workworkwork | For Zoe

16th March

Dull routine had taken over quickly, something Wash was used to. His wild imagination helped him fill in the days at the helm of Serenity when he had to pull long, tedious shifts. His wild imagination helped him here as he imagined what the things that they had found strewn across the station could do.

Between that, the cleaning up and figuring out of the station, and the fact that his wife was here with him, Wash was as close to content as he could expect to be. Mostly. If he could now get Zoe to relax, and drop being so paranoid, life would be better still.

He was currently strewn on the bed in the room they'd claimed as their quarters, watching his wife. Something he could never get enough of.

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"Still don't get how you're so relaxed about it. No where to go, I understand. Don't mean I gave up tryin' to figure out how the hell to get out."

Zoe does glance over at him, then rubs her face with a hand. "I sound like a broken record, I know."

"Ain't no point in gettin' worked up about it," Wash said with a sigh. "Why fight what you can't change?"

He sat himself up, leaning against her to try and give her some silent support. "Yeah, but it's fine. You wouldn't be you."

But that's all Zoe had done. Everyone said the same thing - why fight the Alliance? They're too big, there's no way - and she'd done because it was right. She's looking for a way home, out of this, because it's right. They aren't supposed to be here.

In the end, she couldn't change the Alliance, and maybe here she couldn't change anything either. But that didn't mean she'd roll over.

"Did meet some people, though. Tried to be pleasant like."

And that was the difference between her and Wash. Wash hadn't felt any great calling to something bigger than himself, no calling to be a Browncoat (or a great calling to work for the Alliance, no matter how much they tried to recruit a pilot like him). Wash had always had simpler ambitions. To fly free, and once he met Zoe, to do what he could to keep his wife in that state as well. He was looking for that same way home, but he also knew he had to make the best of where he was.

"Yeah? I did too. Including... wait for it... an honest to god cowboy," Wash grinned at Zoe. "Proud of you, wife."

"Honest cowboy, huh? " Zoe asks with a small smile. Then, she leans against Wash, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I'm tryin'. Just ain't easy. Met a kid named Abed. Says we're all...on whatever his version of the cortex is back in his home."

"Nice guy," Wash said, sounding surprised. "Forward thinkin' considering he's from way back."

He nodded slowly at Zoe. "Met him too. He's a strange one." Very strange. "What d'you think of that?" He was nervous, knowing his wife and making a good guess about how Zoe would react to that.

"What do I think about our lives being entertainment for someone else? Everything I've seen and done, just...a show?"

Her jaw clenches.

"He knows everyone, almost. Can't really say how I feel about it. He knew my name without even stoppin' to think about it."

Hadn't done much for the paranoia she's been trying to shake.

"Seems crazy, don't it?" Wash said, shaking his head. He didn't like it one little bit, no matter how concerned who he might be who played him.

"Makes you wonder, just how much he knows." That gained a frown from Wash, and he shook his head. "Nope. Don't wanna know."

"What was it I told you about plants?" Zoe asks, side eying her husband.

"Not tryin' to say he's in on anything, but it's mighty convenient, him knowin' as much as he does."

She looks at another piece of paper, reading it out loud.

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Wash looked at Zoe, sighing. "Baby, you can't think everyone is a plant," he said, lying back down on the bed. "I know it's odd, but... I dunno." He frowned as he watched his wife, thinking. "Just 'cause he arrived later than the others means nothin'."

God, her paranoia was rubbing off on him.

He grinned at Zoe, nudging her in her side. "Then we're probably doomed to hell, sweetie."

"Or we are in hell," Zoe mutters. At least they were together.

"I'm drivin' myself crazy thinkin' about it, I know. And I know you're sick of hearin' about it. On the plus side, I finally met someone other than the woman I arrived with who knows anything about livin' in the black."

"You ain't lettin' yourself relax at all, even here with me," Wash pointed out. It was something he could hardly miss, given how close they normally were, and how much she'd pulled away, closing down with the strangeness of the situation. "Oh yeah? That's great, 'cause I ain't found anyone else who does, other than Amy."

Zoe's quiet for a second, then looks at him.

"Feel like if I relax..." It's giving up, getting complacent. Accepting that they won't be seeing home any time soon.

"You're okay with that?"

Wash looked at her, pursing his lips as he contemplated her. "Sure. Why wouldn't I be fine with my wife pulling away from me?" he asked, then closed his eyes, regretting putting it quite like that. "Zoe, sometimes it feels like you're back where you were when we first met, an' yeah, it's hard to see."

"That's not..." she pauses, trying to pick her words carefully. She realizes she was in her own head, not talking to him and leaving him out of the loop of her own thoughts.

"Just meant that if we get comfortable, it's..." She stands, back to him and shoulders tense. Zoe closes her mouth, lips setting in a thin line.

"Don't mean to shut you out. I'm sorry." Her own arms are crossed protectively across her chest, and she sits back down on the edge of the bed, trying to figure herself out.

Wash watched her as she stood up, his heart sinking for a moment. He didn't want a fight with her, not at the moment, when everything was so complicated, so when she sat back down he sat upright, leaning against her and resting his forehead on her shoulder.

"Baby, talk to me."

Zoe's quiet for a long time, head down, trying to figure out her thoughts.

"Feels like when I got caught on that moon, was in that jail. Just...fancier. And with better company. But we're still stuck. All of us. And it could be for somethin' gorram horrible for all we know, but we're just supposed to eat and socialize and act like everything is fine? What happens when the other shoe drops, Wash?"

"An' what happens if it don't drop?" Wash asked in return. "What happens if we're here for weeks, months? What then?"

He sighed. "I get the fact you have to be cautious. I do. But you can't, not all the time."

Zoe finally looks at him, hating the truth that's about to come out of her mouth.

"I'm scared, Wash. And I ain't been scared in a long, long time."

She doesn't get scared. She's Zoe. Strong and unbending. But knowing, not being able to control anything that happens to her now. That scares her.

Wash leaned into her, his forehead resting against hers.

"Maybe I ain't so scared, 'cause I was already terrified out my mind for you. We nearly lost you," he admitted.

Zoe closes her eyes, taking a deep breath or two.

"I'm sorry, bao bei," she says quietly. For everything, even the things she can't help, at this point.

"What can I do to help, baby?" Wash said quietly. If he was going to have to deal with a terrified Zoe, then he wanted to know what he could do to make things easier, no matter how hard it was for him.

"You're doin' it," she promises, shifting so that she can wrap her arms around her husband. She's quiet for a second, just holding onto him, before she speaks.

"I was that bad?" she asks of her prior injuries. It just seems strange to her, to have been mostly fine upon waking up in her holding cell here.

"Yeah," Wash said, looking at her for a long moment. He wasn't going to tell her what River had let slip in the shuttle, that Zoe's heart had stopped until the doc had got her stabilized. "You wouldn't wake up. Doc did his thing though... an' you were going to soon. I know you are."

Zoe just sighs softly, closing her eyes and trying to think through her fears logically.

"Keep thinkin' we're gonna get separated again." And that's what she's really afraid of. "But if we're together, it should be okay."