12/22/2007: "Firefly Fic: We Walk A Thousand Stairs (Zoe, PG)"

Title: We Walk A Thousand Stairs
Rating: PG
Characters: Zoe, Mal, Wash, Jayne, Inara
Words: About 3200
Summary: She finally decides the brass are getting desperate and crazy.
Notes: This is a Sweet Charity fic which requested something Zoe-centric. Many thanks to executrix for beta and encouragement! Title from Peter Murphy's Cascade.

After twelve steady hours of watching him, Zoe ain't sure if the Independent brass is getting desperate, or if they're just getting crazy. The man moves through the crowd like he belongs here, but he sticks right out. It's the smile, and the certainty. He's got gorram faith, and if that don't kick him in the ass, Zoe herself might.

"Zoe, right?" he asks as he approaches.

She nods.

"Mal Reynolds. Sergeant."

"I heard." It'd be impossible not to hear, what with him throwing his name around everywhere. When'd they recruit this one? Last week?

"Heard good things." He's grinning at her.

"Wish I could say the same about you."

He just grins wider, like he was expecting her to be ornery. And hell, if he was then she ain't complaining. Ornery has gotten her this far.

Days later, after she's pulled him out of the way of twelve bullets, one shock grenade, and a drunk recruit who forgot which side he's on, he asks, "Why'd you join up, Corporal?"

He's half-asleep when he asks. They all are, half-asleep and still standing and she'd bet good money that half of them are starting to think maybe the next time they lie down, it'll be permanent. So she ain't so annoyed by the question so much as she is by his want for chatting. She shrugs.

"Was it the pay?"

She almost laughs, and nearby, Sen does laugh.

Reynolds smirks at her. "The excellent rations?"

Truth be told, she's had worse. Not much worse, but still.

"The medical care?" He pokes at the bandage on his arm – one time she didn't pull him out of the way fast enough – yellowing around the edges now, and maybe starting to smell.

"Best take that off soon," she mutters. "Infection."

The question hangs between them, mixing in with the sounds of far-off explosions, and the scent of Sen's cigar. She ain't planning on answering it. What's to say? She joined up. She had nowhere else to go, no one else to welcome her. Ain't worth talking about, now or never.

"Why'd you join up, Sarge?" Sen asks, blowing smoke right in Reynolds's face. Zoe almost grins, and Sen almost grins right back at her.

Reynolds doesn't bat an eye, just says, "It was the right thing to do." Calm, certain. Idealistic. Like he believes it.

God help him, Zoe thinks, about the same time she finally decides the brass are getting desperate and crazy. Then she knocks him flat, out of the way of another bullet. The wall behind them explodes, tiny shards falling to the ground. "Quit talking and start paying attention."

His smile is blinding. She looks away.

*

"—and I didn't see right for three days after. Captain would set me up behind one rock or another, telling me to stay down and shoot." She laughs, savouring the sound. "'Three o'clock,' he'd say, and let me fire for a while."

"Had to keep moving her around though, 'cause she'd start complaining about being bored after a space." Mal pushes the bottle towards her.

Zoe takes it, fills up her glass, and Wash's, and passes the bottle on to Jayne.

"Yep, that's my Zoe." Wash's hand squeezes her arm. "Never was one for sticking to one the standard routine, if you know what I'm saying. Always looking for new things to try out, something to shake it up and –"

"You better not be talking about sexin' again, little man." Jayne knocks back his drink. "Bad enough I have to hear you two at it after we've finished a good job. Or after a job goes wrong. Or when yer bored 'cause we ain't had a job for a space. Or that time after that job with the –"

"Jayne," she picks up her glass, still smiling, "you want me to throw this at you?"

"Nah," he says, grabbing it from her hand. "That's a gorram waste."

* *

"What do you think, just before?" Erhlich's voice cracks when he asks the question.

Zoe leans up against the shell of the roller. Edge of another battlefield, and the sounds don't have far to carry. She ignores them, concentrates on checking her gun. Typical standard issue piece, and the workings are sticky – need oil, but that's just as scarce as everything else. "You asking me another question now?"

