Back In My Verse

For minutes there was ringing silence. Inara put her hand on Mal’s. Several more minutes crept by and Simon walked gravely to Ian’s body and drew a sheet over him. Zoe instinctively clasped Wash’s hand in hers and Book stood with his bible on his chest, arms crossed. Serenity’s hum drowned out Kaylee’s footsteps as she entered the waiting room adjoining medlab. She took in the serious scene and stopped short of entering the medical bay. Nervously she stood on her toes and wrung her hands until Mal looked her way. “What’s wrong Kaylee,” Mal asked softly. “Ummm,” Kaylee bit her lip, “I think something’s happen’ outside. Serenity seems to be able to detect gravity again and…what exactly happened here capn’?” Mal nodded to Book who walked over to Inara and put his arm around her. He then turned to Wash and Zoe, “We need to get up there to see what’s what.” The three briskly exited the medical lad and headed for the bridge. Kaylee turned and headed back to the engine room. Jayne’s voice echoed up from his room under their feet, “Could someone tell me what’s going on up there?!” His answer was the sharp crack of Malcolm’s pistol and the round careening off the walls of Jayne’s room. “Dammit Mal I’m gonna shoot back ifen you don’t stop that!” “You seemed to have finally gotten through to him,” Wash raised his eyebrows and smiled. As they entered the bridge the view out of the windows had changed dramatically. The universe they’d left was back in its shimmering grandeur. Only now the two warring ships were closer than ever. Myriad of the colossal energy beams blazed back and forth in an intricate destructive dance between the vessels. Wash winced at the intensity of them. With stab a breaking wave of light filled the cockpit making everyone stand in brilliant contrast. Without warning Serenity shuddered violently and rocked to her port side. Mal saw the space directly in front of the windows distorted around a spherical object that whizzed by them. “What the hell was that,” Mal shouted impulsively. “Capn’,” Kaylee’s voice broke through the intercom, “that black hole was close! I think we should be moving on directly.” Zoe’s tone was calm, “Captain I think my husband should be moseying along now.” Wash was busy punching buttons on the console, “I knew I married a woman smarter than me.” Mal rubbed his iron-set jaw, “You would know that the day we find out there is a God, we also find out he aint exactly too picky about where he drops you off.” The little Firefly made a precise turn to the right and put her rear to the behemoths warring with the fabric of the universe. Wash fired the main thrusters hard pressing them back into their seats slightly. A large screen on the weapon’s console showed the rearward view. “Burning hard now captain,” Wash said. Mal studied the fuel and thrust graphic displays when he took in Zoe’s voice, “Mal something’s happening to the ships…well kinda like nothing really.” “Huh,” Mal asked. Wash looked over and saw the ships had ceased all firing at one another and things looked oddly calm after the intense hostility they’d been witness to. Wash was suddenly curious. He cut the burn for a moment and snapped Serenity around 90 degrees so they were looking at the ships. After rotating the main thrusters around, he continued the burn, backing them away ever faster. Wash’s eyebrows went down and he muttered, “That’s strange.” Mal pulled his eyes away from the two craft and looked over the computer display, “What’s strange? Every…damned thing has been strange. What are you talking about!” “Ship’s sensors lost them again. There seems to be no activity at all.” “Well we can plainly see they are hanging right there in front of us,” Mal pointed with his hand. The two enormous ships hung in space in all their elegant and similarly opposing symmetry. As the bridge crew stared, the two craft seemed to blink for a moment. Then, without warning or fanfare, they simply disappeared and ceased to exist as God thought them away. In an instant there was only Serenity speeding away in the bitter dark of interstellar space. “Kaylee,” Mal called, his brows still furrowed in suspicion, “you pickin’ up any kinda readings on those gravity wells?” Kaylee’s voice was incredulous, “Well gahh captin, they just…like.. disappeared or something! What happened? Serenity’s purrin’ like a kitten now. We should be able to jump once we figure out where we are going.” Suddenly it all hit Malcolm Reynolds. Where would they go? The mission was a complete failure, they’d killed the agent who hired them and had no evidence but data crystals they’d ever been out here. Who would believe them? “Well Mal, where do you want to go,” Wash knew he was asking a question Mal had no answer to. Malcolm put his hands above his head and held on to the structural beam spanning Serenity’s bridge. He leaned forward stretching his back and shoulders. The stoic captain took a deep breath and made a steadfast decision, the kind his crew always counted on him to make, “In the general direction you were going’s good. We’ll work out the particulars later.” Wash put on his best pained expression, “It would help if you maybe gave me a general idea…maybe a sector…or, or three?” “Towards Acre Staton,” Malcolm turned to leave then checked himself, “but none too quick Wash. Take the long way. And avoid that reaver spot we hit on the way in!” “Lord knows we don’t need a tangle with them right now,” Zoe mumbled. Mal’s voice echoed from the narrow shaft to his room, “Lord may know but he don’t care apparently. All we got lookin’ out for us is us.” “And Ian,” Zoe said to herself. She noticed Wash’s comforting smile and took his