Mal-Wash.

[badinlatin]

The kitchen is oh-so-very empty.

This is why Mal feels comfortable enough saying this out loud as he pours tea with an unsteady hand.

"Why is it that me sayin' I can't say 'never again' is getting automatically translated as 'We Will Do This Again'? Ain't like I'm not gonna try to avoid it 'fore goin' anywhere near that again, Wash..."

Several lumps of sugar into the teacup.

"'Tween the hallucinations you had no clue I was havin' and the Alliance just beggin' for a chance to catch hold of all of us, I did what I had to."

"...And I'm sorry."

Mal moves with his teacup toward one of his favorite chairs in the kitchen. "Now all I got to do is figure out how to say that in front o' you."

Comments

[flybywash]

Since his talk with Kaylee, he's been wandering. Getting reacquainted, more or less.

If he's kept his exploration to the middle and back of the ship so far...well.

Wash is halfway through the door of the kitchen before he notices Mal's there, or hears what he's saying. He goes absolutely still.

After a minute, he turns to leave.

It's the gorram noisy crutches squeaking against the grating that probably give him away.

[badinlatin]

"Wait---"

Gorramit.

"Hold up."

[flybywash]

Wash stops, and looks over his shoulder.

Waiting.

[badinlatin]

Mal stands from his chair and moves so that he can clearly see Wash in the hallway looking to him.

"How...much of that, did you hear?"

[flybywash]

With some effort, Wash maneouvers around so he's facing Mal.

"All of it."

[badinlatin]

Mal closes his eyes and ever-so-nobly facepalms quickly before continuing, "Wasn't exactly how I'd thought of you and I talkin' 'bout things."

[flybywash]

"Honestly, sir, I was hoping we could not make with the doing that for a while." He quirks a humorless smile. "I know it's hard to believe, considering how amazingly well it went last time."

[badinlatin]

Mal straightens, somber and keeping his pitch low, even.

"I wasn't looking to talk to you today. It just...happened."

[flybywash]

Wash nods.

That grating pattern's just fascinating, isn't it?

"That everything you wanted to say?"

[badinlatin]

"No."

Why yes, the checkerboard pattern could be seen as integrating itself well with the main design of the -- oh never mind.

"But if you're not thinkin' of listenin' to it, then it will wait."

It does push on Mal's last bits of patience he ever had to begin with to say that, but he tries not to make that fact too visible.

[flybywash]

Suddenly weary, Wash looks up, locking eyes with him.

"Just finish, Mal."

[badinlatin]

Mal's mouth pulls tighter.

"Only if you're willin' to sit. I'm not gonna talk to you in the hallway."

Mal does do his best to make this not appear like a completely horrendous idea.

[flybywash]

Wash tenses, almost imperceptible; for a second, it looks like he's about to walk away without a further word.

His wife's right, though. There's been enough fighting lately.

Silent, save the crutches, he makes his way over to the table and lowers himself into a vacant chair.

[badinlatin]

There's step one.

Mal sits opposite Wash's place at the table and attempts appearing as non-threatening as possible.

"Was there any bit you heard you wanted me to start with?"

[flybywash]

"Yeah. Remember the 'just finish'-ing?"

He sets the crutches against the table, regarding Mal.

"How about that part."

[badinlatin]

Mal does remember to loosen up on his lower lip before he draws blood.

"I am trying, don't you see that? You ask me to wait, I try to wait, then you tell me to 'just finish', as if it were a pretty little bow to tie up." Mal can't stay sitting; he might throw something.

"You think I've ever asked for forgiveness before from someone I got killed? You think I know how to do that? That there's some chapter in the manual when you decide to captain a ship that tells you how to figure out what to say to your best friend's ex-dead husband? No. There's not." Mal begins to pace, staying as far away from Wash as possible. "'S like I told Kaylee, when did saying I would go to that edge again for anyone on this ship turn out to equal that I wanted to do that? That I wouldn't do anything I could to avoid that? Gorramit, Wash; you think I don't blame myself for everything that's happened?!"

Mal's voice echoes through the kitchen. He's aware that he should let Wash actually talk. He won't; not yet. If he lets Wash talk, he might never finish any of this.

"I used to know how to ask forgiveness from God. Never really learned how to ask forgiveness from people."

[flybywash]

Through the entire tirade, Wash is quiet, composed. Blank. Everything feels curiously distant and hollow from where he's sitting.

He's not yelling because of what Zoe told him; it's because he just doesn't have the energy.

"There was about a minute," he begins quietly, "after I died. When I was still there on the bridge. I saw you and Zoe and what'd happened to me. Ain't something I'm gonna be forgetting anytime soon.

"I'm asking you about the finishing because there's no rutting point in me hearing that and not hearing what else you got. But yeah, waiting would be of the good. It'd...." He takes a moment to steady his voice. "It'd really be of the good, after seeing that.

"I'll work for you, I'll get us where we need to go, but if you want me to forgive you, I -- " His mouth twists, and he looks away. "Ask me again in a few days.

"I can do it. I think. But don't ask right now."

[badinlatin]

"I wasn't going to. I was waiting. Practicing, but...waiting."

[flybywash]

He nods, studying his hands.






"Duìbùqĭ."

[badinlatin]

Mal can't bring himself to say anything to Wash's 'sorry'.

Instead: "Was the ink okay?"

[flybywash]

"Haven't been up that way yet."

Still looking at his hands.

[badinlatin]

"Ah."

Mal does understand why, at least a little bit.

"You need anythin'?"

[flybywash]

"Don't think so."

At this, he finally looks up.

"What's our time of departure tomorrow?"

[badinlatin]

Mal inhales sharply.

"'Fore 10:30 planet-time. Dock's paid up 'til then, anyhow; we can leave before if we're packed."

He's back into Captain Mode.

[flybywash]

His stomach clenches, against his will.

At least he manages to keep his tone neutral when he says, "Shiny," and manages to get to his feet steadily enough. Settling himself onto the crutches, "Be up and moving by nine, then. See you in the morning."

[badinlatin]

"Yeah. See you."

Mal watches Wash leave the kitchen on his crutches with an expression of utter weariness that few have ever really seen Mal wear.

Maybe Zoe. Maybe.

Mal's hand gives a tremor to remind Mal his nerves have not yet calmed, and when Mal picks up his tea, it has gone cold.
Cold drinks for cold hearts
Mal is trying to make people better. Maybe that's bad, but the only person he needs to have his project succeed on is himself.
There's no place for me here
Mal dumps the cold tea out, and once the creaking of Wash's movement has died away, Mal makes his way toward Inara's shuttle. Maybe he'll sleep.