Disclaimer: I don't own Firefly; nor do I own Zoe, Wash, or Mal; they belong to Joss Whedon and co. I'm not making any money from this story, which is good, because I don't have permission to use these characters or their setting. Oh, well.
***
She sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cool cup of tea between her sweating hands. She felt uncomfortably warm; sweat was gathering under her arms and in the curves of her thighs and her clothes chafed roughly against her skin. She had left Wash in bed, lying atop the sheets. Somehow he had twisted out from under them during the night.
His body is warm on top of hers, his breath moist against her neck. "God," he groans, "that was…" Whatever it was, it is lost in the hollow where her neck meets her shoulder.
It had been too long, really. She could have indulged herself sooner—her desires had been as strong as ever, had come back soon after the war ended, and Lord knew there were enough men willing to lay with her. But she had never given in; she didn't have the time, with the captain to look out for. He needed a strong right arm, not a love-crazy girl with a boy in every port. She said "no" to flirting men so sternly they didn't bother to ask again. She didn't mind. There's only so much room in a person's life, and hers was filled with the captain and the ship and her duty.
But still, it had been too long. And Wash clearly knew what he was doing.
She shivered as the sweat started to dry from her face. She'd gotten so used to Wash staring at her that she'd failed to see that it was more than lust in his eyes, that there was something behind his smirk she'd forgotten how to recognize.
"You really think you can make it worth my while?" she says, her voice hard.
He flushes pink, but not from embarrassment. "Dunno, but I'm willing to try."
The captain strode into the kitchen and settled into the chair across from her, giving her a severe look. "Well."
"Good morning, Captain," she said coolly. She had a pretty good idea as to what was drawing the captain's mouth together in a hard line, but if he wasn't going to ask, she wasn't going to volunteer the information. Wasn't any of the captain's business, anyhow; Wash was going to get up in an hour and go on flying the ship, and she was going to go on running things like she'd always done, and if they'd been doing something else the night before, the captain didn't need to know.
The captain's eyebrows arched, as if she had played a particularly puzzling card, then furrowed irritably. "So, I take it you had a good night?
She wouldn't call it "good." She would call it frightening, surprising, joyful, embarrassing, intimate. A thousand things she didn't have names for. She felt as if she had caught a glimpse of a life she'd been missing and tasted it just enough to make her ache for more. She felt as if her world had tilted on its axis. She wouldn't call it "good."
"I did, Sir," she said. There were some things, she reflected, that a woman had to keep for herself.
"You didn't," she says, smiling.
"'Course I did," he says. He is propped up on one elbow, his other hand tangling itself in her hair. It would be irritating if he pulled at it, but he doesn't, so she lets it rest there, making a warm spot on her back. "There wasn't anything else to do, and everyone was so bored there, so…shadow puppets! You can make them out of cardboard or opaque plasta-film, and if you know the kind of stuff they like, you can keep those guys occupied for hours. You ain't seen nothing 'til you've seen a seven-foot tall, three-hundred pound, tough-as-nails soldier crying like a baby at the end of Romeo and Juliet."
"I cried the first time I read that play," she says, remembering.
She half expects to him to be surprised, and is already exasperated by it. But there's no surprise in his voice when he says, "Yeah, me too. But not like this guy."
"Are you two gonna make a big thing out of this?" the captain asked, looking wary. "'Cause this isn't the Companion's Temple, and I got enough stuff to worry about without having to worry if I'm gonna lose my first mate to my pilot."
"Don't worry, Sir," she said, standing up. "Not gonna happen."
The words are so soft, muttered into the pillow next to her, that she barely hears them. "I love you, Zoe." She can feel her whole body stiffen, wondering if he is going to turn his head and look at her and what to say if he does. But he doesn't, and in a moment his breathing falls into the slow rhythm of sleep.
She stood at the bridge and gazed out into the black, counting the planets as they went by. She hoped they'd land on a planet with enough water for a real bath soon. The sweat was drying sticky on her skin and she smelled like Wash's bed.