“Inara ain’t dead,” she’d said to him. As if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t spent just about every second of the first few hours after he’d brought her body, limp in his arms, from her shuttle where he’d found her collapsed to the infirmary (where the boy wonder didn’t even do him the courtesy of looking surprised) tracking the rise and fall of her chest. Sometimes he’d miss a breath, shake his head, quick, to rattle himself alert, then stare till he caught the next one.

No, she wasn’t dead. He knew that. But he also knew from the look fixed on Simon’s face she was dying; had been for some time. Dead, dying. Dying, dead. Wasn’t much difference, really. They were all dying. They’d all be dead. And everybody dies alone.

It was strange to think on, though. It was one thing to think to himself she was sick through it all. Quite another, though, to think she was dying. First time he’d met her on Serenity: she was dying. When she’d taught Kaylee to make them finger-weavings: she was dying. When she’d told him about seducing, him nearly drowning in her voice and in her eyes: she was dying. When she’d strode onto Ihsan’s estate and paid him with her name: she was dying. When she’d told him she was leaving, should have long before: she was dying. Every time they’d fought: she was dying. Every time they’d laughed: she was dying. A million other little things she’d done, words she’d said: she was dying during all of them. Not just sick. Sick you get better from. Dying splits a body clear from its soul.

Seemed to him maybe that’s what she’d always been about: a body working to split from its soul, and finding out it don’t come clean.

It put a new spin on all of it, but at the moment his mind went back to that first time, her on his ship, they saw Reavers. And what had struck him at the time, what she’d told him even, but what he’d pushed away like he’d done so much pushing away since he’d known her: she hadn’t been scared.

After the run-in with Patience and the deal with Ihsan, he’d taken most any job came his way. Sold the guns off piecemeal across the rim. Cost him gas, but the haul was better that way. Gruvick, Horowitz, Holden boys all turned him on to scavenging jobs that paid some. Midway through it all Jayne was back, and he became freer still with the jobs he took. (Paid Jayne his standard ten percent on every take; no use him knowing about any of it at all, by Mal’s thinking. Man was still something of an unknown quantity. Trusting someone like Jayne too far could get a fellow dead.)

Gruvick’d brought the job to him. Poor, dead Gruvick. Man’d gotten reports of an abandoned vessel, too far out in the black for most of the crews he worked with to feel comfortable with going. Had to’ve known such a thing as Reavers was likely: that’s why no other crew would go. But he wanted the goods – which in this case was the ship – and offered a good price for the trouble.

Wasn’t an easy task, even before the Reavers. Crew wasn’t big enough to man two ships effectively. But Gruvick was paying well for the derelict, and so he was willing to stake a wish and a hope on it to get his renter back her name and him back his ship.

When he saw Gruvick’s girl, floating out in the black, he understood. She was a big one, mighty powerful. They scouted it thorough – Kaylee in the engine room, him and Jayne checking the cargo – and then he gathered his crew in the galley. She was there, too, just standing in the doorway: not in, not out.

“Well, I can tell you what’s wrong with her, Cap’n.” Kaylee crossed her arms in front of her chest at the table. “Compression coil’s gone. Their catalyzer blew, an’ they didn’t have no other one to put in for it. That’s why they took one of her shuttles.”

Zoe frowned. “But why wouldn’t they’ve come back for her?”

The mechanic shook her head. “Could be they couldn’t find her. She’s not sending out no beacon. And we’re so far out. Wouldn’t take too long of her driftin’ ‘fore it’d’ve been like findin’ a needle in a haystack.”

He nodded. “Well, can we haul it?”

She shook her head. “No, Sir. Serenity’s a good girl, but she can’t pull in somethin’ that big. It’s not her fault. She just don’t have it in her.”

“We got a part we could loan her?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “Well, yeah – takes the same catalyzer we got, an’ I try to hold on to extras. So long’s we get her back on the other end. Don’t want to be hurtin’ for spare parts an’ such.”

Zoe cleared her throat. “Well, if you don’t mind, I think we best finish this conversation and be out of these parts quick as we can. We’re a bit far into the black for my liking, and we’ve been here long enough as is.”

From the doorway: “This is Reaver territory, after all.”

All their heads turned toward her. Jayne’s eyes narrowed. “Reavers? You di’n’t say nothin’ ‘bout no Reavers, Mal. I thought we was agreed, no –”

Mal ignored him – fixed his eyes on the woman in the doorway. “What d’you know about Reavers?”

She shrugged, noncommittal-like. Her eyes held his. “Only what I overhear.”

“Didn’t hear you voicin’ no complaints when I first proposed this here job.”

(Jayne: “Well, I’m voicin’ a complaint –”)

“I didn’t have any complaints. It doesn’t bother me. But I think Zoe’s right. I think you should hurry.”

Probably didn’t have much cause to, but he bristled still. “You tryin’ to tell me how to do my job?”

“I didn’t know your job was that complicated.” Her voice had gone icy, the way it went anytime she made to ward off one of his barbs.

