Chapter Nine - *The characters and their world belong to Mr. Whedon and company; the mistakes and the follies are solely mine.

*Previously: Prologue and Chapters up to Eight. - *I posted chapters eight and nine in a short space of time, so please make sure you caught eight before reading nine. They rely on each other for sense and impact. - - ::Serenity:: - Inara doesn’t remember how River closes the party. Mal ends up guiding Kaylee and Simon to their separate bunks with more patience than she can believe. River is rolling her eyes at her brother, drunk on two cups of wine, as she points out lanterns to Jayne likely to burn, which he takes down, less patiently, wobbling slightly with the effort of having to balance and reach up. Inara helps Livy to bed, wincing anew at the sight of her wounded leg, her cheek. Livy laughs at her, still full of music, and reassures her that the doctors will mend her just fine. If they can mend better than Simon, which, in the hazy hour, she seems to doubt. Anyway, she tells Inara, more surgery will give her more time to rest, before she has to think of making money again. Here her eyes fade, and Inara, cold herself, shushes the girl to sleep without further chatter. She sits beside the young girl. Her fingers turn the coverlet’s wrinkles into Mal’s characters. Jasmine, serenity, nightingale. A beauty, pleasing in elegance. Sincerity and truth in speech. Home. - It couldn’t have been that long before Wash’s whispered cursing and unsubtle banging in the kitchen echo across the ship. Serenity’s version of sunrise. Check the helm, make tea, recheck, his routine as a good a herald of day as pink stripes in a sky. Perhaps if Inara had a whole night to consider, if she had spent longer hours walking the past, she would have decided otherwise. But as it is, seated beside a girl hurt twice simply for being in the same place as she, thinking of River acting only a moment soon enough, thinking on the practicalities of money and of being “jing-tzang mei yong-duh” of decisions made and put off and dissolving, and seeing blood that had and would fall, eventually, inevitably, because of her and her world and her endless complications; because of these heavy thoughts in those short hours, Inara makes up her mind. She leaves a note by the girl, makes a cup of tea herself, and begins packing up her home. - “Nursin’ a hang-over there, ‘Nara? ‘Spected to see you, if no one else, up and...” Mal stops talking, stops walking, stares around him. “What the hell is this?” Half stripped walls, the precious statues wrapped in draperies. She has made progress in three hours, even without sleep. “I have less than four days, Mal, to get everything—“ “Everything for what?” He’ll make her say it. Fine. “Til we get to the training house. I’ve already spoken to Sheydra. She welcomes my presence as a teacher, she greatly needs the help.” He doesn’t say anything. “Mal, you knew this was coming.” For a moment she believes he will tell her she’s crazy. Yell her out of her walled up heart. Convince her leaving is the worst idea in the ‘verse. Or just ask her not to. For a moment, he starts: “Of all the gorram fool notions to take into your head, woman, do you have to do this now while I’ve got—” “Got what, Mal? The Alliance on your back? Reavers in your sky? Reader and preacher picking over your dark, tired brain while your medic slowly breaks your mechanic’s heart? A first-mate and pilot drivin’ each other half mad just talking about thinking about a baby, and one trigger-happy merc looking to take over a ship that you can’t barely keep together any more than you can your— ” she claps a hand over her mouth. She literally puts her hand to her lips to stop talking. “If that’s what you see on this boat, no wonder you’re wanting to run off. I’d be like to turn tail my own self, were I so blind.” She has taken her hand down, cheeks flushed at her childish gesture, or at his words or her own. She cannot untangle which, and so has no control over her blush. He waits and watches her, uncoils from his fighting stance, straightening up. Not the last word, he thinks, say something else, don’t... not like this, not the last word, the last fight. Yun ben duh sense of honor, she thinks. Letting me win, because it’s the last game. She doesn’t speak. Say it, she thinks—she prays. Say it, say it, say it. Make it as impossible to go as to stay. “Well,” he breathes out. “Lord knows you do have a lot of,” grasping for some agreeable word, “things” he settles on, “and I doubt Livy’s in much shape to help out. I’ll send Kaylee over when she finally shakes herself outta bed. River too. Can’t seem to bring myself to wake them, though. All the work they did, and up so late. Not that... Well. Girls throw a good party.” Inara moves her hand. “Best in the ‘verse,” she agrees. “And I would know.” - - Inara sits in her shuttle, sealed trunks and boxes her only scenery and company. She had planned to sleep. Instead, she sits the whole night on the metal floor. She attempts mediation, legs folded. But one thought