Course, she ain't surprised. It goes like that. Questions in the quiet times, just waiting for something to happen, they're different.

What would you pay good money for right now? Answers always pop up from everywhere, places she didn't even know people were stowed. Boots, food, something decent to drink, a bed. All four.

"You got something that's your very favourite thing, right at this moment?" someone else usually asks next. Or, "Anywhere you could be, where'd you go?" On and on, until new orders come along.

Then the questions people ask change.

"I am," Erhlich says, cutting through Zoe's thoughts. "Asked what you think, just before you go out there."

She shrugs. Erhlich gets the point to stop asking, but it doesn't stop him talking.

"I think, 'Gav, this is yer last time, so make it count.' And you know what? Ain't ever been my last time yet."

He lasts four more times. Zoe counts, she can't quite help herself. She counts and watches as each time, he goes out a little wilder, a little less controlled. She knows it's coming – Erhlich probably does too. Thinking like that – like there ain't much hope left – she figures it's just asking for it. Only the charmed get away with it, and turns out Erhlich just ain't that charmed.

Day he goes down, she sees it. Ain't anything she can do; doesn't make much sense that the only thing she can think of when she sees him fall is sitting and listening to his chatter, the weight of a faulty gun in her hand.

*

"Think we'll make it?" Wash asks, just before he sets the course for Niska's Skyplex and kills the engines. "Get back here with Mal?"

In one piece, he doesn't say. Zoe hears it anyway.

"No point in thinking anything else," Zoe says, remembering how her old standard issue gun never did stop sticking. She just got used to it.

Maybe even started to like it.

* *

"Helmet," Bendiss says, and Zoe knows he says it because she got on his case about wearing it. "Be dead without it."

"Can't eat a helmet," Tracey counters. "I say beans."

Mal shakes his head. "You and your gorram beans. There's more to the 'verse than beans."

"Not when you only got two cans left. That's reason enough to love 'em."

Zoe would pay good money never to eat canned beans again. Some days, she almost misses protein powder. Almost.

"Zoe? What about you?"

"Body armour," she says, automatically. She really does love it. Fits perfect, and ain't too heavy. Sits snug right under her uniform. Couldn't ask for better.

There's silence for a minute. Then, "Yep. Kelly really loved that armour. Said her folks gave it to her when she signed on." Tracey cracks open one of his cans.

Yeah. Sounds like they'd been real worried. Kind people, loved their daughter.

"Too bad it didn't cover her head," Tracey adds, around a mouthful of beans.

Zoe loves her new body armour, but she sure as hell ain't arguing that point. Kelly had been good people.

*

"Husband," she mutters into Wash's shoulder. Word doesn't quite sound right coming from her mouth.

"Apparently have been for two whole weeks." He turns over. Frown on his face is just threatening to split into something else. "How did this happen? Was I drunk?"

He manages to keep the frown for about three seconds, and then he cracks a grin. "Drunk and lucky, of course. That's what I'm saying. Drunk and very, very lucky. On second thought, maybe you were the drunk one. That's the only logical explanation for—"

"You'd best not be having regrets." She slips her hand down his chest, slow and light.

"Oh." He shifts closer, leg twinning with hers. "I'm pretty sure it isn't regrets I'm having right about now. Love you, Zoe."

Feeling's mutual, and he knows it.

* *

She thinks they're crouched in what's left of a school. Walls look like they were once bright, cheerful. Maybe they held up rough drawings, or careful copies of the alphabet. She imagines it – overworked but dedicated teacher, energetic students. "Think this was the local school," she says.

Mal shrugs. "Maybe. Don't see how it matters now."

"Matters because if it was, we're making good ground. School in these parts was on the far side of the settlement. Means we're almost out of the town limits. The 14th and the 23rd are coming in behind us, maybe a day away. If they can hold this ground –"

He looks over at her. "Better hope they're as good as we are."

"I'm sure they are, sir."

"Otherwise we're all screwed." He looks around, takes in the others. "Think they're rested up enough? Lieutenant's expecting us."

