Translations: Are below.
Go-se—Crap
Qing-wa cao de liu mang—Frog-humping son of a bitch
Ta ma de! Nimen de bizui—Everybody shut the hell up
He chu-sheng za-jiao de zang-huo—Filthy fornicators of livestock
Beta'd by Anbessette and KrisEleven. Many thanks!
Chapter Two—Unification Day
The planet Boros, May of the year 2516
"Next time, sir, I'm staying on the ship to play at dinosaurs with my husband."
Zoe Washburne's former sergeant quirked an eyebrow at her. "After all we've been through, knowing you don't enjoy my charming conversation—that hurts me, Zoe. Wounds me to the heart."
"To speak plainly, sir, most of your conversation tonight's been with your glass. And if you keep drinking and not eating, you'll most likely give yourself a broken nose when the brawling starts."
"And what makes you think that, if there be any brawling tonight, I'll be wanting in on it? Most folk here seem to be in the mood for celebrating."
Zoe glanced around the bar, crammed to the bursting with trigger-happy Alliance supporters passing their third bottles down the narrow counters, and put on her most innocent expression. "I don't know, sir. Can't help but wonder, though, why we're here, when the Dyton Outlaw is two streets over and a good bit cheaper too."
Mal took another gulp of his drink and scanned the room, where a man in a worn blue shirt was just tumbling off his stool, and a woman in the corner was raising her glass in her fourth toast of the evening. "Better food."
"True enough." Zoe took another bite, savoring the first non-protein meal she'd had in several weeks. "Order some, why don't you?"
"I'll eat when we're back on Serenity."
"We could always head back now." Zoe set down her chopsticks. "I'm near done here."
"Want to finish this drink."
The former corporal sighed, and waved down the bartender.
"What can I do for you?"
"Mind getting me a box for the rest of this?"
"Not a problem." The woman plucked a container off a shelf behind her head and tossed it down the counter.
"Thanks." Zoe began putting part of what was left of her meal in a box for Wash. He'd always had a thing for fresh bao, and hadn't been dirt-side since their last job.
A loud crash sounded from their right, as the man in the blue shirt kicked the offending stool out of his way, and lurched across the room to where the piano player was valiantly trying to make her music heard above the drunken cacophony. "Enough of that go-se! Let's hear the National Anthem!"
The piano player struck up the requested song, and the majority of the bar promptly began singing along, with great variation in both skill and key. Zoe resisted the urge to smack someone with her empty plate, and watched, now resigned, as Mal began to pointedly hum a dirty drinking song she was fairly sure he'd picked up from Badger.
Halfway through the third verse, an enormous man with long red hair tied in a ponytail broke off his song and strode up to Mal. "Think you're too good for us, don't you? I ain't seen you toast the Alliance tonight."
"Oversight." Mal raised his glass with a flourish. "To the great Alliance, for their special gift of nothing to poor working folk like ourselves." Half of those in earshot yelped in indignation; the other half apparently being drunk enough to take Mal's toast as a genuine compliment to their government.
The red-haired man bristled. "You makin' fun of me?"
"No, no, my friend. I expect that happens to you far too much as it is." Mal patted the man on the shoulder. "But I ain't finished yet. To the great Alliance, for every fine I've ever paid, for every checkpoint I've ever gotten stuck behind, for—"
"Is he being sarcastic?" a woman to their left asked. Zoe ignored her and glanced around the bar, taking in the odds. It wasn't as bad as it could have been—a healthy percentage of the crowd was watching the blue-shirted man attempt to climb the piano—but it was still far from good.
"Cow-sucking Independents!" A slight man in a black coat charged at Mal, who merely stepped out of the way and let him run into the counter.
