It was well gone midnight, but nobody had retired to bed. In the infirmary Simon, Kaylee and Hank were gathered in a tight huddle, a soft murmur of voices breaking the silence.

Outside in the common area Inara and Sam had the couch, where he was sitting at one end and she lay flat, her head in his lap. She had her eyes closed, but it wasn’t clear if she was asleep, even though Sam was absently playing with the short hair just above her ear.

Mal and Freya had finally come inside, and now she was sitting in one of the armchairs, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders to warm her up, while he perched on the arm. Zoe was reading, sitting on the stairs with one of Hank’s lurid novels in her hands, occasionally turning a page for verisimilitude, while Jayne lounged in the doorway to the cargo bay, his attention mostly on his wife who still perched in her crow’s nest atop the house.

“How much longer?” Inara asked finally, showing she was in fact wide awake.

“As long as it takes,” Zoe said, not looking up from her book.

Inara sighed and sat up, manoeuvring herself awkwardly so she was upright next to Sam. “How did you do it?”

“Do what?” Freya asked.

“The waiting. During the war. All those times, waiting to go into battle.”

She chuckled, but it was without humour. “It wasn’t always like that. And you get used to it.”

“How?”

Mal glanced at Freya, but his wife seemed content to take control of the conversation.

Freya sighed. “You can’t live on your nerves all the time. You’d be ill. Or worse.”

“Worse?”

“I think she means dead,” Sam said softly.

At Freya’s nod, Inara shook her head. “I couldn’t do it.”

“Except there must have been times, as a Companion, waiting for a client …” Freya said.

“It’s not the same,” Inara insisted. “Yes, there was waiting. But there was anticipation as well, looking forward to the encounter, to learning about a new person, to … well, to everything.”

“I conjure you’re talking about the sex,” Mal said.

“Yes.” Inara’s chin came out de