FIC [Firefly]: New Life (Mal/Zoe, rated T)
Title: New Life
Author: abelard
Rating: T
Spoilers: Mentions of stuff through Serenity the movie.
Pairings: Mal/Zoe, mentions of past Zoe/Wash and Mal/Inara
Summary: Still, Zoe thought, it would’ve been better, they all could have borne their losses better, if they could have had babies cryin’, crawlin’, and growin’ on the ship.
Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.
A/N: Firefly/Serenity and M/Z are my latest obsession. Sorry I didn't translate the Chinese, but it's all phrases used on the show or in the movie. To the BSG fans: I'll get back to you - promise! I'm almost done teaching for the quarter!
There was a strange, and awful, symmetry, in the way that Zoe had Wash, then lost him, and after that, Mal had Inara, and lost her.
Both marriages had lasted about the same amount of time, too, just a couple of years each. A handful of months, the way Zoe looked at it. Not near enough time, for either of 'em. For any of 'em.
No babies. Zoe sighed at the thought. She didn't know why it came to her now, as she and Mal and Jayne were riding in the mule at full speed, heading off to another job on another planet where they had no idea what kind of go se they were getting themselves into.
Zoe watched the dusty gold landscape fly by (though it's *me* flying by *it*, ain't it?, she thought) and remembered talking to Inara about babies, just after Mal and Inara's wedding. It was important to Zoe, more important than Inara could have guessed, that Inara bear Mal some children. Zoe had brought it up slyly, she thought, trying to tread lightly so as not to seem too forward.
”You look happy,” Zoe’d said, sitting across from Inara one morning at the long table, over tea brewed from fancy leaves Inara’d bought at their last stop. “Married life suits you, that’s plain.”
“That it does,” Inara said, grinning, a thing she’d never have done in her life as a Companion. A Companion’s smiles glowed but never burned brightly; they always held a secret or two. Now, three days after the ceremony that made her Mal’s wife, Inara’s face was as open as Book’s Bible, shining forth with truth and love. Though Inara’s happiness called to mind Zoe’s past with Wash, she didn’t begrudge her and Mal their joy, not for a second.
Zoe took a sip then said, “Guess it won’t be long ‘fore you and Mal will be bringing a *nyen ching-duh* into the ‘verse.” She put her cup down and tried to return the joy in Inara’s smile with one of her own. Tried not to let the sadness show as she spoke of things that never were, and never could be. “You know, Wash and I never had the chance to....” When words wouldn’t come, Zoe wouldn’t force ‘em. She cleared her throat. “But I’m eager to meet your and Mal’s little ‘uns. You don’t know how much I’m....”
“It won’t happen, Zoe,” said Inara, the sun in her face dimming behind a cloud of upset. “I can’t....”
A moment later, Zoe asked, “Does Mal know?” Even as she asked, Zoe knew that Mal didn’t. Because if he knew, then Zoe would know, since that was how things were between them.
Inara shook her head. “Companions have procedures done before we enter service. Simon and I have been talking about whether a specialist could reverse it,” she said quietly, hopefully.
Zoe almost gasped when Inara reached a hand suddenly out to grip Zoe’s. Zoe didn’t make a sound, though, only held onto the soft, pale hand that grasped at hers. Inara’s beautiful eyes were troubled when she begged, “Please don’t tell him, Zoe, not yet. He’d be such a wonderful father, and I don’t have the heart to take that away from him yet -“
“I won’t tell him, ‘Nara. Though you should know, I never could keep a thing from him for long,” Zoe replied, not as a warning, just ‘cause it was the truth. If Inara wanted to tell the secret herself, she’d have to tell it before Mal saw the hiding on Zoe’s face.
A few months later, Inara had the procedure, but no one would ever know if it worked. A deathly virus - a plague - on the fourth moon of Minos struck Inara down, as it had half the moon’s population, before Simon brewed an antidote that saved the rest of Serenity’s crew, and what remained of the moon’s people. Mal’d wandered around the ship’s corridors, lost and enraged because there was no one to seek vengeance on, no one that he and Zoe could slaughter, guns ablaze, hearts afire. Those long nights that Zoe spent awake, either listening to Mal pacing or walking silently, steadily, by his side, she felt just the slightest bit grateful that she’d had the chance to take down some of those chiang-bao ho-tze duh Reavers that had taken her Wash. Mostly, though, she shared in Mal’s regret that they had no one to punish for Inara’s too-soon passing.
