What's Good?  The poetically constrained "Lest We Forget" (just 273 words) by endaewen is October's recommendation-of-the-month.  At a Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day, Armistice Day) observation, Nick's memories pull him through time.

      A poppy. Red and black. This one pinned on Natalie's shoulder. In his mind, the one became many. Fields of the flower, growing where death had lain heavy. After both wars, he had seen them silvered by the moonlight, like drops of blood.

What's New?  In September, fkfic-l saw one story, "Reconstruction" by Walt D. (1 post, 42 KB).  However, in October so far, we've seen three stories by three authors on list.

Recently, I decided to make myself a "thank you" userpic icon.  You see the result with this post -- Magda thanking Nick at the end of "For I Have Sinned" -- but I was surprised how few choices I could call to mind.  Is "I will repay you (by not killing you while you're impaled on a meat rack)," double-entendre and all, really so expressive of the series's overall approach?  I'm satisfied with my icon, but it got me thinking about gratitude as a story element and in character development in FK.

The most powerful and straightforward "thank you" scene that I could call to mind is the tag of "1966," when Lily expresses her undying gratitude for Nick's rescue of her family, mentioning so many of the lives that are better for Nick's intervention, and hinting at the ever-expanding waves of good from his action, such as her son.  (Unfortunately for icon-making, there's nothing visual there to grab.  It's Nick listening to his answering machine.  Either you know what you're seeing in the still, or you don't.  It doesn't suggest anything to a stranger.)

In second place, I think, is Magda thanking Nick, the scene I picked for my icon.  He's just saved her life, and her gesture of gratitude includes almost forcing on him the memento of her cross necklace.  She doesn't know what it means that he can hold it, but we do.  (For icon-making, her action and stance seem to me to be visually suggestive of their emotional content.)

But beyond those?  ( Read more... )

What's good?  Enthused about alternate universes, coming off the new Star Trek movie?  For May, I'm excited to get to recommend a story set in FK's one canonical AU.  "Perchance to Dream: Ghost Song" (2009, rated R) by abby82 plunges beautifully, wretchedly into the "Curiouser & Curiouser" inversion.

Slowly, Janette's perfume surrounds him like a comfortable blanket and for a few precious moments Nick pretends this is exactly what he wants--the trappings of domestic bliss. ... Nick sneaks a look at his watch. If he leaves now, he can make it.

Happy tenth anniversary to the recommendation-of-the-month project!  In May 1999, the very first recommendation was of susanmgarrett's "Peerless Pressure."

-----
What's new?  In April, fkfic-l saw three stories by three authors.  ( List )

These user-pic icons come from a batch I made for leela_cat in December, when she was writing her first FK fiction in a very long time.  Those stories mostly starred Janette and Nick, so these icons do, too.  She picked the icons she wanted; these twenty others are available if you would like them.  For a change, they're text-free.

1.	2.	3.

( More Icons )

This set of three flashbacks was my submission to the "Claire Rankin Characters Mini-Ficathon."  They're set in my "Fireweed" AU, in which Janette brought Fleur across, accelerating Nick's rejection of vampirism.  (No need to read the original. That's all the context.)

I have a soft spot for Nick's sister.  My 1998 "Fireweed" vampire Fleur differs from my 2008 "Starwort" human Fleur, I noticed as I revisited her.  Different lives made different women from the same origin.  Yoked to Lacroix, "Fireweed" Fleur's development was constrained.  "Starwort" Fleur grew further faster, living human.  One of these days, I will finish "Amaranth" Fleur, who goes farthest of all.

	•	Title:	"Three Fireweed Seeds"
	•	Length:	~3,300 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L March 5, 2009
	•	Rating:	PG-13
	•	Summary:	"Reconnection:" Nick watches over Fleur.  "Responses:" Fleur tries to comfort Erica.  "Recoil:" Lacroix  has driven Fleur away.
	•	Setting:	1229 Paris, 1700 London, 1966 Bonn
	•	Characters:	Fleur, Nick, Erica, Lacroix
	•	Quotation:	"So then why, why, why had he burned the Abbarratt without letting her read it first?"

