The Universe's Mixer

Wash was sweaty. It wasn't because there was a heatwave or anything but because he'd been working solo on the shuttle. It really was a lost cause. Oswin and he were replacing more parts than were putting parts back together. The percentage of the original shuttle being there when they finished would be pretty low. Still, it was something he could do even with the braces on his arm and leg.

They weren't bulbous braces anymore, at that. They were sleek, black, breathable splints that simply kept the limbs from any unforeseen bumps during the end of their recovery. Still, as he walked free of crutches back toward Jo's house he did still feel sort of an invalid with the boot and wrist brace.

He wore his flight suit tied down around his waist with an A-line undershirt moist with what he liked to call manly sweat but the smell of his manliness did tend to offend Maxine who much preferred his less manly pajama-ed self.

NotWash had been mysteriously quiet recently, as if planning. Or perhaps Wash was just paranoid. Still, he should keep an eye on him.

He thought about all of this as his toolbox swung in one hand bumping lightly against his knee as he strode the distance to Jo's house which realistically could be very short or ridiculously far away. It was really up to The City's mood. He found he didn't care too much. His mood, he also noticed, was not too muddled. Knowing what to expect had become a welcomed forbidden fruit.

As much as he still missed Serenity it was nice not to be shot at or do illegal things or run into people you'd rather not seen because you may have not been on very good terms with them last time and they might shoot you...

Wash had never really wanted a twin. He'd had three older siblings so that had been enough. If Wash HAD wanted a twin the person sitting across the kitchen table from him staring at him with smiling eyes, tidy hair, and in a sweater vest (of all things) would not have been his ideal brother.

The thing that was bothering him in particular right now (because a lot of things about the "Wash" that The City had created bothered him) was the fact that notWash had two pieces of buttered toast on a plate in front of him that he hadn't eaten. He had a cup of coffee that he hadn't touched and The City daily paper was in his hand almost as if it were a prop.

Wash shovelled cereal in his mouth watching him from underneath his scruffy light red bangs.

It had been more than difficult sharing notWash's existence to Jo. Wash thought it was a good idea as any to leave the man-thing in the closet for the foreseeable future. But Jo needed something out of the closet. Wash was surprised (and slightly disappointed) the man was still alive.

He shovelled more cereal in his mouth.

"Should we get Maxine up? It's almost time for school!" notWash said, smiling.

"School's out today," Wash replied shortly. "Inservice."

Inservice was some sort of teacher cult, Wash decided when he couldn't get a straight answer on what it meant through Maxine.

"Oh. Well. Does she have homework? We should probably make sure she's up to--"

"Nope," Wash replied, shovelling more cereal.

"You know...I'm her father," notWash stated.

Wash glared. He clinched his fists and bared his teeth. He hated that he hated his own face so much right now.

Wash usually loved puzzles. The reason for this was because he was good at them. He was good at predicting the way things would work if you put them one way as opposed to the other. He was good at fitting things in. He was good at math; he was DAMN good at math!

But as he sat on the grass inspecting the big pieces all the way to the little pieces he found himself getting more and more frustrated with the wreckage of Shuttle 2. Burns were everywhere effecting the structure of the material, a material that was not really available at the local tool shops.

Most of what was annoying him at this moment was the aesthetic bits. This was because he had looked at the non-aesthetic quite important engine-y, propulsion-y, vital-y bits and had immediately given a long string of chinese and hobbled away to something he thought would be a little more easier to deal with.

He threw the piece he was inspecting across the lawn past Oswin's crouched form with an explosive, primal yell.

"Wo de ma he ta de fen kuang de wai sheng dou!"* he yelled. And then, as he laid fully in the grass with his hands over his head he muttered, "Zao gao..."**

(*Mother of God and all her crazy nephews)
(**What a mess)

Oswin woke up from Bruce's office with the faint outline of a computer keyboard against her face and a blanket draped over her shoulders. She knew that if Leto were still in The City, she would have found him by now. There were no announcements of anyone else being held by The City to help make the repairs. He was just gone.

It didn't make any sense.

She tried walking to the first place she met Leto, just in case he was there, but instead of ending up at the City Commons she found herself in front of a movie theater instead. She took a seat on one of the benches and sighed. There would be no crying. Crying meant she had given up and one thing Oswin Oswald never did was give up. Something would come to her.

Although it wasn't an idea, she was surprised to see one familiar pilot putting his garbage in a proper rubbish bin.

"Couldn't find a robot to harass?" she asked him. She tried smiling but didn't quite feel it in her eyes. She felt tired.

She was happy to see him, even if she was fairly certain the voice might not be enough to recognize her. Oswin needed a friend.

