FIC: All That Remains (Firefly, PG-13)
Title: All That Remains
Author: Drea
Rating: PG-13, for cursing in Mandarin and English.
Fandom/Pairing: Firefly. Zoë/Wash. Strong hinting toward Mal/Zoë. Mentions of Simon/Kaylee and Mal/Inara.
Disclaimer: Joss is God and I own not.
Spoilers: Big damn spoilers for the big damn movie. Also, for "Out of Gas" and "Serenity, Pt 1".
Notes: Quotes and title from Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Much thanks to Victoria P for pointing me toward this beautiful song. Chinese courtesy of the Pinyinary. And to swirl_girlx for the beta, considering it was her first time. Takes place five years after “Serenity: the Movie”.
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"They might have split up or they might have capsized;
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
And the church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald"
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She goes there every year, in a perverse pilgrimage. Just takes one of Serenity's shuttles - they're back to two now that Inara has finally made good on her vow to leave - and flies out to the tiny moon at the edge of the 'verse. Haven.
It's always the same. Just Zoë, three far-too-soon tombstones, and the dust blowing every which way. The holos are fritzing out (it's been five long years, after all), and Zoë fears that when they finally fade, there'll be nothing left of him for her to touch.
His scent had long since faded from the ship - clothes given to people who need them more than her (except for the pink-and-green Hawaiian shirt that she still keeps in her drawer), blankets and sheets changed long ago (when she could barely stand to sleep a full night in there), and even those ridiculous dinosaurs with their crazy names are gone.
She would have given anything in the days after Miranda to know the tenuous peace she knows now. To have the hole he'd left inside her contracted to only bullet-size (there've been so many bullets in her, it's hard to keep track). To be able to say his name, tell his jokes, without biting back the tears she'd never learned how (in decades of battles) to stop. To pilot Serenity without feeling as if she were intruding, or shoving him out of the only title he held on the ship.
But necessity was the mother (she'd never gotten to be one herself) of invention, and Zoë had finally learned to stop coming up with excuses that time on Athens two years ago.
A deal had gone south, as it usually did - Mal and Jayne frantically calling her for a rescue. River had gone with the men, and she needed Kaylee and Simon in the engine room to prep for takeoff. Zoë had prayed - to a God she'd never believed in - for strength, and slid into the pilot's seat for the first time since her husband had died in it.
After that, she'd just stopped thinking. Started reacting. She was no leaf on the wind, but growing up on a ship, one never forgot how to fly them. She'd obliged with the requested rescue, and they'd hightailed it off Athens.
~*~*~*~
Zoë had saved them that time. Couldn't save them when Kaylee and Simon caught Levin's disease from settlers on Newhall - where was Simon's medical brilliance now? - and they'd had to leave them at a friendly settlement. Couldn't save Jayne on Beylix, after he'd jumped in front of a couple of bullets meant for Mal and Zoë. Said it was time to pay his debt. Feng-le hwoon dahn.
So the nine had become seven, and then the seven became three after losing Jayne, Simon, Kaylee and Inara (who'd departed for Sihnon after Jayne's funeral). It had just been River in the engine room, Zoë on the bridge, and Mal haunting the shuttle docks. She hadn't expected River to stay - not after losing both Simon and Kaylee - but the girl had surprised her. Told Zoë one night around the dinner table that Serenity was their home, and Mal and Zoe were more’n family.
If there was one thing Zoë had learned over the years, it was what losing family was like.
Good thing that the girl was still with them, because Mal (and Serenity as well) couldn't have survived losing River, too. She was the only one who could fix the ship, and almost the only thing that could make Mal smile anymore. Inara had taken most of him with her, and what was left after losing another family was a mirror of the broken man she'd spent two weeks with in an Alliance camp after the Valley.
Once you're in Serenity, you don't ever leave.
Zoë had once told Simon that, trying to explain why Mal was the way he was. Mei yong de kind of notion, but the kid had been thrown into a longtime battle between Mal and his better demons, and she knew what it was like trying to deal with Mal Reynolds blind. So she'd told him some war stories (Wash had whined that why did Simon get to hear them and he didn't?), shocking Simon’s oh-so-Alliance sensibilities and getting the added bonus of shutting him up.
But she'd been right - no one left Serenity, whether it be the Valley or the ship. Zoë could still hear Simon's rattling around in the infirmary, yelling at Jayne or comforting his sister. Could catch Kaylee wandering about the engine room and hear the sound of waltzes from Earth-that-was over her Cortex connection they'd never removed. Hear Jayne methodically field-stripping his guns and doing pull-ups on the leather straps that still hung off the cargo bay's grating. Smell Inara's incense and perfume when she walked past the shuttle docks to drag Mal back to his bunk every night. Hear pages turning, and Book's low voice intoning verses she'd never known or taken comfort from. Feel Wash's warmth on the bridge and miss the plastic dinosaurs they'd given to Kaylee when they'd left her and Simon on Newhall.
And Zoë had never been able to leave this moon behind, either. It should have been an ending - the end of her and Wash and all they could have, should have been. Instead, it's a loop, bringing her back again and again.
~*~*~*~
The first time, wearing the first dress he'd ever bought her (she'd been married in it), she couldn't do anything but light the rocket and bite her lip against the tears that eventually splashed down her face and onto her dress. Big damn hero who couldn't save the man she loved this time.
The second time (one year later), she'd nearly knocked Simon out after he'd suggested she wasn't healthy enough after getting shot (again) on Whitefall. Coughing bright red onto the ground, she'd stood there defiantly, collapsing into Mal's arms halfway back to the ship (she'd never asked why he'd followed her, and he'd never asked why she needed to be there).
The third time (been two years, and still she couldn't stop waking up with memories of battlefields and battering rams), she spent the better part of an afternoon talking to him again. Babbling about jobs they'd done, people they'd met, and the week they'd just spent on Boros with Kaylee's family.
The fourth time (three years - had it been that long?), she'd apologized for everything, but mainly for sitting in his chair and piloting Serenity. She liked to believe that he'd heard her, and teased her for being so worried over it.
And the last time, they'd been dealing with Jayne's death and Inara leaving - she'd spent most of that month or so forcing Mal to get up every day and going on jobs by herself to keep them in the air.
So it had been a year since she'd seen the place. It still looked the same. Mr. Universe's grave had grown - people came from all over the 'verse to pay him their respects. The signal was still going, and he was a hero.
The two heroes beside him, though, no one knew. Book would have wanted it that way, but Wash deserved all the parades and medals in existence for his escape from the Reavers. She couldn't help but glare at the clean surroundings of Book and Wash's stones compared to the tributes at the foot of Mr. Universe's.
It was going to change this year.
~*~*~*~
She'd bought ten candles on Osiris, placed five on Book’s memorial, and set the rest on top of the stones covering her husband. With each placement, she prayed for something she'd never before wanted or needed from him - forgiveness. For not coming last year. For putting herself and their accumulated family before him. For forgetting the sound of his voice and the feel of his arms around her and the way his breath felt on the crook of her neck when they made love.
