Background
When I first wrote Fortune, the idea was to tie up the In Between Days series.
Fortune
I was not tired of the characters or of their situations, but it seemed as if they needed an end point. Furthermore, I was thinking about the canon episode, These Are The Voyages, and trying to make some sense of it. I came to the conclusion that the professional writers wanted some end of series closure and they also wanted some ownership of the fate of what was possibly the most popular character.
Therefore, I decided to create some closure for my characters. These would be the main characters only (at the time, Pamela Hudson was still not considered to be a main character), e. g. Doug Beckett, Leonora Digiorno, Melissa Madden, Lili O’Day, and Malcolm Reed. Four of the characters had already had a story more or less assigned (albeit not completely devoted) to them. Lili’s story was in Reversal, Malcolm’s was in Intolerance, Melissa’s was in Together and Doug’s was in Temper. Therefore, this story would go to Leonora.
Plot
When Temper ends, Lili has some surprising and wonderfully good news for Malcolm. When Fortune starts, Malcolm is processing it. Jonathan Archer asks him what’s wrong. But nothing is wrong – everything is very, very right, but it’s also rather private. A joyful celebration is held, and the family is then reunited for Declan‘s birth. The family sweetly dreams together, and the relationships are reinforced. These are between Melissa and Leonora, Doug and Melissa, Lili and Doug, and Malcolm and Lili.
Billie Holliday singing God Bless the Child
Leonora in particular has a wonderfully vivid dream of Billie Holliday singing “God Bless the Child“.
It seems like everything is right.
But there are storm clouds on the horizon. There is unfinished business, and it needs to come to a resolution before the family can truly move forward.
Music
- Billie Holliday – “God Bless the Child”
- Louis Armstrong – “Wonderful World”
- “La Petite Poule Grise”
- Marvin Gaye – “Let’s Get it On”
- John Cougar Mellencamp –“I Need a Lover”
- Billy Joel –“Honesty”
- Joe Jackson – “Get that Girl”
- Elvis Costello – “Every day I write the Book”
- Bruce Springsteen –“Prove it all Night”
- Fleetwood Mac –“Dreams”
- Sister Hazel – “All for You”
Story Postings
You can find Fortune here:
- Fortune on Ad Astra
- Fortune on Fanfiction.net
- In addition, Fortune on Fictionpad
- Fortune on Wattpad
- Also, Fortune in In Between Days context
- Fortune in Times of the HG Wells context
- Finally, Fortune in Hall of Mirrors context
Rating
The story is rated M.
Upshot or, What’s Your Fortune?
Too many specifics will mean revealing too many spoilers. Suffice it to say, the story does not end the series. I am happy to continue these stories. Because I want to give these characters and their overall family their measures of forever. So that is either in this life or in whatever may or may not come beyond.
Fortune Cookie
I am proud of this story and hope it does the characters justice.
[…] I decided to fill in a missing scene from Reversal. The idea was also to dovetail with a scene in Fortune, where Shelby and Travis spend time together, and it appears that they might be starting a […]
[…] 2162, not too long after the events of Temper and Fortune, and Andrew Miller is calling for bets for a mirror baseball game as catcher David Constantine […]
[…] duty, crossing them with duties to Starfleet. It was a chance to fill in a few gaps left in Fortune, and to bring in the bench characters and give them great roles, people like Aidan, Chip, Deb, […]
[…] addition, in Fortune, one of the family photographs was of Joss and Jia at their prom. I wanted to fill in the blanks, […]
[…] way that Reversal is Lili‘s story, Together is Melissa‘s, Temper is Doug‘s and Fortune is Leonora‘s, but it’s also very much Pamela‘s story (as is Saturn Rise). Plus […]
[…] as a place where Doug’s beloved stuffed toy would be taken from him and used to harm him. In Fortune, Doug confirms that gentler children were bullied and harassed and that, in order to survive, he […]
[…] scene was referred to in Reversal, and in Fortune, but it never really got its due until a Weekly Free Write about […]
[…] In late April of 2133, Jay is a sergeant and is under a Major Ian Landry. Savvy fanfiction readers will recognize Landry as being one of Doug‘s kills, in the Mirror Universe, as described in Fortune. […]
[…] all because of the death of Melissa Madden, a fact disclosed in Fortune. After Andy and Melissa meet (during The Play at the Plate), a sexual relationship develops between […]
[…] Fortune, Norri refers to that counterpart as Charlotte. Lili and Charlotte begin life somewhat similarly, […]
[…] Sharp-eyed readers should spot that Carlos is a prime universe counterpart to one of the men killed by Doug Beckett, as is outlined in Fortune. […]
[…] Fortune, Doug, Lili, Malcolm, Melissa Madden and Leonora Digiorno all, eventually, meet their ends. By […]
