Remembering Inara-Firefly FanFiction

Mal's Turn

"You left me.  Alone.  You changed me.  You made me fall in love with you and then you left.  How could you do that?  You pushed your way in.  You made me open myself up.  Show my struggles, my fears, and my pain then when I felt loved and cared for when my heart felt not only safe but fuller than it had ever been more healed than I thought possible you left.   You took everything good you ever did and in the blink of an eye you undid it.  As much as that hurts, I've been around a while.   I grew up with only my mother.  I saw the world I was fighting for crushed by unification.  I'd already lost my home, my dreams, and my faith."

Mal turns his head and looks around the room.  At all the faces.  All those left behind. He turns back to Inara.

  "When you married me and kept your sickness a secret you hurt our children.  The babies that you gave birth to and held to your breast.   You carried them in your womb knowing that they would grow up without a mother."  Mal's face grows redder with every breath his expression grows more intense with each passing moment.   "Do you remember when we were first married?  Before the boys were born?  I didn't think that we should have a family, work being as irregular as it was, the Alliance searching for us, me growing up without a father.  I didn't know how to be anyone's father.   We talked about it for months.  You showed me that I did know how to be a father."  Mal leans in and looks into those familiar dark eyes.  "You said that you would be here to make sure that I was a good one, to see that these children grew into adulthood."  Mal growls angrily.  "You promised me."  He says stepping back.  He starts pacing in front of her.   His words coming out quickly like bullet fire.   "When it was too late I found out you were sick, you were dying, and you knew you were dying the whole time?  You made that promise knowing that you wouldn't be able to keep it.   You didn't trust me.   Inara, you didn't trust me to be the father you kept telling me that I was.  You abandoned our family, you broke your promises, and you put too much on Imala.  Do you know what makes me the angriest?   What you have put our daughter through.  She's just a little girl.   How could you do this to a little girl?   You were wrong.  I love you with everything a man can.  But you were wrong.  You're also damn lucky that you're already dead because if you weren't...I'm of the frame of mind to kill you myself woman."

Mal sees something in his peripheral vision.   He refocuses and sees Imala standing on the stool in front of him, not Inara, her eyes are wide, her face pale, and tears are rolling down her cheeks.  Mal's sadness, his anger starts to give way to a feeling of sickness and remorse.

"Mal."  Jayne says.

Mal looks at Jayne.

"Sir."   Zoe says from his opposite side.

"I'm scaring her.  This is wrong.  Inara was wrong to ask for this.  I can't do this.  I won't."

"If you'll step back for a minute sir I think that we can get this sorted out."  Mal takes two large steps back.

Zoe and Jayne step forward to talk to Imala.

A few minutes and a big hug later Zoe returns to Mal.  "Imala insists that she's all right.  She wants to continue."

"No."  Mal says.

Jayne talks to Imala, hugs the child briefly, and returns to Mal.  "Imala says that we need to finish this.  It's hard but she says that she can handle it.  She says she's ready to be a little girl again."

"No.   Inara was wrong about this."  Mal says to Jayne.  "I won't keep hurting my daughter."

A soft voice crosses the distance between father and daughter.  "Please Daddy."   He looks at Imala. Her tears have been dried, the color returned to her face.   He looks at his daughter's sweet round face and big dark eyes, his eyes well with tears and more than anything he wants his little girl back.  Mal's heart aches at what it is costing them both to get through this.  He bows his head for a moment.  "Okay."  He agrees quietly.  He looks at Zoe then Jayne.  "There's gonna be some changes."