I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry.
"Ain't got nothing to be sorry for, Zoë."
For half a second, she thought it might have been Wash, talking in her head like she sometimes imagined he could. But there was no mistaking Mal's familiar rasp from over her shoulder.
Straightening up from where she was kneeling (grey dust coating her pants and boots like the snow Wash had once dumped down her back on Ita), she raised her eyes to meet her captain's.
"Beg pardon, sir, but don't be telling me what to say to my husband."
His eyes steeled over, and she knew that one had hurt. Good. Bout time Mal stopped chasing after ghosts and passing time between bullet wounds. Man should take some of his own advice once in a while.
"My apologies. Just came to see how you were doing. Been a few hours since you hijacked my shuttle without notifyin' me."
"Never needed to ask before, sir."
That once had hurt, too. Was true - she'd never needed to ask him for a thing. Not huddled together in a trench with the Valley falling around their ears. Not scared and trembling in an Alliance detention cell two weeks after Unification. Not when they'd taken to the sky in Serenity, and not when she'd accepted Wash's proposal.
He didn't have a response to that, just looked up at the sky, squinting into the horizon. Pointedly not looking at the three graves before him.
"You've never been back, have you?" she asked.
"Shenme?" She didn't elaborate, just nodded toward the cairns before her, knowing his answer already. "No. Ain't my place."
Zoë had always known her place (by his side), but she had never stopped to consider that with everyone but River and Zoë herself leaving, Mal had forgotten what his was. Was still the captain, but lately, Zoë had been filling that role. Was still flying, but it had been River and Zoë who'd kept him that way.
"Go-se. You loved him, same as I did. Book too. Don‘t say you didn‘t."
He glared at her, and she couldn't suppress the satisfaction. If she had to drag him back into this 'verse kicking and screaming - well, it wouldn't be the first time. Besides, he'd kept her sane in those endless weeks after Miranda. That's what they did for each other.
Mal dug his hands into his pockets (his browncoat - he hadn't worn it since Inara left) pinning her with his stare. "Wasn't planning to, Zoë."
She and Mal never could lie to each other. She'd begged him once, after Wash's death, to lie to her - to tell her she would be whole again, would be able to smile and laugh without feeling that stab of betrayal.
He'd refused. Said it wouldn't have been right. That words couldn't make anyone feel better, least of all her. A far cry from the times he'd place a strong hand on her shoulder and believe the lie. Like in the war, when he would recite chapter and verse, Psalm and Proverb, because it comforted not only his soldiers, but himself as well.
All the Biblical verse she knew was from him - words poured out in benediction, in rejoicing.
In mourning.
She could still hear his halting eulogy for the preacher and her husband: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty . . .”*
Shadow. Where it had all begun one rainy night.
~*~*~*~
Mama had landed the Phoebus in Centre City (hardly a city at all, but then again, what use would Shadow have had for one?) and sent Zoë and Amelia off the ship so's they wouldn't be underfoot when business went down.
Little Amelia had held tight to Zoë's hand, and they'd barely gotten a mile down one of the roads before getting caught up in a scuffle. Most of the border planets didn't take kindly to outsiders, she'd learned. Zoë had kicked one of them but good for touching her younger sister, but the subsequent backhand to her cheekbone had sent her reeling into the dust.
Mal's blue eyes had been the first thing she could focus on. A year younger than her, and a good two inches shorter, but wo de ma, was he a sight to behold when in a righteous rage.
Even back then, barely out of short pants, he'd never tolerated bullies who messed around with womenfolk. Ginny Reynolds wouldn't have raised her boy any other way. He'd given her a hand up, inquired if Amelia was all right, and then sped off, babbling about not wanting to miss the ranchers' roping demonstration.
Hadn't even recognized him twelve or so years later on a troop carrier.
To be fair, she'd changed a bit herself. Braided hair brushed out into soft curls (because even on a battlefield, she wanted a little beauty), sparkly pink nails bitten off while waiting out an Alliance raid (she'd never paint them again - the smell of the polish just kept bringing her back to her Mama's staring eyes and the sharp snapcrack of Amelia's neck), and denim cutoffs replaced by standard-issue unisex pants and browncoat.
They'd been packed into the craft, sitting on the floor, parts of machinery, and whatever was nearest en route to the next deployment point. Zoë’d just come off a tour with the all-male 26th (known around the ‘verse as the our-brains-are-in-our-gorram-pants brigade) and was ready to spit nails at the next soldier who so much as looked at her funny.
It was Mal's dumb luck to miss his original transport and crowd onto hers. He'd tried to be funny, sitting on her lap - she'd laid him out with a right hook before she'd remembered where she'd seen those eyes. He’d cussed up a storm. She’d stammered out an apology.
They'd been together ever since.
~*~*~*~
“Never figured you as one for the religiosity. Didn’t used to be, at least.”
She looked back at him, then at the candlelit graves. “Lighting candles ain’t purely a religious thing, Mal.”
His sharp intake of breath echoed across the makeshift graveyard - first time in quite a few years she hadn’t called him “sir” or “captain”. Didn’t seem right. Not here, and not now.
“Suppose it ain’t, at that. You mind?” he asked, edging closer to the graves.
She shook her head, curls tumbling around her shoulders. Ever since Wash died, she’d tied her hair back in a knot every single morning - binding it tight to her head as if she could keep her memories of him just as close.
This morning, she’d been brushing it out, and just couldn’t bring herself to tie herself together any longer. River’s mouth had fallen open as Zoe had emerged from her bunk, and she’d touched a hesitant, grease-streaked hand to Zoë’s hair. Babbled something about eagles’ wings and waterfalls. It looked to be one of her less-lucid days, until she clearly and quietly looked up at Zoe and said she'd almost forgotten what her hair looked like.
Like Zoe herself had almost forgotten the sight of Mal on bended knee again - lips moving and an ancient prayer from Earth-that-was ghosting across the air. He’d never forgotten how to pray.
“. . . and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”**
She met his eyes, and her shock must have shown, because of a bit of the old light shone out of his eyes in response. “Can’t ever forget where you came from, Zoe. Much as I tried, the words are still there.”
Words never went away. Not the ones that mattered. “Don’t leave me” and “I promise”. “She’ll fly true” and “find someone to carry you”. Words were used sparingly and carefully chosen, but they were always there.
“Your mama’d have thrashed you but good if you’d forgotten even a word of Scripture” Zoe replied, laughing softly as she remembered Ginny pulling Mal around by the ear after he’d used profanity in public.
“That she would’ve,” he said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice.
Zoe didn’t blame him - she’d lost her own mother to those qingwa cao de liumang, same as he did. But her mama’d died on her feet, defending her ship and her family in battle. Not facedown in the dust, choking on the blood in her throat and the engineered gases blanketing Shadow’s atmosphere. The Alliance had damn near wiped out the entire planet, and Mal had been (un)lucky enough to be off planet on a run during the “cleansing”.