[…] and The Gift, Doug works on making a home for Lili. That home is being added to in Temper. In Fortune, Malcolm realizes he needs to do something similar. However, because he’s less mechanically […]
[…] I added Broken Seal to Trek United, as I hadn’t put anything out there in a while. I updated There’s Something About Hoshi and posted it to Star Trek Logs. I also started spinning out Together on Trek BBS and Ohio on Ad Astra. I also created The Facts on Ad Astra and The Rite on Star Trek Logs as a response to its first-ever prompt (I am running the prompts there, at least for now). Both of the latter two were ficlets brought about in order to flesh out some of the scenes in Fortune. […]
[…] Ad Astra, I posted nearly all of Fortune (except for the Afterword, plus a few chapters from before the start of the new year) and also […]
[…] – the Harvest Salad and the Duck Burger. The Harvest Salad is mentioned in both Reversal and Fortune. The Duck Burger gets a shout-out in Together. Will decides to have both, plus a glass of the house […]
[…] in anticipation of spinning it out in November. I created a somewhat bowdlerized version of Fortune for eventual posting on […]
[…] In Together, she sings O Pato to Joss. In Temper, she sings Arroz con Leche to Tommy. In Fortune, she sings La Petite Poule Grise to Declan. And in the E2 stories, she sings Maria Elena to, of […]
[…] up stories for publication on sites like Trek BBS and Fanfiction.net. I am a little worried about Fortune as it contains quotations from the earlier books and some of those may have […]
[…] brings intelligence but also shrewdness. In our universe, he is a retired orthopedic surgeon (Fortune). But he comes out of retirement and is brought in as a fill-in doctor on Jonathan Archer‘s […]
[…] Fortune, some of Marie Patrice’s antagonism is still shown; it seems she had it all along but the […]
[…] The prime universe’s official Starfleet rabbi is an alcoholic in the mirror, and kills her lover, Leonora Digiorno, in an alcoholic fit, one of the more meaningless deaths in any of my stories (Fortune). […]
[…] Bread. Also, in response to the death of a friend, I began writing On the Radio, which is a post-Fortune […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] those two sons has a son and a daughter. By the end of the events depicted in the prime timeline in Fortune, it’s known that at least Joss is a grandfather and the line will go […]
[…] Fortune, olowa are mentioned in a lot of off-handed ways. Olowa paste is sent aboard Malcolm‘s ship […]
[…] of the other visiting physicians who are in the midst of their Immunology rotation. By the time of Fortune, she has become Malcolm‘s CMO on the USS Bluebird. In the Mirror Universe, she is some sort […]
[…] mother, as she recounts in Fortune, is a potter. This is also true in the Mirror Universe, as is seen in The High Cost of Dissidence, […]
[…] then sadness returns, not only with Fortune, but also with We Meet Again and, eventually, […]
[…] On Fanfiction.net, I posted Movie Night, Coveted Commodity and began to spin out Fortune. […]
[…] I also added Consider the Lilies of the Field, an In Between Days story that takes place after Fortune. I also added a dream story taking place between Together and Temper, […]
[…] the time of Together, he’s working full-time as a sous-chef. And by the time of Fortune, he has become the chef for Malcolm Reed‘s ship, the USS Bluebird. He’s even seen in […]
[…] Temper, and in Fortune, it’s established that he is at least a descendant of Lili and Malcolm, but he’s […]
[…] and Deb, Ken is a divorced man who seems to have a great deal of patience with Marie Patrice. In Fortune, he is identified as her long-term boyfriend, but they never […]
[…] the timeline is restored, they meet as children, in Fortune. And, later, Norri bequeathes her callidium-laden earrings to him, urging him to use them for dream […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] maybe a year after the end of Fortune, and Treve has taken Pamela home after a date. They have been going out for a good year. […]
[…] HG Wells collection, I added the following stories to context – A Long, Long Time Ago; Ohio, Fortune and Temper. I also added The Point is Probably Moot. For the Transitions challenge, I wrote the […]
[…] to Arden (Eve Arden, invoking the Forest of Arden from As You Like It) in Intolerance, and again in Fortune, where it’s used to essentially babysit an ailing elderly character who is losing […]
[…] the end of Fortune, he asks Hoshi out, to Movie Night (Casablanca is playing). It’s unclear whether it goes very […]
[…] I write him, I add a second ship assignment, the USS Zefram Cochrane (DC-1500), in Fortune. The Cochrane is better-equipped than the Enterprise and can hold more people. It has more advanced […]
[…] image is brief but indelible, in Fortune, when Leah murders Norri for the most selfish and trivial of reasons. Nasty, brutal and efficient, […]
