Mal knocked softly on the door to Inara's shuttle. Receiving no response, he pushed open the door. "Inara?"

"Get out!" Mal located the source of the fierce order huddled on the luxurious bed. She was turned away and refused to look at him. Mal stood, puzzled, until he saw the telltale shake of her shoulders.

Mal approached slowly and cupped his hand under her chin, turning her head gently in his direction. Inara glared at him, her eyes red and moist with tears and a look of total misery on her face.

"Well now," he said softly, caressing her face ever so briefly, returning her soft touch from the arena. "So...it turns out you are human."

The simple gesture hit Inara too hard for her to be able to contain her tears. "I told you to get out!" she replied fiercely. "I didn't want you to see me like this," she choked.

"Well, I never wanted you to see me all mussed up and tied town to a table, either." He met her eyes, a hint of a playful sparkle in his. "Not very dignified, ya know."

"Mal! Do you know the definition of not funny?

"Me?"

"Precisely."

The two glared at each other softly for a minute until Mal spoke again. "Came to thank you." He felt his legs giving out underneath him and turned to leave, but it was too late. He staggered and fell to his knees.

"Mal!" Inara gasped. She ran over and knelt beside him. "Are you all right?"

"If you define 'all right' as 'not fixin' to die,' I'm shiny," said Mal, and Inara carefully helped him to his feet, shaken by the pain and weakness he was trying so hard to hide. She started to turn him towards the bed, and he stopped abruptly. "I don't got the energy to stick around an' fight, so I'd best be takin' my leave."

"Please sit," she said, the tears forming in her eyes again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." He felt her slender frame shake as she fought back a sob, and he let her support his uneasy steps back to the bed and sat at her side.

Inara took a deep breath. "Mal, I saw you in that arena. That sight will haunt me for the rest of my life." She looked at him, her eyes taking in the bandages on his wrists, the faint lines of red where blood from the cuts of a whip was seeping through his fresh shirt. "You lived it. How do you even survive that, and stand here joking around like nothing happened?"

He placed his hand gently on hers. "Got plenty of scars, 'nara. Stay with you forever, but they all fade a bit with time, sometimes even forget you have 'em."

"Mal, I don't want to hear you reassure your crew," Inara said more sharply than she intended. "I want you to be honest with me."

Mal tensed. "Isn't acting your comfort zone? Ain't that why you have me here, so you can put on your companion hat and try to soothe my battered soul?" asked Mal. "I got no need to be toyed with."

She stared at him, biting back her instinctive retort. "Why does my job frighten you so much, Mal?"

"You know how to manipulate folk, tell 'em what they want to hear, make 'em feel what they want to feel. Build illusions."

"I've seen you kill people, doesn't mean I think for one second you'll do the same to me. It's called trust, Mal." Inara looked at him searchingly. "I don't know if you've been hurt so deeply that you can't-"

"I trust you," he said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper. "When you showed up with that pill, I - I didn't know if it was for pain or to kill me." He closed his eyes. "And I realized it didn't matter, that I just had to trust you to make that choice for me. I trusted you with whether I should live or die, Inara."

"I know," she said. "Jayne wouldn't take it, thought I was there to kill you all. But that's not the kind of trust I'm talking about, Mal."

Mal looked away from her for a long moment. "Nara," he said finally, searching her face, "last time you and I spoke frankly, you -" Mal's voice quivered slightly "- you left my ship. Can't help thinkin' after today you're gonna want to do the same."

Mal met her eyes almost timidly, and Inara was struck by the vulnerability revealed in them. "So," Inara whispered softly, "it turns out you're human too."

She paused to choose her words carefully before continuing. "Mal, what I said about strength..." her voice trailed off momentarily. "You've always had the strength to love, and you have never, once, abandoned one of us. I got scared and I did it to you." She took Mal's hand in hers. "I'm sorry."

"Inara," he whispered. "You came back." She nodded. "An' you came for me in that arena."

Mal saw Inara's eyes flood with tears again, and he hesitated. She knows what you went through, he reminded himself. She needs to hear you talk about it. He looked down, trembling, and Inara raised her hand to caress his cheek. "I was in so much pain, and I was trying so hard to stay conscious, to say goodbye, an' there you show up."

"You were an angel, Inara." He closed his eyes, burying the side of his face in her hand. "I didn't know what was happening, couldn't barely even see you. Forever, hadn't nothing happened to me didn't hurt like hell, nobody to so much as look at me with any sort of compassion." He swallowed hard. "You have no idea how good that touch of yours felt, how much just that little second of kindness did."

"You looked so sad," Inara whispered. "I just wished there was some way I could comfort you."

"Do you know what it feels like to think you've killed everyone you care about?" he asked, his voice thick with pent-up grief and emotion. "You got me thinkin' if you could do that an' walk out, maybe there was some sorta hope." He opened his eyes and met hers, his expression shattered and loving. "You saved me."

Inara moved towards him and pressed her face against his softly, kissing him lightly and letting her hair cover his eyes. She felt Mal's exhausted body crumple under him, and grasped his hand, helping him lay down on his side.

Inara stood and fetched a soft blanket, laying it carefully over him. She saw him tense and begin to raise his head. "Relax," she said softly. "You're safe, let yourself surrender for once in your life."

They laid facing each other silently for several minutes, Inara holding Mal's hand tightly in hers. Finally Mal raised his head and looked her straight in the eyes, his face bearing an expression she had never seen before...unmasked, vulnerable.

His eyes were dark and bore an expression of such deep hurt that she found herself once again fighting back tears. There were no tears in Mal's eyes; they were windows into a soul so hurt that tears were irrelevant expressions of grief and hope, when all he could strive for was to somehow continue to exist.

She raised her hand and ran her fingers gently down the side of his face, trying to touch him somewhere deep down where he so desperately needed comfort. His eyes softened as he looked at her without words, not trusting himself to speak.

Seeing the inherent gentleness and sweetly playful nature reflected in those eyes, she wondered what he would have been like if he hadn't lost a bitterly fought war, hadn't been made to endure torture, hadn't had his family and his world destroyed. She felt that for the first time, she was actually seeing Mal.

Inara caressed Mal's face, carefully avoiding a bruise on his chin. She slid her hand under his head and ran her fingers delicately through his hair, feeling the tension leave his body as he closed his eyes in appreciation. She inched her head closer and kissed his closed eyelids lightly, and he moved almost imperceptibly towards her in trust and relaxation.

She pulled his face against hers and felt him tenderly, almost timidly kiss her cheek. She returned the kiss, caressing his face with her lips, taking her other hand and resting it on his side so gently he could barely feel her touch, just the warmth radiating from her hand as he finally gave in to the exhaustion he'd been fighting for so long and drifted contentedly into a deep sleep.

That night, Mal didn't have nightmares of fear and pain. He dreamed he was wrapped in Inara's arms, locked in a slow, passionate kiss, the tension and barriers between them gone, irrelevant, relishing a blissful feeling of complete safety and comfort.

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The end:) Please tell me what you think.....I'm begging you here!