They sat in the farthest seat for a while, having been directed there by the ancient little man Mal had hired to take them home. He had an apparently complicated seating plan that Inara watched him refer to several times, although the light was so dim she couldn’t imagine him making out the writing. Still, he greeted the sparse number of passengers with explicit directions on where each was to ride in the carriage. Others sought out the old driver as well, but not for a ride. Instead, they handed over bulky packages and bags, with slips of paper presumably serving as delivery instructions. Each time, the man ran his thumb over the paper, then stashed it carelessly in his pocket as he hopped up into different benches, stowing his cargo with faithful attention to his plan.

Inara turned to Mal in amusement. "Why does this not surprise me?"

"Care to expound on whatever you find so entertaining?"

She lowered her voice to a teasing whisper and leaned closer. "Of all the ways to get us home, you see fit to pick the most...leisurely conveyance possible. What grudge do you have against the transpo shuttle? We'd be at Serenity in 15 minutes!"

"Transpo's left. You were shopping."

"We were shopping," she admonished lightly, accepting the thermos Mal offered. "But this is nice. Christmasy and...well, this could be quite the romantic gesture for a gentleman looking for something of the sort." Romantic, even with the eccentric little driver packing half the sleigh with cargo.

"That's me, persistently endeavoring for gentlemanhood."

Inara wrapped her hands around the warm container. He’d thought of everything, she realized. She was impressed.

"I - this was a nice idea, the cocoa. I wonder if it’s a local specialty?" Inara winced inwardly as she heard the question she’d just asked. A romantic sleigh ride with the man she’d been in love with for more than a year, and she was speculating on the local cocoa culture?

"Could be, folks in cold climates generally are partial to...cocoa. Because it’s hot."

"That’s true."

"Watch out it’s not too hot, though. Sometimes at first..." Mal trailed off with a vague gesture at her thermos.

"I like it hot." Precious Buddha! She really ought to throw herself under the runners of the sleigh! Anything to save herself from another remark like I like it hot!

She saw Mal blink at this, and blessed him for his charity in not pressing her on her statement. "I - that tea you like so well."

Inara rushed to agree. "Yes, the tea. That I...like."

Inara found herself able to do nothing other than stare at Mal, praying desperately for some end to the excruciating hot beverage conversation. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt.

Finally, Mal shrugged over his cocoa. "Anyway, ain’t every day we get a chance to - " but the rest of his explanation was lost as the driver scrambled into their bench, carrying a bag that dwarfed him. This he plunked onto the seat next to Inara without a word. He was back in a moment with two more bags, each nearly as large as the first.

He looked at Inara and waved a thick black mitten. "Scoot yer bottom over, dolly girl, we got more cargo comin’."

Behind her she heard Mal attempt, unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh at the direction. The driver was waiting, smiling at her with a look of affectionate patience, and his smile grew wider as she complied. Inara slid closer to Mal and the driver nodded his thanks, then deposited the large bag where she had been sitting. He was nearly impossible to see on the other side of the bag, but she could hear him puttering around, arranging the cargo and, from the sound of it, adding more bags.

His voice called out "Take care now!" and the closest bag lurched soundly against Inara’s side, coming to rest partially on her lap. She turned to Mal, who was still chuckling, and raised a challenging brow. He patted the small space between them.

"Seems like more scootin’s in order." His eyes were twinkling with mirth. "Dolly girl."

Inara slid clear of the bag, although it left not an inch of space between her and Mal. Her whisper was playfully aggrieved. "Wherever did you meet this man? He's 150 years old if he's a day!"

"Called me boyo." Mal admitted with a nod. He shifted his position slightly as if to offer her more room, a thoughtful but pointless gesture - as snugly as they were wedged between the stack of canvas bags and the padded inner shell of the sleigh, there was nowhere for either of them to go.

Inara could tell from Mal's suddenly more guarded expression that the situation was registering with him, just as it was with her. Needing something to do, she reopened her thermos and peered into her cocoa. "Is your cocoa good? Mine is very...good. I like the peppermint. It's..." Say good again, she mocked herself privately. "It's..thank you," she finished, chancing a look at Mal.

"Mine is good, too, and...warm. He...the driver...well, he recommended I fetch us some. To keep us warm. You like the peppermint? I didn't get peppermint. In this." He held up his thermos.

"You don't like peppermint?"

"Like it very well, but I thought if you didn't, then you could take this one, so you didn't have to - but you like the peppermint, so....good."

