“Any sign of her?”

Zoe regarded Mal’s agitated form from over her shoulder and then took a deep breath. Turning to again face the controls, she answered, “No sir.”

Mal didn’t know if he could take this waiting much longer. River had been gone over twelve hours and he was starting to lose hope. Despite Kaylee’s insistence, he had his own doubts that River, trained assassin that she was, could come back from this alive.

“Let me know as soon as you see anything,” he ordered, his voice tight as he stormed off the bridge.

“Will do,” Zoe responded to the empty room.

Striding quickly down the hallway and through the dining room, Mal was standing in front of Kaylee and Simon’s bunk with barely a memory of how he’d gotten there. Hesitating, he swallowed his cowardice and rapped lightly on the screen door.

When there was no answer, Mal leaned his ear to the door and heard whimpering from inside. Sighing heavily, he pushed open the screen and felt his heart lurch at the sight before him.

Kaylee sat, crying, curled into a tight ball in Inara’s lap, the older woman rocking her friend gently back and forth, whispering nothings into her hair. Inara looked up at his intrusion, her own eyes filled with tears. The look on her face made Mal’s knees buckle. Never had she seemed so vulnerable as she did at this moment. All he wanted to do was wrap her in his own arms and hold her.

But he knew that Inara would be all right, she was crying now because her heart broke for lil’ Kaylee, just as his did. Entering the room fully, Mal knelt beside the bed and placed a gentle hand on Kaylee’s knee. She jumped at the touch and lifted her tear-stained face to meet his gaze. Again, Mal felt a lump rise in his throat and he did his best to swallow past it.

“You gotta hang in there, mei mei,” he told her, reaching out a few fingers to wipe her cheek. “River’s gonna be back any minute now, and she’ll have Simon. So you just gotta stay strong, for both of them.”

Kaylee hiccupped and took a few deep breaths, before she said in a shaky voice, “I want to be strong, cap’n. But Simon is my world now. If he dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.” She started to wail again, and Mal had no other words of comfort to offer.

As she again buried her head against Inara’s chest, Mal reached out and placed a hand on her back, rubbing gently. Wrapping his other arm around Inara’s waist, he pulled her closer, and felt her cheek rest on the top of his head. She shivered a bit as her own tears again overwhelmed her. It pained her to see Kaylee at such a loss; it pained them all.

“Captain, report to the bridge.”

Zoe’s voice came loud and strong through the intercom startling all three of them. Rising, Mal hit the respond switch and asked, “What is it?”

“River.”

***

All of them were standing in the doorway as River opened the shuttle. Kaylee hurled herself forward into the girl’s arms as soon as she could, wrapping her so tightly in an embrace, River was certain she’d be unable to breathe.

Returning the hug, River whispered into her friend’s hair, “I told you I’d bring him back.”

Crying tears of relief, Kaylee nodded and kissed her on the cheek. Pulling away from River, Kaylee looked over the girl’s shoulder searching for her beloved. “Where is he?”

River caught the captain’s eye and Mal stepped forward instantly, realizing that whatever his pilot was going to tell his mechanic, none of it would be good.

Taking Kaylee’s hands in her own, River held her gaze as she said, “He’s in pretty bad shape, Kaylee. He’s hurt, really bad.”

Kaylee’s lip trembled as she digested the girl’s words. Nodding once, she seemed to reach down into herself and pull out strength they had all known existed. When she again met River’s gaze, her eyes were still wet, but they were clear. “Can I see him?”

“Of course,” River said, stepping aside. Looking to Mal, she said quietly, “I think the captain should go with you.”

Kaylee looked between the two of them and then nodded once again, before venturing further into the ship.

River hobbled down the few steps into the ship, favoring her broken angle and greeting the others. “It’s bad,” she told the companion, answering the other woman’s unasked question.

Inara swallowed hard and then quickly recovered. “What do you need?”

“Medical facilities,” River said without hesitation. “Good ones. I’m fairly certain all his bones are broken and he’s covered in cuts and bruises.” River glanced over her shoulder to the shuttle’s door, shivering slightly at the memory of her brother’s battered body. “Plus, the drugs they doused him with … we don’t have anything strong enough on board to counteract those effects.”

