Disclaimer- Firefly belongs to Joss Whedon, but any original characters belong to me.

Special dedication to IdiotChild- The inspiration behind Cas.

Any and all feedback is welcome.

All By Myself- Prologue

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“Emma- Get this stuff stored! We need to get out of here now!!!”

Cpn Cassen Trale rushed through the doors into the cargo bay of The Messenger. Greggors Read drove the loaded mule in after her, and Marco Johnston brought up the rear, firing his weapon behind him. Emma Shan started to unload the ‘merchandise’ from the mule as Cas rushed over to the control panel and yelled over the comm. “Take us up Rhee- We got local colour.”

Cas ran up onto the catwalk, through the hall and onto the bridge. Rhee Petersen was calmly setting up the take off, flicking the three switches above her right shoulder. There was a small smile of joy on her face as she steadily lifted the ship off the ground. The joy faded as she saw a bunch of yokels shooting at The Messenger, a bullet hitting and cracking the windscreen.

“That was rude!!”

Rhee flew low over the yokels head, hoping to intimidate them to stop shooting. It worked, the shots stopped and The Messenger flew high into the sky, headed for space. Cas breathed a sigh of relief, and patted Rhee on the shoulder. She was just about to head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when the message came over the comm system-

“Captain, we have a severe situation in the cargo bay- Emma is down!!”

There was no time to think. The Medic had been shot. There was nobody to help her. Cas sprinted down to the Infirmary, and saw Emma’s body laying on the stretcher in the centre of the room. Greggors and Marco were arguing over what to do

“We gotta stop the bleeding!”

“No, we gotta extract the bullet”

”Bleeding comes first!”

“No it doesn’t!!”

Cas was too stunned to even say anything. She couldn’t even hear the yelling, only the soft sobbing that came from her wounded medic. The blood was pouring out of a stomac