Title: Lightning

Rating: PG-13 (sex)

Summary: As they go to sleep in the bed they share, Inara remembers the first time she and Mal ever had sex.

A/N: I posted this one at livejournal in November, but never got around to posting it here. So, here it is! I also wanted to thank everyone who has reviewed all my other m/i nonsense fics, "Snow Angels" especially. They mean a lot to me.

Lightning

She still remembered the way the room smelled, the linger scent of jasmine incense mixed with the wet leather of his browncoat, discarded haphazardly, sacrilegiously, on the floor. It made sense, she supposed. They said scent was the strongest sense tied to memory. Still, it surprised her, just a little bit, the level of detail the memories contained, its layers, waves too vast for even her to wade through.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Mal said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. She smiled up at him, but didn’t sit up or speak. She was comfortable here, on the bed, and she didn’t feel much like talking. Mal smiled back at her, shook her head at her at her silly silence, and resumed removing his boats.

She remembered the sounds, too. There was the sound of the raindrops against the hull. She’d been listening to it for hours, getting lost in it. She hadn’t heard to rain in a time. It wasn’t something she realized until they’d landed in the middle of a thunderstorm. It excited her, the crash of each small droplet on the shuttle’s hull, the sound like a heartbeat, her heartbeat, pulsating through the room.

And then there was the lightning itself, lighting the sky with violent purple lines. Electric. They breathed in and out of the darkness of the storm like neon dancers, and the world, this small backwater world, was their stage. It made her remember childhood, the belief in some things were larger than they were supposed to be. Turbulent. Glowing. She sat at the shuttle’s controls, just watching.

It was in those quiet moments, all alone, that she knew she was going to live forever. And t