Inara took all this in with her usual unflappable demeanor. Squeezing River’s hand gently, she turned to head to the bridge. “I’ll see what I can do.”

River knew Zoe and Jayne wanted an explanation, details on the battle. Jayne wanted to know if she’d used any weapons and if so, why the hell hadn’t she managed to snag one for him. Zoe just wanted to know if the monsters were dead.

“Not yet,” River whispered as she turned away from them both and with difficulty headed to her bunk.

When she reached the small room, River was barely a step inside before she sunk to the floor in a heap. Sobs wracked her body as she tried to purge Simon’s pain and her own.

***

The shuttle was dark with barely any internal lighting, and that was probably for the best.

“Simon?” Kaylee’s voice was tentative and threatened to break at any moment under the weight of her emotion. When she got no answer, no movement from the man, she moved closer, her breath hitching in her throat.

Just the look of his swollen and bruised face caused her tears to start falling again. She saw the blanket River had covered him with and knew that underneath it, his wounds would be worse. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see what he had suffered, but she knew she had to.

Reaching out a trembling hand, she pulled back a corner of the blanket and looked with great apprehension. At the sight, she turned quickly and wretched violently, her own heart growing cold at the sight of such torment.

“Oh, Simon,” she whispered, as she turned back to place a light kiss on his forehead. Pulling his hand out from underneath the blanket, Kaylee held it gingerly, careful to watch the cuts and bruises there. As she placed her fingers around his, she felt the old shape of his bones and realized they were broken. Pulling away, she was afraid to touch him, afraid it would only hurt more.

Turning to look at the captain, Mal could read the pain and fear in her eyes. Reaching out he placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “He’s alive, Kaylee. We just gotta keep him that way. All this we can heal.”

Kaylee nodded, her eyes wide with shock. “Let’s go see what River’s next plan of action is,” Mal suggested, trying to steer her from the room.

“No,” Kaylee said, shaking her head. Pulling away from his touch, she turned back to face Simon’s beleaguered form and reached up to stroke his hair back from his forehead. “I don’t wanna leave him. He might wake up.”

Mal knew it would be futile to try and force the girl from the room. Instead, he found two storage crates, one for him and one for Kaylee, and plopped down on it, watching her while she watched Simon’s unconscious form, and silently praying that the worst really was over.

***

Inara had come through, again. Mal was wondering when, if ever, the woman’s contacts would run dry, but she had yet to fail him and he was beginning to feel just a mite guilty at the way he and the crew seemed to take her generosity for granted.

But he had to admit, he was relieved. Relieved that they had been able to get Simon to real medical facilities with equipment and medicine Mal could have never hoped to provide to him on board his boat. Plus the downtime planet side was proving to be a much-needed respite from the recent stress in their lives.

Mal himself was grateful for the reprieve. Standing on the balcony of one of the guest suites they had been assigned, he let the evening breeze wash over him. He could see the hint of ocean in the distance and could even smell the salt in the air that wrapped around him. He’d forgotten how much he loved the sight and smell and sound of water.

Sighing contentedly at the scene, his mood only improved, as Inara joined him, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning against his shoulder. They had spent almost every minute of the last five days with each other, only leaving the room to check on Simon, Kaylee or the ship. They had needed the time alone at first just to be close again, it had been nearly impossible with everything going on to explore their budding relationship. And then, they had just needed the time to be. Be the people they could be when there were no distractions or life-threatening encounters to worry about.

Mal still marveled at Inara’s strength and her beauty. He had never known a woman to have such an overabundance of both. But the longer he knew her, the more he admired and respected her talent to be strong and soft at the same time. He had always known she was special, but he had never guessed how special she could be to him.

“How’s Simon,” Mal asked, wrapping his arms around her form and pulling her closer.

Snuggling in tighter, she answered, “Better. He still hasn’t come to, but Kaylee’s hopeful and the doctors seem to think it’ll just be another day or so, before he’s awake.”

Mal digested the words, wishing that he could do something for Kaylee. The girl was a wreck, that was no secret. Mal had watched her struggle over these past few days to keep it together. He knew she felt it was the right thing to do, to be strong for Simon and for River, but Mal knew his mechanic. She was strong, there was no doubt, but she also loved deeply, and he guessed the love she felt for Simon was stronger and deeper than anything she had ever felt before. And that kind of emotion could easily mess a person up. He knew all about that.

