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He isn’t rightly sure what possesses him to pick up the trinket, hold it thoughtfully in his hand. It’s not much more than a bit of glass, but it’s pretty enough, he thinks, multifaceted and a warm color resembling amber. Mal flips it between his fingers, watches the light from the halogen lamp bounce and scatter over his skin with the movement.
This ain’t a shopping spree, he’d told Kaylee when Wash touched them down on the trade world, more harshly than he’d intended because she’d been jumping up and down, squawking about buying a birthday present for -
She’d cut herself off, turning bright red and stammering about needing to check something in navigation. But he’d bitten her head off anyway, because he knew gorram well whose birthday it was, and what right did she have to go around breaking unspoken agreements not to talk about certain folk like that?
Gone is gone, and he sees no need to dwell on the subject. But for reasons passing understanding, he buys the rock anyway, slips it into the pocket of his duster before he strides off to negotiate next month’s rations at the adjacent stall.
--
Mal’s birthday celebration is the first one on ship since Simon’s, and to his mind it goes relatively well, seeing as how Serenity keeps herself un-blown-up for the occasion. There’s cake, and presents, and for the first time in a while his crew looks at peace. He knows he’s not the only one thinking on those who should be at the table but aren’t; it’s no reason not to celebrate the life that’s left, but he raises a glass in remembrance all the same.
Inara lifts her glass in response, and he’s reminded that some things you lose come back.
He makes his way to the bridge when the party disperses, ostensibly to check on the course River set before dinner. But the truth of the matter is that her math will always be better than his, and he simply craves the comfort of the view from the captain’s chair, the starry expanse that catches his breath.
He doesn’t hear her approach; she’ll always tread too softly for that. But the light scent on the air is enough to make him turn his head and quirk a smile as Inara climbs the stairs to the bridge.
“Happy birthday,” she says, crossing to lean against the console in front of him. She holds out a wrapped package. “I didn’t want to give you this in front of everyone else,” she explains.
“Why? Is it something dirty?” he asks cheekily.
Inara shoots him an exasperated look, one with much less vitriol than it might have held six months before. “Just open it before I take it back.”
He slides the paper off the box, opens the lid. “Inara,” he says quietly. Inside lies an antique pistol, just polished enough to be handsome but still obviously functional.
“I figured you could always use one more,” she shrugs.
“Us petty thieves generally do,” he responds, lifting the weapon out of the box and examining it closely. It’s a piece of work, is what it is, and pretty as a picture. Not unlike the gift giver herself, he concedes. “Thank you,” he says sincerely.
“Besides, even after...everything,” she says, uncharacteristically at a loss for words, “I can’t help feeling that it isn’t over. We’re not safe, not yet.”
“Not yet,” Mal echoes. Her use of the plural, her casual inclusion of herself in his motley crew of bandits - of family - clenches at his heart and leads him to dig around in his pocket. “Got something for you, too,” he blurts out without thinking, his hand curling into a fist around the object he seeks.
Inara’s brow knits. “You do? It isn’t my birthday.”
“Was when I bought it,” he says simply, dropping the trinket into her outstretched hand. He watches her examine it, moving it this way and that to see how the console light fragments in its surface. He feels foolish - giving a gift to the one woman he knows who could buy herself anything she wants, shinier baubles than he could possibly afford - and says, “it was just something that reminded me of you.”
And then he doesn’t have room to feel anything but relief, because she tucks herself on his lap and lays her mouth on his. They’re still relatively new to this, whatever this is. He tries not to question it much, knows only that it began the night after Wash and Book’s funeral, when both their defenses were down and neither could bother being anything but honest. Knows only that he can’t see the end, and that he doesn’t care to. Mal buries his free hand in her hair, closes his eyes, and breathes.
“Happy birthday,” he says gruffly when they break apart.
“You, too,” she replies, her cheeks flushing in a way that makes her look younger than ever before.
“Sorry it’s so late.”
“I’ll have another one soon enough,” Inara says with a smile, and he hears the promise she doesn’t make.
end