Disclaimer: Joss is boss, I don't own.

Mal/Inara implied

General spoilers for the tv show, mostly War Stories

Drabble-ish

A/N: I was re-watching my Firefly DVD's and the look on Inara's face when she was talking to Mal after they rescued him from being tortured in War Stories stuck in my head and spawned this fic.

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For the first few days after they staged that impossible rescue mission she couldn't look him in the face without cringing. She came so close to losing him that day-to close-and she doubts that she could handle not seeing him ever again. Sometimes she hates Mal, hates him like she's never hated anyone before because he is the one thing that she can never ever have. And Inara hates to fantasize about what can never be.

It's a real pity she cannot help herself.

One good days, when the crew is happy and their pockets are full of coin and Mal is smiling and joking she gets a glimpse of the man he was before Serenity Valley took his soul and she mourns for all that can never be at the same time she rejoices in the little bit of happiness or the brief touches they share.

When they bring him back, half conscious and broken she stops breathing. Mal is everything that is strong and fierce and she cannot stand to see him this way.

She does not breathe easy until the bruises are gone and the cuts are healed.

She remembers their first meeting; when she laid down the law, the rules she lived by, to him. She was upfront and demanding and she knew without a doubt that he would rent the shuttle out to her.

Then he called her a whore.

She's used to it by now, the disrespect that he shows her profession. It surprised her at first though she carefully hid it. Inara grew up on a Core planet where being a companion was elegant and important work. She wasn't used to being near men like Mal and Jayne and woman like Zoë and Kaylee. People who grew up on Rim planets where poverty and hard work were common and very few had any objects of value, where people said what they thought and felt and never worried about what other people thought of them or their standing.

When Inara left the training house she was the picture of proper breeding and refinery. She was a master at it, knew how to get anything she wanted with the batting of her eyelashes in synchronization with her perfectly enunciated words and the carefully chosen length of her silk dress. She could fool anyone.

Except him.

He could always see through her 'wiles' and sometimes when he looks her straight in the eyes she feels as if he knows every secret, evey fault, every thought that she's ever had.

Sometimes she thinks they could be happy together, that they could make something of this crazed attraction that they both share. She can see herself wearing jeans and a worn T-shirt with children in her arms, a boy and a girl with his blue eyes and light brown hair and her tan skin and features. They would be beautiful and she wants it so bad her heart aches.

But it would never work out in the long run. She is a companion from the Core, an Alliance supporter-or at least she was before River-and he is a thief and a liar from the Rim and an Independent. They are different in just about everything they do and everything they believe in. Neither would be willing to change for the other.

And she can't help but love him.

She came so close to loosing him that day when he was kidnapped. If it hadn't been for Wash and Zoë's quick thinking Inara doesn't know what would have happened.

She knows one thing, though.

No matter where she is or what the future brings, she will always love Malcom Renolds with all her heart. And she'll always wonder what could have been if they'd had the guts to put aside their pride and try to make sense of their feelings for one another.