Frame Story: Wash offends Zoe. Back Story: Zoe offends Wash.

8.

There were strawberries.

Whole trays, right out on the buffet, just heaped with melon balls, grapes, sliced kiwi, and strawberries. There was even a tiered tray of chocolate-dipped ones, and Kaylee heaped her plate shamelessly with the ripe red fruit. She blushed furiously when she caught the first mate watching with amusement -- Zoe, she'd learned, not Corporal or Number One or anything fancy like that. None of her crewmates seemed to stand on ceremony much, least of all the Captain, whom Zoe called "Captain" or "Sir," but whom her pilot husband simply called Mal.

"I love strawberries," she said, feeling suddenly shy.

The first mate's only reply was a slight quirk of the lips, and the barest nod.

Thus encouraged, Kaylee loaded up all the strawberries her small plate would hold, and accepted a champagne flute from the young man behind the bar. She favored him with her warmest smile, and wondered if maybe she'd have a chance to catch him after the service was over. He looked like he'd probably have real nice shoulders under that serving jacket, and when he returned her smile, he had dimples in both cheeks.

Zoe touched her arm and drew her away from the cute bartender toward the Captain and Wash. Wash had started toward an empty table in the center of the room, but the Captain gestured instead toward the door. There weren't any empty tables near the door that Kaylee could see, but maybe the Captain saw one. He was taller.

So they came in a knot to the table the Captain had chosen, one of the small round ones that ringed the edge of the room, that had six chairs apiece. It was already taken, by what looked to be a trio of suited businessmen and their wives, but the Captain sauntered right up to them and said, "Excuse me, gentlemen, ladies, but I believe this is our table."

Kaylee stifled a gasp. The businessmen traded glances, and one replied "No, I don't believe it is."

"I believe you'll find," the Captain said smoothly, "that this section right along here is reserved for family."

"Jack Tallis didn't have family," another of the businessmen snorted. He cut off short, though, when the Captain stepped sideways just enough to give him a good look at Wash.

Wash, Kaylee noted, didn't look like he was really on board with this running-people-out-of-their-seats scheme of the Captain's, but he smiled uncertainly anyway. The couples at the table couldn't have missed his strong resemblance to the deceased. Two of the men stood and began helping their wives; the third offered Wash his condolences and asked whether Jack had been his father.

"My Uncle, actually," Wash replied, as Mal, Zoe, and Kaylee took the freshly empty seats. One of Kaylee's strawberries rolled from her plate as she set it down, and she snatched it up before it could roll off the table. The woman who had just vacated Kaylee's seat looked askance at her pile of fruit.

"Jack's sister is my . . ." Wash's voice trailed off in mid-sentence, and Kaylee glanced up at him in time to see a look of profound dismay cross his face.

" -- Mother," Wash finished, as though the word tasted bad.

Kaylee followed his gaze to a knot of four people who were in the process of changing direction; they had been heading for the buffet, now they were coming toward Serenity's crew. The younger man was helping the older fellow get his walker turned around. The expression on the younger woman's face mirrored Wash's own expression -- a sister? Kaylee wondered. Did Wash have a sister? But if he did, why would she look so unhappy to see him? And there was also an older woman, who broke from the other three and came toward them with her arms upraised, squealing happily.

"Hobie!" the older woman cried, and threw her arms around the stricken Wash.

"Mom," Wash replied, returning the woman's embrace uncomfortably. "I'm surprised to see you here!"

Wash's mother pushed him back to arm's length and looked him over. Wash had cleaned up somewhat for his uncle's funeral, and was wearing plain khakis and his newest shirt, neatly pressed. He'd also combed his hair. "Well, your father won his lawsuit, you know," the woman said, "and since we finally got the settlement money last month, we were actually able to travel. First class! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if we could have come on your ship, Hobie dear! You are still flying, aren't you?"

Hobie? Kaylee wondered. The name fit so ill on the man she knew as Wash that Kaylee had to suppress a giggle. "Hobie" sounded like the name of an annoying neighbor kid down the street who left flaming piles of dog poo on your doorstep on Halloween. No wonder he goes by "Wash." Although now that she thought about it, she could maybe picture Wash doing the dog-poo thing. When he was younger.

"Yeah, mom -- still flying," Wash said. "Uh, this, these, my, um, crewmates --" Wash turned his mother toward the table and started introducing Serenity's crew, just as the man with the walker and the younger couple reached them. "This is our captain, Mal Reynolds."

Mal stood slightly and offered Wash's mother a polite half-bow and a mumbled "How do you do, ma'am?"

