So I was looking back through some stuff I wrote before season 10 and found the one time I wrote Wash getting implanted with Epsilon before we actually saw it. stack overflow is the fic I wrote when we actually did see it, but in reading back over this (it was written back in May) it’s not as far off as I thought it would be.
Taken from the Wash/fem!York AU I do with Madi, but it only shows up in a couple of lines here. Doubles as the longest RP tag I’ve ever written, at about 1500 words.
They don’t have much time together, in the morning, but he doesn’t need anything more than the way she smiles at him and tells him it’ll be fine to find the reassurance of his own. He’s still nervous, of course, there’s no getting around that, but Wash feels like he can take whatever comes, now.
He’ll be fine. He might have a couple of days of adjustment, like Wyoming, but he’ll be back on his feet in no time, and better than ever before.
The Counselor greets him with a smile, the Director with a hand on his shoulder, and though he’s been debriefed about the whole process and what to expect, Wash can’t help the moment he pauses at the entrance to the lab, looking at the chair, the wires, the datapads lying around, and hearing the faint hum of computers whirring.
He’s not afraid. He’s not. He swallows back anything else that might be there and stands up just a little straighter, a little taller, nodding when the Director asks if he’s ready. He is. He has to be.
He can’t see the chip, when they bring it over — he’s lying down in the chair, eyes on the ceiling, and he’s not surprised when heavy clamps close over his limbs. They’d briefed him on this, told him that there was a chance he could hurt himself, as he and the A.I. got used to being in one mind. He’d be in control, of course, and he’d have command access over the A.I., but it wouldn’t be an instant process. Thus the problem of integration taking time.
The final clamp goes down over his chest, and the Director moves into his vision, eyes distant behind his glasses but giving him a reassuring smile. “Relax, son,” he says, pressing a hand to his shoulder. “It’ll be over in no time.”
Wash nods, though it’s just a brief motion of his head from how tightly it’s locked down, and the Director’s lips curl a little more, a little too much, and it sends a little jolt of uncertainty down into his gut, but there’s no time to do anything. The Director moves away, signaling to an aide, and Wash’s hands curl into tight fists to keep himself steady as they bring the chair down.
It’ll be fine. It’ll be just like the others. He’ll be back out with them in a week or two, and then out on the field, and they’ll win this war. That’s what it’s all for — for humanity, to save themselves, to keep from being wiped out of the galaxy entirely — and to have something to come home to when it’s all over.
To be with the woman he loves.
“We’re ready, sir,” the Counselor says, and Wash closes his eyes, letting the sound of them moving around him fade into the white noise of the ship. He jerks a little as they wipe down his chip slot one more time, disinfecting it, and when the chip finally slides home, it’s like mercury sliding into his mind, filling in all the little empty spaces and pushing in further, making room for itself, and—
make it stop
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