![[I saw three ships]](../img/2006icon.jpg)
The crew disembarked with various levels of excitement ranging from Jayne's heavily shifting feet as he muttered about civilized ladies —Mal was takin' that to mean whores— to the quiet sigh from the Shepherd who was looking forward to stocking up on fresh greens again. Mal watched the doctor lead River cautiously off the ramp with Kaylee buzzing and chattering around the pair of them all the while; Inara had left the second they'd landed seein' as how she was already late to meet that client of hers. Seemed like something was off, Mal puzzled silently, taking stock of his rapidly escaping crewmates.
"Cap—Mal?" Wash stood awkwardly behind him with the grim specter of Zoe hovering over his shoulder. His bandages were all off now, but Wash still had a ragged look to him from Niska's…attentions.
"Wash?" Mal quirked a brow and nodded in acknowledgement of Zoe's supporting presence, "Zoe."
"Did you have any plans for planetfall?" Wash said it in a rush but Mal was more intent on the peculiar quirk of Zoe's mouth than his pilot's speech patterns.
Zoe rarely smiled. She was a stoic. She was a rock, an anchor, the one who held them all together, and she wasn't too quick with the smiling. That was Mal's second tip-off that something was up with the pair of them.
The first clue, rightly enough, was that the lovers hadn't been with the lot that had rushed out the gates to get their feet on solid ground again. Wash generally loved being able to get off the ship anytime they were planetside. He liked things such as trees and rocks and——planet-y stuff. Zoe was generally content to stay with him anywhere he happened to land, so Mal wasn't too certain of her feelings on being shipboard for so long out in the black. Either way, it wasn't like them. They hadn't been the same after that brush with Niska even though Mal had genuinely thought they were starting to get back to normal now that Wash was practically done with his mending.
Mal gave up procrastinating and offered, "I was plannin' on staying with the ship while everyone got their restless legs together topside. I thought I'd give the crew a chance to get out while we've got the option. Were you wanting to—be alone?"
There weren't too many tactful ways to ask if they were planning on him being off with himself so they could luxuriate in their marital bunk. Mal prided himself on even halfway managing.
Wash hesitated long enough for Zoe to smoothly interject, "We were hoping you would be free to join us for dinner."
"Dinner?" Mal wasn't too proud to admit when his voice might have squeaked a bit. He'd have sooner expected a dinner offer from the Companion than those two.
He loved them both dearly as friends and comrades-in-arms, but Malcolm Reynolds had not survived as long as he had by trusting blindly. No indeedy, he did not trust the pair of them at all.
Zoe nodded and Wash grinned huge and free. Disconcertingly, Mal pictured the pilot with that horrible moustache and nearly laughed himself.
Paranoid, that's what he was getting from spending too much time listenin' to Jayne mutter.
"I might manage to make myself available," Mal allowed, "What are we celebrating? I assume there's some kind of celebration to hand if you're going to be wasting the opportunity to get some quality alone time on a dinner party with the old captain."
"We are going to be alone," Zoe corrected, gesturing with one capable hand at the empty hanger.
Wash waggled his eyebrows, "With you."
Mal wasn't quite sure what to make of that. He mostly stared dumbfounded while they pranced off to the galley laughing.
"Dinner's in about two hours. No need to dress for the occasion," Zoe called.
"Or at all!" Wash replied cheerily. A solid thunk sounded as though Zoe had hit him a good one, but Mal was nearly too dizzy with possibilities to make out the mumbled "Could help!" that Wash had retaliated with.
Mal puttered around with his inventories and checking Serenity for anything he could think of that maybe Kaylee hadn't —which was effectively nothing, but a man had to have something to keep his mind occupied— until he couldn't ignore the growling of his stomach any longer. Letting his hunger be his excuse, Mal sauntered slowly into the dining area where he could hear Zoe chuckling softly at something Wash had said. Mal was reminded that Wash could make anyone laugh and that quieted his unease somewhat as he considered that this could all be an elaborate joke or some kind of…anything else than what his dirty old brain was conjuring up.
"Evenin'," Mal offered cordially, taking in that neither Zoe nor Wash had seen fit to dress for the occasion. He took that to mean that it couldn't be too formal if that were the case. It would be just like old times, before Inara, before their passengers had all come to roost permanent like.
Wash grinned, "Good evening to you too, my fine captain!"
Aww, guay. They had survived Niska, Mal reminded himself as Wash shooed him into a seat, surely they could manage dinner together.
Zoe hhm'd in acknowledgement of both of them and set the heavy —full too— plates on the table. She served up a mean mess when she felt up to it, Mal thought grudgingly. He'd have never figured Zoe for the cooking type, but he knew she could manage well enough if the occasion arose. She'd baked one fine wedding cake for her own self back in the day. Mal watched the couple exchange a secretive smile as Wash settled drinks and utensils alongside the plates. He wondered when they had really fallen in love and how it had never faded as his own fleeting moments of passion had done. He wondered if he would ever be so lucky to find anyone so good —heart, body, and soul— as either of these two fine people.
Small talk was a bare, spare deal when the eating was as good as this dinner turned out to be. Mal and Zoe rarely bothered with such when it was the two of them alone anyway; Wash never tired of hearing his own mouth motor along unless it was full. The table was quiet for long enough that they all got comfortable, if anyone other than Mal had ever been otherwise, that is to say.
"About that offer I made you," Wash tossed out, taking a deep drink of his cider.
"Offer?" Mal prodded as Wash's thought seemed to peter out midstream.
Zoe kicked him under the table and Mal winced in sympathy. He'd felt those steel-toed boots his own self more than the one time.
