Mal tripped back onto the sofa as Inara pushed him back. “Now what did you have to do that for?!”

“What do you think, Mal,” shouted Inara, “You just don’t randomly kiss someone!”

Mal cocked his head at Inara’s statement. For as far as he could remember, that’s how it went in every romance story he had ever heard. The man randomly kissing the woman of his dreams and she always kissed back. At least, that’s how it happened in stories. Right now though, Mal was experiencing something far from romantic.

He didn’t mean to do it though. They were just having another argument, then a split second later, he was planting one on her! Something had overhauled in his brain. Like some God complex or whatever it was had been popped. And now he was starting to see the repercussions. And it was definitely more than he bargained for.

Inara sat on the other end of the sofa and put her head in her hands. “How long have you been wanting to do that?”

Mal shrugged. “Not sure...long enough...”

Inara sighed and said something to Buddha in Chinese under her breath. “I should have know. Everyone breaks eventually...”

“Wait,” said Mal, jerking his head around, “You were expecting that?!”

“Well, not as much the impromptu kiss, but more of one of us acting on our instincts. It’s primal nature to do so,” she said as her hands began, “But I guess that happens a lot in the black...”

Then Mal saw the worry in her face was not over that kiss. It was something else. “Is there something wrong?”

“Something? Mal, I could lose my license over this!”

Mal’s eyes widened when she said that. “Over a kiss? That’s kind of heavy...”

“No, Mal. Not over the kiss,” said Inara quietly, “Over what you are expecting. We could never happen...”

Mal felt his heart sink in his chest. It broke his heart for her to say that, but he respected her and the laws she lived by to keep her profession. Well, some of them anyway...

“Inara...I’m not expecting to be just a notch in your bedpost. I have too much respect for you to do that. If you want, we can forget this happened...”

He got up to leave, but he felt a small hand wrap around his wrist and turn him around. Inara looked at him. “No, let’s just forget the Guild for a while...”

And before Mal could protest, Inara was planting one on him. And he was kissing back.

This was probably the beginning of the end. They couldn’t stay a secret forever. They were going to go down, but they would go out swinging. They were too strong not to.

But right now, Mal could care less about what could happen. Something was finally going right on his gorram boat...

We're going down, down in an earlier round And Sugar, we're going down swinging