someonetocarryyou | AU: Post-Serenity // Wash // Milliways-shaped place

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au: dead wash

AU: Post-Serenity // Wash // Milliways-shaped place

Be a good soldier.

No matter how many men they lost, no matter how many battles they saw, that was the only way to push through.

Do the job.

Don't let the living down.

Mourn if you have time, not when you have time.

Zoë remembers every name of every man she put in the ground during the war and after. Hundreds. Men and women she fought beside, fought with. Men and women on the other side. Soldiers she shared rations with, blankets, foxholes, dirty jokes

hope.

They don't leave you, no matter if they were your zhì yǒu — close friends — or just the person you bled beside for an hour. They bind. They leave an epithet in your memory. You think of their names when you burn incense. You never forget. And, most importantly, you make sure you're a damn good soldier to honor their memory.

Time has passed since she put Wash in the ground; enough that the crew's back to something akin to rights, but not so much that the sight of Milliways doesn't make the hair on her arms stand on end. You could never see it if you were on the outside. She's as steady as ever. But, on the inside, she's poised.

Fight or flight.

(Fight.)

"Wēishìjì, qǐng," she says as she approaches the bar. The liquor appears in her hand as she sits, back to a corner and every exit visible. She'll take fifteen minutes to mourn.

And then she'll go back to doing the job.

"Xièxiè."

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He can't say how long it's been, time doesn't much seem to matter anymore. People come, people go, but he stays behind. Gui hun - the word sticks in his mind as he watches them, waiting for someone he used to know. A ghost.

Not a ghost, he's learned, but all the same not who he was before. He can enjoy the same things he did before, but he can never go back to the way things were. And knowing that hurts worse than almost anything.

But not as bad as knowing that people he used to know have been around - he's heard stories about Mal and even...

He hides now, in plain sight sitting in front of the fireplace in a loud print shirt with his nose tucked into Sherlock Holmes novel and a strawberry daiquiri in his hand just to feel the cold chill seep into his skin - to remind himself that he can still feel even though he knows for sure he didn't survive the crash.

"Xièxiè."

He hasn't heard that voice in what seems like an age, though it could have been yesterday for all that it matters, and when he does he's at first struck with the memory - Xièxiè lǎogōng - and then the realization that it isn't his mind playing tricks this time.

"Lǎopó," the word rolls off his tongue with the dry rasp of man that's not spoken in some time; "Zoe."

The bar is busy. It usually is, but tonight there's some sort of celebration happening to the western end, and an argument that looks ready to burst into a fight to the northeast of the room.

It's loud, but a chill skirrs down her spine when she thinks she hears something.

Familiar.

Quiet.

Comfortable.

She keeps to herself, avoiding trouble (unless Mal is here), staying out of fights (unless Mal is here); she drinks, she pays, she goes. It's easier that way. But tonight, ice in her skin, she begins scanning faces.

Not knowing what she's looking for.

(But knowing all the same.)

The noise doesn't bother him much anymore, at first he didn't know if they even knew he was there at all so he kept quiet - but after a while he learned that it just didn't matter in the long run. People fought, people fell in love, people laughed and cried.

People died.

He didn't know what kept him there, why no matter what door he tried to open, it wouldn't budge. For a long time he thought it might hell to be stuck at the end of the 'verse with the living. Then he realized it's not that easy. He's just... stuck. Like a never-ending vacation in the black.

Still, he can't shake the nagging feeling there's a reason he's there. It tugs at him just like the tingles on the back of his neck that make him look up and toward the bar for a face that's never there.

Until it is. "Zoe." He says again, dropping his drink without even noticing it as he rushes up to his feet."

"Wife! Zoe!" He shouts, grinning so wide that it cracks his dry lips and makes his face look like it could well break. He drops his book in the pool of pink blended booze and jumps over the back of the sofa he'd been curled up at one end of - stumbling, almost loping to the bar.

Edited 2012-07-21 21:25 (UTC)

"Husband?"

The alarm carries, though in her own head it felt like her voice was no more than a strained whisper. She sees him — wa kào, how could she miss him? — and stands bolt upright.

"Wèile shàngdì de yuángù, āi! Wash?"

