“Mal, you know those two wouldn't survive a day in Whitefall anyway. You throw them out, I'm leaving too.”

The words echoed in Inara’s mind as she climbed the stairs up from the catwalk, her arm draped protectively over the girl trembling at her side. She had been too slow to save the girl’s brother; too weak to diffuse their fool captain’s misdirected anger over…

No. There was no time for that now. She could not allow herself to mourn Kaylee yet. She had made the young doctor a promise. His face pressed up against the frosted window of the airlock door, he had shouted his own epitaph: “Forget me -- save my sister! Save River --”

“NO!” The girl’s scream pierced the silence of the cargo bay as her trembling gave way to violent convulsions. Biting off a curse for allowing her discipline to slip, Inara half-led, half-dragged her wild-eyed young charge the final few steps up to the landing where Shephard Book stood watching over them, his jaw set with a determination that mirrored her own.

River had lapsed back into semi-consciousness and Inara closed her eyes a moment in relief. As Book carried the troubled girl into her shuttle, Inara fought down the instinct to look back at the ship that had been her home…or at the man she had shared it with.

As she stepped into her shuttle, Inara glanced from the sleeping girl to the greying preacher confidently working the shuttle’s controls. Closing the door behind her, she let out the breath that she had been holding for what felt like hours and sank slowly into the cold curve of the bulkhead.

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Continue to Part 2