Enough

By Mona

Rating: A light PG-13

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss is god and all that stuff.

A/N: er nai mi means a 'second' or 'assistant.' Translation found here.

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Zoe used to sing sometimes. Kinda under her breath. Absentmindedly, while doing other things.

She had a rich clear voice that fit her strength and beauty and ferocity all at the same time.

Mal kills himself everyday over the fact that he can't rightly remember when she stopped. Never after Serenity Valley.

He had come to terms long ago that the only way to have her was as his er nai mi, lieutenant to his general-by-default, first mate and best friend. There had been some fumbling a few times after the war. . .

Not during. Never during. Mal was a leader of men and women and real leaders just don't . . . even under the worst of conditions and anyday, anytime she might be dead and . . . he couldn't take it if . . . not with her.

Desperate grasping on straw-tack mattresses of tavern inns, fevered need for release, for each other, to touch and feel and make sure they really had both survived.

He knew that Wash has heard her gasp and moan. But Mal'd bet everything he'd ever owned, up to and including this ship, that Wash had never heard her sing.

It was enough.