Bedlam: Part 11

By Kaynara

Mal/Inara. Zoe/Wash. In the wake of the BDM, Serenity’s crew is still trying to find its way. There’s also drinkin’. Serenity *spoilers.*

***

The water spouted hot enough to steam but Zoe was cold. Blood red rose petals stuck to her skin, leeched on to her arms and legs. A morbidly romantic bath for one. She slid deeper into the water, feeling the bubbles rise over her breasts, the tops of her shoulders, inching up to brush her chin. So close to the bottom now. She had only to push herself under, let the bubbles and love flowers gather, form a covering on the surface above her head. She took a hard breath and sunk. Oh, the relief. She felt the promise of rest, peace. She felt something akin to hope. Then she felt fingers fisting in her hair, tugging her up by the thick bundle of curls she’d piled atop her head.

Though the stinging soap, her eyes made out Mal glaring down at her, his hand still clutching her hair.

“Gorramit, Zoe. What the hell you think you’re doin’?”

“Looking for her,” she told him, not bothering to be ashamed of her nakedness. “Looking for serenity.”

“That where she is, Zoe? Serenity in death?”

“No way of knowing, sir.”

He slid his free hand down her wet body, spread his fingers over the bump that grew more prominent each day.

“And her? She gotta go down with the ship?”

Zoe had forgotten. She put her hand on top of Mal’s, felt the roundness that was still so unfamiliar, so foreign. Beneath both their hands, something shifted, shrunk, flattened until there was nothing at all.

“No. Sir, no!”

“I ain’t the one responsible,” Mal protested. “You’re the one courtin’ death.”

Zoe closed her eyes, covered her ears.

“Go away,” she whispered weakly.

“Baby?”

She was hallucinating--only explanation.

“Not so, Baby. Could a hallucination do this?”

And suddenly he was kneeling between her legs in the warm water--for it was warm again--and pressing kisses to her face.

“Time to wake up, Zoe.”

“Wash?”

She knew before