Okay so, to start this story off I would like to mention to everyone that reads this, if I have PMed you and told you about my upcoming story, SF: Before Times, THIS IS NOT THAT STORY. I came up with this idea a few days ago now and I feel this has potential, so before Emile The Watcher does a one-shot on this, I'm gonna write this out how I want it and take full credit {no hard feelings Emile, your stories are still some of the best I've ever read. :)}. Okay, on that, I would also like to say, I feel as though my writing spirit has come back to me... Too fast... "So much to write, so little time." and now that's out of the way, please enjoy my latest story, Star Fox: The Dollar and The Key. (Don't ask where I got the title.)

Star Fox: The Dollar and The Key

Fox McCloud is nearing his old age. He is 42 and is a retired mercenary. He keeps having flashbacks to his younger days. The days that made him retire from the Force.

The Great Fox had beed retired along with him, in hopes that his upcoming family can take the reins of Star Fox.

"No, no... Take me, take me..." Fox was mumbling in his sleep, this had been a regular thing for him to do considering that Peppy Hare had gone on to be the General of Corneria. Krystal, Fox's wife, was lying next to him on her left side looking out the window. There was something about the moon and the stars that made her rest easy at night. Ever since "The Accident" happened, both fox's retired from the Force.

It wasnt hard to tell that Fox was having another nightmare, the bed would shake a little, almost unnoticeable. Almost... except for a certain blue vixen that lay at his side. She opened her eyes and laid there, motionless, listening to what Fox was saying, trying to diagnose and see if there was any chance she could save him from his nightmares. Thats when she was inturrupted.

"NO!" He shot up from his sleeping position, eyes wide in fear. Claws drawn and palms clammy.

He took a deep breath to calm him down and glanced at his wife, she hadn't moved an inch, her breath still deep. To Fox, she looked like she had been asleep the entire time, and still was.

Fox slipped out of the bed and made his way silently to the bathroom of their master bedroom.

He stopped and turned to shut the door just as he was doing so he saw Krystal roll over facing away from him. After he saw this, he shut the door most of the way so that there was only a crack separating the door from it's casing.

Turning the light on he looked at himself in the mirror, he happened to leave his red boxers on before bed so at least he was presentable.

As he stared at himself, thoughts now roamed his mind freely. 'Why couldn't I stop it? What if I did stop it? Would my life be any different if I had? Krystal's sure would... "Chicks dig scars" they say... On men though, not themselves! God, why couldn't I have fucking stopped it!?' His mind was so consumed by his own thoughts that he didn't see in the mirror that the door had opened as Krystal walked into the room.

She was wearing one of Fox's shirts as nightwear. It was a full black shirt that Fox had gotten a while back to help support the relief effort from the massive flood that came through Corneria city. The front of the shirt said; space force 101 hell or high water. It inspired people to do what they could to help as the city basically shut down for a full week and more to rebuild.

Krystal walked up to Fox and placed a paw on his shoulder making him flinch a little as he snapped out of his thoughts.

Krystal frowned as she looked at Fox dead in the eyes through the mirror, and spoke in her melodic accented voice, "It happened again... didn't it?" She said softly as she stroked the red fox's tense shoulders.

Fox merely swallowed hard and nodded looking down to the sink breaking the gaze between himself and Krystal. Whenever he had this particular night-fright he almost couldn't stand to look at Krystal face to face, as she bared a permanent mark upon her face of Fox's failure.

Krystal had a six inch scar running from under her right eye to the bottom of her face. It wasn't a regular scar either, with Krystal being a full blood Cerinian, her gene pool reacted differently to scar tissue. Instead of them being red with a sickly skin tone to it, scars would automatically fill in with dark blue fur, that way if you got a cut on any part of your body it would be more likely to blend back in with rest of the Cerinian's fur tone. Unless you were Krystal, her facial fur was white, and two years ago she just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time...

"Would you like to talk about it?" Krystal asked in a soothing voice as she rested her head on his shoulder.

Krystal always asked him this when he woke up like this. He would always say no and shake it off and climb back into bed with her. She was stricken when Fox delayed his response and turned his head toward her. He lifted a paw to the side of her face and ran a finger down the ice blue furry scar she had, dropping his hand back to the side he looked at himself in the mirror again. If his reflection had a mind of its own, he sworn it would've picked up a gun and shot him between the eyes... At least thats what it felt like to him.

Krystal was still waiting for her answer and grazed his mind with hers, finding out what he was thinking, 'I should talk to her about it... Maybe not...' His subconscious thought trailed off when he nodded his head and replied with an almost non-audible "yes."

