flybywash | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's late. Naomi's having a fitful night, but it seems like she's finally settled down for good.

Her parents? Not so much yet.

Wash falls back onto the bed with all due melodrama, seizes a pillow, and claps it down over his eyes. "Nnnnngh."

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"Yeah. Me too. Even just every other night'd be shiny."

He flips back the pillow and stuffs it under his head, then drapes an arm around Zoe's waist.

"I mean that literally," he adds. "It's shining way in the distance like a beacon of actual rest and joy."

"Everyone's gotta have a dream."

Zoe shifts into a more comfortable position, turning onto her side.

"Mine also includes a sizeable estate and my own personal fleet of ships." Serene.

As serene as one can be when they've spent the last hour trying to get a crying baby to sleep.

That earns him an amused but somewhat dubious look.

"What, we don't get up t' enough trouble with th' one ship?"

Wash grins the grin of one with an undefeatable plan. "But see, this'll let us rotate the trouble around a little. Like ceramic couplings. Keep the trouble from wearing through one spot."

Absently, he traces a small line up and down her hip with his thumb.

Zoe snorts, but good-naturedly, nestling a bit closer.

"Whatever you say, dear."

It's too late to maintain normal levels of snarky banter.

Smugly, he yawns and presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

Then, for a while, he doesn't say anything else, and the smirk fades away.

Quietly, "How're you doing?"

Zoe lets out a small, tired sigh, and doesn't answer right away.

Finally, "Mal talk to you about settin' a new course yet?"

"Yeah. Handed over a piece of paper with the coordinates and tried to run away -- luckily, I used my wily skills of deduction to catch him first."

It falls flat, much as he may try.

"He told me he talked to you about it."

And that tips up into a question.

Zoe nods against her pillow. "He did, yeah."

It's another moment or two before she adds, "I got no problem with him goin' back, I just...I'm not sure what I'm gonna do when we get there."

His hand moves upward to her hair, carefully smoothing it.

"You could keep me company," he suggests. "Or I could keep you company. Company-keeping can happen on somebody's part somewhere."

He wants to say you don't have to go back there.

He doesn't.

Zoe smiles, albeit a bit wryly.

"Was thinkin' I might hide out in Milliways for a while. If I decide not t' go with Mal."

And that last part comes out as uncertain as anything Zoe ever says.

The hand stills for a moment before continuing its gentle strokes.

"You want me to come with you if you do go with Mal?"

Slight emphasis on the 'if.'

There's a long pause. Then,

"...Would you want to?"

It's hard to think of Serenity Valley as a cleaned-up site with a memorial, as anything but the battlefield she knew it as. Which doesn't make the thought of Wash being there the most pleasant.

The phrase 'elephant in the room' fell out of common usage some centuries ago, but it's as good a descriptor of Serenity Valley as any.

They don't speak about it much, if ever. And he's been curious about it, but he's got no right to trample all over something like that; bring it up, intrude when there's no need.

Wash doesn't want to go. Not really. But if there's a need, well, there's no question.

"If you want me there, yes."

A beat. A tiny smile.

"Not to go all circular and spiral-y on this conversation or anything."

Zoe talks about the Valley when she has to. When people don't know what it was like, and ought to; when something else brings it up, the way it happened with Atwood.

But there's a difference between delivering the facts as stoically as she can manage to someone else, and really talking about it to Wash.

Zoe's smile is faint, and a bit shaky, and she covers one of his hands with hers, rubbing gently.

"It means a lot t' know you would." That's a little shaky, too.

She pauses, then adds, in a firmer tone, "Thing is, though, 'm not sure I'd want Naomi there. So if I did end up goin'..."

"Yeah."

His smile goes a bit crooked.

"I can do that."

Even if it takes a firm mental reminder that she won't be alone out there, and another to tamp down on a brief, familiar flash: that this is something for her and Mal, and never for Wash.

He squeezes her hand, leaning in to kiss her.

Zoe wouldn't deny that, if called on it. Wash and Naomi occupy one part of her life, the Valley another, and as much as the experience may not have wounded her as deep as it did Mal, she keeps those parts of her life seperate when she can.

When the kiss breaks, she drops her head against the curve of his neck, with another faint smile.

"Xiexie."

"Hey, it's what you keep me around for."

He rubs her shoulder, hiding a grin. Some of it leaks into his voice anyway.

"Well, that and my sense of humor and rakishly handsome looks."

Zoe lifts her head enough to give him a look that says a pillow to the face can be arranged, you know.

The effect is slightly spoiled by the fact that she leans in to kiss him a moment later.

This, Wash would emphasize, is much better than a pillow to the face.

Which is probably why it lasts a while.

Though it's not long afterward, and with little fanfare, that exhaustion gets the better of both of them. Their bunk drifts into a sleepy silence.

(Until the next time Naomi wakes up crying.)

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