Small Solace

Author’s Notes:

This contains spoilers for the movie.

Thank you to Noandwhere and Sweetvirago for their beta-testing skills.

*** “I would die for you.”

Zoe resisted a passing urge to smirk. Wash’s declaration sounded like something a thirteen year old might pledge to his first love, rather than what a husband might say to his wife of two years. Still, there was something touching about it, and it had been moments like these that had endeared him to Zoe in the first place.

“No, I mean it,” Wash continued fervently. “If it came to that, I’d lay down my life for you. In a heartbeat.”

“What brought this on?” Zoe asked, bemused. His pronouncement came out of nowhere; minutes ago they had been discussing Serenity’s latest smuggling job.

“Oh, nothing. Just the fact that we live and work under constant threat from the Alliance, from Reavers, and a whole host of traders and smugglers who are nearly as bad.”

Zoe nodded. Her husband had a point. Their line of work meant that they were taking the risk that they wouldn’t get the opportunity to grow old together.

After a moment’s silence, Zoe responded, “I’d do the same for you.”

As Wash fell asleep with his arms around her, she pondered their brief dialog. She had never thought she’d meet a man who could make her shed some of her independence, never thought she’d meet one to whom she could show her softer side – in fact, she hadn’t really known that she even had a soft side until she’d fallen for the pilot. But would she really die for him?

Of course. If she ever had the chance to sacrifice her life to save his, she would take it. Heroism and self-sacrifice were already part of this warrior woman’s persona, and she had never loved anyone with this intensity.

Zoe found that sleep eluded her that night, and she continued to mull over the question of sacrificing her life. Would that be what Wash really wanted, though? If she ever had the chance to sacrifice her life to save his, would he want to be the one left alone? Would he want to be deprived, for eternity, of his soulmate? Would he be able to continue his life or would he fall apart without her? Which of them was the stronger one, mentally? Zoe had seen death, lost both of her parents, lost a war and countless comrades along with it, and yet she’d found a way to continue living. She always did.

A few years later, Zoe remembered this conversation. Every word came back to her and she achingly recalled how she had stayed awake thinking about her answer.

After the Reaver harpoon took away her husband and Zoe felt the hardening shell begin to engulf her heart, she tried to take solace in the thought that it was probably much better this way. She was the stronger one. She comforted herself with the thought that she was the one who would suffer in silence and agony while Wash was at peace, at rest, in a place where no one could harm him.

Wash would not have to endure unrelenting absence and grief. He wasn’t the one who would have to walk around with a torn-up heart and a mask over his face; he wasn’t the one who was waking in the mornings to another day bereft of light and love. Zoe mulled over this and took a measure of comfort in it.

THE END

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