He’d never forgiven himself for it.
Looking down at his hands, Mal continued speaking. She wondered if he even cared if she heard. “Ma wouldn’t know me from a purplebelly now.”
“Fei hua”, she snapped, before she even realized she’d said anything.
“S’true. I ain’t hardly the same critter what spent half my days mucking out stalls and didn’t truck with no one that weren’t a godly person. Look at me, Zoe, I’m thirty-nine years old, and I’ve spent seventeen of ‘em fighting one war or other. I ain’t gonna settle down with some woman and raise a passel of kids. It just ain’t me.”
Ai ya, now she knew something was wrong. Mal never strung more'n two sentences together 'less the 'verse was falling round their ears. His speechifying was bad enough, but to add in the fact that he was the only one who brought up his past less than she did? Seemed this chat had been a long time in coming.
~*~*~*~
"Want to tell me what that load of go-se was about?"
He wouldn't look at her, keeping his eyes set on the three graves in front of him, and the three unlit candles atop them. Knew as well as he did that it should've been four, but they'd taken Jayne to Regina to be with his kin. Should've been five. Should've been them lying there.
"It was about wondering why you haven't cut your losses, Corporal."
Oh, so he'd finally decided to answer her. "We back to titles, sir?"
"Wang ba dan, Zoe, why are you still here?" Before she could offer an answer that didn't involve her immediate urge to smack him upside the head, he cut her off, getting to his feet in that quick jerk of a motion that every soldier learned before they could even lace their boots. "Not here on this moon. Here on Serenity, still following my orders like they mean a gorram thing."
Raising an eyebrow, she replied. "You kicking me off our ship, or is this some-"
"No!" He ran a hand through his hair, struggling for words. "S'just . . . we ain't at war anymore. We're barely scratching out a living and there ain't a reason in the 'verse for you to stay. You're a better pilot than half the stick jockeys out there - and you're for damn sure a better shot. I mean . . . anyone would be lucky to have you . . ."
"Are you done, Mal?"
"Will be when you tell me you're gonna do the right thing and get the hell away from me and this feng kuang life soon as you can. You - you owe me nothing."
Lord, was he being extra stupid today. She didn't stay because of some fool notion of "owing" him something. Wasn't because of anything she could ever put a name to. Just was the way it was. She placed a hand on his shoulder, unsurprised when he tensed almost immediately.
"Glad you got that outta your system, sir. Cause if I hear another word about it, I'm gonna need to respond with violence, dong ma?"
"Zoe, don't you listen-"
"I listen fine, 'cepting when my chunren captain starts spoutin' off at the mouth about should'ves and what-ifs. If I didn't want to be here, you know as well as I do that there ain't a power in the verse could keep me here. Even you. You're good - but you're not that good."
He smiled slightly, raising an eyebrow. "Sure about that?"
"Oh yeah," she said, nodding. "Patience was right, Mal - sometimes you ain't very bright."
Their eyes finally met, and they burst into simultaneous laughter. It had been so long since Mal had laughed that the sound of it surprised Zoe slightly. He shot her a curious look as she regained her composure, and she explained.
"Been a while since you've giggled like that is all."
He huffed mockingly. "I do not giggle. I chuckle. Chortle. Occasionally I guffaw."
"Whatever you say, sir."
~*~*~*~
The sun had just about set over the horizon of the border moon, and the shadows were barely touching them as they sat in front of the graves, passing a bottle of something-or- other back and forth. God knew where Mal'd had room to stash a bottle in his coat, but she wasn't going to complain about decent brew. Not while indulging in a time-honored tradition - of both the Browncoats and the crew of Serenity.
The last time they'd gotten well and truly drunk over a fallen friend, it had been after Jayne's death. Kaylee'd nearly taken a header over the catwalks. Taught them not to drink in the cargo bay. Girl would've split her head clean open if Inara hadn't grabbed onto her.
Inara. They'd never drank to Inara - not when Mal couldn't stand to hear her name.
"To Wash - the most brilliant pilot and best husband in the 'verse. Not that I'd know 'bout the husband part, of course. I hope you're still flying."
Blinking back tears, she reached for the bottle, repeating the toast. Picturing Wash's easy smile and his brightly colored shirts. That terrible mustache and the admittedly sneaky way she'd convinced him to shave it off (it had involved a short leather skirt and more cleavage than she was usually comfortable displaying). The clumsy way he tried to hold chopsticks, and would finally go searching for a fork. His hands, steady as rock when piloting a ship, trembling delicately whenever he touched her.
She swallowed, then raised the bottle in her own salute. "To Shepherd Book - the wisest and most mysterious man I've ever known. Wish we could've gotten to know you better. Rest in peace, lao peng you."
Hair like a halo (and more than a mite frightening). Steady voice, steady hands, and could shoot straighter than even her and Mal sometimes. His speechifying about kneecaps and beliefs. He’d known the Bible cover to cover, and yet found time to explore more about it. She’d liked that - that he admitted he didn’t have all the answers.
Mal raised the bottle, considering his words before toasting. “To Miss Kaywinnet Lee Frye, who never did like me to use her full name. I miss you more’n anything, mei-mei, but I like to think you’re still shiny as ever.”
Kaylee beaming with joy as she made her way down the catwalks in her ruffled dress. Ghost-pale and terrified from a gunshot wound. Sliding in and out from underneath the engine. Hands shaking too hard to hold a gun straight. Teaching River how to talk to Serenity, and fix her when she cried. Painting vines and leaves all over the kitchen and stringing Christmas lights on her door all year round.
“Simon Tam - a brilliant doctor and a boy who became a better man than his father. Most devotion I’ve ever seen outside of matrimony. Don’t give up hope yet.”
Those hideous brown sunglasses and silk vests. Stitching up crew with quicksilver hands. Soothing River when she woke up screaming about men with blue hands and watching her dance from up in the catwalks. Stuttering and stammering whenever Kaylee walked into a room. Gabriel Tam’s flat denouncement to them that he’d ever had a son - the consummate politician cutting his losses.
“Jayne Cobb - the hero of Canton. Man knew more about family than I ever will. You died two times a hero, you sumbitch.”
His stupid orange hat. Asking her every month how to spell “Serenity”. Hanging outta spaceships and watching their backs. Carrying Kaylee around on his shoulders for hoopball. Winning that stuffed frog and sending it to his niece (little Cora with her black pigtails, who’d taken a shine to Zoe from the moment they landed on Regina, following her everywhere).
Mal moved to finish off the bottle, but she held it up in one final toast.
“To Inara Serra.”
~*~*~*~
Mal froze. “Zoe, you really don’t-”
“I think I do, sir.” She didn’t give him the chance to interrupt. “She ain’t dead, and you’ve gotta stop acting as if she were.”
