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After Simon had doled out stitches and gauze; after Kaylee and Inara quit squawking and fretting over the latest fuss of a job gone not-quite-smooth but finished nonetheless; after River had taken refuge on the bridge to unwind herself in one way and Jayne to his bunk to unwind in another, Malcolm Reynolds found himself alone in the kitchen with his first mate. They each acknowledged the other’s presence with a curt nod, and nothing more. He had planned on eating something, taking a fresh glass back to his room and falling asleep next to his bottle of Ng Ka Pei. What he didn’t plan on was Zoe being there. She wasn’t usually anywhere but her bunk if they weren’t on a job these days. He should be used to things happening that he didn’t plan for by now. Can’t teach an old horse new trots, he thought darkly.
So he didn’t plan on staying.
She sat across from him, sipping tea quietly, reading from a book he hadn’t seen before. He sat hunched over his bowl of noodles and protein bits, his chopsticks working rapidly to shovel the food into his mouth. I must look like Jayne. Yēsū, he thought. He didn’t remember ever wanting to be out of a room so badly that didn’t involve guns being pointed toward him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak to Zoe. In fact, he had about a thousand things he wanted to say to her. He just didn’t know how or where to start. He didn’t know whether she’d shoot him, or burst into tears, or fall farther behind that curtain he saw drawn against her eyes. And he didn’t know which reaction would scare him the most. Every time he’d try they talked in circles, stepping neatly around the meat of the conversation like a chasm between them. It was like talking to Inara sometimes, he realized. Except there wasn’t the familiar sting of snark to cut through the thickness of emotion. Zoe was his best friend. She knew more about him than any living soul. Fuck, for a while there after the war ended, he’d almost got to thinking she was his soul mate. Ain’t no denying he loved her – but he never loved her like Wash did. The noodles seemed to clump in his throat as his thoughts formed around his late pilot. His appetite was gone. He slid away from the table heavily and slunk over to the sink to wash out his bowl. In a stupid way, it was that love that kept him from opening his mouth and talking to her about him. About what he needed her to do. Pigheaded, Inara would say. Petty. Selfish.
“What is it, sir?”
His eyes found focus, and he realized he was staring at Zoe.
“What? Uh. Nothin’. There was a...noise. Engine something – I’ll talk to Kaylee,” he stammered. A chopstick slid from his grasp and down the drainpipe. He cursed under his breath. He could still feel Zoe’s eyes on him as he tried to fish it out.
“A noise.” Her tone said bullshit. He should know better than to think he could keep on avoiding her. Old horses...
“Sir, it don’t take River to tell you got something weighing on your mind.”
“Thinkin’ about the last job, I guess. Rough going.”
“It’ll take more than that to knock you off your feet,” she said, turning back to her book. She wasn’t convinced, and he knew it. He placed his elbows on the counter and sighed, letting his head hang down past his shoulders. If he didn’t talk to her soon and clear his head, it could start affecting their jobs. And the rest of the crew. But mostly his friendship with Zoe, all else be damned. He didn’t know what he’d do without her, but he felt like he was slowly finding out. It was the worst torture he could imagine, worse than any electrode or knife.
“Can’t fool you, Zo’,” he said quietly, and took his seat at the table again. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked at her hands as they folded the book closed and came to rest on top of its cover.
“I – just want to know if you’re okay. If we’re okay. You an’ me. Because I feel...about Wash. I –”
Mal heaved a sigh. Why was this so hard?
“I feel responsible for everything that happened. For the Shepherd. For Wash. I feel like...I feel like I destroyed our lives.”
Zoe was quiet for what felt like a very long time to Mal. He braced himself for tears. Or gunfire. Either was possible – maybe both.
“I thought you might feel that way,” said Zoe finally. “Can’t say I wasn’t scared to bring it up.” Mal sighed and felt the knot in his chest loosen. She was nervous to talk to him, too?
“What have we become, Zoe?” he said sadly, slumping in his chair. “We used to be able to talk about anything.”
“We ain’t become nothing, sir. Just our circumstances are different now. I think we’re both too stubborn to change, don’t you?” The hint of a sad little smirk danced across her features. Mal realized it was a rare moment he got to look at Zoe full in the face. He usually judged her moods by the stiffness of her back or the steel in her voice. What a pleasure it must’ve been for Wash to have her whole range of emotion laid bare before him. Emotions she wouldn’t share with anyone else but him. His heart ached for her that she may have lost an entire piece of herself when she lost him.
