Disclaimer: I don't own VLD!

A/N: Sooo, I've sort of been obsessed with thinking about Lance and his family and wanted to write about them. If I try any Spanish and totally screw it up, I'm sorry! I'm doing my best. :) PM me if I screw something up really badly, lol.

For the Best

"Oh, Lance—But really? That's wonderful! I mean, I know it's not exactly what you were hoping for, but it's still nice, isn't it? My baby, a cargo pilot."

"But Mama…"

Lance had known this would happen. This was why he had been putting off calling them all day long. He was sitting on his bed, using his cell to videochat with his family. The Garrison was a few hours behind time in Varadero, so his family was already finished with dinner and getting ready for bed. He could hear Paz in the background, yelling as she chased down Theo, and his grandparents were playing backgammon in the living room, visible in the corner of the screen. They were winding down while Lance was supposed to be at dinner himself.

"I'm sorry, I know you really wanted to be fighter class," his mother said, but the relief was plain on her face. "But you're still at the Garrison, like you always wanted, and you're a real pilot now. That's fantastic."

"Yes, sort of," he said, rolling onto his stomach. But it wasn't the same. Hunk got it. Why couldn't his parents understand? Not that he really expected them to… Ever since he had announced his intentions to try out for the fighter pilot classification, his mother had been on him to switch to cargo class. It was more stable. It was less stressful.

It was safer.

"You'll still get to fly, hijo," his papa said, managing to not look as happy as his mother, "You'll go all sorts of places and meet people, and cargo pilots get to go on more flights than fighter pilots."

"Your papa was just reading about that the other day," Mama said, smiling, "You'll put wrack up more flying points."

"It's flight hours, not flying points," Lance said. He was trying his best to not sulk, but couldn't they just sympathize with him? It would almost be easier to accept it if they didn't seem almost excited that his dream had just been snatched away, ripped to shreds, and thrown to the wind.

"I think it's a good, steady job," Mama said, "You'll get more time off, and you can come home more often."

"Yeah, I guess," he said and attempted a half-smile, "You guys are still coming to Family Weekend, right?"

"Seeing how we already took time off for it and have a hotel booked, I sure hope we're coming," Papa said, "I guess we could change our plans and go to Disney Land instead…"

"Disney Land!" Theo yelled in the background, swinging from the banister of the stairs, "Let's go!"

"We can go visit that lake you like," Mama said, and he could tell she was trying to make him feel better. "And Hunk and his family can go with us. They're coming too, aren't they?"

"Yep," Lance said, nodding. He plucked at a thread on his blanket and propped his cell up on his pillow. For a long moment, there was silence except for Theo and Paz arguing about what they would do at Disney Land if they were able to convince Mama and Papa to go there instead of the Garrison.

"Lance…We know you're disappointed," Papa finally said, "But don't let this ruin your experience there."

"I can retake the test next year," Lance said, "We can take it once a year, and I was only a couple points behind the next guy." They only trained a few fighter pilots from each year, and he was so close to beating out Keith for the spot for their year. Sometimes he just wanted to tackle that guy and shave his mullet off.

"Let's worry about that next year, then," his mother said gently, "Keep having fun and making friends. And don't get into too much trouble."

"Tell Conejito that he should keep his feet on the ground, where they belong!" came Papi's crackling ancient voice. Lance couldn't see him, but he could imagine him banging his fist on the table. He sighed at the old nickname, wishing for the thousandth time his grandpa could let him grow out of that one.

"He's a cargo pilot, Papa," said his mother, "You should congratulate him."

Ohhh, Lance would rather not. Could they skip that part?

Suddenly the camera moved, and the view yanked to the side. Theo's face, so similar to Lance's own, took up the entire screen. "What?! You're not a fighter pilot?"

Lance glared at his purposefully aggravating little brother. "Not exactly. But I was close."

"That's not fair!" Theo said. He carried the computer away from the living room, leaving behind his parents and grandparents, and walked out onto the patio at the front of the house. The door creaked and then banged shut behind him before opening again to let Paz out. "How come they won't let you be a fighter pilot?"

Lance shrugged, but part of him was glad that at least his brother was taking his side. "They only picked a couple of fighter pilots from our class. I'm next in line if something happens to the other guy."

"Is it that dirty mullet cabrón?" Theo asked, leaning into the camera and breathing on the lens. "Was it?!"

Paz yanked him back and then smacked him upside the head. "Go wash your foul mouth, and stop fogging the lens." Then she looked hard at Lance. "Well? Was it the Mullet?"

A little older than Lance, Paz was about to graduate from high school and go off to college soon. She had darker hair than him and hers was curly, but they shared the same blue eyes. Most of their family had blue eyes, and now hers were trained on him in sympathetic anger.

"Yeah. The Mullet got in."

"That—" She happily indulged in a string of curses in three different languages that would have made her mother make her wash her mouth out with soap and gargle salt water. "That's the worst, Lance."

"Maybe he'll break an arm," Theo said with vicious enthusiasm, "Or both arms! And then you can take his place."

