Inara never wrote anything down. She didn't like the permanence of words on paper; there was too much risk involved. Someone may read those words, open her up like a book and know her. A Companion should not be known.

Once a man requested the pleasure of her company and wished to spend the time he'd purchased to write on her skin. She'd accepted him, turning down other, more traditional offers for her time, in order to be a canvas for a day.

The man, his name was Gillane, drew Chinese characters on her with a calligraphy brush; first a strip up one side of her, then another down the other side, up and down, long sentences stretching from one end of her to the other. He would not tell her what he was writing, only that it was a story.

She read it when she returned to Serenity, with the use of mirrors. It was a sad story. She washed it off before anyone else could read it.

She wrote a note to Mal before she left for the Training House. She'd picked up paper and pens in Persephone in case she needed to write a thank-you or a love poem while on business.

As her fingers pressed the letters into the paper, she was well aware it was a memento for herself. She'd never give it to Mal, never send it once she was gone. She'd see that it was burned with other personal effects if she died. But she had to express herself, in truth, or the unwritten words would stain her forever.

It was a complete accident that the letter remained in a trunk that she left behind on Serenity.

Inara was reunited with Serenity after Mal's gallant and totally unnecessary rescue. She's half glad and half angry that she's back where she started. The letter is not in the trunk she left behind. She wonders who now has the letter, what they might want for its safe and secret return. Jayne probably can't read, so he's not a likely suspect. She also allows for a mystery; for fate to have disposed of the letter in a suitable manner.

She wonders if that part of her life -- the longing, the pain - is in the past.

She spends her time during the rebuilding of Serenity writing new letters and painting the refurbished common areas. She finds she is now much bolder with respect to paper, ink and brushes. She almost prefers this method of communication. It is warmer, no machines are involved. And when she writes, no one can see her face or look up her file.

Inter-planetary mail delivery has much improved and she can afford first-class postage from wherever Serenity docks.

As Inara paints the hulls of Serenity, with the word and symbol that represents to all of them that they have a home, she knows there is more to the long life that stretches ahead of her.

She writes to her clients, past and present, to elicit their ideas about something she may look to as secondary income, one she'll expand on as her looks fade. She was trained as an artist. She can perform the tea ceremony flawlessly, but she can also draw. This pleased many clients who hung her art on their walls or presented it as a gift to a loved one. Part of making her clients feel good sometimes included drawing them with a beneficent eye, so they could see the good in themselves.

Art will never be enough to buy her freedom, but it will be something she can use. She is fairly certain the Training House will not take her back after the infractions that occurred. She needs to look to practicalities. She will have to make her own way.

Inara was writing another series of letters when Mal came into her shuttle for the first time since Serenity was fixed and flying.

"Suppose you want to know where we're headed so you can arrange some business," Mal said.

"I hadn't thought of that, honestly," Inara replied.

"Well."

"I suppose you will need some money for the renting of the shuttle," she said. "I have some set aside that I can access next time we dock."

"Yes, I can't just have you living here rent free you know," Mal moved further inside the shuttle, looking around as if he had never laid eyes on any of her things before.

"I never intended to live rent free Mal," Inara said sharply.

Mal coughed. "Look Inara, this is awkward."

"I feel incredibly awkward, Mal. But it doesn't need to be, does it?" Inara puts down the quill she's using and blows on the page before her. She studies the letter, the looping, angular script she was trained to use. Then she looks at him. "I want to stay here. I will pay you my rent. I'll work around your schedule, Mal, I mean that. I'm going to have to expand my client base anyway. Once word gets out that I'm trouble, I'm likely to lose a lot of credit in the database."

"I'm sorry about that," Mal said, not sorry at all.

"I'm not," Inara said shortly. She wished Mal would just drop the routine already. They nearly died together; the time for polite but underhanded exchanges was over.

"That's new," Mal said.

"Yes."

"Anything else new that you'd care to share?" Mal wrapped his thumbs around his suspenders and rocked back on his heels. He was on the verge of grinning. Inara sighed and decided to play along. It was how Mal was comfortable; he'd be ill at ease in a real conversation, so why push it?

"I'm not sure I get your meaning, Captain," Inara said, widening her eyes so Mal could see the grin in them.

"The writing," he gestured to the makeshift desk she'd set up on one of her trunks. "Never knew you were a letter writer."

"I'm writing to clients to solicit advice."

"Didn't know you'd need advice, advanced as you are in the arts."

"Not that kind of advice."

"Not writing any love letters, are you?" Mal was fairly twinkling now. "Because I hadn't pegged you as the love letter type either."

"If I recall correctly," Inara said, a hint of worry creeping into the back of her mind, "You've had me pegged wrong from the very start. Perhaps you should try to do less pegging and more understanding."

"Perhaps," Mal said. He turned around as if he was about to leave, then whirled around suddenly again. "It's easier to understand things when they're spelled out for me." He pulled something from his back pocket. It was the letter, folded over several times and looking a bit worse for wear. Inara felt her heart drop into her stomach and her face flame.

She couldn't say anything. Her throat closed up on all the excuses she could possibly make. Dear Mal. She couldn't say it had been intended for someone else. I could love you. She wanted to die on the spot. This was exactly why writing letters was a bad idea. She felt her fist crumple the new letter on her desk. Words should never be inked, they should be easy to take back, to erase, to forget.

