Note: the characters and their world belong to Mr. Whedon and company; the mistakes and the follies are solely mine.

Note: Yes, I skipped all the hard parts (take that as you will). I am starting in the shallows; one day I might try the deep. Peace not pax. --intopaper

*

Fitting - -

The ring on her finger was a gunmetal gray. Unhappy description, she thought, but it applied. An old phrase, from Earth-that-was literature she read in training, in passing. She had an idea what it meant then, describing an ancient city’s sky. Now she knew. It had looked so harmless, in the blue velvet he found who-knows-where. Shining, almost. Only took on its ominous tone resting against her skin. Ominous. Foreboding. Forewarning. Jian xian. She thought she might make a list. Maybe River could help. She was better at the ancient tongues. Mal, in the Latin. What about Greek? She giggled and hiccupped. She was a touch light-headed. Rubbing the smooth band did not seem to help. - - “...it’s not so fine, as your other things, ‘Nara, but it’s...” She had been staring at him, not his hand. She couldn’t seem to understand what he was saying. His eyes were confusing her. He was stammering through something. “It’s not nothing. Been in the family since Earth-that-was, story tells.” She doesn’t think she can accept it. “Mal, I—” She’s not even sure she can look down. “’Nara, I just told you it’s old as Earth. Ain’t likes to bite you.” Now, she can’t look up; she can’t remember how she came to be standing in the hall in front of her shuttle’s door, opening a blue velvet box and finding a ring like she expected and yet could not believe. “Mal, it’s—” “It don’t shine much on account of it not being gold. Not silver, neither, ‘Nara, you’re worth more, ... not that you’re worth ... ain’t no kind of metal good enough...but” Seems fair he can’t finish a sentence, now, seeing how he hadn’t let her hardly start one, she tells herself, before saving him. “Mal, I know what platinum looks like.” “Yeah. Guess you would,” “I don’t have anything in platinum,” “Well I...huh?” he stops, confused, her head still down, her voice sounding all sorts of things it never usually did: shocked and confused and frightened and anxious. He wondered if putting a score of emotions into your own voice was the same kind of companion-y trick that took them all out. That one he was used too, a plenty. Did it work in reverse? “Mal, I can’t accept this.” He can’t hear anything for a second. Did Serenity just stop? She weren’t humming like usual. ‘Nara’s lips were moving, oh, good, she was looking at him again. Not that looking at her black curls weren’t nice. Not that she don’t say bad things to your face, he recalls. “I’m leaving” for instance. “...it’s too precious. It, you have to keep it. For someone...” His hearing snaps back on. “For, what? Who? Inara,” He wants to put his hands on her arms and shake her. “Who else would I give my mama’s wedding band too?” “Mal. Your, your—“ that’s funny, she thinks, she can’t think of the word she wants. This isn’t really in her line of training. “Someone, Mal, even,” there is a brief flash of insight, “you might have a daughter some day. She’d want this. It, it wouldn’t be right—” Why is he looking at me like I’m crazy? Mal’s daughter. Ai ya. that sudden picture hurt. “Darlin’,” he says, in honeyed exasperation. “Who would I be having a daughter with, if not you?” She leans back against her shuttle door. Mal brings his hand to his forehead. He seems to think for a few moments. She’s not really doing anything. Wondering why nothing has happened to Serenity. It’s been almost ten minutes. Shouldn’t something have gone wrong? “‘Nara you do realize I’m asking you to marry me, right?” he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the ‘verse that Malcolm Reynolds would want to marry an Alliance-supporting, Sihnon-trained, Core-bred ex-Companion. “I gather I missed that part,” she says, dryly, because now she’s thinking that this is maybe all a joke, and clipped sarcasm is usually the fastest way back into the game. She must be down a hundred points by now. Gos se. She was winning at dinner. “Gorramit, woman, do I need to get down on my knees? I took you to dinner. I’m holdin’ out a ring.” She smiles at how high his voice gets. “You’d get down on your knees?” “Did I mention the ring’s an heirloom. Bit of precious if there ever were one.” “And what is the cause of this sudden bout of sentimentality, Captain?” “What? Well, uh, well,” deep breath. He takes one, that is. She just stands. “We’ve been... you know...” he waves his hands around. She waits. “spending more time