based on the world of Firefly by Joss Whedon

------------------------------------------------

She could hear things around her, scary voices calling to her from above where her crumbled body lay. Her blood was seeping out the holes that littered her skin and there was a significant amount of pain coming from where her ribs should be. All in all, Cat 1313 was a mess.

Quickly, her healing element went to work, but it was slow going. Besides the several bouts with knives and bullets, the shotgun to the stomach, and the major fight with every known strange creature they had met along the way to here, it was still contending with the deep puncture from where Falcon had stabbed her. The loss of blood was definitely not a plus and with its charge already working her damaged leg muscles to get up and fight, something needed to give or it was.

Her nose took in the smells around her as she lay in the pool of her own blood, shoe leather stepping in the puddle and causing the copper scent to have a rather musky underlay. Other odors also were present; the smell of stars and nights spent on a transport heading for destinations known and unknown, of blood not quite human, but not quite monster, of the sorrow of death tainted with the strength to keep going, of gun smoke and grease and hands readied for money earned, and finally, of vanilla and brown sugar perfume from a Companion' brush mixed with the disgusting reek of her enemy faint, yet still there.

It angered her, made her want to move, and need to stand, but her long beautiful torn muscles in her legs refused. She could hear her newly healed heart beating hard trying to find more fluid to keep her living and her lungs were taking in just enough air to stay alive, yet keep from being punctured by the sharp broken ribs. Even her arms were limp by her side and the only word she could mutter from those soft split lips was...Kitty.

*********

"Kitty."

"What was that?" Mal asked looking over at Ski on his right, shotgun at the ready, tossing a loo