Disclaimer: Joss es el Boss.
A/N: I heart Zoë. This is written with the prompt Five Reasons Zoë has for Living, all Post-BDM, all Zoë PoV.
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v
River still takes to hiding in Serenity's belly and there ain't no getting her out. Not by Simon's logic or Kaylee's sweetness or Mal's authority. The girl hides in the shadows and snaps at reaching hands.
"Won't do no good." Zoë says, crouching by the entrance, "Ordering her about." So she leans forward, arms tight at her side and tells the girl the boogie men have all gone away.
iv
Jayne ain't quite the heartless thing they figured him to be, but that don't mean they can trust him, just on account that he walked through fire with them once. So Zoë just makes sure he understands she's still there, still more than ready and able to put a bullet between his eyes without a second's hesitation if he thinks of doing wrong by Mal or the rest of them.
iii
Doctor gets banged up on jobs sometimes, stray bullet here; shrapnel there, he sheds blood same way as any soldier. She plays medic again, in those times, except now it's a scalpel in her hand instead of a bowie knife.
And sometimes Simon ain't hurt at all, but he needs an extra set of hands all the same and Zoë's the one who steps in and shines the light and passes gauze and applies pressure while Simon does the heavy lifting.
She's always had real steady hands—made for a good shot her daddy used to say—turns out they're good for something besides shooting.
ii
Mal can still be a fool. What Mal needs is a miracle, but there ain't no miracles in the 'verse that are easy to come by. Man's still too turned about, and Zoë knows he needs her at the helm to get through whatever it is he's going through. He saved her life years back, made her believe their cause could be won, and seeing him broken in the after just never sat right with her. Been the same for years on end, loyalty and duty bleeding into love that doesn't touch what she felt for her mister, but its strong all the same.
i
Wash is dead now, ain't nothing left but the shirts in the closet, the dinos on the consol and the memories Zoë keeps in her head. Her husband's been laid to rest but Zoë's gotten used to living with memories as much as Mal has to sharing his space with ghosts. Wash is gone but Zoë's still here, still got responsibilities and chores and jobs. Same thing that got her through when sickness took her Daddy, got her through when the Alliance tried to take her soul in that valley.
She misses him, no mistake made on that front, still feels moments in the day take hold of her too strongly—times when she half expects to see him in the bridge or picking up something quick in the gallery—but she lives with it. He wasn't the sort of man who would have expected her to lie down and die the minute he did. And he loved her because she wasn't ever the sort of woman who would consider it.
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End
Feedback is Love