brightknightie | FK Fanfic: "Better Late" (Reply)

This retrospective is rapidly catching up with me, as we come to "Better Late," written just last summer. I have only three more stories from then to now to list. Good thing I have a new one underway!

In fact, "Better Late" is not, in all ways, quite as new as last summer. I first drafted a version of it in 2002; it was from Nick's perspective, shorter, and more conventional. My perceptive beta-readers didn't like it. So I set it aside, and did not seriously pick it up again until spring 2007. In addition to being from Natalie's perspective, the final version has flashbacks, and a presence by Lacroix, that were nowhere in the original. I believe it's stronger for the changes. I'm bemused that it took me so long to grow into a capacity for those improvements.

•	Title:	"Better Late"
•	Length:	~6,100 words
•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on July 30, 2007
•	Rating:	PG (m/f)
•	Summary:	Natalie suspects more behind a change in their daughter's custody arrangements than her ex-husband Nick has said.
•	Setting:	2012 Toronto
•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Lacroix, Others
•	Quotation:	"One reason of many for not telling Joanie had been to keep her innocent by the Enforcers' code if they ever came for Natalie and Nick. Silence was safety."