A/N: And the angst continues ... I hope you like it.

Thanks to Leiasky for the beta.

Only three chapters left after this one ...

Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13

Link to prompt table

*** The Right to Love - Chapter 14 (Prompts 81-85) ***

081. Book

Walking arm and arm down the planked sidewalks, Kaylee and Inara chatted and laughed like two schoolgirls without a care in the world. Their ease with one another had been almost instantaneous from the minute they’d met and Kaylee had never been so glad to have another woman on board Serenity. Inara had become a true confidant and the older sister she’d never had, and Kaylee loved the fact that she could tell her just about anything.

Having just finished off an ice cream, Kaylee’s concern with her hips having vanished the minute she’d tried on a beautiful red dress that had fit her perfectly, she turned to her friend and asked, “So, what’s goin’ on with you an’ the cap’n?”

Smiling to her patiently, Inara shrugged lightly, stopping to admire a particularly artful window display. “Oh, you know. Same old, same old.”

Looking back to Kaylee, Inara was not at all surprised to see the girl studying her with a hard look. “Uh huh,” she said, her lips pursed. “You know, ‘Nara, holdin’ out on me ain’t exactly fair, considerin’ all the stuff I done tol’ ya ‘bout me an’ Simon.”

Stepping towards her, Inara rested a hand to her arm and said softly, “Trust me, mei mei, I admire your candor, but you know Mal and I aren’t like that.”

Kaylee’s face lit into a grin as she grasped the woman’s hand tightly and asked, “So it’s Mal an’ you? As in a couple sorta thing?” Pulling the woman into a hug before she could even answer, Kaylee exclaimed, “Oh, ‘Nara, that’s so shiny. Now, you an’ the cap’n an’ me an’ Simon can double date.”

Suppressing a chuckle, Inara pulled back from her friend and said, “Mei mei, I’m fairly certain Mal would rather watch Serenity crash than spend an evening watching you and Simon make out.”

Her eyes widening at the remark, Kaylee told her, “We don’t do that in-“ Pausing abruptly, Kaylee’s cheeks flushed a bit as she dropped her eyes to the ground and giggled. “Oh, yeah, there was that one night.”

“Exactly,” Inara told her, again taking her arm and walking with her. “But it’s a nice thought. And things are going very well.”

“Whatda ya think changed?” Kaylee asked, her gaze intent. She knew what had changed for she and Simon – Simon had finally stopped being a boob – but for Inara and the captain things had always been much more complicated than that.

Sighing lightly, Inara considered her friend’s question. “I don’t know, mei mei,” she finally answered. “Mal and I, we danced around each other for so long. But then the Operative came and Miranda happened and …” Inara trailed off, her own mind sifting through each of those painful memories. “I think we both just finally realized at pretty much the same time that denying our feelings for one another, that not being together wasn’t a solution, it was just another problem.” She paused again, thinking on the past few months and with a bit of shiver, she admitted, “I was worried for a while though that I might lose him for good. After the Shepherd died I feared he’d never recover.”

“It bothered the cap’n real bad, din’t it?” Kaylee questioned, stopping to sit on a bench.

Sitting beside her, Inara continued. “Mal always liked to say he didn’t believe in God, and Book used to fight him on it.” She smiled slightly at the memory, a few of Mal’s choice words for the preacher coming to mind. “Mal had just never considered that faith and belief didn’t have to be in a higher power. They could be in anything, anyone. And even though he didn’t want to, Mal had faith in the Shepherd. He believed in him.”

Swallowing hard past the lump in her throat, Inara added quietly, “Once he was gone, he didn’t know what to believe in.”

Kaylee looked to her friend, studying her profile. Inara’s love for the captain was plain to Kaylee, had been plain to her for a long while before it was plain to anyone else. Reaching out, she squeezed the other woman’s hand and waited until Inara’s eyes had rested on her face, before she said with a small smile, “Yes, he does. He believes in you.”

Smiling sadly at her, Inara let out a sigh, and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that, Kaylee. That’s a tall order to fill, being someone’s belief system.”

“But you know it’s true,” Kaylee insisted. “I know you do, ‘cause I seen it. I seen the way he watches you an’ looks at ya, asks your opinion.” Lowering her voice, she asked, “How many other folks’ opinions you think the cap’n listens to?”