Zoe knew she was flying blind when it came to Mal and Inara. When the Companion had first gotten on board, Zoe didn’t need to be a reader to know she had eyes for the Captain, and that Mal’s interest had been piqued as well. Or that whatever way things turned out, it would inevitably end in tears, insults, and a return trip to Sihnon.
She figured it would be simple - they’d have a healthy, slightly anger-filled round of sex to get it out of their systems, and come to a tidy “let’s keep this strictly business” outcome.
It had become abysmally clear that Zoe should quit making predictions.
Obviously, it hadn’t worked out that way, though Inara wasn’t totally to blame. What really bothered Zoe was Inara’s constant underhanded questioning of Zoë’s opinion on the matter, which she wasn’t too inclined to give. Wasn’t as if she didn’t like the woman, but Mal’s love life was really none of her business (though it would’ve been shiny if he’d returned the favor).
Zoë’d always gotten along better with menfolk. It was a hazard of growing up on a ship and then joining the military at age 18. She’d have never lasted a day if she’d been one of those typical girl recruits joining up to stick it to their Daddies. They were cute and sweet and dead within a few weeks - a month if they were particularly lucky.
She’d thought Inara cut from the same mold, till the Londinium job. It had been a few months before they’d picked up River, Simon, and Book on Persephone, and she and Mal had just finished delivering some cargo to their usual buyer. But Lourdes had apparently decided he wanted more than their agreed-upon fee, and well, neither of them took kindly to being cheated.
Gunshots had ensued, and Mal had gotten himself into a wrestling match with one of Lourdes’ goons. He’d gone down, and Zoe had stepped up to take on the near-seven-footer, when she’d felt more than saw the arrow whiz past her head. It hit her opponent in the collarbone, and he’d gone down hard. She’d turned around in shock to see a surprisingly calm Inara lowering a longbow.
She’d proven her worth in Zoë’s eyes that day, but Zoe had still never felt at ease in Inara’s shuttle. Weren’t as if she had Mal’s puritanical views on sex (as Wash could certainly have attested to). Was just that pretty much anywhere on Serenity, Zoe was the first mate, Inara was a passenger, and there was always Mal’s shadow between them.
~*~*~*~
“You think I don’t know that?” Mal asked.
She shook her head. “Never said that. Just that you need to accept it. She ain’t dead, but she ain’t coming back either. And you’re gonna wear a hole in the shuttle docks if you spend any more nights in there.”
He squared his shoulders, making the most of the inch or so he had on her. “Don’t recall you outranking me, Corporal.”
“Last time I checked, no. But that means absolutely nothing to me right now, along with your half-assed attempt at threatening posture. Don’t rightly know if I could take you in a fight, and neither do you, cause even that beatdown I threatened you with after Miranda didn’t dissuade you from locking me in the passenger dorm and letting Simon slip sedatives in my coffee.”
There were very few times over the fifteen years she’d known Mal that Zoe had actually had the urge to throttle him. That had been one of them.
“You hadn’t slept in a week, Zoe!” he yelled, rounding Book’s memorial to face her. “Found you up on the bridge every night, keening worse’n a banshee, and you’re still angry ‘bout it five years later!”
“Damn right I’m angry,” she hissed. “You can do whatever you gorram please when it’s someone else who‘s grieving, but soon as it‘s someone you love, you turn into a robot who don’t listen to a lick of sense. Wo de ma, you think you’re the only one who’s ever lost somebody? You forget just who you‘re talking to?”
Mal opened his mouth, then closed it. With effort, he turned away, his back silhouetted against the sun that was setting beyond the mountain ranges. Without looking at her, he spoke.
“Can’t forget your conscience, Zoe. Never leaves you. Never steers you wrong. And it never breaks your trust.”
She slowly walked up behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder lightly, knowing how irksome it was when people touched you while you were mad, but not knowing how else to convince him to listen.
“Then listen to me now. Let her go, Mal. Let her fly her own path - us and that little girl in our engine room have got our own to worry about.”
He looked back at her, still the lost sailor swingin’ an albatross from his neck. He wore his sins like medals, and she’d seen them all. His Mama and the people of Shadow. The 57th, and all the other kids he’d lost to the Alliance’s massacre. Serenity Valley. Book. Wash. Jayne. River and Simon. Inara. Kaylee.
Sometimes, even Zoe herself.
~*~*~*~
He nodded slowly, then quirked a slight smile. “Little River. Ain’t so little anymore.”
“Ain’t none of us little anymore. Thought she'd make more sense when she got older, but the outlook ain't too good. Girl‘s been babbling recently ‘bout the leaves turning, and bells tolling. Something 'bout snow, too.”
“Wha-huh?”
“Thought nothing of it myself, till she started picking through my hair last night on the bridge. Said she was looking for grey.”
Mal’s immediate and heartfelt reaction had her coughing back peals of laughter - he’d run a hand through his own (decidedly grey-free) hair, and winced. She couldn’t blame him for the moment of vanity, but she’d never imagined what they would look like as they passed sixty, seventy years of age. Soldiers just didn’t live that long.
She couldn’t help but look at Wash’s grave - Lord, he’d been barely thirty-four when he’d died. He was never any manner of soldier. Neither were any of the grunts they’d lost over the long years of the war.
Maybe there was something to that old saying about only the good dying young. Maybe that’s why she and Mal and River were left. Why they had so many shared hurts between them, and yet couldn’t even begin to heal. Why they’d always stay broken.
River, with her overloaded emotions and ever-more-frightening visions.
Mal, with his lost faith and lost childhood, and constantly evolving albatross.
And Zoe, who was still stuck in that gorram Valley with nothing to battle and nothing to pull her back out again.
“Maybe you’ve got more than you think”, said Mal, doing that mind-reading of her that was beyond even River’s comprehension. “Could be that I do too.”
“So what do we have, Mal?”
The roar of Serenity’s engine drowned out anything he might have said. River’s signature piloting was apparent, even more so in atmo. She hovered for a moment, then touched down in a landing that even Wash would have called delicate. Mal grinned in spite of himself, and looked back at their ship.
“We’re still flying, Zoe, wu you. Still keeping one step ahead of everyone and everything. We‘ve got a ship, a girl who ain‘t a bad engineer, and a few jobs lined up. More than we‘ve had some other times.”
He was right. It wasn’t much, Zoe knew, but it was enough.
THE END
~*~*~*~
Mandarin Translations and Notes:
Feng le hwoon dahn - crazy bastard
Mei yong de - useless
Shenme? - What?
Go-se - crap
wo de ma - mother of God
qingwa cao de liumang - frog humping sumbitches
Fei hua - nonsense
Ai ya - damn
Wang ba dan - son of a bitch
feng kuang - loony
Dong ma? - Understand me?
chunren - idiot
lao peng you - old friend
Mei-mei - little sister
wu you - my right hand
* From Psalm 91, New Revised Standard Version Bible
** From the Nicene Creed, Lutheran Book of Worship
~*~*~*~
Feedback is hugged and squeezed and loved and called George.
