Mal is almost out the doorway back to his bunk. Alone. To strip off his wet clothes. Stand under a hot shower for a good long time to scrub off the smell of wet leather. Of somebody not him dying. Of his eternally unfulfilled want and desire for Inara.

Sadly, he knows that the last one will never leave his skin.

Then he barely hears Inara’s whisper.

“It was never just a job.”

He freezes, knowing how much easier and harder all at the same time it would be to just walk away. Down the hall away from the bridge. Away from that invisible wall both of them built with pride and shame and guilt and anger. And, most important, away from her.

Ironical that it would be his leaving this time.

Yet he knows all too well that there is nowhere to run away from it any longer. That it’s grown bigger than either one of them. He draws in a ragged breath.

“That so?”

Inara falters, looks down. As she does so, one thin blue strap of her gown falls off her shoulder. Mal wants to gently put the strap back in its proper place. He wants to kiss that bared shoulder. He wants to turn his back and not look behind him.

“Yes, Mal. I never wanted…this…you…to be about business.”

And right there, she’s taken away his options. All but one. He looks her dead in the eyes.

“Inara, I stink to hell of that sumbitch right now. I am gonna go wash it off me. You got precisely 15 minutes to decide if this is more than just payin’ me back for a job well done. My bunk in 15 minutes. Or not. Your call.”

“Mal, I…”

“Clock’s tickin’, sweetheart.”

It is a miracle he makes it to the showers without turning around to see the look on her face. She’s already killed him once and made him kill for her. He’s not sure he can take another round of death.

Fifteen minutes, and he is not sure which way she will go with it. He scrubs as clean as he can in the allotted time, as much to force himself to believe there is something more than just angry words and regret between them. He wants desperately to believe there is more, but belief is something that has not come easy to him.

Mal finishes drying off and, wrapping a towel around his middle, heads back toward his bunk. Stops outside the closed hatch, knowing whichever way it will be, things will forever change between them.

A deep breath and then he pops the hatch and climbs down the ladder.

She’s there, waiting. Curled up in his bed, with the sheets and blanket pulled all the way up. Like she was the only other time she’s been in his bunk.

The difference being that there is no blood, no bruising and no torn clothing this go round. And most importantly, no crying. Mal never did work up the nerve to ask her why she came to him first afterward.

Still that doe-frightened look in her eyes this time, however. Looking like she just might bolt.

“Hello, Mal.” More nervy than seductive. Mal considers that a decent start, as he’s feeling equally uncertain.

“Wasn’t sure you’d ever want to be back here again.”

Inara looks down, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. He knows that gesture for the nervous habit it is.

“I told you Mal that it was never just a job between us.”

Until now, he has kept his distance, being uncertain of the territory. Now, however, he closes the gap between them.

“No games? No tricks? No wiles? Just you, Inara?”

She leans in and brushes lips to his.

“Just us, Mal.”

His body believes this, even as his bran is uncertain. He can feel the ache starting in his groin.

The bed coverings slip down and he notes she is not wearing a stitch. Sweet Buddha, he last time…the last time he saw this much of her, he was too busy holding back the rage at seeing all the bruises and cuts.

Now, with all of that healed and gone, he can admire her for the first time. Reach out and touch and feel and do everything he has imagined. He is tentative, not wanting to scare her. She catches his hand and draws it to her.

“Mal, it’s alright. You aren’t him. You’re different.”

“Am I?” He feels a bit like a bastard, with half a hard-on and a handful of breast. “My body wants what his did.”

“But your heart doesn’t.” As she puts her other hand to his chest and then slides it down to where his towel is still wrapped around him.

He gives in. Knows he shouldn’t. Knows it for the really bad idea that it is, but his heart is too tired and his body aches too much. As he moves his thumb over her nipple and leans in to kiss her other one, he wonders what level of hell is below the one Book warned him about.

It is all a blur after that. She undoes his towel. He kisses his way down her body and back up again. He does, however, remember with crystal clarity her moving to take him in her mouth and him stopping her, shaking his head.

There is a moment, frozen in time, right before he guides himself inside her. Him stopping one last time to be certain. And then it is all heat and warmth. He thinks it will be awkward, but it isn’t. It is perfect. Beyond perfect. Everything he wanted for so very long.

There are muscles she has pulling on him that he didn’t think existed. Tightening around him once, twice, again and again until he can take no more of it. With a muffled groan, he comes – hard, sharp and painful. Spilling his hurt and need into her.

Mal wonders, as he comes back to coherent thought, when he will care that she very well might have just given him payment in full for a job well done. Tomorrow, maybe. Or possibly the day after that. Or never.

He is working toward never.