Mal smiled brightly at Zoe before ducking under the red-haired man's punch to knee him in the groin. Zoe grabbed an empty nearby bench and used it to ward off a man and woman who were descending on her with raised fists. Moving to be back to back with Mal, who was brandishing an empty bottle plucked from the abundance on the counter, she swung the bench in a wide circle, clubbing the woman in the stomach. Her victim fell back, gasping, and the man moved in with a shout of rage. Zoe caught several punches on her makeshift shield with ease, but began to rethink the situation when she saw the glint of metal.
"Qing-wa cao de liu mang!" Mal staggered against Zoe's back, but, with her attacker bearing down with a blade as long as his forearm, she had no time to see how badly he'd been hit. Ducking at the last moment, she caught the knife in the bars of the bench and jerked it from his hands. She pulled the blade free just as the man in the black coat jumped from the counter onto her back. Zoe bashed him in the nose with the handle of the knife before rolling away and scanning the crowd for Mal.
He was limping, she noticed immediately, but several of the bar fighters looked worse. Zoe entertained a brief hope that they might get out of this relatively unscathed, until she heard the snap of a gun cocking.
"Duck!" She tackled her captain just as the gun went off. Unfortunately, they hit a nearby table and crashed to the ground amid a shower of broken bottles and spilled drinks.
"Evan! Put that away, right now!" Zoe rolled over to see the bartender shouting at the gun's holder, a short man with a braid of black hair. "You want to give the mayor one more excuse to shut this place down?"
"Murderers! Browncoat scum!" the man screamed, sending an array of bullets at Mal. Luckily, the table took most of them, but Zoe felt Mal jerk against her as one grazed his cheek. "You killed them! They're all dead!"
The bartender jerked the gun from the black-haired man's hand. "Ta ma de! Nimen de bizui!" The crowd nearest her quieted somewhat, but Zoe doubted it would last long. "You two. Out. And the rest of you, don't be following if you want to set foot in this bar again!" Most of the men and women grumbled assent as Zoe hauled Mal's arm around her shoulders and dragged him out the door.
Mal winked at his first mate. "Well, that was fun."
"Sir?"
"Corporal?"
"You're drunk."
OoOoO
"Gorram drunkard's got a kick like a mule," Mal muttered as he limped into the cargo bay, leaning on Zoe. "I ain't gonna be walking straight for a week."
"Hmm. Suppose it's too much to ask you to stay off it." Zoe deposited Mal on the weight bench and went to the com on the wall. "Wash, we're back."
"I trust you're safe and sound and not missing more than two limbs each?" came her husband's cheerful voice through the com.
"Affirmative. Where's Kaylee?"
"Here!" The mechanic hopped down the stairs. "You're hurt! How'd it happen?"
"Just a tussle with some folk as hold the Alliance in a higher regard than they deserve."
"Sure everythin's okay?" Kaylee hovered over Mal, shifting from foot to foot. "That's an awful lot of blood."
"Cuts on the face bleed more'n you'd think. Zoe rescued me afore anyone did any real damage." Mal grinned at Kaylee, holding Zoe's handkerchief to his face. "Heard you had a tussle of your own with the flare dispenser."
"All fixed now." Kaylee yawned and rubbed her smudged face with the back of one hand. "Think I'll turn in, 'less ya need anythin'?"
"We'll be fine." Zoe turned away from the com and heaved Mal to his feet. "Just going to get this stitched up." The two of them headed slowly for the infirmary.
The mechanic skipped up the stairs towards her bunk before turning around suddenly. "Oh, hey, Captain. Meant to ask ya earlier, but I picked up some paints at the market the other day. Wouldja mind if I put some flowers 'round the kitchen? It'd pretty things up real nice in there."
"Sure, why not?" Mal winced as his injured knee tapped the doorframe.
"Shiny! Thanks, Captain!" Kaylee dashed off towards her room, while Zoe and Mal stumbled into the infirmary. Mal dropped onto the exam chair while Zoe grabbed a clean cloth and the disinfectant off the shelf.
"Better clean that graze, sir."