“Mal.”

Inara’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Yes?”

“What’s going to happen?”

Mal had dreaded this conversation, even though he had known it was coming for days, even weeks. He dreaded it, because he knew that it could end two ways and in one scenario he was not a happy captain. He didn’t like those odds.

“I don’t know, darlin’,” he answered her truthfully, shifting slightly to look down at her. “What do you want to happen?”

She smiled ruefully at the masterful way he shifted the responsibility. “No fair,” she told him, slapping at his chest playfully as she met his gaze. “I asked you first.”

She pouted, just a bit, but it was enough to force Mal into action. Reaching down, he pulled her slightly protruding lip into his mouth and kissed her soundly. She turned into him, sighing slightly against his touch, against his mouth and Mal deepened the kiss. After what seemed like hours, Mal pulled away slightly, gasping for air. Inara fell against him, her own breathing heavy and her knees weak as she tried to recover.

“This doesn’t get you out of answering the question,” she told him as she swallowed hard and tried to form a coherent thought.

He smiled and pulled her back into their room. “I know, but ‘Nara,” he said, pulling her to sit with him on the big and ridiculously fluffy bed that consumed more than half the room. “I truly don’t know how to answer you.” Mal looked down at their intertwined hands, and then said, “I know what I want to happen, but I know this is …”

“Complicated,” she finished for him, also staring at his fingers wrapped with hers. When she had again collected her thoughts she said, “Can you tell me?”

He raised his pained blue eyes to meet her equally conflicted brown ones and his breath hitched in his throat. Such sadness, such compassion, such depth radiated through those eyes, Mal wondered how he’d ever resisted them. “Tell you what,” he asked softly, reaching out a hand to cup her cheek.

“What you want,” she explained, her voice barely a whisper. She reached out and held his hand against her face with her own. “I really need you to say it.”

Mal swallowed, hard. There weren’t a lot of things in the ‘verse he was scared of. Especially not a lot of people, but Inara could turn his thoughts, feelings and brain on a dime without even blinking and that made him all kinds of scared. Plus, she had already left him, twice. He didn’t know if he could take that again, especially if he told her what he was truly thinking.

“I don’t know, Inara,” he said quietly, dropping his gaze back to the bed. “You’ve left on me twice before, you know?”

“I know,” she said quietly, ashamed at her own inability to admit her feelings. But she needed reassurance from Mal that this wasn’t some fling, that he truly did understand what she wanted and that he was ready to do something about it. “But you never really gave me a reason before to stay.”

Mal thought about arguing with that statement, but bit back the words. She was right; he had never before come out and said, Don’t go. He’d thought it, he’d even hinted at it, hell, he’d even tried to steal some of her things so she’d be forced to come back, but he’d never put it all together in a succinct way, in the way Inara needed. And that wasn’t right.

“I love you.”

He had never thought he would say those words, not again. He had said them once before, to a woman he hadn’t thought about much since after the war. He had meant them then and he meant them now. If possible, he thought he meant them even more when staring at the beautiful creature before him.

Tears ran silently down Inara’s cheeks as she let the sound of those three little words uttered from Mal’s lips wash over and through her. It brought her such a sense of relief and excitement, her body trembled and relaxed all at once. Unable to contain herself, she flung her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. “I love you too, Mal,” she sobbed into his neck, burying her face against him, inhaling his sweet scent, delighting in the feeling of his strong arms holding her tighter, of his body pressed against hers.

“So, this means you’re staying then,” he teased her quietly as he lowered his head to place a kiss against her mouth.

“Shut up and make love to me,” she demanded, pulling them both down to the bed, his warm body on top of her, sending shivers down her spine and through her core.

He willingly obliged her request.

***

They had failed again. Flicking off the recording in disgust, the man sat back in his large chair and thought for a moment. If River Tam could elude and even take down his two best agents, then she was indeed as dangerous as everyone in his organization had assumed.

However, it also meant she was powerful. She had become the weapon they had designed her to be and that made him giddy in many ways, some of them unseemly. Smiling tightly, the man with red gloved hands called up different information to his data screen, scanning it thoroughly. Finding and destroying River Tam had proved to be nearly impossible; but finding and catching her had worked once. He was certain he could make it work again.