Title: Variables Rating: pg-13 to be safe Fandom: Firefly Pairing: Mal/Kaylee Word Count: 543 Summary: The Aftermath of Serenity's crew being blown out of the sky. Post BDM Warning: Character deaths. Also, characters and places do not belong to me.

Authors note: This is written for sigf who I promised Mal/Kaylee angst/love to. If you like it, I will write more.

He was losing her, Mal could feel it in his gut. The doctor was already dead and Zoe was unconscious. He was her only shot at living and he couldn’t figure out a damn thing to do for her. "Kaylee! Kaylee can you hear me?" his voice choked with a stifled sob when she didn’t say anything. Mal gently slapped her cheek, trying to bring her around, bring her back to him.

"Serenity needs you, bao bei. Please, you gotta wake up," he said. She still didn’t move, her breathing was short a labored. The crash site around them made Mal sick to his stomach. Blood and bodies surrounded them. Jayne was up and moving around, River was hurt pretty badly and Inara and Simon had died on impact. Zoe was hanging by a thread.

"There was an unpredictable variable," River mumbled a few yards away. Jayne was busy trying to help Zoe come around. Mal wanted to go tell River this wasn’t her fault, she’d done the best piloting she could, but he didn’t have the strength, Kaylee was zapping it all.

"Cap’n?" Kaylee’s sweet voice in his ears made him nearly shout with joy. He snapped his attention back to his mechanic laying on the ground. She was so bloody and bruised but she was still gorram beautiful.

"Oh thank god! Kaylee, where does it hurt? You have to tell me where it hurts," he said, holding her cheek and not letting her eyes wander around the death and debris that surrounded them.

"What….happened…?"

Her breathing was so shallow it was scaring Mal. "Serenity crashed, dong ma? Niska blew us right out of the sky. You remember?" Realization dawn in her eyes and she tried to look around, Mal held her face firmly. "Stay focused, Kaylee. Where does it hurt?" There was so much blood on her, he couldn’t tell where it was actually coming from.

"My…my chest hurts…hard t’breath," she said, coughing some. Mal nodded and opened her shirt up. She didn’t make a fuss, her eyes just lolled into the back of her head for a moment.

"Kaylee stay with me," he ordered in his best captain tone. She focused some, looking at him, her face twisted in pain. He wished he could give her something for the pain. Even if he knew what to give and how much, finding it in the mess of the crash would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

As Mal got her shirt open, he could see the bruising along her rib cage. She must have broken several ribs, that was why she couldn’t breath so well. The pressure on her chest was too much. Kaylee coughed again and he gave her a sympathetic look.

"Zoe’s awake!" Jayne announced from a few hundred yards off.

"Kaylee too!" Mal called back. "Don’t you die on me now girl, that is a direct order," he told Kaylee in a low whisper. She gave him a half hearted smile, her eyes lids slowly drifting closed. "Wait, Kaylee, it’s not time to sleep," Mal said, trying to keep her awake.

"She needs sleep," River said, sitting up.

"Will she wake up?" Mal asked, eyeing River.

"There is an unpredictable variable," River said simply.