Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Lucky me.
They'd all known that there would be a time when they'd have to say good-bye to a member of the team. But they'd never pictured it like this. Not even getting a chance to say a proper good-bye.
It was unfair that his last days on earth that he had to endure what he had. The speculation, the questions, he didn't deserve any of it. A murder was the last thing he should have been called. But thanks to those two dirty cops, out to make a little extra money, who had ruined and taken the lives of so many others and he was the one who stopped them. It was a notable feat, one Warrick had paid for with his life.
That last meal in the diner was their final memory of him. All the others good and bad were there too. But those moments in the diner would never ever be forgotten. The laughter, the jokes, the good times. All cut short after he left… two bullets from someone who was supposed to be their friend… or at least someone they could trust. Those two bullets had changed everything. Two bullets could do that. Two bullets could transform the worlds of people who had come to know and love him.
Almost every murder was the same, in essence. Someone taken from the world too soon. Before they'd been able to finish living or even truly live. There were always hard cases, the ones you couldn't let go but this was different. It was Holly Gribbs all over again. Except that Warrick had been much closer to their hearts than Holly had. He had been more than just a teammate, he had been a friend. And now he was gone. Just like that.
Now they were stuck in a world that was different. Warrick was no longer part of their world. So in essence… the world they'd come to know over the last nine years had changed completely. It had changed before… but never like this. Warrick was gone to a place of no return. But one day they would all see him again.
Life would go on and it would never stop hurting but it wasn't something that could be changed. They'd lost more than a co-worker, they'd lost a friend and the world had lost a good man. Who was honest and tried his best. He may have gone out under scrutiny and suspected of wrongdoing but Warrick Brown was a good man. And even if the rest of the world didn't know it they did. They knew what McKeen had taken away. It was so much more than murder. It was theft. A good man and a better friend had been stolen from them. Forever.
All the memories they had were what was left of him. That and a son that no one had known about. It was a tragedy that a man who had changed their lives and their world so much could leave so little behind when he passed. He gave them hope and determination and so much more when he was alive. But now there was nothing left to give.
They had to pick up the pieces and follow the evidence like they had done countless times before. And this time it was to honour and to avenge a friend. Taken long before his time in one of the cruellest of ways but never to be forgotten. For as long as they all lived they would always remember him. His smile and his voice and everything about him that had made him so special when he was alive. As long as they were alive, in a sense he was too.
I saw For Warrick and I just had to write this. The episode was so powerful that it inspired me to right something. And then this sat around half finished for about a week and half and until I got the inspiration to finish it. So please review!