It's Never About the Money

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Andy gave it a great start, we filled in the middle, and Kim finished with the killer ending!—Maer


Val, one by one, went to each of his crew and asked them to head to his room for a crew meeting. He had thought about holding the talk in the open casino area, but he didn't want to include Eli, their new cook, in the discussion. Not that he didn't like the man, but he didn't need to be part of this. He hadn't earned his place in it. And the casino area had too much of a chance of a casual wandering-by.

When he had gathered everyone in the admittedly now crowded space of the captain's quarters, Val quietly walked over to the small chalkboard that he had dug out of his father's random pile of crap. Don't judge, he reminded himself. One of those pieces of random crap is potentially about to make you very rich.

He grabbed a piece of chalk and slowly wrote out a figure equal to fifty percent of the number Mary Ann had quoted him at the cafe. "That," he said, tapping the extremely large number on the board with the chalk, "is what we expect to get paid for those surf records. And no, I did not forget a decimal point or add extra zeroes. Even after taking a chunk off the top to repair and fix up Delilah, we are left with an absurd amount of money to be split five ways."

Turning to fully face the crew, symbolically turning his back onto that ridiculous number, Val shrugged slightly. "Do I think it's actually going to happen? Experience would tell me no. But I wanted you to know what's at stake. You deserve to know what we're playing for." He smiled for the first time. "We don't get to dream too often out here, it seems. So I say, if we're going to dream, might as well dream big."

Vikki worried her lower lip in her teeth. She'd always been called a dreamer, a hopeless idealist, even an unrealistic fool. Always quick to jump in without looking first, thinking too big, being too generous ... she'd grown up hearing it all. She knew the litany by heart. Staring at the figure Valentine put on the board, her usually robust imagination failed, her certainty replaced by doubt. She didn't need much for herself. Her wants were few. Was it wrong to ensure her parents retired in comfort? Or to fund start-ups to give others the chances she'd been fortunate enough to receive? Or maybe found an orphanage/school or two, like she'd seen on Meridian, like she'd dreamed of before she'd been adopted? She'd wanted those things for almost as long as she could remember but now they seemed somehow shallow, small, even selfish, in comparison to what all those zeroes could accomplish. She looked at the crew, wondering what they'd think if she admitted any of those things.

Face it, you. There's only one person whose opinion you're afraid of and he's the one asking you for yours. Might as well be thought an idiot for telling the truth. At least there won't be a lie to keep track of afterward.

"Um ...," Vikki finally managed to say. "Does wanting to help people with all that money count as a valid answer?"

Staring at the number on the chalkboard, Tian couldn't breathe for a moment. She couldn't wrap her head around the enormity of having that much money.

What would she do with that much money? Some of it would obviously immediately get put away for her son. But the rest.... Start a clinic, perhaps? Somewhere that needed a good doctor. She could put down roots again. Rebuild her reputation. Maybe hire a hotshot Advocate to get the Alliance off her tail. ... Brush up on her research skills and pursue the avenue that Wickett was beginning to work on?

An errant thought of Kerry passed through her head, and for a moment she pondered the idea of putting down those roots in a place where she had a friend. A place where she might actually settle into a more sedate pace than the hospital really allowed for and build true friendships and relationships rather than simply dating casually.

Tian had never had huge dreams, not really. She had no desire to live a grandiose life. She'd always been happy just being a good doctor, a good mother, a friend. Her ambitions were more about enjoying her work, being able to look herself in the mirror every day and be proud of her accomplishments. It would be nice to be able to do the things she loved again.... assuming what was going on with her brain didn't kill her first.

Clothes. Sadly, that was the first thing that had popped into Val's head. Yes, yes, he wanted to set his mother up with food (gambling?) money for life and fix up the ship so that he didn't have to step over holes in the deck when walking from one room to another. But if there was one thing that was driving him nuts that could be fixed with money, it would be getting some new clothes. He didn't consider himself to be a clotheshorse, but damn if Val didn't like a good suit - the way it looked, the way it made him feel. And his clothes had been through the gauntlet since he got on board Delilah. The one suit he had come on board with now looked like it had been worn by a hobo in a battle zone. Which, Val admitted, was probably not far from the truth. Three quarters of the clothes he currently owned had bullet holes in them. Definitely new clothes.