He might look like a damn fool, but for the moment - he is.

Without even thinking what she must think seeing him here and like this, he wraps his arms around her and squeezes her tightly - finding her lips like they've never been gone.

Like he was never gone. And lǎotiān, does it feel amazing to hold her and smell her and feel her and be right there.

"Zoe... Zoe... you're here, you're really here..." He murmurs into her hair, cupping her face in both hands as he kisses her again.

She doesn't know what to think.

On the one hand, her instincts kick in right away. Don't eat the apple; a starving belly ain't worth losing your head. She looks around the room for anyone who might be too interested in their reunion. Her fingers brush her gun.

In the next second, her body's colliding with his. He tastes the same, smells the same, feels the same. He kisses the same. His red hair tickles her fingers the same. She knows the dead can come to this place. It wasn't anything she really thought too hard on before Wash died, but ever since she hasn't been able to get the thought out of her head.

Surprising herself, silent tears streak down her face.

"You're late, Husband. I was beginning to worry."

He chokes on the knot in his throat and nods against her, brushing away the wetness with cheeks as though there's not enough closeness in the world.

"Sorry honey, I lost track of time..." he manages, but the humor's caught behind a shaking sob as he buries his face in her collar, clinging just to be sure she's there at all.

And then it hits him - what if... no... no, women like Zoe don't just die - they go down in a blaze of glory and hail of bullets, taking down half the alliance with them. At least half.

"You, uh... are you, I mean... you didn't..."

He swears under his breath against her throat, finding her skin with his lips to assuage his nerves. "Please tell me everything's all right."

She wraps her arms around him, leaning into the familiar sensation of his head in the crook of her neck. Every second she concentrates harder, testing and retesting reality.

She dreams about him sometimes.

She thinks she sees him out of the corner of her eye, crossing the catwalk, spinning the pilot's seat.

Is this really so different?

"What?" she says, hands pulling back to cradle his jaw. She looks him dead in the eye, the line between her eyebrows deep. "Everything's fine, Wash. The cap'n, Kaylee, Inara — we made it out. Mal got the word out there."

She tenses her jaw, resting her forehead against his.

"It's over."

Over? It's never over... that just...

"What... they're..." If he's going to learn how to talk again, best be getting on it, so he closes his eyes and lets himself relax against her; "It's really over? All of it?"

His breath catches again and he manages to add; "Did anyone else... I mean, you're still..."

One hand slides to her chest, pressing tight between her breasts but not for anything more than to feel the steady lull of her heart beating faster than he remembers it ever going. "You're alive. Everyone is alive?"

Admittedly, part of him couldn't believe that any of them had made it out of the black - but if he had to pick the survivors it'd be Zoe and Mal. Between the two of them, Wash always thought they could survive anything.

"Not all of it," she admits. "The Alliance ain't happy. They've got a real bureaucratic gǎo zále on their hands, and we're the ones that caused it. But it ain't so bad as having the good doctor and River on-board. The job's done. People know."

She presses her eyes shut when his hand closes over her heart, covering it with one of her own. She's fine. Healthy. Real healthy, even.

"Everyone's alive, but they got to Mr. Universe. The cap'n said some nice words at the funeral, but seein' as how his widow's mostly metal the real poetry was lost," she smirks. "Said some nice words for the shepherd, too. And you."

Her fingers tighten around his hand.

His jaw stiffens at the mention of his own funeral and he forces himself to think only about the warmth in his arms, his wife... the only woman he ever loved, ever needed. "Wish I could have been there;" he half-jokes, sniffing back the urge to just let it all out in a big gooey mess. She wouldn't mind, never did, but he wanted to at least try and keep it together.

"Captain aint much for poetry anyway."

"I think he was relieved she didn't hit him. Seems he has better luck with robots."

With a watery smile, she tries to rub the worry lines from his face with her thumb.

She doesn't want to let go, but it's time to take care of him. "Bao bei, you should sit down."

Wash can't help but laugh, looking up at her with wet - relived eyes. So much has changed... but she still looks just like he'd left her, maybe a little more worn down... a little harder, but that's to be expected. He smiles all the wider when she touches his face with her strong hands, nuzzling against the easy touch.

