I love good guys

This is the story I contributed to the December 2009 oldschoolfic ficathon.  My thanks to senmut for her prompt of "Nick and Lacroix, Family Bonding," and to batdina, amilyn, leela_cat and much_madness for beta-reading and discussion.  This prompt nudged me to reacquaint myself with some episodes I rarely watch, and revisit some themes I hadn't touched in years.

	•	Title:	"In a Family Way" (also on AO3)
	•	Length:	~7,700 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L January 30, 2010
	•	Rating:	PG-13 (gen)
	•	Summary:	Nick makes friends on a flight to Paris to see Janette, but Lacroix is on the same plane.
	•	Setting:	December 2009
	•	Characters:	Nick, Lacroix, Janette, Others
	•	Quotation:	"Your denial of the natural law does not alter it, Nicholas." / "Your rejection of hope does not defeat it, Lacroix."

Next up in the retrospective is "Kindred Spirits," which falls into the "post tag scene" genre as a direct response to that twitching toe at the end of "Hearts of Darkness."  It received a nomination in the 2001 FK Fanfiction Awards, and I'm grateful to those who put it forward!  To this day, I believe it ranks among my best fanfiction stories.  I'm really rather proud of it; I hope that's not misplaced.

At the time, a few thoughtful readers explicitly praised the choice to not stray from canon into a Nick/Urs romance.  They were certainly correct, and a romance had not even occurred to me at the time!  But rereading the story today, I must admit that I wondered whether a sequel taking such a non-canonical turn might pre-empt "Ashes to Ashes" and "Last Knight" in a worthwhile way, for a happier, healthier ending all around.  Something to think about...

	•	Title:	"Kindred Spirits"
	•	Length:	~13,500 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in January 2001
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	Jacqueline turns to Urs and Nick for help.
	•	Setting:	After "Hearts of Darkness"
	•	Characters:	Nick, Urs, Ellen/Monika/Jacqueline, Erica, Sofia, Natalie, Lacroix, Enforcers
	•	Quotation:	"Either one would help me, I guess.  Lucien for a price.  Javier, because he always does, eventually.  And there are others.  But unlike them, you'll help her, just because she needs help."

Here is another of my tiny handful of stories that have not yet appeared on FKFic-L because they belonged to zines.  This one appeared in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix, edited and published by Lisa P., conceived by Celeste and Laurie.  I wrote "Whence the Truce" in the summer of 1998, and it's my only fanfiction so far to spawn a sequel ("That Ain't Love").

Re-reading this, I realize that I've set more stories immediately following "Stranger Than Fiction" than at any other canonical moment (besides overriding "Last Knight," of course).  I also see what a Light Cousin I was back then.  And I'm delighted to rediscover my Ghost!Fleur character here; by coincidence, I have a new Ghost!Fleur story underway now.

	•	Title:	"Whence the Truce"
	•	Length:	~6,450 words
	•	Date:	Published in the charity fanzine Tojours Lacroix (1999)
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	Lacroix pieces together what happened after Nick staked him.
	•	Setting:	After "Stranger Than Fiction," with flashback to after "Dark Knight, the Second Chapter"
	•	Characters:	Lacroix, Janette, Fleur
	•	Quotation:	"Logic could not cut through the shrine he had made of his own wretched loneliness."

Where did I get the idea that Janette is particularly good with numbers?  In "Can't Run, Can't Hide," where she does her own business taxes by hand and implies she checks her accountant's work?  I don't remember, but it's one of the character tidbits in "And So It Goes," which I wrote for a very good friend, to whom at the time I still felt obliged to provide ample evidence that I no longer believed Janette had died in "The Human Factor" (I was such an irritating newbie; you have no idea).  Thus this story, my first contribution to the Song Challenge, the longest-running fiction challenge in FK, originally issued by Susan G.

	•	Title:	"And So It Goes"
	•	Length:	~6,300 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L in February 1997
	•	Rating:	PG-13 (m/f)
	•	Summary:	Janette sees Nick for the first time since he brought her back across in "The Human Factor."
	•	Setting:	In Paris after "Last Knight"
	•	Characters:	Janette, Nick
	•	Quotation:	"He looked haggard, thin, and he had a beard again -- shaving was always the first thing he neglected when he decided that ignoring his body would help save his soul."