Post Serenity. I really haven’t caught onto the Firefly lingo yet, so you’ll have to forgive me on that. I am a total newbie. I need all the advice and comments I can get. Secondly, I despise Inara, and have pretty much cut her out of the fic…sorry for MI fans.

Sad Eyes

Chapter 1: The Contact

Zoë hated the ship. No, it wasn’t the crew. She counted all of her friends as a blessing, but the ship itself….she hated it. More than any part of the ship, she hated the bridge. In the year after Wash died, she couldn’t force herself to stay there for more than a minute or two. Mal never did push at her, and she was thankful for that. He had been there, too, when Wash was killed. These days there wasn’t a room on board that didn’t make her want to scream. There were too many memories on board Serenity, and even though they nearly drove her insane, they were why she stayed. Abandoning Serenity would be like abandoning Wash.

Suddenly, the ship began to tremble and Zoë was forced to grab hold of one of the railings. Mal wasn’t half the pilot that Wash had been. Even though River was twice the pilot that Wash had been, there was still the slight problem with the girl being less than sane. Between the two of them, they had managed to keep Serenity in the air. She’d caught Jayne complaining to the captain about getting a new pilot when he thought she wasn’t around, but so far no one had said a word about it in front of her. For weeks, she’d been battling with herself on whether or not to suggest it. Practically speaking, it would be the best for crew. River had barely managed to avoid a scrape the other day when she started to panic over something or other. A real pilot would have made it through easy. Then again, Zoë didn’t know how she’d take someone else in her husband’s chair. It was hard enough for her to accept Mal and River. Would it be worse to see a stranger there? The ship shuddered again and then there was a heavy thud.

“Another easy landing’,” Jayne mumbled as he checked his guns. “Got any idea wha