All works cited herein are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th C. Fox, and Universal Motion Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. Written for fun, not profit.

Notes: Constructive criticism is appreciated.

***

Married and Madly in Love

***

“How's your head, baby?” Zoe set a tentative hand on the back of Wash's neck and felt him shiver.

“Pounds a bit.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, watching the snow fall on the nameless moon where Saffron had parked the shuttle.

“Cold outside,” Zoe offered, testing the edge of Wash's desire to talk. She knew he was keeping something to himself, could feel it, all over her skin when she was near him. “We could take a walk.”

“Head hurts,” Wash mumbled. Though she had thought he was studying a nav chart lying on the console, she realized now he was just staring down, eyes not moving, shoulders tensing incrementally.

“Want me to get a stim?”

Wash grunted a reply. She knew it meant negation, but it had hardly any inflection.

“If your head hurts so bad you can't talk, you need a stim. Maybe a scan.”

“Zoe.” His voice was short and sharp. It made her realize just how upset he was. Her husband had many moods and nearly all of them went on endlessly, never shutting up for a minute if he could help it. And he had two modes of quiet: deep concentration, and irritation past the telling of it. The concentration she could understand. He was a cool, smooth man behind the stick, grinning where others would have screamed and only frowning a bit where many men might have begun praying, out loud, to any and all deities. This was irritation silence, his every non-expression screaming discontent to her.

“Don't suppose you want to talk about it?” She tried to make her voice easy, open, welcoming; tried to rid it of every nuance that would hurt him further. The words came out as a drawl, husky and sexy, not at all as she meant, and she worried at his reaction.

He listened for a minute and see