”That thought had occurred to me as well.” Inara replied. ”I asked him about it once, but he told me he’d thought Reavers were a myth, like a lot of people from the inner colonies do, and that this bunker of his was merely an insurance measure against natural disasters or ’possible civil unrest’. Which, I admit, might make sense I suppose. If you’re paranoid.” She supplied. ”In any case, he seemed… quite beside himself. And it wasn’t as though pursuing the matter would do much good to anyone. So I thought I’d let it lie. Stephen, James’s man servant, wasn’t so forgiving however, didn’t believe his excuse, and… his family had been out there, so, well… you can imagine…”

”What happened?” Kaylee asked as River moved to lay her head down in her lap, wrap herself up in a kind of ball to fit on the couch, and close her eyes.

”At first Stephen wanted to kill him, or beat him until he confessed. I talked him out of it, but only because I reminded him that the man’s children would be watching… Still, it was an… uneasy peace. The tension only seemed to build between them. And James, poor James, well, he wasn’t doing well besides that. He started to became anxious, and rather more paranoid. It all came to a head a couple days ago, in fact. James said something… distasteful, and completely tactless, and Stephen charged at him. Stephen’s a fairly big man, bigger than James, surely, but James was, well, he must have been nearly insane by that point, I’m afraid. He managed to hit Stephen over the head with the base of the nearby bust of his late wife. Stephen was dazed and James rolled him away and got on top of him, meaning to strike him again, kill him I think. I grabbed his arm and stopped him before he could, but he pushed me away and turned on me, as though he meant to do me in as well. I had my gun, so… I shot him.” Inara told her story.

”Well it hardly sounds like the man gave you much choice.” Kaylee put in.

”No, he really didn’t. I did try to shoot to wound though.” Inara explained.