Wash yelped and rubbed his knee, grimacing at Zoe in mock hurt, "That is to say, should you remember the offer I gave you while we were being horribly tortured, I wanted you to know that it was still good. We talked about it. A lot. At length. Sometimes without words. Sometimes using quite a lot of moaning and panting. Sometimes—"
Zoe kicked him again and this time Wash let out a particularly vile curse in retaliation, smartly going silent to save himself more bruising.
"So, you want time to think it over or would you rather we talk it through now?" Zoe asked practically.
Mal was lost on what they were talking about at all. He nodded as slowly as he could manage, "I think I could do with more talking."
"Less kicking," Wash whined.
Zoe nodded as serious as ever, "Talking seems fine, sir. First thing, we wanted to let you know that our friendship would never come into question nor would our loyalty to either the ship or our positions as crew."
"That might be more than a first thing," Wash snickered.
Mal's stomach was beginning to twist awkwardly. He thought he might understand that whole mad thing that the doctor had babbled about once.
Zoe glared, but Wash took over the talking as he was wont to do.
"I won't let you have her all the time and I won't let you have her all to yourself unless you ask me first because, honestly, I don't think my ego could handle it. You two already share something more than I can ever have with either of you; I'd like to keep my connection between you as strongly as I can without—well, hindering too much. I'm also willing, of course, to try something between the two of us if you are."
Mal thought that was an awful lot of words for his poor mind to be trying to digest along with all the good food he'd just swallowed down. He was entirely too sure that he knew what they were talking about and none of it was working out any way he'd ever imagined it doing so. Not that he'd spent a whole lot of time imagining it working out any way at all, but—the thought had occurred once or twice. It did get mighty lonesome out in the deep and good friends were hard to come by. Lovers even more so. He held up a hand to stop the barrage of words.
"Are you saying what I think you're saying? That didn't come out quite right. I meant, are we talking about what I thought we had already done talked about? With me and Zoe?"
Wash nodded hesitantly, "I believe that we are, Mal. Except I think that we're opening up a new thing to talk about as now we're talking about you and Zoe and me. I don't think that I was given an appropriate share of the conversation the last time we talked about this."
Zoe nodded her agreement. Her chair squeaked as she settled back at her ease. She was a fine, striking woman. Mal had never realized how striking until her husband up and truly offered her for his consideration without saying so in as many words.
Her husband.
"You? Wash, let me get this a'right. You're saying that you're okay with the possibility of me resolving some kind of sexual tension that you think exists between me and your wife? And you're saying you wouldn't mind being a part of that resolution?"
Wash blinked. It had sounded better in Mal's head.
"Mal, I thought I was saying I was okay with you fucking my wife, but I knew there was unresolved sexual tension between the two of you! I'm happy you've finally become man enough to admit it!"
He looked positively smug. Mal was certain that he must have looked confounded since Zoe was sitting forward, forehead wrinkling with quiet concern for him. She was his rock, his anchor, and Wash's wife. She was okay with her husband offering her up for fucking.
"Zoe? Are you hearing this? You're interested in having—well, in us being physical?"
"Sir, no offence, but I think I'm a bit more flexible with my intimacies than you've ever really considered."
Now Zoe was the smug one.
Wash made matters worse with a waggle of his eyebrows and a wicked, "Have you ever made love with a warrior woman? Wanna try it with mine?"
Mal was determined to win back some dignity. That meant he'd have to fight dirty and go for man-ape speakin'. In other words, he'd just go with saying whatever it was that Jayne would most likely say if the offer was sent his way.
"Wash, you're offering me the chance to fuck your wife. She's saying that won't change our friendship or the fact that you're both still on my crew."
Wash leveled Mal with a stare far more mature than any he'd ever imagined possible of coming from the pilot.
"Mal, I'm offering you the chance to fuck me and my wife. We're both saying that it won't change our friendship or the fact that we're on your crew."
Zoe hesitantly stroked her warm, dark hand down his arm to touch her fingers to his. Scars and calluses from a life too harshly lived made her grip more real than any Mal had ever felt. He caught her nod and the soft sigh she gave as he turned his palm over in her grasp was worth more than a thousand of Wash's sentences. Zoe spoke a soldiering language Mal had become all too accustomed to speaking once upon a lifetime ago; some days he was glad he had her around to keep him from forgetting it. Some lessons cost too much to learn the first time.
"You know I ain't sly, right? I do tend to lean towards the women folk mighty heavy."
Zoe's thumb traced a crescent-shaped scar along the outside of his trigger finger. He'd cut it while pulling a pressure grenade to barricade the two of them in so that the Alliance troops couldn't mow them down, separate from their unit.
"I think we might manage to work out a way to lean together that had nothing to do with traditional ways," Wash offered speculatively.
Fitting Wash's fingers in with Zoe's was easier than Mal would have imagined. He had never realized that three hands could all hold one another. It was…oddly natural. He'd never had anything of his own and Zoe was his anchor, his rock, and she was also Wash's. Wash was her happiness as much as he was Mal's. It might not solve anything, but the black got powerful lonely and —then again, an arrangement of such like could solve everything.
"We could—that is to say, I might be amenable."
Wash chuckled and Zoe's enigmatic smile slid into place.
"Aren't you glad you decided to stay aboard, Captain? You got dinner and now, if you decide you are amenable, Zoe and I are going to give you a show."
Mal couldn't help the laugh that escaped him.
"Warrior woman, huh?"
"Work with what you have, sir," Zoe purred low and rich.
Mal's brain took a time-out to focus on digesting all the food and his more important focus took on a keen interest in just what kind of show his first mate and his pilot could manage on short notice.
He held their hands in his own as they in turn held his and Captain Malcolm Reynolds realized that he'd never felt more peaceful. He'd never had a better dinner and he imagined there'd never be a better show following.
Only one thing left to say, he reckoned.
"I'm amenable."
![[fin]](../img/2006banner.jpg)