Inara had set up her landing downwind of the cabin, and the dust and fumes wafted away Eastward into the valley. The shuttle's harmonic whine spooled down and silence crept back over the meadow like a shy foal. Zoe shifted her shoulders, her feet, her hands in her lap, trying to pour calm into her body; trying to betray nothing; knowing the attempt would not only fail, it would be seen and noted. She stretched her feet out and picked up a pebble, rolling it from one pair of toes to the next in an unconscious imitation of the Duck of Death exercise, and waited. The hatch opened. Zoe stood and stode across the verge as Inara ran with arms open (she must have planned!) and swept her up, half spinning around, in that unababashed all-body hug that women can do with women. Zoe suddenly realized she couldn't remember a time she had touched like this. It went on and on. It required effort not to draw away, but it was pleasant; it was good. "--Eight years." Inara's voice was muffled in Zoe's neck. She felt the smile push Inara's cheek up against her dark skin. Strange to be touched by someone new. "Thank you for coming." "I wanted to come, so many times. We all did." And you wouldn't have found me, and you knew that too, Zoe thought. She makes it so easy. She doesn't require answers, or reasons. This is how humans should be. "Well." Inara pulled back. "Ready to go home?" She looked toward the cabin. Clever, always the diplomat. "Help me with my things." Zoe turned and began to walk up the path. She knew Inara would see the hesitation. "What was it like, Zoe?" "--What was what like?"

...It wasn't pain. Pain was a familiar nuisance, a tolerated old friend that reminded you that you still lived, or warned you that something needed urgent attention. Pain could be moved aside while you took care of matters of survival, or it could be used to help keep you conscious until the endorphins kicked in. Pain was well-known; this was not pain. This was something new and terribly unfamiliar. This was Purpose. Zoe had created herself in the image of the Warrior Woman, in what she thought it must be like to be part of a tribal tradition of Earth-That-Was; she had come here alone for that reason, imagining herself on some rite of passage, overcoming and prevailing as her ancestors had, bringing the strength and resolve of the Warrior Woman to this latest of many challenges-- It wasn't like that. She was small before this force. Small! And helpless. It roared through her, tearing her inside and out, using her strength profligately in its rush, Purpose took from her and she had already lost it all and she was utterly insignificant, merely a part of things greater than she could ever imagine. She was a Leaf on the Wind. Now, blindingly, agonizingly, she understood. This was what it was like...

"--What was what like?" Zoe paused and turned. Inara's hands fluttered a little, "Zoe, I don't--" "It was like nothing I can describe. Come on, let's get loaded up."

Serenity was small, seen like this, approaching from just outside atmo; they drifted up and over the starboard dock and locked on. That part had worked out well: Sabbatical was too fragile a moon to allow any more than a shuttle to land. That suited Zoe fine; it avoided a big welcoming, created a bottleneck of hatch and companionway, they'd come through there and she could pick them off one at a time. She grinned, inwardly, as she caught herself thinking in that way about her family, but this wasn't going to be easy and whatever tactical skills she possessed were, frankly, military. You go with what you got. The hatch opened. The smell and the big empty sound came flooding in, and Zoe read the room instantly: Mal on the companionway and carefully aloof as always. The women standing hand in hand and hesitant, River's other hand just touching the rail, as though she were reading, or sharing, data right from the metal. Simon, a little to the other side of Kaylee, incapable of holding eye contact and not quite capable of a full smile. Jayne--Jayne, up at the top of the ladder, staring and trying hard to think, motionless as though his hands were C-clamped to the bulkhead. Inara came through the hatch and took Zoe's other hand. They walked forward to the first obstacle: "Cap'n." "Zoe. Welcome home." "This is Tash'n." She smiled down at the boy, and he made her shockingly proud, as he always did: he looked right at Mal with those great golden searchlight eyes, stepped forward and took Mal's hand in his and shook almost before it was offered, and said, "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir." Mal's head moved in that little huh! jerk, and smiled--God, Zoe had missed these people!--"Welcome to my boat, Tash'n." Then it was all over, the tension vanished, the awkward body language fell away, and there were too many words for Zoe to follow, she whose ears had been filled only by her son's voice for seven years. There were faces, and hands, and smells and sounds and it was all so much, so much again, and Zoe could retreat inside her training and choose not to be touched, to some extent, for a little while still. And she watched her son move among welcoming strangers with poise and balance that she knew she had not taught him; watched as River watched as well, transfixed and appraising, maybe a little envious. But there was one piece of work that couldn't wait. She managed to move herself and Simon into a more remote space in the hold for a moment. The doctor had relaxed a little by now, and at least could look directly at her again. "So I imagine there're no secrets anymore, now?" "Just one, Doc. --First, thank you. Thank you, for myself and for my son. I am forever grateful and in your debt. --And now, if I should ever even think that I am seeing a sidelong look on anybody's face, or if I should happen to walk in on a discussion of uses to which posthumously-harvested genetic material might be put, that mysteriously dies away as I enter--that day, Doctor, I will pull each of your fingers out one by one. And then your eyes. Do I make myself clear?" Simon grinned like a pirate. "Perfectly clear." He moved away, nonchalantly. But with the barest amount of swagger, to Zoe's eye. She allowed the inward smile to show at last. That boy, she thought, is not long for this 'verse. And she began to relax.