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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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."

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

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