At this point in his recovery from smashing into the upper invisible dome of The City in a shuttle he was hobbling around in an obnoxious black boot with velcro straps and an arm/wrist brace in replacement of the even bulkier (and smellier) casts he'd donned before. He was doing remarkably well but as he hobbled around his room in Jo's house he still felt like an invalid. It frustrated him and made him anxious to not have full use of his faculties. Still, all of this was better than being a puddle of a pilot in the middle of a crater. Not much, but a little.

He grumbled as he tugged on shorts and a hawaiian shirt. He hobbled out of his room using door frames and walls for support. That's when he noticed that he door to the coat closet was ajar. Maxine. She must've been playing in there. Little, sticky, stinky blonde five year old that he couldn't stop loving even though she could be really trying sometimes and Jo and him really needed to talk to her about...nevermind, he didn't want to think about that now.

Focus on what's ahead of him, he thought. The closet door was ajar. He could fix that. He came up to the closet and tried to close it, something was caught. Aggravated he opened the door after pushing did nothing to solve his problem.

Was that a mirror?

"Hello" Hoban Washburne's 'reflection' said, "Have you seen Maxine? She needs to take a bath and do her homework before going outside and playing with her friends."

"Aaaaah!" the real Wash said. He slammed the door shut with his breath near hyperventilating in surprise and fear.

Slowly he opened the door again and peeked in.

"Is Maxine here? She's my daughter and I seem to have lost track of her whereabouts. I believe we might be playing a game of hide-and-seek. But I've been hiding for several days now," the second Wash said with a worried and hopeful smile.

"Ta Ma De! Yi dwei da buen chuo roh--MAXINE!!!" Wash yelled.

"Oh good! She's here!" not-Wash said stepping out of the closet.

"You! Shh! Don't!" Wash replied, warning him with his finger up. He couldn't even look at his double. "Ah-ah! Not a word! Just--MAXIIIIINE!!!"

Wash was in Jo's living room with his cast leg propped on a pillow and his cast arm resting in his lap. He was out of the hospital. This was great. Watching Jo stoically mope was...well...not so great. Not that he could blame her.

Every once and a while he would take a sip of one of Maxine's boxed juice drinks. Grape. His slurping seemed to permeate the thick air of the otherwise quiet mid morning.

He stared at Jo, watching. Jo had nothing on Zoe's moping abilities, but she was definitely in the running.

"So..." he said, finally breaking the solace. "Wanna talk about it?"

slurrrrp

A few days after Maxine left the next checkup Wash had came from baffled nurses, doctors, and eventually surgeons. More blood work and x-rays were done as Wash grinned cheekily at their confusion. They were discussing releasing him and Wash grinned all the more. Maxine having healed all of Wash's internal injuries had left Wash feeling pretty good. The leg and the arm he could deal with, he found, without the pain of breathing.

He tried to text Jo but with no result. That was odd. Ted's number had completely disappeared. He was sitting in a wheel chair waiting for his physical therapist to arrive to torture him. (He was waiting on her to ask him out as it wasn't odd for relationships to start with a good amount of torture. Though she looked around 80 years old, she was feisty. Wash could work with that.)

So, waiting, he played angry birds on his phone. 5 years of intense pilot training and several more years of intense piloting had come to this, throwing pretend birds into pretend structure trying to kill pretend green pig heads. Despite it all, it was satisfying.

Static suddenly interrupted his game and he did what any skilled technician would do, bang on the side of the phone.

"Hey!" he yelled.

The entire news report left him baffled. But it riled him up a when they had mentioned Jesse.

When Angry Birds returned to the screen he just sort of blinked and looked up as if the answer would be in front of him.

"Wait, what? What does that even mean?" he exclaimed.

Maxine sat on a seat by herself on the bus, her forehead pressed against the window. It wasn't until the yellow school bus stopped in front of the hospital that the five year old perked up and made a run for the exit.

Wash had been in the hospital for three whole weeks. Though Maxine really liked Jo, who also agreed to look out for her, Jo felt more like a big foster sister or foster aunt. Her backpack bounded up and down behind her with each step as she ran through the hospital doors toward the front desk, staffed by nurses and candy stripers.

"I need to see my Wash!" she blurted, hands holding onto the desk. "His name is Wash. The bus took me here so I get to see him now, right?"

Maxine was directed to a seat and told to wait. She sighed. There was a lot of waiting involved. It felt like hours, though it had barely been fifteen minutes, before Maxine was guided by a nurse to Wash's room.

"Mr. Hoban? You have a very excited visitor to see you," said the nurse.

"Wash! Wash!" Maxine bolted for the room and instantly attached herself at the side of his bed. "When do you get to come home. Can you come home now?"

