook her head emphatically, then again. It seemed to take some effort for her to bring her attention to the present, but after a moment she looked up at him and smiled. He wanted her to keep smiling.

"There's peaches. " He extracted it from his pocket, folded back the cloth. "From the farmfolk you steered me to." More folding, unfolding, rearranging the cloth. A pause. "They've got work for us, next few weeks. So I thank you for that."

"Peaches? You're quite welcome. They must have been very taken with you." Inara beamed. She moved to sit on the small couch she'd installed when she started using the shuttle again, and patted the next cushion in invitation. "Tell me about it."

"They asked about my ma's ranch on Shadow, mostly, some about the ship and the crew. I guess some of them have family of their own far from home, much as we are. They'll treat us decent as they hope strangers'd be to their kin. Much like at home." A crooked smile. "And, I've volunteered Simon to help with any medical complaints might befall the animals 'long the way." He extended the peach toward Inara as he settled beside her.

"We could share it. I'll get -" Inara started to rise, but Mal forestalled her, unfolding the battered pocket knife he carried.

He chanced a question while he busied himself slicing into the fruit to halve it. "Why do you want those girls' mamas to hear 'em talkin' to you?"

"I want to make sure they don't send their daughters back to the Training House. Who knows what promises the Guild is feeding them. If the girls talk to me, they'll be talking to each other about what happened - and the parents need to know. These families raised clever daughters, they can't be without wit. I hope they're able to put the pieces together for themselves."

Mal was close enough to see Inara's hands tremble before she clasped them together in her lap. He laid the peach, weeping nectar into its wrap, on a low table.

"You mean, when the Operative found you there." He'd been plagued by more than a little sick, guilty worry over what the assassin could have done to Inara to convince her to draw him into a trap. His mind touched a conversation he'd had with Simon after they'd rid the ship of Jubal Early. She will die weeping. Inara had appeared unharmed that day on the wave, but Mal knew there were so many ways to hurt that wouldn't have marred her flawless skin. There'd been guards at the prison camp, after the war, that specialized in it, and what it pleased such men to do to a human soul was terrible to see. Was this why she let her license go - could she not bear to be touched again? He braced himself to endure whatever she was brave enough to tell him.

"He came to me in my classroom with a capture, by way of introduction. It was of Sheydra. He'd beaten her, terribly. He didn't ask a single question, just hit her and beat her until she lost consciousness. She was crying for help. She" Inara broke off, raised shaking fingers in front of her face. Mal gently reached out and took her hands in his own, letting them rest on his knee.

"This brings me no joy. I show you this unfortunate image so that you will know that I will not waver in my endeavor until I find River Tam and bring her home. Please don't dissemble - I know that you are well acquainted with the girl and her brother. I require that you dispatch a wave to Malcolm Reynolds on Serenity and convince him to come here."

"Please, if you would permit me a minute to speak to my House Mother?" Inara made her voice mild.

"Certainly. But you understand I will need to escort you to her office." The Operative offered her his arm and would not stir, speak, or change expression until she tucked her hand within it.

They reached the House Mother's office after a brief walk. The door opened immediately - clearly, she had been expecting Inara. The Operative allowed Inara through the threshold, then gently closed the door between himself and the women, leaving them alone.

A desperate whisper. "Mistress, there's not much time. You have to evacuate the school - get the girls to safety."

"The Operative will require an opportunity to question any student with knowledge of your relationship with Malcolm Reynolds. He was quite clear on this point before he met with Sheydra."

"But you know that is fruitless! The girls know nothing! I certainly haven't spoken to my students of my personal life - the stories, what they say, you know those are merely little girls' fantasies! Please, Mistress, our girls - they won't be safe with this man, he's not what you-" Inara stopped as the full meaning of her Mother's closed expression came clear. And her mind whirled back to the tiny pause she'd heard before: 'met with Sheydra.' Traveling again, with her mind's eye, through the corridors of the school with the Operative. She'd seen none of the local young men the Training House kept on staff as building staff and security.

