Didn't know I had a muse til Leaves on the Wind didn't get to how Mal and Inara got together, now she's up in arms and writing fan fiction to put that right. *Adult content warning*

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She’d done everything she could to win his trust but still he was keeping his distance.

So much had changed but not that. She’d told him straight up when she’d first come on board the time she was looking round the shuttle, that she’d never service him nor his crew. Never mind the crew – she’d really meant him. When he’d taken to bed with Nandi and she’d sobbed her heart out about it she’d remembered that promise. It was the right thing to do at the time but how was she to know she’d fall in love with him. Perhaps the sexual tension that had flared up between them the instant she’d said it should have been a clue. But she was used to men wanting her and at the time she’d thought that was all that was going on. Kidding herself just like she always did with him.

Like he’d ever have asked her to service him. She’d said it for business reasons sure, but also to rile him, show him who was boss. But it hadn’t taken her long to find out how upright and principled he was aside from the thieving and violence. And how much he despised Companions. Which was one of the reasons it’d hurt so much when he’d bedded Nandi. How come he made an exception for her? That was easy to answer of course, because he and Nandi were alike, reckless and free.

It still made her angry to remember how he’d made that speech about wanting to get closer to her, the very next day after he’d been with Nandi and Nandi was barely cold in her grave. Like it had taken that to realize he had feelings for her.

He’d never known himself but he knew what he loved: Serenity, freedom, the crew. And with Book, Wash, and now Jayne gone, that love was breaking his heart. She’d painted that symbol on the side of the beautiful ship like she could build her up from the outside in and he’d appreciate