Written for the 17th Firefly Friday Challenge--100 to 1000 words set during or just after the events of "Serenity" (the pilot).

No archiving, please. The usual disclaimers apply.

Posted because somebody had me feeling a wee bit guilty...

****** "Inevitable" (c) 8/3/2003 HawkMoth ******

Inara watched Shepherd Book leave her shuttle with shaky steps, hands clasped and his head still bowed. She turned, breathing deeply to keep calm, moving with careful deliberateness as she cleared away the things she had used to minister to his injuries, and put to rights what had been tossed about in Serenity's desperate flight away from Whitefall.

Only after order was restored and everything was in its proper place did she let her control slip away. She collapsed on the sofa, trembling as she finally allowed herself the release of tears.

We're out of the woods, people.

But they had been so deeply lost, and finding a way out had seemed so unlikely.

Mal had threatened cold-blooded murder. If he had thrown the young doctor out the airlock, more than likely none of them would have been able to cope with his poor damaged sister. Without proper care, how long would she have survived?

Mal had then offered an equally brutal compromise. If he had dumped them both on Whitefall, or any other desolate rock at this end of space, he still would have been responsible for two deaths.

Either way, Inara would have carried out her threat and left Serenity. Whether Kaylee had lived or died, she would have demanded Mal take her back into civilized territory so she could leave. If it had been necessary, she would have stolen her shuttle to get away.

Then the Reavers had returned and everything had changed. She watched Mal shoot Dobson without a moment's thought, and no word of protest had passed her lips. They dumped his body like so much rubbish and she was almost glad to see it happen.

Is this what life is like out here?

Sometimes.

She had given the Shepherd what comfort she could, knowing there was none for her but the relief that Kaylee lived, that they had all survived. Life in the black was all about survival.

We can't just leave you here.

Thought that was the plan.

You could plan and scheme and struggle and fight, but in the end you did whatever it took to survive, letting cost and consequence matter later. That was the way of it, the lesson she'd been learning since she had first set foot on Serenity. Cold, bitter and hard, like the man she'd once thought Mal was, could only be. Yet it wasn't always like that out here, and she had slowly learned there was another side to Malcolm Reynolds as well.

But that knowledge hadn't prepared her for the moment below the flightdeck steps, when he had touched her with such gentleness and said her name so tenderly. She would never be able to look at him or this life she had chosen the same way again.

The awful tension of the past two days slowly drained away, and the tears finally stopped, leaving her exhausted. Inara closed her eyes, praying for solace in sleep--

--and woke curled in her bed, the covers tucked carefully around her. She felt a lingering warmth on her face, as if someone's hand had been gently resting there. Before she could turn over, she heard the sound of the shuttle hatch sliding shut, confirming that she hadn't been alone.

And alone once more, she smiled, comforted.

******