Just a little while longer, our angels are going to be flying overhead...

Those first nights she had been kept in the infirmary, and in the days she had been prevented from heavy lifting, or dangling over ledges from a rope, or hauling around a welder. No, she was left there to check off lists, make demands of supplies from the Operative, being as intimidating as she could with her back strapped to a pole and her backside stuck in a gorram chair.

There had been too much pain then, too much anger. She hadn't been able to attend to Wash's body; Mal had tried in his gentlest manner to let her know they had discovered it in the Reaver ship, half-devoured. Simon had been forced to dope her when they caught her a few hours later hacking off random pieces of Reaver corpses, wrenching her already-injured back in the process.

That was as far in the grief process as she got. She spent most of the repair of Serenity either unconscious or hallucinating under the influence of the drugs coursing through her system. They tell her she nearly decked Simon once and had to be tied down after that. Ai ya, how humiliating. She would have been there working on Serenity with them if she'd had her choice. She wasn't a pathetic victim figure to be worried over, no sir.

But they waited to see if she could walk, each one hoping to whatever higher power they believed in, even Mal (he told her himself, though not in so many words) hoping that a double tragedy wouldn't strike and the Amazon Woman who had been to hell and back several times over wouldn't be confined to a chair for the rest of her life.

It was gorramed hard, nearly fainted that first time she stood again, but she bit her lip and swallowed the pain; Mal physically restraining Simon, knowing she had to do this herself. And she did it, walked across the room before Mal took her by the arm to stop her from sinking to the floor. Kaylee cried huge watery tears of joy and River had the biggest smile since she was 6 years old.

They had the funeral then. Wash and Mr. Universe had already been buried due to necessity, but they flew to Haven and erected a memorial and had a ceremony as best they could. She walked to the rocket on her own, dressed in mourning white. She should have cried then, she knew she should have, but Wash's death was mixed up somewhere in the memories of hallucinations, and the moment was wrapped up in the physical pain that still afflicted every step, and trying to keep the pain from showing on her face. What did show was taken for stoic grief by the rest of the crew, although she knew Mal knew closer to the truth.

Later, when she was back in her empty bunk alone, it was too much like Wash had just stepped out a second and would be back quickly, hoping to wrap her up in a surprise bear hug even though she always heard him coming. There were moments when the sadness and the longing snuck up on her like Wash never could, but she knew them for what they were: temporary emotions that mattered so little out here in the nothingness of the 'verse. She had seen too many die to think her situation unique, and so she just forced herself to sleep in the bed even when it seemed too big, forced herself to sit in his chair when a wave came to the ship that needed answerin', forced herself to make "wife soup" and eat it by her lonesome, forced herself to dust off the dinosaurs that stayed standing.

She didn't shove down the emotions, but didn't let them out either. They just sort of hovered there, known but neglected, given nothing to feed or soothe them. It wasn't that she tried to hold the tears back, they just never came. And it wasn't that she tried to grieve, it just never came punching her in the gut with its overwhelming force. She just kept going, knowing it was the only thing she could do.

Eventually the crew moved on. Wash would never be forgotten of course, but you could never dwell too long in the past without losing yourself. River made a fine pilot, and Simon and Kaylee were married and Zoe attended the ceremony, Mal did as well, holding hands with Inara. Eventually, she had worn the mask for so long, even in private, that she forgot she was wearing one. That ache, steady, warm and numbing at the same time was always there, unnoticed like you don't notice your clothing on your skin every second of the day. And if the effort to get up every day was harder than it used to be when Wash was around, she couldn't remember well enough to tell you if it actually was or not.

It was only when Simon and Kaylee were there, huddled around a pink mass named Christina Marie as Inara cooed and River solemnly placed a lopsided hat on its head, that the effort of pushing through the years caught up to Zoe. Everything suddenly felt very heavy, and her steps very slow. Her back ached, and she felt very old, glad that no one expected her to force a smile. She hadn't smiled since the day Wash had died. Her unacknowledged mask could be brittle.

When she asked Mal for a night off he didn't question it, but looked at her with knowing eyes and gave her a few extra coin. She got in a spectacular brawl that night, picking up where she had left off when the Reavers had tried to carve out her spine. She was a bit too drunk and the alley a bit too dark and the men a bit too set in their minds about the purpose of a woman alone. When she came home limping and bloody but unbroken, Mal was there to greet her, assuring her that Simon and Kaylee were snatching the sleep they could as Inara amused little Christi. He bandaged her up, all quiet besides the soft buzz of the lights.

"We're getting too old for this, sir. There ain't a soldier in the 'verse meant to live until 40."

"Lotta things not meant to be, Zoe. Sometimes you've got to just keep pushin' on til the 'verse sees fit."

They're eyes met, echoing all those long ago days of naive kids in war, then hardened soldiers, prison, scraping out a living afterwards, forging a family from the misfits of the 'verse, the pain and the joy and the downright boredom. Things that could have never been predicted, never been foreseen, not even by River. Their tapestries a tangled mass, long abandoned by the Fates.

So you hold... You hold.