A/N: from tumblr

Carolina is still missing, but Wash feels some of the weight of worry slough off him as the Falcon hovers on its rotors. The dust it kicks up obscures the sight of Team B getting to their feet. The landscape is dusty and tan. Team B appears to have been using an overturned police car as cover: the blue and yellow stripe on the white body is barely visible. There had been no heroism here. As much as Wash does not think of himself as a hero he understands that sometimes he does heroic things, and jumping off of an exploding building into a Falcon is one of them. Team B didn't have a job that would make a good story like Wash's would.

He squints to make out CT walking with Wyoming's arm thrown over her shoulders. Wash moves forward to help her out but she steps onto the floating blood bay of her own accord and throws the heavier Freelancer into the seat next to North. "Good job team," North pants. "Hey, Wash."

"Hey man. How'd everything go out here?" He's replying to North but turns to look at CT.

"Not so good. Ready for extraction?"

479 interrupts over TEAMCOM. "I'm ready, if you all get your butts in here."

Far more quickly than expected, CT had slipped out of the bay again. He follows her without thinking. She bends down next to the underbelly of the car and picks up Wyoming's fallen sniper rifle. Wash turns to look at her, feeling all the confusion and slack-jawed inability that he usually does around her. His story may have sounded heroic but splaying his hands and lowering his shoulders won't give be any evidence of that right now.

"I forgot it," she muttered. "I just forgot."

She heaves the rifle over her shoulder like it's top heavy. Retrieve equipment when possible. That's protocol. Of course you retrieve your teammate's fallen gun when you're three steps away from it, but she makes it sound like a punishment.

And then she hops back into the ship, and he follows.

"Finally. Hang on, everybody." 479 accelerates. Wash feels the ground tip beneath him and wraps a hand around a support next to her. The engines are roaring but he is gentleman enough or awkward enough to tip his head to the side, offering her the seat.

Her helmet's brow is low. When she looks down, pointing her yellow glare somewhere at the divots on his chest instead of at his eyes, she looks like a cornered animal. "There were cops shooting at us, Wash."

"I know. Are you okay?"

"They were just following their orders."

She stalks off, rocking against the sway of the ship, and sits down two seats away.

He slams down into his seat and pulls the harness over his head and shoulders, clicking it into place. Across the bay, Wyoming's head is nodding loosely. North has just finished strapping Wyoming in, but then turns to look at Wash.

They say nothing.