A/N: Thanks as usual to my fantastic beta Neroli. She really helped me nail the Inara part and just improve this ficlet overall! I'm not too good at keeping my thoughts short, so anything under 1000 words is always extra tough. Hope you enjoy.

He didn't fantasize much, weren't no percentage in it. Oh, he'd be pretty happy to manage to have all the coin he could spend and a couple of nice women with which to spend it on, but it didn't amount to nothing. Didn't keep him warm and didn't put money in his hand.

Naah, was much better to simply keep Vera shined and his muscles strong. Then when he got into a bit of trouble, he didn't have to fantasize about how to get out of it.

Hard to admit it even to himself, but he fantasized sometimes. Not often, mostly just a means to make it through the bad times. No sense in wasting energy on it usually, but sometimes you had to escape through the dreams so's to survive the reality you were stuck in. Did it during the camps, did it when he was on Niska's Skyplex waiting for ….well waiting for it to be over.

Didn't fantasize about rescue that time. Had some nice ones where he dreamed that they'd switched places, but that didn't distract near enough. Nah, he'd gone for the best one. After dying the second time, he figured it wasn't like he was gonna get a lot of chances to daydream ever again so's might as well go whole hog.

It was a nice fantasy as fantasies go. He'd never left Shadow, never joined up with the Independents. Had minded his own business, taken over the ranch and married that purty little gal he used to torment during Sunday school. It was a right nice life right up until he realized that the girl looking up at him wasn't his childhood sweetheart. Reality came back then and he remembered why he never fantasized anymore – only made the living more bitter than before.

Fantasies were the