"I should be wherever you are, if you sit - I shall sit." He grins, turning his face to kiss her thumb. "I'd spend a whole other lifetime sitting if you wanted me to."

With a wry twist of her mouth, her strong hands slide to his shoulders and direct him to a stool.

"As romantic as that is, honey, sittin' is the last thing I could think of spending a lifetime doing with you. But, seems to me we've got some catchin' up to do." She gives him a firm look, like he may just evaporate at any moment. "What's the last thing you remember?"

The last thing? Well, that'd be the great big metal... wait, no...

He lets her guide him onto a stool, hooking one foot on a rung and finding her and to squeeze again - just adoring the fact that he can hold her hand.

Swallowing hard, it's all he can do not to bury his face against her again just thinking about it. He guesses some... dead... dwell on those final moments, on what happened and if it could have been avoided. He hadn't thought about it since everything went black.

"The crash," he whispers; "I was so happy we all made it... and I remember you, and then nothing."

His throat closes again, feeling suddenly dry - how, he didn't care to know... he didn't need things like water but yet...

"I don't even know how long it's been."

Something breaks behind the surface; hidden cracks in a clay teapot that's seen its last cup. He'll notice anyway. He usually does.

"That sounds about right."

She ain't ashamed to admit some part of her hoped maybe he'd stuck around. Could have haunted Serenity, maybe heard one of the qiān conversations she'd tried to have with him alone in the black. She kisses him hard, lingering long enough to be reaffirming.

"It's been a year," she quavers when they break. "It's been a year since the crash, out there."

His hands squeeze hers again, a phantom ache cutting through his chest.

A year. A lot can happen in a year. Everything can happen in a year.

Swearing under his breath, he shakes his head and manages to once more focus on her sweet, missed face. "I'm sorry... I wanted to be there so bad..."

"Bǎochí ānjìng. I know, Husband."

What she doesn't say is she wanted that, too. Ached for it. Couldn't bear to let go. Because in the end, she did, she had to, and right now she wants him focusing on what they got rather than what they don't.

She cups his cheek, that line between her eyebrows growing deeper. She smiles grimly, touching her forehead against his. "Better late than never."

When he closes his eyes, he can feel her warmth - her whole being like the part of him that's been missing since it all happened.

His lips move, but there are no words - only feelings and fears and desires.

He's missed so much... so much time, so many adventures...

So much of her.

Aiya, she's missed that about him. The way he gets himself all dug in like a tick, his head and his heart working too hard on everything all at once that he forgets things like speaking and moving. He always was the heart she thought she'd left somewhere on the battlefield. He reminded her what it was to laugh and cry, sometimes all at once.

It's what she's doing now, laughing for the joy of him, tears streaking her cheeks for everything else.

"We got a lot to say, Husband. I just don't know where to start."

The wetness of her tears makes his all the more easy - silent, hardened by the reality of his situation. He's not getting out of this.

"I want to hear everything," he pulls back, kissing a dark streak down her perfect cheek. "Somewhere quiet... anywhere with you."

She nods, an almost imperceptible bob of understanding. She can take control. It's what she's been trained to do.

The Bar provides them with a key, numbered 53R3N1TY. She stacks up two cups and hooks her bottle of liquor, keeping her other hand firm in his.

Nothing stops them on their way through the bar.

She's always been the strong one - it's why he married her to begin with. He needed that strength, he always has. Part of him always will, even after it's no really that important anymore.

Squeezing her palm tight, he follows close at her heels and for the first time in what feels like forever it's like they're back on the ship - her strong arm tugging him through the corridors to their quarters, anticipation welling up inside him like he was a kid again.

But for the sound of boots on iron grating, the echoes of laughter off the bulkheads, this could be normal.

Ta ma de, she wishes it were normal.

She finds the door the key belongs to, and releases Wash's hand long enough to unlock it and push her way inside, turning on the light. It looks ghostly similar to their room on Serenity. It hasn't changed much since Wash died, but after a year little things are different. Zoë looks around, noticing what hasn't been in a solar year, the double-edged comfort and stab of the room that had belonged to them, full of his presence.

