“Ooh! Look at these!” Kaylee rushed across the shop, her ponytail bobbing merrily. Dust hung thickly in the air, rising from every grease covered part Kaylee snatched up. “These are 500 credits new!”

“The Captain said just get what she needs. We ain't exactly flowing with cash at the moment,” I said, more harshly than I meant.

She paused. “Well sure Zoe… its just… look at the pretties!”

Nothing in this dark musty shop looked pretty to me. I was still wondering that Mal had chosen to visit Enster with Jayne and not me. Jayne could look after Kaylee. I wouldn’t question Mal’s judgement but I didn’t want him thinking I was weaker. Should I talk to him? He would deny it of course, but…

“Do you think these will be here when we come back to Persephone? So you think Mal would let me buy them?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it depends what kind of job we get with Enster. Might not be a big one.”

“Mmm…” Kaylee agreed, looking wistfully at the parts.

“Have you found what she needs?” I asked, impatient to be out in the sunshine again.

“Yeah, here. Do we have to go back already?”

“Mal said to be quick as possible.” I took the small pile of wires and parts and carried them through to the front of the shop, which was surrounded screens where mechanics could order new parts.

“Hey, you need help with those?”

I turned to the man at my elbow – pretty, tough – and threw him a look of disdain, not even bothering to answer.

“…That’ll be a no then,” he said, taking a step back

When we finally got outside I gulped at the fresh air, breathing it in carefully, deeply, reminding myself that I was still here, still real. Sometimes it just felt as though I was all inside myself and would never be able to get out.

We picked our way through the unusually crowded streets that we knew now so well. They were haunted with memories.

Suddenly my heart stopped.

Had that been -? I span around, my head becoming light. He had been there! I searched vainly through the crowds, my heart now beating twice it’s usual rate. I had see – he was – wasn’t he?

“Zoe?” Kaylee looked at me, her eyes full of concern. “What’s wrong?”

I just thought I saw my dead husband. I sighed. “Nothing, let’s go.” It can’t have been. He can’t have been. Oh Wash…

~

I stepped carefully into my boots, doing the zips up slowly so as not to wake the Captain. He struck me as a light sleeper.

My mind wasn’t on the Captain though, neither was it on Wash, despite it having been for the last 6 hours. I was contemplating our escape. Something was wrong. We had got away so easily it just seemed too easy. The Alliance would have warned ships leaving Ariel, maybe searched them. Wash was right, my tattoo did make me stand out. The Alliance hadn’t done any of the usual methods to recapture prisoners. It seemed they hadn’t even tried. Something was wrong. Why would they want us to get away? What would cause them to –

“Baby, where you goin’?”

Ai yah… “Oh! Did I wake you? I’m sorry!” I cast my eyes modestly to the floor. “It’s just I didn’t want my brother to find me gone. He worries and… I don’t want him to think I…” I trailed off sheepishly. Sometimes it was just too easy.

“Baby, come here. Don’t matter what that guy thinks!” He said it commandingly, reaching towards me.

“Oh! Sir, it does! He’s my brother!”

He scoffed. “He certainly doesn’t look like your brother…”

“We had different Mother’s, Sir.”

“Yours was the pretty one, I suspect,” he smirked.

I grinned naively. “I really have to leave now, but I’ll see you later!” I jumped from his room before he could protest.

~

The dock was bustling. “Keep your head low,” Eve had suggested as we made our way through the crowds. “There are officers about.”

I sensed she was still angry at me, but I couldn’t be sorry for anything I had done the night before. I led her down streets we had walked together, past the shop where Kaylee found her second-hand parts when we were strapped for cash, bars we had been thrown out of after countless brawls, places I remembered as though from another life.

“Will this Enster recognise you?” Eve asked.

“It’s possible…” I said slowly, “Why?”

“Think it would be better if I went in, posing as someone that would benefit him but ask for your ship to handle it. Then we can be sure for an honest answer.”

It sounded a good plan. “She’s called Serenity, the boat. A Firefly.”

“And the Captain, Malcolm Reynolds?”

I nodded. “Be careful. Enster is a business man. Won’t stand for any of your… nonsense.”

“Nonsense? It’s not nonsense, Honey.” She smiled queerly at me.

“To a man like him it is,” I said, swallowing hard. It was time to find out the truth.

~

I walked back down the corridor in a daze. They were alive, she was alive. This was it, time to give him up.

But I didn’t want to.

I didn’t want her to be there for him. I realised that I didn’t want to let him go, watch him go back to her and loose him. I didn’t want to loose.

I already knew in my heart I was going to lie. I had known it when I went in, leaving him behind. I wanted control. He didn’t want me because of her, that was all. I couldn’t just give up, not even if it meant doing the wrong thing.

I looked gravely up at him. “Maybe we should go some place a bit more private…”

His feelings were spread across his face as usual. “What? Why? What’s wrong? Eve, just tell me.”

“I’m sorry, Wash, I really am. He said news was they’d been killed, Reavers, a few months back.” I took his hand, staring up at him sorrowfully, but he snatched it away.

He didn’t say anything, just stumbled backward, his face crunched up in pain, his mouth, a soundless scream of objection. He looked up at the sky then looked down at his hands. “No!”

“Wash, I don’t know what to say…” I took his arm and tried to lead him, but he shoved me off, taking his head in his hands, the pain to real for tears.

~

No…

. . . .

ps. sorry its late... been away. hope you enjoy!