Resilience: Zoë Alleyne Washburne Chapter 6, a firefly fanfic

Translations:

Wú cháng - impermanence (Sanskrit: anicca), ghost taking away the soul after death, to pass away

Ē mí tuó Fó - merciful Buddha

Wèi shén me - why? for what reason?

Jū ān sī wēi - to think of danger in times of safety, to be vigilant in peacetime (idiom)

xiǎo mèi - little sister, girl

Mò qì – secret agreement, to understand without being stated

tài xū - the universe, great emptiness, the void, heaven

六 Liù: Wú cháng

Ē mí tuó Fó, wèi shén me? Why now?

Zoe leaned against the edge of the pilot's console, staring out the empty window frame. She closed her eyes for a moment, shutting out the sun's glare, and wiped her face to dry the tracks of tears that had become chilled by the crisp morning breeze.

"Six weeks," Simon had said, "Give or take a few days."

She heard the doctor's remarks as if from underwater, heard herself respond when prompted. Yes, she would come to see him again for a full exam and consultation. Yes, soon. Yes, she would be sure to eat. Yes, a small amount of food taken more often would help to combat nausea.

"It'll likely take a bit of time to ferret out the proper prenatal vitamins out here in the Rim, but in the meantime…that is, I can piece together something in the meantime if you'd like, whatever you decide to do."

Zoe raised her head to look at him, suddenly very present and very fiercely aware that she had already made her decision.

She felt a new tug, on a new heartstring – one that rang with a different tenor than the threads of Serenity's family anchoring her from the void of emptiness and grief. This new thread shone with a light she'd never experienced before. She wanted to bask in that light, to rejoice in it. But how could she? When Wash wasn't there to experience it with her? When he would never know their child? When their child would never know Wash? How could such light and such darkness exist at the same time?

Resuming her forward stare, Zoe allowed the arrival of an Alliance cargo vessel to distract her, watching its' bay door lower to reveal the cranes that would hoist Serenity's engine into place, remove that wretched canon from the hull. She reeled her mind in to focus on the immediate future. Soon, Serenity would be space-worthy. They would move on from this place. They would look for work, test the waters, navigate the aftermath of the broadwave, keep flying. All she wanted was to keep flying. Too much sitting still was just that – too much. And yet, it was an island in a stormy sea. It was a time-out in a game of cat and mouse. To leave here…

She did not trust the Alliance, even a little bit. This truce they had going – who knew how long it would last, or what they were up to behind the scenes. Zoe knew the Captain had Kaylee on the lookout for trackers, bugs, sabotaged parts and other such purple-bellied trickery. Still.

Jū ān sī wēi. They needed to be vigilant. To protect each other. Zoe felt it acutely, now more than ever. Especially now that she had someone new to protect.

I'm not sure now is the best time to bring a tiny little helpless person into our lives...

Wash's words roiled around the edges of her resolve. Her answer was the same now as it had been then. She wanted to meet that person, come what may. And she hoped the crew would too. She was about to change all of their lives, not just her own, she realized. A couple of them would take more winning over than others, but she had a feeling they'd come around. Jayne didn't worry her, though he'd make a fuss. She could handle Jayne. Mal…Mal might just as easily take it in stride as he might pitch a chicken-fit. But he would stand by her either way.

A small sound interrupted her reverie and she turned. Kaylee stood with welding hoses coiled over her shoulder, apprehensively lingering just inside the bridge.

"Mornin'," she said, though her normal cheerful tone came across a bit forced. Kaylee's face betrayed her – her emotions played over her features plain for anyone to see. She was clearly trying not to look at the pilot's seat, not to bring Wash to mind. But it was unavoidable. Especially in here.

"Mornin'," Zoe replied and rose from the console.

"The windows are here," Kaylee stated simply. She didn't need to elaborate for Zoe. It was more than clear from the equipment she'd brought and the banged up state of the frames what needed to be done. And Zoe was a fair hand at welding - she'd come here this morning for that purpose.

Zoe reached out for the coil. She didn't need to elaborate for Kaylee. She would take this one.

Kaylee set down the other gear she'd brought – torch, toolbox, jacket, and goggles – and started to back away, "I'll jus' go get the oxy-acetylene tanks, have 'em sent up on the cherry picker."

Zoe caught her just as she reached the door, "Kaylee."

The mechanic stopped.

Zoe raised her eyes to meet Kaylee's, her brow furrowed, "Thanks."

"Sure, Zoe. Thanks for doin' this. We could be outta here soon as tomorrow if we…" Kaylee tapered off. She looked pained, as though she regretted her words.

Zoe continued to look at her, her gaze softened. She hoped Kaylee understood. She wasn't just thanking her for bringing up the welding equipment. She was thanking her for leaving her be; for taking no offense that she had been keeping her distance from the rest of the crew. Zoe'd been essentially MIA at meal times. She hardly spoke… She knew Kaylee was only concerned for her. She had a sudden premonition – what Kaylee's reaction would be when Zoe told her the news. She would express outwardly the happiness that Zoe could not. Not yet. Not just yet.