Author: Drea
Rating: PG-13, for cursing in Mandarin and English.
Fandom/Pairing: Firefly. Zoë/Wash. Strong hinting toward Mal/Zoë. Mentions of Simon/Kaylee and Mal/Inara.
Disclaimer: Joss is God and I own not.
Spoilers: Big damn spoilers for the big damn movie. Also, for "Out of Gas" and "Serenity, Pt 1".
Notes: Quotes and title from Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Much thanks to Victoria P for pointing me toward this beautiful song. Chinese courtesy of the Pinyinary. And to swirl_girlx for the beta, considering it was her first time. Takes place five years after “Serenity: the Movie”.
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"They might have split up or they might have capsized;
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
And the church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald"
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She goes there every year, in a perverse pilgrimage. Just takes one of Serenity's shuttles - they're back to two now that Inara has finally made good on her vow to leave - and flies out to the tiny moon at the edge of the 'verse. Haven.
It's always the same. Just Zoë, three far-too-soon tombstones, and the dust blowing every which way. The holos are fritzing out (it's been five long years, after all), and Zoë fears that when they finally fade, there'll be nothing left of him for her to touch.
His scent had long since faded from the ship - clothes given to people who need them more than her (except for the pink-and-green Hawaiian shirt that she still keeps in her drawer), blankets and sheets changed long ago (when she could barely stand to sleep a full night in there), and even those ridiculous dinosaurs with their crazy names are gone.
She would have given anything in the days after Miranda to know the tenuous peace she knows now. To have the hole he'd left inside her contracted to only bullet-size (there've been so many bullets in her, it's hard to keep track). To be able to say his name, tell his jokes, without biting back the tears she'd never learned how (in decades of battles) to stop. To pilot Serenity without feeling as if she were intruding, or shoving him out of the only title he held on the ship.
But necessity was the mother (she'd never gotten to be one herself) of invention, and Zoë had finally learned to stop coming up with excuses that time on Athens two years ago.
A deal had gone south, as it usually did - Mal and Jayne frantically calling her for a rescue. River had gone with the men, and she needed Kaylee and Simon in the engine room to prep for takeoff. Zoë had prayed - to a God she'd never believed in - for strength, and slid into the pilot's seat for the first time since her husband had died in it.
After that, she'd just stopped thinking. Started reacting. She was no leaf on the wind, but growing up on a ship, one never forgot how to fly them. She'd obliged with the requested rescue, and they'd hightailed it off Athens.
~*~*~*~
Zoë had saved them that time. Couldn't save them when Kaylee and Simon caught Levin's disease from settlers on Newhall - where was Simon's medical brilliance now? - and they'd had to leave them at a friendly settlement. Couldn't save Jayne on Beylix, after he'd jumped in front of a couple of bullets meant for Mal and Zoë. Said it was time to pay his debt. Feng-le hwoon dahn.
So the nine had become seven, and then the seven became three after losing Jayne, Simon, Kaylee and Inara (who'd departed for Sihnon after Jayne's funeral). It had just been River in the engine room, Zoë on the bridge, and Mal haunting the shuttle docks. She hadn't expected River to stay - not after losing both Simon and Kaylee - but the girl had surprised her. Told Zoë one night around the dinner table that Serenity was their home, and Mal and Zoe were more’n family.
If there was one thing Zoë had learned over the years, it was what losing family was like.
Good thing that the girl was still with them, because Mal (and Serenity as well) couldn't have survived losing River, too. She was the only one who could fix the ship, and almost the only thing that could make Mal smile anymore. Inara had taken most of him with her, and what was left after losing another family was a mirror of the broken man she'd spent two weeks with in an Alliance camp after the Valley.
Once you're in Serenity, you don't ever leave.
Zoë had once told Simon that, trying to explain why Mal was the way he was. Mei yong de kind of notion, but the kid had been thrown into a longtime battle between Mal and his better demons, and she knew what it was like trying to deal with Mal Reynolds blind. So she'd told him some war stories (Wash had whined that why did Simon get to hear them and he didn't?), shocking Simon’s oh-so-Alliance sensibilities and getting the added bonus of shutting him up.
But she'd been right - no one left Serenity, whether it be the Valley or the ship. Zoë could still hear Simon's rattling around in the infirmary, yelling at Jayne or comforting his sister. Could catch Kaylee wandering about the engine room and hear the sound of waltzes from Earth-that-was over her Cortex connection they'd never removed. Hear Jayne methodically field-stripping his guns and doing pull-ups on the leather straps that still hung off the cargo bay's grating. Smell Inara's incense and perfume when she walked past the shuttle docks to drag Mal back to his bunk every night. Hear pages turning, and Book's low voice intoning verses she'd never known or taken comfort from. Feel Wash's warmth on the bridge and miss the plastic dinosaurs they'd given to Kaylee when they'd left her and Simon on Newhall.
And Zoë had never been able to leave this moon behind, either. It should have been an ending - the end of her and Wash and all they could have, should have been. Instead, it's a loop, bringing her back again and again.
~*~*~*~
The first time, wearing the first dress he'd ever bought her (she'd been married in it), she couldn't do anything but light the rocket and bite her lip against the tears that eventually splashed down her face and onto her dress. Big damn hero who couldn't save the man she loved this time.
The second time (one year later), she'd nearly knocked Simon out after he'd suggested she wasn't healthy enough after getting shot (again) on Whitefall. Coughing bright red onto the ground, she'd stood there defiantly, collapsing into Mal's arms halfway back to the ship (she'd never asked why he'd followed her, and he'd never asked why she needed to be there).
The third time (been two years, and still she couldn't stop waking up with memories of battlefields and battering rams), she spent the better part of an afternoon talking to him again. Babbling about jobs they'd done, people they'd met, and the week they'd just spent on Boros with Kaylee's family.
The fourth time (three years - had it been that long?), she'd apologized for everything, but mainly for sitting in his chair and piloting Serenity. She liked to believe that he'd heard her, and teased her for being so worried over it.
And the last time, they'd been dealing with Jayne's death and Inara leaving - she'd spent most of that month or so forcing Mal to get up every day and going on jobs by herself to keep them in the air.
So it had been a year since she'd seen the place. It still looked the same. Mr. Universe's grave had grown - people came from all over the 'verse to pay him their respects. The signal was still going, and he was a hero.
The two heroes beside him, though, no one knew. Book would have wanted it that way, but Wash deserved all the parades and medals in existence for his escape from the Reavers. She couldn't help but glare at the clean surroundings of Book and Wash's stones compared to the tributes at the foot of Mr. Universe's.
It was going to change this year.
~*~*~*~
She'd bought ten candles on Osiris, placed five on Book’s memorial, and set the rest on top of the stones covering her husband. With each placement, she prayed for something she'd never before wanted or needed from him - forgiveness. For not coming last year. For putting herself and their accumulated family before him. For forgetting the sound of his voice and the feel of his arms around her and the way his breath felt on the crook of her neck when they made love.
