simon_doctor | (no subject)

Both flight consoles are lit up far more brightly than they ought to be for this time of day, chirruping with unusual frequency.

You run these kind of in-depth diagnostics no more than once every six months, and for good reason: it's hell and a half trying to get any flying done with them going on.

Wash is pacing clumsily between the two of them -- he doesn't have his cane with him, using the consoles and chairs for support instead -- and when he finally notices Simon, a fair number of seconds after the doctor's shown up, all he does is look at him.

"River told me --"

He doesn't need to ask. It's obvious.

He has to ask.

"Is it true?"

He laughs, with no trace of humor, and paces back to the primary console to flip two more switches, check another screen.

"Yeah," he says. "It's true."

"Jiàn tā de guĭ."

It's barely audible, but startlingly vehement.

"This is insane."

Wash pauses with his palms against the edge of the console, arms locked straight.

"Thanks, Simon. 'Cause God knows I would've never picked up on that with my startling powers of observation."

Talking over the last few words: "I mean, what kind of sick game --"

With a visible effort, he stops himself.

"I'm sorry."

Giving up on standing, Wash, with no ceremony, drops into the pilot's seat and stares blindly out the windscreen.

"She tell you it wasn't permanent?" he asks quietly.

It helps, to keep emphasizing that.

"Yes."

And that almost -- well, no. It doesn't make it worse. It ought to make it better.

But it makes him angrier. Makes the whole thing seem that much more ... arbitrary.

"Did they ... did she tell you, is there a reason for this?"

"'There's always a price.'" He says it as if reciting something by rote.

(Wash may not have had a lot of time to think about it, but he's used that little time well.)

He turns the chair just enough to look back at Simon and adds, "Apparently I ain't paid up in full yet. So..."

Helplessly, he spreads a hand.

"You know, I kinda wish she'd just turned me upside-down and shaken me a couple times 'til some loose coin fell out."

"A price," he repeats flatly. "For your life."

"For my life and the extra time after it -- "

And now he's spinning the chair to face Simon in full, almost pleading, almost a little scared.

"Simon, I was supposed to be dead for the past ten months. Can we not say anything that'd fix that? Like, make her decide to put this on a more let's-make-it-permanent level?"

His hand clenches. His voice is taut with outraged disbelief, each word sharply enunciated.

"What right does she have to decide something like that? Something like this?"

"She's Death!"

His own voice rises sharply, equal parts panic and anger.

"If she doesn't have the authority then who the hell does?!"

(God commands it)
"Nobody should have that kind of authority. It's, it's not even murder, it's --"
(it won't be God's will that killed her)
Again, he makes himself stop, forces his hands to unclench.
(it'll be you)
It's just. It's all so senseless.

"It's what?" he snaps. "Doing her job?"

She has to have authority over who leaves and who stays. She is.

Wash can hate it all he wants, and spend all this time feeling betrayed by it, but he's still got to put some trust in her, because if he doesn't trust her to keep her word --

He can't look at Simon anymore.

Wash swivels the chair to face the controls again.

The rage smothers and dies, leaving cold wet ashes.

"I --"

It's contemptibly inadequate, but it's the only thing he can think to say.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have ... "

"Is Kaylee awake yet?"

His head's bowed. He might be looking at a row of dials just above the yoke.

Probably not, though.

Barely over a whisper: "She ... she wasn't, when I left the room."

He nods -- hardly more than a twitch of his head -- scratches the bridge of his nose, and still doesn't look up.

"Diagnostics are gonna be done in another three hours. Maybe four. If she ain't up by then...

"She's gonna want to look at these, it's every little thing that might turn into a big and scary thing later on."

Wash's tone is very flat, and quiet.

It's a tone he's only heard in faint approximation once or twice before.

"I'll tell her." Beat. "If you want."

Wash's shoulders slump.

"Please."

He rubs his hand along his mouth and continues, unsteadily, "I had to tell Zoe and Mal and River already."

Zoe. Simon's mind flinches away from the thought of how much that telling must have hurt.

Telling Kaylee is going to hurt, too, but ... not like that.

He nods. "I will."

"Xiexie."

A deep breath, another hand run over his face to compose himself, and Wash turns the chair so he's facing Simon.

Not entirely composed, though: not to the point where it looks effortless to maintain a neutral expression, or shutter back the fear in his eyes.

"If, ah, if there's anything else I can do, anything...."

He trails off.

"Just the usual doctorly looking-after things when I'm."

He swallows.

"For Zo' and Naomi."

He'd gladly see them before the three months ended, if he could. But he can only think of one way how.

"...I will."

He wants to say I'd stop this if I could.

But he can't stop this, and trying could make things worse.

Wash glances over to one of the side panels on reflex as it beeps, the pitch just slightly different enough to stand out from the general chorus.

It's nothing. He reaches to fiddle with a switch anyway.

"River's gonna help do some of the flying. You okay with that?"

He nods. "She's good at it. She'll ... do all right."

We're talking as though he's planning a sabbatical, for god's sake.

Simon finds something of interest to study on the deckplates.

"Hey, I knew people who graduated in my class who couldn't fly as well as her."

A tiny, lopsided smile. It barely lasts.

It's unpleasantly like some of the conversations he had with Kaylee last month: trying to pretend everything's normal, edging around the dark truth standing between them, and then inevitably circling back to it.

"Did ... do we know how long it's going to be?"

"Three months."

A breath.

"'Ish,' I think was the exact suffix she stuck on that."

Ish. I see. I suppose any degree of precision would be too much effort --

This time he bites back the bitter sarcasm before it can get out.

"Three months. That's ... not that long."

"Could be worse," he agrees quietly. A beat; he glances back to the screens again. "As, uh. Previously mentioned."

He turns away for a moment, finding something to look at on the handle of the locker near the door.

"Yes." Almost completely tonelessly.

And after a moment, hearing his own voice, he lets out a soundless sigh.

"But it isn't."

Wash sighs as well, more weary than anything else.

"Hearing it'll be okay ain't working too well with you either, huh," he says to the flight console.

"Not just now."

He glances up.

"...Ask me again when you get back."

"When," he echoes, and gives another brief, crooked smile. "Yeah."

This lapses into the low, constant hum of the consoles.

He doesn't know what else to say. There isn't anything, really; not that he can make himself say, right now.

So what he says instead, as he scratches the shell of his ear and tips his head toward the monitors, is, "I should probably, uh. Keep working on this."

"Right. I'll ... go talk to Kaylee, then."

What he doesn't say aloud is that right now, Wash probably shouldn't be alone.

Maybe not.

But thinking and working -- it helps, the focus you need for it, digging down to that place where your vision tunnels and it's okay to ignore pretty much everything else that's going on.

And it's not like Serenity's going to ask him what's going on.

"Thanks," Wash mumbles, and turns to the console.