Malcolm Reynolds sat at the helm of Serenity looking out into the black. River sat in the co-pilot's seat, lost in somebody or another's thoughts. They had plotted a slow course from Persephone to Paquin and were deep in the black. Paquin and Persephone were near apogee, Mal wouldn't normally aim to travel so far for entertainments, but the situation was different now. Resources were temporarily unlimited and the Alliance was on a tight lease. And the distance traveled alone through the black was a welcome luxury. A body needed rest and healing after it was stretched to the limit and some of the crew were near to breaking.

“We need the time.” River chirped into his reflections.

“Waaah! <Tzao gao>. Girl, ain't you never gon' figure when's a better time to skip through som'body's thoughts?”

“Timing isn't everything...and we all need time before we face the 'verse, Captain. Even you.”

“True enough. Paquin is a restsome planet, but it'll take a while 'fore anyone 'sides your brother and li'l Kaylee are up for some fun.”

River smiled and nodded as she returned to her contemplations and uninvited conversations.

Mal scanned his crew taking stock. Inara. Inara wasn't rightly crew, but she had agreed to come with them to Paquin.

“That's not nothin'.” It was easy for Mal to talk to himself with River around because she always knew when you were talking to her or not, although she would butt in on occasion.

Mal allowed himself to notice how Inara was contributing to the crew, giving hospitality and comfort. He'd never realized she knew how to cook more than tea, but she had used her long unspent resources to acquire fresh foodstuffs the like of which they had not ever had on Serenity, counting the Shepherd's initial largess. And the food was good. She had fried up some real taro root dim sum as a special treat the other night just to lift their spirits; said there was real shrimp in the stuff. He smiled thinking of Yo-Saf-Bridge and the delicious fresh bao she'd prepared before trying to kill them all.

“Must be somethin' they learn in whorin' school,” Mal chuckled to himself.

Mal knew Inara was patiently waiting on him to come around to dealing with what they had hanging between each other, but had put Zoe's needs before her own. Simon and Kaylee – best not to think too long on those two, as they could be found giving each other the internal massage in just about any quiet corner of the ship. They were getting on just fine.

River was to his mind nothing like herself, and that was a good thing, too. Mal only knew the crazed, frightened girl who had traveled on Serenity since that fateful stop at Persephone. She had come full circle and must be something of who she was before the Alliance carved up her brain. But she was older and she was a reader. She'd been trained to do the unspeakable and the necessary

“Alliance'll be rememberin' that part soon enough.” Now she was fully aware and for the most part in control of herself, but he and everyone else knew she was only just learning the scope of her powers. Jayne, of all people, had offered to teach her fine points in the use of weapons. And River had agreed despite Jayne's fool temptations in the past.

Jayne. Well, that was a conundrum. Jayne was mournin' Shepherd Book fierce, like his own daddy had found the end of his road. Mal would have to see to Jayne and soon, but his first and final crew member was suffering most. The conversation with Inara was ringing in his head. Did he have a responsibility to look to Zoe? She wouldn't take to that none. Never needed tending, that one. Not by a long shot.

“What the <gway> I'm gonna do with that woman?”

He wasn't a reader like River, but he could see clearly what lay before Zoe Alleyne Washburne: She would ride to Paquin with her ghosts and refuse whatever shiny distractions offered, preferring to grieve her husband in the shadows of Serenity. Time would come they would run through the resources channeled their way by the Operative and end up back in game. First job goes south, Zoe'd be taken. She'd end up shot dead somehow or left behind. Zoe wasn't one to put a bullet through her own head, but if no opportunities arose soon enough, that might be her chosen path. Or she might convince Jayne to do the honors, him being so broke up over the preacher. No, she needed to handle herself long before they reached Paquin.

Mal got up, feeling more tired and old than his body could ever show, despite the scars inside and out. Resigned, he trudged out of the bridge to face a duty he didn't know how to start or complete.

--*--

Mal descended the short set of steps to the passageway as Zoë climbed out of her bunk and stood in the passageway. She felt beat down, head drooping, heart sagging. She was surrounded by the stink of grief, just as she had remembered the stink of Serenity Valley. It clung, cloying with a weight of sorrow that mimicked the smell of death in all it's decay. She heard footsteps heading toward her down the corridor. Looking up, she saw Mal moving purposefully toward her.

Mal stopped, looking her over, his eyes dark with the strain of something unreadable.

