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[flybywash]

The door slides back with a clank. Wash steps down into Serenity's front hall, Tonks not far behind. There's a second's wariness on his part as she passes over the threshold -- that gŏushĭ with Crowley only happened because the demon was still alive five hundred years later, but hey, you never know when you'll be dealing with sudden wacky time travel issues again -- and then he shuts it behind her, quickly pulling it open again to reveal the bridge.

"I just gotta check the helm really fast," he says as he steps back up, smiling. "You can come take a look if you want."

Comments

[clumsy_auror]

"Chuh! Like I'd pass up a chance to see that." Tonks scampers up into the bridge after Wash, eyes eagerly taking in everything around her. Then she glimpses the field of stars beyond the windscreen, and just stops.




"Blimey."

[flybywash]

It's getting exactly that kind of reaction from the dirtbound that makes him the happiest, every time. He'll never get sick of it.

"And that," he says as he points to the windscreen, maneuvering toward the pilot's console, "is why I love my job. I've got the best excuse in the 'verse to stare at it all the time."

When he leans over and touches a screen to check the readouts, something beeps at him; Wash privately rolls his eyes and hits a sequence of keys in reply.

[clumsy_auror]

Tonks walks slowly up to stand behind the pilot's chair and rests one hand on the back; she eventually tears her gaze away from the hypnotic view of the black in order to follow Wash's movements. She watches him work, how assured and expertly he moves, and grins.

"Yeah. It's a pretty wicked gig, mate."

[flybywash]

"Not to mention exciting and occasionally alarming. We had Lilly Kane on board a couple weeks ago," he says, and with a modicum of dread, "Mal tried to give her flying lessons. I interrupted and took over his attempts at education for the sake of all -- hey."

He casts a stern look at the screen as the trilling beep starts up again, then transports a stegosaurus onto another panel to get a better look.

"Why are you doing that?" Coaxing, "Come on, don't give me that, we just fixed you four days ago. Work with me here."

Two more buttons, a solid thwap, and it stops beeping. Wash grins, satisfied.

"There we go. Sorry. There was drift. Drifting's been fixed."

[clumsy_auror]

"Not drifting is good, I would imagine, when in space. I mean there could be... asteroids to run into, or something."

Picking up a brachiasaur, she makes it march along the top of the console with the appropriate noises in accompaniment. Then the first bit of what Wash said catches up with her.

"...Mal let Lilly drive this thing?"

[flybywash]

"Yeah." Dryly, "And didn't tell me until we veered off course so hard I almost fell into a wall. Sometimes? Our captain is not the brightest star in the black."

He puts a hand over his heart, grinning.

"But I content myself in knowing that it's my job to say things like that and get away with it."

[clumsy_auror]

"Indeed. Plus when he does silly stuff like that, it's job security for you, right? Someone's got to be the clever one."

She grins back, and carefully puts the brachiasaur back in its rightful spot.

[flybywash]

Wash gives it a fond pat on its tiny head. He can always appreciate somebody who knows how to appreciate his dinosaurs.

"Exactly. So! Onto the bunk and the spellcasting?"

[clumsy_auror]

"Absolutely," 'Dora replies, drawing her wand and twirling it deftly between her fingers. "Lead on."

[flybywash]

They head back out into the front hallway, Wash taking the small flight of stairs with care. Sloping ladders are spaced at regular intervals on either wall; since Kaylee moved into Simon's room, bringing her sign and Christmas lights with her, there's nothing to indicate they lead to the crew bunks.

Not until Wash braces a hand on the top rung of the second ladder on the right, kicks it in, and balances there for a precarious moment as he calls down, "Zo'? You down there?"

No answer. Wash waits a couple seconds longer, just in case she's waking up from another nap, then glances back at Tonks and says, "Aaaand that'd be a no. Okay, watch your step on the second to last rung, it got bent a little funny a while back -- "

And down he goes.

[clumsy_auror]

She navigates the ladder carefully; she knows herself well enough to know that she could be on her arse in a matter of seconds if she doesn't take it slowly.

Finally she jumps down to the floor, and blinks at the surroundings. She's not sure what she expected, but it wasn't really this.

"...It's so homey."

[flybywash]

There's a large red tapestry above the bed, and a few more dinosaurs standing sentry on the nightstand, and photographs tucked into the cubbies along the back wall. One of the few things that gives it away as being on a spaceship at all is the comm/wavescreen and command keyboard mounted by the ladder, glowing a bright blue in the otherwise warm lighting.

