They Hang Cargo Smugglers, Don't They?
Friday, April 11, 2008
A sad reunion set in a near distant bleak future. Not a very happy future.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 3368 RATING: 9.0 (PG) SERIES: FIREFLY
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1249
Spoilers: Set post BDM
Characters: Mal, Inara. Some Mal/Inara.
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Her head tells her it can't be, that she must be wrong, but her heart knows his movements like she knows her own, and there is no mistaking that the man being led to the gallows is Mal.
The noose is around his neck, head covered in a black sack before her client manages to stay the executioner's hand.
It takes nearly four hours of arguing and negotiations and an agreement to pay reparation for Mal's crimes before the death sentence is finally lifted and he is reluctantly released into her custody. An hour more before she gets him to her apartments and wires the credits to her client's account. It's a lot, she has barely enough to cover it, but the money isn't important.
It is a shock to see him. He looks thin, leaner than she remembers. And there is a slump to his shoulders that wasn't there before, a look of defeat about him that, despite everything, she's never seen on him.
He wanders around her room, fingering small objects on her tables, but there are none of the sardonic comments that used to accompany such perusals.
He doesn't speak at all.
She watches him quietly, feeling the old attraction and awkwardness spring to life between them as if it's been no longer than the span of a heartbeat since they last saw each other and not years. But it has been years, and they are neither of them the same two people they were.
"Mal—" she starts softly, the word suffused with so many emotions – exasperation, affection, confusion, sorrow, longing – but he interrupts her before she can complete whatever thought it was she was trying to express, and his words have her sinking to her chair in s
even when going for the emotional jugular - you have clarity of purpose and style:)
Good stuff!
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