A/N: Can't believe I've got another fic up so soon! I've had writer's block for at least a month now... Anyway, I'm very, very pleased with this one. So review and let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: Joss owns all. I can only bask in his greatness.

Zoë Washburne had her fair share of scars. More than her fair share, really.

And each and every one of them brought back a memory, told its own story.

A select few were reminders of pleasant times, one of her favorites being the faint bite mark at the base of her neck from the night of her honeymoon. (Wash had apologized profusely when he saw the blood, and though she didn't think she needed it, he looked so helpless that she let him bandage the area anyway.)

Most of 'em, though, were from the war. There were a handful of scars left by bits of shrapnel on the backs of her legs. (Mal had ones to match.) A mark on her right shoulder was the result of the hot metal of a bullet grazing her flesh. (She'd turned out of the bullet's path at the last second, but not quite fast enough, and ended up with her first real battle wound.) Dropping to the ground more times than she could count had taken its toll on her knees. (Once, she landed upon some particularly sharp rocks, and evidence of that fall remained on the palms of her hands, as well.) A knife had pierced her left thigh, but that scar was barely noticeable now. (Without ammo, hand-to-hand combat had gotten fierce and frequent, and the face of that one attacker was still one that managed to worm its way into her nightmares.)

Those were the scars that Wash had traced their first night together, his hands warm and cold at the same time as they made their way across her skin. She'd wanted to push his hands away, tell him to stop, but it was as if he was absorbing her pain through his fingertips, even though her body had already healed. Physically, anyway.

When she got hurt on the job, he would always make a fuss. She remembered his worried reactions when she came home with a nasty cut on her head (Mal's doing, but it had saved her life) or the bullet wound on her arm (The gunfight with Niska's men is one battle in particular that she doesn't want to relive).

But her most recent scar was by far the largest and most striking. The slash across her back from the Reaver's blade was still a bit pink, almost completely healed, but not quite, and merely catching sight of it in the mirror turned her blood to ice.

Zoë knew that that scar was one that would never come remotely close to fading. She hadn't let the doc stitch her up, settling for just the bandage, despite the protests of the other crew members. It hurt like hell, and that was how she wanted it to be. She wanted an excuse for the tears that welled up in her eyes and a reason to lie in her bunk for an extra hour or two.

The physical pain was the only way for her to even attempt to let out all the rest that was still inside of her. She saved the pain meds Simon had given her for the evening, fearing that the ramifications of a sleep not deep and dreamless would shatter the little composure she'd managed to build.

That composure wasn't much, but it was something.

It kept her from crying. (Except for that one night she spent on the bridge, curled up in the pilot's chair, feeling the breeze hit her through gaping hole in the fabric.) It kept her from being too snappy when the crew was just trying to be nice. (Except for that one time when Kaylee was being so damn peppy and she just couldn't take it anymore.) It kept her from breaking when she caught the barest hint of his scent. (Except for her first time sleeping in an empty bed when the smell was too much, too familiar, and she had to borrow some spare sheets of Inara's and clean the old ones with extra soap.) It kept her sane when she spotted one of those ridiculous, plastic, little dinosaurs on the console. (Except for the first day they'd been back in place and she redid River's careful and precise organization because she wanted them where he'd put them, where they belonged.)

And one night, with no more meds to carry her off to sleep, she tentatively reached behind her and very gently ran her fingers down the length of the scar, hoping that if she pretended that it didn't mean what it meant and that the fingertips were Wash's and not her own, that maybe she could extract some of the pain in the way that he used to.

So she closed her eyes and imagined that he was there (the way he used to be, all smiles and no hole through his chest) and that he was uttering soft words of comfort (the way he used to, back when her nightmares were about the war, not crash landings, shattering glass and Reaver harpoons) and that his hands were on her skin (the way they used to be, soft and gentle and loving).

And it worked.

Zoë drifted off slowly, one hand still lying at the base of her back and her husband in her dreams.

End