Washathon 09: Death for Resurrection
Title: Death for Resurrection
Author: honu_girl
Characters: Wash/Zoe romance, Wash/Kaylee friendship, Mal
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for fun, not profit. All characters belong to Joss.
Word Count: ~1900
Warnings: None
Notes: For aceharlequin87 who requested sass and a reference to Isis, for this year's washathon. Thanks to sarahetc and Marciepooh for the beta. Any remaining errors are purely mine.
---
"We'll be in our bunk." Zoe practically dragged Wash out of the galley.
"Lamby-toes, whatever do you think you're doing?" Wash asked playfully as Zoe pulled him down the ladder into their bunk. "Anyone might think you had designs on this poor man."
"Husband, if you don't shut up I might have to hurt you." Zoe responded as she leaned in to start kissing Wash's neck while her fingers were busy undoing the buttons on his shirt.
"You make these threats, and yet you never seem to follow through." Wash couldn't resist taunting Zoe.
"You want follow-through, husband? I'll give you follow-through!" Zoe mock-angrily growled, as she grabbed Wash by the shoulders and threw him to onto their bunk, Wash's shirt falling open and back off his shoulders, trapping his arms behind his back.
"I'm just saying, all talk and no action leaves a man frustrated, is all." Wash's voice grew thick with desire, even as he playfully tried to disengage himself from his wife's bindings.
"Well, let's shut up then, shall we?" Zoe straddled Wash and bent down to kiss his chest, slowly moving up to his neck and finally claiming his gasping mouth as hers.
Zoe released Wash's arms so that he could help her undress while they deepened the kiss. As he reached for her breasts, Wash found the tyet charm that he had given Zoe as a present for their anniversary and traced its outline against her chest, murmuring, "You really are the perfect wife."
He had just flipped his wife under him and was helping her wriggle out of her trousers when a screeching reverberated through the hull of the ship. Mal came over the intercom, "Wash, you're needed on the bridge. RIGHT NOW."
Wash looked at his wife ruefully. "Never had a chance, did we?" he sighed, as he shrugged back into his shirt and went up to the bridge.
**
Wash, flat on his back, pulled aside a tangle of wires under the console to get a better look at the switches. Wishing that Mal wouldn't hover around so much while he and Kaylee were working on the bridge to figure out what's going on with Serenity, Wash closed his eyes for a moment. He thought of his wife, lying in their bunk, and could almost feel her body pressed against his, hard and unyielding in spots but oh so soft in all the right places. He'd roll her on top of him and slowly kiss that spot on her neck and then...
Kaylee said, "Wash, qing bang wo ge mang?!?1 Them solenoids ain't gonna fix themselves!" She elbowed Wash in the ribs, hard, reaching over his head to access another panel.
Wash broke out of his daydream and sighed heavily. He smacked his head on the console as he sat up. "Well, these solenoids ain't gonna get fixed at all. They're fried, along with half the boards, the main nav system and all the other switches." He rubbed his head ruefully.
Kaylee looked despondent. "Wash, how'd she get so far gone? Serenity tells me when she's hurt, and not a peep at me."
"Well, Kaylee, I think just one failure cascaded into another. Not your fault." Wash sounded as reassuring as he could.
"It's always my fault when she's not working." Kaylee sounded on the verge of tears.
Wash quickly answered, "It's as much mine; I should've paid more mind to the nav system errors."
Mal said, "Well, it's someone's fault that my ship is busted. Fix her now." He stood there with him arms crossed.
"Do you have a spare solenoid on you, Captain? How 'bout a spare nav system?" Wash retorted, trying and failing to keep his sarcasm in check.
"I need a thermal coupler, too, Cap'n, if you have one handy," Kaylee piped in. "Also some new piston rods, if you're handing things out."
Mal scowled at the two of them. "Make do with what we've got, you know that. Just fix my ship, you yahoos."
"Wash, with all this damage, does this mean...?" Kaylee looked up at him worriedly through the wires.
Wash again sighed deeply, and returned Kaylee's significant look. "Yep. We've got to get to a mech planet. The only one near enough is Isis."
Mal interrupted them. "No way we's going to Isis."