While she was relieved he had said yes to her proposal, she was worried at what it might entail. Fox never once spoke word of his dreams to anyone other than General Peppy, but now he was busy running the army, and doing a damn good job at it too. Krystal could've read Fox's mind easily to find out what made him so distressed, but she decided it was best if Fox open up on his own. It sure took a while, but it finally worked.

"Where do you want to sit? Do you want to go downstairs? Have some tea?" Krystal asked nicely and quietly trying to be as soothing to the red fox as she could. Inside she was hoping Fox said he wanted tea, even her saying the word tea out loud made her mouth water. She loved tea. Ever since Fox first introduced her to tea when she first boarded Great Fox, she was hooked from the get-go.

Fox nodded, "I could go for some tea." He murmured as he pawed at the small of her back, and worked his way up to her shoulder blades.

"Okay, Fox. Shall we go?" Krystal spoke and gave him a light squeeze from the right. She knew that it was a hard topic to talk about. And she was there to comfort him through the thick and the thin. Telepathy helped her as she talked to and comforted Fox, because everyone reached their limit for comfort after a while and soon they would need some time to themselves and she didn't want to push Fox past his limit and have him freak out on her for being nagging too much.

'I'm... I'm ready to tell you everything Krystal... I'm sorry that its taken so long...' He thought, knowing Krystal would hear him. Sometimes Fox would do that, if he didn't feel comfortable hearing himself say what he needed.

"Fox, if you have hid it from me for so long and dealt with it on your own... it must be pretty important to you." Krystal said to him as she stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

Krystal was about half a foot shorter than Fox, she liked his taller height, it made her feel safe and secure.

...

Downstairs the duo sipped tea slowly and Fox was thinking in his mind how to start off this emotional conversation. Fox always has loved Krystal, since the moment he laid eyes on her cerulean coloured fur he fell in love with her and he knew that he HAD to save her from that prison that was slowly killing her.

Krystal was drawing closer to breaking the silence when Fox was sitting down basically eluding her questions.

Fox looked like a nervous wreck, it looked as if he hadn't slept for days on end, the more that he had thought about the situation te more he started to shake and fidget in his seat. Krystal never saw him in this light before, she always saw him as the proud, shy, and loveable Fox McCloud.

He glanced at Krystal, but it looked as though he was looking right through her, he was that scared.

"Fox? Are you going to be able to tell me whats bothering you?" Krystal asked, her voice cracking now and again with worry.

Fox blinked and came out of his trance again. When he shook his head he raised his cup to his lips and downed the three-quarters of hot tea that was left, and set the cup down on the table in front of him.

Sitting back in his chair he sighed, "Krystal... I don't really know how exactly to start saying what I want to say. I mean... Peppy doesn't even know about this. I've been meaning to tell him and he's just been busy running the army and I've just neglected getting help of any kind."

Krystal leaned forward in her seat locking gazes with the red fox, "'Fox', you know you can tell me anything, right?"

"Yes Krystal, I know-"

"Does it have anything to do with me at all."

"Well yes-"

"Did I hurt you in some way?"

"Did- no Krystal, not at all." He said quickly, "We're retired, we own a beautiful house and a nice-sized ranch, your my loving wife and you've blessed me with the perfect son, and... my life can't get any better." Fox sighed shakily on the verge of tears, not tears because he was sad about the situation he was in, but tears because he was sad about the past situation that he and Krystal were in, where she almost lost her life to a madman with a knife. It scared Fox and scarred him for life the day he almost lost his wife and the day Markus almost lost his mother. Krystal on the other hand, had come to terms about it and prayed to the gods, thanking them for saving her.

"Well, yes, but... What is it that's bothering you so much, Fox? Every time you make the slightest movement or mumble... I wake up and I-I hear you, I worry about you, and I want to do everything in my power to help you. But I can't help you unless you tell me what's wrong with you, why your having these dreams. Is it something that you haven't come to terms with yet or... what? You need to tell me, honey."

"I know Krystal, I know... I want to, I really do... It's just... I don't know how to word it exactly."

"Well don't sugar coat it for my sake, tell me from the beginning."

Fox sighed and leaned forward in his seat resting his arms on his knees as if he was keeling over, looking at his turning thumbs he spoke up, "It was during our last op... Before we retired..."

Krystal nodded, "I thought that might have been it."

Fox nodded solemnly, "Yeah... Operation Dollar and Key was... by far the saddest day of my adulthood... If not my life."

"Well... Lay it on me. Don't hold back any details."

"Well... It all started like this..."

...

So now that you have read the first (short) chapter, let me know what you think in the box below, don't forget that ANYONE can review, even non-members. This chapter was a lot shorter than I expected please don't fret though, my next ones will be feature length. (As they always should be.)