He felt rather than saw it as the Reavers’ harpoon went sailing through the windscreen. Death is loud, he

thought, and sounds like Zoe screaming. The ground came up on him fast, and he realized he was alive. Bleeding, battered, thrown to the floor of the cockpit, but alive. Zoe, however…

“We gotta get going,” Mal insisted. “Now.”

“But, Mal -” He picked himself up off the floor, staring at his wife’s body in shock. “She…”

“Now, Wash!”

There was no time for tears, his or Mal’s. And there wouldn’t be, for a good long time. Wash went on autopilot; held the front lines with Jayne, in Zoe’s place, until they couldn’t hold any longer. Tended to Kaylee and Simon while River slew every Reaver she laid her hands or weapons on. Kept a brave face, like he knew Zoe would’ve done. Give me strength, baby, he prayed, give me strength to keep them alive, and then I’ll come home to you.

When it was all said and done, he couldn’t really remember how he’d managed to come out alive. Even Inara took a bullet - just a graze - but he was untouched, and the whole event was a blur of violence and terror in his grief-fogged mind.

~*~

After the memorial service they held for Zoe, Book and Mr. Universe, Mal turned to Wash and said, “She loved you. I always told her that was a damn fool thing to do.”

“That weren’t nice,” Kaylee hissed at Mal. “Don’t you know he’s hurtin’ ‘least as bad as you?”

Mal looked at her, but didn’t say a word before continuing on his way back to Serenity.

“Mal don’t mean nothin’ by it,” Kaylee soothed, patting Wash on the back. “He’s just -”

“He meant it,” Wash interrupted, trying his best not to let the others see him cry; Zoe would‘ve been strong. “And he’s right.”

~*~

“He’s not doing well,” Simon frowned. “He’s still a danger to himself, and I have him heavily sedated; there’s no way he can fly right now.”

Mal sighed. “Me an’ the little albatross can handle things awhile. Don’t got much use for a pilot can’t fly, but I guess he’s… family,” he added grudgingly.

“H