Bed and Wine: Part 14

By Kaynara

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In which all hell breaketh loose....NC-17

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AN: Fight by http://www.fireflyfans.net showprofile.asp?un=Grimlock">Grimlock, the shiniest consultant in the ‘verse.

AN2: Thanks for waiting! I know this one took forever.

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At breakfast, he watched her. Huge brown eyes--her mother’s shape, his shade--regarded the mechanic with warmth, the Tam girl with indulgence. Vern wasn’t certain which emotion danced across her irises when she looked at Mal. Slender fingers encircled her tea cup, lifted the white china to lips the same color as her mother’s. She was beauty and grace and dignity. Somewhere beneath he saw fire.

“Nara.” Vern scooped a hair-peppered hand under her elbow. “May we talk a spell, my daughter?”    

When she turned, her eyes were dark, infused with a remote coldness that belied her name. Inara: ray of light. Her mother named her. As a girl, she was his light.

“Please don’t mistake my good manners as an invitation to lay hands on me, Father.” She sat purposely across the table from him, rested her chin on her hands. “It’s a simple consequence of my education and bears no reflection on my feelings for you.”

“When did you come to despise me, bao bei? Was it the day I died or the one I came back?”

It was neither. The bitter seeds were sown long before he forged his suicide.

“I don’t hate you,” she answered, her expression pleasing if not actually pleased. “It’s only that I resigned myself to your death long ago. Accommodating the living you is beyond my abilities.”

“I understand your rage.”

*This wasn’t rage.*

“But you can’t turn your back on family.”

*I’m with family.*

“Your mother wouldn’t want it this way.*

*My mother’s dead.*

“Tell me why,” she said at last.

“Will the truth enable you to forgive?”

*No. But you owe me that much.*

“I’m an old man now, Inara. Once I was young as you...as your captain-friend.”

“Mal’s not my friend.” She lifted her chin, met his gaze, her ow