The air was so cold, so utterly chilled, that Zoe could feel the cool moving right through her body, making her organs feel as if they were quivering. Her teeth chattered non-stop, and she could barely see through the cloud of misted breath hanging about her head.

Snow blanketed the planet in all directions, and fell in fat flakes all around her, making her feel as if she were inside one of those balls that people shook up and watched the flakes fall over some rustic scene.

“Keep movin’ Zoe,” Mal’s voice said from behind her.

“C-can’t, sir. Can’t f-feel my feet.”

That was the truth, too. She couldn’t feel her feet. Hell, she couldn’t feel anything up to her knees.

“See that black spec?” Mal asked, pointing directly ahead. Zoe briefly wondered how he managed to talk without stuttering. His lips were blue. She looked away from them and followed where his finger pointed and found a black speck on the bluish horizon.

“Y-yes.”

“That’d be a cabin, that would,” he said. He urged her forward, and somehow her feet managed to plow ahead. “We’ll get inside,” he said, “and we’ll take turns soakin’ in a tub of hot water. I’ll even be real gentleman like and let you go first. It’ll be nice, you wait. We’ll drink hot coffee and eat some hot food, too.”

“Don’t,” Zoe said, forcing herself to take another step.

“Don’t what?”

“T-talk to m-me like I’m a gorram s-six year old.”

Mal managed a laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Zoe did her level best to keep moving, but she couldn’t take another step. She was heavy and beginning to feel very warm.

“It’s not s-so bad, sir,” she mumbled. “I’m s-startin’ ta warm u-up.”

Mal suddenly grabbed her and turned her to face him. “You feel warm?”

“A l-little.”

“Damnit, Zoe, you know that’s bad!”

Mal couldn’t help but think that maybe Zoe saw the first tingles of impending death as a good thing. She’d get to be with Wash again if she died, or so she believed. Mal had felt some kind of worry for her every day for the past nine months, since Wash’d died. She hadn’t been herself.

Zoe had never been a social butterfly, and she never would be, but she’d never made it a point to avoid people. Not until Wash. At one point, Kaylee had actually asked him where Zoe’d left to, and he’d had to tell her “she’d just in her bunk.”

“Not from where I’m standin’, sir,” she said, all chattering gone.

That scared the hell out of Mal.

Without preamble he pulled her over his shoulder and somehow started to jog toward the hut in the distance. She wondered where he got the strength to run, and she wished she had the strength to fight him, to lie down in the ice and let it suck the life right out of her.

They reached the cabin in short order. Too bad that EM pulse had knocked out the shuttle, or they’d have gotten here seven hours earlier. At best the client was gone, having grown tired of waiting for them. At worst, she’d shot them down to begin with. Zoe couldn’t help thinking in the back of her mind the situation was at its worst.

Fortunately electricity was in full working order in the cabin, and the heat almost hurt when it washed over her as Mal entered. The place was a damn fine retreat for the client, who operated in supplying cattle and other livestock to the central planets. Everything was luxury of the highest kind.

The bed was like a cloud when Mal plopped her unceremoniously down on it, cursing in Cantonese. He went to a hot tub that was mounted on a raised platform. From the warmth of the bed the frozen hills, which rolled as far as the eye could see and dotted with evergreens, had gone from menacing and deadly to picturesque and beautiful.

From the corner the hot tub began to bubble but no steam rose from the surface. Mal, with his lips still so blue that they looked painted, came over to her.

“I never thought I’d say this to you, Zoe, but I’m gonna take your clothes off.”

“No.”

“You’re not dyin’ on me today, gorramit.”

“Just leave me be, sir.”

“If I have to throw you into that tub fully dressed I will.”

Zoe glared at Mal, knowing he’d do it, and knowing she just didn’t have it in her to fight him. Even if she did, he’d probably win anyway, but not before they were both bruised and bleeding and angry.

He deftly removed her clothes, down to her underwear, and stood back. “I reckon you can leave your unmentionables on.”

