Wash poked his head back under the consul, automatically listing inside his mind the things he'd need to bring back with him in order to get this death trap--Firefly, he reminded himself--flying again. The answer to the question of how it had ever gotten into the sky in the first place was a bit on the murky side, possibly even edging into mystical territory. Fireflies generally made up for the cheapness of their parts by the excellence of their design, a secret which unfortunately hadn't been discovered by the consuming public before the manufacturing company went way, way out of business. In action, they were like jewels lighting the black. Unfortunately, this one might never see any action, the nav control had been put together so shoddy. Maybe it was cheap labor that had done the damage--possibly slave-monkeys. Don't be ridiculous, Wash reprimanded himself. Monkeys don't come cheap nowadays. And slave-monkeys are a hefty investment. Couplers, his mind, meanwhile, continued in its listing. Safeties for the EMP conditioner. His magnetic screwdriver. His sanity. Calibrator for the instruments panel. Masses of tendrilling hair and dark dark eyes. Fuser and that inhibiter he'd preassembled for the Ancton job but never used... It was doable, but just barely. And it was gonna be expensive. Wash could just see the look on Reynolds' face when he was told the estimated cost of repairs. He asked himself what had posessed him to take this job, rejected the question hastily, and settled back on the prospect of telling his current employer that it was going to take over two months, and upward of a thousand credits, to get his ship wired and ready for takeoff. He was getting dust all over himself, and his neck cricked. He rolled back in the pilot seat and wondered idly what her name was. The ship, of course. What was the ship's name? Knowing the retired-Browncoat look in Reynolds' (CAPTAIN Reynolds') face, it would probably be after his old army buddy who'd died, or some substitution for Vehicle-of-Alliance-Hatin'-Disillusionment. Tanaka, after all, had named her semiautomatic after her ex-commander who'd died while saving her life. She'd fought for the purplebellies, but Wash guessed that that last battle on Hera--what was it called?--had pretty much functioned as a great equilizer between the sides. Wash had heard of the job through Tanaka...which was one more proof that she didn't care whether he went or stayed... Wash exited the cockpit. "Reynolds?" he called uncertainly. "Er, Captain?" Nobody answered. "I'm just going to get some stuff," he projected, feeling like an idiot. "It'd be nice if I could get out of here," he added. This hallway didn't look familiar--or did it? There was some sort of music playing, kind of loudly, coming from what Wash guessed had passed for a bunk when the Firefly was built. The porthole was open, and Wash peeked in, just, he swore to himself later, looking for some guidance in navigating his way out of the ship. She was in there, taking a sponge bath. She'd hung a panel of green something against the wall, and it framed her in green--her back was to him--all that hair...Wash couldn't breathe. Entirely unconsciously--he swore it was entirely unconscious--he leaned forward, hypnotized by the muscular, sinuous line of that back, the unconscious way in which the shoulders held themselves, proud, upright, even when the back expressed some kind of discouragement-- He overbalanced and clanged, like a schoolboy, into the porthole door of the cabin. This isn't going to end well, he thought as she looked around, eyes actually shocked (he wouldn't have expected them to ever express shock, he thought, somewhat irrelevantly considering the wounding he knew he was about to recieve) and then enraged. He lost his balance, barely held on to the ladder as he fell into the cabin, jouncing rapidly to the floor like he was sliding down an accordion. Before he had time for more than a cursory "YEow!" she was on him. An iron grasp held his wrists behind his back, shoved him up against the wall, as her other hand searched him for weapons, thorough, competent, and harsh. Wash could feel her heat, her breath against his neck. Ai-yah, was all he could think. Holy--Holy-- She was half-naked. Half her skin was naked. And she was holding him. Against the wall. The metal branded his forehead. Time lost all meaning. "You're not packing," she muttered. She had a hard, deep voice, musical, somehow. It had cadences. Ai-yah, Wash thought. What a voice on this woman. "Oh, I'm packing," he muttered back. Semi-consciously. The words were out before he knew he'd said them. "What?" she said, voice like a whip, her grasp on his arms tightening. "I said..." Wash breathed out, hard, "I'm packing. My stuff. For moving in. Can I have my arms