She sets the bottle and glasses down, moving slowly enough they barely make a sound.

He's silent beside her when she opens the door, letting himself linger even when she lets go of his hand because he can't imagine being anywhere else - even when he could with only the smallest thought.

When the door opens, pain cuts through him - memory, regret, loss and the tingle of the anger he'd felt after he passed on to where he'd landed.

"Bu Kuh Nuhn..." he whispers, shaking his head in disbelief. It's not a replication for him... it's home. It's their home. "I can't..."

For a long moment, his feet refuse to move, he simply stands in the open doorway and watches her move with the grace of an angel - his angel, a little harder around the edges but when wasn't she?

"I can ask for somethin' else." Her voice is even, not a single emotion betraying her calm except that line that's grown a little deeper between her brows. "Zhàngfū, I didn't know."

Her heart beats faster. She wants to pretend, just for a minute, that this is real. Home, with him, the way it should have been after Miranda. Not--

She can't pretend. She's too afraid of losing him again.

He shakes his head slowly, taking a tentative step over the threshold - and then several more to run his fingers over the familiar bed.

"No... this is..."

Home? Right? Terrifying? Soul crushing?

"Fine."

She doesn't say anything.

Watching him cross the threshold, her shoulders relax minutely. She follows him with her eyes, schooling the fear in her expression.

She's waiting for him to make the first move this time.

It's an experience, like everything else has been... learning to be dead. Learning what it's like to only exist in one place that is just as unreal as he is. But everything he's seen so far has paled in comparison to being home again - to being in the same room with the woman he loves again. He'd cross the black and back again for her - go to the very end of time and then some for her...

He'd die for her. And die again, and again if he could.

Silently, he examines the room with his fingertips - touching things he can only remember by touch. "Do you remember this?" he asks with a dry smile, holding up a doll from somewhere he couldn't remember with only the sensation that it was important at the time.

Muttering under his breath, he sits on the edge of the bed - clutching it protectively.

"I don't... remember."

She feels a pang in her chest, but she masks it well.

"How could I forget?"

She smiles slow, making her careful way over to where he's sitting. "One of our first less-than-reputable jobs. Cap'n had us smugglin' Russian nesting dolls from some backwater planet to Deadwood. 'Course, we didn't know till we got there that they were stuffed with dú pǐn. Or that the shiny new mayor had Moldovan interests at heart." She laughs, a little hapless. "Hadn't heard the Captain so colorful since the transport out of Serenity Valley. And that was the first time we really saw what you could do behind the controls."

She sits beside him, placing her hand on his thigh. Could be that was the day she started falling in love with him, too. "A day later we were holed up in Hope, and you found this two-bit yīkuài lèsè doll at a trading post. Gave it to me as a memento."

It's not fair, the things he lost - and when she explains the warmth washes over him with a tingling back of guilt. He should have remembered it, and it worries him that he still doesn't even after her soft laugh and warm touch.

"I was falling in love..." he murmurs, leaning easily against her - reveling silently in the way their bodies still fit together.

After a soft sigh, he laces his hand in hers - consciously aware of the weight of it of feeling her beside him.

"Tell me." He doesn't have to be specific, there's a darkness over her that says there's something he should know or remember and doesn't.

"You were trippin' head-first into love," she corrects, amusement in her voice. "You and that awful mustache you used to have."

The laughter's the only thing keeping her shoulders straight when he leans into her. That line is still there between her eyebrows.

She takes a breath and releases it, carefully reaching for the doll in his hands. She holds it in front of him. "Now, this belongs to Naomi.

"Our daughter."

He's still back on the mustache - which in retrospect was horrible, and yet she still fell for him despite it - when she drops the bomb on him.

Our daughter.

The words tumble out of his mouth before he even has time to think; "Shu muh? Lao-tyen, boo." He takes a deep breath, forcing himself to look up at her; "No... no... please tell me that's a poorly timed joke."

Zoë's never been the sort to dance around things. She can keep a secret well enough, but not like this.

And not from him.

"Ain't no joke, Husband." Steady, even, soft; everything she's not inside. "I didn't know till a couple months after Miranda."

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

"She's beautiful. Healthy."

