badinlatin | Mal-Wash.

Wash groans, theatrically.

"The only reason I'm even dignifying that queston with a response is because you gave me coffee," he says, lifting the cup a bit. "And the response you're getting? Is 'Zoe had another false contraction yesterday.' Make of that whatever you want."

He takes a long slurp.

"It's not necessarily the best coffee around," Mal replies obliquely.

"Zoe 'n I haven't...haven't talked too much, lately." Mal clears his throat, "Pregnancy and all. Tryin' to stay out o' harm's way."

Among other things.

It's really, really not, which explains the slightly pained expression Wash makes as he swallows.

It's something to keep him awake, though. He can always use that.

"Yes," he replies dryly. "I can see how talking to you'd be such a dangerous occupation. We should stamp you all over with warning labels. Hey -- " he brightens suddenly, "can I make them?"

Face? Meet palm.

"Sure. Go ahead. What would they say, exactly?"

"Oh, just the usual." He frames the air with one hand. "'Not to be worn, eaten, or exposed to sunlight. Pregnant woman should avoid prolonged contact. Do not jostle, poke, or insu -- ' wait a minute."

There is eyeing, with sudden, profound skepticism.

"You're letting me freely insult you. You're asking me to insult you. Why are you asking me to insult you?"

"I said nothin' o' the kind," Mal responds, way too quickly. "I brought my pilot some coffee and let 'im run off on one o' his patented tangents.

"So! How's the folks?"

"They're shiny." He's still eyeing Mal. "Annie spoke a foreign, stable-related language for a few minutes that I think translates to, 'hey, come see the horses and bring Mal when you do,' Dad and Mom are planning some big elaborate dinner that should explain to everyone where I got my cooking talents from...."

The skepticism's melting away to a real grin.

"I think I saw gifts, too."

"Of course you saw gifts! You're about to make your parents into grandparents," Mal laughs back at Wash, finishing his coffee.

"Wait...Annie said I could come by?"

"Shi a," says Wash, taking another sip of his own coffee. "I'm planning to use the time to observe both of you in your natural habitat. Maybe with my datapad set to 'record.'"

Mal grins. "I looke forward to meeting her. Maybe I can bring her a new bridle from Bar or some such."

"And speakin' o' gifts...I have something to give to you and Zoe. But you might prefer me givin' it to Zo'."

Wash's eyebrows rise.

"Unless it's pink, frilly, or deadly, no."

Beat.

"Though if it's one of the first two, I wanna be there when you give it to her so I can see her face."

"It's blue and fuzzy and very much not deadly. But you might kill me 'cause o' what I knitted into the side," Mal explains.

"...think I just gave it away, maybe."

Wash thinks this over.

He takes another sip of coffee, and ponders some more.

Then...he closes his eyes in long-suffering embarrassment, hangs his head, and says, "You knitted 'Jellybean' on there, didn't you."

(His tone isn't completely lacking in amusement, though.)

"Nope. That's your nickname, not mine," Mal corrects.

"Zash -- I know, I know - but I *had* to."

"You -- that's even worse!" he sputters. "You're already encouraging a lack of imagination in my daughter! At least Jellybean was...."

Wash loses all momentum.

"No, never mind, it's not any better."

"It's very small, in one corner. 'Naomi' is much larger on the thing, I promise."

"Of course, I still win for most unimaginative alias given to a crew member."

No, Mal never forgot Matnomis.

"I'm not being a good enough influence." Mournfully. "You'd think, after so many years...."

He finishes off his coffee.

Also mournfully.

"My imagination only extends so far."

Mal stares at Wash's empty coffee mug.

"Apparently, so does my coffee."

"You could get me another cup?"

This is said in the ridiculously hopeful tones of one who's not really expecting the event to happen.

"I could give you permission to go to the kitchen and use my coffee stash, but that's about all you got a shot at."

Wash sighs.

"Then the next cup will have to wait until I'm feeling less lazy," he says, and plunks his cup on the radar with a firm, decisive air.

This is followed by immediately leaning back in his chair and kicking both feet up onto the console, hands behind his head in the universal posture of 'I am a lazy bastard.'

"Less lazy?" Mal grins.

"This lookin' to happen anytime soon?"

