. . . The cargo bay has done sat open to the atmosphere for days now, so it smells like, well, it smells like this desolate moon, which don’t smell like much of anything – leastways not now that the torn up bodies have been removed. But as she climbs up to the next level, entering the smaller, more constrained areas of the ship, Zoe smells the fruity scent of Alliance disinfectant – the same scent that lingers on her skin from the Medic Ship, the scent she’d hoped to wash off once home.

Knicks mar the metal of the corridor walls, catching the skin of her fingers as she probes a gash a good foot and a half long, shining new-metal bright even in the low light, the patina of living scrapped away by crudely made sharp-edged weapons. She presses her hand to the wall momentarily and then keeps moving. Nothing major’s hurt – ship’ll get over such as these right quick.

The damage shows more obvious like in the dining area – Kaylee’s flowers looking a might worse for wear and the sun streaming through the window and straight to the floor as it hasn’t done in years. Her hands run over the back of a lone chair, and she moves it where it would go if the table were still there. The disinfectant smell so strong here it becomes a tang she can taste in the back of her throat, she swallows, trying to imagine mashed protein with too much rosemary instead.

Crew quarters pass in a blur of low light and a forward focus that ignores looking sideways. More bright sunlight pours into the bridge through windows so clean and new, she’s not sure the glass is in till she gets up the steps and into the area proper. Her eyes water a little due to the brightness as she looks out on this overly truthful planet, and some small part of her hopes for rain.

But her eyes adjust, and the pilot’s chair sits there in the unforgiving light. They’d cleaned it, the Alliance types, cleaned it so well there weren’t stains, not even the one from when he’d spilled coffee all over the left front corner. Zoe touches the now pristine cloth of the seat and allows her hand to drift slowly upwards, eyes following. Yes, what there is of it is shiny like new, but her fingers soon drift over rough material and jagged edges of foam. They cleaned it and left it, hole and all – a chair ain’t no one’ll ever want to sit in again. Eyes still watering, she presses her face to the back of the chair, but can’t smell nothing of him in it.

The locker door opens once she fiddles the latch up and to the left. Some things, at least, don’t go changing. The wrench rests solid in her palm, warming quickly as she squats to set to undoing the bolts in the floor. . . .