Cloth of White
A Firefly Fic by Rose Williams
Owned by Joss Whedon et al.
Zoe, Mal, Wash/Zoe, ensemble
PG for violence and mature themes.
1213 words.
Written for Youngest_One LJ for the LJ Ficathon ninebillion.
Request: Firefly: Mal and Zoe. Grieving, memories, and a funeral that shouldn't have happened.
Superlative thanks to Thistlerose LJ and Karaokegal LJ for betaing.
*
The sun beat down on them. It was a contrast to the rain and mud and cold of the makeshift funerals they had held during the war. Zoe was pleased to think that Wash would have been comfortable here in one of his Hawaiian shirts. She clenched her fists, forcing her nails into her palms and swallowed down the threat of tears; she had cried already.
*
The first death had shocked them all. They were fighting a bloody war, against an alliance of better resourced planets with better trained soldiers. But it was not until a blast sounded, they all dropped, and Davey didn't get up afterwards that they began to understand. The only one not simply staring in horror was Malcolm. While their sergeant flapped his arms to get them moving over the next rise, Malcolm hoisted Davey over his shoulder and set off.
The rise protected them from the wind and from the sights of the Alliance laser darts.
"Who's digging?" Malcolm asked.
"You should have left him," Sergeant Peterson said.
"We're better than them as shot him. Who's digging?"
A couple of men dropped their packs and put together their shovels. It started to rain.
Malcolm stood to say the rites, but before he had done more than clear his throat, Martyn called for him to stop. Martyn rummaged around in his pack and came up with a hand wide strip of white cloth, clean and neatly pressed.
"You at least have to wear it," Martyn said, holding it out to Malcolm.
Their sergeant snorted. Zoe wondered if he had been overcome by the shock and would recover, or whether he was simply a dickhead whose father knew someone.
Malcolm accept Martyn's offering, shaking the strip out and draping it over his shoulders. He pulled the chain from his neck and held the cross between his palms.
"We are gathered here to lay to rest our comrade Davey Jecenski."
Zoe added her own prayer to protect Malcolm in the battles to come.
*
Inara had to lend her something white, and tailor it to fit. They no longer expected funerals; Zoe no longer owned anything white herself. She had stood still while Inara pinned the sleeve and the hem, even though her body seemed to itch all over and all she wanted to do was sprint across the sand outside.
The dress, when it was made, was lovely, and the part of Zoe that still noticed such things was worried that it would get dirty. Mal spoke the funeral rites, as he had done over countless comrades. Zoe let the words pass over her; she knew them well. The familiar rhythm of Mal's voice kept her steady.
*
Wash had insisted that they go. Zoe had been sceptical, but Mal had decided to humour their new pilot and probably enjoyed seeing Zoe uncomfortable. So they were in a crowd of local workers watching some strange performance. It was not their kind of bar.
"More alcohol, sir? Drown your sorrows?"
"Please," Mal said, holding his glass up for Zoe to take to the counter.
"Wash?"
Wash waved the question away, concentrating on the jugglers' passes. When Zoe deposited the new drinks on the table and dropped into her seat beside him, Wash turned to her and grinned.
"Aren't they great?" he said.
There were three jugglers passing clubs and Zoe had to admit that they were well skilled. Wash's enthusiasm was infectious, and Zoe found herself forgiving him his shirts and his jokes. Although not the moustache.
*
Mal sat beside Zoe on his bunk, drinking sake out of tiny glasses. Each burning mouthful unwound something in Zoe that she wasn't sure she wouldn't miss later. Mal was simply staring into his glass.
"Thought it'd be anyone but him," Mal said.
"Yes."
There was pause while Zoe refilled her glass and Mal took a sip from his.
"I don't have white."
They both used to carry white in their packs, after that first month in the front lines. But the relative ease of their lives meant they no longer even carried packs.
"You don't need it," Mal said. Zoe didn't know how he had meant it, so she said nothing. "It wouldn't have mattered to Wash," Mal went on. "He wasn't a soldier."
"It won't matter to Wash because he's dead," Zoe said, knowing she sounded flat and heavy. With anyone else she might have wasted the little energy she could spare from sitting upright to animate her voice. "I was a soldier. It matters to me."
Mal nodded and drained the rest of his glass.
"I never." Zoe stopped and tried again. "I never gave up on God the way you did. I always thought 'We're alive, we're still flying'. And then when Wash—then I had Wash and life was good."
"And now?"
Zoe tried to consider the question, but the hole where Wash had been and the shape she had considered God's were too large to see this closely. She had the rest of her life to answer that. Whether she was a widow or a soldier, she was certain of just one thing. "I want to wear something white."
*
Once they had found Kaylee and the ship was flightworthy, they did often end up in dingy bars out on the rim. And while Mal tracked down business and Kaylee scrounged for parts, Wash would have a beer and Zoe would keep an eye on the room.
Zoe hadn't liked the way Wash asked questions, too specific and too casual.
"Have you been on Oceanania in the winter?" he asked once.
Zoe remembered bitter rain and someone explaining the funeral rites on their home world. They had asked why Zoe wore white to mark death and she hadn't been able to answer.
Wash didn't wait for answer from her, though. He ignored the sudden blankness of her expression and told her about the sorts of fruit that grew there. Zoe wondered what it was going to be like when not everything reminded her of the war.
"And, then, of course, the guy says he can do that, but we'd have to pay ten bits each for it!"
Zoe laughed despite herself. Wash grinned back at her.
A minute later, he nodded across the room at a woman standing beside the bar.
"Do you think I've got a chance?"
"Not with that moustache."
Wash frowned and ran his hand over his top lip. And he had looked at her with a glint in his eyes that had made her smile.
*
River taped the last piece of paper to the rocket. Zoe felt like she was floating in the black, weightless and nowhere. The hem of the dress fluttered around her ankles, but the taper lit easily. It was her role now to send their memories of Wash up, to float over the world, to be part of the 'verse forever, because she hadn't taken the bullet for him.
Perhaps it really was unfair that Wash's bullet had found him before she had found hers. But she wasn't certain she would have him live without her, if she had the choice. So she bent carefully to light the rocket fuse and thanked God, perhaps bitterly, for the little time they had had together./lj-cut
~*~