Life’s Too Short- Part Twenty-three Author's Note: Okay, NC-17, kiddies. Oh, and the song that's not really quoted but is mentioned is Immortality, by Celine Dion. PLEASE REVIEW!!!

Disclaimer: none of these characters are mine save for the evil guy.

Mal entered the shuttle warily, one hand massaging his aching head. He had his mind made up, though. He would let Inara help with the Cortex, and then he would make her leave. He would do whatever it took. He just… he had to make her safe. He had to. It was like breathing, or eating. Not something a fellow questioned. The shuttle was dimly lit, the warm reds and golds of her wall-hangings soothing his tired eyes. Her bed was unmade, which struck him as strange. He realized that he’d never seen Inara right after she woke up. Did she usually make her bed? He’d thought she would, but maybe not. A small smile curved around his lips with the thought: perfect, elegant Inara kicking the sheets off, stretching a little, maybe bouncing once or twice on her bed to get the blood running. Sweet. She was sitting in front of the Cortex, the rich fabric she usually draped over the screen folded loosely out of the way. Her dark hair, as rich as the thick silks she wore, fell in long ringlets from the gold band she wore around her head to keep it out of her face. There was an instant, a frozen moment in time, where Mal could do nothing but stare. From behind, her slender arms tapering to strong, competent fingers that tapped at the screen, the smooth lines of her delicate back tracing down to the hourglass bend of her waist, she was almost ethereal. The contrast of her black hair against her creamy skin and the deep purple of the shawl she wore took his breath away. Then, she turned, twisting her torso to look at him over one shoulder. Her eyes seemed huge and shadowed, one side of her face eerily lit by the Cortex screen. He couldn’t place her expression, and for another moment, their eyes met. Then, she spoke, and the spell was broken. Or maybe there hadn’t been a spell to begin with. He never did know what she was thinking. “I’ve called up the war records. I’m searching the name Dillon Saunders, cross-referencing it with your name, and Zoe’s.” He walked over to stand behind her, crouching beside her to peer at the screen. She turned back to face it, watching a list of codes scroll down. Mal frowned. “We already know he was one of our men.” “Yes, but his records will show other information. What he was before the war, who his family is, what he’s good at, a psychological profile. We can use that to find out if he’s made any appearances since.” Mal nodded, getting what she was saying. “What about all these codes? You gonna translate?” “Once the net stops gathering information, the codes will unlock when my passcode goes through. It’ll scroll in Chinese, and then in English.” “Right.” They sat in silence for a moment, and Mal found himself remembering a scene from his childhood. He’d walked into the sitting room of his home, and found his mother sitting in a chair with a letter in her hand. She was shaking visibly, her other hand at her mouth. His father was crouching beside her, one hand on her knee, the other clenched uselessly at his side. It was the day they’d gotten the news that his oldest sister had been killed in a small outbreak of some nameless disease that had decimated the tiny town she’d gone to play teacher in. The tableau was strangely like to he and ‘Nara now, and he couldn’t help but wonder what awful thing they were going to find when the codes turned to English. Then, Mal shook his head. All they would find were war records. “Here,” Inara said softly, drawing his attention back to the screen. The white lines of script were flashing, numbers and symbols changing rapidly as they decoded. As he watched, they turned to tiny Chinese symbols, and then to letters. Words. “That was fast,” he said. She nodded. “Amazing what having the key will do. ‘Dillon M. Saunders, twelfth infantry, forty-two. No. Dillon L. Saunders III- no. Dillon Saunders-” Mal pointed, his finger hitting the screen. “That. That’s the one. Balls ‘n Bayonets.” The screen changed when his fingertip hit the name, bringing up a picture of a smiling young man in a jaunty hat and coat. A list started scrolling beside the picture. “Okay. ‘Dillon Saunders… twenty-three at enrollment… came from Delilah…’ That’s a fairly large planet,” Inara added, looking at Mal. “He’s well-off. Hmm. He was a cop, specializing in… oh, fei hua.” Mal’s eyes narrowed as she saw the same thing she had. “Bomb squad. Perfect. No wonder he was always good at… okay, what’s it say on his psych profile?” Inara dragged a finger down the right side of the screen, scrolling down. “Repressive of emotion, that’s not good. Means when he does let go, it’s big. Ah, he’s more likely to go undercover or pull off some elaborate plan than to go in, guns blazing. Sly. Very smart, very proud.” “So he’s a clever, vengeful, wealthy ex-bomb expert with a yen for destruction.” “Yes.” “Bombs. Huh. River said something… she said a lot of people were gonna die if he got his way. As in millions. Maybe he has bombs set up, and…” Mal trailed off. Inara blinked. “And he wants to use River’s psychic powers to set them off from a safe distance, without any chance of anything going wrong. According to his profile, he’s not quick to trust. If he was injured as badly as it sounds, what with the explosion and the torture, he probably wouldn’t be able to set the bombs off himself, even if he was willing to risk his own death. And he wouldn’t want to get someone else to do it without being able to control the situation. So… River… he would be able to have her set them off from anywhere he wanted, and wouldn’t have to worry about anything happening against his plan.” Mal nodded slowly. It made a devious sort of sense that he couldn’t help but admire for its simplicity, even if it was cruel, insane and completely against everything he stood for. “Well,” he said, not sure what else to say. “Huh.” Inara turned to him, her eyes filling. “Mal, we have to get to River before she does something… rash.” “I know.” “I can keep looking,” she said quickly. “I’ll find out where he is. If I have some time, I can get to the hospital