The Last Kiss

"Baby you should get some sleep." She touches his shoulder, the feel of it so familiar he hardly notices. He closes his eyes, wills himself away from this place in time back to another, she's touched him like that so many times before, it could be any day, any time, he picks the day they were happiest and relishes in the memory.

"Baby?"

"mmmmm" he answers and he can feel her smiling, feel her bending down to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him softly on the face. He grips her like a man dead, holding on to her with all he has. There's something coming, something that he can't identify, a feeling hanging around him he doesn't like. This is it, he knows, we're not coming back from this.

"Get some sleep," she mumbles into his neck, her lips, her hair, enveloping him and filling him, pushing away all those thoughts he knows he shouldn't be thinking.

"Hard." he manages and she nods, letting her chin rest in the bend of his neck and the slope of his shoulder.

"Don't I know it."

"We'll be breaking atmo soon, what d'ya suppose is down there?"

"On Miranda?" she shakes her head and sighs. She's a woman with him, soft and vulnerable. In a moment, she will be a warrior again, but for now she is a wife, trembling and fearful thinking of what is to come.

Wash slips an arm around her waste and into her pocket, using this leverage to pull her into his lap where she, smiling, rests her head on his chest.

"Won't matter none. The reavers get us."

"We're safe." she assures him.

"For now."

They sit there for what seems an eternity, the length of two lives meeting in the centre, a moment. He leans down and kisses her, long and hard, she takes his face in her hands and he holds her steady while they're together. He gives her all he has, the passion of a man with little hope but enough desire to bring him through it. That's the difference between Mal and Wash, Zoƫ thinks as they break apart and she nestles further into him. Mal doesn't have anything left to believe in 'cept himself and Serenity, but Wash, Wash believes in her. He knows she'll get him through anything. And by God, or whoever hears the fervent prayer she whispers into his shirt, by God she'll keep him safe long as she can.