After that, it took a little more thought. He was thinking in his own head about fixing up the ship, but with that kind of money, would the crew even want to stay on board? They could go do whatever they wanted to do with what felt like an endless amount of credits. And would he really want to be captain of a ship if they weren't on board? As he had told Tian, big money could buy clemency. He could take his own advice and buy his way back into the Triad's good graces. Go back to living his old life...which seemed awfully meaningless looking back at it. His father had turned out to be more complex than he had thought and the life out in the Black more interesting.

Mary Ann had said that being a travelling savior, going from planet to planet helping people wasn't such a bad life. And he had gotten the impression that she might want to come along for the ride. Val knew that the rest of the crew distrusted Mary Ann. And he wasn't completely sure about her himself. He liked her a lot, but after the Reavers, she had (not unjustifiably) gone cold, so the return to warmth now that money was involved sent mixed signals. He wasn't an idiot, he knew that she had a taste for the fine things and a bit of a petty streak when it came to jealousy...

Val looked at Vikki, lost in her own dreams about the money. With this money, he didn't have to be her boss anymore. They could be equals and give a relationship a shot. He laughed internally. He had never been successful with relationships in the past. Now he was trying to choose between two. And what made him think that money would somehow change his success rate? If his own experience at the casino was any indicator, money only made things worse.

Ah well, he thought. Probably all pipe dreams anyway. Val had watched thousands of people cross his path with the same sort of big dreams he was thinking now. And they all left the casino pretty much the same as they came in, a few a little richer, a lot little poorer, but none of them with their lives changed forever. The house always wins in the end and not just in the casino. You just did your best to live well and hoped it was enough. And that Val thought he could do.

As the Boss wrote each zero on the board, Poco relaxed a little. By the end, the number wasn't realistic anymore. Poco had been on too many jobs with similar payoffs and they always went up in smoke. Cold professionalism kicked in and he knew that he shouldn't--couldn't--think about the score. Focus on the job and, when things go sideways, bail out before you get hurt. Sighing, he looked around at the other faces in the room as they wandered into dreamland. Fools. And yet...he could make things up to Veronica and maybe leave this life...shaking his head, Poco leaned back grumbling. Focus on the job first.

Rachel's blue eyes narrowed slightly as Val kept writing zeroes. She leaned back in her chair, her legs stretched out in front of her, her fingers steepling over her nose.

The number was so large as to be nonsense, so large as to be fantasy. Laz woulda been like a kid, grinning like a damned fool if he saw it.

He was probably doing it now up there in Heaven, knowing his boy would finally get something other than an old, dangerous, rotten, brokedown ship.

But she knew that was never how Laz had seen Delilah. Each day a new adventure, each planet a new world. They had burnt into the boiling sunrises of all the 'Verse's worlds and flown into the sunsets of the same, fighting and loving, cussing and reveling, a shifting family tied by the ship and their shared experiences on and off her. The family had fluxed and flowed over the decades but never had the wealth of the relationships devalued.

The boy ... no, Captain, she corrected herself firmly ... stood back to let his crew take in the number as they began to exhale little sighs and whistles. Her lips quirked in a gentle smile. She didn't need it. Her pretty daughter was a pampered doctor's wife in the Core, the grandyoungin's already awash in too many toys and heart's desires. The McAllister boys had money, cows, land, cash and sterling reputations as pilots. Her brothers, like her, didn't need for nothing but common sense.

Her eyes fell to her threadbare jeans. She could use a new pair or two. But Rosalee or her brothers would send her some if she asked. She could quit tomorrow and make a pile of money flying another ship. Hell, she could just retire to the family spread and fly crop dusters and take the occasional VIP shuttle run for a change and a little fun money.

She inhaled deep and sat forward with a little laugh as she reached down to scratch an itch on her calf. New boots too, maybe. Her gaze fell on her new crew, fond and gentle, then on the ship that had always challenged her.

It had never been about the money. It wasn't now.








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