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browncoat2x2Deciding to Stay – Inara’s Answer #2
by 2x2
Written for Big Damn Questions Challenge #2: What is the hardest decision you've ever had to make? What did you choose, and why? What influenced you to choose what you did?
Word Count: 677
Rating: G
A/N: Not entirely happy with this one... not at all :o/
To be perfectly honest, deciding to answer this question has been very difficult for me, because I know it will require a great deal of openness on my part, a willingness to expose parts of myself I’m more used to keeping hidden. And hiding is a large part of it, or rather, not hiding.
You may have expected me to say my hardest decision was leaving Serenity or leaving Mal. But that was harder for me to do than it was to decide. The decision to leave was an easy one; I’ve always been good at running away.
A far harder decision was the decision to stay.
I did not return to Serenity by choice… Well, no, that’s a lie. I knew what I was doing when I ran from the Training House with Mal, where I was running to.
The truth is, I never would have waved Mal if I hadn’t been forced to. But when he came to the Training House… seeing him again, face to face, smelling him, feeling him, his overwhelming presence… If I hadn’t been so afraid and so angry with him for risking his stupid life I would have kissed him. And I knew then, everything I’d been telling myself I wasn’t missing, didn’t need… I knew it was a lie.
Returning to Serenity, there was no real decision to make. I couldn’t stay at the Training House, that much was obvious. If I could be used once to lure Mal into a trap, it would work again, and I wouldn’t let that happen. So I followed him, without so much as a second thought. Just like always.
….
When I left Serenity, I left for me. I told myself I was leaving for both of us, doing what was best, but I didn’t realize… He was different, after, when I came back. Things had obviously been hard, harder than I remembered them being, and he was so… distant, from everyone, and so angry… Mal has a terrible capacity for anger; it defines a large part of who he is, more so then than I’d ever seen before. I watched him go through so much, saw so much more of the man he really is than I ever dreamed I would…
In those moments, I finally understood why Zoë followed him, would always follow him, because I felt it too.
You’re wondering what all this has to do with the question.
All the reasons I had for leaving the first time were still there, even more valid and practical than they had ever been. I was bound to these people, to the ship, to Mal, and having felt that bond once more, I didn’t want to have to leave again. I knew I wanted to stay, but deciding to stay… committing to that decision, that terrified me.
Deciding to stay meant so much more than simply not returning to the Training House. It meant making many other decisions too, the hardest of which would be the decision to stop hiding – from Mal, from myself. It would mean jeopardizing my career and deciding to turn my back on a lifetime of training to risk it all for… a chance at love.
…
Making it work has been hard. There are still arguments, and we still hurt one another. But we do love each other, and we even manage to show it once in a while.
I grieved the loss of Wash and Book deeply and I know that, staying, there’s the chance that at some point in the future it could be Kaylee or Simon or Mal or any one of us. But leaving them behind wouldn’t make that eventuality hurt any less, it would only leave me empty of the time I could have shared with them.
I’ve made many difficult decisions in my life, and up until now, staying may have been the hardest. But there will be more to come.
Hardest of all, there will be the day when I must finally decide if I am still a Companion.
by 2x2
Written for Big Damn Questions Challenge #2: What is the hardest decision you've ever had to make? What did you choose, and why? What influenced you to choose what you did?
Word Count: 677
Rating: G
A/N: Not entirely happy with this one... not at all :o/
To be perfectly honest, deciding to answer this question has been very difficult for me, because I know it will require a great deal of openness on my part, a willingness to expose parts of myself I’m more used to keeping hidden. And hiding is a large part of it, or rather, not hiding.
You may have expected me to say my hardest decision was leaving Serenity or leaving Mal. But that was harder for me to do than it was to decide. The decision to leave was an easy one; I’ve always been good at running away.
A far harder decision was the decision to stay.
I did not return to Serenity by choice… Well, no, that’s a lie. I knew what I was doing when I ran from the Training House with Mal, where I was running to.
The truth is, I never would have waved Mal if I hadn’t been forced to. But when he came to the Training House… seeing him again, face to face, smelling him, feeling him, his overwhelming presence… If I hadn’t been so afraid and so angry with him for risking his stupid life I would have kissed him. And I knew then, everything I’d been telling myself I wasn’t missing, didn’t need… I knew it was a lie.
Returning to Serenity, there was no real decision to make. I couldn’t stay at the Training House, that much was obvious. If I could be used once to lure Mal into a trap, it would work again, and I wouldn’t let that happen. So I followed him, without so much as a second thought. Just like always.
….
When I left Serenity, I left for me. I told myself I was leaving for both of us, doing what was best, but I didn’t realize… He was different, after, when I came back. Things had obviously been hard, harder than I remembered them being, and he was so… distant, from everyone, and so angry… Mal has a terrible capacity for anger; it defines a large part of who he is, more so then than I’d ever seen before. I watched him go through so much, saw so much more of the man he really is than I ever dreamed I would…
In those moments, I finally understood why Zoë followed him, would always follow him, because I felt it too.
You’re wondering what all this has to do with the question.
All the reasons I had for leaving the first time were still there, even more valid and practical than they had ever been. I was bound to these people, to the ship, to Mal, and having felt that bond once more, I didn’t want to have to leave again. I knew I wanted to stay, but deciding to stay… committing to that decision, that terrified me.
Deciding to stay meant so much more than simply not returning to the Training House. It meant making many other decisions too, the hardest of which would be the decision to stop hiding – from Mal, from myself. It would mean jeopardizing my career and deciding to turn my back on a lifetime of training to risk it all for… a chance at love.
…
Making it work has been hard. There are still arguments, and we still hurt one another. But we do love each other, and we even manage to show it once in a while.
I grieved the loss of Wash and Book deeply and I know that, staying, there’s the chance that at some point in the future it could be Kaylee or Simon or Mal or any one of us. But leaving them behind wouldn’t make that eventuality hurt any less, it would only leave me empty of the time I could have shared with them.
I’ve made many difficult decisions in my life, and up until now, staying may have been the hardest. But there will be more to come.
Hardest of all, there will be the day when I must finally decide if I am still a Companion.