The Mother rose from her elegantly carved chair, crossed in front of Inara's wooden form, and opened the door. The Operative was there to escort her out. "I have the names of the children I shall have to interview if you prove recalcitrant. Would you like to see it?"

Inara shook her head and allowed him to lead her to the cortex screen.

"The Guild knew, Mal. They could have sent me to his world under any pretext and I would have obeyed, willingly. But they kept the girls in the school knowing he was coming, what he'd planned for them if I wouldn't - hostages. Leverage." Her eyes met Mal's and he saw sorrow and something else in her expression. "So now I hope those mothers hear that I am decidedly not urging their daughters back into the arms of the sisterhood."

Mal scarcely knew what to say. Fresh anger boiled in him, but she didn't need that. "'Nara, you and those girls, I-" he was quiet a long time. "I know how it is, to have the people followin' you in need, and them you looked to for help turning their backs."

"That's not the way of it. The Guild would not protect us," she said in her gentle, musical voice, and he raised his eyes to see an entirely new thing shining in hers "but we had you. I had you." She touched a warm hand to his forearm. "I knew you would come for me."

The wanting had been a constant presence for as long as he'd known her. Mal had discovered long ago that it didn't matter if he looked at her or not: even when he deliberately turned his back to keep her out of his sight, his awareness of her remained painfully acute. Now, sitting close to her alone like this, the welcome in her gaze, it was nearly unbearable. But he didn't aim to be the kind of man who'd press his advantage with a woman who might feel indebted to him in some way.

He gave her an out.

"Seems I recall you callin' me stupid, tryin' to send me away, not quite a hero's welcome." The reliable, teasing tone. He leaned forward and reclaimed the peach and his knife, and as he felt her hand fall away the familiar bleakness came rushing back.

"You came alone - in a dress - and yet again, looking all too eager to get yourself killed for me. Forgive me if I didn't applaud your plan, I've seen you stabbed, beaten, and tortured enough for the time being, thank you." By the look on her face, Mal knew the eye-roll was just a moment away.

He absolutely loved it. Exasperating and blatantly rude, and every time she rolled her eyes he got to see Inara Serra lose control just a little bit. He got to be the one to make her forget what a Companion, professional embodiment of feminine desirability, should do. With dextrous cuts along the meridians, Mal sliced up the peach, balanced one wedge between the blade's edge and his thumb, and offered it to Inara.

He could almost see her formulating some scathing remark about the unsavoriness of the old pocket knife - but she evidently decided against it, saying only "Thank you" as with two graceful fingers she claimed the peach slice, now beaded with juice, and tasted.

Back as they were to teasing and insults, he would swear she had no intent to arouse him with her reaction to his offering. Her brown eyes closed briefly, then danced to his own as a grin of pure pleasure illuminated her face. Her brows arched, he heard a delighted mmmm; a deep breath to reclaim the taste. Was it the dim light, or did she shiver? She'd never been more desirable, all uninhibited with this innocent pleasure, and he knew he'd be fool enough to sit there all night, slicing peaches, just to get to keep looking at her.

"Ooh, it's perfect!" She sounded like the little girls from the wave, and he told her so. Then he remembered something he'd wondered about before Inara had told her story. He passed her another slice of peach.

"Just what do those girls of yours at the Training House think they know about me?" he asked, leaning back expansively. He'd enjoy this - let Inara explain how, her opinion notwithstanding, he had earned feminine admiration of some sort.

Her expression surprised him. This was clearly a question she was not expecting, and she looked at him almost with panic. "It doesn't bear repeating," she tried primly after a few moments. Inara got to her feet abruptly and busied herself straightening some of the stacks of boxes and baskets of trade goods that she'd been ferrying from place to place these last weeks.