Almost two years since they buried Inara on Haven, next to Wash, Book, and Mr. Universe (with her last breath, ‘Nara asked to be brought there, to rest with their friends), and Mal was back to...well, worse than he was when the ship had carried its full complement, but better than he’d been after Serenity Valley.
Still, Zoe thought, it would’ve been better, they all could have borne their losses better, if they could have had babies cryin’, crawlin’, and growin’ on the ship. Hers, Mal’s, it wouldnta mattered. Now that Simon and Kaylee were finally hitched, Zoe hoped they’d start in soon, make aunts and uncles of all of them. River would be the only blood relation but they’d all pitch in. Even Jayne admitted at Simon and Kaylee’s wedding that he’d welcome a new little life aboard the boat.
The mule halted outside an old barn. Mal said, “Watch out for these wang-ba dan duh biao-tze, they’ll do their best to send us home with empty pockets or bodies full a’ bullets.”
As she climbed out, her right hand on her pistol and her left arm cradling her shotgun, Zoe bit back a question as to why, if Mal was so sure of treachery, they’d agreed to this job in the first place. But it was no use asking a question she already knew the answer to. They aimed at freedom, and freedom meant risk. Zoe’d never been shy of risk, she’d apprenticed to it long ago, and though she could never be its master, she wasn’t afraid of it. ”I ain’t so ‘fraid of losing something that I won’t try having it” she’d told Wash once. She’d been talking about a baby, but it wasn’t meant to be.
A baby, though, would make all this hassle and hurt worthwhile, Zoe thought as she squinted into the distance as eight armed men approached.
Fifteen minutes later and Zoe, Mal, and Jayne were in a fight for their lives. Somehow, they were in the barn, shooting through holes and gaps in the wood, except for Jayne who’d passed out from the blood seeping from three bad leg wounds. Five men were still firing on them, and it seemed, if Zoe understood their leader’s shouting right, there were more on the way. Mal and Zoe both had plenty of ammo, plus Jayne’s weapon, and their knives if it came to close combat, but if the other side had reinforcements coming, that more than squared the odds against them.
Mal, reloading, looked Zoe in the eye and said, “We’re gonna get out of here in one piece, you an’ me. Got that?”
Zoe gave a sure nod. “Yes, Sir.” Since the war, this was the one situation she never doubted herself or Mal in: they’d fight to whatever finish, and if one of them went down, so would the other. It’d been frightening, in the beginning, to have that sense that her life was tied to this reckless, relentless, courageous man’s. Then it ceased to be something fearful and it just...was.
The five men advanced on the barn, and their reinforcements showed up behind them. Their ranks swelled to ten - twenty - twenty-six in all, Zoe counted. Zoe dropped the pistol in her right palm and reached over for Jayne’s monstrous gun. Two against twenty-six; had she and Mal seen those odds before? They must’ve, but right at that instant, Zoe just couldn’t remember when.
“Zoe. Zoe!” Mal said harshly and Zoe turned to her sergeant, her captain.
“Sir?”
“Tell me the thing you want the most. Right now. Tell me what would make this fight worth winning,” Mal said urgently.
Zoe didn’t even have to think. “A baby, Sir,” she answered.
Mal blinked. “Baby?” he repeated, like he had to think on what that was.
Zoe nodded. “Always wanted one. Never got the chance,” she answered tersely. She readied and steadied her weapons, trained at the two men in the lead of the pack headed towards them.
Beside her, Mal said, “When we get out of here, you’ll get your babies.”
Zoe didn’t face him but smirked. “From where, Sir?”
“I’ll give ‘em to you,” said Mal, looking through the sight of his rifle.
Zoe turned. “You?” She had to think on what he was saying.
“Yup,” Mal said. “When we’re done here, I’ll give you babies.” He said it like a vow, like a promise.
“Huh,” Zoe said. Her and Mal?
The men got closer, their guns pointed straight at their position.
But Zoe was better than a fair shot; she was a fast one. She knew she could take out a dozen men, and Mal another dozen, and they could split the rest between them.
Her finger on the trigger, Zoe said, “You’re aware that ‘babies’ implies more than one, Sir.”
