(no subject)

[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]

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.