I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry.
"Ain't got nothing to be sorry for, Zoë."
For half a second, she thought it might have been Wash, talking in her head like she sometimes imagined he could. But there was no mistaking Mal's familiar rasp from over her shoulder.
Straightening up from where she was kneeling (grey dust coating her pants and boots like the snow Wash had once dumped down her back on Ita), she raised her eyes to meet her captain's.
"Beg pardon, sir, but don't be telling me what to say to my husband."
His eyes steeled over, and she knew that one had hurt. Good. Bout time Mal stopped chasing after ghosts and passing time between bullet wounds. Man should take some of his own advice once in a while.
"My apologies. Just came to see how you were doing. Been a few hours since you hijacked my shuttle without notifyin' me."
"Never needed to ask before, sir."
That once had hurt, too. Was true - she'd never needed to ask him for a thing. Not huddled together in a trench with the Valley falling around their ears. Not scared and trembling in an Alliance detention cell two weeks after Unification. Not when they'd taken to the sky in Serenity, and not when she'd accepted Wash's proposal.
He didn't have a response to that, just looked up at the sky, squinting into the horizon. Pointedly not looking at the three graves before him.
"You've never been back, have you?" she asked.
"Shenme?" She didn't elaborate, just nodded toward the cairns before her, knowing his answer already. "No. Ain't my place."
Zoë had always known her place (by his side), but she had never stopped to consider that with everyone but River and Zoë herself leaving, Mal had forgotten what his was. Was still the captain, but lately, Zoë had been filling that role. Was still flying, but it had been River and Zoë who'd kept him that way.
"Go-se. You loved him, same as I did. Book too. Don‘t say you didn‘t."
He glared at her, and she couldn't suppress the satisfaction. If she had to drag him back into this 'verse kicking and screaming - well, it wouldn't be the first time. Besides, he'd kept her sane in those endless weeks after Miranda. That's what they did for each other.
Mal dug his hands into his pockets (his browncoat - he hadn't worn it since Inara left) pinning her with his stare. "Wasn't planning to, Zoë."
She and Mal never could lie to each other. She'd begged him once, after Wash's death, to lie to her - to tell her she would be whole again, would be able to smile and laugh without feeling that stab of betrayal.
He'd refused. Said it wouldn't have been right. That words couldn't make anyone feel better, least of all her. A far cry from the times he'd place a strong hand on her shoulder and believe the lie. Like in the war, when he would recite chapter and verse, Psalm and Proverb, because it comforted not only his soldiers, but himself as well.
All the Biblical verse she knew was from him - words poured out in benediction, in rejoicing.
In mourning.
She could still hear his halting eulogy for the preacher and her husband: "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty . . .”*
Shadow. Where it had all begun one rainy night.
~*~*~*~
Mama had landed the Phoebus in Centre City (hardly a city at all, but then again, what use would Shadow have had for one?) and sent Zoë and Amelia off the ship so's they wouldn't be underfoot when business went down.
Little Amelia had held tight to Zoë's hand, and they'd barely gotten a mile down one of the roads before getting caught up in a scuffle. Most of the border planets didn't take kindly to outsiders, she'd learned. Zoë had kicked one of them but good for touching her younger sister, but the subsequent backhand to her cheekbone had sent her reeling into the dust.
Mal's blue eyes had been the first thing she could focus on. A year younger than her, and a good two inches shorter, but wo de ma, was he a sight to behold when in a righteous rage.
Even back then, barely out of short pants, he'd never tolerated bullies who messed around with womenfolk. Ginny Reynolds wouldn't have raised her boy any other way. He'd given her a hand up, inquired if Amelia was all right, and then sped off, babbling about not wanting to miss the ranchers' roping demonstration.
Hadn't even recognized him twelve or so years later on a troop carrier.
To be fair, she'd changed a bit herself. Braided hair brushed out into soft curls (because even on a battlefield, she wanted a little beauty), sparkly pink nails bitten off while waiting out an Alliance raid (she'd never paint them again - the smell of the polish just kept bringing her back to her Mama's staring eyes and the sharp snapcrack of Amelia's neck), and denim cutoffs replaced by standard-issue unisex pants and browncoat.
They'd been packed into the craft, sitting on the floor, parts of machinery, and whatever was nearest en route to the next deployment point. Zoë’d just come off a tour with the all-male 26th (known around the ‘verse as the our-brains-are-in-our-gorram-pants brigade) and was ready to spit nails at the next soldier who so much as looked at her funny.
It was Mal's dumb luck to miss his original transport and crowd onto hers. He'd tried to be funny, sitting on her lap - she'd laid him out with a right hook before she'd remembered where she'd seen those eyes. He’d cussed up a storm. She’d stammered out an apology.
They'd been together ever since.
~*~*~*~
“Never figured you as one for the religiosity. Didn’t used to be, at least.”
She looked back at him, then at the candlelit graves. “Lighting candles ain’t purely a religious thing, Mal.”
His sharp intake of breath echoed across the makeshift graveyard - first time in quite a few years she hadn’t called him “sir” or “captain”. Didn’t seem right. Not here, and not now.
“Suppose it ain’t, at that. You mind?” he asked, edging closer to the graves.
She shook her head, curls tumbling around her shoulders. Ever since Wash died, she’d tied her hair back in a knot every single morning - binding it tight to her head as if she could keep her memories of him just as close.
This morning, she’d been brushing it out, and just couldn’t bring herself to tie herself together any longer. River’s mouth had fallen open as Zoe had emerged from her bunk, and she’d touched a hesitant, grease-streaked hand to Zoë’s hair. Babbled something about eagles’ wings and waterfalls. It looked to be one of her less-lucid days, until she clearly and quietly looked up at Zoe and said she'd almost forgotten what her hair looked like.
Like Zoe herself had almost forgotten the sight of Mal on bended knee again - lips moving and an ancient prayer from Earth-that-was ghosting across the air. He’d never forgotten how to pray.
“. . . and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”**
She met his eyes, and her shock must have shown, because of a bit of the old light shone out of his eyes in response. “Can’t ever forget where you came from, Zoe. Much as I tried, the words are still there.”
Words never went away. Not the ones that mattered. “Don’t leave me” and “I promise”. “She’ll fly true” and “find someone to carry you”. Words were used sparingly and carefully chosen, but they were always there.
“Your mama’d have thrashed you but good if you’d forgotten even a word of Scripture” Zoe replied, laughing softly as she remembered Ginny pulling Mal around by the ear after he’d used profanity in public.
“That she would’ve,” he said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice.
Zoe didn’t blame him - she’d lost her own mother to those qingwa cao de liumang, same as he did. But her mama’d died on her feet, defending her ship and her family in battle. Not facedown in the dust, choking on the blood in her throat and the engineered gases blanketing Shadow’s atmosphere. The Alliance had damn near wiped out the entire planet, and Mal had been (un)lucky enough to be off planet on a run during the “cleansing”.