Zoe didn’t know where it came from, but a laugh escaped her. Well, laugh was too grand a word. It was more a hitching giggle, but it was born of real amusement, and she’d never believed she would hear it come from her lips. Not since her world had been taken from her nine months before.

“What’s so funny?” Mal asked. He seemed as surprised as she was by the moment of mirth that had come to her on fragile wings and departed just as quickly, but he also looked happy as hell, in his own quiet way, to have witnessed it.

“Unmentionables,” she said.

“Oh, well, ain’t no other decent word for it,” he replied, pulling her up. She collapsed, her legs still numb, and he carried her to the tub.

She could still feel with her hands, and she found the water only marginally cool. Mal knew better than to plunge her into hot water. He had to get their temperature up gradually. Once he’d settled her into the tub, which could hold six men Mal’s size easily, he stripped to his boxers and climbed in with her.

Needles began to stab at Zoe’s feet and legs. She winced in pain as her body began to warm. Gradually, slowly, Mal turned up the heat of the water. At first it was torture to Zoe, but then it gradually became like heaven. Her eyes became heavy.

“Tired,” she said.

“Me too.”

Mal was watching her closely, as if ready to yank her out of the tub should she decide to do something crazy like plunge her head beneath the surface and purposefully inhaling water.

“Time to get out. Want something hot to eat?” Mal asked. He moved to help her out, but her strength had returned, for the most part, and she stood on her own. She didn’t see the look of near shock on Mal’s face when the water cascaded over her dark skin, forming tiny rivers that ran between the clean cuts of her muscled body. The white panties and bra, now wet, may as well have been invisible for all they hid.

Mal thrust a robe into her hand, harder than he’d intended, and looked away. He busied himself in the kitchen, which was stocked with any and every kind of food one could think of, beef, poultry, fish, at least a little of every kind of vegetable. There was flour, sugar, salt, pepper, an array of seasonings….If the client, Raya Sandoval, turned out to be the one who had the shuttle hit with an EM pulse, he intended to take every bit of this food back to the crew.

Hell…he intended to take it even if she hadn’t crashed the shuttle.

He fixed two steaming mugs of hot chocolate and grabbed a couple of banana’s, the only fruit he could see in the stasis preserver, heading to the only bed in the cabin, where Zoe was sitting. She accepted the chocolate and the banana, and began to sip.

Mal didn’t see, as he worked, how Zoe’s eyes combed over the exposed flesh of his back. He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, but his back was exposed. She pretended, for just a moment, that all that smooth pale skin belonged to her man. She often found herself doing that on the rare occasions she ventured among the crew. One time, she’d almost reached out to Simon as she’d lost herself in a fantasy that his hand, which had been probing her belly during a routine checkup, was her husbands’ hand.

The chocolate half gone, Zoe set down the mug and got under the sheets. The com screen next to the bed flared to life, and Raya’s face filled the small screen.

“Mal, what the hell took you so long?”

“Our shuttle had an unexpected rendezvous with an EM pulse canon. Weird, huh?”

“Not so weird,” she said. “I’ve lost three transport vessels the Owens brothers that way. I should have known.”

Mal studied her face, and she showed none of the signs of being a liar. No twitching, no looking away from his eyes, and given the quality of the com screen, he could see her pulse beating steady in her throat. Her breathing remained easy and calm.

She was either telling the truth or she was a damned fine liar. He didn’t know her well enough to tell the difference yet.

Besides, he knew of the Owens brothers. They were rustlers, killers, and sore losers of the worst sort.

“I’ll tell your crew you and your woman have made it to the cabin,” Raya said.

“I can do that,” Mal said, not bothering to correct her that Zoe wasn’t his woman, not in the traditional sense. He asked her where the Owens brothers were making camp on this world, sealed the deal that they’d been coming to this cabin to meet with her for in the first place, and signed off. After that he called up Serenity.

Wash would normally have been left in charge, as Mal didn’t trust Jayne not to run off with the ship, but now that he was dead, Inara’s face filled the screen.

“We’ve got the deal,” he said, and transferred the location of the cabin. “Go pick up the cargo and come for me and Zoe.”