He's still for a long moment, his back stiff and mind whirling as he takes it all in. Aint like flying, that he can take anything that's thrown at him in stride - not that he's done any of it since... well... - this is life. Life he's missing.

Pushing himself up off the bed, he picks up a ceramic vessel and throws it down, the rage catching him off guard long enough to push over a table before collapsing to the floor.

"It's not fair!"

She barely flinches.

As much as she wants to go to him, instinct tells her to wait. Let him get it out of his system. Pick up the pieces once they're done falling.

"No, it ain't. It ain't fair at all." She takes a breath. "But that's the way it is."

Her eyes squeeze shut.

True rage is a tough thing to pull out of him, but when it comes out it aint pretty. And it's usually followed by the soft sniffing of a man trying not to appear just as weak as he is in front of the only person he's ever loved.

Biting into his lower lip, he crumbles with his head in his hands - fighting back what he knows will come.

"Is..." he chokes on his own sob, unable to even ask a question.

Strength or weakness, laughter or rage, Zoë's always loved him for who he is.

She opens her eyes and watches him, watching the fury leak out.

Soon.

"Is what?"

He knows it's a stupid question, of all the things he could ask about - should ask about - it's the first thing that seems willing to make it past the lump in his throat.

"Is she..." he stares into his hands, unable to even look her in the eyes. "She's mine?"

She's stunned.

"Tā mā de, Husband. How can you ask me that?"

It hasn't been long enough for her pillowcase to dry of her tears, let alone for her to invite somebody new into her bed.

"Yes, Wash. She's yours."

He's sorry as soon as it leaves his lips and the stunned answer only makes him flush hot and pink around the ears

"I am a... colossal..." his tongue trips over much worse words before settling on; "...idiot."

But he's upset and doesn't even know how to begin to take this sort of news.

"Yes, you are. And I'm the idiot who married you."

She gets up at last, and crouches beside him. Swallowing down the frustration, she sets to laying her hand on his back, comforting-like.

"I'm the idiot who finally agreed to start a family with you. And I'm the very, very lucky idiot who got a beautiful baby girl to remind me of you every single day."

He shakes his head, leaning into her strong shoulder with a low sigh - enjoying the simple touch he's missed for what seems like an eternity.

"Go figure I'd be too dead to enjoy it."

Wash closes his eyes, trying to imagine what their baby girl must look like, what her life is like.

Grief stabs her quick and deep.

"You're dead, Husband, but someone out there's seen fit to bring you here. Are you gonna waste it curled up on the floor feeling sorry for yourself, or are you gonna get up and look at me—"

Please look at me.

"—and make the most of whatever time we've got?"

Shyly, he looks up - managing a half smile. "Sorry, I just... I can't believe it."

He can't believe any of it, like part of him will always be watching the black unfold in front of them where he belongs... not cooped up somewhere that zaps him every time he tries to leave.

She cups his cheek.

She couldn't believe it, either. Not the day Dr. Tam handed her this beautiful little bundle; not the day she found out the sickness wasn't just in mourning; not the day Wash was taken from her. She wonders if he remembers her begging him to get up, if he heard her then, if he'll ever remember.

(They had to drag her away.)

She half-smiles back. "I'll tell you about her, if you'll let me."

Nodding, he allows himself to lean against her - eyes half-lidded at the sensation of her familiar warmth so close to him again.

"I'd like that."

She's spent days in worse places than the floor of a hotel room, so she stays put. However long he needs her to.

"She's - tiny," she begins, laughter touching her voice. "And perfect. She frowns same way you do, forehead all pinched up. She can make a fuss like you, too."

She nudges him, running a hand up and down his spine.

"And she smells like honey, and earth, and wind. Perfect soft, sweet skin. Tiny li'l fists. She grabbed on to the Captain's nose once and wouldn't let go."

[OoC: HI! *shifty* So I was re-reading old threads and found this one and saw I failed to tag it and IT WAS JUST SO GREAT that I went ahead and tagged it and I know it's been forever but YOU ARE GREAT and you can completely ignore this and I am rambling but basically, HI! I heart them. *flees*]

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AU: Post-Serenity // Wash // Milliways-shaped place

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