repeats endlessly. She was making a mistake. She was making a mistake. Endless, cold, and impossible to escape. She does not attempt to. Nor does she consider who else is keeping such a vigil. She cannot hear Kaylee, working through the engine’s smallest parts, cleaning and rewiring what already ran sweetly; the doctor in his own corner of the ship, counting and recounting supplies. She cannot know Book’s prayers, Wash and Zoe’s mumbled wishes. She does not hear first Livy then River pad to her door. Livy, still limping, hesitating at knocking, knowing something is wrong, but not how to comfort one of the most skilled in the art. River sits silently, mirroring Inara’s pose. She falls into Inara’s chant, and the crew and the ship and the hum of the ‘verse disappear. She learns, since she too will have to lose her home and heart again, must do so without falling to parts. When River finally steps back to her room, she places her hand on the Captain’s shoulder, as he sits, back to the rails on the open platform of the cargo bay. He watches the door to Shuttle 1 and does not drink the wine beside him. Inara sits the entire night, as Serenity slips through the black. Her one thought never changes. When she stands, it is with grace. She is making a mistake, so she will not cause a greater one. Her smile to Sheydra is water in the desert; her eyes rest still as space between stars. - - Many hands make light work, Mal thinks, and for all the piles of pretty belongin’ to ‘Nara, there’s a pack of strong ones to move them along. Somehow, though, his normally fine crew seems slip-fingered and sloppy, trippin’ and droppin’ all kinds of things. He stops handing them parcels that look likely to break. Even Jayne is banging trunks against the shuttle door, muttering about not sleeping right and the too-bright sun. Inara watches the crew without comment, but Sheydra is quick to notice their troubles, asks Inara to offer them breakfast, tea, a place to stay. They are welcome, she says, for as long as they like. Serenity is safe on the hidden dock, halfway down the mountain, far from any spying eyes. The Guild blesses their aid to one of our own, she says, nodding to Livy, who will not leave Serenity’s crew to see the House doctors. “Not yet,” was her measured reply. Inara just stands by her shuttle. River has her stone statues. She is the only one that has not broken something. Even Zoe dropped a mirror to the sound of shattering glass and vivid Chinese. Inara is not allowed to help. Early on Wash shooed both companions away, saying something about each having enough worries. “They won’t stay,” she answers Sheydra, “If you want to show the Guild’s grateful bounty, you’re better off stocking the galley with fresh fruit and herbs.” She sees Mal hand River her boxed-up tea set. “Maybe some flowers in their bunks.” This thought brings a slight smile to her face. As it is the only the second one Sheydra has seen, she is quick to call girls together, send them for baskets, to the kitchen and gardens. It is not the holiday spirit the girls expected would follow a great companion’s arrival. But they are happy picking the ripest plums, bundling lemon grass and mint, deciding which flowers last longest, smell sweetest. They gossip about the new teacher, which classes she might lead, her training on Sihnon. Her captain, her shipmates. They have time. Work that should have taken Serenity’s crew an hour stretches to four, though they do not stop and refuse all help, politely. The girls tiptoe aboard Serenity with whispering robes, but the space pirates are oddly easy to sneak by. They laugh when one discovers the sunken crew rooms, and they hand flowers and branches down ladders, giggling softly. They light up the kitchen with pyramids of fruit, more than eight people could ever eat in a month. They are trained girls and good students; the galley looks like a banquet hall when they are done. They are in and out before the crew realizes; delighted in their work, if somewhat disappointed in the performance of these legendary outlaws. Inara has said her goodbyes already. She just clasps hands with everyone, one at a time, down the line. She is as calm before Mal as she was before Jayne. She touches her shuttle’s hull once, and Mal has to turn and start walking the long road down to Serenity, so he does not run and drag her, kicking and shouting, back to his ship in front of all her impressionable girls. - - When the crew stands speechless at the Guild’s many gifts, Inara is in her room, staring at trunks. When Serenity clears atmo, Wash asking for destinations, she’s beside Sheydra in her classroom, counting pillows on the ground. And when Mal carries a bowl full of jasmine and cherry blossoms up out of his bunk and into the galley, hoping with it banished to the kitchen he might be able to sleep without dreams, Inara is sitting on a wooden floor before Buddha, losing count in the dark, relearning to breathe. - - *~*~* - Translations: jing-tzang mei yong-duh: consistently useless Yun ben duh: stupid. - The end.