He’d never forgiven himself for it.
Looking down at his hands, Mal continued speaking. She wondered if he even cared if she heard. “Ma wouldn’t know me from a purplebelly now.”
“Fei hua”, she snapped, before she even realized she’d said anything.
“S’true. I ain’t hardly the same critter what spent half my days mucking out stalls and didn’t truck with no one that weren’t a godly person. Look at me, Zoe, I’m thirty-nine years old, and I’ve spent seventeen of ‘em fighting one war or other. I ain’t gonna settle down with some woman and raise a passel of kids. It just ain’t me.”
Ai ya, now she knew something was wrong. Mal never strung more'n two sentences together 'less the 'verse was falling round their ears. His speechifying was bad enough, but to add in the fact that he was the only one who brought up his past less than she did? Seemed this chat had been a long time in coming.
~*~*~*~
"Want to tell me what that load of go-se was about?"
He wouldn't look at her, keeping his eyes set on the three graves in front of him, and the three unlit candles atop them. Knew as well as he did that it should've been four, but they'd taken Jayne to Regina to be with his kin. Should've been five. Should've been them lying there.
"It was about wondering why you haven't cut your losses, Corporal."
Oh, so he'd finally decided to answer her. "We back to titles, sir?"
"Wang ba dan, Zoe, why are you still here?" Before she could offer an answer that didn't involve her immediate urge to smack him upside the head, he cut her off, getting to his feet in that quick jerk of a motion that every soldier learned before they could even lace their boots. "Not here on this moon. Here on Serenity, still following my orders like they mean a gorram thing."
Raising an eyebrow, she replied. "You kicking me off our ship, or is this some-"
"No!" He ran a hand through his hair, struggling for words. "S'just . . . we ain't at war anymore. We're barely scratching out a living and there ain't a reason in the 'verse for you to stay. You're a better pilot than half the stick jockeys out there - and you're for damn sure a better shot. I mean . . . anyone would be lucky to have you . . ."
"Are you done, Mal?"
"Will be when you tell me you're gonna do the right thing and get the hell away from me and this feng kuang life soon as you can. You - you owe me nothing."
Lord, was he being extra stupid today. She didn't stay because of some fool notion of "owing" him something. Wasn't because of anything she could ever put a name to. Just was the way it was. She placed a hand on his shoulder, unsurprised when he tensed almost immediately.
"Glad you got that outta your system, sir. Cause if I hear another word about it, I'm gonna need to respond with violence, dong ma?"
"Zoe, don't you listen-"
"I listen fine, 'cepting when my chunren captain starts spoutin' off at the mouth about should'ves and what-ifs. If I didn't want to be here, you know as well as I do that there ain't a power in the verse could keep me here. Even you. You're good - but you're not that good."
He smiled slightly, raising an eyebrow. "Sure about that?"
"Oh yeah," she said, nodding. "Patience was right, Mal - sometimes you ain't very bright."
Their eyes finally met, and they burst into simultaneous laughter. It had been so long since Mal had laughed that the sound of it surprised Zoe slightly. He shot her a curious look as she regained her composure, and she explained.
"Been a while since you've giggled like that is all."
He huffed mockingly. "I do not giggle. I chuckle. Chortle. Occasionally I guffaw."
"Whatever you say, sir."
~*~*~*~
The sun had just about set over the horizon of the border moon, and the shadows were barely touching them as they sat in front of the graves, passing a bottle of something-or- other back and forth. God knew where Mal'd had room to stash a bottle in his coat, but she wasn't going to complain about decent brew. Not while indulging in a time-honored tradition - of both the Browncoats and the crew of Serenity.
The last time they'd gotten well and truly drunk over a fallen friend, it had been after Jayne's death. Kaylee'd nearly taken a header over the catwalks. Taught them not to drink in the cargo bay. Girl would've split her head clean open if Inara hadn't grabbed onto her.
Inara. They'd never drank to Inara - not when Mal couldn't stand to hear her name.
"To Wash - the most brilliant pilot and best husband in the 'verse. Not that I'd know 'bout the husband part, of course. I hope you're still flying."
Blinking back tears, she reached for the bottle, repeating the toast. Picturing Wash's easy smile and his brightly colored shirts. That terrible mustache and the admittedly sneaky way she'd convinced him to shave it off (it had involved a short leather skirt and more cleavage than she was usually comfortable displaying). The clumsy way he tried to hold chopsticks, and would finally go searching for a fork. His hands, steady as rock when piloting a ship, trembling delicately whenever he touched her.
She swallowed, then raised the bottle in her own salute. "To Shepherd Book - the wisest and most mysterious man I've ever known. Wish we could've gotten to know you better. Rest in peace, lao peng you."
Hair like a halo (and more than a mite frightening). Steady voice, steady hands, and could shoot straighter than even her and Mal sometimes. His speechifying about kneecaps and beliefs. He’d known the Bible cover to cover, and yet found time to explore more about it. She’d liked that - that he admitted he didn’t have all the answers.
Mal raised the bottle, considering his words before toasting. “To Miss Kaywinnet Lee Frye, who never did like me to use her full name. I miss you more’n anything, mei-mei, but I like to think you’re still shiny as ever.”
Kaylee beaming with joy as she made her way down the catwalks in her ruffled dress. Ghost-pale and terrified from a gunshot wound. Sliding in and out from underneath the engine. Hands shaking too hard to hold a gun straight. Teaching River how to talk to Serenity, and fix her when she cried. Painting vines and leaves all over the kitchen and stringing Christmas lights on her door all year round.
“Simon Tam - a brilliant doctor and a boy who became a better man than his father. Most devotion I’ve ever seen outside of matrimony. Don’t give up hope yet.”
Those hideous brown sunglasses and silk vests. Stitching up crew with quicksilver hands. Soothing River when she woke up screaming about men with blue hands and watching her dance from up in the catwalks. Stuttering and stammering whenever Kaylee walked into a room. Gabriel Tam’s flat denouncement to them that he’d ever had a son - the consummate politician cutting his losses.
“Jayne Cobb - the hero of Canton. Man knew more about family than I ever will. You died two times a hero, you sumbitch.”
His stupid orange hat. Asking her every month how to spell “Serenity”. Hanging outta spaceships and watching their backs. Carrying Kaylee around on his shoulders for hoopball. Winning that stuffed frog and sending it to his niece (little Cora with her black pigtails, who’d taken a shine to Zoe from the moment they landed on Regina, following her everywhere).
Mal moved to finish off the bottle, but she held it up in one final toast.
“To Inara Serra.”
~*~*~*~
Mal froze. “Zoe, you really don’t-”
“I think I do, sir.” She didn’t give him the chance to interrupt. “She ain’t dead, and you’ve gotta stop acting as if she were.”
