He found her about thirty five feet from camp, her long legs dangling from high up in the tallest tree in the area, a feat the few times he had found her there unable to figure out how. She saw him approach, her senses ever so sharp, not even the rustle of some owl got past her. With a few graceful leaps, she dropped in front of him, body ridged and at attention.

"No danger found, Sir." She whispered low, "The Alliance has not found the camp yet."

"Thanks, but that's not why I'm here." He looked toward where the camp was, even the few miles that separated them did not keep the smell of death from traveling on the winds. "What you did was..." His voice stopped unable to find the right words to say. Unlike most, Cat didn't rush to fill in his words, instead she waited, her eyes flipping from him to the area around them. Even before Mal, she was still on high alert.

"Let me start that again. When you kill, what goes through that head of yours?" He asked her as she cocked her head in confusion.

"It's what I am designed to do. So, nothing." She blinked once, her eyes seeming to adjust a bit to the sun that was slowly rising behind them. "You are not happy with what I did. I don't understand. They killed ours and so we kill theirs."

"I respect what you did, but I also value the life of those people you destroyed."

"But, Sir, is this not war?" Cat frowned.

"Yes, it is, but you could have made your point without killing all of them. They had families." Mal looked at her reaching out to touch her shoulder. She stared at his hand for a second before letting her eyes travel back to his. "We are not senseless killers. It's what makes us different. We respect life."

"Respect life." She seemed to roll the words in her mouth as she turned away from him, a sound from far off alerting her. Turning back to him, she nodded. "It's what saved you, 'being different,' from the barrel of my gun."

Something had changed in her as she let her mouth curl in the first real smile he had ever seen in th