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Wash doesn’t wake up screaming anymore.
He still has nightmares, but they’ve moved on from constantly reliving the dust and explosions of war, from waking screaming for men who can’t hear him anymore, to a burning house and black smoke and a child’s tears. He wakes up gasping for breath, eyes instinctively flying to the crib beside his bed, checking Epsilon is still there, but he doesn’t scream, which he considers a mercy. It doesn’t happen every night, but often enough that he’s got used to trying to catch his breath without waking up anyone else. Most nights he can just roll over and go back to sleep after checking on Epsilon, and he probably won’t dream again that night. It’s not ideal, but he’s been far worse so he lives with it.
But tonight he can’t get back to sleep.
He tries for a while, he really does, but he can’t get comfortable. He lies on his front but he feels like he can’t breathe, but laying on his side crushes his arm, and lying on his back feels weird. He feels too warm so he kicks the blankets off, but then he feels too vulnerable, like something waiting in the dark will attack as soon as he closes his eyes. Eventually he gives up, stands and makes his way out of the tent as quietly as possible. He takes a few steps away and sits in the damp grass, leaning back to look at the stars. He wonders what it would be like to fly among those stars, to see distant planets and new life-forms. Knowing humanity they would probably just end up at war with them, and knowing himself, he knows he would end up on the front lines.
He doesn’t jump when someone sits down next to him, but it’s a close thing.
“What you doing out here man?” Tucker asks, leaning back on his elbows beside Wash.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Wash says.
“Nightmares?” Tucker’s carefully not looking at him.
“Yeah,” Wash says after a moment of hesitation. “Usually I can get back to sleep, but not tonight.”
“What are they about?” Wash hesitates for a moment and Tucker says, “Hey don’t feel you have to tell me if you don’t want to, man, I’m just being curious.”
“No,” Wash says, heaving a sigh, “no it’s okay.” He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. “Did I ever tell you that Epsilon isn’t my kid?” Tucker shakes his head but doesn’t speak. “He’s my cousin’s. After I got out of the army I went to stay with her for a while, just to get back on my feet. One night there was a fire. I managed to get Epsilon out of the nursery but I…I couldn’t,” Wash hears his voice break. He hears Tucker shift beside him, feels the warmth of a hand beside his but doesn’t look away from the stars. “My cousin and her husband didn’t get out. I was left to look after Epsilon, and what do I know about looking after a kid? I was left with no job, no house, no stuff, and a kid. Any money I had went to buying clothes to replace what was lost in the fire.” He rubs his free hand over his face and leaves it there. He feels Tucker’s hand move away from his and his heart drops a little, but then he feels warmth rubbing up and down his spine, and he can’t help but arch into the touch a little.
“So that’s how you ended up here,” Tucker says.
“There wasn’t anything keeping me in that town,” Wash mumble, “I just needed to get away.”
“Well you joined the right club,” Tucker’s voice is light, but he still hasn’t moved his hand from Wash’s back. “Pretty much everyone here is running from something.”
“How about you?” Wash asks, anything to remove the focus from him, “how did you end up with Junior?”
“Same way any single guy ends up with a baby,” Tucker pauses for a moment, waiting for Wash to look up and meet his eyes, “an alien impregnated me.” Wash stares at him, eyes wide for a moment, before bursting out into real, honest laughter. Tucker joins in and they laugh beneath the stars, quietly, conscious of the people sleeping behind them. Eventually Wash stops laughing and loos to Tucker, catching him smiling almost fondly at him.
“What?” he asks self-consciously.
“Nothing, man,” Tucker says, “it’s just good to hear you laugh.” Wash smiles a little bitterly,
“Yeah, well there hasn’t been much to laugh about recently. But seriously,” he says, still curious, “how did a guy like you end up with a kid?” Tucker shrugs, shifting to sit cross-legged,
“I hooked up with a girl, we had a weekend of truly awesome, world-view altering sex, and that was it. We go our separate ways. Of course she turns up two months later saying she’s pregnant with nowhere to go. I didn’t know for sure it was mine but I couldn’t leave her like that so I took her in. We lived together ‘til the kid was born, then she signed over rights to me and we went our separate ways. Simple as that.”
“You didn’t love her?” Wash asks.
“No, man,” Tucker said, “she was great in bed, but almost as dumb as Caboose. I couldn’t have lived with that, and I couldn’t leave Junior with her, she’d probably have forgotten him in a train station somewhere. Just made sense for me to take him.”
“I get that,” Wash says because he does. He gets what it’s like to have to take responsibility for a child you didn’t want, because the only other option is for them to go into the system and you figure any family, however bad with kids, is better than none. They sit is silence for a while, but Tucker starts talking again, like he can’t stand the quiet, like he has to fill it with words.
“I did have doubts, just before he was born. I thought I would be able to do it, that I’d screw it up, just like I screw up everything. But then he was born, and I saw his face, and I wouldn’t have given him up if you paid me.” Wash looks him in the face but Tucker looks away, embarrassed by the honesty of his confession. He shifts and stands.
Wash misses the warmth of the hand on his back.
He moves in front of Wash and reaches a hand to him,
“Come on, man, it’s cold as dicks out here.” Wash takes his hand and Tucker pulls him up.
His hand is warm despite his complaints of being cold.
He follows Tucker into the tent, taking one last look up at the stars. By the time he’s inside Tucker’s already tucked up in the bed next to his, eyes closed. But as Wash pulls his covers up he hears as whisper in the darkness.
“You gonna be alright, dude. No more nightmares?”
Wash thinks for a moment, then smiles, though Tucker can’t see it.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’m gonna be alright.”
And for the moment at least, he absolutely believes it.