"Responses," the second of the two ficlets, replied to an f/f prompt.  It is my first try at such, and I suspect I failed the prompt's intention.  One lesson I'm taking is that a fully successful run at that prompt would require its own custom AU.

What's good?  I've wanted to spotlight Scottie's "Flowers in the Night" (1993) in the recommendations project for years, and this month I get to!  This short story vividly displays first-season Nick and Janette, when Lacroix is dead and possibilities cluster so thick and unimagined that they hardly know where to begin.

"The club was almost deserted, I was bored, and I thought perhaps two old friends could enjoy a talk and a bottle of wine."  He didn't respond.  She raised the glasses... "It's wine, Nicholah.  Just wine.  Nothing else -- nothing that could contaminate you."

-----
What's new?  In February, fkfic-l saw nine stories by three authors.  In the order posting completed:

• "Heartfelt" by Walt D. (1 post)
  
• "Rock-y Horrors" by Walt D. (1 post)
  
• "The Life and Times of a Macedonian Vampire" by dj_clawson (14 posts)
  
• "Illusions of Mortality" by abby82 (1 post) (adult)
  
• "Pshrink" by Walt D. (3 posts)
  
• "The Life of a Macedonian Vampire and His Son Alexander" by dj_clawson (16 posts)
  
• "Hurt" by Walt D. (2 posts)
  
• "Chess" by Walt D. (1 post) (adult)
  
• "Complaint" by Walt D. (1 post)
  

Busy month! :-)

Last week, celli described a writing exercise designed to bolster skills with perspective and setting.  In a few swift steps, it took me from pondering the exercise, to picturing the loft, to: Why does Nick have a bottle of blood hidden in his chimney?  In "Feeding the Beast," that is, the scene in which the ghost/delusion of Lacroix taunts Nick from the balcony.

I don't mean to ask "why blood," of course; we're all clear that the character is a vampire.  And I don't mean to ask "why hidden" -- the core metaphor of that episode, and the fallback metaphor of most episodes, is vampirism as addiction, and so Nick behaves like an addict when that metaphor is in force.  But why the chimney?  Above the fireplace?  What would rising heat do to wine-cut blood?  Should it even still be liquid when he goes back for it?

Further, in "Dark Knight," Alyce finds the fireplace dusty, and wonders whether Nick has ever used it at all.  When Nick first hid that bottle, did he expect the fireplace to be a safe hiding place because he intended never to use the fireplace?  However, there was most certainly a fire in "Dark Knight," and then again at least for a moment in "For I Have Sinned."  So what would that mean for the time the bottle has been hidden there before being pulled out in FtB?  Would it necessarily have been planted since the last time the fire burned, or could it have been there since Nick first moved in?  And would the carved mantle (cf. "Baby, Baby") be involved in some way?

What's good?  I'm proud to begin the new year of the recommendation-of-the-month project with amilyn's novella "Slippery" (2003).  Undeniably harsh, the story dramatically explores what might happen if, one of the times he tells Natalie to get away and she doesn't, a blood-stoked Nick unintentionally lashes out -- with his muscles (rather than his fangs).

   "How long before someone in your department ends up with you as one of their cases -- just like you had to cut up Maggie Dwyer and God only knows how many others like her?"
   "That is enough!" Natalie interjected, her voice sharp. "That was very different. This... this was an accident. He did not mean to hurt me. I know that, and he knows that."
   "Oh, really?" Tracy caught Natalie's eyes. "Then why is he scared silly he's going to do it again?" Tracy paused, looking for a long moment at Nat, then added carefully, "And why are you?"

What's new?  In December, fkfic-l saw three new stories, a filk, and one piece identified as a repost (which is technically against the list rules without permission, so I wouldn't advise it as a trend).

