Firefly is not mine. There's a nice long list of things I'd do with it if it was, starting with brining Wash back from the dead.

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III. Tangled

Inara refused to laugh at the dress. It was the antithesis of elegance, some small girl’s conception of a Companion’s clothing. Gaudy pink embroidery ran rampant over the bodice, while the sleeves were fluffy to the point of hindering arm movement. The milk white skirt looked as if it could cover Serenity’s back end.

“Kaylee,” Inara said, “I don’t think it suits the occasion.” Or any occasion, person, or animal that ever existed. “Try on the one I picked out.”

The mechanic looked down at her skirt. “It is awful hard to move in. If somethin’ comes up, I don’t think I could get any necessary work done on Serenity.” She turned back around to the fitting room, somehow squeezing the skirt inside.

Inara sighed and began to wander around, blankly looking at the wedding dresses displayed in the Triplex shop. Kaylee would be several minutes.

Life had been frustrating since she’d come back. She did what she could, cooked, consoled, chatted, gave advice, moved things, whatever useful task that she could find. But it wasn’t much. Miranda haunted her dreams, Mal’s grim eyes pulled at her heartstrings, and her uselessness was eating at her soul.

She stopped wandering, and wondered again why she had come back. He’d offered to drop her back at the training house. There were things by the hundreds she could do there, useful things.

It had been a last minute decision. Between Miranda and…Mal, she could admit it to herself now…she couldn’t live the same life anymore. How could she live as a Companion, loyal to the Guild that was loyal to the Alliance? How could she live…no, she couldn’t go there. That was a wall too long standing to tear down in an instant, and he didn’t trust her anyway.

And now Armen Chiasm had made an unwelcome reappearance in her life. He had sent her a wave shortly before Serenity left Persephone. He’d made an offer