together...” “In bed” she prompts. “Yes, well, there too, anyways, for a year or so now, as I figure, and...” he’s flailing, and she’s back in control; she knows how to handle his yu ben duh sense of honor. So she laughing and flirting, her eyelashes fluttering: “Why Mal, I didn’t know you cared.” “Inara. More than the ‘verse has space to fill.” She sits down fast at those words, and she’s back to that place where she can’t look at him. He’s on his knees in a moment, hands on her arms, ring box pressed hard against her left, but she’s thinking, “this is how it was when we first kissed,” and “now I can tell Kaylee he got down on his knees,” and he’s looking at her like he just knocked something off Serenity’s engine. “Ai ya, darlin’, stop looking at the floor. Why are you, why is this so hard to believe?” How did he know what, she thinks, shaking her head sharply, once, twice. “How did you know that?” “I’m good at reading people.” She stares. “Well, I’m good at reading you. Now, I might not have all your fancy training, but I’ve got two years of just watching you, and some of that right up close, you know, for the last—” “Mal.” He slides next to her, mimicking her, back against the cold door, knees up, though he leans back, hands at his stomach. Inara is still hugging her knees. “Didn’t you think I’d make an honest woman outta ya, one of these days, ‘Nara?” “Honest,” she makes the word round and deep. She drops her knees, and crosses her legs; sits perfectly straight. “And what’s honest, these days, Mal?” She’s pensive now, sad and calm together. Time was, before, this was the best space to talk to him from. My lonesomeness here, yours there. Shout across the gap. Shipwrecked survivors, passing in the black. Now, it means heartbreak, and she waits to feel it, waits for him to turn her heart cold, then brittle, then broken. “We are. Inara. Take it. Keep it. There’s no one else I would give it too.” He’s pressing it into her hand. The box. Not the ring. She notes he’s not trying to put the ring on her finger. Or even take it out of the box. She looks at him. “I’m not saying you gotta wear it. Not even askin’ at this point, seeing how you’re mighty shook up and all. Thinkin’ maybe, maybe you’ll just consider holding it, for the time.” “Hold it, Mal?” she asks, as she does, feeling the metal against her palm. “Yeah. Keep it safe. ‘Haps,” and here his grin breaks open, “for that daughter you mentioned.” Oh, he’s smirking something awful, she thinks. Should she slap him? Been known to work, before. But he puts his palm against her cheek tenderly, then stands up and walks away. He’s been good at that, since the start, she remembers. Space. Letting her walk away. Letting her think. - - Definitely gunmetal, she’s thinking, in the dimmed light of her shuttle, looking at her hand. Not gold surely, but even silver’s impossible to claim. In the half-light she’s grown accustomed to it looks almost black, oily, old. Neither sun nor moon, then, of Earth-that-was or all her daughters. Platinum. Strongest of metals. Color of starlight, mixed with the black. “I had Kaylee steal a ring,” he murmurs into her back. “Mmm,” she says, still playing word-games in her head. “Sure,” he sighs, “now you’ll look at it.” “I’m listening, Mal, you had Kaylee steal... you had Kaylee steal?” “Arhg, if you’re going to listen woman, listen the whole tale through. I had Kaylee steal—borrow—one of your fancy ones to get the size. She’s still got it, I think. Didn’t have a chance to sneak it—” “Kaylee knows?” Inara is drowsy, now, she’s closed her eyes and is thinking about red silks and seamstresses on the rim. She imagines Mal would marry her in coveralls, if that’s what she wore, but Kaylee and River deserve to be proper bridesmaids. “Whole gorram crew knows.” “I imagine we’ll have to invite them, then,” “Invite them?” “To the wedding, Mal.” “Oh right. So now you are marrying me.” “I like the ring.” “You surely do know how flatter a man, Inara.” “On that note, I’m not taking your name.” “Fine, absolutely. Whatever you say,” he murmurs into her back, but she waits for it. “Mrs. Reynolds,” is a sleepy whisper; still, she feels compelled to open her eyes, in order to roll them properly. “You know,” he says, as he drifts off, “turns out the thievin’ weren’t necessary. Ring your size already. Wonders of the ‘verse, huh” he breathes, falling asleep against the back of her neck. She looks down at her hand, folded over his. “Wonder is, I fit,” she thinks, this thin band, the color of a gun. The color of Serenity

* translations:

Jian xian: difficult and dangerous Gos se: a cussin’ word yu ben duh: stupid