• "Disclosures" (6 posts) by pj1228
• "Dashing Through the Snow (Vampire Style)" (filk) (1 post) by Kristen F.
• "Birthdays" (1 post) by Walt D.
• "Snowy Knight" (1 post) by J.L.K.
• "Milepost" (1 post) by me

There is also a six-post story that began in December, and has finished in January.  So this month so far is not empty, but not crowded.

leela_cat wrote, and batdina beta-read, several ficlets as personal holiday gifts this year, three of them FK, and one of them for me!

This is the first time leela_cat has written FK in, oh, vampire's years.  She was good then, but she's even better now.  Please consider reading these and lavishing her with thoughtful comments to encourage her to indulge FK again someday.

• FK: "Even a Fine Line Has Two Sides" for Natpacker amilyn. 300 words. G. Natalie, Sidney, Nick.
  
• FK: "A Strange Comfort" for Knightie me. ~1,090 words. G. Nick, Schanke, Natalie, Janette.
  
• FK/HL: "The Night Was Dark, and She Was the Owner" for Ravenette loreleif. ~1,200 words. G. Janette, Methos, Natalie.

What's good?  I'm running late on the recommendations project this month; my apologies.  Now that we're here, I am so pleased to get to highlight the energetic, enthusiastic, insightful, 1995 novel "Protect and Serve" by butterflykiki!  This unique angle on the Enforcers focuses on the human characters.

Natalie:	"Do you ever think that our lives would be a lot simpler if we just gave up on the secrecy and published the truth in the Enquirer, Nick?"
Nick:	"I don't need my life simplified that much."

What's new?  In October, fkfic-l saw one new story, a one-parter titled "Hallowe'en" by Walt D.  (Yea, Walt!)  November, by comparison, has gotten off to a sprinter's start, with three stories by three authors already!

I posted my second oldschoolfic story to fkfic-l this weekend.  A few scenes have been rewritten since the ficathon, but it's largely the same.  I'm grateful to abby82 for the ficathon prompt!  And I'm obliged to my beta-readers (see the story's endnote, as always).

"Fearful Symmetry" is entirely from Nick's perspective.  I don't often narrate from Nick's point of view, and that's curious to me.  I've been wondering from where that comes (among what the series presents, what I'm any good at writing, and what people seem to like to read).

	•	Title:	"Fearful Symmetry"
	•	Length:	~9,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L November 1-2, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	As the asteroid panic gets a second wind, Nick revisits his experiences during the 1950s Red Scare.
	•	Setting:	Flashbacks to 1954 ("Spin Doctor").  Present after "A More Permanent Hell."
	•	Characters:	Nick, Natalie, Lacroix, Janette, Others.
	•	Quotation:	"He had been so proud to be awarded tenure last year, to be recognized as a worthy and wanted permanent member of the faculty."

 

Last week, butterflykiki generously wrote FK comment-fic for me!  It's a bite-sized piece, slightly shorter than a traditional drabble, but it goes straight to a canon reference (baseball in Chicago) and potentially suggests a metaphor (escaping vampirism is like being a Cubs fan).  It made me happy.

From "Dark Knight":

NICK:	It was time to move on. ... Although if I knew they were going to install lights at Wrigley field -- oof.
JANETTE:	I hate baseball. Slow games make eternity seem so much longer.

For those of you not from baseball-playing nations, the Cubs are one of two professional baseball teams based in Chicago, a city Nick occupied repeatedly in the twentieth century (flashbacks of SD, AN, and BtL; plus Nick Knight's supposed birthplace in "Hunters").  Wrigley Field, which Nick mentions, is their home stadium.  And their century-long inability to win baseball's World Series -- yes, hardly "world" when it's just Canada and the US; never mind -- has become the stuff of legend.  It is the longest title drought of any North American sports team.