"Better clean what?" Wash stood at the door. "Wow,Mal. Looks like you made a new friend! I'm so eager to not meet them!"
"Hey, I was being real polite. Ain't my fault he decided to take offense." Mal tipped the disinfectant onto the cloth and began to wipe the blood from his face.
Zoe kissed her husband quickly before going to hunt through the drawers. "Looks like we're out of painkillers, sir."
Mal shrugged. "Wouldn't want to waste 'em on this in any case."
"Ever thought of using some of the piles and piles of credits we've just got lying around to hire a medic?" Wash inquired as his wife located a suturing needle and a pair of forceps.
"Husband, you criticizing my doctoring skills?" Zoe grinned briefly as she sterilized her tools.
Wash held up his hands in defense. "Why do you think so little of me? I only wish to keep your lovely perfumed feet from having to touch the ground unless necessary!"
Zoe shook her head, while Mal shot his pilot a questioning look. "Perfumed feet?"
"You'd be surprised. I've heard there's Companions that specialize in..." Wash glanced at Zoe. "Strictly gossip, however. I have no experience with such things. But, Mal, seriously, if you rented out one of the shuttles, things might be a bit less no-idea-where-our-next-meal-will-come-from around here."
"Speaking of meals, there's a cardboard box of bao in my bag," Zoe informed him. "Thought you might be tired of protein."
"Have I told you today that I love you?"
"Yes. But no complaints here."
Wash went to the door as Zoe began to stitch up the captain's face. "If you need me, I'll be on the bridge, light of my eyes." He disappeared up the stairs.
Zoe tied off the sutures. "You going to get something to eat afore you turn in?"
Mal slid off the exam chair. "Ain't hungry."
"That better not have anything to do with that man as near blew a hole in your face. He was off his head and you know it."
"Wonder which battle his folks were in. Sounded like he had a right personal grudge."
"Don't reckon there's a point in dwelling on it." Zoe began cleaning the forceps and needle.
"No, I suppose not." Mal crossed the threshold. "Goodnight, Zoe."
"Goodnight, sir." Zoe sighed, and finished washing the tools before stowing them back in the drawer. She paused for a few minutes under the infirmary's harsh light. Four years, she thought, four years, and neither he nor I are any further out of that gorram valley than we were then. And Mal, he ain't willing to share what happened to him there with nobody. At least I trust Wash enough to let him in sometimes.
The thought of her husband sent Zoe up the stairs to the bridge. Wash sat in the pilot's chair, his stegosaurus in one hand and the tyrannosaurus rex in the other. "Oh, thank you, T-Rex, for saving me from the great river of the control panel! Now I will trust you with my life, even though you are a hungry scheming meat-eating predator and I am probably dinner!" Upon closer examination, Zoe saw that he'd clustered the other dinosaurs around the box of bao with their heads inside as if they were nibbling at it.
Zoe grinned. Even if she'd never leave Serenity herself, she could take comfort in the fact that at this moment, all was right with Wash's world.
Her husband swiveled around in his chair. "So where are we headed next? Or was Mal too drunk to say anything about it?"
"He mentioned earlier that there might be a job for us on St. Albans." Zoe leaned against the console. "I reckon we'll take that, if nothing better comes up."
Wash frowned. "It's awfully cold on St. Albans."
"No naked beaches?" Zoe teased.
"A pity, yes, but I was more thinking along the lines of you not liking snow." Wash tilted his head to one side. "Mal doesn't like it either. Is that a war thing? You don't have to talk about it," he added hastily. "Just wondering."
Zoe gazed out at the stars. On Boros, the pollution wasn't so bad she couldn't see them. "We spent a winter once—we got cold every year, 'course. You'd get a lot of folk with frostbite, some freezing to death." She paused a moment.
"Frostbite and freezing to death sound pretty nasty to me," Wash observed.
