Title: Underground (Part Three) Author: Leslie (spacemonkey43) Fandom: Firefly Characters: Kaylee Prompt: 8. Animal Word Count: 929 Rating: PG13 Author's Notes: This is Part Three in a five part story that I'm co-writing with meimei42 XD The prompts we're using are from the 50_darkfics table. Tag mordsith!

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Kaylee didn't know how far she had run, but it had felt like miles. The muscles in her legs were burning and her chest ached and she collapsed. Looking around her she saw nothing but desert. Laying on the ground she clung to the gun she had stolen and was forced to remember what had happened, why she was running.

"Oh god.." was all she could manage before she shakily brought herself to her hands and knees and her body tried to make her vomit. But she had nothing left and it resulted only in a painful episode of dry heaves. Kaylee fell back to the ground crying and remembering the slumped body of the man she shot, the man she killed. She'd never shot no one before, not ever. But he was gonna kill her, right? Oh god, what had she done? She'd done murder. What was going to happen to her? She didn't even know where she was. The cap'n was coming to look for her, but where was she now? Was she even anywhere near the same place he was going? She had to go back - back the way she came. The cap'n was gonna be lookin' for her. If there was a chance that she was near the right place, she had to go back.

She left the gun in the middle of the desert and made her way towards the graveyard. She'd just been running before, just to get as far away as possible, but she was hoping it was in a pretty straight line.

She knew she'd been walking for hours because the night sky had turned to an early morning grey. She didn't know how she'd been doing it, she was just thankful that she was able to get this far. She spotted the graveyard ahead and broke into a run. She stopped dead when she saw the body. She'd been expecting it to be there, as a reference, and expecting it not to be all at the same time. She made her way past it and soon saw a village. From what she could tell she was simply on the opposite side of the same village she'd been in yesterday. Then she saw Mal, and without thinking she called out his name. He turned to her

"Kaylee? Kaylee! You stay right there. Don't move, don't make a sound." Mal kept turning around like he was looking for someone, but at the same time he was moving towards Kaylee. Finally he'd made it to her and she started to talk, to just babble because here was Mal, she was saved. "Kaylee.. Shh- How long you been in this area?"

"Only just now, except last night. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I was-"

"Did anybody see you? Were you here when this man got shot?" Mal asked, pointing to the body slumped against the tree. Kaylee's face paled and her eyes filled with tears. "Kaylee? Kaylee you've got to tell me what's wrong."

"Cap'n.. Cap'n I shot him. He was wait'n for me when I got out of the ground and he had a gun and I took it while he was sleeping and oh god I shot him!"

"Got out of the ground? Kaylee, just what happened to you?" Mal asked gently

"I- I don't know. I woke up in some dirt room under a graveyard and I got myself out. Then I called Serenity and talked to you. After that I found a place to sleep and it happened all over again, waken' up in a dirt room underground. This time that man over there was wait'n for me, he had a gun - cap'n it was a big gun!" Kaylee started to cry hard now and Mal put a hand on each arm to steady her. She took a deep breath and continued "I took it. I took the gun. I wasn't plannin' on shootin' him, but he woke up and he went for a second gun. So I used the one I had. Oh god cap'n I shot him and killed him!"

Mal wrapped his arms around the mechanic and pulled her in for a hug. "Are you okay?"

"No! I mean, I ain't shot or nothin', but I definitely ain't okay."

"Kaylee, you have to understand that this don't say anything bad about you. It's as old as time, animal instinct - kill or be killed - that's what it was. It don't make you a murderer or a bad person. Now knowing you like I do I know that telling you this now ain't enough to make it okay to you. But I want you to remember what I'm saying. Promise me that?" Kaylee nodded. "All right. Now, we've got to get you back to Serenity."

"Malcolm Reynolds - I don't believe you and your mechanic are going anywhere. Now, I might have let her go since she was just bait, but now hearing that she shot one of my gunmen I'm thinking she needs to pay for that." Both Kaylee and Mal turned around at the unfamiliar voice to see a man standing behind them. Dressed in a black suit and cowboy hat he approached them both. They could hear others coming in from different directions. No sooner had Mal gone for his gun than a man had grabbed it from him, pistol whipped him and knocked Mal to the ground. They were no kinder to Kaylee as she was shoved to the ground face first and her wrists bound behind her back.