Hoban 'Wash' Washburne (i_soar) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2008-04-21 19:59:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | hoban washburne, zoe washburne, zz:status complete |
til death do us part or reunite [ Wash + Zoe ]
(( This initial hunk of text is from a thread that happened via email. ))
"You know, I must have been absent the day they went over 'silencing beagles' in class when I was a kid. Boy is my face red." Wash said as he gripped the controls of the ship. The barking had been constant. Okay, not constant because sometimes the smallish dogs had broke up that canine banter with a long, drawn out howl. Either way, their assortment of bellowing and barking pierced through every wall and door and was making concentration on silly little things like.. oh.. landing, difficult. Even with the bit of cotton he'd snagged from the medbay shoved in his ears. A glance was stolen towards the figure standing beside him, Captain Malcolm Reynolds.
"The quicker you get 'er down on the ground, the quicker we all get back to not shouting over the chorus of hellhounds.." Mal clapped his hand onto the back of Wash's chair -- steadying himself for the shudder of the transition of passing through the approaching planet's atmosphere. "Not to mention the quicker we get paid, and that rubs me all kinds of the right way."
"Next time can we transport something small and mute? Things that come to mind are plastic ficus trees or perhaps those little, squishy bits people pack stuff with.. I could do with some "soft rustling" after this... okay.. hitting atmo.." Wash's gaze dropped back to the illuminated panel before him, monitoring the control Kaylee kept of the ship's engine as they passed through from the Black. The ship lurched, shuddering, and then the barking stopped. Wash's head snapped up -- where there should have been the aerial sight of clouds with parting glimpses of terrain -- there was terrain, from a purely terrestrial view. Not just terrain, either, interior terrain. Walls, like a small hangar built around the ship. The viewshield was smudged, foggy. The pilot was confused, seemingly frozen as his brain attempted to process what he was looking at. Had he passed out? Hadn't he just been in the sky?
"Captain..?" Slowly, Wash turned to look up at Mal -- finding nothing where the Captain had just been standing. "Mal?" This time the query was shouted a little louder, panic rising in his voice. Wash was pretty prepared when it came to piloting -- but having your ship.. land without you landing it? That was startling. As he reached for the ship's comm unit, it was then he realized the dimmed controls. Auxiliary power? But they'd just been running at 100%! In fact, aside from the lowered power, everything else was off, there wasn't the hum of the engine, there wasn't even the clamor of anyone running to the bridge to see why they'd suddenly stopped.
Wash depressed the comm button. "Hello?" There was an uncomfortable silence and no response. "Anyone?"
Nothing.
Wash spent more than an hour frantically running through the ship. Every bunk was searched, ever room torn through. Everything was in place, everything was where it should be, but it all looked untouched for years. Dusty. Abandoned. He'd call out for "anyone" and he'd call out for "Zoe".. but eventually those pleas for a response were begged from his wife alone. But there was nothing. Not even one blasted beagle. The cargo bay was empty. If this was an Alliance trick, it was a good one. Either they'd gone into wizardry or he was hallucinating. Slamming his hand against the controls to Serenity's cargo hatch, the doors parted with creaks and hissing, and Wash ran down the ramp into what looked like an abandoned storage facility -- a warehouse. No guards, no.. anything. The place looked as neglected as the ship. Light creeped in from one, human sized door along the metal wall and even said door was hanging by a thread to the doorway. Wash took one step towards the light, then paused -- remembering what Zoe might do in a situation like this. He turned back and hustled into the ship to return with a smaller gun from Jayne's collection. Hey, he wasn't exactly there to say no right now and Wash needed.. something.
Creeping towards the door, Wash's heart was pounding. This wasn't his deal. He stayed in the ship and the others explored new territories. But where were the others? Where was he for that matter? Drawing back the door a little to allow himself through, Wash took his first step into dank, humid air of The City docks.
Zoe'd had something of a day at the garden, which had been an experience she wasn't sure she wanted to repeat. Why couldn't the people here be...normal? The warrior woman could take a hell of a lot, she had had to, but sometimes, sometimes, she wished she were back in the Black on a ship with a brood. Yes, with a large brood of children who loved being space side as much as Zoe did when she could be. Children who loved both their parents, even if they probably did like being around Pa more than Ma because Ma was the mean one. Zoe had to smile sadly at the hint of jealousy she felt - it was a pointless emotion because all that wouldn't happen. She would never have children with Wash, and they'd never be in the sky again.
There was a soft sound as she decided her train of thought needed a serious derailment. She was tough, strong, and there was no blasted way she was going to end up one of those weeping widow women who had nothing else better to do than feel sorry for themselves. So, she stopped by a market and headed home to the Pearl. Zoe hadn't seen Jack, and she supposed eventually it would have to happen; the smell of rum suggested that Jack was still in residence.
