Note: the bits on Serenity are meant to follow on almost in real-time whereas Wash's story will be jumping forwards a lot. So yeah, Zoë has just got up and is now talking to Mal whereas it is 2 weeks after Wash woke up. Oh and answers are coming, don't worry!

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“Maybe you should sort through his stuff,” I suggested, playing with the dinosaur that sat on the console.

“Not sure I can do that, Sir,” Zoë replied, eyeing the dinosaur. I left it alone.

“Thought it might be easier not to be reminded of him everywhere you look.”

Zoë was silent, staring levelly at me with those mournful dark eyes. She was so strong and yet I could see her venerability without Wash. I hadn’t seen her smile yet. I found myself wondering if she had smiled before him.

“Can’t I try and help you?” I offered finally.

“Just not sure I can do that right now, Sir,” she repeated simply.

Maybe she wasn’t ready yet, I nodded my head in concession, but she would have to be soon. “Inform the crew we’ll be landin’ in Persephone in 3 hours and it’ll be around 10 in the AM. Oh, and get River in here.”

“Yes, Sir.”

She walked briskly from the bridge. She had been avoiding coming up here as much as possible, but I could hardly blame her. Zoë and I had been together a long time, since the war. She hadn't let me down, not once, but now I felt in the pit of my stomach I had let her down.

~

Tattoo lay unconscious in the bed to my right. She’d arrived this morning and in the 2 weeks I’d been awake in this hospital I had seen nothing like her. She was ridiculously pretty. Black hair fell to her jaw line and long dark lashes curled like a babies fist over her ivory cheeks. They nicknamed her Tattoo for an obvious reason. A painted black snake was winding up her neck and hissed threateningly from her left cheek. I liked it, it gave her colour. There was something the Alliance couldn't take from her, she'd kept her identity.

I was watching her when she