Inara watched Mal, as had become her custom since renting his shuttle in the beginning. At first she had watched despite her best attempts to do otherwise, fascinated by the endless mysteries that the man presented.

But now she watched for a different reason, a more disturbing one by far. The entire crew, with the arguable exception of River, had been damaged badly by the events surrounding the Miranda wave, but for the most part, they were slowly healing. However, Inara saw in Mal a fracture that was not likely to heal on its own, a dark, ugly wound festering in his soul, eating at him from the inside out. And so she watched.

Mal sat in the cockpit, staring out into the vastness of the Black. The sight had once brought him comfort, but now it just seemed cold and empty, like his own heart. Numb with the weight of guilt and grief he could not seem to shake, he nursed a mug of whiskey-laced coffee and tried not to think.

Inara put her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it away. “Whaddya want, Inara?” he asked gruffly, in no mood for a round of verbal sparring.

Inara took a cleansing breath, and answered mildly. “I want to help you feel better, Mal,” she said softly. “It’s very difficult to see you like this.” She paused, wondering how far she could go with this line of thought before he erupted in fury. “And it’s hard on the crew.”

Mal’s knuckles on the handle of his mug turned white, and the line of his jaw hardened. “How are you plannin’ to help me ‘feel better’, Inara?” he asked, his voice like a lash against her skin. “You offerin’ to service me, maybe? Break your little rule about servicin’ crew?”

Inara swallowed the retort that rose in her throat, knowing he was raw with anger and grief. She had truly had no intent to offer him anything other than her shoulder to lean on, but she was well-trained in the art of reading men, and she could see that he was not able or willing to lean on anyone’s shoulder in the conventional sense just yet. She realized with shocking clarity