A/N : I used present tense in the first chapter because it fit the mood surrounding Mal and Inara. When I started the second chapter (much more plot-heavy), present tense slowed it down. Hence, there’s a tense switch between the two chapters. Hopefully, it won’t make things sound too strange.

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Inara chose Companion Training for a reason. She liked the girls. The hours were good and she could keep to herself. Most importantly, she left Serenity far behind.

(But she had made far better money working as a Companion.)

Maybe it was when Mal slept with Nandi that things changed. Or before. Earlier. Maybe the first time she walked into her shuttle and fell for the ship.

It had been months since she’ d seen a client. Longer since she’d searched for new ones. Sometimes it made her chest ache to think about. Being a Companion was the only thing she knew; ever since she was twelve-years-old. This was what she had been trained to do.

But things changed. Her desire to sleep with men she hardly knew disappeared. It wasn’t just Mal—she felt like the time had come to use her skills in other ways.

Besides, waiting for Mal was an exercise in futility. Every time they took a step forward, he took two steps backwards. There had been no wave goodbye, no words, no look when she disembarked for the Training House. The cold dismissal stung.

Most of all, I want us to stop fighting all the gorram time so we can have five seconds to figure out what in the hell this thing is between us.

“Liar,” she whispered.

Head spinning, Inara opened the first of her suitcases. She yanked open drawers, filling her bags with her favourite dresses, leaving the others behind for the girl. Letters from Kaylee were piled on one side of her desk. She smiled at them, fingering the edges, before wrapping them in a dress and laying it in her bag.

Presents from clients. Expensive trinkets. Golds and diamonds and laces. She had amassed a small fortune over the years.

She dumped all of it in a suitcase.

It