Just thinking about some AUs.
Like: Wash having served on a similar ship to the MoI pre-Freelancer. Similar, but ever so slightly different in lay out so he keeps trying to auto-pilot navigate and getting lost, and Alpha's watching on the camera feeds and at some point just hits "this is too pathetic, i gotta step in" like any back seat gamer watching a let's play, except he actually can... if he can figure out how to get away with it.
So he comms Wash, either through a direct link in his helmet or through a regularly intervaled wall radio. "Uh yeah, I'm... uh... you can just call me... Church? I work in the... uh... yeah don't worry about it but I can see you on the camera feeds, again, and man i gotta tell you for a bad ass space marine this is pretty sad. Tragic really, anyway, turn around, 200 meters and take a left-"
And it keeps happening, and sometimes they just hang out, Wash hiding in a storage closet eating contraband foods (the good chocolate) while Alpha drops some funny stories from the command deck.
And Wash casually mentions him in talk with the other Freelancers, but they never get to talk to Church, and Wash can't introduce him properly, so everyone refers to Church as Wash's imaginary friend.
(... and then no one can figure out why all the AI are low-key obsessed with Wash, like they need him to like them even though he's not their human operator.)
or like (possibly the same AU): There is no Epsilon, Alpha has a moment of clarity about what's happening to him, what's being done to him, and fakes a fragment in order to port himself out and get put wholesale (what remains of him) into Wash's head. It's still pretty traumatic for both of them.
And then they skedaddle, go into hiding somewhere no one would ever think to look for them. Disguised as a sim trooper in a box canyon in the middle of nowhere.
... also thinking about Price deliberately pushing Wash's buttons and trying to provoke his PTSD so he has an excuse to put him on meds, except the meds are (on purpose) meds that Wash knows messes with his head and leads to psychotic episodes and he wouldn't take them, damn the orders, if he knew what they were.
but he doesn't, and he gets into a fight in one of the communal kitchens without his armour on and the first thing the other Freelancers know about it is when they get called for back up to the kitchen to help subdue a man that just killed three other Freelancers (bottom of the pack no-name annoying assholes no one liked or would miss anyway).
'cept the other Freelancers don't clock that it's Wash, because he's out of his armour and Wash is almost never seen without his helmet, unlike the others, so they aren't used to his face, and when they think of wash they think of bright yellow and steady charcoal greys, not "holy fuck that's a lot of blood did he fucking roll in it!?!?" reds.
But by the time they get there, psychotic episode is over, and Wash is in a semi fugue state, kinda clock's Carolina's blue and that he might have done something really bad, so he just drops the knife away from himself and half collapses to his knees like a puppet with cut strings, manages to lock his fingers behind his head before they try to tackle him to the ground.
Wash gets away with a slap on the wrist, and like a months probation. (Director was in on the 'experiment' to begin with, and now they're already down three Freelancers, no need to make it four. ... also Director won a bet about whether Wash could take on/out more than two opponents at a time.)
