Three weeks after joining the 57th.....

Mal hated death, especially when it happened to someone as young as Private Conners. He had been no more than eighteen, if that, most of the kids had lied to get in, especially those who had no one to mourn them when they died. Conners was one of those. Mom and Dad were killed when they refused to pay some Gang Lord's tax, something that should have been stopped by the Alliance, but as always they had somewhere better to be, more important. It was always the little guy that suffered.

He cradled the boy's bloodied head in his lap, a tear staining the jacket on his uniform as the Sargent just stared at the hole in the young kid's chest, Mal's hand wrapped tight around Conner's dog tags, saddened that no one would be there to collect them.

A shadow cast itself over the dead body as he looked up from tear stained cheeks at his newest recruit, the strange woman who called herself Cat. She had made for a great addition to his unit, training the younger ones to fight and even showing the veterans a new trick or two. She hadn't won over Zoe yet, his second still a bit wary of the red haired devil, but as far as Mal was concerned, she hadn't killed him so there had to be some good in her.

"You're mourning his loss, why?" She looked at him with those piercing green eyes and then to Conner's dead form.

"He was too young."

"But, did he not fight bravely and do what needed to be done? Isn't that what you ask of these, of us?"

"Yes, but even a great leader mourns the fallen that served him." Mal looked at her, the moonlight reflected in her eyes. "Besides, if I don't, no one else will."

"So he is like me." Her voice softened as she leaned over to tentatively touch the boy's cold face and blond curls. "What happened to his family?"

"Someone thought they didn't deserve to live and the gorram purple bellies didn't think it important enough to give it the time of day." Mal growled the last bit as his fingers held tighter to the dog tags. Cat, her finge