Title: Doors
Author: alifestylechoice
Fandom: Firefly (Mal-centric. Mal/Inara if you squint. River's around, too.)
Rating: PG
Words: 4,018
Summary: He had every intention of saying good-bye. A proper one, not a tangle of words and formalities that tumbled from his mouth like he was closing a business deal, and even those transactions held more good spirit.

A/N: For lulu42, who "won" me in the help_japan auction on LiveJournal! Thanks, Lu, for donating to the Japan Tsunami Relief effort, and I hope this fic is something akin to what you wanted. This is my first time writing Firefly fic...please be gentle, readers!

Doors

I.

Mal was not the eavesdropping sort of man, but if there were any murmurs of a scandalous or controversial nature on his boat, he felt a certain sense of entitlement to know a bit about it. Notably, when such a situation involved the womenfolk on the ship (this excluded Zoe, although a hell of a woman in her own right—she made more sense than most everyone he knew), his head tended to throb mighty unkindly, and was often left with more un-answers than answers to his questions.

Especially, one companion, who decided that her days of sailing with his crew were over. Her reasons were—for lack of more suitable words—confounding.

He stood with his back against the door to Inara's shuttle, fiddling with the cuff of his coat—if anyone happened upon him as he was, he would simply explain that he was looking for a stray button that had popped off. If this hypothetical person were to point out that there had never been a button on his cuff in the first place, he would assert his captain-ly...assertiveness on them. Who questions the captain? That's right. No one.

He nodded to himself and perked an ear up as he heard the faint clinking of something metal, or brass, and the familiar yelps of his mechanic from inside the shuttle.

"You sure, Inara?" Kaylee exclaimed. She held up two large ornate vases, given once to Inara by some rich somebody from a planet she'd most likely never set foot upon. "Don't mean I ain't grateful or nothin'! They're so...so beautiful! But, I don't know if I'm really the kind of person who could have such nice things."

"I'm quite sure," Inara assured her, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "I'd rather someone take them and appreciate them, then have them be merely dead weight. Besides, if you ever get desperate and Mal gets you in a bind, you can always melt them down for parts." She smiled again as she patted the side of Kaylee's rosy cheek. "And the way things are proceeding, you might find yourself in a precarious situation all too soon."

Kaylee grinned looked over to River who sat quietly on the edge of Inara's bed. River smiled blankly, and offered her arms, outstretched. Kaylee nodded and carefully handed the vases to her. River wrapped them in cloth slowly as Kaylee helped Inara fold the linens to be packed up in one of the numerous trunks that lay open on the floor.

"It ain't so bad," Kailey said. "Well, I s'pose 'twixt getting shot at a couple times, and running from the feds...or Niska...or whoever next crossed the cap'n...we have a nice little bit of adventure."

"Ah, adventure." Inara sighed, letting the word roll across her tongue and escape in a breath that seemed to hover endlessly in the room above them, surrounding them. "My sense of adventure has been thoroughly exhausted, thank you very much. In fact, I think I've had enough adventure for the next few years. It'll be nice to sit down and have tea and conversation without the threat of turbulence or gunfire." She walked toward Kaylee, halving the tablecloth in their hands and bringing the corners of the expensive fabric together.

She paused when she noticed that Kaylee had deflated some, and her shoulders hung at her sides like broken wings. Kaylee's mouth twisted up and she said softly, "But...you had'ta have a little fun...right?"

Inara laughed softly, taking the cloth from Kaylee's hands and folding it neatly in a bundle. She ran her fingers through Kaylee's hair, smudging a bit of engine grease that had somehow found its way onto her ear. "Don't tell Mal, because you know he'll get a big head about it, but, it was the most fun I'll likely have in my life."

Their attention turned to River as she stood up suddenly and began to take the blankets off the bed. Kaylee watched as Inara seemingly glided across the room and took River's hands in her own. "Not yet, River. I'm still sleeping here one last night, sweetie."

"But, they're staying," River insisted. "The blankets. They're staying, even though you say you're leaving."

"Inara, don't go," Kaylee blurted out.

Inara sighed, and squeezed River's shoulders before kneeling at the foot of the bed, taking a towel in one hand and a silver kettle in another. She began to wrap its delicate handle. "I just can't do my work here anymore."

"You keep saying that, but it don't sound like you. Not the Inara I know."

"Maybe," Inara began, placing a kettle on its side in a padded corner of the trunk. "Maybe a part of the Inara you knew was left behind, in the desert." She turned to River, who lay on the bed on her side, ear to the mattress, breathing deeply, her eyes closed.

"You know Cap'n sometimes spits when he talks, but it don't mean he wants you to leave," Kailey continued.

