Firefly - Mal/Saffron, others
Mal isn’t great with change; never has been. Took him years to even pretend to let the war go, more years since then to make it stick. Ain’t never been easy for him to find a thing to hang his heart on, and when that thing gets blasted away, well… let’s just say burn wounds don’t heal right quick.
And this is a lot of change. River in the pilot seat, preacher and Wash gone, doc and Jayne off in their bunk (that’s downright disturbing), Inara there but also not, holding him off farther than ever. So many chances lost.
***
And then there’s Saffron, grounding him with challenge. “Come on, hubby,” she grins. “Race you to the loot.”
Mal frowns as she snaps ammo into her gun, straps a knife to her thigh. “You sure you wanna go there? Been doing this a damn sight longer than you have.”
She throws him a kiss, leaps from the exit ramp onto a waiting horse. “Try me, old man.”
“Why you gorram, back-stabbing-”
He charges after her, stumbling at first, but then he throws himself onto a horse, and suddenly the chase is familiar; comforting, even. Change isn’t bad, it just is.