Inara grinned at that remark, knowing the girl had a point. Besides Zoe, with whom Mal had literally gone through hell and back, her opinion seemed to be the only other one he took any stock in. With another small sigh, Inara rose, pulling Kaylee up with her. “Well, mei mei, regardless of belief or not, I love Mal, and I told him so.”

Grasping the woman’s hand, Kaylee’s eyes were dancing as she said, “I knew it. That’s jus’ shiny, ‘Nara.”

Wrapping an arm around her friend’s shoulders, the older woman murmured, “You know what, Kaylee? It really is.” 082. Nature

Simon was not, by nature, a suspicious person; curious yes, observant fairly and smart – well, duh; but suspicious? He’d just really never had cause. Not until his sister had been experimented on by evil men and held as a prisoner. After that incident, Simon had found his danger sense to be much more in tune with all that was happening around him.

So why he didn’t notice the long shadows near the base of the ramp as he returned to Serenity to dump off his purchases before going in search of Kaylee, he wasn’t sure. Even in hindsight, Simon would never recall seeing anything amiss. Maybe it really wasn’t possible to change a person’s nature.

***

“Ooh, what’s this one called?” Kaylee asked, her hands ghosting over a vibrant and multi-budded flower.

Smiling at her friend’s delight, Inara told her, “It’s a gladiola.” Inara sighed again as she watched Kaylee literally skipping around the small garden. They had found it near the edge of town, and as their shopping had tired them out a bit, they had both decided a respite wouldn’t be so bad. As her eyes glanced back to the koi pond she sat beside, she found her fingers absentmindedly twirling a blade of grass.

It was so peaceful here, so fragrant, so green. Inara sometimes missed the look of the outdoors. She loved Serenity, she loved the black, but sometimes, the sun on her skin and the sound of birds or crickets was more comforting than any of the gentle hums that buzzed through Serenity.

A small yelp from the direction Kaylee had wandered got her attention and with instant panic welling in her chest, Inara rushed toward the noise, rounding a particularly large tree. A wide grin immediately assaulting her features, Inara took in the sight before her and then said loudly, “Ahem.”

Turning to face her, their foreheads still touching, Kaylee and Simon grinned wickedly, as Kaylee announced needlessly, “Look who’s here.”

Smiling, Inara told her, “I’m glad, mei mei. You two should enjoy the afternoon. I think we’ve still got about another hour before they’re done.” Turning she headed to collect their packages, hearing Kaylee jog up behind her.

“You don’t gotta go, ‘Nara,” she told her, feeling bad for ruining their girls-only afternoon.

Turning to look at her, Inara reminded her. “Serenity crashing, remember?”

“I thought you said that was the cap’n,” Kaylee accused, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes narrowed a bit.

Cocking her head to the side, she said wistfully, “Oh, did I?” Smiling again as Simon came up behind Kaylee and wrapped his arms around her waist, Inara took only a second more to get out of their way.

“I’ll see you both back at the ship,” she called to them, knowing they didn’t rightly care where she was going. With a little sigh, she wondered if it maybe wasn’t a small shame that Simon and Kaylee were going to be so wrapped up in each other they would fail to enjoy their beautiful surroundings.

As the sound of Kaylee’s lilting laugh and Simon’s deep chuckle reached Inara’s ears she decided it was no shame at all.

083. Eternal

Inara did not believe that anything lasted forever. She couldn’t; she had seen too much, experienced too much, grieved too much to cling to such a naïve belief. But slowly, she had begun to believe, even though she would have never admitted it, that she and Mal might actually be “it.” That thing in her life that she could count on, always.

It was a dizzying thought for a woman like Inara; a woman who had spent the better part of her life learning to be independent, learning how to survive and thrive in a ‘verse that still valued machismo and weaponry over beauty and grace. Of course Inara knew that a relationship, that love did not necessarily breed dependence; it bred interdependence and that only served to make both parties stronger.

With happy thoughts of Mal and all the things she wanted to do with him as soon as he returned from the job, Inara made her way to Serenity’s door and was working to pull the heavy hatch open when a rough hand covered her mouth and she fell unconscious, her mind consumed with an infinite black.

***

River knew nothing lasted forever; eternity was a construct of an ancient belief system that should have died out centuries ago, but kept persisting. Not that her knowledge could do anyone any good; it hadn’t helped Kaylee and it wouldn’t help now.