Zoe paused as she headed pass the docks, maybe she would see Jack here, getting to know more people and seeing if they'd like to join his crew. Maybe she'd meet anyone she'd met before. Something didn't feel right though; actually it smelled wrong for the watery docks. It smelled like...ozone. It smelled like afterburn. It smelled like someone had just landed, but there weren't any airships to land. This was very wrong in how very familiar it was.
The dank humidity of the air was something he'd had felt in a long time, longer than most of his other crewmates, as Wash wasn't one to leave the ship often while on a job. A hand moved to nervously pat his side until his fingers secured a small, black device from his belt. His comm radio. Something he should have thought of earlier -- but when the entire crew was missing and he'd somehow, amazingly landed in a warehouse building, using the comm channel seemed a little mundane.
Wash held the device close to his face, depressing the call button as he spoke. "Hello? Mal? Zoe?..." The pause was long. "Jayne?" Nothing but a static hiss answered him. "This has stopped being funny. So just come out. And if this isn't a trick, I think I have a fever and am hallucinating -- and if that's the case, please remove me from the bridge for my own and your own safety."
Still no response.
Wash would only pace a few steps more from the door, his gaze continually flickering back to make visual contact with the ship. As if it too would blink out of existence like the skies had, right before his eyes.
Zoe's eyes narrowed for a moment, her full lips pursing. Did she just hear? She certainly was turning into one of those women - next thing she knew she'd see him, looking lost and pathetic. It wasn't that he was always lost and pathetic, it wasn't even that she was usually saving his ass - he probably saved hers more times than not. It was that sometimes his voice would get that hitch in it...
The Amazon moved along, wondering if she was certainly hearing things. And, while she knew she shouldn't, she was looking for him anyway. There was no way he could be here. He'd died, valiantly, but he was dead all the same. He was no longer with her. With Serenity - if she only knew. Edging round a corner, she came to a full stop as the color of a certain shirt hit her full force. That shirt. Who the rut? The City was playing some sort of joke now? In normal situations, Zoe would have thought that any sane person wouldn't blame a bit of geography for the situation, but being in the City was anything but normal.
She waited for the shirt to turn, so that she could get a profile. And, whatever she had planned to have for dinner, drinks included, was now on the ground. The mare's leg, which she procured finally in an adventure she was certainly not going to recount to anyone any time soon, was pulled free and cocked. She had lost it.
"Wèi! Hùndàn!* What are you doing with my husband's face?" She'd heard of ghosts before, but this..this was beyond sensible.
( *Hey, asshole. )
Wash's heart nearly stopped at the sound of the small rifle being cocked. He hated gunfights and possibly because he wasn't very good at them. Steadying his hand as he lifted his own firearm towards the sound, it was lowered as quickly as it had been raised. Why? That voice. Oh, that voice. Not only was it familiar, but it was Zoe's. Sure, he would have been excited to find anyone, but finding Zoe first, it put his mind to ease some.
"*Zhēn gāoxìng kàndào nǐ! Is this a joke? Is it my birthday or something? Because really, there's a point where it just goes beyond the remote possibility of being funny and into giving your husband an early heart attack." Fast talking and somewhat jovial with the relief of seeing his wife, Wash started towards her. Started being the appropriate word because two steps into his motion, he noted that her gun had not lowered.
"Okay, sweetie, we're reaching another one of those points again." Wash took another, slower step forward. "Because I really want to be in close proximity to you, but the gunpoint thing is something of a turnoff. I'm pretty sure we discussed that when we were dating."
( *Am I glad to see you! )
Crying wasn't something Zoe did. Well, not in public. There were very few people who'd ever see her show that emotion. One should have been dead, and the other..well, it was quite possible they were both dead. Only the one she knew should have been dead was now standing in front of her, sounding very much like himself. Her mind raced at the logic, and her body reacted.
She stepped closer, and rather than shooting, which was something she certainly thought of doing, she used the riffle butt as a blunter less deadlier weapon. Though in her hands, almost anything was deadly. Her intention was to knock him out, drag him into the closest and not so hostile looking door, and find out who the hell this idiot was and why he looked like Wash. She didn't care if it hurt; she needed answers, and she'd be damned if the City, the Alliance, whatever the hell had decided to play this very cruel joke on her - she wasn't laughing.
As soon as he went down, she grabbed him by that tacky Hawaiian shirt front, lifting him up enough for the drag. The mare's leg was at the ready for anything or anyone else who might have wish to get in her way. As luck would have it, or just the City doing its providing thing, there was an open door ready to be hidden behind. Zoe pulled "Wash" into the building, and without ceremony - imposters required no ceremony - she dropped him, letting his head bang the floor a little roughly. Luckily she hadn't lifted him that high up. Her attention had been claimed by something much bigger than her dead husband...