[…] my biggest animal lover character is Doug and Lili‘s eldest. As a child, in Fortune, Joss pays more attention to Cindy Morgan‘s Boston Terrier puppy, Fenway, than he does to […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] fiction has allowed me to give him a wife and a child, and it has allowed me to give him quirks like lactose intolerance and personal interests like […]
[…] the post-Fortune time period, on acting Captain Malcolm Reed‘s ship, the Zefram Cochrane. Chip comes over to […]
[…] the time of Fortune, Doug recognizes that she needed treatment and sympathy, and he feels badly for not doing that for […]
[…] Fortune, and in Equinox, Doug’s death is shown or alluded to. It occurrs during an elekai hunt, but […]
[…] very bereft when Lili and Doug are kidnapped. For Temper, I saw him as a teenager and then, in Fortune, and in some of the HG Wells stories, such as He Stays a Stranger, I began to see him as an […]
[…] they are very rabbit-like, children are somewhat fond of them. In Fortune, a little Calafan girl has a stuffed linfep doll. In Friday Visit, Chelben, who is about four or […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] the food on the ISS Defiant is little better than slop. And in the history as described by Doug in Fortune, there is a rationing system. Cards with various letters have differing values. But the cards only […]
[…] in several sizes. In Temper, it’s revealed that there’s a smaller size for women. In Fortune, it’s revealed that the phase bow that Doug uses is huge, and is too heavy for Melissa to […]
[…] crew often go hunting, as the rations there are so bad. The idea is enlarged upon in Fortune. Hence they had to have something they could hunt. A hunt is even shown (although it’s in our […]
[…] mirror. In Temper, the bat is seen in Cyril Morgan‘s Sick Bay. The bat makes appearances in Fortune, Day of the Dead, Entanglements, Together, Reflections Down a Corridor, The Further Adventures of […]
[…] not totally gone from my writings. But I do try to write him with angst (Together, Temper, and Fortune) or at least a feeling that he’d rather look at an engine than talk or think about something […]
[…] dying, but Yipran, the High Priestess of the Calafan people, is not going down without a fight. In Fortune, she reveals that she understands far more of the universe and its origins (and its eventual fate) […]
[…] to Ethan Shapiro for Karin Bernstein’s affections, and is seen in Waiting and, later, in Fortune, as the results of that rivalry are finally […]
[…] she develops the canon disease Irumodic Syndrome, which is an analogue to Alzheimer’s. In Fortune, the reader witnesses some of her […]
[…] the time Fortune has come around, Doug has been hiding his past rather effectively. Lili knows some of it. She is […]
[…] might not have expected to be interested, Chip Masterson. This relationship continues through to Fortune, where it is revealed that it has resulted in a marriage and a child, Kenneth. Her descendants […]
[…] the time of Fortune, Blair still has her maiden name, but that might be preference rather than an indication of a […]
[…] really mean to refer to her as a clod? Perhaps, but not in a negative manner. Lili reveals, in Fortune, that her mother was a potter, so perhaps the backhanded reference to clod refers to a moldable […]
[…] Fortune (and earlier, in Apple, which takes place during Reversal), Shelby makes the first moves with […]
[…] like Kevin Madden-Beckett in Fortune, Josie is a tragic figure. But she had a life before her illness, and even before her marriage. […]
[…] the time of Fortune, she has become a judge, and she officiates at Malcolm and Lili’s […]
[…] she needs to be able to expertly handle a pastry bag and tip. Although art runs in her family (in Fortune, she reveals that her mother was a potter), Lili isn’t meant to be a fine artist. Therefore, […]
[…] Fortune, I had established how the two women had met, but not the aftermath. This was a good chance to show […]
[…] introduction of this small plot twist (I had not planned it when I wrote Fortune) proved to be the pathway to another story, Faith. And so this drabble is, in a way, more than just […]
[…] Fortune, Q shows Lili the family at a later date, after her death. It is a conversation that she would not […]
[…] on the lower end of read counts for the first five big books (Reversal, Intolerance, Together, and Fortune are the other four), along with Intolerance, but in the case of Intolerance, it’s because […]
[…] the Cuff of Lo gift in Friday Visit, Together, and Temper, and the bracelet for Melissa in Fortune. Chelben, who is still a rather small child, is given a stuffed linfep toy. Treve and Yimar, at […]
[…] month for continuations, and not really for starting anything new. On Wattpad, I continued posting Fortune. On Fanfiction.net, I continued to post A Long, Long Time Ago. On the G & T Show forums, I […]