Wash pointed out Kaylee and said, "Our ship's mechanic, Kaylee Frye," and Kaylee smiled.

Wash's mother smiled, but it was a troubled smile, that trembled at the corners of her mouth. "Mechanic?" she asked. She thinks I'm really the ship's floozy, Kaylee realized, and was suddenly offended. But she had no time for a retort, as Wash was already introducing his wife to his mother.

"This is Zoe," Wash said, "Serenity's first mate."

"Hello," Wash's mother said, shaking Zoe's hand.

"Guys, these are my parents, Norris and Cici Washburne, and my sister Deenie and her husband Tim," Wash said to his crewmates. He hesitated before adding, to his family, "Would you like to join us?"

"Well, there doesn't seem to be enough room," Deenie said quickly. "And anyway, Aunt Tawny said we should come sit in the front with her."

"Of course, of course dear," said Mrs. Washburne, "But Hobie, it is so very good to see you, sweetheart, and I'm glad you're doing well." She kissed her son's cheek and patted his arm, before following her husband and daughter away from the table.

Wash flopped into his chair and hunched down. Zoe took the chair next to him, fixing him with a gaze so blank and inscrutable that Kaylee was suddenly very afraid for the pilot.

The Captain said, "Well?"

It took Wash a few seconds to realize that the Captain was speaking to him. "What?" he asked sulkily.

"Oh, come on," the Captain replied, exasperated. "Even I can see that you owe her an explanation! Even I didn't miss that you just somehow failed to introduce your wife to your parents!"

Wash glanced at his wife, and quickly looked away, hunching even further into the chair. "They wouldn't approve of you," he mumbled.

"They don't know me," Zoe pointed out. "Based upon what information exactly would they not approve of me?"

"Based upon the fact that I married you," Wash said. "It's not you they'd disapprove of, it's just that they disapprove of everything I do -- everything I am. If you're my wife, well, they'd figure there had to be something wrong with you. Honestly, Zo, if my mom started making little insulting comments about you, I might just throttle her right here in the middle of everybody. I'd just rather . . . you know . . . leave."

Zoe's eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened. She stood, in one smooth movement, and turned away from the table.

"Where are you going?" Wash asked, suddenly alarmed.

"To talk to my in-laws," she tossed back over her shoulder as she walked away.

Wash knocked over his chair in his rush to stop her, and followed that up by getting his feet tangled in it and falling flat on his face. "Zoe! Wait! Don't --" he called after her.

It was at just that moment that the windows exploded inward.

**

11 months earlier (2513)

Mal stuck his head onto the bridge, where Wash and Bester were putting the pilot's console back together. Wash had made a few repairs, and a few modifications. Bester had mostly sat against the bulkhead telling dumb jokes. Wash was actually happy to be interrupted, as it saved him having to listen to Bester deliver the painfully obvious punchline of his present joke in the clumsiest possible way.

"Got cargo," Mal said. "Come load."

He vanished back down the foredeck corridor.

"Cargo!" Bester cried, leaping up. "We're in business!"

Wash pulled himself out from under the pilot's console and wiped his greasy hands on his coverall. "Cargo's good," he agreed. "Wonder what we're hauling?"

Bester snapped the lid on the toolbox closed, and latched it. "I'll take this back down to the engine room and put it away first," he said.

Wash nodded, and followed Bester back as far as the common area, where they parted -- Wash heading for the cargo bay, Bester for the engine room.

Mal and Zoe were already loading a huge shipment of crates, which were sitting on pallets on the tarmac outside Serenity's cargo ramp. We'll be hours loading that, Wash thought with dismay, and a slight chill of apprehension. He'd be sore in the morning for sure.

As he walked down the ramp and got a better look at the crates, Wash frowned. They looked familiar.

Mal followed Wash's gaze to the shipping labels on the front row of crates. "I thought you might recognize these," he said blandly.

"Uh huh," Wash said, equally blandly.

Bible paper.

So Tanaka hadn't found a replacement pilot.

Which meant he was doing what, right now, to keep the ship and crew together?

It's not my concern anymore, Wash told himself, though without conviction. He lent a hand to Zoe, who was transferring the crates to a small hand truck. Zoe's dark eyes gave no sign, but Wash figured he'd be real surprised if she'd missed any of that exchange. Zoe didn't say much, but when she did, she revealed a keen intelligence and detailed observation skills. Zoe would know there was more to that conversation than she'd heard, and she'd probably figure out what, too, in pretty quick order.