"Cap'n, we need to get to a mech planet," Kaylee pleaded. "We don't get this taken care of soon, we're dead in the black. 'Tween the console damage and the compression coil, we ain't got no choice. Sometimes broke is broke, and you need help fixing. Can't just keep relying on the grav thrusts to take up for the compression coil, Cap'n. Been too long doing that. The grav thrusts go, ain't nothing I can do."
"No way, no how we're going to Isis. Gorram saboteurs." Mal glowered from Wash to Kaylee and back to Wash again.
"Cap'n, we can just about make Isis. Any other mech planet is too far, and she's too far gone for anything but a resurrection shop." Wash said this with some sadness.
"Don't care, we ain't going to Isis. Dong ma?2" Mal stomped off the bridge.
**
"What's up with the captain, Wash? I know he's stubborn and all, but not like him to put Serenity in danger like this, not when we got the cash to fix her. A mech planet is what we need, and if Isis is a mech planet, what's the problem?" Kaylee sounded worried and small.
"Don't you know about Isis?" Wash asked. Kaylee shook her head.
Wash took a lecturing tone. "Isis was your standard mech planet, full of resurrection shops, fixin' and rebuilding all class of ships for all comers. When the war came about, Isis sided with the Independents, but some pretty serious sabotage went down there near the end. Couldn't prove anything at first, since it was just little things, that could be put to a bad part. Then they started getting bolder, actually planting time bombs and even Jackman fuses."
"They didn't!" Kaylee was aghast.
"They did," Wash confirmed. "So somewhere inside that ship, just waiting for a mechanic or pilot to get his hands in the turbine or the fission curator or the solenoid, and boom."
Kaylee was speechless.
"It went on for quite some time before anyone was able to pinpoint what mech planet, or even that it had been a mech planet, that was causing the problem, because no one could believe that that someone at a resurrection shop could do that. I mean, Jackman Fuses are NASTY. Independents lost a lot of good ships outta that. Some say that was one of the turning points." Wash always liked explaining things, even in bad situations. Especially to pretty women.
"That's just wrong, Wash. Mech planets is for fixin' ships, not breakin' 'em." Kaylee sounded sad and disbelieving that anyone could purposely hurt a ship.
Wash nodded. "Agreed, mei mei. Independents got their own back, though, got their revenge, and Isis is still not quite the same. But, she's got what we need. So if we want to save Serenity, then there we go." Wash stood up and carefully set down his tools before leaving the bridge.
**
"Captain?" Wash entered the galley quietly. When there was no response from the captain, Wash tried again, firmer, "Mal?"
Mal didn't even look up from the protein he was eating. "What is it, Wash? You best not try to talk me into going to Isis, because ain't no way I'm setting foot on that gorram planet." Mal's response was tense and cold.
"I was just coming to tell you I understand, sir. That your principles about Isis are more important that Serenity herself, and I understand." Wash said this carefully, being sure to enunciate each and every word, so that the sarcasm would be obvious to anyone.
Mal practically exploded with anger. He stood up, knocking the protein off the table. "Don't you be telling me about my feelings about my ship, you understand?" His shoulders were tense, fists clenched, his chest quivered with rage.
"Well, sir, the way I see it, we're about to lose the backup nav systems completely and we go dead in the black here when the compression coil finally fails. But, what's important is that we don't go to Isis because they're niao shi de dugui3 and don't deserve our credits."
Zoe stepped into the galley. "Who don't deserve our credits?"
"Our pilot and mechanic want to take Serenity to Isis to fix some minor technical problems. Now YOUR HUSBAND is accusing me of not caring about our boat!"
"Minor technical problems? Minor tech-- We're about to go dead in the black!" Wash spluttered, finally losing his calm facade. "Don't you remember when we lost the catalyzer on the port compression coil, with the fire? When we almost DIED? This is far more serious than that. Only difference is SO FAR we still have life support!"
"Best let me handle this." Zoe's voice was calm and reasonable. Wash stomped back to the bridge, glowering back over his shoulder at Mal.
"Captain..." Zoe started.
"I love this gorram bucket of bolts! She's part of me, of all of us! Can't have him saying that kind of thing." Mal looked ready to start throwing chairs around the galley.