“That’ll take at least four hours,” said Inara, looking harried. Behind her Jayne was complaining about having to take orders from a whore, and Kaylee was telling him to shut up. A few moments later, their engineer’s face squeezed in beside Inara’s.

“Cap’n, you’ve gotta do something about Jayne when you get back, he’s bein’ a bully wors’n ever. ‘Specially to Simon.”

“Sic River on him,” Zoe said from behind Mal. “That’ll shut him up.”

Kaylee laughed. “Hi Zoe!”

“Hey, Kaylee.”

“What took you so long to call in? We were worried sick!” Kaylee said, and beside her Inara fought a battle to keep the girls new wild hair style out of her mouth.

“The Owens brothers shot our spare shuttle down.”

“How bad’s the damage?” Kaylee asked, all business.

“I’ll let you make that determination when we’re back on board. Now let me talk to Inara.”

Behind him, Zoe got up and went into the bathroom.

“Is Zoe gone?” Inara asked conspiratorially.

“Yeah, why?”

“How’s she doing?”

“She tried to get me to let her freeze in the snow,” Mal told her, somewhat somber. It was the closest he’d allow his face to come to sadness.

“She needs someone to make love to her,” Inara said. “I offered, but she turned me down.” Inara almost looked offended that her wiles had failed her.

“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?” Mal said, annoyed. “Well, I’m not gonna seduce Zoe. That’s crazy.”

“You’re her best friend, Mal. You share a history with her.”

“Forgive me,” Mal whispered, making sure Zoe couldn’t hear him in the bathroom, “if sex isn’t something I do for recreation. It means something.”

“Exactly. That’s why you should-”

“Shut up, she’s-”

The door to the bathroom opened and Zoe emerged, still in her robe, but noticeably dryer, and he saw her bra and panties hanging up to dry over the shower stall. The image of Zoe’s nakedness through her underwear made Mal gulp.

“Who’re you tellin’ to shut up, sir?” Zoe asked, getting back in bed.

“Jayne. He tried to horn in on my talk with Inara.” Mal looked at her pointedly. “Which is over, now, ain’t it?”

“I suppose,” Inara said, though he could tell that as soon as he was back on board she’d be hounding him to try and wrangle Zoe into the sack. Didn’t that woman realize that sex changed relationships, and not always for the better? That’s why he didn’t like fraternization between crew members, and that’s why he intended to kick Simon’s ass as soon as he got back on board. He’d just learned their doctor had been royally banging his engineer for months, and he’d learned it by walking in on the middle of it in the engine room.

What was it about Kaylee and engines that gave her such a turn-on? Mal pushed those thoughts aside. That was another train of thought altogether.

Making sure Inara had the plan down, he switched off the com. They’d have time to catch a couple of hours of sleep before Serenity touched down outside the cabin.

Without giving it much thought, Mal climbed under the covers, careful to keep a respectable amount of space between him and Zoe, and listened to the hot tub bubbling in the corner, while part of his mind kept a listen for any kind of approaching threat. He realized he never got a deep, restful sleep, because part of him was always listening for danger.

Zoe’s breathing had evened out. She was asleep. That sound, coupled with the bubbling water, lulled him into a light sleep. He had no idea how much time had passed when he felt something he thought at first was part of a highly inappropriate, dirty-old-man dream in which he’d somehow replaced Simon in the engine room with Kaylee. He grinned, and then felt hot breath on his neck, and a leg lay over his, and he knew that this was not a dream.

Mal’s eyes snapped open. Zoe had wrapped herself around him, and her breathing had deepened even more. It seemed that Inara was partially right. Zoe needed someone to hold, not necessarily someone to have sex with her. Slowly, so as not to wake her, Mal wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. She smiled in her sleep.

“I love you, baby,” Zoe said, and Mal knew she was talking to someone who was not there, someone who would never be there again.

“I love you too, Zoe,” Mal said, and he meant it.

Zoe’s smile deepened for a moment before fading with deeper sleep, and the sweetest dreams.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/lady_pru/