The mercenary didn’t trust her.

Under other circumstances she would have found it hilarious that a man who takes money to kill didn’t trust her.

But under these she couldn’t really blame him.

She didn’t trust herself either.

That’s why she’d given him the guns, and the knives to hold.

It made him feel better.

But he still didn’t trust her.

And that hurt her, for no reason that she could find.

It hurt her.

The former companion hovered around her.

They had never said she was one, but she knew.

Her aunt, her mother’s favorite sister had been one.

She recognized her for what she was.

For all that she wore a wedding band and slept with the Captain, she was a companion.

Training went too deep to just stop; she’d be a companion ‘til the day she died.

Even if she never took another client.

She knew why she hovered.

Companion’s were trained to help their clients handle grief.

She supposed that she was the best person to help.

With the emptiness.

The nightmares.

And maybe with the guilt.

She reminded her too much of her aunt.

She was dead too.

And just now it hurt to be around her.

She much preferred the company of the pilot.

Though she was on occasion extremely strange.

Or the mechanic, who had annoyed her at first with her incessant cheer.

Until she realized that she was always happy and wasn’t putting on an act for her.

But the person she preferred to spend the most time with was the first mate.

She knew what it was like to lose your world and have to build another.

She never said anything about it.

Never tried to get her to talk.

But she knew, she understood and she was willing to be there.

She knew the woman had lost her husband.

Kinda obvious that.

She wore a wedding band.

But every man on ship (except the mercenary) was taken.

And the first mate would allow the human race to die out before bedding that...man.

But mostly she had her plants.

And the babies.

Beautiful little girls.

Creamy coffee colored skin, bright blue eyes.

And smiles and laughter that went on for miles.

They’d never talked about their losses.

Just talked about nothing in particular.

Played with the babies.

Or cared for her plants.

She’d been surprised when the woman had calmly begun dead-heading the roses.

She enjoyed not being alone.

She ignored the loss.

Pushed away the guilt.

And tried to trick herself into forgetting what had happened.

What she had seen.

She never quite succeeded.

And the images where there every time she closed her eyes.

But each day it got a little easier.

Each day she got a little closer to being ready to talk to the companion.

She’d felt like this when her aunt had died.

She knew that eventually she wouldn’t hurt so much.

Eventually the images would fade.

Never die though.

But they would fade.

For now she took each day as it came.

Was grateful to the Captain that he didn’t set her down somewhere.

They’d landed on three good places already.

And the mercenary had complained bitterly each time they lifted with her still on board.

She liked it here.

Made a good environment to experiment with the plants.

Maybe make friends.

Though her mind shied away from that.

She wasn’t ready to think of them as people.

As friends.

It hurt too much just now to contemplate letting anyone in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He'd felt better when she’d given him the guns and knives to hold.

They was some real nice pieces too.

Was kinda impressed against his will.

But he still watched her.

She was way too quiet.

She was like to explode without warning.

And jus’ cuz he had her weapons didn’t mean there weren’t a bunch she could get her hands on if she was of a mind to.

Lookit how Moonbrain had managed to arm herself time after time.

Sides’ all these crazies had a tendency to gun fer him when they was armed, so was best to keep an eye on her.

He wasn’t sure what to think when she took to spending most of her time in moonbrain’s and Zoe’s company.

But they seemed to balance her.

Sides she showed more signs of life when she was with them.

Puzzlement when around the girl.

Contentment around Zoë.

And like everybody else she loved them babies.

He’d seen smiles on her face when she held one of the midgets.

He thought it kinda odd that Zoë seemed to be helping her cope the most.

‘Specially as they never talked about anything but plants, babies, food and other stupid stuff.

But they seemed to take strength from each other.

And more than ever Zoë seemed to be acting more herself.

The babies had helped a lot.

But the new crazy seemed to help more than even they had.

Zoë was even back to making digs at him, jus’ like before Wash died.

All and all he didn’t quite know what to think.

He’d always liked Zoë, and it had bothered him when she seemed so broken inside.

And for all he was glad she was getting back to normal, he’d be glad when this woman was gone.

The core folk where starting to outnumber the regular folk.

First it was Inara.

Then the Doc and Moonbrain..

Now this Eve creature.

Didn’t matter that she weren’t raised on no core planet, she was core through and through.

And he was getting tired of folk from the core looking down on him and Serenity.

Sooner she got off the better.