milliways_bar | (no subject)

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And Wash is back on one of the couches, still at work with his datapad, still wearing the I ♥ NY T-shirt he picked up on Earth-That-Was (underneath an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, of course). The usual flight plan schematics have been ditched in favour of a detailed map.

They'll be on Callisto in a few days' time: the edge of the Core proper.

Time to stake out a good dump-diving spot.

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"Hullo Wash, whatcha up to?" Look, it's a little bar-sister, hanging over the back of the couch and studying his map with interest.

He leans his head back until it's resting on the back of the couch, offering a grin. "Hey, Ace. I got bored of looking at a wonderfully detailed, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree model of our impending doom, so now -- " he wiggles the datapad, "I'm looking at the many municipal trash dumps of Callisto."

She focuses on the interesting bit.
"Impending doom? Am I invited?" ... Yes. Ace is weird. We've established this.

"Yeah, I think you invited yourself along," he says, a touch wry. A few more taps with the stylus, and the view switches back to one of the flight plans. "The Academy stuff?"

Blinkblinkblink... frown.
"Oh... right... y'all were contemplating attacking an academy, weren't you? The one that hurt River? Those plans are still going forward then?" Unlike that mess with Isabel's brother, these are people she trusts. If they need her, she's there, with bells on.

"Yeah, they're still going forward. Kind of in the same way as a train with no brakes, but hey, forward motion is forward motion."

And if his expression closes off a little bit...well. The words 'impending doom' were involved a minute ago.

"Hey." A friendly shoulder-check. "It'll be alright. Who all else is in on this crazy plan, anyway?" Ace, oddly enough, is not at all fazed by impending doom. If she had a nickel for every time she's heard that phrase... well. She'd have a lot of nickels, for starters.

Crazy British pyro. Wash smiles a little.

"Uh, pretty much everybody from the ship, or most of us anyway." Though after the shared dream, he doesn't see how any of them could turn away. He starts to tick off more names on his fingers. "The gunslingers. Faith said she wanted in, Tom Riddle offered help if we need it, Bernard's on explosives duty, Lilly Kane thinks she can do security work....

"I think that's it."

"Bernard's doing the bombs?" There may be drooling involved. Ace practically worships Bernard's bomb-making abilities.
"If I hadn't already said so? I'm coming. Again."

"And once again, I'm going to say that you're completely fēngle but we'll be glad to have you along anyway."

He does not admit how the waiting times will be that much worse, with both Zoe and Ace on the inside. He said himself that they need all the firepower they can get.

She beams.
"Though of course, you know, this just gives me another reason to go see your ship, sooner rather than later. I'll need to know where everything is." She nods, assuredly.

"I'll corner Mal and wheedle incessantly until he gives in," Wash promises. "Though, uh...."

There's a moment where he eyes Ace speculatively. "How much of those fun explosives are you gonna be carrying during the tour? Because knowing Mal, he's probably gonna say that the correct answer should be 'none.'"

"I can do none. Really. Done it before." Doesn't like it, but she'll do it.

Because OMG cool spaceship!

Well, it's no TARDIS, but hey, nothing is. Wash relaxes into an easy grin. "Shiny.

"So...." He taps the datapad a few more times, and the screen goes dark. "What's new with you?"

"Erm." She leans on the couch, and begins counting down on new stuff.
"Exploded a lot of things, yesterday. The Americans had a holiday for fireworks. Mmmm... Got Raven into bunny slippers. They were pink, with purple polka dots. Y'know, you should get some bunny slippers too." A slight smirk. "Saw Claire's attempt at feeding Seth-baby his first solid food..."

A slight pause.

"Bernardisn'tgonnaletTimoutanytimesoon." It comes out in a rush that would put Lilly to shame.

"Bunny slippers?" He brightens, clearly amused. "I could use bunny slippers. Can they be dinosaur-patterned?"

And the smile immediately drops off his face when he hears the rest. Silently, he puts a hand over hers and squeezes.

"They can be anything-patterned, I guess." But she's rather lost the enthusiasm from before.

...

"Could be worse."

"It's still not...."

He sighs. It's a touch frustrated. "What did he even do?"

She climbs over the back of the couch and flops on it, next to Wash.

Deep breath.

"Told the Death Eaters, that's the bad guys in the war Tonks is in... you know Tonks right? Bernard's fiancee? Right. Anyway, told them about guns. Gave them specific information on use and how to get them." She's staring at his map of the junkyard.

He doesn't know a lot about Tonks' world, but from the way Ace says something that should be so innocuous...he's from a 'verse five hundred years ahead of most of the bar. He has a good idea of what could happen if he waltzed in and handed a laser gun to somebody from Earth-That-Was.

Wash pales visibly.

"Oh," is all he says, quietly.

"Yeah. So. Should be thankful." Should be. It's hard acutally being thankful, when she's faced with a bloody long time without her husband.

Life sucks. Greatly.

And even as he watches Ace, carefully wrapping one arm around her shoulders in wordless comfort, there's a small voice that whispers:

How can you not side with Bernard on this?

Zoe's gone into danger without him too many times in the five years they've been married. He would have done the same thing in Bernard's place. Hell, he might have even done worse.

Yet Ace is here, and her husband is locked in the cells, where he's been for over a week. Impossible not to sympathise there, too.

"I'm sorry, xiăo mèimèi."

But she does, that's the problem. She also sides with Tim.

She can't keep being on two sides like this. It's ripping her apart.
"Not your fault. Not anyone's fault but Tim's." She replies quietly, and a bit distantly. If only she didn't love him so very much, it might be easier.

Ophelia vaults over the back of the couch and lands next to him with a bounce.

"Wash!"

Wash yelps in surprise and fumbles the grip on his stylus.

"....Hey, Ophelia!" he comments brightly once his heart's slowed down a bit.

"Whatcha doin'?"

She peers at his paper, seemingly totally oblivious to his heightened pulse.

He tilts the datapad so she can see, sketching a few swift lines on the screen. The map rotates and zooms out until the glowing blue curve of Callisto's atmosphere is just visible at the edges.

"Just looking at some maps," he says. "We're gonna be landing here in a few days, and there's a couple things I need to find."

Ophelia blinks at the datapad which is not paper after all, looking rather confused.

"Maps are big and flat and crinkly," she protests weakly.

A small smile. "Not where I'm from. Okay, I do have a few big flat crinkly ones, but it's easier to just stick 'em all on here and carry it around."

He holds it out to her. "Do you want to look?"

She takes it cautiously and pokes at the screen. It bleeps at her and the map on the screen changes, eliciting a squeak from Ophelia.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Here, if you...."

He reaches over and scrapes a fingernail along the right edge of the screen. The map changes back to how it was before, then, as he repeats the gesture, zooms back in.

"...do that, it changes how big or small the map gets, so you can look at it like you would if you were flying way above the place or up close like you're standing right in the middle of it. Go up to zoom in, and down to zoom out."

Ophelia cautiously scratches the screen, zooming in even closer.

"What's it a map of?"

"A planet called Callisto. Right now it's centered on...." Wash squints. "New Baltimore, looks like. One of the big cities."

Lightly enough so he doesn't trigger the datapad, he circles a spot in the top left corner. "That's the theatre district. Got about twenty of 'em all clustered together, one show every fifteen minutes at least."

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