That Nick immediately raises the opportunity to watch professional baseball after sunset as a temptation to stay in Chicago even after, as he says, "it was time to move on," seems a likely indication that he is an active baseball fan.  If I remember correctly, however, baseball is never mentioned again after "Dark Knight" (not counting the softball game at the picnic in "Dead Issue").  So perhaps Nick is merely teasing Janette, knowing that she dislikes the game.  (And why does she really dislike the game? Story prompt!)  Or perhaps lacking interest in baseball is part of how he envisions Nick Knight, so it is only to Janette that he would mention an interest that belonged to another incarnation?

The idea of Nick as a Cubs fan pleases me because the experience of rooting for the Cubs can parallel Nick's struggles to escape his vampirism.  Their title drought began 18 years after he stopped drinking human blood, so that's not an exact match (unfortunately for storytelling symmetry).  But the team often almost makes it, only to fall short after a worthy effort, not unlike Nick's efforts.  And the fans get up and try again, believe again, hope again, every time, never giving up.  Like Nick.

I began posting my oldschoolfic ficathon story to fkfic-l today.  I'm grateful to amilyn for the ficathon prompt, and her enthusiastic reception of the story!  And I'm obliged to my generous beta-readers (see the story's end note) as always.  This is the longest piece I've yet written solely from Natalie's perspective.

	•	Title:	"A Delicate Balance"
	•	Length:	~9,900 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L July 27-29, 2008
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Natalie takes a break from a murder investigation to attend an unusual memorial for her brother, while considering a new approach to Nick's condition.
	•	Setting:	After "1966."  Flashbacks to Natalie's childhood.
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Schanke, Richard, Sara, Nana, Janette, Grace, Stonetree, Tracy and others.
	•	Quotation:	"The mesmerism-enforced lie that had covered Richie's vampirism curdled on Natalie's tongue."

Addendum:  By the way, the fkfic-l "ACK" states that the posts are reaching 279 recipients.  (I presume that is "mail" and "digest," not "nomail," but I don't know for sure.)  Those of you who have FK fanfic you've posted on LJ but not the list, please do consider sharing with the biggest FK audience still assembled.  We miss you.

I've spent most of my fandom hobby time lately working on my oldschoolfic ficathon story.  I got an FK prompt!  And I'm trying to deliver an episode-like response, cop-plot and all.  Eeep!  (Cop-plot stuff is hard.)  Yet in the "vacuum the cat" tradition of ducking the dreaded blank page by any means available, I've also made my second batch of "up for grabs" FK icons (below); the first was that Natpacker set, of course, and so I've now made a smattering of userpics for most other factions.  If you pick one up, please let me know, and credit as appropriate.  Constructive criticism is also welcome.

The original screenshots for many of these come from Nancy T.'s Knight Watchman; others come from Kristen's Knight Vision; and a few have actually been on my hard drive since the series was still on the air (uh, successive hard drives, that is ~g~).  I believe the FK logo GIF with the red letters was created by Nancy K.

( More )

I recently rewatched "False Witness" with the closed captioning on, and was fascinated to note that the captioning has Lacroix say to Nick: "your students at the Conservatory" (rather than the "the students at the Conservatory" I had always heard aloud).  Now, the captioning is frequently wrong.  No question.  I'm grateful to have any captioning at all, but what we have misspells Janette's name all the time ("Jeanette" is traditional, but that's not the Raven's owner), forever mishears little things (for example, it writes "Miss Paris" instead of "Miss Priss" -- as in "prissy" -- as Anne Foley's stage name in "Dance by the Light of the Moon"), and those are just off the top of my head.  Pop in any episode and you'll find more.

But what about here?  What have you always heard Lacroix say?  Janette calls the musicians "common street players," but if they are Nick's students, she is being facetious in that remark, teasing him -- and it changes the complexion of her murder of the girl.  Perhaps the three of them came on purpose to hear the boy and girl perform, from Nick's perspective (though he didn't successfully communicate that to Janette).  Regardless, if indeed the word is "your," then we know Nick's occupation at that time!  And what a Nick-like occupation, combining teaching and music, both of which he loves.

