A/N: Not beta'd, all mistakes are mine.
Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly
A Summer Wedding
"We'll have a summer wedding," he said, leaning back in the chair and stretching his arms above his head.
"Oh, really?" she asked in a bored voice, leaning her hip against the consul and crossing her arms as she watched his goofy grin grow even bigger at her question.
"Really," he said, lacing his fingers behind his head. "With flowers and trees lining the way as you walk down the aisle in a gorgeous dress." She laughed.
"What makes you think we're getting married at all?" she posed, standing up straight and preparing to leave him dumbfounded. Instead, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and gazing up at her with an oddly serious expression on his face.
"Cause I'm gonna ask you," he said, "and you're gonna say yes."
"There's plenty orders of mine that she didn't obey."
"Zoë, you're a goddess, marry me?" he half-joked as she sat down across from him at the table. She didn't even spare him a glare, but immediately began filling her plate with the pathetic excuse for food they had on the table.
"Aw, when'd you two start courtin'?" Kaylee queried, leaning forward, excitement in her smile. Zoë glanced at her, and the look made Kaylee lean back and become more interested in her food than in anything else.
"Started when I first got here," Wash said after a moment of awkward silence. This time, Zoë did raise her gaze to him, her face set in an impassive glare. Wash met it with a goofy grin. "Minute I saw her," he said, pointing with his chopsticks, "I knew I'd marry her."
"Name one!"
"Here to tell me to change course?" he asked as she stepped into the cockpit. "Or is there somthin' else on your mind?" She stood next to him, her thumbs in her pockets and her gaze straight ahead.
"Lose the mustache," she said.
"Pardon?"
"Lose the mustache before you ask," she clarified. She glanced at him, smirking at the confused look on his face, then turned and walked purposefully from the room.
The next day, his mustache was gone.
"She married you!"
They got their summer wedding, but they had to stay on the ship. They set up orbit around Persephone, but they'd had too many problems with locals and law enforcement to land and actually find a suitable place for a wedding.
So it was that Wash and Mal found themselves standing in the cargo bay, watching as Inara walked Zoë down the aisle. She wore a tight-fitting white dress, and Mal laughed at the boyish grin on Wash's face.
After the ceremony, the crew retired to the galley to toast the happy couple, who soon retired to their new bunk for the night.
Mal would never forget the happiness of that night.
Years later, as Zoë walked across a barren desert towards her husband's tombstone, a pang of sadness pulled at Mal as he watched her.
She was wearing the dress he had come to associate with happy times: a summer wedding and smiling, albeit drunken, faces.