But when she smirked, the ache ebbed a bit. She didn’t lose all of herself, and she wasn’t lost to him. Not yet.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. He ran his hand across the scrubbed wood surface of the table. He couldn’t remember a time she wasn’t. It was making the plan in his head all the harder to bring up.
“I’m not gonna lie and tell you I never thought of blaming you,” she said, turning her face away from him. The knot in Mal’s chest tightened again. Her fingers compulsively fanned the pages of the book. “But I realized it’d be like cursing blood for falling from a wound. You could blame your skin for letting the bullet through, you could blame the bullet itself. You could blame the gun, the one who shot it, the one who made it, the one who invented it...You’d make yourself sick with hate if you tried to find a place to lay the blame. I could follow that ladder all the way down, but I’d just end up in Hell.”
“I feel like you will anyway, you stay under my command long enough.” Mal felt a wave of sickness break inside him. “I’m supposed to keep you all safe. And I fail, time and time again. Each time, our luck gets thinner. Each time death comes closer. I try to stuff it down, this. This guilt. But it never works. You want to pay it no mind so it’ll go away...”
“...But it never really does,” she finished for him. Mal swallowed hard. He stared off into middle distance, willing the tears not to well in his eyes.
“Sir, I don’t blame you for what happened. I feel guilty myself sometimes. But Wash and I knew what risks there were. Life like ours – it’s a conversation we had often.” She slid her chair back from the table and folded her hands over her stomach. “Always thought it was me that would go first, though.”
“Zoe, I –”
“Don’t, sir.” She picked up the book again and examined the corners of it as she spoke. “Time only moves in one direction, and life only goes on for so long. I told Wash all the time, I wasn’t so scared of losing something that I didn’t want to try and have it for the time I got. I finally got him to believe me. Hell, that’s how I proposed.” A small twitch tugged at the sides of her mouth, but only for a moment.
“This is what life dealt us.” She looked up at him. “You go, I follow. Those were my cards then, and they’re my cards now.”
“But why?” Mal felt inexplicably angry, but his anger had no aim. He got up and paced toward the sink, propelled by his agitation. “After I was such a hùn zhàng to you two. I treated your marriage like an inconvenience instead of understanding – God, Zoe, you could hold me responsible for your husband’s death. Why would you still follow me?” Mal couldn’t fight it anymore, and the traitorous tears spilled out of his blue eyes before he pinched the bridge of his nose and growled. He slammed a stack of clean bowls into the sink and hunched over it, turning his face away from Zoe. She stayed seated, still as the Black, eyes trained on him.
“You hired Wash. Even when I said not to. You brought us together.”
“And I tore you apart.”
“He died saving all of us.”
“He was saving us from the mess I created.”
“You want to know why I’m staying?” The frustration in her voice was rising.
“Because you’re gorram crazy, that’s why.” He went for the door, but she was suddenly right there in front of him, blocking the way.
“Because you’re my Captain,” Zoe said, and the tone of her voice was a brick wall. “My brother in arms. And...my family. I wouldn’t feel safe anywhere else. We protect each other–”
“Damn it, Zoe,” Mal said through gritted teeth, cutting her off abruptly. “Don’t you try to fool me now into thinkin’ you’re all right when you ain’t. I know your heart ain’t in this no more, and I don’t blame you. You got no reason to want to protect me. Saw it plain as day out there on the job.” His hand moved involuntarily to the bandage on his forearm where the bullet had grazed him. “Three months ago you’d have been right behind me, picking off those gunmen. You were slow – thinking too much before you shoot, and I can’t have that.”
“Sir,” Zoe had that dangerously sharp glare in her eye as she listened to Mal speak. But he wasn’t done, and he grabbed her arm before she could continue.
“I can’t be responsible for losing you too.”
“Sir, I can explain. If you’d listen to –”
“I can’t Zoe. You’ll take your leave soon as we make planetfall. You and the rest of the crew,” Mal rasped, and because he didn’t know what else he could do or say, tromped toward the door to his quarters.