records from right after the war ended. He had to have gone to a hospital. I can trace him. I’ll find him.” Mal caught her shoulders, holding her steady. “I know you will, ‘Nara,” he said. “I know it. But after… Inara, you’ve helped us more’n you had to already. If- when- you do find him, you’ll have done more than… you’ll have saved River, maybe all of us. I won’t forget it. I won’t forget any of it. But you have to go. You have to go somewhere safe.” “Mal-” “No!” He shook his head, swallowing. “I heard your piece earlier. You’ll hear mine now. We are going after this man, ‘Nara. We are going to kill him. People are going to get hurt in the doing, and it may be us. But I’ll be damned before I let it be you. I can’t- fuck, Inara, I can’t see you hurt. Not after… not ever.” “Mal, I told you, I’m staying.” “Inara, please. I’m…” He broke off, hands clutching her shoulders. “I’m begging, bao bei. Never thought I would, but… please don’t stay where I can’t keep you safe.” “How can you keep me safe when I’m not with you?” Her voice was this close to breaking, and he could tell. “I…” Mal stopped. He’d said it once, he could say it again. He could. He took a deep breath. “Inara Serra, I love you. With all my poor, half-dead heart, I love you. I’d die if anything happened to you.” He choked on the last sentence, that long-dormant organ that he’d pledged to the woman before him aching. “I know,” she whispered. “I know it, Mal, I do. And… oh, love, don’t ask me to do this!” He closed his eyes at her words. She’d called him ‘love’. “I have to.” “I do love you, Mal, somehow. I thought… I thought I’d never… I hated you for so long, you know. I hated that you made me feel so much, and I hated that I loved the burn. But I can’t leave you. I can’t. Not again. Don’t make me do it again. I love you so much, so damn much. The thought of being somewhere else when you… if you were to… to die, it’s like I’m bleeding inside. When Sam died, I felt like my heart got torn out. I could love, but never love like that. I thought that part of me was dead. Now, though… I feel that part of my heart again, and I know it’s real, because, God, Mal, it’s breaking.” She sobbed the last few words, her composure slipping irrevocably away. He pulled her from her chair into his lap, cradling her like a child. His mouth pressed into her hair as he squeezed her desperately. “I’m sorry,” he said again and again. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry.” She slid out of his arms, taking his hand and leading him to her bed. “I want… just love me, Mal, before…” Inara stopped, not sure what she was going to say. Before they went back to finding the monster who had threatened everything she held dear? Before she left Serenity? Before Mal went off to play hero and got himself killed? He kissed her then, his mouth trembling like hers was trembling. His hands were in her hair as they tumbled softly onto her bed, and Mal rolled with her until he was lying on his back with her sprawled across his chest. He took off the band that held her hair and let it drop to the floor of the shuttle beside her bed, kissing her again and again, all over her face. She unhooked his suspenders, untucking his shirt from his pants and sliding her hands up his chest beneath the red fabric. His muscles tensed at her touch, his taut stomach shuddering beneath her fingers. She felt his scars, most old, some fresh. They’d just got the bandages off from their little session in hell, and her hands gentled as she felt the rough-smooth flesh where he’d been cut. Mal slid the straps of her thin dress over her shoulders, mouth trailing down to her breasts. He was whispering things as he went, his breath warm against her skin. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could feel the love in his touch. Inara undid the buttons on his shirt, and then those on his pants, and he carefully helped her slide out of her dress. Naked, Inara straddled her lover, and he cradled her back with worshipping hands, kissing her nipples as she stroked his hair. She didn’t even realize that she was crying until he kissed away her tears. Mal tasted the salt of them on his tongue, and thought she had never looked so beautiful. He kissed her lips, feeling his own tears well up. Her warm hands slipped beneath the waistband of his trousers and he took a shuddering gasp. “Bao bei,” he said, “it’s beautiful. It’s all so beautiful.” Her tears were falling faster now, but her voice was steady when she answered. “I know,” Inara said simply. Then, she sank onto him and he was surrounded by her warmth, her softness, the utter bliss of her own sweet self. The tears stopped, the sorrow lost in the wealth of feeling that consumed them both. Hands moved in an intricate dance of exploration and tenderness, and neither made a sound. They stared into each other’s eyes, mouths open in the awe of coming home. Inara trailed her hands down his arms, taking his wrists and pulling them gently up to rest above his head. She laced her fingers through his, twining their hands together as she moved on top of him. Slowly, she lowered herself to kiss his eyelids as his blue eyes fell shut, letting her mouth fall where it would. She kissed his cheeks, his chin, his mouth. Their bodies moved in tandem in that age old tango, silent and passionate and loving. Inara pressed her lips to his forehead, blessing this man with whatever blessing she had left to give. He felt his heart expand with the otherworldly beauty of the gesture, taking her benediction with all the grace he had in him. “Always,” Mal whispered. “Always,” Inara said back to him, just before they reached the top together. After, they dressed in the quiet, and stood before her rumpled bed. Mal reached for her, and Inara came willingly into his tight embrace. They didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything other than wrap their arms around each other and hold on. Then, they broke apart and returned to the Cortex. Inara remembered a song she had heard during her teenage-years on Sihnon, one that had been salvaged from Earth-That-Was and could be found in the ancient media libraries in the Training House. 'We don’t say goodbye', she heard the long-dead singer mourn. 'We don’t say goodbye.'

TBC