Wash grins, almost embarrassed, as he leans against the wall.

"We gotta do what we can," he says. "It is home."

[clumsy_auror]

"That it is," 'Dora agrees, and then begins eyeing the bunk with a critical gaze, nodding to herself now and again.

Finally she raises her wand and begins casting the spells; one large silencing charm takes care of most of the job, and a few extra reinforcements on the air vents should do the job.

If there's one thing Tonks has learned well in the last year or so, it's silencing charms.

"There. I think that ought to hold you for a bit. They do wear off now and again, though, so if you start to get complaints just let me know and I'll touch 'em up."

[flybywash]

Watching her work, Wash's expression isn't unlike the one Tonks had herself earlier on the bridge.

(With a tiny side of the usual rueful curse you, genetics, for not letting me be able to do this too, of course. Just a bit.)

"Shiny. Xiexie again for helping out with this -- Jayne, I'm sure, will be very willing to tell us when to," he drops into something that's not a bad approximation of Jayne's gruff Rim accent, "'fix yer gorram charmy-things already.'"

He jerks his head in the direction of Jayne's bunk.

[clumsy_auror]

She laughs. "Yeah, I reckon he will." 'Dora casts a considering eye around the room. "She gonna get her own bunk when she's old enough?"

[flybywash]

"Yeah, we're hoping." He scratches the shell of his ear. "My old bunk's still empty from when I moved in here, and there's Kaylee's, if she's willing to part with it for good -- I don't wanna put her all the way downstairs if we can help it."

Way too many stairs, for one.

[clumsy_auror]

"Good plan. When they start in on a sudden howling fit, the less space between you and them, the better."

Her slightly haunted look should be telling Wash volumes.

[flybywash]

Wash shudders.

"Suddenly I'm harboring this overwhelming resentment toward the scientific community at large for not inventing teleportation yet."

[clumsy_auror]

Tonks grins sheepishly. "Well, if you were a wizard..." In demonstration, she closes her eyes and Apparates from one side of the room to the other.

[flybywash]

Stare.

Sputter.

"You! And the making me jealous! You're doing it again!" Sulkily, as he folds his arms, "You know, I blame you for my lack of magicial talent. I don't know how. Or why. But you're the only possible target in this room, so: blaming."

He's smiling as he says it, though.

[clumsy_auror]

"Make Naomi marry a wizard," she laughs, "and see what genetics does for you. Really, it's a bit of a gamble in any event. I dunno that all of my kids'll be magic either, so."

As she speaks, Tonks has been climbing the ladder in order to examine the hatch. "You know," she continues, voice slightly muffled, "I think I can do a sort of modified version of the spells I've got on our kids' rooms, once Naomi moves into another bunk. So that when she cries, you'll get a kind of a warning wherever you are. Ours are attached to bracelets, but you can use whatever you want." Climbing back down the ladder, the witch holds up her arm to show Wash the enchanted bracelet.

[flybywash]

"You could?"

Wash carefully touches the bracelet, studying it curiously.

"Here I was thinking I was gonna have to rig a one-way line between the bunk comms...or just rely on the fact that this ship's one big gorram echo chamber," he adds with a tiny grin. "I like this plan better."

He could rig it up to one of his dinosaurs! It'd be an excuse to keep one around all the time!

(Or not.)

[clumsy_auror]

"Well, talk it over with Zoe, see what works best for the both of you. We've got a while yet anyway, till it comes to that. I'm sure I'll find an excuse to come back and visit the ship one way or another."

Tonks grins, and then blinks.

"You know, it just hit me that I'm five hundred years in the future. That's... really beyond words."

[flybywash]

He laughs.

"Felt like that going to New York the first time. 'Earth? No, really: I'm standing on Earth?'" He holds up both hands, pantomiming a sign. "Milliways: Bar, Boarding House, and Cross-Time and -'Verse Travel Agency. Too bad everybody outside the bar'd think we're fēngle if we printed up flyers."

Wash glances up the ladder, then grins at Tonks.

"You want a quick tour so long as you're here?"

[clumsy_auror]

Tonks tries not to be too gleeful at this offer. And fails. "Ooooh. Yes please!"

[flybywash]

Wash beams and rubs his hands together. "Then a tour you shall get," he intones, and gets to work hopping up the ladder.

[clumsy_auror]

The witch clambers up the ladder after him, and soon the ship echoes with the sounds of her eager questions and the pilot's genial replies.

And Tonks only falls down the stairs once.

Miracles do happen.