It was Serenity...and her pilot.
The road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions. The expressway to falling to the ground like a sack of protein was Zoe's intention to knock someone out. While he hadn't been able to process it before landing on the receiving end of said head trauma -- Wash had been that lucky someone. He'd groan as she moved him, but he did so with no consciousness of his own vocalizations. But the second drop quieted him right down.
Everything was fuzzy when his eyes would slowly blink open again. A drawn out groan would rumble from his lips as he flexed his body slightly, his limbs felt heavy. Too heavy to attempt to roll off of his back just yet. The overhead, industrial lighting of the warehouse flickered as he starred up at it. Where the hell was he? Ceiling was too high to be in a ship. Letting his head roll to the side, it was hard to make out the figure sitting outside of arm's reach (that was if he felt he could move at all, at the very least his arms). Wash wasn't seriously injured, just down for the count as far as the next few hours went.
"Di-Did you.. hit me?" He mumbled. Parts were starting to come back. He'd been outside, in something of an alley. He'd seen Zoe -- then black. And not even the good kind of Black. "Honey?"
Zoe stayed right where she was, watching him. She'd checked to make sure he wasn't going to die from any obvious head wound before she slipped away to give the Firefly class ship a a quick once over. It wasn't as thorough as she'd have liked, but it was enough to see that this was one damn good copy of the ship she'd spent a good bit of her life on since the war. Her "prisoner" had made a few sounds that drew her attention, putting a hold on looking for binding for now. She was getting sloppy; she realized it as soon as he started talking. She should have bound and gagged him first then did a looksee.
"You do realize that you should have come as Mal, not as Wash? Wash is dead." No one had explained the timeline quite yet to her. No one had bothered to tell her that people from the same place may be from different times. "Or is this just another one of those the City will provide...gǒushí. My husband died. I said good bye to him, and you think I'll be happier seeing him again? Do you have any ruttin' idea how much this hurts?"
Yeah, there were very few people in existence who would ever see the tall, strong woman cry, and if this was the City's doll, it wouldn't see it. Zoe wasn't going to break down in front of some mechanical, but Wash, Hobane Washburne would know that her voice held the tears she couldn't shed easily. He'd know that she wasn't crazy, or maybe he wouldn't, but this was her. This was his Zoe having a very hard time of things.
"Do you? You can't just bring him back. It won't make it all right."
Shakily, his hands pressed against the cold metal of the floor, seething a breath through clenched teeth, Wash managed to push himself up to a sitting position. Though with the way his head still felt, he lowered his face into rest on his knees as he slowly drew them up. At this moment he was kind of feeling bad for anyone who'd been on the receiving end of his wife's wrath. Not that he hadn't been there argumentatively.. but this whole violently thing wasn't something he was a fan of.
Neither was death. Dead? He wasn't dead. Had whatever event that left him alone of the ship caused Zoe to fear that he was dead? The Mal part was dismissed as a part of her current state of crazy that he wasn't sure how it fit in just yet. "Zoe, I'm not dead. I can't tell you a whole lot right now. I don't know where we are.. I know my head feels like a herd of cattle stepped on it, but I'm not dead." His nostril twitched as a drop of blood trickled down from his nose. Slowly, Wash tipped his head back, the back of his hand moving to wipe away the blood.
"Dead people can't get bloody noses, right? Simon'll tell you that." It was a lame attempt at lightening the mood which appropriately enough fell flat on its face, not unlike he had an hour or more ago. When he heard that slight warble in her tone, the subtle change of breath by a woman who was keeping back tears. His woman keeping back tears. Wash refocused his gaze upon the Amazon again. His own tone softened, a calm yet very serious.. "Zoe, you're scaring me, okay? I'm not dead. A little banged up, but I've been through worse."
Zoe stood slowly; this time the mare's leg was holstered, but that didn't mean she couldn't pull it quick like. She moved just as slowly towards him. What she wanted more than anything was to curl up beside him and wish the world away. Or at least wish away the last few years without him. She was soon very close to him, closer than arm's reach actually.
She pulled something from a pocket, who knew how women hid things like Zoe could. The handkerchief was quickly tucked under the bleeding nose, head tilted back slightly more - as if he couldn't do it right on his own. Dead don't bleed. She knew dead didn't bleed, but she also knew that the dead didn't come back, except for that one time. Her lips pulled thin as she watched him carefully.