"As rested as they're going to get." Crossing this terrain would be easier if they still had working rollers with them, knocking down a clear path. Last one went down miles back.

"You ready to take this dance with me?" Mal asks, holding out his hand.

She hands him a grenade. "Always, sir."

*

She dances at her wedding, careful movements from her childhood. She remembers her mother dancing a handful of times, solitary steps of grace, and arcs of joy. "The dance is as old as Earth-That-Was," her mother had said, once. "One day I'll teach you, when you're done tripping all over yourself."

Lessons never did happen, but Zoe's got her memories. Smiles, and words that tease and love at the same time, and the feel of a calloused hand smoothing back her hair. That's what she's got left, that and a handful of steps to move across a floor for fun, rather than purpose. A movement of joy, instead of urgency or violence.

So on her wedding night, Zoe dances as best she can, a cherished, half-remembered routine. From the side, Wash watches. They all do. She can feel Mal's surprise, Kaylee's joy. Monty and his crew are drinking heavily, have been all day, but even they shut their mouths for a few moments.

She turns, arms held high. In the morning, she'll probably regret this.

Wash watches her, and she knows, without even opening her eyes, without watching his face, that he's grinning at her, loose and in awe.

Perhaps she won't hold regrets.

She makes the final turn, stops, and opens her eyes.

* *

Tracey ain't exactly a model soldier. Ain't a soldier at all, best Zoe can tell. He's just another person caught in the crossfire. Or maybe he was looking for a way out, and ended up further inside.

Ain't a bad shooter, though. When he puts his mind to it.

Still, it surprises when she hears him talking about how he joined up.

"Sooner or later," he says over the small fire, "that choice's just got to be made. Stand by and watch everything fall to hell, or stand up and do something about it."

He sounds like he believes it. Ain't quite enough to leave Zoe convinced, though. She wonders, briefly, when exactly she got so damn cynical.

*

"Men," Inara mutters over her tea.

Zoe smiles. In this case, it ain't men so much as one particular man. She knows it, and Inara does too. "Frustrating."

"Irritating."

"Stubborn."

Inara nods. "So idiotically stubborn at the most importune times. I wonder if it's genetics. A factor of the Y chromosome. Bad timing mixed with idiocy and pride."

"Might want to ask Simon about that. Though word has it he's one of those idiotically stubborn men, so he might not be telling."

"I believe Kaylee," Inara smiles now, "might have some insight into that particular issue."

The light in the lounge is dim, intimate. It lulls Zoe, and she suspects that it does the same to Inara. Lulls and soothes, enough that they can both pretend that the entire ship didn't hear Inara's latest argument with Mal, or that things are a mite tense between Zoe and Wash again.

The time's coming, Zoe wants to say to her, when you're going to have to choose. Won't be an easy choice, and it might just leave you torn up inside. But a choice is coming, and you'd best be prepared for it.

She doesn't say it, though. Thing is, she ain't so sure Inara won't just say the same thing back to her.

Zoe ain't ready to hear that yet. Maybe not ever.

* *

"We got right on our side," Mal tells her as he binds up her leg. "Know how I know? Because if we didn't, that bullet would have hit you higher up, and we wouldn't be having this chat right now."

"Sir," she says through clenched teeth, "you been drinking again?"

He grins at her, that same old bright, certain grin. She ain't the only one he flashes it at, but she's seen it directed at her plenty of times. He yanks the bandage tighter. "My hands're too damn steady to have been drinking. You see how I took out the purplebelly scum tried to kill you?"

"Saw how he tried to take you out first, too. Good thing his aim was worse than yours."

The grin stays where it is. "Zoe, that weren't his bad aim. That was right on our side."

"If you say so, sir," she says, and finally lets her eyes slide shut.

*

"Problem?" Mal asks again, hours after their first meeting with the prospective pilot.

"He just bothers me." Nothing's going to change that, no matter how much Mal shoots that look at her, that same damn look he's been giving her for months now. Hopeful, and maybe a little hurt she ain't feeling it too.

"Want to elaborate on that?"