"It doesn't mean he wants me to stay, either, Kaylee." Inara stood quietly.

"You'll think about her," River whispered into the sheets of the bed, smoothing her hand over the blankets. "You'll think about her every day."

Inara nodded, and sat on the bed next to her. "River's right. In spite of the numerous ways Mal finds opportunity to be offended about my 'whoring,' I will miss it here. To be honest, I think this shuttle was familiar to me the moment I laid eyes on it."

"You'll think about her," River repeated.

From behind the door, Mal smirked slightly. He knew when he was being talked at, even when the talker was a little off her rocker. She was a bona fide prophet after all; he'd seen it himself, with his own eyes. He left for below deck—if he were to get caught now, it'd be more irksome than anything else. It's not like he was looking for anyone to change their mind.

II.

"You're a lousy sneak."

Mal's heart nearly shot through his ass as he tore the blanket off his body and pulled his gun in one swift maneuver. He would never tell the others, but there might have been the ghost of a schoolgirl squeal that escaped his throat. He blinked—hard—and when his gaze fell upon a ninety pound bundle of dark hair, doe eyes, and bare feet, he lowered his gunhand and fell back into the cot.

He swallowed and closed his eyes, resting his forearm against hie head. "And you're a might good one, darlin'." He waited for the blood to stop chugging through his ears. "May I ask what the occasion is for this special wake-up call of yours?"

River looked at him—nay, through him—indifferently, her head lolling to one side. "Only a fool thinks that doors and corridors can hide the truth within its walls." Her head tilted slowly to the other side. "...you were spying."

Mal raised an eyebrow and slid his gun back into its holster. He feigned disinterest and brought the blanket back up over his shoulders. "Alright, Miss Know-It All, you get points for being both clever and very, very creepy. Now, shuffle on back to your own bed and don't come in here scaring the good gorram out of me or, next time, I might slip, and the inside of your pretty little head will be all over that wall yonder, dong ma?

River turned to where he had waved a lazy finger, to the opposite wall. He was sure she understood the light tone of his words, but was merely looking out of curiosity. He was also sure that she had never been in his quarters before, even though, as she had perfectly demonstrated, she was quite capable of finding her way in. However, there wasn't much to look at by any means, as the few items that were valuable to his heart were locked safely away and only the essentials were within plain sight or grasp.

With the blankets over his nose he was able to crack an eye open and watch the girl, kneeling on his floor in a plain blue dress Simon had bought for her in Persephone (not without an accompanying cross-dressing remark from Jayne) just shy of a week past. When she stood, there were two dark marks where her knees had pressed the fabric to the floor, and for some reason, it compelled him to ask her-

"You want to tell me why she's leaving?"

The words slipped from his lips before his head caught up with his mouth, and River turned to him then with a face like an old sage, looking down at him through a half-lidded gaze. She was not a mere seventeen year old girl, not by a long shot. Once, in a bit a bind at the Alliance's hand, he was struggling to get free of his bindings when he had overheard two of his captors exchanging whispers about Readers, how interacting with one was like realizing the pettiness of life and the immense value of it all at once. How they could be fresh in appearance, but their eyes had lived for thousands of years.

She didn't say anything at first, just looked at him, as if she knew everything about him. Which, he assumed, she very well did.

"Did you find what you needed against the steel door?" she asked, quietly perching on a rung of the exit ladder to inspect his ceiling.

He sat up, and pulled his pillow behind his head, leaning against the cool wall.

"Truth be told, I don't verily know what I'm looking for," Mal replied.

She paused before answering, leaning her head against the top rung and peering across the room. "She's ready. She's packed all of her shoes."

Mal sighed and glanced over at the clock, guessing there might be about four more hours more sleep before everyone would be up ant at 'em. He rubbed his face with the palm of one hand.

"That a fact." His mind was more awake now, and he blinked a few times for good measure. "Why aren't you flat out and dreaming by now? Your brother know you're walking around?"

"Sometimes, I talk to Serenity when everyone else is asleep."

A smile broke across his face. He looked down and patted the wall twice. "I have no doubt. If you can keep it a secret from the others, I'll have you know that sometimes, I talk to her, too. If I'm very, very lucky, she'll talk back.

"You talk to her in your dreams. That's when she speaks to you."

He looked back to her and furrowed his brow. "Now, at least when I stoop to perk an unintentioned ear, I actually try to capture real, human conversation. You, going around in the middle of the night, staring at people in their sleep—there's a difference."

"It's always night out here." River looked at him square in the face for the first time that night. "Serenity's sick."

He looked down at his hands, trapped in the blanket. "You might be onto somethin' there."

"She's weak. Needs some strength." She stood again, and put one foot up on the bottom rung.