back, please?" he added pitifully. She'd insulted his masculinity. He'd never been more turned on. Literally never. "No," she said tersely. "What were you doing looking in on me washing?" "I couldn't figure out the way to the front door," Wash said. "You should post some signs." "You could have knocked." "Your music's on pretty loud. Very nice, by the way. Is that a shamisen on the high notes?" She jerked his arms up, hard, and he let out an indeterminate, pleading sort of sound. "Okay," he panted, "not...a...shamisen." She held his arms a minute longer. His muscles were on fire; he felt her near him, and felt the heat from her change, felt, as if her were her, a kaleidescope of possibilities opening dizzyingly under her situation--he hardly dared to breathe. She dropped his arms, backed away. He collapsed against the wall, the residue of her touch on his wrists burning the flesh away. "You turn around, I kill you," she said economically. "I figured that out all on my own, thanks," he said. She didn't respond. There were rustlings of fabric, bare feet against a metal floor. The music stopped. "Nice wall you got here," he said. "Great design. Is that an iron-titanium alloy?" "I don't like you," she said after an ominous minute. She was pulling on boots. There was a zip, and the clank of a buckle. Wash's mouth went dry. He liked a woman in boots. "Why were you bathing with the door open, anyway? Hedonistic streak of exhibitionism?" "I thought you'd left with Cap'n and Bester." There was a faint edge of defensiveness in her tone. Maybe she WAS a hedonistic exhibitionist. Wash needed water. And twenty pounds of ice to pour down his jumpsuit. "You had no call to pause," she said, hard-voiced and unreadable again. "I didn't mean to," Wash explained patiently. "I got distracted. Is our moment of manga-style romantic comedy over? Can I turn around now?" "Climb the ladder," the woman said. Wash obeyed. His arms protested. He liked that. His forehead throbbed. He felt like he'd been marked. He wasn't heavy into pain or anything--but he'd take what he could get from her, any way she wanted to get herself on him, even just her wall, even her dislike. It was just sex, as usual, he realized, following that curve of butt and thigh down the hallway (he'd been going in the right direction toward the exit, at least apparently. She had no right to mistrust that). It was just a lot of sex. "What's your name?" he asked. "Zoe," she said, not turning her head. "Zoe," he repeated. "That's a pretty name." "Don't try," Zoe said briefly. "Yes'm," he replied automatically. They walked a little more. "Anyway, this thing'll be flying in no time," Wash said. "What's the cost?" Zoe asked, and he heard it agin, beneath the hard give-nothing-away tone of her voice, a faint tinge, a slight color, this time of...defeat, or despair? "Maybe a hundred credits," Wash's voice said easily. "No problem. Maybe 150." Zoe stopped, and for the first time looked around at him. It was maybe the fourth time they'd made eye contact. A tendril of that hair brushed her cheek. Wash thought, later, that it was as though all her beauty was just overkill. She had enough soul to radiate out of whatever body it got put in. Pure sex, he'd remind himself. Right now, he just stared, face contorting into some bizarre grin to cover for his gaze. He felt his eyebrows raise clownishly, his nose flatten slightly. One of her eyebrows quirked downward. "150 ain't gonna cover the grav hull alone," she said. "Nah," Wash responded. "Nothing wrong with the grav hull that can't be fixed up with some paint and a little thing I call Mr. Weldy." She stared. "...My welder." The eyebrow quirked upward. "Little?" was all she said. "But powerful," he said, feeling like smacking himself. Mr. Weldy wasn't little, gorram it. She turned back around, hit the button (another big red button) to open the airlock. New Calcutta swarmed over them, lushly overcast, lively, unsavory. "Well, this was nice," he said. She gave him a Look. "I'll be back in a couple of hours," he said. "Great," Zoe said. His mouth smiled, and his face heated. He was going to walk out the airlock. So how he found himself face-to-face with her, he had no idea. She was slightly taller than him in the boots. "You sure you don't like me?" he murmured, and kissed her. She stumbled slightly, the curve of her back hot, soft under his hands, her lips-- Again, his brain asked him, I just want to know, as an apparently disinterested observer, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? Again, his brain had a point. Her back got rigid. She punched him in the stomach. He stumbled back. "Positive," she chipped out, her voice as icy as that one Ariel moon. He stared. "Well, you may have a point," he muttered, and hightailed it out of there.