"Oh God," she said. It would be horrible if he read it aloud to her, smirking and grinning like the arrogant son of a bitch he surely was. There would be no living with him after this, and yet she'd made her commitment to stay. She needed the others, Mal could never change that.

"Inara." Mal was just looking at her, holding the folded letter in his hand. The questions were in his eyes. He wanted to know if this was how she felt, if she meant it, if she still felt it. She couldn't give him the satisfaction.

The air between them had changed. Inara was suddenly very aware of the thin sarong she'd put on after her bath, of her hair caught up in a loose tangle and pinned with a chopstick, the faint ink smudges on her hands. She was also aware of the line of sweat on Mal's upper lip and the tension in his thighs as he stood, awkwardly holding the paper out in front of him.

"You can have it back, if you want," he said.

She nodded, and he moved forward to give it to her. Their fingers brushed as the letter changed hands and then it slipped to the floor. Mal's fingers stayed touching hers, not holding her hand, just poised in midair. Inara looked at him, beckoning. And Mal broke. He rushed forward like water down the rivers after a snow melt, crushing his lips to hers. Inara gripped his hair and pulled him forward, her other hand grabbing his hand with vehemence.

Her heart was surely going to bang right out of its ribcage. She felt almost sick to her stomach with the rush of adrenaline and arousal that hit her. It was like getting everything at once and being stripped and opened up and burnt by the sun and drowned in the ocean. She couldn't breathe and didn't care. Mal was bruising her lips and let go of her hand to wind his arm around the small of her back and sweep her up into his embrace. Their teeth clicked together and Mal drew back, but Inara pulled him forward, wanting to feel it again, the graceless bumping of teeth.

Mal pulls her against him, and then lays her down on the cloth-covered trunk, spilling the bottle of ink. He pulls her hair free from the chopstick and it falls, making wispy ink stains beneath her.

He drew back and looked her in the eye. "Don't impress me," he muttered under his breath.

"No," she whispered back. She had no intention of bringing any artistry into this.

Mal slowly pulled at her sarong, and it came away like a butterfly and fluttered to the floor. She reached up one unsteady hand to his belt and he undid it around her fingers, and then she tugged at his shirt and he unbuttoned it as her fingers stroked at his hands around the buttons. He was scarred, he was beautiful. He was bending over her again, and he put one hand down on the trunk, right in the ink. Inara spread herself out beneath him. When he picked up his hand, he stared at it as if confused momentarily by the deep blue that covered his palm. Then he placed his hand on her breast, leaving a handprint. He left a trail of handprints, over her breasts, belly and thighs, and she gasped and panted. She reached for him, wanted to touch him; her hand slid across his cock, but it was quick because he was back devouring her mouth and then thrusting inside her without preamble.

No artifice. No one would have been impressed the way Inara was grunting and gasping underneath Mal. No one would have wished to teach the method Mal was using - one of wild thrusts and lip-biting and splattered ink, with his pants around his ankles and his boots still on. But Inara was pleased. In fact, she felt her pleasure building, despite years of carefully honing it and timing it and controlling it so that it was just right. She let go of it, now, let it unspool up and around Mal. He reached a hand between them to get his thumb on her clit and brushed it roughly. Then he twisted and came suddenly, and Inara had a moment of confusion as she remembered there had been no protection, but she was climaxing now and her mind was wiped clean of worry. She did something else she rarely did; she shouted and threw her head back in a completely uncalculated manner, and clenched her thighs tightly around Mal. Inelegant.

"Inara," Mal said, his head dropping on her shoulder. "Fuck."

"Exactly," she said, surprised.

He pulled her up to him, off the trunk and spun her around, practically throwing her onto the bed. She landed among her beautiful sheets and pillows, staining them irreparably. That's probably what Mal wanted. He removed his shirt, unlaced his boots, pulled off his socks and finally took of his trousers. Inara laughed at the thought that he'd practically been fully dressed as they did what they did.

"Glad to see you're not totally unhappy with this," Mal said. He approached the bed, almost uncertainly, and Inara took the time to admire him without his clothes.

"I would say it's the exact opposite of totally unhappy," Inara said. His chest, too, was covered in ink and she pulled him down into the bed. She felt extremely careless. "I love you, you know."

"That letter said as much." Mal looked into her face, the skin around his eyes crinkling up with his smile. "Never knew you were such an open book." He brought his finger up and traced an ink mustache on her lip. She laughed.

"I tried to tell you there was more to me than what your tiny mind would allow," she said, reaching up and drawing a villainous dark ink mustache on his lip to match hers.

"You tried," Mal said, laughing with her, "Except for the fact that you never gave me the gorram letter!"

She rolled her eyes. "As if I didn't know that you'd go pawing through that trunk the minute I was off the ship!" It did seem that that was what fate had in mind. "But I want you to know, no matter what happens, I'm not leaving Serenity again." As careless as she felt right now, she was still the practical one.

"And I will live with that," Mal said. A flicker of trouble flared in his eyes for a moment and then was gone. He rolled her over and onto him, the ink making undecipherable calligraphy marks across the pale silk sheets, telling a story.