The cheap shots are always the most satisfying.

"Hey."

He holds up a finger, not turning his attention away from the windscreen.

"I'm going to start raising a very tiny person in a couple weeks, I refuse to give up the last few, precious days of uninterrupted lazy that I'm gonna have for the next twenty years."

Mal smiles, slightly.

"Peace and quiet is much with the good thing."

Mild fumbling with his coffee mug.

"Shi a." He turns his head to look at Mal. "In other late breaking news, water is wet and the black's kinda cold."

His amiable smile fades a little when he catches the fumbling. Wash straightens up, taking his feet off of the console.

"You sure everything's shiny?" he asks.

He's having a decent conversation with someone who doesn't think he's crazy.

Mal's not about to change that now.

"Yeah," answered too quickly, but way too definitively for a lot of questioning. "Shiny."

Wash raises a skeptical eyebrow, but says nothing. A screen to his left chirrups out an alert, and, absently, he punches in a sequence and readjusts the yoke.

Mal stares at Wash's empty mug, and then his own.

"I think I might go make a second cup."

Mal picks up both coffee mugs, and turns to leave.

"When you want to stop being avoidy, I'm here," he calls after him, then quickly busies himself with the controls.

It's friendly enough.

It's also just the tiniest bit exasperated, but it's a well-hidden exasperation.

Mal didn't make it halfway down the steps into the corridor before Wash spoke.

Staring at the step below him, Mal matches Wash's tone -- friendly, but probably more tired than exasperated -- "Things ain't goin' so well 'tween me and Kaylee, and I didn't tell Zoe a lot of things what happened with me leading up to Miranda. And I don't know how to say it to her now."

"I'll stick to the coffee I think."

Wash spins the chair around.

"Did Kaylee tell you I talked to her?"

Uncertain, now, as he scratches his ear.

"Weren't much detail, but she did mention it, yes. Said it didn't go well."

A small breath. Reluctantly, "Not so much, no. Mostly in the sense that I sided with you on everything but the box-throwing, which, by the way -- "

He spreads his hands with a patently incredulous air.

"The hell, Mal?"

Mal has only just now turned around, bending to place the two mugs on the floor.

"Wo dong, wo dong, I know, but...she said I didn't have any right to do what I did. I should've know better, I -- she thinks I'm crazy, Wash."

"Which you're not." Beat. "That much, but...the good kind of crazy. The crazy I kind of enjoy. And I told her that you damn well did have the right to do what you did -- not the right to take it out on her, but everything with Niska, yeah."

"Was she right, though?" Mal picks up momentum a bit, though he doesn't move back up from the steps. "Was she right to believe me so...incapable that I was an idiot to want to go against Niska and then I should be berated and beat down by her after? I do that enough to myself, Hoban."

Wash is silent.

"We all put Kaylee in a really bad position," he says carefully, at last, "when we went and took our nice shiny impromptu one-week vacation to the cells. She ain't ever supposed to be running this ship. And she got angry about it, which, okay," his mouth twists a little in sympathy, "yes, she's right to do that, but --

"But that's just my point, she's not right to say you can't go after him -- I mean, yeah, we shouldn't have, but that's in the same 'verse where we're all rich and prosperous and law-abiding -- just like you're not right to completely blow a circuit at her. Am I veering anywhere toward sense-making?"

"Yes you are," Mal confirms. "But what difference does this make now? Now I'm the mental patient who can't control himself."

"So try doing something that proves you aren't fēngle. I know it's a wild suggestion, but -- "

"And what might that be exactly? I apparently don't have much experience with it, so..."

Wash sighs.

"To start with, talk to her again. Without throwing things. Or losing your temper. It's Kaylee, Mal, that shouldn't be too hard."

"And if she don't want to talk to me?"

Y'know, ever?

That gets a smirk.

"Has a little fact like that ever gotten in the way of me running my mouth at somebody? Just follow my fine example, Cap'n. You'll be fine."

If there's any preening, it's only for effect.

Mal can't help but feel this is different than any other time he's had to talk to someone when that someone didn't want to listen.

"I'll try."

"...can I go get that other coffee now?"

In an amused drone: "Yes, Mal. You can go get the other coffee now."

He swings his chair back around.

Mal-Wash.

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