The call from the City's hospital had been a surprise. Maxine had been with Jo for the last few days but Jo certainly hadn't expected anything to happen to Wash during that time. Her heart almost stopped as the nurse gave out as many details as she was allowed to. Maxine was in school and Jo didn't think it appropriate to pull her out of school until she got the chance to see how bad Wash really was. She didn't take her foot off the gas pedal for the entire trip to the hospital, running one red light on the way. She didn't care much. And besides, the City's streets were so screwy that she was sure there were worse hazards on the road than a driver ignoring a stoplight.

Jo didn't know when it had happened, but she and Wash and Maxine were a sort of family. Ted too, really. It wasn't traditional or normal, but she'd never been the traditional type anyway. Family was more than just flesh and blood. The hunters at the Roadhouse had proven that more times than she could count. And she and Wash were in the trenches of foster parenthood together. That counted for something.

Checking in was pretty much a blur, but apparently someone had given consent for Jo to visit even though she wasn't immediate family. That was important. She went to the room indicated and knocked on the half-open door before letting herself in.

"Wash?" she asked quietly as she looked down at the redhead in the hospital bed.

At 12:35am from the park where Serenity, the spaceship, sat a small vessel shot up into the sky reflecting pale in the street lamps until it disappeared into the stock image quality starry, black sky. For a moment it was as if the craft never appeared. Then, from high above, came a bloom of red and smoke billowing from the explosion masked some of the star shine as a hunk of metal that used to be space worthy crashed down in nearly the same trajectory it had arose.

From the ground metal collided with grass forming enormous gouges in the otherwise pristine field right outside the park pond. Nocturnal animals scattered as the tremors and sounds of tons of ship parts slammed into the ground. What was left was a shallow crater and blackened ground. In the middle of all of this wreckage was a pale man with light hair smeared in red.

( Wash had been having a bad week. )

( takes place shortly after the school field trip. )

Cars were quaint and just a touch distasteful. Carbon emissions, loud engines, the stench of exhaust... True, some of that still existed with the sky transport Leto was used to, but all the fuel his people used was renewable. He couldn't manage to get over his distaste just yet. So, his surprise and delight was expansive when he discovered that there was an air shuttle service in the City.

To see this place from the air was exactly what he'd hoped for. After placing the call for pickup, Leto headed down from his apartment and waited at the curb of the street. He wondered how the craft handled, wondered just what this strange place would look like from the sky. The great walls around it were fascinating. He wondered what was past them.

Today, perhaps, he would find out.

As strange as it seemed, Wash still wasn't over whatever illness had attacked him a month or so back. He was still experiencing general stuffiness and the kind of mucus draining that inspired folks to stuff tissues up their noses while they slept.

But he had his voice back, no matter how hoarse it sounded. And his energy was up. He had meant to get back to Bruce about the extra glass that was stored on Serenity so he decided that this was the perfect day for it.

And the ship had never looked so pretty. Wash had been up-keeping her pretty well since he was here. It was a distraction that got his mind well off of all of his misgivings about the City and his existence in it. And it might well have been the cleanings of places that hadn't been cleaned since the Firefly's purchase that kicked up something into his nostrils that started this whole illness thing in the start.

Bruce was set to arrive any moment and within the small collection of trees sat the large ship, shiny as she had ever been. Wash took pride in that. He sat in the cargo hold with the door open on a chair with Kaylee's parasol. A stack of replacement windows for the shuttles were beside him.

He played "Angry Birds" on his phone while he waited.

For a blessed week Wash had his voice back from when he had lost it. Yes, his voice was gravely but he liked to think it sounded sexy. He especially liked to think this when he walked into a place and someone greeted him and he said, "Well hello, there," back with a sultry, breathy tone.

This was only awkward once at a bar when a bald middle aged man nodded at him. He decided to reign it in a little after the look he'd gotten.

But not all good things last. His throat was stubborn to keep him from his third favorite pastime, talking. It had become inflamed again a couple of days ago despite the over-the-counter meds he'd been feeding himself regularly. Now his voice was once again absent and he hunkered over to the pharmacist.

It wasn't a long conversation with the doctor behind the counter but it did end up with Wash's discontent at being told to see an actual doctor and get prescribed helpful medication instead of the concoction of allergy/cold meds he was making himself down every morning and night. This discontent lead to Wash ipso facto pelting the doctor with pills every time the doctor would open his mouth to insist more strongly.

Eventually the pharmacist doctor thought smart of it and closed his mouth, crossing his arms over his chest. Wash gave him one more pill to the forehead before skulking out of the pharmacy in hunched annoyance.