"I'd say it does. " he grinned, leaning back and watching her fuss over the already tidy inventory. Something had Inara really uncomfortable, and he had to know what that something was.

"Little girls are easily impressed." The second part of the equation went unspoken, except in the expression on Inara's face. She turned, picked up a bundle of lavender blossoms from a small wooden rack, checked the twine around the middle with a stern tug, and put it aside.

"But I'm the one as did the impressin'. Was it the ship, do you think?" he asked, a thoughtful look on his face.

"You enjoyed the attention? Your ego really is quite singular. You secured some legitimate jobs tonight, but you feel compelled to fish for compliments from little girls? It's droll, really." She was the picture of gracious condescension, down to the flutter of her minky lashes. He ignored her needling.

"So they are complimentary, then? How did they get so well-informed about me, if you didn't spill?" It's the best evening's entertainment he's had in a long time, and after the depth of his worry earlier, he's relieved she's got some fight in her. He extends another peach slice but Inara glares at it as though it's responsible for asking her obnoxious questions. Mal takes it for himself with a satisfied smile.

The fathomless brown eyes flashed at him, delicate pink glided across her cheeks. "They're just silly stories, Mal," she said with a shake of her head, and why was there a note of warning in her voice?

"Stories, now? That's even better than compliments. Did you tell them breathless accounts of my brave deeds of daring heroics?" The sheer unlikeliness of that scenario, and the response he anticipated, kept his smile growing.

"This is unbearable! No I did not!"

" Did I impress the young doves with the manliness of my very being? It wouldn't be the first time. Why, my lovely fake wife - of course, she liked you just as much as -" he was laughing now, waiting for the sting. This was how they played. He'd rile her up, she'd cut him down, and he could pretend, for a few moments. He didn't see her expression change.

He gets more than he expected. "You're my lover." Inara's voice is lower, huskier now. "Your need for me is insatiable. My desire belongs only to you." She flings it at him like an accusation."You bring me to transcendent ecstasy on the altar of a burning temple." She catches her breath and exhales with a shudder. The look in her eyes alone might immolate him. "Of course," she continues with an enraged hiss, "the stories don't mention that you set the fire because you're trying to steal-"

He tells himself that what he felt was fury, that he will not spend months unwillingly remembering the sound of her saying what she said. "In the stories, are you bossy," he snarls, " and insulting, and superior, and I'm makin' love to you," yelling now, "just 'cause I'm desperate to find some way for once to shut you up?" He throws the peach sideways across the shuttle and hears it crush itself against the wall. The knife dislodges and clatters back across the floor, coming to rest near Inara's feet.

The sound that escapes from between her gritted teeth rose nearly to a shriek. "How can it be making love," she forces out, managing to school her voice back down to a scathing near-whisper "if it's with the most irritating man I've ever met in my entire life?" She bends, reaches down to retrieve the pocket knife. Mal has had enough.

"Fine. I'm the irritating one. Good question." Eyes flutter shut for a moment, he inhales and opens his mouth as if to say more, doesn't. The look on his face might be called a smile, by anyone who didn't know him. He turns to go. "Sorry to annoy-"

Mal hears another sound, pain and surprise added to the outrage. He turns to see that of course Inara has pinched the skin of her palm, badly, in the hinge of the old pocket knife. She is shaking the hand and glaring at him as though she is convinced he has deliberately set her up to hurt herself. Now it's his turn to roll his eyes, but he takes a step toward her with a hand outstretched.

"Let me-"

Her other hand tightens around the now-closed blade and she pulls her arm back, preparing to fling it at him. With renewed outrage, Mal closes the space between them in two quick strides and grabs her wrist before she can launch the knife. His other hand closes tightly around her bare bicep as with her free hand Inara claims a handful of the front of his shirt. Her eyes are panicky, luminous, and brimming with tears. Where the hell did this come from? Mal wonders and then his world becomes far more bewildering because her free hand is relinquishing his shirt and cradling the back of his neck instead and Inara is pulling him down, rising on her toes, and kissing him.