Zoe ain't here to explain herself to him. But some days, it pays to give Mal an easy answer just to shut him up. This is one of those days. "Can't trust a man who smiles like that." Easy, open. "No one who went through the war smiles like that. And if he didn't go through the war, I gotta ask what he was doing all those years."

Mal looks at her for a moment, but he isn't really looking at her. He's looking right through her, thinking his own thoughts.

"You sayin' he ain't worth our time?"

She shrugs.

Mal takes her easy answer, and she keeps the hard one – the real one – to herself. It's his eyes, she doesn't say. The smile. Open and happy, secure in the world around him; he's got faith in it. Certainty.

She hasn't seen a look like that on a man's face for years. And she knows Mal hasn't, neither.

Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's why he wants Washburne on board. Remember, sir? She wants to ask. Remember looking in the mirror, way back? Remember when you looked at the world with certainty?

She shakes her head, turns away from the way Mal's watching her. "He just bothers me," she repeats, because he does.

"I'm hiring him. If he'll take us."

Course he is. It gets her back up, almost enough that she thinks on fighting him about it. Almost, except they need a pilot, and this jung chi duh go-se dway of a planet ain't offering much up. Trash and scum, all running from one thing or another.

Washburne is their best prospect. Zoe just wishes it weren't so. She's tired of watching decent men break.

* *

Some of the men talk about home. About going home, after the war. Finding husbands or wives, and starting up something that means growing things in the ground, instead of leaving the dirt lifeless and contaminated. Some of them – the ones that can't see the 'verse for what it really is – talk about rebuilding on shattered ground.

"That valley," she overhears on her rounds one night, "a couple hundred miles back. Sheltered from the winds. Good place for grazing goats. Can you imagine –"

Zoe keeps moving. She can imagine – the chemicals in the dirt, seeping into the grass. She imagines goats roaming that ground, eating up anything they can swallow. Ain't hard to see where it would go – healthy goats turn sickly. Healthy wife and kids get hungry, then hungrier. Dreams and hopes wither, slow and relentless.

That valley ain't going to be anyone's home for years. Longer than she has left to live, most like.

Still, dreams of home keep people fighting. She can't fault that.

*

Grit. In her eyes, her hair, crusting the edge of her nose. It's everywhere.

"Gorram," Jayne mutters at her side. "This place is a piece of ruttin' hell."

She can't disagree, but she ain't opening her mouth to say as much. Mouth is pretty much the last place empty of grit, and she aims to keep it that way for a while longer.

The sandstorm stings against her skin, through the layers of cloth and leather. No amount of fathoming can give her a reason why folk would choose to set up homesteads here.

"Hey," Jayne nudges her. "You see movement?"

She looks where he's pointing, working herself deeper into the sand at the same time. A few moments of staring at the swirling sand, and yeah, she does see it.

"Think it's him?"

Only one way to tell. Wait it out, wait for him to come closer until –

"Zoe?" Mal's voice crackles over the comm. "If that ain't you and Jayne, I'm shooting. Hell, if it is Jayne, I might just start firing anyhow."

"Hey!" Jayne yells. "That ain't the way to be talking about the man who's got your back."

The movement resolves slowly – long coat, face wrapped in cloth, familiar fall of Mal's hand against the gun at his hip. He's alone. Zoe pushes herself out of the sand. "Good to see you, sir."

"Would be better to see you holding a big bag of our money," Jayne adds. "No offence. Good to see you ain't shot up and all. For once."

"Jayne, you sentimental jackass, we got our money." He pats the bag on his back. "Plus a bonus in the way of firearms I stole from the shee-niou son of a bitch who tried to convince me we didn't need paying after all."

"He dead?" Zoe can hear the grin in Jayne's voice.

"Nah. Might be soon though, if he don't wake up. Heard tell a sandstorm was coming."

"Won't be able to take off if we stay much longer," she says. And it's been a good long while since they left Serenity, radio silent the entire time. Wash never takes that so well. "We got what we came for. Let's get home."

"Sounds good."

Sounds better than good. Zoe turns, leading the way.

End.