She found him in the galley, hunched over a tin cup which she suspected contained something that could take the paint off Serenity’s walls with no trouble. Pulling her thin robe more tightly around her, she walked into the room and reached out to put her hand on his shoulder. His flinch away made the knot of worry in the pit of her stomach clench uncomfortably. Drawing her hand back, she sat down beside him.

“What are you doing here, Inara?” he asked, his voice low and flat.

Inara swallowed nervously. She found it more than a little disconcerting that for all her skill at reading people, Malcolm Reynolds had her more than a little bewildered most of the time. “I was hoping to persuade you to come to bed,” she answered, her voice carefully neutral. “I know you must be tired after…”

Mal’s scowl made her words trail off. He sighed, the sound a heavy weight hanging in her sudden silence. “Didn’t want to come to our bed angry,” he admitted.

Inara’s heart skipped a beat as she thought back over the day. “You’re angry with me?” she asked, hating her slightly pleading tone, but unable to stop it.

“No, darlin’, not with you,” Mal said tiredly.

“Then who?” she asked, mystified.

“Me,” Mal said bitterly. “I’m mad as hell at me.” Discerning from her puzzled expression that she was not simply going to let this rest, he said, “Almost got Zoe and me both killed today, dealin’ with that hundan.”

Inara closed her eyes, remembering the absolute terror she’d felt earlier when Mal and Zoe had run up the ramp of Serenity under a hail of bullets, and she’d been certain that they were both going to be riddled with bullet wounds before Kaylee could raise the ramp. Only after River had taken them out of the world had she realized that they were miraculously unharmed. “But you didn’t…get killed, I mean,” she said softly.

“Not this time,” Mal replied. “Don’t mean it ain’t gonna happen next time.”

“Aren’t you always telling me that’s the nature of the life we lead?” Inara said, laying her hand