[…] Wattpad, I finished posting Fortune. I posted Day of the Dead. Because longer stories with short vignettes work better there, I […]
[…] is just after Fortune, and Treve is driving Pamela to her uncle, Cyril Morgan‘s, home on Lafa II. She begins to […]
[…] writing Fortune, I had wanted to expand on Kevin Madden-Beckett‘s story for a while, but the opportunity kept […]
[…] Fortune, I established that Tommy Digiorno-Madden dies in the service of his captain. In Seven Women, I […]
[…] rise and likes the view. Sharp-eyed readers will recall how the rise fits in with both Temper and Fortune. However, the realtor, a native Calafan, tells him that the land up the rise is considerably more […]
[…] version of Diana. Leah also remembers her own part in the death of Leonora Digiorno, as is shown in Fortune. And so a further connection is made between the two halves of the […]
[…] a prompt about obstacles with The Play at the Plate, a Mirror Universe story taking place after Fortune. I answered a prompt about a finish line rather literally, with a tale about a 5K race called The […]
[…] Fanfiction.net, I finished spinning out Fortune. I added Atlas and began to spin out Day of the […]
[…] on combined URL read counts). Three of those are at 20,000 reads or more, plus two (Intolerance and Fortune) have over 20,000 reads on combined URLs. Reversal now has over 40,000 reads on combined URLs. See […]
[…] On Wattpad, I began to post Fortune. […]
[…] Fortune […]
[…] who had met before, but not under these individual circumstances. Joss and Dr. Morgan had met in Fortune, but Joss was a rather young child at the time, and Morgan was just settling on Lafa II for his […]
[…] killing of a Xindi Insectoid has been explored in Fortune (the act is shown) and The Mess (the immediate aftermath). Lili discusses the matter with Doug in […]
[…] damaged people, to its criminals, to its hopefulness, to its sorrow. As Lili O’Day says in Fortune, “There is something […]
[…] I had wanted to not only showcase more of Pamela and Treve’s relationship, but also to attempt to resolve some of the unfinished business in Intolerance, Temper, and Fortune. […]
[…] Mary had already given Marie Patrice a gift of handmade yellow knitted gloves (as was seen in Fortune), the two elder Reeds still hold back. An important part of the piece is Malcolm standing up to his […]
[…] the least about her. And that’s by design. Of the five big books in that series, Temper and Fortune have the most information about her, and even then she’s really just a […]
[…] story dovetails well with later Emergence stories, Fortune, and even the E2 […]
[…] doesn’t, truly, have a mirror universe counterpart. In Fortune, it’s revealed that his parents’ counterparts delayed relations for a night, and, […]
[…] Her most important moment in the series (so far) is that she is the only one present when Malcolm dies of old age, in Fortune. […]
[…] Fortune, the MU Tripp has come full circle but is still a bit wary about strangers. Fortune tells of a […]
[…] dating. By the time of Temper, she’s proposed to him, and they are married by the time of Fortune. During the initial celebration of the first child born to a crew member becoming a parent, he […]
[…] from an Ensign in Reversal and Together, then to a Lieutenant and even Acting Tactical Officer in Fortune and, finally, to a Commander in Flight of the Bluebird before Malcolm Reed‘s generous […]
[…] Fortune, I reveal that there is an Unemployment Office here, staffed by […]
[…] pregnancy. She decides to keep the baby, who is a daughter. They name her Vanessa. By the time of Fortune, I reveal that they are still […]
[…] also wanted Neil to be doing something about it, so he ran a 5K in Fortune. Eventually just that little story was told, in The […]
[…] and she even stands up for Lili and Doug at their wedding, in A Kind of Blue. By the time of Fortune, she’s looking for a new nighttime lover, and sets her sights on Jonathan Archer. In A Hazy […]
[…] Fortune and Reversal, too, as both of those stories, along with The Cure is Worse than the Disease and […]
[…] at her elder sister, Alia’s, Bat Mitzvah, which is a part of The Rite and referred to in Fortune. At that point, he is a young man; it’s before he marries his first wife, Louise […]
[…] and nasty, Ian has very little to recommend him. In Fortune, Beth Cutler and Tripp Tucker refer to him as “cruel and sadistic”. But there is […]
[…] Fortune, Doug reveals that Luke was the Barracks Chief and also, therefore, was his superior officer. In a […]
[…] the Empress Hoshi Sato’s only daughter meets Tommy in a dream during Fortune. I had originally decided that that would be it, and they would not see each other again. Temper […]
[…] Geming’s only know relationship is with Mai. He predeceases her, according to Jia, in Fortune. […]
[…] because I created her after writing Fortune, she does not show up there during the In Between Days main […]