"Where's Bester?" Mal asked, pausing to catch his breath.

Wash heaved a crate onto the hand truck. "Went to put the tools away."

"I said come load, not clean up," Mal groused, tilting the hand truck back and rolling it up the ramp. Zoe followed, to help unload.

Wash surveyed the cargo with dismay. It would take them hours to load this -- and all day tomorrow to recover. Even if Bester showed up to help, which Wash doubted. Bester was a layabout. Well, at least he was an amiable one. And had his own bunk.

Mal came back down the ramp with the hand truck. Wash bent to pick up another crate.

"Company," Zoe said from the top of the ramp.

Mal shaded his eyes, following Zoe's gaze. Wash hesitated, arrested by the silhouette of Zoe's trim figure in the hatchway. So he didn't turn until he heard Mal swear softly and say, "Tanaka."

Sure enough, Captain Tanaka was approaching, his mule bumping along on the rough ground, the trailer rattling along behind. The whole crew were aboard -- the mate, the two gun hands, Ty . . . and Notch.

Mal stepped over next to Wash. "Get to the bridge. Lock yourself in, warm it up, but don't go anywhere until I tell you the cargo is loaded."

Wash started to protest -- no way were Mal and Zoe, by themselves, going to get this cargo loaded any time soon. Not unless Tanaka had come to help, which Wash very much doubted. But whatever the odds were, Wash figured that locked in on the bridge might be the best place he could be right now.

He turned with a nod of acknowledgement, walking up the ramp toward Zoe. "Trouble?" she asked as he approached.

"Watch the little punk," Wash said. "He's trouble." For an instant, he feared he sounded like an idiot, but Zoe didn't act as though he'd said something dumb. She only gave a short nod, her eyes on the approaching mule -- her hand on the butt of her Winchester.

**

Zoe's eyes never left the approaching mule with its crew, but she took note of what the pilot said as he walked quickly past. As Zoe assessed the situation, Mal backed up the ramp to stand next to her, pulling the empty hand truck. Tanaka had five crewmen with him, counting the kid Wash had warned her about. They pulled up and jumped off the trailer, and immediately started loading the paper onto it.

Tanaka walked to the bottom of the ramp. "I believe you've got something of mine," he said.

"Cargo belongs to the buyer and the seller, I ken," Mal said languidly as he laid the hand truck down just inside the bay doors. He moved slowly, almost carelessly, to the far side of the cargo ramp.

Zoe moved quietly to the other side of the ramp, and checked the safety on her gun.

"Yes, it does," Tanaka agreed. He laid one hand on a crate of paper. His other hand rested on his belt, near his sidearm. His crew were armed, too. Three to one odds, although Mal and Zoe had the better position.

"I meant the man who's flown my ship for four years," Tanaka said. "I meant my pilot."

Mal shook his head, frowned in disapproval. "Now, 'less there's some indenture I ain't heard of, seems to me a man belongs to himself."

They're going to get that cargo loaded, Zoe realized. The three men on the ground were handing up the crates to a man on the trailer, who was loading them efficiently. They had more manpower, and less distance to move the things. And when they were finished, they'd lack only the dozen or so crates Mal, Zoe and Wash had loaded before Tanaka's men arrived.

What, then, would their strategy be?

Tanaka wanted the cargo, and he needed the pilot, but he'd have to go through the bottleneck of Zoe and Mal at the top of the ramp to get it.

It would be a short battle, Zoe realized. Tanaka's men had come for a dustup, and probably had plenty of ammunition. She and Mal had maybe one reload apiece. That meant making every shot count -- and Zoe didn't especially want to kill Tanaka's crew. She had no fight with Tanaka, and preferred to keep it that way if she could.

"Maybe Wash and I could talk it over," Tanaka suggested.

"Sure," Mal agreed. "I'll have him 'wave you later. Right now he's kind of busy."

Tanaka's four bulky crewmen continuted to load the crates.

Four?

The kid was missing.

"I got no quarrel with you, yet, Reynolds," Tanaka said. He took a few steps up the ramp, and lowered his voice. "Just a small matter of a personal quarrel among my own crew, that you happened to step into the middle of. All I'm asking, for the sake of my ship and my crew, is a chance to talk to Wash."

Zoe scanned the area, trying to locate the kid.

"If Wash wanted to talk to you, he's had a month to do it in," Mal pointed out. "I'm thinking maybe Wash is done with talking to you."

There. The kid was in the cargo bay -- how he'd slipped in unseen, Zoe couldn't say, but he'd done it, and was slipping along the wall to flank Zoe. He had a small pistol in his right hand.

