Title: Trapped

Author: Ana Sedai

Rating: PG (R if you speak Mandarin)

Character(s): Mal, River

Prompt: 030 - Coffin

Word Count: 939

A/N: 12/100 for Joss100. The hits just keep on a-comin’…

Summary: Mal thinks on the traps that River gets him in, and out of.

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My God, she looks so small in there.

Of all the myriad thoughts that had careened through Mal’s head in those first few seconds after kicking that crate open, that was the one he remembered most clearly. Before the confusion, the anger, the indignation, all he could think was how tiny and fragile she seemed.

Mal had never taken kindly to the idea of trading in human lives, but the pure rage that had seared his brain when he considered what this prissy-shirted, gan ni niang of a lao mao was most likely plannin’ to do to this girl had surprised even himself. First he used Kaylee’s life as a bargaining tool, and now this.

“The shock of what…Waking up… Finding out she's been sold to some borderworld baron?” Mal’s voice rose with each questioning word. “Or, I'm sorry --was this one for you?”

Mal had actually felt the man’s windpipe crunching beneath his fingers…

That should have been his first clue about River Tam’s effect on him.

Fortunately for her brother’s continued existence, she had chosen that second start screaming.

For such a little thing, she sure had a set of lungs on her.

It wasn’t until later that Mal had fully appreciated the irony of the circumstances surrounding that first day. He’d been all geared up to rescue a girl trapped inside a crate, only to discover that the trap was inside the girl.

For a long time, that trap had kept River inside her own self. Talking in circles, in sentences no one could understand, she kept trying to make herself heard. He’d listened to her ramblings on occasion, and was surprised to discover that he understood quite a bit, more than he was comfortable with, truth to tell.

That should have been his secon