Disclaimer: Don't own them, never did.

Beta testers: Thank you to Noandwhere, Sharelle, and Sarahetc for beta-testing.

Taking Care

***

Inara takes her shuttle and drops off Wash and Zoe. When they set foot on the planet, they both cough loudly --- Zoe more than Wash as his lungs remember the dusty, swarming air.

They are both exhausted and have been working to the bone for weeks, Wash with his right arm in a sling until it heals. In order to finish the last job -- a very labor-intensive one -- neither of them has been doing much sleeping or eating.

Or bathing.

Both want to be presentable for the visit with Wash’s mother, and so Zoe purchases a block of time for them at a bathing station. After she takes her quick shower, she bathes her husband, being careful to keep his cast dry. The warm water and slippery soap energize both of them. Wash’s face is fuzzy and she shaves off the pale beard and mustache whiskers. His hair desperately needs a trim and she efficiently takes care of that too.

Once finished with the grooming and toweling off, they stand smiling and glad to at last be squeaky clean and fresh-smelling. If they weren’t exhausted, overdue for their visit, and about to run out of time in the bathing station, they would have made love then and there.

The couple purchases transportation to the complex where Wash’s mother lives. It’s a forty-minute trip along a sludge-filled and stinking river, under a cloudy and humid sky. Wash snoozes lightly during the voyage and Zoe envies him for not having to consciously breathe in the sewage.

Zoe looks at her sleeping husband and isn’t nervous about the visit, even though she is the one who married Eleanor’s only son and only surviving child. She knows her mother-in-law likes her; Eleanor even told her that Zoe reminds her of one of her (now-deceased) daughters.

Wash’s mother is in her early sixties but looks about eighty – life on this filthy, polluted planet does that to anyone who manages to last this long. Eleanor hasn’t ha