“Harder than yours, I expect. Though may be that’s a bad choice of words.”

“Captain.” Zoe. “You’ll do well to remember that at least for the next little while she owns a good chunk of this ship. I’d play nice, I were you.”

And then it was like the devil had heard him, heard them all. Wash, over the comm, yelling about sighting a ship in the distance, bathed in red, and then everything was moving at once: Kaylee to the engine room, and then through the hatch to the other ship; Wash from one bridge to the other, taking his triceratops and his wife, one in each hand. They rigged a hitch about as fast as he thought was possible, and then he was back on Serenity’s bridge, Wash manning the other, and Wash was towing her faster, faster, faster, but it was taking so long, and just for a second he thought they were done for.

Turned on the comm. “‘Nara?”

From her shuttle: “Yes, Mal?”

He swallowed once. “‘Nara, we get boarded, I need you to go. I need you to fly your shuttle straight back in the direction we come from. Toward Gruvick. They won’t follow you.”

Her voice was all static. “But, Mal, why –”

“I ain’t in the business of losing renters. Not good for a man’s reputation.”

“Well, I’m not in the business of defaulting on debts.”

“‘Nara –” And before he could think of quite how to finish, or even what it was he wanted to say, the ship jerked once and then they were going faster than Serenity, God love her, had ever taken him.

Around him, for a minute, everything was still (except for the stars flying past).

“We lost them.” Wash’s voice over the comm. He leaned back in his seat, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

***

He barely had ten minutes to himself after Zoe left him before Simon Tam came to interrupt his thoughts. “Zoe told me I’d find you here.”

Mal looked over his shoulder at the the doc, standing above him. “Did she, now?” The boy was wearing that gorram black vest always seemed to make him seem (so much like her) so different than the rest of them. Leastways he’d lost those little glasses he came aboard with, somewhere along the way.

“She said you hadn’t been hard to find. That she knew where you’d be because you and Inara used to sit here.”

“Sounds like Zoe’s been telling you a whole heap of things.” He looked away from the doctor and stared down at the hold. Let some quiet pass by. When he finally did talk, his voice came out choked. “How long have you known?”

He could tell by the sound of his voice, the breaks in his speech, that he’d startled him. “Not – not too long. Since just before she – she left. I found out by accident –”

“Accident?”

He heaved a sigh of resignation. Resignation over what, Mal wasn’t sure. “Amnon delivered one of her packages to me by mistake. The return address – it was a medical supplier. I – I didn’t want to confront her about it, but it was impossible for her not to know that I knew. I had to return it to her.”

And then he asked a question he’d wanted to know the answer to for too long, voice hitching again. “That why she waved you so often, when she was away? You were treating her?”

“Treating her?” Wasn’t looking at Simon, but he could imagine him shaking his head. “No. No, I wasn’t treating her, though I gave her advice from time to time. Not that it’s any of your business, Captain, but she would have had no need for me to treat her when she had access to the Core. We spoke often because we were friends.”

“Were?”

“Maybe you should be asking her these questions. I came to tell you she’s awake.”

***

Night after they’d left the ship with Gruvick on Beylix (if night could be told from morning or afternoon), enough money in his purse to pay back Ihsan and then some, he’d been walking around Serenity in a daze. Doing his rounds, Kaylee called it. Happened when he was too keyed up to sleep. Bridge was the last place he ended up, each time. Usually he expected this late it would be empty – course plotted, Wash and Zoe’d be off celebrating surviving the way they celebrated best (the joy of it, she’d said).

He wasn’t expecting anyone, but there she was, sitting in that seat without the dinosaurs, the one that would come to be River Tam’s in due course. There she was, sitting and looking out at the black.

He cleared his throat. “So. Busy day.”

She turned her head suddenly toward him. “Yes. It was.” A moment of silence, not entirely comfortable. He shifted between his feet. “I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t be here. There’s just something about the black –”

Shook his head. “No need to apologize. You can go where you like. ‘Sides, I guess Zoe’s right. She’s as much your boat as mine, till we get this payment to Ihsan.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t be absurd. I just wanted to help.”

He made his way to Wash’s seat and leaned back in it. And, for a spell, they watched the black together. “Why wouldn’t you leave?”

She cocked her head to the side, her brow wrinkled. “Hmm?”

Didn’t blame her for being confused. He could’ve just as easily been talking about that first fight as the events of the day. Wanted to know both, truth told, but the second something more urgent. “When I told you to take the shuttle. Why wouldn’t you?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t see any reason to.”

Didn’t right well know what to say to that, so went another way about it. Still looking out into the black: “Well, as well and good as that may be when it’s just you and us here, if we’d had passengers, I’d’ve needed someone to –”

“Mal.”

He turned his head toward her. She watched him for a second.

“If we ever have passengers, I will fly them off Serenity if need be.”

