Take me out to the black...by badger

She opens her eyes in total black, and for a moment there is a cold coil around her heart, she knows her eyes are open, why can't she see anything? Slowly she comes back to her body, the sleep fleeing her mind.

The first to arrive are the sounds, the thrum of her girl's engines, and the gentle purr of the life support. She loves these sounds, like a lullaby, "Mechanic, keep me healthy and I will keep you from the black, keep you warm and in the light." A gentle voice, like a sister, made up of hums and huffs, clicks and revs.

"No power in the verse" comes another voice from the black, and the sound of shots. A memory of horrible ripping pain, the hot feeling of her own blood splashing through her fingers. She curls protectively around her belly. What was she thinking? So far away from home, from her pa, the shop and the boys…what was she thinking? Captain said that they would be far from the core worlds, far from help, very far from the light.

"You ever been raped?" the voice continues calm and terrible, and the feeling of complete helplessness reaches around her in the darkness. She crunches down in the comforter that Inara has lent her, her hands bringing the burgundy and gold cloth closer around her shoulder. It smells of cinnamon, ginger and something citrusy that she can't identify.

Inara had insisted she use it when she had mentioned how warm and bright it was in her shuttle, and how you wouldn't think it was even part of the same ship.

"There is a lesson to be learned there tien mei" Inara's hands gently brushing out the rat's nests in her hair. "One can be part of something, and be totally different." Easy for her to say she thinks, Inara being so glamorous and fancy, could stand out on a sun.

Her pa would say Inara was a worldly woman, full of knowledge and thinking, someone to watch, someone to be careful of.

"You got to unnerstand girl, all folk ain't all like us here, they run by their own governors" a voice likes a well ru