“I am,” Mal said, and Zoe smiled as they began firing.
Author: abelard
Rating: T
Spoilers: Mentions of stuff through Serenity the movie.
Pairings: Mal/Zoe, mentions of past Zoe/Wash and Mal/Inara
Summary: Still, Zoe thought, it would’ve been better, they all could have borne their losses better, if they could have had babies cryin’, crawlin’, and growin’ on the ship.
Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.
A/N: Firefly/Serenity and M/Z are my latest obsession. Sorry I didn't translate the Chinese, but it's all phrases used on the show or in the movie. To the BSG fans: I'll get back to you - promise! I'm almost done teaching for the quarter!
There was a strange, and awful, symmetry, in the way that Zoe had Wash, then lost him, and after that, Mal had Inara, and lost her.
Both marriages had lasted about the same amount of time, too, just a couple of years each. A handful of months, the way Zoe looked at it. Not near enough time, for either of 'em. For any of 'em.
No babies. Zoe sighed at the thought. She didn't know why it came to her now, as she and Mal and Jayne were riding in the mule at full speed, heading off to another job on another planet where they had no idea what kind of go se they were getting themselves into.
Zoe watched the dusty gold landscape fly by (though it's *me* flying by *it*, ain't it?, she thought) and remembered talking to Inara about babies, just after Mal and Inara's wedding. It was important to Zoe, more important than Inara could have guessed, that Inara bear Mal some children. Zoe had brought it up slyly, she thought, trying to tread lightly so as not to seem too forward.
”You look happy,” Zoe’d said, sitting across from Inara one morning at the long table, over tea brewed from fancy leaves Inara’d bought at their last stop. “Married life suits you, that’s plain.”
“That it does,” Inara said, grinning, a thing she’d never have done in her life as a Companion. A Companion’s smiles glowed but never burned brightly; they always held a secret or two. Now, three days after the ceremony that made her Mal’s wife, Inara’s face was as open as Book’s Bible, shining forth with truth and love. Though Inara’s happiness called to mind Zoe’s past with Wash, she didn’t begrudge her and Mal their joy, not for a second.
Zoe took a sip then said, “Guess it won’t be long ‘fore you and Mal will be bringing a *nyen ching-duh* into the ‘verse.” She put her cup down and tried to return the joy in Inara’s smile with one of her own. Tried not to let the sadness show as she spoke of things that never were, and never could be. “You know, Wash and I never had the chance to....” When words wouldn’t come, Zoe wouldn’t force ‘em. She cleared her throat. “But I’m eager to meet your and Mal’s little ‘uns. You don’t know how much I’m....”
“It won’t happen, Zoe,” said Inara, the sun in her face dimming behind a cloud of upset. “I can’t....”
A moment later, Zoe asked, “Does Mal know?” Even as she asked, Zoe knew that Mal didn’t. Because if he knew, then Zoe would know, since that was how things were between them.
Inara shook her head. “Companions have procedures done before we enter service. Simon and I have been talking about whether a specialist could reverse it,” she said quietly, hopefully.
Zoe almost gasped when Inara reached a hand suddenly out to grip Zoe’s. Zoe didn’t make a sound, though, only held onto the soft, pale hand that grasped at hers. Inara’s beautiful eyes were troubled when she begged, “Please don’t tell him, Zoe, not yet. He’d be such a wonderful father, and I don’t have the heart to take that away from him yet -“
“I won’t tell him, ‘Nara. Though you should know, I never could keep a thing from him for long,” Zoe replied, not as a warning, just ‘cause it was the truth. If Inara wanted to tell the secret herself, she’d have to tell it before Mal saw the hiding on Zoe’s face.
A few months later, Inara had the procedure, but no one would ever know if it worked. A deathly virus - a plague - on the fourth moon of Minos struck Inara down, as it had half the moon’s population, before Simon brewed an antidote that saved the rest of Serenity’s crew, and what remained of the moon’s people. Mal’d wandered around the ship’s corridors, lost and enraged because there was no one to seek vengeance on, no one that he and Zoe could slaughter, guns ablaze, hearts afire. Those long nights that Zoe spent awake, either listening to Mal pacing or walking silently, steadily, by his side, she felt just the slightest bit grateful that she’d had the chance to take down some of those chiang-bao ho-tze duh Reavers that had taken her Wash. Mostly, though, she shared in Mal’s regret that they had no one to punish for Inara’s too-soon passing.