“Mal.”
He froze in the doorway when she addressed him. The last time she had called him by his given name, it was followed by that intense glare he knew so well, and the words I love him. And I’m going to marry him whether you like it or not – I was you, I’d get to liking.
Mal turned to face his first mate once again. His anger was gone as fast as it had come. She met his gaze, and the barest trace of a smile crept across her lips. Starlight danced in her dark eyes. By the steel in her voice when she said his name, he didn’t expect her to look so serene.
“Mal. I’m pregnant.”
He stared at Zoe for a very long moment, processing her words. He looked down at her stomach, then back at her face. His eyes were popped like River in a fit.
“You – and Wash...”
“Yes, sir.” Zoe’s smile widened.
“And that’s why...”
“Mm-hmm.” Now she was almost trying to stop herself from laughing.
“So you’re gonna...”
“Staying right here, sir.” That light in her eyes was the same light that used to shine when she laughed with Wash.
He thought perhaps he smiled before he sat down. He might have even attempted to speak. But one thing is certain: Malcolm Reynolds didn’t make it back to his chair.
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Simon was going to say goodnight to his sister. He would try to convince her to go to bed herself, but he couldn’t make her. She’d eventually find her way down from the bridge; he’d find her curled in the middle of her bed, sleeping more peacefully than she had in over a year. Sometimes it made him think she was a cat in a past life.
As he entered to pass through the kitchen, he saw Zoe standing opposite. At her feet lay the Captain. Simon’s heart leaped to his throat: she’d finally hauled off and knocked him out.
He probably deserved it though , he thought candidly.
But then Zoe turned to him, and he saw her smiling – something he hadn’t seen her do, well, barely ever. But especially not in the past few months. He surveyed the scene for a few seconds longer, and felt the click in his head when he realized what had transpired.
“You told him, didn’t you?”
“I certainly did,” Zoe replied.
“And he fainted?” Simon just wanted to be sure. Zoe nodded, and poked Mal with the toe of her boot. He groaned quietly, but didn’t stir.
“How cliche,” said River, who had strolled down from the bridge and quietly slipped into the room. She bent down to peer at the Captain’s face, apparently unperturbed at the strangeness of the scene.
“Think we should leave him here?” said Zoe. Simon got the impression she was only half joking.
“No, I’ll get an ammonia pod to wake him. It’s a safety hazard to have him blocking the doorway, I think.”
“He’s not going to like it when he finds out he was the last to know,” said River in a lilting voice.
“Well, it’s his own fault, avoiding me,” said Zoe. “You know he wanted to dismiss the whole crew?” Zoe’s smirking was making Simon giddy. He tried hard not to start laughing.
“He’d be lost without us,” said River, shooting the unconscious Captain a pitying look.
“Been telling him for years he’s gotta talk these things out. And that’s saying something coming from me. If being with Wash taught me anything it’s that words go farther than bullets when you least expect them to.”
Zoe walked to the table and picked up the book.
“Thanks for this by the way, Doc,” she said, tapping the book. “Ain’t never had a baby before, and I’m grateful for all the information I can get. Gotta admit, it’s soothed my fears a bit.”
“I think it’s safe to say you’ve been through much more fearsome situations,” said Simon. “Just...take it easy, yes? No more gun-runs for a while. Doctor’s orders.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” Zoe said. “So...you’ll take care of this?” She gestured to the supine Captain.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. I’ve got to admit, I’m exhausted. See you in the morning.” Zoe stepped around the Captain and down the hall to her quarters.
“I’ll be right back, River,” said Simon. “Um. Try not to poke at him too much.”
River stuck her tongue out at her brother. He grinned and shuffled out of the kitchen to the infirmary, shaking his head as he went.
River sat at the Captain’s head, looking at his face upside down. There was the smallest curl of a smile on his lips. Inside his head, she felt his thoughts as a tangled soup of sadness and fear, but the knot was getting smaller, and smaller...
A bright wash of yellow began to rise through his thoughts and River breathed in time with Mal. She whispered to him, for herself, ordering her thoughts, but letting them mingle with the Captain’s.
“She flies with love. Dissolves the hate. A happy home.”
Mal’s blue eyes revealed themselves to River’s dark, darting ones.
“And baby makes eight.”