“Zoe,” he started, then faltered. He looked her over and Zoe imagined she read some reaction to the shimmery brown print top and plush pants. It seemed like confusion. Mal had not ever seen her done up in frills of any sort, nor in any dress except on two occasions.

“Cap'n.”

Mal reached out and touched her arm the way she'd seen him do Kaylee when he was soothing her about some mishap with the ship he had caused. “Zoë, I know you're hurtin'. And I can't know the truth of it neither, but...I made a promise to Wash that I would do for you if ever somethin'...,” Mal stopped, looked away, cleared his throat and started again.

“I don't mean to pry,”

“Then I 'spect you ought to stop your mouth movin' now 'fore all that pryin' you tryin' slips out the corner while you ain't lookin' to it.” Ouch. She hadn't meant to sting him so but she didn't want Mal of all people around her right now trying hard to fix what couldn't be fixed.. Zoe moved to walk past him.

Mal gripped her arm harder and shot back, “This here's my ship, gorram it. I will ask my crew what I like, I will tell my crew what I want. I will do as I see fit.” Mal's face was full of shock at her anger and determination, and Zoe realized he would do or say whatever he could to help her – like it or not. “You ain't different just cause you're sufferin' the worst hurt, <dong le ma?>”

“This ain't got nothin' to do with crew or captain. You got somethin' to say to me 'bout me handlin' them reavers turnin' my man into a shish-kabab, Malcolm Reynolds, you say it.” She watched Mal recoil from her words, sizing up his best friend, wondering if her attempt to back him off would get him the hell out of her face. She didn't have time for Mal to try to be her captain when she was working hard to figure a permanent way off the crew.

“Zoë, how'd this become a fight? I'm looking at you 'come a ghost stalking these halls, you're wearin' clothes nobody ever seen you in, hair all wild, sometimes mutterin' to yourself. You're actin' <Boo tai jung tzhang duh>.”

Zoe drew herself to her full height, which was very close to Mal's, and stared him in the eye. “I supposed I should be chatting it up with you and River on the bridge, where my husband died. Or maybe you'd prefer I wrapped my <pi gu> in a white shroud and stayed out of sight like the perfect mournin' widow.” Her breath, harsh and ragged, showed how close to the edge she teetered. Just push me, Mal. Push me and see what happens when I fall.

Mal loosened his grip and circled his arms around her tense frame, drawing her into his chest. He took a deep breath as she allowed him to hold her. They stood that way a long time, holding, breathing, being. When Mal finally spoke, she felt the moisture that had collected between their faces as he shed silent tears into her hair.

“You can't leave.” There. He'd said it. She knew that was his biggest fear. It would have been her own if she hadn't wanted so badly to be with Wash and leave the pain of losing him behind. But it was one thing to know and another entirely to admit it out loud.

“We're deep in the black, Mal. Where the <gway> you think I could go?”

“You know damn well where you could go, Zoe. Not here and now, deep in the black. But soon as something don't go right and you end up shot or worse. I know you don't plan on survivin' long without Wash.” Mal didn't try to hide his tears. They spilled, one stingy drop at a time, collecting along his jaw, which twitched with the effort of saying so much after so much having never been said. Zoe waited, unable to deny what was true.

“Wash, he...he wanted me to...look after you....” Zoe watched Mal as he turned his head away, as if he were searching for the right words to say to her. She wondered for a moment if Wash came to Mal as well.

“Don't need look..”

“Oh yeah ya do! Wash woke up the woman inside you who died in Serenity Valley. The woman I wasn't man enough to call because the feelin' part of me died right there beside you when we didn't expect not none of us would come out from that graveyard. You don't need someone to take care of you, Zoe. I know that. You need something to make you understand that everything you wanted didn't die when Wash was taken from you.”

Now Zoe was crying – fast hot tears of grief and the shame of knowing Mal was bearing them witness. She felt Mal's hand stroke the tears from her cheek, but couldn't stop the flow of them and couldn't speak to stop the flow of his words. She felt choked with terror, she knew exactly what he was going to say next and was paralyzed and couldn't stop it from tumbling out of his mouth.

“I love you, Zoe. Ain't the same love as what you and Wash had and I'll confess for true, ain't like what I been carrying for Inara the last year and hopin'....” Dammit, dammit, dammit he is not saying this <fei hua > to me now!! But all that came out of her was a choked sob and he continued.