Almost two years since they buried Inara on Haven, next to Wash, Book, and Mr. Universe (with her last breath, ‘Nara asked to be brought there, to rest with their friends), and Mal was back to...well, worse than he was when the ship had carried its full complement, but better than he’d been after Serenity Valley.
Still, Zoe thought, it would’ve been better, they all could have borne their losses better, if they could have had babies cryin’, crawlin’, and growin’ on the ship. Hers, Mal’s, it wouldnta mattered. Now that Simon and Kaylee were finally hitched, Zoe hoped they’d start in soon, make aunts and uncles of all of them. River would be the only blood relation but they’d all pitch in. Even Jayne admitted at Simon and Kaylee’s wedding that he’d welcome a new little life aboard the boat.
The mule halted outside an old barn. Mal said, “Watch out for these wang-ba dan duh biao-tze, they’ll do their best to send us home with empty pockets or bodies full a’ bullets.”
As she climbed out, her right hand on her pistol and her left arm cradling her shotgun, Zoe bit back a question as to why, if Mal was so sure of treachery, they’d agreed to this job in the first place. But it was no use asking a question she already knew the answer to. They aimed at freedom, and freedom meant risk. Zoe’d never been shy of risk, she’d apprenticed to it long ago, and though she could never be its master, she wasn’t afraid of it. ”I ain’t so ‘fraid of losing something that I won’t try having it” she’d told Wash once. She’d been talking about a baby, but it wasn’t meant to be.
A baby, though, would make all this hassle and hurt worthwhile, Zoe thought as she squinted into the distance as eight armed men approached.
Fifteen minutes later and Zoe, Mal, and Jayne were in a fight for their lives. Somehow, they were in the barn, shooting through holes and gaps in the wood, except for Jayne who’d passed out from the blood seeping from three bad leg wounds. Five men were still firing on them, and it seemed, if Zoe understood their leader’s shouting right, there were more on the way. Mal and Zoe both had plenty of ammo, plus Jayne’s weapon, and their knives if it came to close combat, but if the other side had reinforcements coming, that more than squared the odds against them.
Mal, reloading, looked Zoe in the eye and said, “We’re gonna get out of here in one piece, you an’ me. Got that?”
Zoe gave a sure nod. “Yes, Sir.” Since the war, this was the one situation she never doubted herself or Mal in: they’d fight to whatever finish, and if one of them went down, so would the other. It’d been frightening, in the beginning, to have that sense that her life was tied to this reckless, relentless, courageous man’s. Then it ceased to be something fearful and it just...was.
The five men advanced on the barn, and their reinforcements showed up behind them. Their ranks swelled to ten - twenty - twenty-six in all, Zoe counted. Zoe dropped the pistol in her right palm and reached over for Jayne’s monstrous gun. Two against twenty-six; had she and Mal seen those odds before? They must’ve, but right at that instant, Zoe just couldn’t remember when.
“Zoe. Zoe!” Mal said harshly and Zoe turned to her sergeant, her captain.
“Sir?”
“Tell me the thing you want the most. Right now. Tell me what would make this fight worth winning,” Mal said urgently.
Zoe didn’t even have to think. “A baby, Sir,” she answered.
Mal blinked. “Baby?” he repeated, like he had to think on what that was.
Zoe nodded. “Always wanted one. Never got the chance,” she answered tersely. She readied and steadied her weapons, trained at the two men in the lead of the pack headed towards them.
Beside her, Mal said, “When we get out of here, you’ll get your babies.”
Zoe didn’t face him but smirked. “From where, Sir?”
“I’ll give ‘em to you,” said Mal, looking through the sight of his rifle.
Zoe turned. “You?” She had to think on what he was saying.
“Yup,” Mal said. “When we’re done here, I’ll give you babies.” He said it like a vow, like a promise.
“Huh,” Zoe said. Her and Mal?
The men got closer, their guns pointed straight at their position.
But Zoe was better than a fair shot; she was a fast one. She knew she could take out a dozen men, and Mal another dozen, and they could split the rest between them.
Her finger on the trigger, Zoe said, “You’re aware that ‘babies’ implies more than one, Sir.”
“I am,” Mal said, and Zoe smiled as they began firing.