An Entry from the Journal of Inara Serra one month after leaving Avery for the first time:

Though I knew my choice to stay with Serenity, to stay with Mal, would be fraught with change, it was the grief for which I was most unprepared.

Silly of me. I know all the psychological babble. I understand that those events termed “life altering” really are. Perhaps I thought that because I knew about it, it couldn’t hurt me. It came on me slowly, a sort of depression I suppose. I never realized I was slipping away.

The first days of our newest job were mild and uneventful. Mal dubbed it the Apple Pie Job and seemed strangely content not to be dodging bullets. River and Kaylee kept Zoë busy demanding tales of our trip to Sihnon. I braided their hair with ribbons I’d bought them, and listened with a smile as Zoë described the House to the girls.

I think it was shortly after that I began to notice the feeling of being disconnected. I was there, but I began to have the sensation that I had to swim through heavy air. I was sluggish and withdrawn, even though my mind was aware.

I know, for a while, that no one expected me to really stay. River’s look became measuring, half threatening, half pleading – not today. Her glance would go from me to Mal and back to me. Don’t leave this day.

As for Mal, well, Mal never expected me to stay no matter what he said. He loved me by the hour, the way he lived his life, one hour at a time. He’d shared that philosophy with River during one of her bad times.

“You can do anything, lil swami, if you do it one hour at a time – one thing at a time.”

River, of course, saw what was happening to me, but she knew, too, that it was all part of the process of change. If any of us on board was aware of that it was River.

My breaking point, oddly enough, was a handful of wild cherry blossom stems. Mal found them and brought them into the shuttle, dropped into a small coffee can from the kitchen. It was the first and only time I have ever been able to read his mind the way Zoe is able to. He placed the impromptu vase on the dressing table before me and our eyes met in the mirror. His said everything.

Go then. I won’t ever stop you. These blossoms represent what you left behind. I won’t lift a finger to keep you here. Watchin’ you wilt and fade is more than I can bear.

Looking from the flowers to Mal’s eyes, the tears began. He knew. I think he’d been waiting for it, had recognized what I had denied. Who could understand loss more than this man to whom I’d committed myself?

He simply led me to our bed and held me. I cried for hours, grieved for something I couldn’t even name. The past – my life there - not the opulence, but perhaps safety, the normalcy. He let me sob, never saying a word, only soothed me with small sounds and soft touches from his large hands.

When morning came, I was no better. He murmured something into the com and Zoë appeared without a sound. She took in the sight of me, pitiful I’m sure, and simply kicked her boots off and took Mal’s place. I couldn’t speak. There were no words for the ache that clenched my body, but that’s the true beauty of Serenity and her children. Grief and loss are emotions with which we are all intimately acquainted. She held me, rubbing her hand calmly over my back until River and Kaylee came to take their turn. Simon stuck his head in to offer a smoother. I was tempted by the allure of unconsciousness, but Zoë shook her head. She knew what I did not – that the wound had to be cleaned, drained, and scraped to heal. Drugs would only prolong the pain.

Mal came back in the early evening, dirty and exhausted, and just in time for the second wave of tears to hit. I wanted to apologize, but my throat was too swollen for words to pass. Later, when I could barely keep my eyes open, Zoë came back and climbed into our bed, sandwiching me between them. I know now that she came to comfort Mal while he comforted me – that she understood that my anguish caused him pain. Like Wash before me, I will never completely comprehend them, but I know enough to accept them.

The next morning, I awoke with a sense of anticipation and hunger. The first I’d felt of both in nearly two weeks. Mal was asleep, dark circles under his eyes from staying up with me through the night. I turned to see Zoë awake and smiling. I can remember that I felt no embarrassment, not at my breakdown, nor at her presence in our bed. She seemed to know that I’d be all right. She hugged me and left. We needed no words.

That was two weeks ago. Today marks my first month on Serenity as a part of this crew, not as a Companion. I realize now that part of my grief was for the mask that I was discarding. I cannot tell you how naked and fearful I felt without my Companion accoutrements.

I now feel free to enjoy my new life with Mal and our makeshift family. Mal is more certain of me now, I think. He talks to River, who shares everything about him with me. As Kaylee and Simon grow closer in their relationship, I see her gravitating closer to Mal, and, by association, to me. I can’t deny that I feel a certain motherly protectiveness towards her even though she acts like the adult in so many situations.

