A lot of images had haunted Zoë in her time, most of them from the war, a few from after - walking in to see her husband and her captain bein' tortured among them.

She knew this would be another.

There was blood; pools of black-red stickiness soaked into the sand, contrasting starkly with the white of the stone steps and floor. Smeared hand prints and a bloody trail led from the steps to where Mal lay, Inara collapsed atop him. A third body sprawled on the floor beside them, but her eyes fixed on the captain and companion, the image burning into her brain, un-erasable.

It wasn't that it was any more gruesome than anything she'd seen before, but there was something about the stillness of it, the unnatural calmness of the way they were laying there together, so peaceful-like - if you ignored the bruises and the blood. Tiānna.

"Simon!" she yelled, a note of panic in her voice that had the young doctor taking the steps two at a time to reach her side as she rolled Inara onto her back, fingers pressing to the artery at her throat – the pulse high, fast, and thready – alive! – and Mal's… She felt a moment of pure grief well up inside her as she took him in, his body too still, face slack in that all-too-familiar way of death.

She buried the feeling ruthlessly; the skin beneath her fingers still had warmth to it a