"Yeah, well..." he continued, looking at his hands. "Jobs are scarce. Got reavers and Alliance crowding up the sky. Crew's hungry, tired."

He looked up at her, expecting that far away look, but she was oddly focused. Calm. Maybe even a bit concerned.

"Serenity's only here to catch us when we fall," he said to her. "That's her job, to take give us a place to stand. She can't pick us all back up, though. Gotta figure a way to do that on our own."

The look on River's face was different, but didn't concern him much. He didn't expect he could conjure up a clue as to what she was thinking at any given time. But, she nodded, like his answer was satisfactory enough, and she pointed over at his desk with an intentioned forefinger.

"Your desk is messy," she said.

He cracked a smile, and pushed his head back into the pillow. "Don't need a prophet to tell me that, little one."

"It's a mess," she repeated. "Damaged."

He looked at the desk, then back at her. Her hair hung limply in her face, and there was a smudge of something on her right cheek that had been there for a few days now. The blanket he clutched was made up of more holes than fabric. In the background was the faint clank-clank-clank of a broken flex capacitator hanging on the ship by mere wires and willpower, flapping against the engine valve, waiting to be replaced for the past three months or so.

"That's about right," Mal said. He pulled his blankets up again over his shoulders and flipped his pillow around to the opposite side. "You got not answers for me, girl, and I think it's high time you got back to your bunk before your brother comes down here and throws a fit. You know and I both know what a cheerful fellow he is when you go off on your merry and start wandering."

She nodded and ascended the ladder, closing the hatch to his quarters soundlessly. She was a good sneak, indeed.

He threw an arm behind his head and waited for sleep to come, but it was much too quiet, and the clank-clank-clanking was louder than ever before.

III.

He had every intention of saying good-bye. A proper one, not a tangle of words and formalities that tumbled from his mouth like he was closing a business deal, and even those transactions held more good spirit.

Mal had stood before his desk, wiped clean and shiny, and even the bits of paper and trinkets that littered the surface before were filed away as diligently as the sheet corners tucked into his cot and the towels hung on their respective rungs.

The knock from the outside of his bunk, two short raps, was a dead give away.

"Come on in," he said, but she was already descending the ladder to his room.

"Nice to know that the day I leave is the day you clean yourself up," Inara said.

"Ain't got nothing to do with you leaving." He picked up his watch from the desk and tried to fasten it around his wrist. "A little crazy girl found her way in here and filed some complaints as to the nature of my bunk, and I did a little spring cleaning."

Inara raised an eyebrow.

"And in the meantime, I decided the man who lives here might as well match up. Got prospects in Beaumonde, fairly wealthy hands passing cash around there." The holes in the strap of his watch had frayed over time, and part of the buckle had broken off. "Piece of gos se..." he muttered under his breath.

Inara sighed and walked to him, pushing his shoulder back with one hand to face her. "You could never do this by yourself. Your fingers are too clubby—mucking up the engine wires while Kaylee's gone."

He twisted up his mouth as she hooked his watch. "Never told me nothin' ill." He eyed her nimble fingers as they maneuvered the metal and leather. "I, uh. I s'pose she'll be missing you pretty terrible when you're gone."

Inara's motions slowed, and the bottom of her lip quivered just the slightest. "I expect so. It's not like you'll find Jayne braiding her hair in the kitchen."

He chuckled a bit—the air was mighty stuffy when she was this close, looking very, very fine. "Don't think I will. But, she and the Doctor've been getting along pretty fair, and River's well taken to her. As long as you send wave every now and again, it'll make her happy, I wager. It's not like you were on the ship every day, off in your world."

"Ah, yes, my world of legitimate business." Inara smirked, holding his wrist in her hands momentarily before letting go, seemingly drifting across the small bunk. Her eyes scanned the various pictures on his wall. "More banquets and formal parties, less capers and crime. However, something tells me that on certain days, I'll miss the debauchery and camraderie."

"What, no camraderie at the training house?" he said, twisting the watch around his wrist and leaning against the side of the desk. "One would think you'd have some fairly lengthy subjects to discuss—certain preferred positions, ways to tie a frilly bow onto your person—"

"It's different," Inara cut him off, but the smile on her face betrayed her stern interruption. "These girls are wrapped up in thoughts of great romance and falling in love, and they forget that these things don't make a good companion. Every client is made part of a competition—his money, his physical features, or his property. Every skill is means to cut another down. It's the very definition of being alone in a den of wolves."

"The finest, most articulate, and sexually experimental group of wolves the core planets have to offer." He shoved his hands into his back pockets and came up behind her as she admired a map from Earth That Was that was framed in glass against the wall above his drawing table.