Sitting bolt upright in her seat beside Mal, her eyes widened as she clutched the dashboard of the mule so tight, her knuckles whitened. Noting her distress, the captain turned to her and yelled over the roar of the wind, “River? What is it?”

Turning fearful eyes to him, she said, “The world stopped.”

His brow furrowing more deeply, Mal instinctively sped up and then asked her, “Shenme?”

“Your world,” she told him, her eyes filling with tears. “It stopped.”

084. Serenity

“’Nara?” Mal’s voice echoed off the shuttle’s walls, his comm crackling with static as the wind whipped by him. Switching the frequency, he patched the small device into the galley and called again, “’Nara! Answer me, gorramit!”

Silence again and that was all Mal was greeted with as he cycled the device through every room on Serenity, looking for her. He knew, based on River’s cryptic statement that something had happened to her, but he didn’t know what and that uncertainty was worse.

Pushing the vehicle as fast as it would go, it was still a good forty minutes before his ship came into view. Releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding at just the sight of her, Mal’s heart again started pounding the minute he made out two small forms in front of her. One of them scrambled inside and the ramp began to lower seconds later, allowing Mal to fly directly into the open bay.

Barely powering down the vehicle, he hopped to the deck and whirled to find Simon standing in his face. “It’s Inara,” he told the older man, his own features colored with fear and remembrance. “She’s not here.”

“Where is she?” Mal ground out, his blazing blue eyes sweeping to his mechanic’s trembling form. “Kaylee? I thought you an’ her was goin’ shoppin’.”

“We did, cap,” Kaylee answered, her voice shaky. “But then we found this garden an’ Simon came by an’ ‘Nara said she’d meet us at the ship.” Lifting tear-filled eyes to him, she said, “Oh God, cap’n, I’m so sorry.”

“Ain’t we jumpin’ the gun?” Jayne’s gruff voice sounded from behind them. As all the eyes in the room, save River’s whose entire body was wedged into the front seat of the mule, turned to regard his unbelievably relaxed stance, he added, “Maybe she jus’ ain’t back yet.”

Shaking her head fearfully, Kaylee pointed to some grass-stained boxes in the corner. “Nope, we found them right outside the hatch when we got back. They was just laying in the grass, kinda strewn about,” she said, her eyes again falling to the grating beneath her feet.

Biting her lip she tried to choke back a sob as Mal asked her, “How long, lil’ Kaylee?”

“What, cap’n?” she asked, her watery eyes again on his hard and set face.

“How long ago did she leave ya?” he asked doing his best not to shake the girl.

Shrugging, Kaylee looked to Simon for confirmation as she said, “I dunno, ‘bout an hour now, I guess.” Simon nodded, reaching for Kaylee and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. She turned into him willingly, her face buried against the top of his chest as a familiar fear gripped her heart. Last time someone hadn’t come back from a job, it had been her and the captain and it had been terrible.

Mal let out a huge sigh, dropping his chin to his chest and doing his best to keep his anger in check. He violently wanted to hit something, maybe even Simon for causing Kaylee to be distracted and Inara to leave on her own, but even he knew that was a ridiculous line of reasoning and would do nothing to ensure his bao bei’s safe return.

An hour, damn it, she could be anywhere by now. Mal’s brain worked furiously to think of a plan, as Zoe stepped up beside him and lowered her voice. “You thinkin’ she’s off planet?”

Turning to face his friend, Mal told her, “It’s a distinct possibility.” His eyes finally expressing just a bit of his distress, he asked, “Who would take her, Zo?”

Cocking an eyebrow at him, she asked, “You wan’ that list alphabetically or categorically?”

Nodding once, Mal knew she was right; the list was indeed endless. Refusing to give into the despair he felt clawing at his chest, he turned back to his crew and again barked orders, just as he had no more than seven hours before.

“Jayne, I want you to head into town an’ talk with the locals. See if’n there’s been any local trouble. Any other snatchin’s of the sort.” Jayne grunted, obviously not convinced all this fretting was necessary, but did as he was told. As he headed for the open ramp, Mal called, “An’ don’t be gone longer than an hour. If’n we need to light outta here I don’t wan’ ya dallyin’.”

