Title:  An Unwelcome Truth
Author: godsdaisiechain
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity
Challenges: Air, Anywhere but Here, Fast Forward
Type: Fic
Characters/Pairing: Inara
Word Count: ~400
Rating: G
Summary: Non-canon (but revealed by Whedon) spoiler under the cut.  Pre-canon angst.



Rachel paused, forced more air into her balky lungs, licked her lips, looked right, then left, then right before she opened the door.  She had never done this before.  She wished Simon Tam was there to tell her what to do.

Inara knew as soon as the doctor poked her head around the door.  Bad news. Unexpected. The worst news she had ever had to deliver.  The air seemed to harden in her breast.

He mind reeled, rushing forward to the endings: her ambitions to run House Madrassa, to live to old age, to find her….  The Companion training pulled her up short. The doctor was near tears.

“I take it this is not what you wanted to find?” Inara said, poised as always, suddenly wishing she were anywhere else in the Verse.

“No,” said Rachel, blinking too fast. She struggled to control the interview, aware that Inara must be crumbling behind her polished veneer.  “Not at all.”

Strangely, Inara’s heart and mind crystallized into a hopeless serenity.  She could go anywhere now, do whatever she liked.  Nothing could stop her.  “Is there anything you can do?”

The ground seemed to firm beneath Rachel’s feet, steadying her trembling knees.  “We can delay the progression, make you more comfortable.”

And then the final question. “How long do I have?”

Rachel blinked again.  “We don’t know.  Two years, maybe three, but surely not as much as five.  I’m sorry.”  She did the kindness of not pretending, of not speaking empty platitudes about the possibility of research or a cure.  The condition was rare, genetic, and could have been stopped if it had been identified in childhood.  But no one knew: not her father, unaware that he had been cuckolded; not her mother, who prayed the child belonged to her husband; not the lover who was unaware of his own genetic lineage.

“How will it end?” she wondered, and did not realize until Rachel gasped, that she had wondered aloud.

“We hope suddenly,” she said.  “You should come in weekly for treatments.”

But Inara would never do that.  “Can you teach me to do them on my own? It would be a kindness.”  She folded her hands in her velvet lap.  “I can waive your fee for the client registry and you can visit me.”

And Rachel felt her chest relax.  “Of course. Shall we begin tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, then,” said Inara, and floated out the door as if she had not heard the end of her life.