Disclaimer: Really, really not mine.

Disclaimer no.2: Not for the Kiddies. Behold the M rating.

Grime under your nails

The night crept under Zoe's jacket and made her shiver. The humidity had soaked right through the material of her coat, making it rough and cold and wet to the touch. She leaned back against what remained of a thick brick wall and closed her eyes, just for a second, and listened to the gun blasts coming from over the hill. They were suffused, moving away probably - she couldn't quite tell yet. The noises of explosions were almost silent, like some sort of mute fog had muffled them enough to let her hear the clattering of the debris around her with deafening clarity. She breathed deeply and while that too echoed in her head, there finally were no thoughts.

"Now don't you think 'bout pulling one on me, Zoe. I'm with the friend-like folk and in no mood to dodge friend-like fire." Malcolm Reynolds dropped to the ground beside her and shrugged off his military pack with a content sigh.

"Graceful steps like yours I knew it was you approaching 'fore you did, Sir."

"And ain't I the luckiest twinkle-toed fighter this side of the 'verse? Didn't ya know that sneaking up on unsuspecting folk can get ya killed in times like these?'

And it was as comfortable and homely as it could ever be, during the war – just the two of them, a shared pack of dry crackers and some light banter in the night.

They slept back to back usually, both with their arms tucked close to keep them warm and both holding a loaded gun. Zoe had never succumbed to sleep completely. Even when she had been a little girl and had shared a room with her sister she had always been aware of when the other had gotten up to have a drink of water or to go to the bathroom. She had always just lain there, waiting for her to be back under the covers, safe, then she would slip back in that conscious, sensitive half-sleep that made her rest more easily. That is why, that night, she was aware of Mal turning around behind her, of how not-clumsy his hands were as they undid his belt and then moved on to hers, fumbling around her waist and battling slightly with the buckle. She helped him, without saying a word when she saw he was taking too long, but remained still as he tugged her pants down and exposed her skin to the freezing breeze. And that's all that she concentrated on as he moistened her with a saliva-covered hand and thrust into her: the goosebumps on her upper thighs where the wind caressed her. She would have preferred if he had held her there, to shield her instead of gripping her shoulder and waist, but she knew that his hands would have been drenched in the same liquid cold that ran to the surface all the way from the bones, so it wouldn't have helped anyway. It didn't take long for him to finish, lasting wasn't the point after all.

During the battle, survival is the thought that you can't distract yourself from so, when danger seems further than 50 metres away and you allow your mind to wonder, it gets pounded with all the images, needs and urges you had to choke away during the day. And when those thoughts hit, they're neither diluted nor manageable. That is why Zoe covered herself in silence, that night, as Mal turned the other way again, and why Mal didn't complain two weeks later, or all those times after that, when Zoe's hands moved over him almost to the point of pain just to make him hard. When she straddled him she leant close to his chest in what could almost be misjudged as a tender, lover-like motion but that in fact was just basic common sense in light of the situation. She would let him take her violently, exactly the way she needed it. And it was always so difficult. Her body felt like the one of a stranger; as though she barely knew how to work the mechanics of it. It felt distant, detached almost, and hollow. But she would force it, feeling the tiny pinprick of pleasure that she craved so completely and waded desperately towards. She would always keep her eyes unfocussed, from the beginning and right through to the end while silently begging for him not to go soft, or cum, before she managed to.

That is why, years later, when during one of his half-mocked jealous rampages Wash would ask her whether there has ever been anything between her and Mal she always laughed softly, shook her head and said 'no'. And believed it to be the truth.

-Fin

Any thoughts?