I've spent an hour tweaking words and another 40 minutes on title and summary. I need to just stop. So - I'm stopping.


Title: But Not Forgotten
Author: Vesica
Fandom: BtVS/Firefly
Characters: I'd rather you just read and find out...
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1000
Disclaimer: Just mucking about in other people’s sandboxes.
Written For: picfor1000 - the annual "A Picture is Worth 1000 Words" Challenge Round Six: Roll Dem Bones. Take the pic, write 1000 words. No more, no less.
Summary: She'd given up on surprises long ago, but the biggest one - about herself and letting go of regret - was still waiting.
Author's Note: The coda is not included in the word count. I had enough trouble wrestling the text itself down to 1000...





Inara tapped idly at the screen, finding nothing particularly interesting in the offers awaiting her on Dyton.

There never was on these border planets, even the larger ones, and she wondered anew what she was doing out here.

Roaming, she supposed, looking, searching for something in the black.

After Wash…No, if she was being honest, it started before that.

After floating in a sea of stars, every day a new adventure, she’d returned to find the lights of Sihnon dimmer than she remembered and the walls of House Madrassa like a prison. Everything there was predictable – lovely and elegant and numbingly perfect.

Two months and she’d started making quiet inquiries down at the docks, three more, of research and test trips, until she found the right ship.

The soft chime of a new message interrupted her thoughts

The familiar face made her smile as she tapped the still image to life.

Now this – at last – was interesting.

His message was charming – they always were – and she quickly responded.

“For two wanderers, our paths seem cross quite often,” she teased.

“That they do. Fate must be smiling on us,” he replied with a smile of his own. “I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw your schedule.

“Three days – Isn’t that dangerously close to being earth-bound for you? I know I’m horribly late with my offer. Am I too late? What time can you spare?”

“How much would you like?”

“All of it.”

It took no effort to act pleased. “Then it’s yours. We should be arriving in two days.”

“They can’t go fast enough. Until then…”

She was traveling with honest traders these days, which made for a pleasant change, and both sides were content to stay out of the other’s business.

But on the endless days between ports, she missed the rough and tumble camaraderie of Serenity. She missed…

She stubbornly pushed her melancholy thoughts aside, occupying the time until they reached Dyton with tasks undone.

They were running a little late, he was punctual, as always, and she barely had time to finish her preparations. Not that it mattered to him if things weren’t just so.

He loved the ritual of it all – the incense, the tea, the formal greetings, the surface pleasantries – and the familiar movements of their routine were meditative.

She set a second pot of tea to steep before taking up her samisen. The tune came forth, the movement of practiced hands requiring little thought, and gave her leisure to study him.

She wondered at first about his apparent enjoyment of her playing, so few men even pretended to be interested in the more traditional elements of Companion training, but it was but a small note at the end of a long list of wonderings about him.

The first time he’d made an offer, she’d done the first thing Companions were taught – she researched. There was note in the records, not a black mark, just a mysterious notation that he’d helped a House on Osiris with a difficult matter and declined payment in trade.

She’d been curious.

Now, after a dozen meetings, her curiosity was undiminished.

He traveled frequently, but for no trade she could discern and not government certainly, as he was no fan of the Alliance.

He was moneyed, but that went without saying.

And she’d learned by accident that his work, whatever it was, was dangerous.

Before, she’d always blown out the candles - at his request. But after Boros….

He’d been late – the only time – and as the door opened she forgot she wasn’t on Serenity; he’d looked like Mal or Jayne, returning from some caper gone wrong, disheveled and bleeding.

He’d offered a vague explanation and she hadn’t pressed – a Companion never did – just coaxed him towards a warm bath.

She’d been grateful for the training to separate feeling from manner, calmly tending his wounds, hands ghosting over the lattice of old scars as if they weren’t there.

They didn’t speak of it again, but he also never mentioned the candles again.

That night he’d started the story. It was epic – good and evil, characters so familiar but not, and always the fight to preserve Earth-That-Was.

He sat his cup aside with a soft clink and at his signal, she tucked the samisen and her memories away for later.

This part too had surprised her. It was rare for a client to see that, for Companions, sex was as much ritual as the rest, to understand the destination was not always the point. It was a pleasant surprise.

The candles were burning low before he finally asked, “Should I continue?”

She curled against him; eager for more of the tale she couldn’t stop thinking about. “Please.”

Once again, the Warrior was called to sacrifice – a new threat, new evil, and another ravening chasm.

The Warrior had already given so much, even her life, and to be asked again…

When the moment came, her mentor had made the choice for her, disappearing into the shining doorway before any could stop him.

Inara waited, breathless. “What happened to them then?”

He sighed, “I don’t know.”

But she knew.

Years of training failed to stop her tongue. “You went! Not knowing where or if it was death…”

She blinked back tears, the bravery of that depth of love twisting her gut.

He looked away and she remembered herself, quickly changing the subject the best way she knew how.

“I’m glad you know,” he admitted later, letting her hair slip through his fingers. “You know, you remind me a bit of someone from then.”

She couldn’t imagine how. “In manner?”

He laughed. “No, in appearance. Perhaps in fire – though she didn’t try to hide it.”

“You remind me of someone too.”

“In appearance?”

Her words were quick – careless. “No, in heart.”

He gallantly ignored how much three little words had said. “But it can be good, to be reminded?”

“Yes, Rupert,” she answered, letting the regret, like the candles, melt away, “It can be.”



CODA

I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.

But Not Forgotten, Dorothy Parker



END.