Wash generally didn't have any problem with doctors but he wasn't keen on visiting The City's version of a hospital or doctor's office. He also wasn't keen on shots. Nor was he keen on physicals. Okay, maybe he did have a problem with doctors.

Nevertheless, he leaned against the wall of the pharmacy thinking what to do next, his mouth in a line of frustration.

Sam was slowly starting to return to the world. He'd spent enough time living in his guilt and he knew that he couldn't wallow forever. Going on the hunt with Dean had been a start. Of course, that had led to more questions and time spent researching the symbols on that key and trying to understand what it could lead to, if anything. There were bits and pieces that he was turning up that were very interesting and very soon there needed to be a search of the City, possibly with Dean as company if his older brother agreed.

For now, Sam needed aspirin. He'd been having a lot of nightmares and while the self-loathing part of him thought that maybe this was some form of penance, he knew that he needed to be able to function if he was going to get back to being a contributing member of society.

Assuming that he'd ever been that. Not officially, at least. All the same, he wanted to get back to doing things that gave his life a little bit of meaning. Which meant that the splitting headaches had to go.

That was how Sam found himself wandering the aisles and rather blankly looking at all of the selections as he debated if the headaches were migraines or tension headaches.

Wash was sitting in a tiny chair in front of a classroom full of 5 year old children. A boy in the back had his finger perpetually in his nose. A girl in the front had so many smudges on her thick glasses that the pilot questioned their use in correcting her vision.

Kids were gross!

Wash frowned a little as he shifted his 6 foot frame in the tiny candy-colored chair and straightened his flight suit while brushing the sleeves of his colorful shirt. All the parents beside him were also donned in their career themed outfits. They also all had grown up chairs. Apparently there was a shortage of those. And Wash was too nice.

His eyes glanced up at the bright blonde haired girl in the middle of the class. Her big blue eyes shined as she watched the current chef talk about how to baste a chicken. The chef father had also brought samples of said chicken. They were only for the kids though and Maxine couldn't have any.

Maxine had steadily stopped talking about her father as time went on in The City. She had also stopped talking about super heroes. Further more, her activities with her own powers were happening less and less often in favor of learning more about piloting. It worried Wash, truth be told.

He wanted Maxine to still have connections to her old world. He didn't want to forget her father, or a place where superheroes existed, or animals. He was in such deep thought about this that he didn't notice his name being said over and over again by the teacher.

"Mr. Washburne?"

He looked over at the concerned teacher.

"Oh. Me? It's...my turn?" Wash asked. She nodded.

The teacher introduced Wash as a pilot and immediately there was interest.

"Hi. I'm Wash. I'm Maxine's...uh..." Wash started and stumbled a little on words. "Guardian?" he finally settled on. "And I'm a pilot. But...but you know what's a really cool job? Being a superhero! Like-like Batman or Ironman..."

He nodded emphatically.

Bruce had been pretty busy with almost every aspect of his life. Enigma kept the scientist busy with keeping track of her and making sure she was safe. Her father, Edward, was constantly being bothersome and threatening Enigma's life. And of course there was the mountain of work that seemed to have no end in sight that was piled on Bruce's desk in his lab. He felt like he was doing everything and nothing at all in the same moment. His focus had strayed and that wasn't very pleasing to the scientist at all.

So, Bruce had decided to try to focus on his work that particular day. His projects had always come first, even when he and Enigma had only been dating. But they'd seemed to have fallen by the wayside. It was nice to finally have a moment to catch up. He hoped that it lasted a while and wasn't I territories too much. Timmy, Bruce and Enigma's robotic son, would occasionally roll in and out trying to help or wanting Bruce to come entertain him. So he expected at least some interruption. That happened when you had a family. But he didn't want anything major.

As the day rolled on, Bruce ended up getting what he'd asked for silently, a day to himself for work. Maybe it was a bit of a workaholic but it was better than the alternative he supposed. So he justified it.

He needed a second opinion on something, so instead of bothering Jarvis about Tony's location, Bruce decided he would just wander around in the building until be found his friend. If he didn't, then that was fine. It wasn't Bruce's job to keep up with the inventor so not finding the man wouldn't be much of a surprise. Especially of Tony was with anyone else.

Bruce left his lab, a blueprint of his latest blood machine folded and held in a hand. He moved down the hallways, looking for any actual sign of life. Finally, Bruce checked Tony's personal lab where most of the robots were, trying to see if his friend was anywhere around. It wasn't uncommon for Tony to work long hours like Bruce. Bruce admitted it to being he simply lost track of time, but he wasn't are what Tony's excuse was. Nor did it really matter.

