A/N: Special thanks to valeriebean and McQ, who provided wonderful help and ideas to get this section off the ground. The quote in Inara's artwork is from Jetsun Milarepa. I crave constructive feedback of all kinds! _________________________________________________ The silence of a grounded spaceship was all-encompassing. Standing on the catwalk railing, balancing effortlessly on metal bars narrower than her feet, head tilted to the side, eyes closed, River reached out, listening. Just listening. She could hear the dreams of Serenity’s sleeping crew and passengers. The faint buzz of noise from the humanity-clogged docks filtering in from outside. Kaylee’s quiet humming as she tinkered about. The serene, meditative rhythm of Book’s morning prayers. In the black, the life of the ship herself—the sounds of her breathing and her beating heart—masked the sounds of the life she carried. Made it harder to concentrate. In the black, River caught bits and snatches of the music that comprised the crew’s lives without being able to follow the tune. Here, where a ship on the ground ceased to be a ship and existed only as a shelter, she could hear beyond the silence to experience the whole orchestra. River shifted her weight further onto one leg, leaning, as she felt Inara’s melody, smooth and elegant as the silk she wore, flow into Serenity. Moving softly, drifting closer, a balance of sadness and hope, grace and indecision, passion and control. The sudden blast of emotion that radiated from Inara’s presence, unexpected against the backdrop of the woman’s usual poise, nearly knocked River from the catwalk. She lurched, hands clutching at her head, balance gone, unable to block out the tidal wave of the other woman’s feelings. Then she was falling, knee striking the railing, body twisting out over the cargo bay, when a pair of strong hands seized her around the waist and pulled her back to safety, her feet resting firmly on the catwalk floor. “Gorram it, Moonbrain, gonna take a header off that rail and that crazy brain o’ yours’ll be all over the floor. You be careful, dong ma?” Jayne growled, making his way down the steps toward the cargo bay doors. “Sees the magpie come to take what she wants. Can’t find it hidden safe all along,” River said, staring at the ceiling. Then, looking straight at Jayne, “It’s early in the day for drinking and whores.” “Hows about you shut your mouth…” Jayne started, but River had waltzed back into the interior of the ship without another word. Jayne shook his head and trudged out the door, down the ramp, and off into the dust of the docks. _________________________________________________ It was evening local time by the time everyone was back on board and Serenity left Lakai behind her. Wash and Zoe had returned from the docks in the early afternoon, hand-in-hand and giggling like children, with food supplies in tow—and it appeared from the shapes and sizes of the packages that at least some of it was of the non-synthetic-protein variety. Kaylee had taken a little longer about getting the ship refueled and finding engine parts, but Mal suspected that had something to do with the the fact that Kaylee had lured Simon out to join her with the promise of helping him restock the infirmary. Simon’s slightly smudged and greasy appearance and the somewhat disgruntled set of Kaylee’s chin upon their return suggested that someone had yet again put his overbred foot in his mouth, but that wasn’t exactly a new development. Itching to be offworld, Mal had marched into town around nightfall and dragged an alcohol-saturated Jayne out of the bar and away from the piece of tail the mercenary was drooling over, sustaining only a couple of bruises in the process. Now Mal sat staring out at the stars, leaning back in the pilot’s chair—what he had come to think of as Wash’s chair, even if it was Mal’s ship. They’d barely left orbit when the flag came over the cortex. Firefly class transport ship wanted for questioning in association with bombing of Lakai correctional facility. Apparently their getaway from the pickup point two days prior hadn’t been quite as clean as they’d thought. He and Wash had spent nearly an hour hashing out a route that would get them to their contact on Malachi while evading Alliance and conserving fuel, and the best they had been able to come up with was a convoluted journey that had expanded from an easy four day run to an eleven day trek across some of the least populated parts of the black. Yep, they were definitely going to be very late for the drop—if their contact decided to dock their pay, they’d be lucky to break even. Mal only hoped they could pick up another job on Malachi, because with this round about trip, fuel and crew wages could become a problem otherwise. Well, a bigger problem than usual, that was. As he sat and thought, Mal couldn’t help but notice that a truly delectable aroma was wafting its way about the ship and had found his nose. Must be the Shepherd’s turn to cook, he thought to himself. It was really remarkable what that man could do with fresh food. He stood, stretching his back, and set the autopilot before heading out the door to toward the kitchen, but upon reaching the hall he suddenly swerved toward Shuttle One. He hadn’t seen Inara since she had scurried away from the infirmary that morning. Wasn’t like her to hide all day when they were groundside. Might be he should stop in and see if she was joining them for dinner—would be a shame to miss out on a fine meal like the one he could smell nearing completion. Especially since with