"Yes, well it looks as though you aren't very far along. Just four weeks. You must have conceived just before..." Simon Tam looked away from Zoë to the rest of the crew gathered in a half circle in the infirmary.

"A baby! Oh Zoë!" Kaylee gushed enthusiastically and rushed to the side of the exam table where Zoë sat, fully clothed, but dazed from the results of the test, even though she knew for sure. River could sense the baby growing within her as sure as Simon could test for it.

"Looks like our crew'll be adding a member. You scan them genetics, doc?" Mal was beaming despite the line of worry that crinkled his forehead.

'Yes, so far so good. I know the gender; if Zoë wants, we can all know."

"Go ahead, doc. No sense River knowing more n' me about my own child."

"A girl," Simon announced and the room nodded approval, grinning and waiting for Zoë to take it in.

"A baby girl?" Zoë beamed happiness no one had seen in her for weeks.

Jayne stepped forward. "Name her Hoban, after her father." The room burst with laughter.

"No, no...Wash hated that name. ' Sides, I already chose a name for this child. She'll share his same initials and be called Hope."

And each one in their own way took hold of their own hope, felt it come on all around them like the turning of the tide.

--*--

"We can rig up a nursery in the second shuttle, baby'll be safe there all day and ready should we need to move out quick. We can paint ducks on the ceiling." Kaylee was awash in the frilly ideas for raising a girl-child out in the black.

"Use my shuttle, since I'm still bunking there. I've been training girls a while longer than any of you might guess. I can take on day care duty." Inara seemed genuinely excited about the prospect.

"Hah! I'd be scared'a what lessons you been teachin' girls out there on Sihnon. I can see the trail of tots now, scootchin' crossed the cargo bay."

"Jayne!" Mal, Zoë and Simon snapped at once. The room fell to a fit of laughter, Inara leading them all.

"That would be a funny sight, but I'd stick with conventional lessons."

"I'll teach her to fly, like her father."

All heads turned to River, and Zoë cast her a solemn glance, then nodded. "You do that."

They passed around the last of the shu mai and strawberries. Fresh food would last through this visit to Paquin. Then despite the fact they were still in good stead, it'd be back to protein rations. Fresh food was hard to come by in the black.

"We'll land on Paquin tomorrow," Mal reminded them. "Six days of relaxin' and plenty coin to see us through and back flyin' for a spell. We'll need to come up with a plan for how we keep flyin' soon enough." Mal looked from Zoë to Inara, then took in the entire crew with a sweep of his gaze. "I have my own ideas, but I'll want to hear from everyone; even you, Jayne."

The silence stretched around them. Nobody could believe what they had heard.

Simon, long used to privilege, was first to recover. "The Alliance has a long memory and reach. They no longer list us as wanted, but that can't last. What we've done forces them to look aside for now, but they won't take loosing lightly." Simon looked at his sister, then back at the captain.

Zoë and Inara rose. "Sir, I think we should wait for the ride out to consider the grim future. We've got more important plans to make." She took Inara by the hand.

"Mal, your on clean up duty - don't leave the kitchen a mess or they'll be no bao at dinner." They left giggling like school girls, heads bent together.

Mal looked forlornly after them as the others went to their tasks.

"Cheer up - you ain't out the game yet old man." Jayne smacked him between the shoulders. "You talked to Zoë yet?"

"No." Mal shrugged; it came off with more whine then he'd intended.

"'Nara?"

"Her neither."

"<Ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng>, that leaves you standin' in <yi da tuo da bian>," Jayne laughed, shaking his head and headed off to the engine room to help Kaylee.

"What?" Mal looked off after Jayne as he laughed down the passageway.

--*--

Inara led the way to her shuttle.

"So...," Inara began, "I'm thinking we should take advantage of Paquin and plan something to honor your news. Some little ceremony, nothing elaborate." She waited, hoping her suggestion would not offend Zoë.

"I would love that, Inara. I need a reason to look to joy. <Xie xie>. You'll make my girl a fine auntie."

"I hope so.... But I don't have to teach her if you don't want me to."

"No its fine. Frankly if she wants to be a companion it would bring honor to Wash and me, but I would want her to decide for herself. She might fall toward Mal's way of thinkin' on the subject." Malcolm Reynolds was decidedly opposed to the notion that being a companion was honorable work.

"Zoë?"

"Uhmm?"

"How'd this happen?"

"The baby?" Zoë laughed, "surely there's whole volumes of study on the subject back there on Sihnon." She saw Inara looking back at her with all seriousness. "I wondered my own self, but I believe I've worked it out. Wash and I always used our controls to maintain ourselves, like everybody else, it was second nature. When I told him I was determined to have a child, period and the end I decided to forgo my trainin'. I left it only to him and his controls."

"The biofeedback training is simple enough once you learn to lower your body temperature specifically. Once you have the knack it never fails, unless something happens to alter your abilities or your mind."

"So it never occurred to me he would do otherwise without talking about it - for hours." Zoë smiled through bright tears. "I believe he must have come to his own undertandin'. He knew my mind well enough on the matter. I don't think he meant it to be a parting gift, though."

"He was ready to be a father."

"And now he'll be one." Her eyes filled again. "Damn girly hormones. Least now I know why I'm blubberin' morning and night."

"It will pass, you'll be our <xiong can sha shou> again soon enough." Inara came and placed a hand on Zoë's back. "No woman should loose her man the way you lost Wash."