"They don't know a thing about discipline. Restraint." She laughed shallowly. "Maybe I should send them your way, let them really see the world. A week on this ship would be the pinnacle of a romantic voyage, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't know about that. There's a bit of heroic poetry in these walls."

She seemingly ignored his joke and her perfectly manicured fingers traced the edge of the map's frame. "Yeah..."

He chose his words carefully, pretending that there was an intriguing distraction on the ceiling. "Sounds to me like you have some qualms about leaving this boat."

She turned to him finally, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "It wasn't an easy decision—"

"I understand. Follow us, with our 'capers and crimes,' I s'pose it might damage your illustrious career.

No, I mean it—" he said when she moved to protest. "I'm not just giving you a rock in your joints." He paused and his hand went up to land on her shoulder, and it surprised the both of them. "We can't give you nothing you don't already have, at least, nothing besides a good deal of headache."

Her gaze couldn't settle on any one particular thing but finally settled somewhere in the region of his right shoulder. She leaned into his touch and tentatively reached up to grasp the juncture of his elbow "Mal," she began. "I love—"

His grip on her shoulder tensed without his will, and his fingers trembled for a slight second.

"I love—I love this ship," Inara said quickly. She chanced a look at his face, and he realized just how much all was well with her on Serenity, and how Serenity would not be happy with her gone.

She flinched when he slapped her suddenly on the shoulder, playfully pushing her away. "Well, that's good. Good! Least you had a little fun in between the ruckus. I get it—it's time for you to stand on your own." He gave her arm a squeeze before turning and ascending the ladder to the corridor above.

"Wait—where are you going?" he heard Inara call behind him. As he found his footing he caught a glimpse of her making her way up behind him.

"Gotta prepare the other shuttle—job on Beaumonde, remember?" He swallowed and kept walking. "And I thought you companions had some extraordinary observation powers or some such jibberjabber. Looks like you'll need some brushing up on your skills—good thing you're headed back to the training house."

"Mal—"

"Or, if you ever feel a little antsy, you can send for us," he continued, climbing over the main bridge to the shuttle, the metal beneath his feet giving slight way with the speed of his determination. He spoke quickly to cover up the sound of Inara's quickened breath as she hurried behind him.

"I thought that maybe we could—"

"Our next suicide mission will likely be a bundle of laughs as usual," he said, forcing a smile.

He grabbed the door handle to the shuttle and pushed through. He felt her hand wrap around his forearm and noted her hand was cold and shook something fierce, but he didn't let it break his countenance.

"Mal, stop." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. In spite of her exertion, she still looked a picture of beauty that simultaneously made him sweat and shiver, his blood bubbling and then freezing in an instant. His eyes bore into the surface of the door.

"Xie xie," Inara said softly. "This isn't good-bye—"

"Shiny. Then, head on back to the kitchen—I hear Kaylee's made you a cake out of canned corn and tin foil. Be sure to tell her how good it is, even if it tastes like solidified mudder's milk."

"Mal, just—"

"Everybody's waiting for you." He smiled again, and lifted his head but somehow avoided eye contact—he knew what battles could not be won. The door closed, and he threw his back against it, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

The quiet of the shuttle closed in around Mal like the heat of summer—heavy, and a little suffocating. His head was so fuzzy, and his face stung like he'd stuck it in a hive of a thousand bees. He could hear his own heartbeat, and he rested his head against the door, staying there until his breath evened out.

After a moment, he heard her small steps, and he listened to them as she walked away, slowly, and there was silence again. He opened his eyes and slumped to the floor, kicking his leg out in front of him.

"I know you're in here, little girl."

River walked out slowly from the shadow of the deck. Her hands were clasped behind her back, like she was taking a leisurely stroll in the park.

"Couldn't sneak up on me this time," he said. "Too quiet in here."

River nodded, and sat down in front of him. She put her head in her hands and smiled. As crazy as she was, when she smiled, she appeared a normal girl who hadn't seen the things she did and hadn't lived through or suffered anything worse than a common cold, or a bad day at school.

"A door that closes can be opened again," she said. "It will."

He looked to River. He believed her. He had to.

"What say you to coming out on a job with us?" he asked, seemingly out of the blue. She cocked her head to the side, and nodded slowly.

"You want me to seek out evil," she said plainly.

"That's the notion," he said. "You can finally earn your keep around these parts."

She caught onto his tone, and smiled again. Nodded.

"We don't got to get around to telling your brother until later."

She nodded again.

"Shiny," she said softly, and rested the side of her head on her drawn up knees.

He didn't have much else to say, so he rested his head against the side of the door. He could hear singing in the kitchen, and it drowned out the clanking of the engine.

-end-

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