Jayne around there probably wouldn’t be much in the way of leftovers. He squared his shoulders a little and strode into the shuttle. “There’s an ancient custom commonly practiced in civilized cultures that I believe you’re unfamiliar with. It’s referred to as knocking,” Inara remarked acidly from where she perched on her couch, brush in hand and inkstand on her table, practicing her calligraphy. “If I knocked, you’d never believe it was me.” Mal grinned, his infuriating smile lighting up his face as he hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. “You comin’ down to dinner? Smells like it’s gonna be quite a fine meal.” “Is your new… passenger… going to be feeling well enough to join in this meal?” Inara asked, laying down her brush and looking Mal in the eye for the first time. “No, the doc says she can’t leave the infirmary yet. Might oughta save her a plate though. Fresh food’ll do her some good.” An eyebrow inched up toward his hairline as he looked at her. “What, you afraid you’re gonna kiss her or somethin’?” It couldn’t really be said that Inara snorted, but she definitely made a sharply derisive sound through her nose. “In your lonely and pathetic dreams.” Mal wandered around the far side of the table and edged in next to Inara, peering over her shoulder at her work. “Know emptiness, be compassionate,” he read. “Huh. What, is there somethin’ special about makin’ that twirly thing there look just right or somethin’?” He gestured vaguely at an embellishment in the upper corner of her paper, but as he pulled his arm back his sleeve caught her inkstand. Inara’s hand shot forward to catch it, but she was not fast enough to prevent it toppling over and pouring black ink all over the table and paper and splashing it onto her hand. “Ren ci de fo zu, Mal…” she sighed in irritation as she stood to avoid ink dripping off the table into her lap. Mal had shot across the room to the sink and snatched the white towel that hung there, but Inara was already sopping up the spilled ink with paper towels she apparently kept handy for just such a calligraphic emergency. His arm moving toward Inara without ever consulting his brain in the matter, Mal reached out and took her soiled hand and began wiping the ink away with the towel. Immediately Inara tensed and snatched her hand and the towel away from him, using the fabric to scrub the ink off her hand herself, her movements quick and hard. She looked away from Mal and glanced down at the towel, which was now splotched with black and gray. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened a little in horror as she stared at the ruined towel. Then they found Mal. “Will you just get out before you spoil something else?” she snapped angrily. Absorbed in the mess before her, Inara didn’t see the slightly hurt look that crossed Mal’s face as he turned and left the shuttle. _________________________________________________ It was late. The ship was dark and quiet. The only light came from a small reddish bulb in the hallway, and the only sounds were that of the engines and the ventilation system. The soft buzz of Serenity breathing in the night. Stephanie turned in bed, wriggling a little, trying to find a more comfortable position. Sleep eluded her. It was strange, really. Boredom was no big thing for her, not anymore. Boredom she was used to. She’d spent literally years of her life lying on a cot far less comfortable than this bed in the corner of a cold cell with nothing to do but wait for the next round of tests and treatments. Waiting for her life to be over. She’d spent years counting the number of times the air processors cycled to pass the time and making up complicated lives for imaginary roommates in her head. Unlike so many of the other prisoners, she’d never descended to the point where she believed her creations were real, but one could say she was a master of the fine art of enduring long periods of time with nothing to do but exist. Until now. It seemed that now that fate had, without warning, handed her life back to her, she was at a loss. For a person who had spent so many years underground, in a cell, or on a ship, she felt strangely trapped on board Serenity. All she could think about was how a real sky looked at daybreak, the feel of the wind on her face, things she barely remembered but suddenly couldn’t do without. And then there was Mal. They’d loved each other once—desperately. But that was a long time ago. Every day of her imprisonment, she’d missed him. Every single day. But now she was finding out something she should have known all along—something she used to know but had allowed herself to forget. She missed the man Mal had been years before. And it didn’t take any kind of talent or flair for observation to see that the Mal who captained this ship was not the Mal she knew back then. Not quite a stranger, but not the man she’d loved either. And without knowing how or why, she believed that on some level Mal knew that. Felt the same about her. He’d made a life for himself out here in the black. Found a family. She’d not dream to begrudge him that or try to take it from him. But she knew one thing more truly and deeply than she’d ever known anything in her life. She craved freedom like a drowning man craves air—the freedom to do what she wanted when she wanted and go where she wanted for no other reason than her own desire. Mal had found that kind of freedom on Serenity, but for her, Serenity was another box. She’d lived in boxes of varying sizes and shapes her entire life. And she would never, ever live in a box again.