It's the silence that draws Inara from her shuttle. The rain has paused, for the first time in days, and the air is moist and heavy and hushed with its presence. She's been staring too long at the shuttle's walls, trying to decide whether to make them hers again. She's been apart from the bustle around the ship, but now, in the quiet, she thinks she can breathe freely.

When she steps into the cargo bay, hugging her kimono around her shoulders for warmth, the first thing she sees is River. She's standing on the ramp in front of the wide-open bay door, one hand resting on the hatch release. From the tilt of her head she could be watching the sky, or the last trickles of rain running off the hull, or staring at nothing at all. She's soaked to the skin, drops of water sliding from her hair and dress, while the wind flutters the long cuffs at her wrists and the loose train of the skirt.

Inara smiles. It's tender, she knows, and because River's back is turned, it's not artful. A good Companion falls in love, just a little, with every client. She learns them so well that loving them is like loving herself; and Inara is a good Companion. It's why her clients will come back to her, seeking it. It's why she won't sleep with Mal.

Maybe it's also why she has no idea if she can lay claim to Serenity the way Kaylee has--as if it's truly a home, and not just another port of call.

There's no use in trying to sneak up on a reader. As Inara walks up beside her, she looks into the sky, too, as if she might catch a glimpse of what River sees.

But River's looking inwards. Her lips move, shaping other people's words. "Inara wouldn't do that," she says, and her face is full of surprise, disappointment, devastation. "She wouldn't," River says, but it isn't River speaking.

"Kaylee," Inara says.

River turns her head and faces her. She's got the look of an oracle, of a Buddha: older than the 'verse, and just as empty. Then, in an instant, she's a girl again, and she smiles and kisses Inara on the lips, soft and very quick. "Don't worry," she says. "This is all just the penetration of a false reality."

And she holds Inara's hand as she watches the clouds break.

Sequel: Sort Of Fading Now

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December 20, 2005