"I do." A snowflake, voluptuous in its slow tumble through the air, landed on Inara's sleeve. They both watched as it slowly melted, twinkling, into the deep green wool. "It's snowing?" Inara asked, although the question was patently unnecessary. The air around them was suddenly filled with fat, drifting feathers of snow.

Mal grinned. "Right on schedule."

"What else have you got planned?"

"Well..." he looked out over the snowy terrain. "We got the tree tonight. Girls'll like the pretty. There's the mandatory cookies and tea. And in the morning..."

"Tuck in, laddie!" The driver's voice sounded out from below them, on Mal's side of the sleigh. He looked up just in time to catch what the man had tossed to him - a folded blanket. It was worn-looking but thick, Inara noticed as Mal passed her his cocoa so he could open the blanket.

"Here, this should..." It was absurd, Inara told herself, what her heart was doing. She watched Mal's hands as he tucked the blanket carefully across her lap, over her coat. It was hardly an...intimate gesture, as such things went. For all that, despite all that...she looked up into the falling snow and let herself admit it. All evening, she had been giddy just to be with him. The growing excitement, the secret happy thrill flashing through her as she watched him and realized he was planning something, manuevering their circumstances in order to spend more time in town. Together. Alone.

The blanket was surprisingly warm, and the air was still. Inara lowered her hood and twisted on the bench. "Are you warm enough?"

"I'm fine." Mal looked up toward the front of the sleigh. "Think we're getting underway." As he was speaking, the sleigh lurched gently with a shaking of the horses' bells, then began gliding sedately forward.

"It might snow all night."

"Supposed to, off and on, according to -" Mal pulled on his blue scarf, which he'd knotted carelessly around his neck. "That's the report."

"Have Zoe and Jayne got the tree? Were they back when you waved?" Nao! He just told you about the tree. This isn't the first man with whom you have ever conversed!

Mal did not seem to notice the slip. "They did, and they were."

"And I trust that Zoe kept Jayne from blowing up a sizeable area of the forest?" Jayne had ventured out nearly clanking with deadly weapons for the tree-finding mission.

Mal nodded. "Ruined his Christmas fun."

"It will be fun. Tonight, at home. And tomorrow. It's a good plan, Mal."

"Ah, there's a rare utterance." He grinned, closed his thermos and stowed it in a small cubby in the side of the sleigh. After a few minutes the vehicle slowed down, and a few passengers disembarked. Their driver followed them into a narrow alley between two houses, dragging a gray canvas bag. He disappeared for a few moments then reemerged, marching quickly through the snow and folding something into one of his many coat pockets.

The snow was falling more thickly now. Inara brushed a shining constellation from the blanket on her lap, a few more from the shoulders of Mal's coat. His cheeks, his ears were faintly pink.

"Are you sure you're not cold? This blanket is big enough for the both of us, and I'm more than warm." Inara moved to unfold one of the layers on her lap.

"I'm fine."

Something in his tone aroused a half-irritated affection within her. This is what he did, out of either stubbornness or what Inara suspected was long habit borne of necessity - he simply refused to acknowledge the discomforts or inconveniences that most would try to avoid. "Yes, Mal, you're very tough, but you don't have to freeze." On impulse, she drew off her gloves, leaned forward as she reached, and rested her warm palms and fingers gently over his ears. They were cold. Inara felt the tickle, against her fingertips, of the hair at his collar. It was cold and soft, just as she remembered from one panicked secret moment in his bunk long ago. She moved her fingers, just once and very slightly, to touch again as her eyes lifted and she realized just how close their faces were. She found she wasn't breathing.

His eyes were dark as he took in her face, then let his gaze drift over her hair. "Got snowflakes in your curls." His voice was scarcely more than a whisper, and he raised one bare hand as if to brush the snow away. "And you're so warm..." he touched one snowflake clinging to a wave just above her cheek, then let his hand fall. "A fine endorsement for that blanket. Guess I will share, if you're sure you won't be -"

"I'm sure." She busied her hands with the blanket and stretched it over both of them. "But please let me fix your scarf."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, if you want it attacking you rather than keeping the cold out to any appreciable degree."

He snorted, but allowed her to adjust the scarf around his neck and tuck it into his collar. She knew he was watching her as she did it. There were so many things she could do, Inara knew with a lifetime of training that it was so; to draw this out, make him watch her, communicate invitation with her expression, her eyes, her voice, her touch. None of it, not one thing, seemed equal to what might be growing between them. There had been occasions, more than a few these last difficult months, when she was certain he was about to say...something. Times when she'd determined, against all inclination, to give voice to her own heart's truth. Chance, circumstance, timing, the grievous needs of the family they both cherished and had fought so hard to keep. Nothing had happened yet. She wouldn't fault him, not when she remembered what she'd done to him, to both of them, the last time he'd tried. If tonight were a start, she resolved, it wouldn't be because of a technique she'd learned in school. Inara smoothed the curve of the scarf where it lay over his throat and, slowly, let her hands leave him.