Lance couldn't help but snicker. Still, he shook his head. "It's okay, he beat me. It's fair, even if it sucks."

"It sucks so bad though," Theo said, and Paz pushed him out of the frame again.

"You're not helping," she said, thumping him on the ear.

He batted back at her and shoved his way back into the frame. "Am too, I'm coming up with ideas." Tapping his chin, an evil grin brightened his face. "When we're there for Family Boring Days, we can sabotage him. I can put a snake in his bunk. You got snakes there?"

"I could threaten him," Paz said with a shrug. As a capoeira and jiu-jitsu fighter, she was more than a little intimidating. Lance had lots of memories of Paz trying to take him down while showing their parents new moves she had learned, which had prompted him to learn how to fight back. They were pretty evenly matched nowadays, even if he was just self-taught due to needing to survive a childhood with her crazy self.

"Thanks, but I'm going to have to say no to both of those," Lance said, though their attempts to make him feel better worked. A little. At least they understood. "Hey, I've gotta go soon. Is Josie there?"

Paz picked up the computer and headed indoors. "She's in bed already, but she's probably still awake."

"Can you check?"

"Where do you think I'm going?"

Paz carried the computer up the stairs, and Lance saw the handprints on the wall of the staircase. Instead of pictures, there were handprints from all of his brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and relatives all over the wall. Lance's mom said it was like having everyone in the house all the time. Papa just said it saved money on picture frames, which usually got him a swat on the arm.

When she reached Josie's room, Pax stopped and lifted the computer up to her face. "Hey. I'm sorry. I know how bad you wanted fighter pilot."

"I can try again next year," he said again, going for the optimist route. He didn't want her to feel sorry for him or anything. "This just sets me up to be the beloved underdog."

"Yeah, it's better for your heroic story in the long run."

"The Legend of Lance McClain. It'll be streaming in five years, you watch."

"Shut up, you ham…"

Paz knocked on the door and then opened it. A soft golden nightlight glow lit the purple and blue explosion of a room. The little bump under the covers on the bed shifted and then Josie pushed the covers back. She saw the computer and made grabby hands for it. "I wanna talk, m'not sleepy."

"You are, too," Paz said, rolling her eyes, but she set the computer on the bed anyways. "I'll come back and get this in a few minutes."

"Hey, pajarita," Lance said, managing a smile for his baby sister. He probably would never tell anyone, ever, but Josie was his favorite sibling. Yeah, sure, you weren't supposed to have favorites, but he did. It was because he had partly been in charge of raising her, since he had babysat all the time, but he was the one who taught her how to swim and how to walk and when the best time to steal food from the kitchen was. She was cute and tender-hearted and quiet and didn't tease him as much as his other siblings, and he just wanted to protect her from the world. It helped that she loved him best, too. "What'd you do at school today?

"Hi," Josie said, pulling the covers up around her head. "I made a new friend."

"Yeah? What's their name?"

"Gaby," she said, "She's got black hair and likes Barbie and Legos like me and her favorite color is purple."

"Sounds like best friend material right there."

"Yeah…" She made a face at him and leaned in closer to the screen. "Why're you sad?"

"Huh? I'm not sad," Lance said. Hundreds of miles away, he sat up and picked up the phone. He forced a bright, winning smile, one that he had down-pat. "See? Super not sad."

Josie's lower lip poked out, and she reached out to pat the computer screen. "Don't be sad, Lance."

"Josie, I'm not—" He gritted his teeth, wondering how he had wound up with such a perceptive little sister. What was it with itty bitty kids and being able to know things about people? Or was that just Josie? "I'm just disappointed."

She tilted her head to the side. "What's that?"

"It's…something didn't happen the way I expected it to, and it was something I really wanted, so now I'm—"

"Sad."

"Yeah, okay, fine. I'm sad." He flicked his eyes at the camera. "Brat."

Josie's lip trembled in commiseration, and she wrapped her arms around the computer. "Poor Lance. Love you."

Lance covered his face with one hand and took a deep breath, trying to keep the heat out of his eyes. Man, this sucked so bad. If he was going to cry about it in front of anyone, Josie wouldn't be the worst person. Still, he didn't want his baby sister to see he was that upset.

Flying as a fighter pilot had been his dream since he had first seen a recruitment ad for the Garrison on TV. He had spent years imagining himself in the cockpit of a high-speed, high-octane ship, flying himself and his crew through danger with ease and skill. And now it was like being told he was second-rate, hardly fit to fly at all. He knew that was wrong, that he shouldn't think that way, but that's how it felt when Iverson called out their testing positions.

To the entire class.

"I wish I could get a real Josie hug," he finally said, shoving all of that mess to the back of his mind, where it belonged, "Miss you, squirt."

"Miss you, too," she said, leaning back and patting the computer.

But hey, at least his family was coming to visit soon. Maybe they could all just ditch the Garrison and go to Disney Land for a few days. It would be nice to get away from a while. Also, they'd be less likely to talk about how nice it was that he was a cargo pilot.

Yeah. Very nice. Very safe.

Great...