What's Good?  February's recommendation-of-the-month is Susan G.'s "Lost and Found" (1999, PG, ~5K words), written for the charity fanzine A Taste of Forever and never posted to fkfic-l.  I was delighted to discover that she had placed it on her site!  This post-series story grants Nick and Natalie a human future together, but sprouts a new tragedy from the roots of Nick's original vampiric sin.

        "There's always hope. There has to be hope. You're a lot less pig-headed than I am--at least, your mother thinks you are. Maybe it won't take you eight hundred years to find your answer. Be smart. Have hope. Survive," added Nick, the last in a harsh whisper, placing his hand on his son's shoulder. "And remember that we'll always be there for you. We'll always love you."
        Richie's head turned, his expression doubtful--the weight of guilt in his eyes for the deeds of the past year adding instantly to the burden on Nick's soul.
        "We'll always love you," repeated Nick.

-----
What's New on FKFic-L?  January saw four stories by two authors on the email list.  February so far has seen none.  ( list with links )

I wrote this vignette for Andveryginger in the 2010/2011 fandom_stocking event.  My thanks to Natmerc for beta-reading.

On her wish list, Andverginger wrote that she likes N&N and "mild-to-moderate angst."

	•  Title:	"Metamorphosis" (also on AO3)
	•  Length:	~1,000 words
	•  Date:	Fandom Stocking 01/06/11, FKFic-L 03/20/11
	•  Rating:	PG
	•  Summary:	It's time for Natalie to move on ... without Nick.
	•  Characters:	Nick, Natalie
	•  Quotation:	"He could admit, now, that he had been expecting this almost from the moment she woke up in the hospital, her blood in his veins, a human donor's in hers."

I wrote these three tiny stories ("Sky," "Roof," "Bus") as a birthday present for leela_cat earlier this year.  She lives fannishly in Harry Potter these days, and so to gift her something close to her joys, I made this small first venture there.  The ficlets are gen with background slash implied.  My thanks to much_madness for discussing the idea, and to eeyore9990 for beta-reading.  

leela_cat: fervent and fond good wishes, at your birthday and always!

[Back-posted]

This is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer story that I contributed to the Fall 2009 Oldschoolfic event.  Thanks to Mikki for her prompt ("Xander/Willow.  The cause is hidden.  The effect is visible to all. - Ovid."), to Elisabeth for suggesting the frame, and to Lara for beta-reading.

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."

So far, I've rolled this fanfiction retrospective in reverse chronological order.  But today, in a seasonal mood, I'm going to leapfrog ten years in order to reach my one Christmas fanfiction, "Send My Love."  I actually wrote it on Independence Day, a little Christmas in July.  (It's the first of three "Where are they now?" pieces I've posted in the past two years -- and by my standards, that's a bit of a kick!)

	•	Title:	"Send My Love"
	•	Length:	~2,505 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L September 19, 2006
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Mailing Christmas gifts, Natalie bumps into a very old acquaintance.
	•	Setting:	December 2006 (alternate future, diverged just before "Last Knight")
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Janette
	•	Quotation:	"Well, she had no intention of leaving her place in line, not for vampire, murderer or apocalyptic space debris.  She had presents to send."

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."