"It's so quiet." They had left the town behind them and were travelling past a stand of woods between two farms. Aside from the continuing, faint chirping of the harness bells, and a very occasional word from the driver, there was no sound at all. After a few minutes, they left the farms behind as the road stretched out beside a frozen lake ringed with trees and dotted here and there with lanterns. On the lake's far shore, there was a cluster of bright lights around a large building. The inn, she supposed.

"Are you sleepy at all?" He looked anxious. "You could - if you were, and you wanted -" Mal shrugged one shoulder awkwardly, then looked away, hunting for the thermoses in the sleigh's cubby. "Or, you want some cocoa?" He jiggled her thermos in a quick circle, judging the contents within. "You got some cocoa here yet..." he put the thermos back.

"I'm not sleepy." It was a bit of a relief, to hear such a silly question, Inara thought. She must appear to be more at ease - much more at ease - than she actually was. "I don't find Christmas shopping that exhausting."

"I do." Mal shook his head in bemusement. "Anyhow, to have you with me - helping with the presents - I'd be in desperate straits venturing into that terrain alone. So thank you."

"It was my pleasure."

"Stores were busy." He seemed to remember something. "Did you find some sweets for the tree?"

"I did. Candy canes and maple stars, as you requested." Inara smiled to cover her frustration. She could converse articulately in several languages on any number of topics. She had made a career of seemingly effortless conversation, putting everyone around her at ease, and so far, tonight, she'd barely managed more than good cocoa. What was it about this night, this man that made her so...

The faint, high-pitched sound of a rising wind interrupted her thoughts. She glanced up at Mal - the sky behind him was thick with whirling white, flakes batting manically down through the sky. The sleigh stopped and Inara heard crunching footsteps and low voices around and below them. Looking out, she could see lights and the blurry outlines of a few buildings through the snowy air. A farm, she surmised as she watched the driver deliver a package to the side door of a large, comfortable-looking house.

On his way back, the driver stopped directly below their bench. "How ye be?"

"Can't complain," Mal called back with a glance at Inara. "This wind supposed to pick up more?"

"Blowin' the storm away down the coast, we'll have starlight 'fore long. There's another blanket 'neath the seat." The sound of his footsteps told them he had returned to his own perch behind the horses.

Mal slid back the door to the compartment under their bench. "So there is," he remarked, pulling forth a brightly-colored patchwork quilt. He spread it out over both of them.

"Must admit I'm curious." Mal tilted his head at her questioningly. "Do you ever wear trousers?"

His expression was so honestly inquisitive, she smiled. "I won't be sledding in skirts tomorrow, if that's what you're wondering."

"Probably for the best."

The wind rose again, louder this time, blowing her hair around and sending a chill through Inara despite her cloak and blankets. Close as he was, Mal noticed and frowned at it.

"Some holiday it'll be with you laid up with the ague. Scoot in."

"There's nowhere for me to scoot to."

"Sure there is." He opened his coat and extended the side that was closest to her, nudging her shoulder with the fingers of his outstretched hand as he watched her. "Scoot."

She moved inside his coat, nearly sighing out loud in pleasure at the warmth of him, so near. Her left arm went around his back and she rested her hand, after a moment's thought, on his belt. He pulled the coat around her and tucked it against her right arm, drawing the blankets up to keep out the wind. She put her cheek against the front of his shoulder while he moved her right hand under the left panel of his coat. He lay his forearm along hers with his hand cradling around her right elbow.

"That's better." He'd whispered it in her ear. That's all she found she could think about for the next few quiet minutes. The softness in his voice, how his breath had barely moved her hair. How he was...holding her. She knew he wasn't emotionally cold, she'd seen him press an affectionate kiss to the top of Kaylee's head. Take River's hands, anchoring her with kindness, strength, and the generosity of his trust. Sit shoulder to shoulder with Zoe, their sorrowful faces strange mirrors to each other, silence broken only occasionally by murmurs the other never had to have repeated. Eventually, Mal would extend an arm and Zoe would move in, her eyes closed against the unimaginable pain of the moment. Mal would say something, something Zoe would acknowledge with a tiny nod.

But she and Mal had barely touched at all. It had become more and more natural over the last few months, how they sought each other out for company - not Companionship, Inara thought wryly - but there was a carefully maintained physical distance between them.