Trouble, indeed. Zoe was glad of Wash's warning. She reached around behind her, loosening the small knife sheathed sideways in her belt. As Mal and Tanaka continued to argue, Zoe stepped behind the stairs that came down near the cargo bay doors. She kept one eye on the men loading the cargo. Her timing would have to be perfect, and Mal would have to be quick in the uptake, but there might be a way to pull this thing out.

As Tanaka's men lifted the last of the crates, Zoe moved three quick steps and drew her knife left-handed. She nicked the youth's hand with it, and he yelped and dropped his pistol as she caught him around the body and snugged him up against her, with her knife at his throat.

Just like that, she had everyone's attention.

"What do you know?" she said, hauling her captive toward the bay doors. "We do indeed seem to have something that belongs to you, Captain Tanaka."

"You wouldn't dare hurt that child!" Tanaka protested, but his eyes betrayed his fear.

"He's old enough to carry a gun," Zoe said. "Seems to me he must be old enough to die."

"Now, Zoe," Mal said, holding his hands out, palms-down, in a placating gesture, "Let's not do anything rash."

"She wouldn't!" Tanaka protested again. "He's a child!"

"Well, now, I wouldn't be too sure on that score," Mal said. "I've seen that woman do some fearful things."

Tanaka's crewmen had stopped still, holding the last three crates and staring at this new development. "Why don't you fellahs just bring those on up here?" Zoe suggested, pressing the knife into the kid's throat just enough to make him gasp and squirm.

Tanaka turned on his crewmen, red-faced. "Get it on the mule!" he shouted. They obeyed instantly. Once freed, their hands went to their weapons. But the cargo was loaded -- all of it.

Bester chose that moment to walk into the back of the cargo bay. He stopped dead in the center of it and said, "What the --"

"Captain," Zoe said quietly, trying to get Mal's attention without catching Tanaka's. But Mal was watching Tanaka with one eye, and Bester with the other.

"Sir," Zoe hissed through clenched teeth. Still he didn't look at her.

"Mal!" she said finally, and he turned his head and looked her in the eye.

She nodded in the direction of the mule.

Mal blinked, comprehended, and pulled his gun. He fired three shots as he ran down the ramp, shoving Tanaka sideways off of it, and forcing Tanaka's crewmen to keep their heads down.

Tanaka came up yelling, leveling his gun at Mal -- but he couldn't shoot, because Mal was on the trailer now. He'd vaulted over the crates to reach the crewman there, and Tanaka didn't have a clear shot between the two men. He stood waiting for one, while Mal whacked the crewman in the head with the butt of his pistol and shoved him over the side of the trailer.

Zoe drew her Winchester and leveled it at the two crewmen who were in a position to draw and fire on Mal. "I wouldn't," she said loudly, drawing their attention to her -- and drawing Tanaka's attention back to the hostage she still held. The few seconds she earned that way were all Mal needed to clamber onto the mule and gun its engine. Tanaka's crew shouted and leaped for the trailer an instant too late; Mal ran it up the ramp, past Zoe, into the back of the bay.

Zoe hit the controls with the butt of her gun, and the ramp started to close. Tanaka and two of his crewmen tried to climb over the edge of it, but Zoe fired over their heads and they fell back.

Mal appeared at her shoulder just as the ramp came level with the deck. With Mal covering her, Zoe holstered her gun and stepped to the edge of the ramp with her captive.

"If I were you, I'd roll when I hit," she said in his ear, and tossed him over the edge. She dropped back quickly into the cover of the rising ramp as gunfire from Tanaka's men richocheted off the edges of the cargo bay.

Mal was already at the intercom. "Wash, go!" he said.

Wash's laconic voice came back to him: "I'm not going anywhere until I know the cargo's aboard."

"It's on! It's on! Go, gorramit!" Mal insisted, slamming the mic down. "Wouldn't you know somebody finally decides to listen to me now!" He turned to Bester as Serenity shifted beneath them, her engines roaring as she lifted into the sky. The mechanic was still standing in the middle of the cargo bay, his eyes wide. "You," Mal said, looking him up and down in disgust, "Go change your pants!"

Zoe watched the mechanic flee, as Mal walked over to the mule and frowned at it. "What do you know?" he said. "We do indeed seem to have something that belongs to Captain Tanaka."

"Seems we do, sir," Zoe replied, amused in spite of the circumstances.

"Probably ought to try to return that to him, first chance we get," Mal said.