She's a slapper. She's slapped him before and he won't believe she didn't like it because he remembers how she smiled after she did it. He figures he's in for a powerful slap any moment now but he doesn't care, he's kissing Inara and wide awake, not in some dream he's embarrassed to acknowledge. He's not going to stop because he never thought it likely he'd get a chance and she tastes like peach and the spices that men crossed desert and sea for, in the ancient days of Earth-that-was. Impossibly familiar, how she tastes, but not from the peach. He can't figure that out, it's hard to think, as dazzled as if by the light of a sun after long years in the dark.

Something clatters against the floor. Both her hands are resting on his neck now, and he moves his hands to cup her beautiful face, like a precious treasure, centuries lost. He kisses her with all the desperation and hopeless love in his heart. She breathes a tiny mewing noise against his mouth as her hands move to steady themselves on his shoulders. He wraps both arms around her to gather her close and the feel of every curve of her pressed tight against the length of his body nearly proves his undoing. Every desire and fantasy of her he's been schooling himself for years to ignore is raging through him, louder and louder. She's whispering his name and what he hears in her voice enflames him. She's trying to push his suspenders down his arms. He can't stop touching her, the suspenders are stuck halfway, and she sets about unbuttoning his shirt and laying claim to his bare skin with her hands.

Control is hurtling away so quickly, the way she's touching him and moving against him, but it's important that he try. He stills his hands. "'Nara," he manages, a gasp, his forehead resting against the curve of her neck, his eyes clenched shut, "there's no one I've ever imagined wantin' so much as you. If you're not-" Her hands come to rest on top of his. Her face turns slightly up to listen. He's certain she's going to remove his hands from her person, make some scathing, distancing remark, end this delirium. This is the special hell - he'll live on the ship with her for as many days as she consents to stay, knowing how her kisses feel, knowing she can do without him. Another breath of the oxygen that is her skin's scent. She is very still, except her hand, sliding up to touch his face again.

He makes himself meet her eyes. This is what she's been waiting for, she wants him to see her when she says it. The most delicate smile. Her eyes search his. The fragile hope in their depths is the last thing he thinks to see.

"Make love to me." It's almost a whisper but he knows her choice of words is deliberate, a revelation. Mal reads the question in the kiss that follows. He gives his answer with devotion and tenderness, treating each kiss, each touch like a privilege, like a promise.

I will not be parted from you.

I would give my life to keep you safe.

I love you.

They spend a perfect hour on the tiny, narrow couch. His eyes return again and again to her face as he learns her and loves her. A luxury, looking without self-censorship, without striking from his face what his heart feels. She watches him, watches her own hands move over him. She calls his name, again and again, a luxury of her own.

Late in the quietest hour of night they steal through Serenity to Mal's quarters, to make love and sleep tangled together under the worn army blanket.

Mal wakes before Inara the next morning. Her hair is an extravagant, gorgeous mess around her face and across the part of his chest she's using for a pillow. He picks out one shining curl, gently pulls it straight, then lets it go to watch it spring back into its coiled shape. He entertains himself like this for a while, feeling unfamiliar and terrifying hope crowd out some of the loneliness he's carried so long.

He feels her stir, inhale deeply against his skin, and nestle close. Her smile is wide before her eyes open. "What are you doing to my hair?" Her voice is indulgent.

"Just fiddlin' with it," he admits, smiling down at her and tracing a finger along the curve of her lower lip. She kissed him for that.

He pulled her closer, but his face was serious. "I don't conjure this is the kind of life you ever had in mind, and I know there's plenty willin' to offer you what I can't. But for what it's worth, you're precious to me as no one else I can imagine. I want you to stay."

A crystalline tear glided over Inara's cheek. She shook her head. "No one can offer me what you can. I want you for my own," a smile, "every day, and if you're here that's where I'm glad to be."