He gives her time, time that any leader would allow his charges when death no longer has a wall around it. Because that wall is the heart with which they must mourn. And because Zoe, stronger than any man he has known in war, cannot separate her love from fortitude, from indifference. It is pain taken from exhilaration, from the light, red like a dying shadow as her lover whispered the secret he had so willingly shared so that they might survive--lost in happiness, a leaf, a living thing.

Past three years, and on the second month of the third she climbs down into his room, slow, measured and silent, as she has been silent that whole day, strips her clothes away and takes his face in her hands.

He doesn't pretend to act surprised. It is not in his nature to encourage foolish whims when their facility for hurt is so very great, but Mal cannot turn her back to the night, to the emptiness of her too large bunk, to that dark whirlpool of loneliness and bitter memories. So he doesn't move, watching her with unblinking eyes--wary, fearing not what she is capable of, but, just perhaps, what he is liable to do if he closes them and is left at last with sensation alone.

"Zoe? Ni meí shì bà?"

For a long moment she peers into his eyes, past them even, where the doubts and hurt he can't hide are mirrored with painful substance in the dry, downward curve of her lips. "What does it look like, sir?"

Like a damned road to misery, is his first thought, but his mouth when opened to voice it has suddenly the soft weight of her, pressed still and trembling, tongue sending hot wells of sensation through his body.

"No," she whispers, and he realises there are tears on her lips, on his lips. They are as cold as the rest of her is burning a hole inside of them both. "Oh, god, Mal, qi, ju wo de xin..."

Time, he thinks. It is time that he should have taken back, long before this day; time with boundaries of too great a size, when he should have let himself touch her, instead of allowing the strongest woman he has ever known to shrink, to fade away like the red light on Wash's pale, cold skin. He cannot break her heart for her. He might as well end his own.

He wraps an arm around her waist, letting her settle beside him, sheets bunched around his legs, hard dark body to hard cold body, and kisses the bright shine of a tear off the tip of her nose. "Sayin' ain't meanin'," he says. "It's just words. From one sad fool to the only soul'n the 'verse more foolish' than her. Can't wish away pain, Zoe. Have to feel to know it's there, else we'll never move again."

She lies very still. Doesn't say a word. He reaches up to where her hand is still cupped to his face, laces his fingers through hers. For a moment there is a hint of a smile in the velvety dark of her eyes. She pulls away, turning from him and sits up. At the small of her back a thin line of sweat glistens in the pale half-light.

"Sir, I'm..." Her voice is faint, wavering slightly. "I--I shouldn't have come. I was out of line, weren't my right to presume--" She looks back over her shoulder. "I'm sorry, sir."

Mal closes his eyes. He listens to her pull clothes back on, slip quietly out without a sound. Zoe keeps a gun under her pillow. She doesn't need her captain any more.