Dim lighting was the only different between night and day on a spaceship. You turned the lights off, or dimmed them, at night. That was the only reason that Wash knew it was still the night cycle when he drifted awake. The dim, almost nonexistent light from the overhead in the bunk he shared with his wife was the only clue after all.

Their bunk was wide enough for two to sleep comfortably, but it didn’t mean that both weren’t curled together in the middle. Zoe was still sound asleep, and didn’t appear to be waking any time soon. Wash was careful not to wake her as he shifted his arm to rest across the curve at her waist. She was all woman, his wife, and not afraid of a damn thing. At least, if she was, she didn’t let that fact be known.

Every inch of her a warrior, he’d traced the fine scars all over her body more than once. She’d flinched away the first time, until she realized that it was his way of coping, of dealing with what she did everyday. She fought hard, she worked hard. He could understand that to have her he had to let her to these things. There was nothin’ in the ‘verse that would stop her. It didn’t mean he didn’t worry for her, and want her safe and well. So he helped in the little ways he could: even if it only meant laying with her when she just needed someone there, or giving her the best back massage that a husband had ever given his wife. He wasn’t a fighter, but those were things that he did.

None of them made her scars go away, but they made her smile and took some of the pain out of those beautiful black eyes. And that would just have to do.