"Sir..." Zoe started again.
Mal raged on, "I lost good people 'cause of an Isis ship. Good people, Zoe. Thing like that a man can't forgive easily. And I ain't about to."
"Sir, Wash ain't asking you to forgive. Wash knows what Isis was. WAS. Isis is different now, just like we are different now. If he says we gotta go to Isis, sir, we gotta go." Zoe stood there, arms crossed, with her eyebrow cocked up, staring at Mal. That stare affected Mal as much as the words. That stare said "I know what you lost, but I'm still asking you to do this."
"Tzao-gao4! Alright, tell Wash to plot a course to get us to Isis. Why you got to make so much gorram sense sometimes?"
**
Wash returned to the bridge, fuming.
"Wash, why'd you go talk to the Captain like that? I could hear you all the way up here," Kaylee gently chastised.
"Kaylee, I'm such a gorram idiot, is why." Wash sat down heavily in the pilot's chair.
"You ain't an idiot. You're a fool." Zoe stated as she strode onto the bridge.
"Wife, from anyone but you, those'd be killing words." Wash visibly relaxed, tension leaving his shoulders, as Zoe came and stood next to him.
Zoe's eyes, cold and hard as she had entered the bridge, softened as she looked at Wash. "Husband, anyone but you'd be dead now from what you said to the Captain."
"Yet here I am, stuck with this bunch of fei-oo5 to work with. Did you talk some sense into Mal, or are we going to die a cold brutal death out here, floating in the black so long that even Reavers would look away?" Wash, although still worried about Serenity, seemed calmer now that Zoe was with him.
Zoe sighed. "No. Thanks to your words, we are to set a course to Isis. But I wouldn't push the Captain like that again, Wash. One day he is going to snap, and I might not be able to protect you."
"As long as Serenity keeps flying, my love, I don't care how the Captain feels about me." Wash felt optimistic for the first time since they had been interrupted in their bunk earlier. "And as long as I've got you." With a smile on his face, Wash set the most direct course to Isis.
*****
1Could I get some help?
2You understand?
3piss-soaked pikers
4Dammit!
5junk
Author: honu_girl
Characters: Wash/Zoe romance, Wash/Kaylee friendship, Mal
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for fun, not profit. All characters belong to Joss.
Word Count: ~1900
Warnings: None
Notes: For aceharlequin87 who requested sass and a reference to Isis, for this year's washathon. Thanks to sarahetc and Marciepooh for the beta. Any remaining errors are purely mine.
---
"We'll be in our bunk." Zoe practically dragged Wash out of the galley.
"Lamby-toes, whatever do you think you're doing?" Wash asked playfully as Zoe pulled him down the ladder into their bunk. "Anyone might think you had designs on this poor man."
"Husband, if you don't shut up I might have to hurt you." Zoe responded as she leaned in to start kissing Wash's neck while her fingers were busy undoing the buttons on his shirt.
"You make these threats, and yet you never seem to follow through." Wash couldn't resist taunting Zoe.
"You want follow-through, husband? I'll give you follow-through!" Zoe mock-angrily growled, as she grabbed Wash by the shoulders and threw him to onto their bunk, Wash's shirt falling open and back off his shoulders, trapping his arms behind his back.
"I'm just saying, all talk and no action leaves a man frustrated, is all." Wash's voice grew thick with desire, even as he playfully tried to disengage himself from his wife's bindings.
"Well, let's shut up then, shall we?" Zoe straddled Wash and bent down to kiss his chest, slowly moving up to his neck and finally claiming his gasping mouth as hers.
Zoe released Wash's arms so that he could help her undress while they deepened the kiss. As he reached for her breasts, Wash found the tyet charm that he had given Zoe as a present for their anniversary and traced its outline against her chest, murmuring, "You really are the perfect wife."
He had just flipped his wife under him and was helping her wriggle out of her trousers when a screeching reverberated through the hull of the ship. Mal came over the intercom, "Wash, you're needed on the bridge. RIGHT NOW."
Wash looked at his wife ruefully. "Never had a chance, did we?" he sighed, as he shrugged back into his shirt and went up to the bridge.
