Disclaimer yada yada Joss yada yada Mutant Enemy yada yada.

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Laundry day. It seemed so strange to her to be folding her clothes alone, with no one around to complain. Everything felt so wrong and foreign. This was the hardest part for Zoe, having to relearn how to do things without Wash around. When the love of your life dies, things don't just go back to normal. You don't move on, you can't, and you don't want to. There's no bandaid that you can just stick on your heart to make everything okay again. Nothing would ever be the same, everything would change.

Zoe wondered if she'd ever start to feel again, but it was much too soon to tell. Her heart had only just frozen, it didn't seem likely that the ice would melt any time soon. She didn't mind so terribly. It was easier to be numb than to let every little thing cut her up. This was a delicate procedure, a surgery, if you will. Something had gone wrong inside her that needed fixing, yet there was no known cure. Time for exploratory measures. Right now they were just waiting for the novocaine to take effect and work its magic.

Her hands felt like clumsy blocks of wood as she folded article after article of clothing without really knowing what she was doing. It was all she could do to not think. She needed to be free of thought today of all days. If she just kept busy, she'd make it through the day, and tomorrow might be just a little bit easier. But she had to get through today before she could even contemplate that.

The others understood her silence, her mechanical movement from one moment to the next, and they even understood it when she couldn't bear their company anymore. For the first few days, she hadn't wanted to see them. She hadn't wanted their comfort, their grief, their attempts to lift her spirits, and more than anything, she hadn't wanted their pity. It'd gotten easier, though, to be in their presence again. She still half expected Wash to suddenly say something witty and amusing every time Jayne said something stupid, or to h