At Least
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Zoe and Wash
Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly. They all belong to Joss Whedon. If I DID own these characters, plots, and rights then this story wouldn't even need to be written.
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She remembered it well. He had stumbled into the cargo area looking like death warmed over, his soft strawberry blond hair was tousled and his normally bright blue eyes were bloodshot and dim, and his baggy khakis were splotched with red paint. This was because he had just spent the entire night tearing pieces off of Serenity's hull and painting her into a monstrous Reaver replication. Zoe knew from the look in his eyes that doing this to the ship he loved to fly was almost making him sick.
The sun had just begun to rise and he was the last one to come back in the ship. Zoe had sat up all night after she and Jayne had drug the pieces of Serenity's hull into the cargo area waiting for Wash to finish his paint job. She took him by the hand and her mind's eye remembered how she had smiled at the contrast of their skin: chocolate brown and ruddy white. She led him through the ship, never releasing her grip on him, and down to the showers.
She recalled the feeling of his skin under her fingers as she removed his paint covered clothes and the heat that rolled off of him as she joined him under the luke-warm water. This was the last time they had been together as a husband and wife, not a pilot and first mate.
"Wash," she had said breathlessly as his lips travelled up her neck to that spot behind her ear that he knew drove her crazy, "Do you think this is suicide?"
"Mm, if this is suicide I hope reincarnation is real so I can do this over and over again," Wash's reply tickled her ear.
Zoe had let the subject drop and she and Wash had spent that shower wrapped in each other's arms, taking out the tension of the upcoming mission on each other in a flurry of pants, moans and gasps. One last time.
But that was then…and this was now.
Now she sat next to an empty chair at mealtimes and now, when she leaned over the pilot's chair, it was River she spoke to.
Night was the worst. Zoe would go down to the shower alone and there was no longer pleasure in shower taking, it was just another chore of the day. She would strip down to her unders and lay down on that big, empty bed, wishing she could feel his arms pull her close just one more time. She woke up and still rolled over to whisper "good morning" and found no one beside her.
Her work aboard Serenity was not affected. If anything, it was done with more precision and care. Wash had loved this ship nearly as much as the Captain and she felt a little bit of him still resided in her halls. Because of this, Zoe felt it was the least she could do to do her part in keeping Serenity flying.
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"I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I…"
"NO!"
Zoe shot up, her hands clutching her sheet and sweat dripping into her eyes. She gasped in a few breaths of air and then fell back onto the bed, her body racked with silent sobs. The nightmares were so vivid, so painful. Try as she could, she could never change the outcome.
Her brain flooded with images she longed to forget, to erase completely. The look of utter shock in his eyes, how they stayed open and wide when his chin sunk to his chest, his lifeless body run through with a Reaver's harpoon the width of a telephone pole, permanently pinned to the pilot's seat.
Zoe jumped out of bed and climbed out of her bunk room. She rushed to the helm of the ship and threw herself into the very seat where her husband had been taken from her. She focused on calming her breathing and settling her heart rate down as she stared blankly at the switches in front of her, the flashing red "auto pilot" light flashed every once in a while but that was the only light.
She finally calmed down and ran her hands over the wool seat cover then reached over the switches to grab hold of a rubber Tyrannosaurus Rex that was stuck to the panel. She smiled slightly as she ran her thumb over the snarling face of the toy. Wash had been quirky, that was a fact.
God, what she wouldn't do to have one more day, hour…one more minute with him. But she knew a part of him would always be with her.
Everything about Wash was secondary in comparison to her. His blue eyes: regressive trait. His reddish hair: regressive. His ruddy complexion: regressive.
Her hand covered her stomach as a now familiar feeling fluttered through her and she felt a peace sweep over her. Her son, she was positive, would at least have his father's smile.
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When I watched the movie Serenity I was hoping so badly that the ending would show Zoe discovering she was pregnant because of "Heart of Gold" when she and Wash get into the small argument over having children. So I wrote this as kind of my own way to end the story.
A pox on you, Joss Whedon, for killing off the sweetest and most loveable character on the show! I cried for an hour.