He often wondered why he loved her. Simon could probably tell him the chemical reasons, and River for sure could spout their formulas in their entirety, but that didn’t explain why Mal felt the way he did. It wasn’t that he was questioning it, not as such, because she made him complete, made him feel like he could take on the ‘verse and come out victorious the other side, or at the very least not dead, but that wasn’t why he wondered.

He thought he’d loved Inara. Those long months between her first coming on board and taking over his shuttle and her leaving to take up a post at the Training House ... he knew he hadn’t said anything, but he thought he was in love. Maybe it was proximity, with her never being far away on a small ship like Serenity, seeing her every day, but the feelings had crept up on him until their fights became some kind of foreplay, until the day she left.

In the long nights between the stars he’d wondered why he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t declared his need. Yes, she was a Companion, and that very profession was at least one of the things that had stood between them. But he hadn’t said, hadn’t asked, hadn’t begged her to stop, to be only with him. He had consoled himself with the imagining that she would have refused, would have told him it was who she was, indivisible, and even if she had accepted him as her lover she wouldn’t have stopped taking other men into her bed. Except he didn’t know. It was easier to put the words into her mouth than ask her.

He’d led men into battle, taking on overwhelming odds, done what he thought was right at the risk of his own life, and yet he couldn’t take that final step and ask. So she’d left, and all he had were possibilities that drove him almost to the edge of insanity.

Then came Miranda, and she came home, back into her shuttle, giving him a second chance.

He would spend the rest of his life wondering why he didn’t take it.

He wasn’t, he admitted, a man who could take inactivity easily. It bred introspection in him, and lying on his back recuperating from yet another gunshot wound he’d collected left him open to deep musings. His genes came from a long line of ranchers, men and women who had carved out homes from the wilderness, leaving precious little time to wonder why and how, not when it was far more important to concentrate on where the next meal was likely to be coming from.

Perhaps being captain of a spaceship wasn’t that great an idea, but the food problem was still there, compounded now with the job problem, the possibility of the engines blowing up problem, and the always present not giving in to the temptation of shooting Jayne problem.

He smiled and looked down at his wife again, lying snuggled against him, her head tucked into his shoulder. Still, none of this answered his initial question of why he loved her.

She’d been at his side all day, supporting him while he sat in the cargo bay and talked the elders of Bakerstown on Jubilee into taking Indigo on as their sheriff. She hadn’t fussed, not like Simon when he had announced his intention of not holding the meet with him lying in bed. Instead she’d helped him dress in his loosest pants, buckling the gunbelt about his hips herself, all the while talking nonsense about having had the worst time getting the blood out of the leather.

He’d managed it, of course. The elders were almost begging Indigo to come and work for them when he was through, promising a house as well as schooling for Sara, and a good enough wage that they would be able to put something by for a rainy day.

As Serenity took off, lighter in company but a mite heavier in the monetary department from the successful delivery of cargo, Freya had helped him back into the bunk they were temporarily using, undressing him with exceptionally gentle hands and assisting him to lie down again. She had insisted on a smoother, which he would have argued about except she was quicker than he was, and the drug surged through his system before he had a chance to do much more than complain.

He’d slipped into a dreamless sleep, awakening some hours later to find her next to him, her breathing slow, even, just being with him.

Maybe that was it. She understood him. There might be closed doors in his mind that he would never let her see behind, but she didn’t ask to be shown, letting him have the secrets that he was afraid might stop her loving him. Instead she warmed his thoughts, letting him know without words that she would always be there, loving and comforting, arguing and frustrating, all at the same time.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“Gorramit, witch,” he muttered. “You always in my head?”

“I can leave.”

“Don’t. Not sure I’d survive if you did.”

“I was lying anyway. I never will.”

“Good.” He twisted to pull her higher, ignoring the stabbing in his hip to lift her to him. He kissed her hard, bruisingly, his hands in her short hair, holding her. She responded in kind, a low moan in her throat vibrating through him, setting other passions into flame.

She pulled back, not enough to be out of touch but so she could look into his face. “You can’t.”

“Is it going to kill me?”

She stared into his eyes, and he wondered what she saw, whether it was just their blueness or whether, as the ancients would have it, they were the windows to the soul. “Simon would –”

“Simon ain’t here, ai ren. And more particularly, he ain’t invited. This is you and me. Us. And I want to be naked with you. Inside you.”

She blushed, just a faint hint of colour across her cheekbones that made her eyes even more beautiful. “You’re not well enough.”

“It’s not like I’m sick, Frey. I got shot. I’m healing. And I’ve got an itch I can’t scratch.”

Her lips twitched. “Is that what I am? An itch?”

“Something like.” He leaned forward to press his mouth to hers again, his arousal damping down any discomfort. “You gonna help me scratch it or not?”

Again she gazed into his face. “You old romantic.”

“Frey, if I could give you roses and wine and sweet music I would, you know that. But I’m a man, and about the most I can offer is ... me.”

She smiled. “I don’t want wine and music. A rose would be nice, but I’ll take what I can get.” She smoothed her fingers down his chest towards the gold cross she’d given him years before. “Just one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll drive.”

Two words. Just two, and he knew he really didn’t care about the why. Or the how. Or even the where. As long as he had the who – Freya – and the when – forever – then the love was going to take care of itself.