“But you...you was already taken and you don't know how I beat on myself that I let Wash get on this crew and take you away from me. I couldn't never let myself feel what I felt for you because of Serenity Valley and – I thought neither one of us would ever find bliss in the 'verse. When you did.” Mal paused again, but Zoe simply nodded for him to continue. He had dove them down into these deep and icy waters and the shock of it made her want to hear every last gorram word.

“I want you to have whatever it is I can give you, sorry sight as I am. I would die for you, but I would rather have you and me both live. It's what Wash wanted and, going back and being truthsome with myself, it's what I wanted back when I was too broken and couldn't admit to wanting anything.” Mal stopped as if he had run out of steam and just looked at Zoe, their lips so close they shared the same breath.

“Mal,” Zoe's heart had been opened and broken by Mal's confession, Wash's love and audacity, the weight of her own grief and in the very background a vibrating thread she knew had something to do with Mal and Inara's longing. She framed his face with her hands, acting on impulse, and kissed him full on the mouth. She felt his startled reaction and held him to her as he seemed to war with himself, then surrender to her. She inclined her head and parted her lips, encouraging him to do the same by offering her tongue to him. The kiss was electric, full of possibility, remorse and solace. There was the deep friendship pushed aside by something that would have been passion in another time. There was grief, that wondered what she was doing following this path when her husband was still circling around her from some unknown where and likely kicking himself for putting this all into Mal's head. There was the admission that she had been fully set on getting herself killed one way or another, a cowards path she knew now she would not tread. Not after the guts it took this man, her brother and friend, to drag out such complicated love and lay it at her feet.

She traced one hand along the ear that had be cut off even as Mal sacrificed himself for the life of Wash. She felt him tremble and realized that the kiss was having more of an effect than either may have wanted. She thanked his ear intimately with her touch and her kiss. Then she let her hands slip down to his chest and gently pushed him away.

“You ain't wrong, Mal,” Zoe panted out, breathing in reason and blowing out desire, “I told you the truth, I can't live without him, I feel ...I feel like I'm already half dead. Tired, touchy, broken, empty, sick.”

Zoe looked away, gathering her courage, then decided that she would tell Mal everything, well, nearly everything.

“Wash comes to me and, I know it can't be real, but it's like he's there with me and I feel alive until he leaves and it's like I'm watching him die all over again.” She laughed and shook her head. “I know. River just got right and now here you have another one of us seeing and hearing what ain't there.”

She felt Mal draw her back into him and brush her lips with his so gently. “You don't have to tell me nothin' about what you see and feel, but I don't think you're crazy, no matter what I said before.” He kissed her again, this time deeper, the mix of intentions blurring even further, neither as surprised to feel arousal with the second deep exchange. Mal stopped them this time, clearly wanting to know what Zoe was experiencing and Zoe was grateful, they weren't headed anywhere further so soon, if at all.

“It must hurt to see him like that.”

Zoe nodded and continued while she had it in her to tell it this once. She figured with River she wouldn't have to tell it at all. “This last time,” and Zoe blushed in Mal's arms from the memory of Wash and their shadowy lovemaking, “Wash said he left me something, I'm not sure what it is, but as many times as he and I wished you and Inara would come to a meetin' of ways, I'm thinking that's not what the gift is. I'm thinkin' he asked you to look to me once Inara had left, maybe in a moment laced with some of Kaylee's bad wine.” She watched Mal lower his eyes and continued. “I see I'm right about that last part.”

“The wine does have its effect.” Mal concurred.

“Don't get me wrong. I would be more than honored to be on your arm, but I'm thinkin' I need to figure out just what it is that Wash was talkin' about first. Maybe its just something I dreamed up, maybe...I don't have any idea what. But I won't disrespect your offer by tossing it aside lightly, in spite of what I think about who you aught be with.” She paused to look into his eyes, which were sad, yet held his characteristic sparkle down deep.

“Took a lot of courage to come after you, Zoe.”

“Took more to hear you out, sir.” Zoe brushed his lips one last time before pulling away entirely. She examined him, so <swai> and caught him checking her out right back. “We both know I'd be a good catch, Malcolm Reynolds, but let me try to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to be about before we sign each other up for life duty.”

“So you'll be stayin' on, whatever the case.”

“Too soon to say, sir. Ain't everything in my hands entirely. But seems to me something shifted when I kissed you and I thank you for that – you figure that might'a been the gift after all? Seems like a husband woulda left a girl more'n that.”

Mal laughed ducking his head and Zoe smiled wider than he had seen since they landed on Mr. Universe's moon.

She gave Mal a “wish me luck” look and turned to head onto the bridge while Mal watched her walk away.