"You were dead. I saw you impaled in the pilot's seat. I had to go on without you. We all did. Mal started flying Serenity, which by the way I shall never forgive you for. Man seemed crazier when you left, but I guess I didn't have much to compare it too when you did." There was a slight joke about her husband's sanity - what sane person married a woman like her and joined a ship like theirs? "If you are him, I'm not saying you are, if you are him, you're in the City, and right now, I don't know how or why."
The hand that had tipped his head back touched his jaw then his shoulder. She'd almost sell her soul for him to be the real thing; actually she might have.
It wasn't that Wash was the type who didn't trust his wife. He did. But at this exact moment in time Wash certainly believed that Zoe had for whatever reason believed him to be dead -- but couldn't agree that she was right. How could he? He was right there, alive. Whatever this place was, however they'd gotten here, it had done this to Zoe. Was it an Alliance trick? Had they been drugged? His mind went blank for the moment when her hand moved to touch his jaw. He leaned into her touch with a contented grumble.
"Zoe.." His tone remained calm and seemingly infinitely patient. "I'm not dead, okay? You can check my vitals, you can pinch me, sweetheart -- you can do anything you want to me to believe me. Just.. please.. don't make with the hitting again? I don't want to get taken into a home for battered husbands on.. what city are we in? It smelled wet outside, ah.. New Melbourne?"
His hand moved to touch hers, gently cupping where she held the handkerchief to his face. Slowly, Wash guided her hand away as the bleeding had stopped. When she released the scrap of cloth, his fingers wove between her own digits, giving a squeeze. With little grace to his rather lumbering motion, Wash pushed against the floor to scoot himself closer to his wife. He then used that hand to set his palm softly upon her cheek, his fingers moving to tuck a bit of her dark hair behind her ear. And despite being on the concussed side, he smiled. The kind of smile that so undoubtedly came every time he saw her come back from a job. A smile at just seeing her, knowing she was alright. The grin that came with seeing her alive and with being reminded just how lucky he was to be married to her. Wash was unabashedly in love with his wife. Even after a blow to the head.
"Whatever's going on here, Zoe, we'll be okay. We've got the ship. Wherever anyone else is... they've got to come back here."
Zoe just stared at him, watching him move; he was alive, and she should have been happy. Yet, all she could think to do was "Shoot him." or "Hit him" - neither which would have meant a happy couple in the end. Wash should have been dead; she'd made something of her peace with that idea, or so she'd thought. She couldn't have him coming back only to lose him again, so if she just took care of losing him already? Her brows furrowed as she was certainly trying to work this all out without letting her control slip; she was a soldier - she didn't cry, she didn't lose her shit, she didn't turn into some little girl who'd lost her way.
"We better get that looked at." The warrior woman looked back over her shoulder at Serenity; the ship looked dead, which was more than a little depressing. Then again, at that moment she felt very much like the downed cargo, but...if it could fly?
"Com'on." Wash wasn't getting much of a choice; she was already shifting her body against his, so that she could lever him up to his feet and get him inside. Her brows remained furrowed as she helped him up, or tried to. She could smell him; the closer he got the stronger it was. Zoe had fought in more than one kind of battle, faced off dangerous mad men, but having him back and not curling up to him and crying was probably one of the hardest battles she'd ever had to take part in. Her finger tips pressed a little harder into his rib cage, soon gripping at that damned Hawaiian shirt of his, and her head was tipped down and to the side - hard concentration clearly on her face. Maybe a few tears were already starting to join the first ones, but if this was her Wash, she couldn't have him bleeding to death. Well, not on some alien warehouse floor anyway.
Wash's legs fumbled to steady beneath his body as Zoe propped him up against her. The immediate change from sitting to standing was nothing short of a rollercoaster ride inside his head. Just when he thought his attempt for balance would be lost, she gripped him through his shirt. Wash snaked an arm around her back, holding onto her to keep himself upright.
"Simon's not in there." He'd been out cold when she'd examined the ship on her own. "No one is. She's running on auxillary power. And we don't have Kaylee around to tell us why." His head rolled to the side, resting against her shoulder. Wash wasn't the powerhouse that his wife was, especially when not at the controls of Serenity. On the bridge, he could make miracles happen -- but without a ship to pilot, he was really only good to one person. Her.
"We were just about to break atmo heading in to drop off those beagles and then.. this. Just me sitting on the bridge looking out at a rusty wall. No sky, no beagles barking at everything, no Mal barking at me." A feeble smile pressed through a wince of pain. "Ooh.. yeah. Ow. There's something wrong in there. Everything looks abandoned. There's even dust in the med bay... the good doctor wouldn't stomach even a smudge on the glass in there."
He let Zoe take the lead, not that he had much choice in the matter when his woozy head wouldn't allow for him to get far on his own. "I thought I'd blacked out, or this was some weird dream. Because you're a regular in my dreams, but there's usually a slinky dress involved and not a strike to the head."