Jayne limped into the cargo bay with a bottle of whiskey, he was so drunk he could barely see his own hands – not to mention the sore fist from the fight he’d gotten himself into, Mal and Zoe weren’t the ones to help him this time and that made things harder. He grunted as he climbed up the stairs, spilling some whiskey on the last three steps, making his way to his bunk. Tomorrow’ll be a ruttin’ rough mornin’.

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“Mal, I need my things…” Inara seethed as the followed him to the cargo bay.

“I need to go to Badger for work. We’ll go to whore-school to get them once I sealed the deal.” Mal said, his voice going up in anger.

“YOU’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR WEEKS!” she shouted loosing her temper. “I’ll go and them myself, don’t strain yourself slick.” She muttered angrily earning a scowl from Mal.

It was when she descended on the third step when she slipped and bumped her head with the rail and tumbled down to land in a heap at the bottom.

Everything turned slow motion in Mal’s mind. He tried to catch her but it was too late, Inara was going down like a rag doll and he could do nothing about it…

“’NAAARRAAA!!” he shrieked.

He practically flew down the staircase and lifted her unconscious body to his chest slowly, afraid to move her suddenly or that he would hurt her. She wasn’t moving and her arm was twisted in a weird angle - to his shock, he saw blood trickling down from the side of her temple… ‘Please no… not now- not Inara!’ his mind screamed as he cradled her head to his heart.

“Please say something, love, c’mon, wake up honey...Listen, you gotta wake up and hear me telling you that I love you and that-” Inara didn’t move an inch and Mal was, to say the least, frantic.

“What is it, sir?” asked Zoe running into the cargo bay with Simon in tow.

“We was… then she – I tried ta –“he stammered in shock. Zoe had to literally pull him back from Inara so that Simon could take a look.

“This gash is nasty.” He said checking her head for further injuries