Disclaimer: Here be angst. If it helps any, I refuse to believe anything is really going to happen to Inara, and I refuse to write it, too.

Recently, I was looking over the exact terms of Inara's contract with the guild, as published on the Serenity Blu-Ray Version, and I noticed something missing, a telling omission that prompted this fic.

I actually didn't want to write this conversation, because it's really the kind that's best left to the imagination (or maybe a more skilled author, because this HAS been done before, and while I'm at it, I highly recommend Cliosmuse’s and Aliasse's fics).

Characters and setting copyright Joss Whedon.

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The perfect plan. Wasn’t anything could go wrong, because wasn’t any wrong doings. She might even approve, he thought. Couldn’t quite convince himself enough, though, so he kept pacing the scaffolds, boots clanking against the metal, eyeing the shuttle hatch like that bull from his youth that’d taken an irrational dislike to him. Didn’t help his confidence any, how his own cargo bay felt all sharp lines and dinge all a sudden.

He lost his nerve a couple times, but every time he went to the bridge, he saw Zoe sitting in that chair, where she'd retreated after their moment of silence at dinner. One year later. She was mostly back to herself, but tonight she was staring off into the black between the stars, fingers clenched tight around that knot of hers like it was all she had to hang on to. Reminded him of duties he had, the consequences of being remiss in them. So he’d recognized her need to be left alone and returned to the same staring match. It was good practice, matching his will against the unresponsive metal before facing down the steel inside.

They’d stay in orbit, send out the shuttle. No reason to try to pass their resident government-secret-in-hiding through customs that way, and the Feds would have no reason to come aboard for an inspection if they never