The hand cupping her elbow was moving. He was moving his fingers back and forth across the back of her upper arm, pressing lightly against the long sleeve of her dress. She liked it. She made herself relax a bit more, rubbed her cheek softly against the sweater covering his shoulder. He felt, to Inara, absolutely wonderful. She closed her eyes against the swell of emotion, of gratitude for this moment.

"It's been a beautiful day." Her voice was soft. She hoped he'd know what she meant.

"That it has."

"I never thought, the first day I met you, that you'd ever bring me peppermint cocoa." That you'd be the one keeping out the cold, and I'd want, more than anything, to do the same for you.

A pleasure she knew would be addictive, being this close, able to feel him laugh. "I didn't imagine you'd be helping me with Christmas errands. Thought my best course of action would be to run you off the ship and get another tenant first chance." His fingers moved over her shoulder, caressing.

"You nearly did." She felt her own arms tighten around him at the memory of their early hostilities.

Mal was quiet for a moment. Remembering how they'd faced off against each other. "Just weren't acquainted with my brand of charm, is all."

She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder again, so happy. "What brand would that be?"

Mal answered with a hug that nestled her closer. Inara let the hand at his waist move up his side and across his back, back and forth, back and forth again. She just barely heard the low sound from his throat. Heady, this closeness to him.

The sleigh stopped a few quiet minutes later and the last of the other passengers hurried up a dark lane between two tall rows of stooping bare trees. The first band of snow clouds had cleared away entirely, leaving the sky blazing with moonlight. The driver called back to them. "Back around to town now to fetch down this satchel, then Ives Docks for ye."

She felt Mal's arms tighten around her again, felt his hands move and his fingers spread out as if to claim as much of her as possible.

"Not dying was the best I'd hoped for." His voice had taken on a sudden hoarseness. One hand was stroking her hair now, as his eyes searched her face. He was done with their gentle teasing, she could tell. Truthsome, he'd once said. The memory still pained her.

"This is better than I'd hoped." Her hopes for her family. Her hopes for them as well. He deserved whatever courage she could muster, so she did not look away. Instead kept her eyes on his face, let him see hers and everything it might have to show. Truthsome.

"You...hoped?" The soft whisper of his voice touched her heart. Why had it been so important not to let him know?

"I hoped."

"We're alive." His face, the face she knew so well, was illuminated by emotion no less than the sky above. One arm around her shoulders, still keeping her inside his coat and warm. The other hand, caressing her hair, her shoulder, sliding to her neck and cradling her face, his thumb brushing along her jaw. "We're together. And I -" his voice roughened as he drew closer. "I - " his second attempt whispered against her lips as he kissed her.

* * *

Mal didn't expect loving Inara was the safe choice to make, but he'd had that decided for him long ago. He never expected that she would be here, against all probability snuggled right up against him and looking content to snuggle some more. The little coy barb about how they'd irritated each other so, almost from hello. Safe. But maybe they'd been safe long enough.

So when he heard what he'd heard in her voice, when he saw his chance in her eyes, he'd asked. And she'd answered. And her eyes were shining up at him, her face alive with such beauty and hope. One sweet hand, slipping over his heart and the scarf she'd needed to fuss over, resting against his neck, letting her fingers caress his skin while the truth spilled over both of them like moonlight.

The truth was in their eyes. In the way their faces drew closer, never breaking eye contact. The steam of their breath in the cold night air, mingling, becoming one. He saw her searching his eyes, trying to smile for a single tiny moment, then back to this new expression he never really believed he'd see. Was this real? Was this him? Him, and not a moment from the life of some other man, a lucky man, happy and whole? This is what happy people do, he realized. People with hope. He guessed he'd been acting on some species of hope, wrangling this evening's time alone with Inara. But that's as far as his hopes had gone. Time with her. At least that was the only imagining he'd been prepared to entertain. Holding her? Kissing her?

Seemed like there'd been times, the last month or two, when something seemed to want to happen. A break in conversation, a sweet smile and warm eyes instead of the easy joke. That had felt...good, if foreign...And afterwards there were times he'd thought about the smile and the warm eyes and wondered if he hadn't ought to have pursued his good fortune in some way. He hadn't. There was always something else to see to, or some habitual deflection to fall back on.

But here she was, so close and so warm and telling him that she'd hoped. He'd been carrying on so long, only trying not to make things worse, instead of working to make anything in his life better. Maybe it was time to try for better.

