Virgil Cole

This is actually something that I was concerned about not having it happen even when we were first setting up the scene. It was important for me to have Virgil go into the situation "blind" regardless of what my other characters thought or knew. In his canon, though, Virgil Cole is very observant and has an ability to figure out people and situations in general that far surpasses Everett's. So in that conversation, he picked up on two key pieces of information - that Everett had been unfaithful at some point in the past, and that he had some kind of history with the woman that Virgil wouldn't even know if he saw her on the street.

Still, Virgil's opinion of the situation, the people involved and what should be done about it varies quite a lot from Inara's in several key ways. The reason that he jumped to the conclusion that Inara might not trust Rose over Everett was because it's also canon that Virgil takes Everett's word over anyone else's, bar none. He can't even wrap his head around Everett not being trusted by anyone. In truth, Inara does have deep trust issues with Everett and that's half the reason that she's so territorial in the first place. She holds him equally responsible for anything that happens, especially now that Rose has no memory she holds him a hundred percent responsible for striking up their friendship again. Virgil has a more simplistic and era-appropriately chauvanistic view of things, that a man is a man and can't be expected to help himself.

If Everett was to introduce Virgil and Rose and vouch for her, though, the fact that Everett was partial to her would be more than enough for Virgil to like her and be social. As of right this second, literally all he knows about her is that there was "a history" that Everett implied was bad with an unknown woman, so his mind immediately started to draw parallels with his own personal experiences with Allie since she's pretty much his whole frame of reference when it comes to women. And his frame of reference when it comes to Allie unfortunately isn't good at all, which is also canon >D Past the events of the movie she ran off with another man who left her a destitute scraggly prostitute in a low-end brothel, and then when he and Everett rescued her she went on to sleep with the key men in charge of the next town they moved on to, and it's this canon point with the additional betrayals and events that he's from. So he tends to overcorrolate a little.

And then, in the end, the advice that he gave to Everett was not what Inara would like to see happen, which would be for Everett to not speak to Rose any longer out of respect for her wishes. OOC, is it pretty unreasonable of her to want it? Oh yes. But Inara is territorial, jealous and worried to death that Everett is lining up Rose to be his go-to girl when he needs an ego boost, to cry on another woman's shoulder and to purposely put himself in a situation where he might be tempted to stray if she gives him the slightest reason - like, for example, her getting closer to Mal.

But what Virgil told him to do basically amounted to actually a very patronizing approach, to more or less pat her on the head and give her something shiny to distract her, and this is how he deals with Allie in their canon. In his mind, since he can't imagine that Everett isn't worthy of trust, Inara's just being flighty, high-strung, "has the vapors". While it's true that a little reassurance would go a long way with Inara and it was one of the key components that was missing in the train wreck that was Inara and Everett's argument, the fact that Virgil hit on it had more to do with his keen understanding of human nature and his experiences with Allie than with OOC coaching or guidance through the character. No part of his advice was for Everett to stop seeing Rose, though, it was in fact given with the intention of him finding a solution for his partner that would allow him to keep seeing her and have Inara be okay with it.