Written in late December last year, while we were all aglow following the release of DVDs, and after getting inspiration from the original version of a certain Christmas song. I was trying to express what I was feeling at that time, and I still don't know if I pulled it off. It's a strange little story, a bit sappy maybe, and far from whatever canon we may yet see.

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"If The Fates Allow"

by HawkMoth (c) 12/22/2003

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What's the good in being a thief if you can't steal time?

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The years weren't completely unkind, despite being many and hard. There were just enough moments snatched, days swiped in carefully planned and daringly executed heists. Coded messages, non-traceable waves; a meet here, a rendezvous there. Never enough payoff, though. Rich beyond anyone's dreams, for damn certain, but always spread too thin to make it last till the next time.

Five to nine. It worked for a while. Glorious hardship. Looking out for each other, making a life, surviving the black. Inevitable that it didn't last.

Nine to five. It was the only solution. Better to live apart than die together. Safer to say good-bye. Wasn't easy but it had to be done. Way too hard to admit that part of your crew--part of your family--was a liability.

But without the added danger it was easier to make a dishonest living. And a promise that would take years to keep.

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A good thief, a clever one, should be able to steal just about anything. The trick to stealing time was to never take it the same way twice. You had to pick different months each year, stagger the dates. Choose a complicated course for everyone to a different world or moon. Review and rehearse every caper. It always paid off. There may have been a few close calls, revised plans, postponed meets, but in six long years, never did a plan go wrong.

Shiniest of all would be the big payoff, when all the pain and patience was at last rewarded, and that desperate, long-ago promise fulfilled. There would be money enough for a piece of