A/N: Dialouge directly stolen from Joss, I'm not proud. Story seed generously given to me by Rinny, and it is for her that this was written. Post Episode-Serenity Part II.

The Dark is but a courtesan The Day a truer friend The Night beguiles and decieves The Light no falsehood sends O! That day would never cease and spirit never fail Then we would laugh ceaselessly All full of joy and hale

He knelt before her as if in prayer, the feelings of the last hours sweeping over him and carrying him to a time before he'd left the secular world, though traces of it still clutched at him weakly, not terribly unlike wilting bramble vines. For a single moment, a miracle for any man, he didn't notice her stand before him.

Her touch was slightly unexpected when she daubbed at his forhead with a cool cloth, reminding him of the pain and blood his transgressionary sins made his penance.

"You really should have the young doctor look at this."

While inwardly he balms his soul in the jewelled tones of concern that spill from her votive-candle red lips, outwardly he can only make himself say, "It's not so bad."

And then she took her hand away, and he could not help but feel the loss deeply. "Well, I'm sure you'll be fine..."

"I didn't say that." He looked up at her, his dark eyes baring his conscience to her own molten gaze, fully expecting her to be disconcerted by the weakness of character, the drowning morass of loss in their depths. "Is this what life is, out here?"

"Sometimes."

Sometimes. And yet, here she was, unchanged from when last he saw her. When he'd brought her the evening meal, they had fallen into a restive moment, the easy banter she gracefully provoked with her tenderness. Neither of them had mentioned the surprise when they had been introduced by the Captain, which was a mercy. He hadn't any expectations that he would ever see her again, not after their first engagement.

And he hadn't expected her to know that ultimately, when he lost himself in her arms, the rich caramel velvet of her damp skin, that he would enter the...

"I've been out of the abbey two days, I've beaten a Lawman senseless, I've fallen in with criminals... I watched the Captain shoot a man I swore to protect."

Just as he let his thoughts splinter, fracture into fine dust, so his voice broke and he took a ragged breath.

"And I'm not even sure if I think he was wrong."

"Shepherd..."

Did she remember? Would she ever say his name again in the liquid sweetness of his voice? Would he even remember it, if she did?

Did he want her to, now that she was as forbidden to him as the fruit from the Tree?

He could feel the emotions tremble within his breast, the raucous storm of it all shaking him, prickling his eyes.

"I believe I just..." He offered her the broken smile, an offering. "I think I'm on the wrong ship."

"Maybe. Or maybe, you're exactly where you ought to be."

He lowered his head and after a moment her fingers drifted across his brow and remained there. As he closed his eyes it occured to him, one of the greatest of the forgotten disciples was Mary the Magdalene. A whore.

A sacrament in flesh those years ago was now a sacrament of spirit.

So twice was he blessed, and twice it was Inara Serra who had given him a benediction.