"Not saying they weren't. But they don't stand out to me as much as—one time, we touched down in late fall, planning to be out by the time winter rolled around. Locals didn't tell us that there was whiteouts on the way, and that year, they came early. Snow blew so hard and thick you couldn't see your hand before your face."
Wash winced. "I'm guessing with that much ice it was hard to land evacuation vessels?"
"They didn't send any. Were needed elsewhere. Reckon the captain wouldn't of gone, in any case. Would've sent others first."
"And you'd have stayed with him."
"'Course. Anyway, it got so the standard winter issue wasn't enough. Some of us were lucky and got extra clothes from home—me and the captain included. But whenever someone'd freeze to death, the others would strip their gear off, use it to keep themselves warm." Zoe paused, and had to suppress a shiver at the memory of what had happened next. "Couldn't grudge 'em that, but I guess that was what gave Jienson the idea..."
"To do what?" Wash prompted when Zoe didn't go on.
"We woke up one morning to find she'd slit Arden's throat and stolen his clothes. Captain was mad enough to shoot her right there, but we needed every soldier we could spare. Would've been better if he had, though, 'cause then everyone started doing it, killing each other—not just for their gear, for their rations too."
Wash stared. "Wo de tian, a. How'd it end?"
"They finally evacuated us, after maybe a third were down, from killing or just plain freezing."
"No wonder you don't like snow."
Zoe shrugged. "I can manage, if I have to."
Wash covered her hand with his. "You don't have to right now. We'll find a nice, warm, inside place to be after the job is done."
Zoe smiled. As tough as she knew she had to be, basking in the glow of Wash's affections certainly had its benefits. "Like our bunk, husband?"
"Like our bunk."
OoOoO
They were eating each other, in that valley they'd held for two months. Fighting over the carcasses of rats, with the winners chewing up the very bones. Getting thirsty enough to lick up spilled water from the dirt. Words like clean, words like safe, words like kindness—all dropped somewhere between the last package of protein and the first time you realized if you dug for a hundred years you couldn't bury the bodies.
They thought it was the end when they got out. But it was just the start. Driven out of their hell by folk who couldn't care less if they died on the march, folk who didn't see them as people. They raped women so thin you could see their skulls, scouted the trenches for dead men's tokens, shot anyone who ran—
"Zoe! Zoe, wake up!"
Gasping, Zoe shoved away her blankets, eyes wide from the nightmare. The bunk was dark, but she could still see Wash's worried face in the shadows. "Sorry," she managed, trying to keep her voice steady. "Just a—"
"You don't need to be sorry." Wash pulled her into his arms, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Nightmare, right?" Zoe nodded. "Serenity?"
Weren't hardly a surprise he'd guessed. As bad as most of her war memories were, few were terrifying enough to invade her sleep after so long. Serenity, though…she doubted she'd ever stop dreaming about that valley. That, and what came after.
"We thought they were coming to save us," Zoe said, finally leaning back against the pillows. Although it hurt to talk about what had happened, she tended to feel better afterwards. It almost felt like confession, though she knew she'd done naught wrong. "After we'd spent so long in Serenity, you know. Thought that once we got out, the worst would be over."
Wash was silent—Zoe knew he didn't want to push her—but his eyes were fixed on her face.
"The Browncoats, when they negotiated the peace—part of it was, they gave up those of us left in the valley as prisoners of war." Mayhap it was that betrayal as had hurt the most. "So the Alliance, they sent us to camps for—hell, don't know how long. Captain and I, we was part of the command, some of the few left alive. So they put us in solitary."
"He chu-sheng za-jiao de zang-huo." Wash's voice was quiet, but held a venom he rarely displayed.
"Guess that's why he went looking for a ship practically as soon as we got out." Zoe found Wash's hand and laced his fingers in with hers. "Spent so long in those gorram cells, never got to see the sky. Sent him looking to be sure they could never take that from him again."
"And you?"
Zoe leaned over and kissed him. "You were my sky."