Firefly - Fic - Portrait Challenge

Come on, folks! I hope to see some stuff by all of you lovely people soon, in whatever form that happens to be, and whatever subject within the community constraints. It's okay to post non-challenge stuff, too, if you want! We just put up the challenges to give people something to do. Although we do hope that people will do them, especially the user info challenge... because otherwise it'll just be us sitting around scratching our heads over that thing, and nobody wants that.

And, in service of more activity around here... here's my little addition. This one's been growing on me (...like a fungus...) for a little while, now, so I hope it works. Many thanks to zinjadu for keeping me from beating my brains out on this thing when it wasn't going well.

Title: Two Ways
Author: Rivendellrose
Challenge: #1 - Portrait
Fandom: Firefly
Character(s): Zoe, from two perspectives. Zoe/Wash.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Damn, but I wish they belonged to me. I just borrow Joss' toys sometimes, and I always put them back where I found them. No movie spoilers.
Author's Note: Folks on my friends-list may recognize the first bit of this - it mutated out of a bit I posted last week under the title "Tempest and Stone." Much has been changed and added, hopefully to the betterment of all.


One

"Morning, Captain."

"Morning, Zoe." The sound of her feet on the deckplates had warned Mal of his first mate's approach before she spoke - he'd come to recognize her footsteps among the rest of the crew. Maybe it was all those years of her sneaking up behind him, during the war, that had him attuned to her movements, now that she made a sound at all. No mortal being should've been able to move as silently as Zoe did, in those days. Those memories made him glad for the smooth sound of her boots, now - they meant she didn't need to be so stealthy anymore.

"Coffee on yet?"

"If you mean that roasted-grain go se Kaylee picked up at the last landing, yeah, it's on the stove."

There was a homey feeling to Zoe, now - not the same feeling that Kaylee brought, reminding him that the ‘verse still had its moments of innocence and light, but the patient acceptance of someone who’d seen the worst life had to offer and still had the strength to carry on, keep her head high, and make a life of what she was given. That was how she worked.

He heard the scrape of metal on metal as she removed the coffee carafe from the stove, and the clink of ceramic as a mug was lifted from the cupboard, then silence for a moment, followed by footsteps that led to his side, and the chair being pulled out as she took her seat in silence. Others might chatter, but Zoe inhabited silence as though it was her natural state, comfortable and confident that words weren't needed.

With the silence of long friendship laid comfortably between them, they both continued their breakfast and went on to their morning routines.

Two

When she slept, Zoe looked as peaceful as anyone else - even moreso than others, Wash thought. That had surprised him when they first got together. He’d somehow expected her to be the type who couldn’t sleep well. It was true that she woke more easily than he did - not to the usual sounds of the ship, but anything out of the ordinary had her alert (and armed) in seconds, where it took him a few fuzzy minutes to figure out that something wasn’t normal. Occupational hazard, she’d once explained, after checking a strange sound only to discover Jayne on the prowl for a late-night snack in the kitchen. It had taken Wash ten minutes laying in silence to fall back to sleep after that little scare, but Zoe’d been out like turning off a switch as soon as they got back to bed. She was used to catching sleep whenever possible.

In the darkness of their bunk, Zoe stirred briefly and settled deeper into their blankets. A contented smile crossed her lips as she sighed, and then passed back into deep, peaceful slumber. Wash reached out and brushed away a curl that had escaped her ponytail to rest across her forehead.

There were good things about his inability to fall asleep so easily, though. Primary among them being the chance to watch his beloved wife in a state of complete relaxation and peace. She had no problem with him watching her during their waking hours, of course - a nice change from the first few weeks he’d known her, when he’d been half-convinced she was plotting to kill him in his sleep and blame Jayne - but that was different. Anybody on the crew could see Zoe sitting with him on the bridge, in the kitchen cleaning her guns, or playing hoop-ball in the cargo bay. And oh, did he love watching her play, stripped down to her tank top, curls bouncing like black water, and her skin glistening with sweat. Hell, he liked watching Zoe do just about anything. But it wasn’t quite as... special as watching her sleep. Nobody else (excepting Mal, and Wash tried not to think too much about that exception) saw Zoe like this, and he was an honest enough man to admit that he liked that.

Zoe shifted again, and the blankets slipped down from her shoulder as she rolled onto her side. Wash smiled and let his hand follow the path of his eyes, trailing up a smooth, caramel-colored bicep to the curve of her shoulder, and then tracing one finger down her clavicle to the dip just under her throat, where her suede necklace usually lay.

When he’d first come aboard Serenity, he’d collected details about Zoe, hoarding away any little fact that might help him fill in the picture of who this beautiful, fierce, fascinating woman was, and how he might get her attention. He took note of how she took her coffee (usually black, but she was happy to have some sugar, if it wasn’t too scarce), what kind of jokes she disliked, which made her just shake her head, and, with great joy, which ones finally earned him a little smile that slowly began to touch her eyes... He’d even tried to cook for her, but it turned out that Serenity’s stove was touchier than the ones he remembered from home, and nobody, Zoe least of all, had been charmed by his burned attempt at fried rice. She’d eaten it, but he’d seen her eat Jayne’s cooking on occasion, too, so that wasn’t saying much.

Sometimes he still couldn’t quite understand why she was with him - him, of all people! But he was grateful, and they made a good couple. A great couple, in fact, worthy of... oh, songs and epics and poetry to be recited by young lovers at campfires long after they’d died of old age (happily and nearly simultaneously, of course), and their bones had turned to dust on some distant moon. They’d be like gods, really. Couples would pray to them for marital bliss, fecundity... Maybe there’d even be statues. Made of real stone, not clay like Jayne’s, and...

“Mmm. Husband?” Zoe opened one dark eye to look at him.

“Yes, lamby-toes?”

She shifted to regard him with a sleepy but dubious expression. “You were mumbling. Shouldn’t you be sleepin’? We got a landing tomorrow...”

“Right you are.” Wash snuggled down into the blankets and slid his arms around Zoe’s smooth, warm belly. “Just sitting up, thinking.”

“’Bout what?” She sounded more awake, now, and a bit concerned.

He took a moment to brush her hair out of her eyes, twirling one dark corkscrew around his finger before he answered. “Just you.”

She snorted. “Just me.”

“I’m allowed, aren’t I? It’s a long-standing tradition, you know, me sitting up late thinking about you. Goes back as long as I’ve been on this boat, and you know you don’t want to ruin a tradition that’s gone back that far.”

“That’s all of three years, Baby, if that.”

“Okay, so it’s a short-standing tradition.” He sat up, pretending indignation, and kissed her nose and enjoying her chuckle in response. “Still a noble and grand venture. One once ventured under the distinct impression that you’d shoot me full of holes and drop me out the airlock if you found out, I might add.”

“I wouldn’t have spaced you.” Zoe yawned. “Needed a pilot too bad, and Mal had his heart set on you for some crazy reason.”

“Well, he’s a crazy man. Can’t say I’m not grateful to him on that count, though.”

“Just this once,” Zoe agreed, bracing herself semi-upright on her elbow. “Now… you gonna just think about me, or are you planning on doing something about it, Flyboy?”

Wash grinned. “I like the sound of that ‘doing something’ idea.”

“Good.” The last thing he saw as she pushed him back onto the mattress was a feral grin, and then the spill of her curls blacking out the dim light of their bunk. He didn’t care - watching was far from the only thing he enjoyed doing with his wife.