Zoe knew she was flying blind when it came to Mal and Inara. When the Companion had first gotten on board, Zoe didn’t need to be a reader to know she had eyes for the Captain, and that Mal’s interest had been piqued as well. Or that whatever way things turned out, it would inevitably end in tears, insults, and a return trip to Sihnon.
She figured it would be simple - they’d have a healthy, slightly anger-filled round of sex to get it out of their systems, and come to a tidy “let’s keep this strictly business” outcome.
It had become abysmally clear that Zoe should quit making predictions.
Obviously, it hadn’t worked out that way, though Inara wasn’t totally to blame. What really bothered Zoe was Inara’s constant underhanded questioning of Zoë’s opinion on the matter, which she wasn’t too inclined to give. Wasn’t as if she didn’t like the woman, but Mal’s love life was really none of her business (though it would’ve been shiny if he’d returned the favor).
Zoë’d always gotten along better with menfolk. It was a hazard of growing up on a ship and then joining the military at age 18. She’d have never lasted a day if she’d been one of those typical girl recruits joining up to stick it to their Daddies. They were cute and sweet and dead within a few weeks - a month if they were particularly lucky.
She’d thought Inara cut from the same mold, till the Londinium job. It had been a few months before they’d picked up River, Simon, and Book on Persephone, and she and Mal had just finished delivering some cargo to their usual buyer. But Lourdes had apparently decided he wanted more than their agreed-upon fee, and well, neither of them took kindly to being cheated.
Gunshots had ensued, and Mal had gotten himself into a wrestling match with one of Lourdes’ goons. He’d gone down, and Zoe had stepped up to take on the near-seven-footer, when she’d felt more than saw the arrow whiz past her head. It hit her opponent in the collarbone, and he’d gone down hard. She’d turned around in shock to see a surprisingly calm Inara lowering a longbow.
She’d proven her worth in Zoë’s eyes that day, but Zoe had still never felt at ease in Inara’s shuttle. Weren’t as if she had Mal’s puritanical views on sex (as Wash could certainly have attested to). Was just that pretty much anywhere on Serenity, Zoe was the first mate, Inara was a passenger, and there was always Mal’s shadow between them.
~*~*~*~
“You think I don’t know that?” Mal asked.
She shook her head. “Never said that. Just that you need to accept it. She ain’t dead, but she ain’t coming back either. And you’re gonna wear a hole in the shuttle docks if you spend any more nights in there.”
He squared his shoulders, making the most of the inch or so he had on her. “Don’t recall you outranking me, Corporal.”
“Last time I checked, no. But that means absolutely nothing to me right now, along with your half-assed attempt at threatening posture. Don’t rightly know if I could take you in a fight, and neither do you, cause even that beatdown I threatened you with after Miranda didn’t dissuade you from locking me in the passenger dorm and letting Simon slip sedatives in my coffee.”
There were very few times over the fifteen years she’d known Mal that Zoe had actually had the urge to throttle him. That had been one of them.
“You hadn’t slept in a week, Zoe!” he yelled, rounding Book’s memorial to face her. “Found you up on the bridge every night, keening worse’n a banshee, and you’re still angry ‘bout it five years later!”
“Damn right I’m angry,” she hissed. “You can do whatever you gorram please when it’s someone else who‘s grieving, but soon as it‘s someone you love, you turn into a robot who don’t listen to a lick of sense. Wo de ma, you think you’re the only one who’s ever lost somebody? You forget just who you‘re talking to?”
Mal opened his mouth, then closed it. With effort, he turned away, his back silhouetted against the sun that was setting beyond the mountain ranges. Without looking at her, he spoke.
“Can’t forget your conscience, Zoe. Never leaves you. Never steers you wrong. And it never breaks your trust.”
She slowly walked up behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder lightly, knowing how irksome it was when people touched you while you were mad, but not knowing how else to convince him to listen.
“Then listen to me now. Let her go, Mal. Let her fly her own path - us and that little girl in our engine room have got our own to worry about.”
He looked back at her, still the lost sailor swingin’ an albatross from his neck. He wore his sins like medals, and she’d seen them all. His Mama and the people of Shadow. The 57th, and all the other kids he’d lost to the Alliance’s massacre. Serenity Valley. Book. Wash. Jayne. River and Simon. Inara. Kaylee.
Sometimes, even Zoe herself.
~*~*~*~
He nodded slowly, then quirked a slight smile. “Little River. Ain’t so little anymore.”
“Ain’t none of us little anymore. Thought she'd make more sense when she got older, but the outlook ain't too good. Girl‘s been babbling recently ‘bout the leaves turning, and bells tolling. Something 'bout snow, too.”
“Wha-huh?”
“Thought nothing of it myself, till she started picking through my hair last night on the bridge. Said she was looking for grey.”
Mal’s immediate and heartfelt reaction had her coughing back peals of laughter - he’d run a hand through his own (decidedly grey-free) hair, and winced. She couldn’t blame him for the moment of vanity, but she’d never imagined what they would look like as they passed sixty, seventy years of age. Soldiers just didn’t live that long.
She couldn’t help but look at Wash’s grave - Lord, he’d been barely thirty-four when he’d died. He was never any manner of soldier. Neither were any of the grunts they’d lost over the long years of the war.
Maybe there was something to that old saying about only the good dying young. Maybe that’s why she and Mal and River were left. Why they had so many shared hurts between them, and yet couldn’t even begin to heal. Why they’d always stay broken.
River, with her overloaded emotions and ever-more-frightening visions.
Mal, with his lost faith and lost childhood, and constantly evolving albatross.
And Zoe, who was still stuck in that gorram Valley with nothing to battle and nothing to pull her back out again.
“Maybe you’ve got more than you think”, said Mal, doing that mind-reading of her that was beyond even River’s comprehension. “Could be that I do too.”
“So what do we have, Mal?”
The roar of Serenity’s engine drowned out anything he might have said. River’s signature piloting was apparent, even more so in atmo. She hovered for a moment, then touched down in a landing that even Wash would have called delicate. Mal grinned in spite of himself, and looked back at their ship.
“We’re still flying, Zoe, wu you. Still keeping one step ahead of everyone and everything. We‘ve got a ship, a girl who ain‘t a bad engineer, and a few jobs lined up. More than we‘ve had some other times.”
He was right. It wasn’t much, Zoe knew, but it was enough.
THE END
~*~*~*~
Mandarin Translations and Notes:
Feng le hwoon dahn - crazy bastard
Mei yong de - useless
Shenme? - What?
Go-se - crap
wo de ma - mother of God
qingwa cao de liumang - frog humping sumbitches
Fei hua - nonsense
Ai ya - damn
Wang ba dan - son of a bitch
feng kuang - loony
Dong ma? - Understand me?
chunren - idiot
lao peng you - old friend
Mei-mei - little sister
wu you - my right hand
* From Psalm 91, New Revised Standard Version Bible
** From the Nicene Creed, Lutheran Book of Worship
~*~*~*~
Feedback is hugged and squeezed and loved and called George.