hand. She clasped his fingers and brought her brow down ever so slightly. Wash smiled and set the autopilot. Taking his wife in his arms he held her tightly. Serenity’s engine hum increased in pitch slightly. The starts blurred and elongated ahead of her windscreen though the couple stood with their eyes tightly shut. As the small ship of metal, plastic, composites and people slipped through the silky blackness faster than light, Wash led his wife gently back towards their room. The linear flow of time was measured not by the vibrating atoms in the ship’s clock, rather by the two hearts that beat in sync, connected by the bonds of love. Inara was sitting on her bed now, holding her stomach with both arms. The sickness pulsing over her body was intense. The death of Ian had set her mind to questioning everything; her place on Serenity, her choice to be a companion, her relationship with Malcolm and her ability to leave her chosen profession. One thing Inara desperately avoided was thinking about her future life. The house never trained her to think about anything other than what she was doing. Consideration of a family, children and a home fed a deeply-seeded anger that was welling within her soul. The graceful woman stood and paced across the richly appointed shuttle. Inara’s wavering conviction on her choice as a companion fueled her resentment for the indecision which only stoked her anger into white-hot intensity. Flashes of her as an ageing companion made her feel a purple rage. Her breathing increased and her faultless breast heaved, pumping the level of her fury ever higher. The tears ceased and all that was left was a near perfect anger that rang in Inara’s ears. She sat on her bed clenching her fists, looking aimlessly around her room. Jayne came to her mind. He was the root cause of this uncontrollable wrath. He killed Ian. He was an animal. If she could just vent on him somehow… Her eyes landed on the jeweled box. In it was a syringe filled with a quick death. A painless path to oblivion. A place where no Jayne existed. She calmed knowing now what she must do. With her grace returning her pained frenzy transformed to iron resolve. Inara removed the syringe from the box. Many forms of training were given at the academy. Along with physical and mental training there was schooling on more arcane arts. There may come a time in every companion’s life when she must fend for herself. Inara’s house did not raise helpless girls. Poisons were a standard if unspoken part of their guild instruction. Inara remembered with stunning clarity how 100cc of the poison would put her off into a calm sleep of death within thirty seconds. However, 1 cc of the neurotoxin would cause a slow, torturous death of irrepressible bowel movements and a near continuous firing of pain receptors in the brain. Jayne would take several days to die in one of the most gruesome manners Inara knew how to inflict. Her pulse slowed and her nerves calmed with the knowledge that the root of her pain and uncertainty would soon be gone. Jayne would be dead with just a few drops on her ring and a small scratch. She took the syringe and slowly depressed the plunger watching the small drop form on the end of the needle. “It won’t do no good you know,” came Malcolm’s voice. Inara was startled back to reality and dropped the syringe on the floor. She sat staring at Malcolm Reynolds with an open mouth wondering how he knew. Malcolm walked in and sat on the bed next to her wit his hands on his knees, “Believe me. All’s killin’ Jayne will do for you is make the pain worse. You’ll go around wonderin’ why it didn’t go away like it was supposed to. Then you start to hate yourself for being so stupid as to suppose killin’ a man would take what he done from your mind. Why you thought takin’ a life would give you back yours. Then you start to turn your hate for yourself out twards other folk and soon you are one wretched mess of a person. I’ve seen it Inara.” “Mal,” her voice was thin and dry in her mouth. She knew he was right yet she felt crushed and defeated. Malcolm stood in front of the striking woman and said with complete earnestness, “Inara I wont stop ya if you have a mind to carry it out. Lord knows I wanted to myself.” “Mal I have to,” Inara was able to get out weakly. “I know you feel that way Inara,” Malcolm knelt in front of her, “I know it’s tearin’ your guts up. But Inara I want to ask you one favor.” Inara took a deep breath in on the verge of breaking down again, “What can I do for you Mal, I have nothing left…” “Inara, there’s a reason for my roughness with you sometimes,” Malcolm said softly, looking down at the floor. “I can see in you everything that I want to be. Everything that I don’t have a chance at bein’ anymore. Your strength, your intelligence, your grace…your purity.” “Mal please, now’s not the time for insults…” “Hear me out Inara,” he put his rough fingers under her soft chin and pulled her eyes to his, “I have done so many bad things Inara. Theft, killin…to name a few. But your soul is unstained by such things. It’s what pulls me to you and what makes me frustrated. It’s like a mirror that shows me all my faults. But it also shows me a way back. Please don’t sully that Inara. I need a way back.” Inara’s vision became cloudy with tears and she jumped at Malcolm. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as he pulled her to him. She felt his hand on her hair and all her pain welled up in her cries. She buried her face in his neck, muffling the loud sounds of her grief. Her hands made fists that grasped hands full of Malcolm’s shirt. Mal felt her body shake as she cried. He felt her cry for both of them.