Title: What Mal Knows

Author: GoddessofBirth

Pairing: Rayne, implied Sylee, Minara

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Blah, Blah, don't own, Blah, Blah

A/N: Follows directly after Transmutations

It was official, you were in a piss poor mood an' it was gettin' poorer all the time. It weren't so much that you'd gotten shot – gettin' shot by Patience was somethin' fairly to be expected these days. It weren't even the fact that due to said shootin' you'd had to abandon half your payload in the rush for the ship. No, it was the resulting gorram infection that had you stuck, hooked up to gorram tubes in the gorram infirmary.

'Course, there might be some as would say it was your own damn fault, bein' as you didn't come to the Doc at the first sign of red, puffy flesh, preferin' instead to tough it out. Some might also point out that beyond just delayin' the inevitable, it'd taken you three days plus a threat from a specific individual detailin' the withholdin' of certain...favors 'fore you'd turned up to see the Doc. Some's name might start with an I and end with an A, but you wasn't one to point fingers. But, whether through Patience's fault or your own, what should have been a fairly minor infection requirin' five minutes of treatment had turned into a right nasty situation resultin' in said infirmary layover.

In the past, it would have just been an annoyance. A major one, but still an annoyance. But that was before you'd been spoiled by soft hands and silky hair and warm breath 'gainst your cheek while you slept. Inara'd kept by you, even slept on a cot all worried like, and that did comfort you a mighty lot, but it weren't the same. Not the same as lyin' with her all curled up into you. Not the same as her hands strokin' your forehead when you woke shakin' from nightmares – nightmares that used to be just of the war, but now starred men driven mad by the Pax.

Not too long ago, you'd 'a been powerfully uncomfortable with the notion that you'd come to depend on s