I love good guys

I wrote "Malicious Mischief" for sholio's prompt in FKFicFest 2011.  This is the one in which a murder at the Raven defies Janette's cover-up skills, Nick is away pursuing the Abarrat, and Schanke and Janette are both quitting smoking.

Thanks to batdina and lastscorpion for beta-reading!  Thanks to wiliqueen and leela_cat for brainstorming!

	Available:	The Ficathon | My Fansite | The AO3
	Length:	~9,100 words
	Date:	FKFicFest 07/16/11
	Rating:	PG
	Summary:	While Nick is out of town, Schanke and Janette must cooperate to solve a crime at the Raven.
	Characters:	Schanke, Janette, Nick, Natalie, Miklos, Alma, Grace
	Quotation:	"The woman herself was ebony-and-ivory gorgeous as always, pale skin revealed by a black evening dress in all the right places as she leaned back in her chair, shining dark hair twisted up behind her head. But her eyes were tight, and her fingers twitched toward the crystal ashtray that was no longer there."

The original idea-flash for this vignette came in the form of a comic-book storyboard with no speech balloons -- no words at all except the message on the answering machine and the date on the newspaper, something very like the silent "The Phoenix and the Carpet" interlude in the back of that issue of Classic X-Men -- you know the one, right? ;-)  But I don't have the drawing skills to execute that vision, so I wrestled the inspiration into prose instead.

The piece includes my best use of Miklos to date.  Re-reading it, I felt I should try to do more with his character.

	•	Title:	"By Expectation Beguiled"
	•	Length:	~1,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on July 28, 2006
	•	Rating:	G (m/f)
	•	Summary:	A shift at the Raven hinges on personal intangibles that have nothing to do with work.
	•	Setting:	Second season
	•	Characters:	Janette, Alma, Brianna, Miklos, Nick, Other
	•	Quotation:	"At first, she looked up each time the door opened.  But Janette soon shook her head and settled down to her paperwork.  ...  This was one of the nights when she felt how very good she was at what she did, and how much it was worth the doing."

I wrote the next story in this ongoing retrospective as a gift for someone who was a good friend back then and who has become a dear friend through the years since.  She wrote some striking "Center Stage Challenge" stories, featuring secondary characters like Miklos ("Revenge") and guest stars like Feliks Twist ("Red Dreams"), and she once chose Alyce Hunter's view for a round-robin story.  So thinking about what might amuse her led me to this piece starring Alma.  (The story is also an overt nod to her "The Charade," which explains the "Lacroix Lite" phenomenon of early third season.)

	•	Title:	"Renovations"
	•	Length:	~4,200 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in February 1997
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Alma redecorated the Raven for Janette in "Love You to Death." After Janette left him her club, Lacroix required someone to perform the same service.
	•	Setting:	Before "Black Buddha," after the flashbacks of "The Human Factor"
	•	Characters:	Alma, Lacroix, Urs
	•	Quotation:	"Alma shivered at the thought of what it would mean to be a vampire in Toronto with this strange, new Lacroix in charge of this strange, new Raven."