Couldn’t think of a response, so he just nodded, just enough for her to see it. Kept watching her, watching him; watched each other in silence just about thick enough to slice. Finally, she turned her head back toward the black, a hint of a smile pulling at her lips (red, red lips). Her hair was gathered up, and in profile he could see the loose little leftover ringlets playing at the back of her long neck. Finally, he turned back toward the night.

His mind wandered. Thinking on that catalyzer they’d left behind, most like. Kaylee’d have a fit once she realized. Or maybe on where he might find himself some passengers. Didn’t know how long they sat like that before her voice brought him back. It was soft, barely there.

“I may not be a soldier like you, but I’m not afraid to die, Mal. I don’t want to, but the thought of it doesn’t make me afraid.”

Didn’t reckon it would do to tell her what it did to him.

***

He burst through the doors of the infirmary in a near state of panic and for a few seconds couldn’t quite understand what it was he was seeing.

Didn’t know quite was he was expecting, really. Some little moment of quiet, maybe: they wouldn’t say anything much (they never did), but there’d be a look passed between them, and she’d know what he wanted her to know.

Whatever he’d been expecting, this wasn’t it.

Zoe was standing behind her, leaning against one of the doc’s high counters, arms crossed across her chest and a grin on her face. Kaylee was standing to the Companion’s side, holding her hand in hers and smiling too. And the woman herself was lying on the table in the middle of the infirmary (River crouched beneath it), same as she’d been for the days since he’d first carried her in. (He remembered her head, lolling back and forth against his arm, her hair cascading down toward the grating under his feet, and how scared he’d been that he was too late, that she was already dead.) But now, here she was awake, curled up child-like beneath a blanket (she pulled it up tight to her chin with the hand that wasn’t holding on to Kaylee’s). Her head was turned to the side, and she was smiling – not the Companion smile, but that real smile he regularly thought he’d kill for.

And all of them were looking over at Jayne. Jayne, wearing his momma’s asinine knit hat, arms stretched out to either side of him, grin splitting his face, like he was telling the funniest gorram story this side of the ‘Verse. “And that husband of Zoe’s says next town we go to, it’s gonna be one where he’s a damn hero!”

Jayne looked over as he pushed open the doors, his heart beating fast, mind racing, and the big man stopped talking – all of them just looking at him, expecting something of him. And seeing them all there, still smiling (her with a little hopeful smile, now), it was like he’d never felt so completely unnecessary – so completely out of place – in all his life. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn't frivolity, it wasn’t some kind of pretending that all was all right. No, he’d been expecting to have somewhere to put all of the things churning inside him. He’d been expecting some truthsomeness. Should’ve known better ever to expect such out of the likes of her.

When he spoke, his voice was too hard, his expression blank. Couldn’t well help it, though. Never could help the things came out his mouth. “What in hell you think you’re doing, Jayne?”

Smiles dropped all around. Jayne pulled off the hat and scratched his head, sounding something confused. “Aw, I’s just telling Ay-nara ‘bout them Mudders, Mal.”

Kaylee was still smiling, but seemed a little less sure of it now, biting her lip a little bit. “He was just singin’ her the Jayne song, Cap. ‘Member that? You shoulda heard ‘im do it, too. It was somethin’ else.”

His voice didn’t lose its edge; kept his eyes trained on Jayne to keep from looking at her. “She knows full well about the Mudders. What use could it possibly be to tell her the same stupid story all over again?”

Jayne’s eyes narrowed at him; voice came through near-clenched teeth. “Just tryin’ to make her laugh, Mal. Just tryin’ to give everyone a laugh.” A beat. “An’ my story ain’t stupid.”

He stared back at the man. “Well, I don’t much see that there’s anything to be laughing about.” He paused, just enough. “‘Sides, she woulda heard it the first time if she hadn’t been out whoring herself.”

“Mal.”

Her voice was quiet but it cut through his haze, and he did look at her finally. Looked so different, she did. And maybe that’s why he hadn’t looked before, because he’d been holding out hope that when she was finally awake and he did look at her, she’d look like herself, rosy cheeks on porcelain skin and curls falling around her face just so. But this, this he didn’t want to see. Pale, so pale, with dark rings under her eyes (and they seemed a little less piercing, a little more tired, without their dark makeup). And thin. Thin as he’d seen her. Dying – and being awake didn’t make it no less. And all he could think about was the weight of her head, hanging over the side of his arm as he’d run along Serenity’s catwalks.

She took a slow breath; pushed herself up with her elbows. Looked like it took her some effort, but he knew it would’ve cost her more not to do it, not to seem composed. She swallowed. “You can leave now, Mal.”

He nodded once. “Well, I wouldn’t like to displease such a very fine lady, would I?”

And walked out. Heard a few more words before he was out of range of their talking.

Zoe: “Inara –”

Her voice was weak, scratchy from disuse. “It’s all right. It’s what he needs.”

“What is?”

“To hate me. To make me hate him.” She sighed; coughed. “At least he needs to try.”

***

end chapter 5