Mal stared at his reflection in the mirror over his sink. Mercifully, his eyes were no longer bloodshot, and it was not abundantly clear that he’d spent last night in some kind of horrible soul-baring hell in Inara’s shuttle. Scraping the razor along his cheek, he disposed of the stubble of the last four days, and exposed the smooth skin beneath. Though Inara had said nothing of it, when he’d checked in on Zoe, she had told him in no uncertain terms that the scruffy look was not a good one for him.

Of more interest than his skin, however, were his eyes. He looked at himself intently, noting that his eyes had at least lost some of the shadowed, haunted look he’d become accustomed to since Miranda. He supposed the change was due to Inara’s words this morning, the generosity of the love she offered to him. He found it passing strange that her offer should come on the heels of the kind of treatment he’d meted out to her in his grief and anger. Of course, he had never imagined he could conjure what would move Inara to quit running and stand steady before him. Maybehaps it was that once he was completely vulnerable, she did not feel threatened in any way, he thought fleetingly, though that didn’t seem quite right to him.

Drawing in a deep cleansing breath, he wiped the last of the lather off his face, deciding not to look too intently at the reasons behind her declaration and just accept it as the gift it most surely was. He pulled on a fresh shirt, taking care to choose the blue one he knew Inara favored. Frowning, he tried to remember how he knew that, and came up blank. Regardless, the blue shirt it would be. Running his fingers through his hair, he tried to make the unruly mess look at least a little more presentable.

When he had done all the personal grooming he could stand, he climbed up the ladder to his bunk and made his way to Inara’s shuttle, his heart hammering unnaturally in his chest and his palms embarrassingly sweaty. He’d lost count of the times he’s taken her in that treache