Ch 9

Inara's shuttle was not a place Zoe ventured to often. The Ambassador, as they'd called her once and again, kept her affairs to herself for the most part. Zoe simply had no business being in Inara's bedchamber. As far as socializing went, it was generally understood that Serenity's kitchen and lounge were the places to gather if ever one wanted some company. Zoe heard Kaylee talk of being invited into Inara's shuttle from time to time for hair brushing and the like – all sorts of things that Zoe was not interested in.

Zoe would talk with Inara if ever they found themselves in the galley together, and true she found Inara pleasant enough, but the two had never quite become friends. It took Zoe a while to warm up to folk, for one thing. In Inara's case, by the time she did know Inara well enough to call the fancy woman a friend, it had become clear to Zoe that the last thing Mal needed was for Zoe to become Inara's friend. Mal was in love with the woman, or at least, he believed he was, believed it so truly that it was true.

Zoe knew Mal well. She knew that he didn't love lightly, she knew that a woman like Inara… Zoe knew that when the time came – and Zoe knew Mal, she knew it would come – Mal would need her to be on his side, one hundred percent. A true friendship with Inara would complicate that. So she and Zoe'd never really been friends.

Now that it was so close, now that Inara was almost leaving, Zoe sometimes wondered if she made a mistake, if perhaps knowing Inara more intimately would have put her in a position to make the woman's departure that much easier for Mal to bear. Privately, Zoe doubted it would, but she also doubted that keeping herself from befriending Inara helped either. There were things, Zoe was coming to understand, that are never easy to bear, no matter how you try to soften them. It was a lesson she'd learned before, but had taught herself to forget. Forgetting had bourn her sweet rewards. It had given her Wash, and had led her to Serenity.

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