“Oh come on!” Leonard exclaimed. “That's cheating!”

“Hehe,” Priscilla cackled as she scooped a large pile of chips over to her side of the table. “Who said I have to play fair?”

The two were locked in a game of poker, several hands deep. The game was fairly close, Leonard slowly gaining a slight edge. However that all changed when it came to Priscilla’s turn to deal, the doctor cheating in an incredibly blatant way.

“How can you get five aces? There are only four in a deck. That's so stupid, you cheated.”

“Hey, you had all the time in the world to cheat as well, I just decided to do it first.”

“I wasn’t going to cheat, this was a fair game.”

“There are only two kinds of people in this world Leonard,” Priscilla began. “Winners like me, and sore losers like you.”

“You mean cheaters like you,” Leonard quipped back, upset at the sudden betrayal of their honourable game.

“A wins a win, doesn't matter how it's achieved to me,” Priscilla took her time neatly stacking her growing mountain of chips. Compared to the measly amount left in front of Leonard it was akin to heaven and earth. “Just try harder next time.”

Leonard grumbled to himself as he grabbed the deck of cards, this time however he didn’t plan to play fair. He played card games fairly often back in the barracks with his squadmates, and had picked up a few tricks.

“I raise 100 chips,” Leonard dealt a pair of cards to each player before laying down three in the middle of the table. With some fancy sleight of hand he had rearranged the deck when he pretended to shuffle the cards, leaving him with a king and queen of hearts. The flop as well was dealt in his favour, ace jack and 10 of hearts, leaving him with a perfect royal flush, there was no way he would lose this time.

“Fold.” Priscilla threw in her cards.

“What? Come on, you gotta play your hand.”

“Ha,” she grinned as she took the cards back for herself. “Like hell I'm going to let a youngling like you get away with cheating me out of my hard earned chips.”

Leonard grumbled even more as Priscilla took her turn dealing the cards out, leaving him with only a 2 and a 3, before dealing a flop of three aces.

“Oh come on, you're doing the same thing now.” Leonard complained, however he wasn’t going to let her get away with it this time. “I call.”

“Oh? You’re playing anyway? Your loss.”

The two went through the rounds, Leonard trying his best to keep the smirk off his face. When he had dealt the previous hand he had slipped two aces into his shirt sleeve, and when the doctor looked away he changed his cards out.

“Read em and weep Leo,” Priscilla dropped down her cards. “Royal flush.”

“Impressive, but I think mine is better.” He dropped his double aces, gaining great pleasure in watching her face fall as she realised what he had done.

“What..” she pointed an accusing finger at him. “Oh come on, you cheated.”

“You know, there are only two types of people in this world,” Leonard mocked her words back at her as he smugly stacked her ill gotten gains back onto his side of the table, making sure to go as slow as possible.

“You’ve done it now,” she cackled to herself manically and Leonard couldn’t help but get a shiver down his spine.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The next games were all horrible for him, every time he tried to one up her she turned it back around on him. Even when he was dealing she found some way to come out ahead.

“Oh come on!” Leonard threw his newly dealt hand down. “These are uno cards! It's a completely different game!”

“Oops, how did these get here?” she smiled mischievously. “But wasn’t it you that said,” she coughed, bringing forward her best impression of him. “What! Come on, you gotta play your hand.”

Leonard almost laughed at her horrible impersonation of him, however he was much too annoyed at her to do so. However he couldn't hold back the small smile that tugged at the edges of his lips.

“Well I'm broke,” Leonard flinged his last chip into the middle of the table to buy his way into the next game. They weren’t gambling actual money, Priscilla had just split a container of poker chips in half for the pair to play with.

“Here, cheer up,” she said as she threw him over two cards, Boardwalk and Park Place. “You can have the best properties.”

“I get it, you win.” Leonard threw his hands up. “But I got you once. How old are you again? Losing to a, as you said, youngling like me, that's gotta be embarrassing.”

“Shut up you,” Priscilla flicked a chip into his forehead as she got to work cleaning off the table. “Didn’t your mother tell you you should never ask a woman her age?”

“Ow,” Leonard rubbed the slight bump in his head. “But really I'm curious. My father said you were his doctor and he's like 70 years old or something.”

“Hmm, that's true. I remember vividly when your father Athur first came in here.” She recounted the memory in her head, but didn’t elaborate further.

“Yeah he told me about that,” Leonard said for her. “Falling asleep for the whole day.”

“He told you, did he?” She let out a small laugh. “It really did put me back that day. Since he fell asleep in here I had to move all my other clients outside into the garden.”

“Should’ve just kicked him out,” Leonard said bluntly, although he understood why the doctor wouldn’t have. It was still part of her job. “If I fell asleep in his office I'd wake up on the roof or something.”

“Well it's a good thing I'm not like that,” she said as she put the poker set back into a large floor to ceiling closet filled with a variety of other games. The door slid shut seamlessly, into what Leonard had previously thought was just a wall. “Anyways, it looks like it's that time already, I wouldn't want to keep you to myself all day.”

“Already?” Leonard questioned as he stood up out of his seat, glancing down at the comm unit on his wrist. “Damn it is, lost track of time there.”

“Time does fly,” she said as the pair walked over to the door, Priscilla holding it open for him. “See you again tomorrow.”

“Uh huh,” this time Leonard didn’t argue about having to come back, he had started to like it here. “See you tomorrow.”

– –

“What are we going to do now Will?” Anna asked. “We can’t stay here forever, but we have no money and it's not safe to go anywhere.”

“Who said we don’t have any money?” Willam grinned, however it only caused his sister to slap his arm.

“Take this seriously! What are we going to do? We had tickets off the planet but now the starship has left and we are still here.”

“Anna, don't worry so much.” He placed his hand over hers. “I know I told you I borrowed money, however that's not the truth. I started a small company a while ago, while it's not the biggest, money isn’t a problem.”

“You did?” She looked at him confused. “Then if you didn’t borrow money why were those guys after you?”

“Uh.. I umm..” Willam scratched his cheek, “I was just curious, so I stole a data shard from them.”

“Will!” Anna slapped him again, a large pout on her face. “How many times do I have to tell you, your curiosity gets the better of you. This would have never happened if you didn’t have to stick your nose in.”

“Ah ha.. Yeah I know, I'm sorry.”

“You better be!” She sat back with a huff. “That settles money then, but what can we do if they come after us again?”

“I don't know just yet,” Willam admitted, if he did they wouldn’t have been here in the first place. “I’ll have to talk with Leonard later on, see if he can't set us up somewhere.”

“Right Leonard,” Anna nodded. “He’s your friend after all, so he should be able to help out.”

“My friend?” Willam looked at her confused. “I thought he was yours? I’ve never met him before yesterday.”

“Huh?” Anna was just as confused as her brother. “I haven't met him before either. He came into my cafe one day asking after you, said you were friends.”

“What's going on then?” Willam furrowed his brows. “How does he know me then? And why is he helping?”