D'khara was sitting in the lounge at Riotfish HQ. It had been a week since the Daugereaux job had ended, and life was approaching something that felt normal; as normal as life got around Riotfish HQ.

And now it had been 90 days.

More, actually: it had been 93 days. D'khara, quietly seething with anxiety, had tried not to be too obvious over the last few days about hanging around close to Fleer, and had even made comments about how open his schedule was. He didn't want to be too overt. His ninetieth day had been a Friday, so maybe Fleer had been too busy to get to it. But now it was Monday, so D'khara had been trying to find something useful to do near Fleer, but Fleer just spent his time mooning around, sighing, and staring at random parts of the HQ.

It was shocking to think of everything that had gone on in his three month stint, and how far he'd come. Now he just needed to know if he was good enough. Had been good enough.

Not that any of it mattered. They hadn't earned enough to pay back the debt they owed-- not even close-- and Pearce would be back today. The Riotfish as an entity were done. Kaput. Gone.

D'khara looked around the lounge. The ratty rug, sprung sofas and wrecked recliners felt like home now. The exposed steel beams supporting the roof, while not elegant, felt like home. The finicky, flickering holovid in the corner felt like home.

It was home, and he didn't want to go.

Fleer wandered through the rec area with one arm in a sling, gazing distractedly around and sighing. D'khara decided that it was time to seize the moment. He cleared his throat.

"Um, Mr. Fleer? Did you have time today to do my 90-day eval?"

Fleer pulled up short, and his attention slowly came back into the same universe as D'khara.

"Yes, D'khara? Your what now?"

"My 90-day employee evaluation? Sir?"

Fleer's brow furrowed.

"Oh." He pulled out his datapad and glanced through it. He started guiltily. "Oh. Yes. Right. I have some time now. One moment." He sat down across from D'khara.

After pulling up some forms on his datapad, Fleer stretched out his legs a bit and read the first question off.

"So, D'khara, how are things going for you here at Riotfish, Inc.?"

D'khara glanced around at the dilapidated warehouse. He looked at Fleer's sling and bandages and his own healing scrapes and bruises. He fingered the new notch in his ear.

"Oh, pretty good, I guess. You know."

"Good, good." Fleer made a mark on his datapad without looking up, and moved on to the next question.

"Um, right, so are you getting along with everybody? Any personnel issues I can help with?"

"No. No, I think I'm getting along all right with everyone. Is everyone okay with me?"

"Sure, I think so." Another mark. "How is, uh, our culture? Company culture working for you?"

"Yep, yep. It's good."

An awkward moment passed.

"Did you--"

"I just--"

They stopped speaking over each other. Fleer motioned D'khara to go ahead.

"Right. I just... wanted to say I was sorry."

"Sorry?"

D'khara adjusted how he was sitting, staring at his seat. He was in the brown recliner-- the one with the torn-open arms and the seat that had strange hard bits poking up in unexpected places. Shreds of unpleasant brown upholstery clung grimly to what remained of the chair.

The recliner was hard to look at, but it was easier to look at than Fleer.

Fleer hunched when he sat now, favoring his left side where he'd been shot. He moved slowly, and breathed noisily, and had to take many, many pills every day. He would heal, but he might never be the same, and it was D'khara's fault. If he'd gotten there sooner, if he hadn't gotten sick, if, if, if...

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With his fists clenched, D'khara frowned at the floor.

"Nobody hires dwarves, but you hired me. You took a chance on me, and I know I'm a disappointment, and I know I deserve to be fired. But I want you to know that this has been the best job of my life so far."

This sparked an awkward silence, which stretched, and grew, and bloated until it filled the whole room. D'khara felt a bubble of emotion rising in his chest, which felt dangerously like it might turn into weeping. He swallowed hard, forcing it back down. The silence persisted. D'khara listened to it until he could stand it no more, then finally raised his eyes to Fleer's face.

Fleer looked deeply confused.

"Why would you be fired?" Fleer asked.

D'khara took a deep breath that came dangerously close to having a hitch in it, and words began to spill out of him.

"Because I burned down the mansion and wasn't any help getting Adler and then I got sick and tied up extra guys in the swamp and then got you shot and I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Fleer lowered his datapad.

"Well," he started slowly. "Well. I didn't realize... this has been weighing on you?"

D'khara nodded miserably.

"I finally found my place," he said quietly, "but I don't deserve to be a Riotfish."

Fleer thought quietly for a few moments, and came to a conclusion.

"I think I need to clear up some misconceptions," he said briskly. "First of all, in the mansion job, did you set the fire, or did Roger?"

