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[flybywash]

When he hasn't been sleeping or reading through the enormous stack of comics Tonks left for him, Wash has been practicing. Even with the crutches, he can't get too far from the bed before his good leg starts quivering from overexertion, and each attempt's been punctuated with a long, bone-tired nap.

At least he can keep his balance now, though.

Mostly.

Currently he's glancing at the crutches over the top of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle #12, Petrie snoozing on the pillow next to him, and debating whether or not to give it one more try today.

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[flybywash]

His eyes go to the door as he hitches in a small, quiet breath.

"Kaylee?"

[gonna_live]

There's a soft thunk. Kind of like somebody's head falling against the door.

Then:

"Ow." It's tremulous. "I -- yeah. It's...it's me."

Pause.

"Is it you?"

The reason the door is still closed is that Kaylee is rather...nonsensical, right about now. Just like Wash coming back from the dead.

[righthandwoman.livejournal.com]

Next to Wash--she's probably not going to be too far from Wash for a while, if she has her druthers, Zoe smiles.

There's probably going to be a lot of that for a while, too.

"Quickest way for you to find that out is to open the door, honey."

[gonna_live]

Of course the first glimpse that Wash will have of Kaylee since it happened will have the mechanic at hand in tears.

The door swings open. Kaylee's resting a hand on the doorjamb.

"Wei."

[flybywash]

"Hey." Soft, warm. "No crying. I can only handle three crying girls a week and Lilly, Faith, and Zoe already beat you out."

He beckons her over.

[gonna_live]

And she comes -- slowly at first, as though she can't quite summon up enough belief to make herself move.

Kaylee holds out a hand to him. She's wiping at her eyes with the other.

"Took me two gorram days to get both consoles to recognize the new port thruster without you."

What else do you say to someone who was dead...and now isn't?

[flybywash]

He takes her hand, gives it a reasonably solid squeeze.

And then he pulls her into a hug.

"Well, somebody's still gotta look out for her when I'm not around."

[gonna_live]

It has something to do with the fact that nobody will quite understand like Wash can what it was like to have to fix Serenity after they were the ones to break her -- it has something to do with this that Kaylee finds it very difficult to break the no crying rule.

Very difficult.

She holds on as long as she can without doing it, and then says softly, "So how're you doin'?"

[flybywash]

"Hell of a lot better than I was." Beat. Wry, "Which, granted, could mean I'm a comatose blind quadriplegic. But I'm doin' all right."

[gonna_live]

"Good."

Pause.

"It's damn hard to know what to say." A helpless grin. "You know?"

[flybywash]

Wash chuckles with some self-depreciation. "Yeah. 'So, how did being dead treat you?' kinda ranks down there on the cheery and useful conversation topics."

He pulls his left leg up, tugs his right one out of the way, and pats the bed as an invitaton to sit.

"Tell me how the repairs went. Think she's still gonna let me fly her?"

[gonna_live]

Kaylee drops down on the bed. Carefully. "Shi a -- what the hell kind of question is that? She was banged up real good, but you know that. Mal and Jayne oversaw all the heavy stuff -- takin' off the cannon up top, makin' sure the new port thruster got attached. The works in back caught fire, too, but systems stopped that before too much damage could be done. All told...better part of a week and a half before she was able to move anywhere other than where she got towed."

[flybywash]

"Week and a half's not too bad."

He's hissing slightly in sympathetic pain, anyway.

"Wish I coulda been there. So she's already airb -- ?" And he winces again, this one overexaggerated. "Oh, ow. Mal's flying her, isn't he."

[gonna_live]

"It was either him or me, and I got my own work to do -- and he's way better at it than I am." A quiet sigh. "But -- yeah. He's...he's flyin' her."

Her smile grows.

"But not for long."

[flybywash]

"Not long at all," he agrees with a quiet smile of his own. "Gimme a few more days and some quality time with one of the flight sims to make sure I don't...."

A vague hand wave. "Ah, you know. Better to crash one of those things than fall out of the sky and lose both thrusters next time."

[gonna_live]

"You wouldn't." Simple truth. "Figure you know that as well as we do."

[flybywash]

He isn't sure he does. Won't be, until he makes it upstairs to room 76 sometime.

Wash got the boat in the air, and got them back down without killing anyone, but --

He smiles anyway, does a half-shrug.

[gonna_live]

"You're gonna find everything pretty much how you left it. Neither the primary or secondary consoles had to be replaced...just fiddled with, a little. Extenders are a little short now -- we're gonna have to find a way to make 'em longer or replace 'em, but in the meantime, ride's apt to be a bit bumpier than it was."

Mal's the one who's good with the metaphors. Having read Coleridge, and whatnot.

Kaylee does good to catch the sex jokes in Shakespeare.