Author Note: Originally written for a prompt on comment_fic at livejournal.
Herself
She's been so many women across the 'verse. People pick a life and plod their way through it, saying that they're 'living it to the full', but she finds that so limiting. Surely people should want to live as many lives as possible. A woman can be anything and she wants to be everything, to explore every facet.
That's not to say that she doesn't play favourites, but she refuses to ever settle.
Her favourites then: the leader of a terrorist cell, her brown coat fitted at the hips and swishing as she walks with whispers of dust deviltrailing in her wake; the top researcher at The Innovation Institute, whatever she could ask for placed reverently at her fingertips and the bright skies of core living; a Companion taking a year to travel, having to utilise every measure of her every skill which is as much a test as a reward itself.
There are so many reasons why, but it's not until Malcolm Reynolds that a clear trend in the hierarchy she places her identities in becomes apparent. It's not until she's some stupid girl, Saffron, a gift to a man, and she discovers that she's not hating being this version of herself as much as she anticipated, in fact she's even starting to enjoy it. It's not until she's afforded respect when she didn't expect to be.
It's a rush, it's validation, it's not only acceptance of the face that she's showing to the worlds but acknowledgement of it's worth.
She considers creating a mental list of her favourite husbands as well as her favourite facets, just for him, just so she can put him first, the man who led her to the realisation that she loves respect. When she stops being Saffron and he figures out what she really is the possibility blows through her mind that he'll respect her every face, but it doesn't become a reality and she never makes that list.
He doesn't kill her. That's when she knows that he doesn't respect what she is enough, how dangerous it is for him to leave her alive; her abilities, her skills, and the power that she is.
She is everything that she can be, so many women across the 'verse.