On this ship, she has somehow become our daughter. Our shuttle has become her home during the day. She spends hours here asking me questions, looking at my old captures, demanding stories of my Companioning days, climbing on the bed with the hairbrush for me to pamper her. Her current quandary is that Sushi and Sashimi are not reproducing. While I brush and braid her beautiful hair, she scans articles on goldfish breeding with Simon’s PDA, muttering about Punnet squares and all possible allelic combinations of gametes in a cross of parents with known genotypes. I find myself being as proud of her as I would my own daughter. I am also thankful she is occupied with the fish and not human reproductive capabilities.

Watching her with Mal delights and destroys me. As with so many daughters and their fathers, he is her practice dummy for real life. She flirts with him, she learns from him, she follows him around the ship like a puppy mimicking him, and she even made him teach her how to waltz in the galley one night. She lays a quiet hand on his shoulder when their melancholies collide and they wander to the bridge to stare into the black. They sometimes talk; sometimes sit for hours without moving.

She patrols the Cortex, checking warrants, arrests, marking time. She chats online. It’s an outlet for her. I can tell when she has made a new friend. She smiles and laughs as her fingers dance over the keys. She reads passages to Mal as he pores over star charts and scans possible job offers. He listens with half an ear, cautioning, always cautioning her about giving away any information that could identify her or any of us. She is patient with his worry, and he is never condescending to her. I don’t think Mal knows what goes on in her head, but he has always had a feeling about her, and they have learned to trust each other.

Some days I still feel fear, but those get easier as I find myself accepted by our family here and the warm people of Avery. They don’t treat me like a princess, an untouchable member of society, as I was used to, instead they open their arms to me as Mal’s - well, we’re still not sure about that part - lover, partner, friend. All those would apply.

They welcome Mal, both because he has become a source of sorely needed income and because they truly like him. He is more relaxed here with Abel - more like I imagine he must have been on Shadow. I suppose it’s because they are his kind of people - open and warm, full of grace and country manners. At one point in my life, I would have said simple, uneducated; and, if I was feeling truthful, somewhat beneath me. But seeing what the Alliance did on Miranda has changed my viewpoint forever. Now, I see people who don’t want their lives planned for them, who choose to sacrifice comfort for freedom. I admire them, and I am honored to be accepted as one of them.

I keep in touch with Sheydra at the training house. She seems delighted in my new adventure. The grass always seems greener doesn’t it? She teases me about sleeping with my pirate and I shake my head at her antics.

‘Sleeping' with Mal is a contradiction in terms. Mal rarely sleeps – too many ghosts, too many worries. I hold him while he dozes, his lanky body draped over mine, listening to him as he talks in his short slumbers, tracing old and new scars with my fingertips as I learn things about him that I would never know otherwise.

Oddly enough, the one part of my life that I thought would stay the same has changed irrevocably. Control is the word of the day for a Companion - every day. It never occurred to me before that sex with Mal would be that much different than with the other men I’ve slept with, but I should have expected it. I wonder what Sheydra would say if I confessed the truth to her. If I told her that ‘sleeping’ with Mal was a passionate maelstrom where control flew out the window. I wonder how shocked she would be to know that instead of being In Control I have snorted, giggled, squealed, gasped, begged, screamed, and cried. Somehow, having met Mal, I don’t think she would be surprised.

So today, in this journal, I write to sort my thoughts. As I look around at the shuttle that I am slowly turning into a home, I am reminded of a conversation that Shepard Book and I had a few weeks after his arrival. I suppose I was somewhat restless even then. When I asked him how he could be satisfied on Serenity, he quoted from his threadbare, patch-worked Bible.

After his death, I wrote the scriptures in calligraphy on a parchment. It hangs from the wall in our shuttle. Mal read it and walked away, but he has never asked me to remove it. It reads ‘Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content.’ When I asked about its origins, Mal told me a man named Paul, in the book of Philippians, wrote it.

As I reassess my decision to stay with Mal, my life on Serenity, and my choice to retire as a Companion, I am hopeful and I am content.