D'khara shifted his eyes away. Fleer smiled.

"You don't have to cover for Roger. The only real mistake was letting Roger into the file room, and that's on me. I didn't think to mention anything to you about it, but Roger can be a bit of a firebug. I'm sorry that you ever thought that was your fault. As for the Adler job, I'm not sure I understand why you say you didn't do anything."

"I didn't. By the time Oliver and I got to you, you'd already... taken care of everything. We didn't get there in time to help you."

Fleer gave him a lopsided grin.

"You may not be aware of this, D'khara, but Oliver's after-action reports are incredibly thorough, and I do read them in full. It was you who made the decision to come in after me, dragging everybody else along. You have no idea how gratifying it was to see you march in there with Adler in tow. You guys secured the exit and actually accomplished our original objective. I was grabbing the data and hoping to be able to escape, but you turned it around-- instead of barely escaping, we achieved our goal, with the data and Adler both. Plus, I bet Adler will never file a false contract with the Guild again."

D'khara grinned a little at the memory of Adler sitting glumly in their holding cell while waiting for the payment to clear.

"More than all that, you guys came in to rescue me, and you did a great job of it. I managed Adler's flunkies, but I'm not perfect, and it could have easily gone another way. It's a comfort to know that if I'm ever in over my head, I'll have the smartest orc and the toughest dwarf ever tearing the place apart-- literally-- to get me out of there."

D'khara nodded.

"That's my job," he said.

"With Daugereaux... well, you didn't get sick through any fault of your own, it just happened. It was one of those circumstances we had to work around. At the end of the day, you and Dr. Navarre saved all of us. Saved me. Again."

"But you got shot," D'khara said.

"That's part of the risk of what we do," Fleer shrugged. "Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later." He grinned. "That's why we get all the money and fame, right? All you fellows did an outstanding job getting us out of that jam.

"D'khara, you don't need to be sorry, I'm sorry. I can't believe you thought-- look, you're not fired, you're family. You saved my life. Saved all of us. As far as I'm concerned, you're as Riotfish as they come."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," D'khara managed to squeeze out. It would have been dangerous to say any more, as the hot ball of tears pushed inexorably upward, threatening to escape. He stood, nodded shortly to Fleer, and moved quickly back toward his quarters.

Fleer sat back for a few minutes, smiling slightly. Fired, indeed. He shook his head.

"Well, might as well wrap this up," he said. He laboriously shifted himself forward in his seat, and carefully used his left arm to lever himself up. He groaned in tired pain as the movement pulled at his wound.

Fleer shuffled back into his office. At his desk, he dry-swallowed a couple pain pills. His side was feeling better, even if it gave him a nasty hitch whenever he tried to breathe deeply. He'd hoped to keep the bullet they'd pulled out of him as a memento, but the doctors had fussed about "biohazards" and "toxins" until he gave up on the idea.

He scanned the letter on his desk again. Daugereaux had been kind enough to send a letter-- couriered, written on actual paper-- praising the Riotfish. It was written in a crabbed scrawl, rife with misspelling and grammatical mistakes, but filled with compliments. Phrases like "I never seed such a crew in all my life," and "I bet nobody else in dat city is quite like de Riotfish," and "I feel like you boys deserve more den I can give you money right now," and "I will see if I cain't do you all a kindness." It was something Fleer would have already stuck on the office bulletin board, if the bulletin board weren't about to be seized by Crediture.

Regardless of how Daugereaux felt about his payment, he had been generous, compared to the size of the original contract: 90,000 credits, three times the contracted amount, plus a 5,000 credit bonus for each of the Riotfish, including Mrs. Meade. It was a lovely gesture, but with the increased costs, extra ammo and incidentals, there was not much profit left. Fleer sighed heavily.

He turned away from the numbers. Every time he reviewed them, his mind played back his last conversation with Pearce. "Your business is a poor risk, just as it was the last time we spoke," he'd said. "The partial payment changes nothing."

Even if Fleer poached the bonuses, they'd barely get past the halfway mark on what they owed. Not that he'd do that. Without permission.

So that was that, then. Riotfish was done. Pearce would come by later that afternoon. Fleer would ask for an extension, show off all the money they'd made and argue with him about how they could pay back the debt. Pearce would point out, not without some justification, that everything up to now had been a fluke, and that by liquidating Riotfish, Inc., Crediture could get all their money back by selling off what remained of the Riotfish assets. Fleer would bluster some more, to no purpose, and Pearce would file the paperwork that would start arbitration proceedings that Fleer probably wouldn't even fight because, fair enough, they owed the money and couldn't pay.

The headsman's axe was dropping.