**
Wash, flat on his back, pulled aside a tangle of wires under the console to get a better look at the switches. Wishing that Mal wouldn't hover around so much while he and Kaylee were working on the bridge to figure out what's going on with Serenity, Wash closed his eyes for a moment. He thought of his wife, lying in their bunk, and could almost feel her body pressed against his, hard and unyielding in spots but oh so soft in all the right places. He'd roll her on top of him and slowly kiss that spot on her neck and then...
Kaylee said, "Wash, qing bang wo ge mang?!?1 Them solenoids ain't gonna fix themselves!" She elbowed Wash in the ribs, hard, reaching over his head to access another panel.
Wash broke out of his daydream and sighed heavily. He smacked his head on the console as he sat up. "Well, these solenoids ain't gonna get fixed at all. They're fried, along with half the boards, the main nav system and all the other switches." He rubbed his head ruefully.
Kaylee looked despondent. "Wash, how'd she get so far gone? Serenity tells me when she's hurt, and not a peep at me."
"Well, Kaylee, I think just one failure cascaded into another. Not your fault." Wash sounded as reassuring as he could.
"It's always my fault when she's not working." Kaylee sounded on the verge of tears.
Wash quickly answered, "It's as much mine; I should've paid more mind to the nav system errors."
Mal said, "Well, it's someone's fault that my ship is busted. Fix her now." He stood there with him arms crossed.
"Do you have a spare solenoid on you, Captain? How 'bout a spare nav system?" Wash retorted, trying and failing to keep his sarcasm in check.
"I need a thermal coupler, too, Cap'n, if you have one handy," Kaylee piped in. "Also some new piston rods, if you're handing things out."
Mal scowled at the two of them. "Make do with what we've got, you know that. Just fix my ship, you yahoos."
"Wash, with all this damage, does this mean...?" Kaylee looked up at him worriedly through the wires.
Wash again sighed deeply, and returned Kaylee's significant look. "Yep. We've got to get to a mech planet. The only one near enough is Isis."
Mal interrupted them. "No way we's going to Isis."
"Cap'n, we need to get to a mech planet," Kaylee pleaded. "We don't get this taken care of soon, we're dead in the black. 'Tween the console damage and the compression coil, we ain't got no choice. Sometimes broke is broke, and you need help fixing. Can't just keep relying on the grav thrusts to take up for the compression coil, Cap'n. Been too long doing that. The grav thrusts go, ain't nothing I can do."
"No way, no how we're going to Isis. Gorram saboteurs." Mal glowered from Wash to Kaylee and back to Wash again.
"Cap'n, we can just about make Isis. Any other mech planet is too far, and she's too far gone for anything but a resurrection shop." Wash said this with some sadness.
"Don't care, we ain't going to Isis. Dong ma?2" Mal stomped off the bridge.
**
"What's up with the captain, Wash? I know he's stubborn and all, but not like him to put Serenity in danger like this, not when we got the cash to fix her. A mech planet is what we need, and if Isis is a mech planet, what's the problem?" Kaylee sounded worried and small.
"Don't you know about Isis?" Wash asked. Kaylee shook her head.
Wash took a lecturing tone. "Isis was your standard mech planet, full of resurrection shops, fixin' and rebuilding all class of ships for all comers. When the war came about, Isis sided with the Independents, but some pretty serious sabotage went down there near the end. Couldn't prove anything at first, since it was just little things, that could be put to a bad part. Then they started getting bolder, actually planting time bombs and even Jackman fuses."
"They didn't!" Kaylee was aghast.
"They did," Wash confirmed. "So somewhere inside that ship, just waiting for a mechanic or pilot to get his hands in the turbine or the fission curator or the solenoid, and boom."
Kaylee was speechless.
"It went on for quite some time before anyone was able to pinpoint what mech planet, or even that it had been a mech planet, that was causing the problem, because no one could believe that that someone at a resurrection shop could do that. I mean, Jackman Fuses are NASTY. Independents lost a lot of good ships outta that. Some say that was one of the turning points." Wash always liked explaining things, even in bad situations. Especially to pretty women.
"That's just wrong, Wash. Mech planets is for fixin' ships, not breakin' 'em." Kaylee sounded sad and disbelieving that anyone could purposely hurt a ship.