Turning back to face Simon and Kaylee, Mal went to the young girl and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ain’t your fault, mei mei,” he told her gently, showing much more patience and compassion than he felt at the moment.

Her wide green eyes back on his face, Kaylee whispered, “I’m so sorry, cap’n.”

“Well, you got nothin’ to be sorry for, Kaylee. We don’ rightly know nothin’ yet.” Looking to Simon, he told the man, “I want the two of you up on the bridge. See if you can sweet talk port control into letting you take a look at any ships that might have lit outta here within the last hour or so. Can you do that?”

Simon wasn’t rightly sure he could, having no idea what to even ask for, but Kaylee, who had used her wiles to loosen the tongues of quite a few officers grabbed for his hand. Pulling him towards the bridge, Kaylee already felt better knowing there was something she could do. “We’re on it, cap!”

“We goin’ for a ride?” Zoe asked from his side, drawing his eyes back to her. Watching as her gaze flitted up to shuttle two, Mal told her, “Not yet. I don’t wanna be chasin’ bread crumbs.”

Even more perplexed by her friend’s behavior, Zoe asked incredulous, “You’re not actually gonna wait, are you?”

With a sigh, Mal didn’t really know what choice he had. He had no leads, no allies on this rinky-dink planet, except his crew, and no idea what the kidnappers wanted. “I’m thinkin’ I’m pretty much facin’ a no-win situation here, Zo. Chargin’ off, firin’ at shadows could jus’ end up gettin’ her hurt.”

“Not shadows.” River’s quiet voice reached them both and they turned simultaneously to regard her. Having crawled out from her hiding place, she now stood on the front seat of the mule, her gaze unwavering as she looked to them. “Never shadows. Light; hot, red light.” Grabbing for her upper arm, she winced and doubled over in pain, wailing, “It hurts!”

Rushing to her, Mal grabbed her down off the chair and set her in front of him, watching as big, fat tears welled in her eyes and fell down her face. “What hurts, River?” he demanded, not even aware until he’d spoken how shaky his voice had gotten.

“Burns like lava,” River whispered, her voice a rasp. Taking several deep breaths, she turned her face to study his and asked, “Do you know the writings of Shan Yu?”

085. Old

He was an old man, balding, portly, wrinkly, bespectacled. How could such an old man inflict so much pain?

Inara didn’t rightly know and if she had been able to figure it out it wouldn’t have mattered. Adeli Niska did not concern himself with things like age or beauty or morals. He dealt in power and fear, and he was reveling in both at this very moment.

“Miss Serra, it is, yes?” he asked. Despite the scalding iron that his man was holding just inches from her cheek, and the half dozen other burns scattered over her bare chest and arms, Niska still smiled, that old miserly smile and looked in her eyes. “You feel pain, now, yes?”

Working her mouth, Inara used the last bit of saliva she could muster and spat it in his face, watching with a smug grin as the spittle fell to his cheek and started to run towards his mouth. “Cao ni zuxian shi ba dai,” she whispered harshly, wishing she had full use of her voice so the epithet would carry more zest. But the first few hours of screaming had rubbed her throat raw and the rasp was the best she could do.

With a small sigh of disappointment, Niska reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, nodding imperceptibly at the hulking man who had actually been inflicting the torture. A sadistic grin again plastered to his sickening features, he rolled the burning red end of the poker along her cheek, causing Inara to scream again, even as the smell of her own burning flesh and the pain caused her to momentarily black out.

Holding up a hand to stop his henchman, Niska peered back into Inara’s face and asked, “You still wish to be associated with Malcolm Reynolds? I think, maybe your answer changes, da?”

Blinking open her tired eyes, Inara again forced herself to her full height and met the old man’s evil gaze. “My answer won’t change,” she told him, her hoarse voice still carrying conviction.

Allowing his eyes to sweep down her burned and naked upper body, Niska tsked softly as he turned to leave, giving another nod to his enforcer. The man had switched one hot poker for another more deadly instrument, his eyes gleaming with the chance to use it on such a beautiful body.

“I think that is a shame, Miss Serra,” Niska said sadly from the doorway, before he walked out of the room, leaving her to scream.

***

Translations: Cao ni zuxian shi ba dai – F**k 18 generations of your ancestors

So, how do you like that angst?

Chapter 15