(And how often we make him a music teacher in fanfiction!  Dorothy's "The Gift" leaps to mind, and even I did it once in flashbacks an age ago.)

wiliqueen revived the "DVD Commentary" meme, sharing her thoughts on her 2008 BT fanfiction "Five Times Coreen..." (story / with commentary) and her 1993 FK fanfiction "To Drive the Cold Winter Away" (story / with commentary).  She asked for mine on my 2006 FK story "A Little Salsa Picante."

I put my commentary on my site this morning (story / with commentary).  Thank you, Wiliqueen, for reading the story, and for being curious for more!

I mentioned that the retrospective was over, so yes, indeed, this is a new one!  The idea crept up as I was getting ready for church on Good Friday; I wrote it that night.  This is the second-to-shortest FK piece I have ever posted, so perhaps much_madness will consider it another reply to her nudge for "ficlets."

	•	Title:	"Pro Terra Sancta"
	•	Length:	~1,200 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L March 23, 2008
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	On Good Friday, Schanke inadvertently reminds Nick of the Crusades, and Natalie notices.
	•	Setting:	1993 Toronto, Stonetree's Precinct
	•	Characters:	Nick, Natalie, Schanke
	•	Quotation:	"I pointed out that we indispensable public servants don't all get the four-day weekend that schoolgirls and saleswomen do, but did they listen to me?"

So the first thing I did after submitting my "We Love Female Characters" ficathon entry to the happy limbo of the moderated queue over at femme_fic was to switch out the image on my home desktop.  For two months, I've been looking at the characters who star in that particular story -- screenshots and manipulations at home, a symbol at work -- and it's time for a change!  I popped up a favorite from the tag of "Feeding the Beast" (image via NT's esteemed Knightwatchman), with Nick, Natalie and Schanke looking at his canvas -- Schanke pontificating, Nick credulous, and Natalie skeptical.

Didn't we use to have a term for the three of them together, an equivalent to the "Fang Gang" for the other character triad?  I can't seem to remember it.

I'm going over my femme_fic ("We Love Female Characters") ficathon story draft one more time today, trying for as much polish as I can achieve before posting to the community this weekend.  As part of that, I've just transcribed the key dialogue from those episodes on which the story most draws, including every word ever spoken by my favorite neck-of-the-week, the most canonically pertinent guest character we ever received (such that I am joking by lumping her into that category, naturally).  The transcriptions below are exact; I did not omit even those lines that make me throw rolled-up socks at the screen, and you know these episodes have their share of those!  But I love them anyway, as shown by the 14,000-word draft continuing them that I'm scrubbing right now, and striving to make evoke these very lines.

If I've written the story well, no one will need to rewatch any episodes in order to understand it.  But reviewing FK canon is always a delight, right? ;-)  I will get these quotations properly sorted into my FK Concordance after the ficathon story is on its way.  (Gracious, but transcribing is so much easier with the DVDs than it was with tapes!)

Transcribed excerpts, in reverse chronological order:

( Crazy Love ) ( Fallen Idol ) ( Be My Valentine ) ( Near Death )

Did you know that all twenty-two first-season FK episodes are now available, individually, for download on Amazon unbox?  I found out this week, when I sent a season as a gift.  This should be very convenient for anyone who misplaces a DVD, or who wants to carry an episode handily on a player of some sort.

Speaking of of the FK DVDs, I've been thinking again of taking a thin-tip Sharpie and writing the episode titles on each disk.  Highlander, among many other series, managed to come out with the episode titles printed; I can't imagine why FK didn't -- though of course I'm still deliriously grateful for the DVDs, after so long supposing they'd never come.  (The first season DVDs didn't arrive until October 2003, you know, more than seven years after cancellation.)