"You don't think it might be a better policy to steer clear of Captain Tanaka from now on?" Zoe asked. It was a nice mule; all-terrain, well equipped, and the flatbed trailer held plenty of cargo. Zoe wasn't especially pleased to have stolen it, but it was Tanaka who had made the whole situation into an us-or-them.

"Might be," Mal acknowledged with a shrug. He glanced in the direction Bester had gone. "I'm going to check the engines right quick. Why don't you go on up to the bridge and make sure everything's okay there?"

"Yessir," Zoe said, and turned to go.

**

When Zoe started up the steps from the cargo bay, she was thinking that she'd have to thank Wash for the tip about the kid; it had, after all, saved their bacon. By the time she'd reached the catwalk, she'd started to worry about his reaction to being complimented. Would he accept it graciously? If he did, would she have to admit to herself that he might be a decent human being? If he was, would that mean she'd have to accept that her instincts about him were right? And then --?

By the time she reached the corridor that led to the common room, Zoe had discarded the notion that Wash might take a compliment graciously. After all, he was a pilot. Zoe had grown up shipside, she knew perfectly well what kind of pilot ended up flying out here on the edge of humanity. Flawed ones. Bad ones. Even when he'd tried to train his own, her father had never been able to keep a good pilot. Two of her cousins who'd flown for them, briefly, had departed for better jobs in the Core at the first opportunity.

Before she reached the foredeck corridor, Zoe had determined that Wash might be a good pilot, but it was inconceivable that he would be anything but a worthless man. There had to be something wrong with him. She would not admit that she wanted to be able to tell herself that the premonition that had literally set her back was nothing; an aberration, really, something that could simply be dismissed. Zoe knew pilots, and pilots like Wash were worthless. It was just the way things were.

Which was why, by the time she stepped onto the bridge, she was no longer considering telling the pilot that his tip had saved the ship, the job, quite possibly their lives. Instead, she said: "So, how did you end up here?" The inquiry came out even more belligerently than she'd meant for it to. "You a drinker? A brawler? Ex-con, maybe?"

Wash had been rising from his seat as she entered. Now he was facing her. His expression was so wide and innocent, so utterly guileless with surprise, that she knew before he answered that she was wrong. None of those things were so.

"No?" he said, edging away from her, trying to get off the bridge without having to go through her.

"What's your story, then?" She still sounded harsher than she meant to. Well, maybe that was for the best. He needed to know, after all, that she wouldn't be messed with.

"What's yours?" he demanded, defensive now. "You a drinker? No, I bet you're a brawler."

Zoe sighed. She hadn't meant to make him an enemy. "Browncoat, actually," she said, offering explanation in lieu of apology. "Just didn't want to live under the Alliance's thumb."

He nodded, still watching her as though he expected her to pull her sidearm and shoot him at any second -- although he didn't move like a man who knew what he was going to do, exactly, if she did. "I wasn't in the war," he said, although Zoe could have guessed that just from watching him, or hearing him talk. "Still. Maybe we've got a little something in common."

Mal came onto the bridge, stopping short when he almost walked into the two of them. He had a datapad in one hand, stylus in the other. "Warren, right?" he said to Wash.

The pilot frowned, but didn't take his wary gaze off Zoe.

"Wash Warren? That your name? I need to put you in the ship's books," Mal explained, still needing an answer.

Wash considered. He didn't know how it was that Mal had his alias, which he hadn't used in years, instead of his real name, and spent a few fruitless seconds trying to figure it out. Eventually he decided that if this gun hand -- first mate, he corrected -- was going to take a dislike to him, maybe the alias wasn't such a bad idea. "Sure," he said.

Mal looked from his pilot to his first mate, sensing at last the tension between them. "Something wrong here?" he asked, hoping that Zoe hadn't managed to scare the fellow off. She could be pretty scary when she chose to, that was sure. But they had a cargo now; a job, one that was good enough to start them out on the right foot, and anyway he'd promised her they could replace the guy if she still didn't like him when they got to somewhere civilized. Right now, they needed him.

Both of their faces smoothed out blank and unreadable when he spoke. Zoe said, "Not a thing, sir," with a lightness he recognized as forced, and Wash said, "No," but slipped around Mal as he said it, escaping from the bridge with unseemly haste.

"Don't run him off yet, we need him," Mal said.

"You need him," Zoe said. "I don't." She walked off the bridge too, leaving Mal to wonder what she was so gorram angry about.

Zoe knew what she was angry about. She was angry that those last words had tasted like a lie.