He couldn't resist the invitation in her eyes. Couldn't find his old stand-bys for keeping her at a distance. This, he forced himself to admit, is what he had wanted for so long. Can't turn back now. Didn't want to, couldn't even if ----

"We're alive..." Hadn't thought that would be the case, back on that moon after Wash...

"We're together," But he was, she was, and damned if he didn't know how gorramn short life could be.

"And I..." his voice roughened, she was looking at him with a shining thing he didn't want to put a name to in case he was wrong.

"I..." He couldn't speak anymore, couldn't say the words, but wasn't that their problem, too many words?

It was more of a prayer than a kiss. Soft lips, lingering, just barely pressed against each other. Mal raised his eyes, meaning to find Inara's and see what might be in them. He couldn't, not at that moment. She hadn't yet opened her eyes, so he watched, while she did, slowly. As if waking from a dream. Wondering. He'd watched daybreak, spaceborne over a dozen worlds, but nothing compared to the emotion in her eyes as they opened to him. He felt the rise and fall of her breathing as she lifted her face to meet his lips again. So gentle, amazed, looking after the kiss, eyes and hearts striving to encompass this new thing. Was it the look on his face that had her smiling like she was, tremulous, joyful? He found himself kissing her again, suddenly aware of his hands on her and that they were pulling her close to him. Her hands, on his shoulders, one hand now moving to tangle in his hair, and she was kissing him. Kissing him. He heard a little shaky delighted sound against his mouth and she kissed him again.

He kept on pulling until he couldn't get her closer than she was. Halfway across his lap, pressed against his chest, kissing him, letting him hold her up with the arm he had wrapped around her, the hand at the nape of her neck. She tasted like chocolate and peppermint. He'd love it forever.

She stopped a moment, braced her hands against his shoulders to lean back a few terrible inches, catch her breath and look him over. Pink cheeks. Lips, a darker pink. Shining eyes. Looked like a woman planning on saying something, until she smiled and sighed a tiny little sound and came back to him for more kissing instead.

He was kissing Inara. She was kissing him. He was drunk over it and who knows how much time passed before the sleigh stopped again and the driver scrabbled onto the other side of their seat and started tugging at the enormous bag. Inara let up moving her hands across his back and shoulders, over his face and neck and chest and arms, let up kissing him and gave him a little smile as she smoothed her hair down with her hands.

Mal pushed at the bag a little bit, calling out to the old man. "Need some help?"

The answer came in an amused wheeze. "You stay put. Won't be but a moment."

The sleigh was soon moving again and it was only a few short dazzling minutes until they were at Ives Docks and they had to stop kissing and get down from the sleigh. Wasn't anything improper in reaching up for her, though, holding her by the waist to help her disembark. Keeping his hands there a few moments to make sure she was steady in the snow. Had to stand close to her, to get all that accomplished.

Mal reluctantly let go to accept the packages from the little driver. They called their good-byes and the sleigh glided off into the dark, harness bells shaking rhythmically.

He switched the packages into his left hand so he could keep his arm around her, hand firm on her shoulder as they walked. The snow had been overturned here around the docks, melted and refrozen in uneven piles, and walking could quite possibly turn out to be hazardous. Better to hold on to her, let her snuggle close with her arm under his open coat, around his waist.

"Just a moment." He stopped and stood facing her, looking down at her as she beamed up at him. Her hands were patting at the pockets of her cloak. "I should get my gloves." She was taking her time, he could tell. Fine with him, he got to stand there and look at her. He wanted so much to kiss her, just one more kiss. Crazy lie. No way one more kiss would be enough.

She drew on one glove. "You kissed me." Her voice like she had a secret she was very pleased to tell.

"Sure did, darlin'." He glanced at the ship, then grinned at her as she retrieved her other glove. "Aim to get right back to that first chance I find."

She responded with a pleased hum, smiling as she pulled on her glove and leaned into him again, wrapping her arm around his waist. They resumed walking, slowly, toward the ship.

"Hands warm now?" He angled down to her as he said it, breathing her in.

"Quite."

A lower voice. "You taste like candy peppermint."

She stopped again, moved to stand in front of him. They were only a few yards from the ship. Mal could hear, faintly, the voices of his crew. Playing in the snow, he realized. Inara reached for his scarf, busied her two hands with adjusting it around his neck and over his throat. How much adjusting it needed, Mal couldn't say - he was pretty sure she'd just fixed it. But he wasn't about to object.

"And you like peppermint."

"Can't tell you how much."

"I was worried for a moment. That you didn't like peppermint."

"Why's that?"

One beautifully curved eyebrow danced as her smile grew and she confessed.

"Because I wanted you to kiss me."