Inara went to the trunk where her spare things had been stored while she was on Sihnon. "Sit down and let me brush those wild ringlets of yours." She found a sturdy brush and brought it over to the low couch where Zoë had arranged a few cushions on the floor. Inara sat behind Zoë on the couch.

"I ain't like your little pet Kaylee, I ain't used to all this fluff and fuss."

"I think you just have a tender scalp. Don't you go crying if I pull a bit."

Inara brushed Zoë's curls expertly, starting at the ends and working through the hair back towards the scalp.

"What we gon' do about Mal?" Zoë asked.

"I suppose that's up to you, Zoë. He's set on honoring his promise to Wash."

"He was so earnest, Inara. I promised I'd take his offer serious. And..." Zoë paused then continued. "Inara, I'm about to tell you something might upset a weaker woman, and I just want to give you fair warning, seein' as how your hands is deep in my hair and all." It was said lightly, but Zoë wasn't playing. She turned her head to check Inara's response.

Inara paused, considering. Whatever new revelations Zoë would bestow had to do with the web tangled around her and Mal and Zoë. But there was nothing for this road but to walk forward. "I'll try to leave your scalp intact. Go on."

Zoë straightened and Inara resumed brushing. "Mal loves you, Inara. He told me as much. But he told it when he was telling me how much he loves me. And he wants to be with you, I could tell it from before you left the ship. But he's convinced himself he's honor bound to look to me. And he's willing to let you go to do it."

The silence stretched as Zoë waited to see if Inara would respond, but no words would come to her, though her mind raced. Inara burshed methodically, studying the subtle shifts of color in Zoë's hair as if the hair itself would speak to her.

"There's somethin' there down deep that we never sussed out between me and Mal. Never had no reason before now is how it worked out."

Inara's hands froze, brush poised for between strokes.

"Could'a just told him no thanks, but I wasn't expecting him to claim to love me. And the way he said it. I didn't realize-all those years after the war an' we got out the valley, through internment and out the other side. Found this ship. We been together all that time and not one gorram word."

Inara's hands had fallen from Zoë's hair, paralyzed. She was no threat to her scalp or person. Inara listened and felt as though her life was flashing before her eyes.

Zoë turned and commanded their eyes to meet. Inara obeyed feeling like a fly in a spider's web. "All this time, I was thinking he was broken inside like I'd been so long, and maybe he was. But when Wash and I took up together and married, he was against it. Now I know why. And when he laid it all to bare before me, I kissed him. I kissed him and wasn't like no friendly kiss. And he kissed me back. And something in that kiss led me to believe I shouldn't try to die so I could be with Wash always and forever, if that's even how it all works out..."

"You and Mal kissed."

"We did." Zoë sounded to Inara like she was giving a field report, but her eyes were not detached, they flamed with passion.

"So you're going to accept his offer." Breathe. She couldn't breathe. It felt like she was being smothered in thick cloying mud that filled her nose, mouth lungs, yet she could still hear, still speak.

"No, Inara. No. It ain't that simple. Me and Wash, we always wanted the two of you to come to a meetin' of minds, and bodies."

"But I was a <you chou you ying> coward."

"I can't judge you for doing what you felt you had to do. I don't know your reasons."

"I do, and they aren't nearly as honorable."

"But you came back, even if just for Miranda, and you don't seem to be leavin'."

Inara broke the spell and tore her eyes from Zoë's.

"See, here's my problem, Inara. I've been with the captain through thick and thin and I'll be with him to the end. Don't matter which one of us steps down into his bunk come time to rest or play. I'll still be here until the gritty bitter end. Might be long or might end tomorrow, but I'll be here. Serenity's my home. And I could chose to be with Mal, but that's not what I want most.

"I can't ask you to make a life commitment, I ain't asking you that. I just want to know if you are planning to try. Cause if you ain't, if you[re planning on runnin' back to Sihnon and your girls, I can give him and me both someone to hold to during the long and lonesome stretches of nothin' out here in the black. And wouldn't be no pity there, wouldn't be no empty holdin'. There was all kind of promise in our kiss."

Zoë was brutal, her honesty. Inara felt as though she had been beaten. "I don't know," she whispered.

"<Fei hua>, "Nara. Be honest."

Tears clogged Inara's eyes and her throat closed trying to stifle her words. She thought of her situation, how she wasn't exactly who any of them thought she was, how she may not live to be there for all the time that Malcolm Reynolds would want her to be, how she might not be able to bare him a child. How she didn't care about anything except this moment in time, when this woman, this sister through so many trials, could take Mal from her forever with a word. She thought of Zoë, could see her in Mal's arms, the child, raised by Mal. She choked on salty tears at the thought. They could have that life, but only if she cast Mal's love aside. She'd done it once to leave Serenity. She wouldn't do so again.

"He's everything I've ever wanted," Inara sobbed.

"And will you stay with him, with us? Will you try?"

Inara looked at Zoë, whose love was won and lost so quickly, measured her courage to have love, to have a child, to live with her loss. Nothing's in our hands.

"I'll try," she sniffed.

Zoë rose to her knees and hugged Inara to her breast. Inara sank into the solace of her embrace, thinking how Hope Washburne would know the comfort and strength of this mother, praying those days would be long and that she would be a part of them throughout the years. Inara calmed to soothing, motherly sounds she never knew Zoë could make, as Zoë stroked her back and hair.

She heard Zoë whisper in her ear, "He won't ask more of you then that."