This is my first fanfic, so I'd really appreciate reviews. Upon the suggestion of one reader I've changed my preferences to indicate that anonymous reviews will now be accepted. If you read it the first time, there are no other changes at this time. Thanks.

Airlocks and the Passage of Grief

Morning. Awake again and so weary that her body was heavy as lead. Funny how everyone took such pains not to mention Wash in front of her, hoping not to "remind her" of her loss. Truth was, she never forgot that he was gone, not even for a second. The weight of it was with her always, so that even when she dreamed of him, even at that beautiful moment when she would see his smile, and feel the warmth of his love reaching for her, even then she would know that he was gone forever.

She was tempted to lie in her bunk until the flesh fell off her. But she'd always considered herself a strong woman, and that definition of self was all that she had left now. So every morning, when she woke and found the day looming ahead of her like an unbearably steep mountain, she got up anyway. She got dressed, brushed her teeth and pulled her hair out of her face. She joined the crew in the galley, took her share of bridge watches. She went out on jobs, she tallied the accounts. She put one gorram foot ahead of the other. She kept to her routine as if the routine was her salvation.

Through it all, Zoe tried not to think about what she was feeling. Living was exhausting enough without thinking about it all the time. But when she did think of it, she realized that her loss was right beneath her skin, a gnawing ache in center of her sternum that never quite went away.

Harder than the aching was the sense of isolation, the sense of not-belonging. It was as if she stood on the other side of a sheet of thick plastic, watching life around her, but somehow apart from it. The people surrounding her, people she had once cared for, were human, and she was nothing but a ghost. She could tell that each of them was trying in his own way to help her, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Their efforts were like band aids on a gunshot wound, nice, but they didn't stop the bleeding. They missed Wash, sure. But their lives went on. As far as Zoe was concerned she died that day, and all that was left of her was a body with no soul in it.

Sometimes, on the darkest days, days when she was so alone and so tired that she couldn't stand it, she would climb into the airlock and sit there, one button away from joining the black. It wasn't that she wanted to die. Nor even that she thought death would bring her closer to Wash. It was simply that in those moments she felt too soul-deep exhausted to go on. Press that one button, and she would finally be able to rest. Surrender. A long dreamless sleep with no pain, no endless mountain ahead of her.

But she never pressed that gorram button. Some part of her wanted to survive, some part of her wanted to reach out and grab hold of any happiness that might yet come. Maybe someday that part of her would give up, but until then, Zoe would keep climbing.

And so she trudged on, and weeks became months, and months became a year, and that year began to grow old, and gradually the barrier that separated Zoe from those around her thinned. She didn't feel quite human yet, but it was a near thing, as if the soul that had left her had begun to resettle inside her chest. Until finally, one day Jayne said something amazingly dumb, and Zoe found herself belly-laughing along with the crew. And while she laughed, just for a second, she felt whole.

For the rest of that day, she wandered Serenity, touching her walls as if she hadn't seen them in years. She noticed the shape of the protein on her plate, she smelled the strawberry scent in the lifesupport, felt the spots on her soles where the leather was getting thin. It was almost as if everything had been black and white, and suddenly, everywhere, there was color.

So Zoe climbed up to the airlock. Over time, she realized, that space had gone from being a place for despair to a place for reflection. She stared at that button, and with her now sharpened senses, noticed signs of tampering. Curious, she pulled off the panel, and saw rerouting wires. Not pretty clean wires fresh from Kaylee's storage area. But dingy wires, covered with the same grimy dust as everything else on the boat. The gorram button had been disabled, not recently, but long ago by people who actually cared if she lived or died.

She touched the alteration with reverence, and felt hot tears slide down her face. The ache was now mingled with a sort of warmth. She was still hurting, but she was relieved, and damned proud. Proud to have climbed each day's mountain, proud to have fought for her own life, proud that she didn't ever give up. And proud, damned proud that there were people in this 'verse who wanted her to live.

The pain wasn't of loss wasn't gone forever. It would be back again, she knew, in gradually receding waves for the rest of her long years. But it was at that moment that Zoe knew she was going to make it. This was one war that she was going to win.

Zoe left the airlock, and began the rest of her life.