Wash nodded. "Agreed, mei mei. Independents got their own back, though, got their revenge, and Isis is still not quite the same. But, she's got what we need. So if we want to save Serenity, then there we go." Wash stood up and carefully set down his tools before leaving the bridge.
**
"Captain?" Wash entered the galley quietly. When there was no response from the captain, Wash tried again, firmer, "Mal?"
Mal didn't even look up from the protein he was eating. "What is it, Wash? You best not try to talk me into going to Isis, because ain't no way I'm setting foot on that gorram planet." Mal's response was tense and cold.
"I was just coming to tell you I understand, sir. That your principles about Isis are more important that Serenity herself, and I understand." Wash said this carefully, being sure to enunciate each and every word, so that the sarcasm would be obvious to anyone.
Mal practically exploded with anger. He stood up, knocking the protein off the table. "Don't you be telling me about my feelings about my ship, you understand?" His shoulders were tense, fists clenched, his chest quivered with rage.
"Well, sir, the way I see it, we're about to lose the backup nav systems completely and we go dead in the black here when the compression coil finally fails. But, what's important is that we don't go to Isis because they're niao shi de dugui3 and don't deserve our credits."
Zoe stepped into the galley. "Who don't deserve our credits?"
"Our pilot and mechanic want to take Serenity to Isis to fix some minor technical problems. Now YOUR HUSBAND is accusing me of not caring about our boat!"
"Minor technical problems? Minor tech-- We're about to go dead in the black!" Wash spluttered, finally losing his calm facade. "Don't you remember when we lost the catalyzer on the port compression coil, with the fire? When we almost DIED? This is far more serious than that. Only difference is SO FAR we still have life support!"
"Best let me handle this." Zoe's voice was calm and reasonable. Wash stomped back to the bridge, glowering back over his shoulder at Mal.
"Captain..." Zoe started.
"I love this gorram bucket of bolts! She's part of me, of all of us! Can't have him saying that kind of thing." Mal looked ready to start throwing chairs around the galley.
"Sir..." Zoe started again.
Mal raged on, "I lost good people 'cause of an Isis ship. Good people, Zoe. Thing like that a man can't forgive easily. And I ain't about to."
"Sir, Wash ain't asking you to forgive. Wash knows what Isis was. WAS. Isis is different now, just like we are different now. If he says we gotta go to Isis, sir, we gotta go." Zoe stood there, arms crossed, with her eyebrow cocked up, staring at Mal. That stare affected Mal as much as the words. That stare said "I know what you lost, but I'm still asking you to do this."
"Tzao-gao4! Alright, tell Wash to plot a course to get us to Isis. Why you got to make so much gorram sense sometimes?"
**
Wash returned to the bridge, fuming.
"Wash, why'd you go talk to the Captain like that? I could hear you all the way up here," Kaylee gently chastised.
"Kaylee, I'm such a gorram idiot, is why." Wash sat down heavily in the pilot's chair.
"You ain't an idiot. You're a fool." Zoe stated as she strode onto the bridge.
"Wife, from anyone but you, those'd be killing words." Wash visibly relaxed, tension leaving his shoulders, as Zoe came and stood next to him.
Zoe's eyes, cold and hard as she had entered the bridge, softened as she looked at Wash. "Husband, anyone but you'd be dead now from what you said to the Captain."
"Yet here I am, stuck with this bunch of fei-oo5 to work with. Did you talk some sense into Mal, or are we going to die a cold brutal death out here, floating in the black so long that even Reavers would look away?" Wash, although still worried about Serenity, seemed calmer now that Zoe was with him.
Zoe sighed. "No. Thanks to your words, we are to set a course to Isis. But I wouldn't push the Captain like that again, Wash. One day he is going to snap, and I might not be able to protect you."
"As long as Serenity keeps flying, my love, I don't care how the Captain feels about me." Wash felt optimistic for the first time since they had been interrupted in their bunk earlier. "And as long as I've got you." With a smile on his face, Wash set the most direct course to Isis.
*****
1Could I get some help?
2You understand?
3piss-soaked pikers
4Dammit!
5junk