I can puzzle through the numbered (not titled) DVDs from memory for most of first and third seasons, even now, as the order on the disks is the order in which the episodes aired, and with which we lived for all the years without professional recordings.  But oh! Second season!  For example, I know the production number for "Crazy Love" is "13" but, to me, it's the finale of season two, not something in the middle.  Season two originally aired in nothing like the production order we see on the DVDs, and this makes an interpretational difference I'm still trying to wrap my mind around.  A Raven friend once said that she didn't care whether season two ends on "Crazy Love" (aired order) or "Blood Money" (production order), because both end with Nick in Janette's arms.  However, I think it does matter.  In my imagination, it's still "Crazy Love" that moves Janette to leave, not "Blood Money."  I see the arguments for "Blood Money," as the milder of the two, better supporting the eventual explanation in "The Human Factor" flashbacks.  But Nick's failing to visit the Raven for months (cf. "Black Buddha, Part 1") has always seemed to me supported by the rawness and guilt of "Crazy Love."  I've been meaning to write a story about that for ages...

Ah, well.  The immortal DVDs trump mortal aired order, and here we are.  In need of episode titles handwritten across the DVD labels.

I began the first draft of this story from Nick's perspective, and then started over again from Natalie's to find it worked better, though entirely differently.  The coda from Lacroix's perspective wasn't on my outline; it just appeared, as Lacroixian things sometimes do.

If this weren't a retrospective, I wouldn't have identified the voices like that, because my hope was for the reader to speculate, for the first few paragraphs, that it is Janette.  But of course the character list below shows that Janette isn't here.  I'm wary of detailed headers for that very reason (spoilers) and I'm glad fkfic-l still does not require them.  That preference seems to be my old-fashioned oddity, though, doubtless because there is ever so much more fanfiction than there used to be -- which is a good thing; don't get me wrong! -- and people in more active fandoms need more ways of sorting through it all.

	•	Title:	"Last Minutes"
	•	Length:	~3,100 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L October 24, 2007
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	At a wedding reception, Natalie ensures Nick's secret is kept.
	•	Setting:	c.2011
	•	Characters:	Natalie, Nick, Lacroix, Urs, Serena, Lily Toeffler, Catherine Barrington, Others
	•	Quotation:	"If most vampires persist in thinking of psychokinetic hypnotism as a magic spell, it's no wonder they don't use it to its full potential."

This is not a crossover.  It's a parody.  But it has a smattering of parallel spoilers for the third season of the revived Doctor Who, because I inflicted on Nick and his Professor When show all the spoilers I was unable to duck in real life.

Our beloved brick is so good for this kind of humor, isn't he?  I had almost forgotten!

	•	Title:	"Professor When"
	•	Length:	~3,700 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on August 30, 2007
	•	Rating:	G
	•	Summary:	It seems everyone has seen the new season of Nick's favorite show -- except him.
	•	Setting:	Second season
	•	Characters:	Nick, Lacroix, Schanke, Janette, Merlin, Natalie, Others
	•	Quotation:	"Nick sighed. Putting away killers to atone for his sordid past was all fine and good, but no one should have to work on premiere night."

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
	•	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."

And now the retrospective comes to my first (and still only) story from Schanke's perspective, and my first (and still only) through-and-through "cop plot" scenario.  I can't imagine why it took so long!  This genre is a ventricle of the heart of Forever Knight.  I'm still very pleased with this story, all in all.

The title comes from "Dark Knight," of course, where Schanke mocks what he perceives as Nick's weak stomach.

	•	Title:	"A Little Salsa Picante"
	•	Length:	~3,300 words
	•	Date:	Posted to FKFic-L on October 23, 2006
	•	Rating:	PG
	•	Summary:	Schanke's stomach rumbles through an early case with Nick.
	•	Setting:	First season
	•	Characters:	Schanke, Nick, Natalie, Others
	•	Quotation:	"And once again, the sight of some salsa picante lays low the mighty Detective Knight.  Do you realize, Natalie, that Mr. Pride of the Metro PD here cannot cope with a little ketchup on his crime scenes?"

Inserted 04/27/08: As part of the "DVD Commentary" meme, at wiliqueen's request, I've written a commentary on "A Little Salsa Picante."

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
	•	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."