"Tomorrow? That's good. Best not stay here any longer than we have to," Zoe set down the coil of hoses. She sighed. "Things are changin'…" She added that last part more for herself than for Kaylee. But then she continued, "So, you and the Doc?"

Kaylee smiled and looked at her boots, "Yeah."

"He get any better at talkin'?"

Kaylee giggled. Zoe's eye twinkled just a bit, amused and affectionate. Simon better watch his step. Kaywinnet was very dear. And she had a whole passel of big sisters and brothers looking out for her.

"Good," Zoe said with finality, turning her attention to the welding tools and the task at hand. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could get to her other goal for the day – if they were leaving tomorrow, then today it would have to be – her shooting star.

Zoe cross-checked the shuttle's controls with River's specifications one last time before fitting her suit's helmet into place. She'd taken the shuttle, and the suit, right out from under everyone's noses. They were all so busy with their own tasks, no one had seemed to notice. Only River knew what she was up to.

Zoe'd found her in the galley, arranging the individual segments of a mandarin orange into a kind of mandala on the table, radiating outward from a centerpiece composed of a tripod of forks suspending the peel which, by the by, had been removed as one continuous spiral. Zoe raised an eyebrow at the whole scene and grabbed an orange for herself, but on second thought realized she was not surprised.

River didn't look up until she had finished a symmetrical design.

"What happens when you start to eat it?" Zoe teased dryly.

"All temporal objects are in a continuous change of condition, subject to decay and destruction," River stated solemnly and deliberately touched the top of the delicately balanced fork sculpture. It collapsed with a clang onto the table.

"Wú cháng," she picked up an orange segment and studied it closely.

Zoe finished the last of her own orange with a slightly vexed sigh. A Buddhist lesson in impermanence was not what she'd come for, although it was not lost on her that what she was about to do was essentially a demonstration of the same. Hence the vexation. Maybe it was it just coincidence or maybe River was just a little too prescient for comfort at times.

"So, xiǎo mèi," Zoe pulled a display pad out of her vest and set it on the table next to the ruined mandala. She had loaded it with every bit of data she thought River might possibly need to make her calculations - details on every variable of the little moon and its' star, the "weather" in this solar system up-to-date as of a few minutes ago, and the dimensions and weight of a certain small, metal box.

River unceremoniously pushed oranges and forks out of her way to make a space for the pad in front of her.

"Nineteen hundred and thirty hours, on the mountaintop," Zoe said, knowing River would take her meaning.

Indeed, River at once bent her head over the pad, a flurry of tapping fingers interspersed with fleeting pauses during which she closed her eyes and looked as though she were reading something on the inside of her eyelids. After a brief time she stopped, sliding the device toward Zoe.

"Thank you," Zoe tucked it back into her vest.

"Mò qì," River flashed a shy smile, averting her eyes, her hair falling across her face – a glimpse of her sweet-natured side; perhaps a glimpse into an earlier iteration of her personality, Zoe reckoned, peeking its' way out.

"It'll be shiny," River added.

"What will, mèi mei?" Simon stepped into the galley from the aft corridor and took in its' occupants as well as the mess on the table, "River, what in the tài xū happened to your orange?"

Zoe took this as her cue to exit. Simon was sufficiently distracted by his sister that she slipped away before he had a chance to have any words with her, doctorly or otherwise.

Her plan was thus – take the shuttle into position according to River's specs, put on a suit and let the box go from the airlock, go down to the monuments and wait. She could've just put the box in the airlock and let it out along with the oxygen, but there was something too impersonal about that. She wanted to hold it; release it herself. There were several seconds, after she loosed her grip, when she could've retrieved it. It hung there in zero gravity, slowly spinning away from her, reacting to the ever so slight force imparted by her fingers when they let it go. Zoe took one last look at the unmarked, nondescript brushed bronze box, floating against the background of the black – all that physically remained of Hoban Washburne – and closed the airlock.

Back on the surface of the moon, sunset was in full swing. Zoe watched Wash's capture, a capture she had taken, look up and smile at the camera, at her, over and over, cycling on repeat. The world was bathed in lavender, then indigo, a chill settling over the mountaintop; darkness fell. She checked the time, raised her eyes to the sky beyond the cairns.

It started faintly, a gold glimmer against a blue-black backdrop, steadily brighter, brighter, heated into brilliant incandescence – a fireball, shedding glowing sparks and trailing behind it a magnificent tail, arcing across the sky. It lasted so long that Zoe had to turn her head to keep on watching it. And then it was over. At last it burnt out with a final blinding flash and show of sparks, its' tail persisting until it, too, fizzled away to nothing.

Still, its' ephemeral light lingered, a ghost image of itself overexposed onto her retinas, fading, waning 'til she could see it no more.

Done.

Gone.