"Tony?" Bruce called out, walking further into the lab, brown eyes searching for anything.

The warrior woman woke with a start then groaned, resting back in her bed. She rolled to her side to look at the spot that was more times than not filled with a Cowboy God. It wasn't that she begrudged him his time, but the fright, whatever it was that she'd woken from, had made her wish for someone there beside her. Him. She didn't call for him. Instead, Zoe stretched, shoved that desire down, and got out of bed. Jesse was there for her as much he could be; he also had other responsibilities after all.

The Amazon prepared for the day, as she usually did. Or had planned on doing so, only to find that she was out of milk. She had other food stuffs that would make a fine breakfast, but she had developed a desire to have a small bowl of cereal. She nudged that silly frustration away and went on with her day.

Zoe got to work, dealt with the usual day including a strange outburst in a copy room that involved toner, anatomy, and a coworker's plan to "knock a moron's fool head off for being so wasteful." When it came time for lunch, she headed down to the cafeteria in the building only to find that the one menu item she'd wanted was no longer available - even if she though she'd gotten down just the start of lunch. After lunch, she worked in the Batflat, grappling with a grappling hook that refused to shoot as she wanted. She wasn't a sure shot like Jayne, but she wasn't bad. No matter how much she did to the equipment, it simply would not hit target. Sometimes it wouldn't even deploy.

With the work day done, with what little bit of work she actually felt she accomplished, she headed to her favorite place for a snack or a meal. Favorite in that she visited it almost daily. It seemed to always been right across the way from the Tower, and it served just the right thing, a comfort food. When she got there, something was certainly not as it should be.

"What do you mean they lost their license?" The tall woman glared at the poor policeman who was unlucky enough to get caught up in the small altercation over the last bao the stand would sale. "It's the gorram City. They don't care about licensees here."

The policeman stared. He was only trying to do his job...honest.

"If you so much as move closer to that bun, I will end you." They were ridiculous words, Zoe knew that, but the day had been full of frustrations and that strange nagging of small denials. On different days, they could and would be inconsequential, but a day full of them? Even the strongest and sturdiest Browncoat found herself wanting to shoot some little old lady for a bit of steamed bread.

Okay. How did Shepherd Book do this thing again?

Wash was sitting in front of a dismantled engine in Serenity. He was feeling much too proud to call on Tony or Oswin. He knew he could do this but his calm and patience was being tested and frustration was building to dangerous levels. He'd already thrown two wrenches in anger and the third was looking at him nervously.

He was no Kaylee and how she kept so smiley was beyond him.

So now? He was praying. Because that was the last thing a sane man did before going insane.

So, his hands covered in grease and fingers in bandages, he put them together under his chin.

"Dear God," he said in complete desperation and sincerity. "Hi. I know we haven't talked much. But I got a friend who's pretty close and since he's not a part of this world nor any world anymore I figure he could put a good word in for me. I'm more of a Buddhist by practice, but I'm always up to trying out new things. So.

"God, could you pretty please make my engine work? Or maybe give me a better engine and make it work? Or maybe use your godly mojo to lift this pile of go sé off the ground at least high enough to make me feel like I'm not going moonbrained on this pile of earth I've landed myself in?

"Also, God, while I'm at it. There's this little girl living with me mostly now. She's not here today, but she is the majority of the time and I just want to not screw up with her too much cause I'm thinking I might.

"And, one more thing. I'm not a greedy man but could you maybe not have Tony kill me? I'd appreciate that. But if you can only do one thing right now making Serenity fly would be shiny. I promise I won't curse and I'll eat all my veggies and I'll read that book that's about you cause I hear it's pretty good.

"Love...Wash.

"Uh! P.S.! I've got this sore spot in my back that...y'know what? Don't worry about it. Engine! Thanks!"

Wash sighed miserably and rubbed his black streaked head with a dirty rag. Oh the futility of it all!

Wash had the cargo door open in preparation for Maxine’s arrival from school. Even after he had insisted he wait at the bus stop in front of the park for her Maxine had insisted she walk back to the ship herself. And though he fully trusted a five year old girl with the simple task of walking less than a block through the park and trees to a well hidden space ship, he decided to set proximity alert to small blonde child anyway.

Well, roughly speaking. Though apparently raccoon also classified as small blond child.

He was under the pilot’s display working on fixing some electrical shorts with his tongue sticking out neatly at the corner of his mouth when the alarm went off again. He sat up quickly, narrowly missing smacking his head on the side of the console, and listened for tiny feet up the ramp.

“Maxine? That you? Come on up! Or...or should I meet you?” he asked himself this quietly. “Wait, or...something! I’ll meet you!”

( continued )