Mal rose into consciousness to three familiar sensations. Two disagreeably familiar; One; he’d been knocked unconscious during a fight. Two; he’d been drugged and the third not so disagreeably familiar ; the feeling of holding a woman in his arms.

He opened his eyes and, blinking once or twice in an attempt to clear his cloudy vision he discovered that he was in a very dark place, physically rather than mentally this time. He looked around him. The last thing that he remembered was being awakened by a scream in the dark night.

“There was men.” He thought. “ They’re very blurry. Why are the men who attack me on my own boat always blurry?”

He shivered slightly, his arms tensing. Inara felt him stirring and was awake in an instant, albeit a little groggy. She looked up and when her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could just make out Mal’s face, grinning, goofily.

“You’re pretty.” He said. He sounded very drugged.

“Well from what I can tell you aren‘t.” She replied, reaching up to run her fingers gently over his puffy, bruised face.

“How’d you see that? I can’t see a ruttin’ thing.”

“I felt -”

“Ain’t that illegal?“ He interrupted. “’Sides that ain’t right.” He said wincing. “Ain’t you suppos’d to tell me I’m the prettiest man you ever met?” He said, obviously hoping for a compliment of the kind though none was forthcoming as all he got in return was a frown he couldn’t really see as she sat up.

“Why did they hit you so much and not me?” She asked.

“If they wanted both of us then why only beat up one of us?”

“’Cos like you said I ain’t got a pretty face and they didn’t wanna spoil yours. ‘Sides. I hit them. They hit me. Usually how it works.”

He groaned and got laboriously to his feet, half pulling Inara up with him and half using her as support.

“Sure they didn’t get you?” He asked. Pulling her into the limited light beams radiating from the door-frame and putting his thumb gently on his chin as he tilted her head to the side to try to get a better look. While he was so absorbed Inara too