Struck Down
Prologue
~Fran Gipani

Disclaimer - Midsomer Murders isn't mine...but I will be able to claim a few creative murders in the form of fan fiction soon so...

Authors Note - Inspired by the episode Night of the Stag in series 14, I put a bit of a spin on the ending and went from there. So here's the prologue and I hope you enjoy :) This is my first Midsomer Murders fan fic so any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)
~Fran x

The villager had two seconds thought for which 'copper' to tackle first, the slighter of the two looked an easier target. So it was him he went for first, elbowing him in the stomach, and making him stumble back into the grass, with a groan.

"Jones!" Barnaby yelled as his Sergeant stumbled back, he felt himself shoved away as well but he managed to keep his balance. Now separated from Quested he tried to regain control of the situation. That was however until someone fired a hand gun into the air.

Silence fell over the group.

Ben managed to stand, and moving closer to Barnaby, they looked around for the source of the shot.

An old man stepped forward reloading the shotgun, "you gonna kill a copper now are we boy?" You think that's the right thing to do?"

"MURDERER!" a young girl strode forward but her mother held her back.

"Quiet there girl…"Quested began but the old man cut him off.

"Leave her Quested or I'll shoot you down like the mad dog you are," the old man pointed the gun at the man in handcuffs.

"Go on then old man," Quested sneered, "have a bang…"

Then all of a sudden, 'Smudgee' wrestled the gun off the old man, and pointed it, loaded, at Barnaby. Also at the same time two men grabbed Jones from behind and held him still. "Go on then 'Smudgee' finish him off…" someone yelled.

"No." Jones growled in response but got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble, he looked back up at Barnaby with a grimace, wondering how the hell they were going to get out of this one.

"Have you got anything to say before I pop you, copper?"

With one eye on the gun, Barnaby looked up at its wielder, then to Jones and back to the gun, he was about to say something when the gunman heard the sound of the police car in the distance, and that was when the tension changed.

In what seemed to be one second, half the village fled; Jones managed to fight himself free of his captors and as Quested barreled into the gunman, making him shoot the gun. Moments before Jones had seemed to realise what was going to happened and had shoved Barnaby out of the way.

"Jones, no!" The DCI yelled as he stumbled sideways, watching as Jones fell back onto the cold grass, the younger man head hitting a jutted out rock. With a growl of anger Barnaby tugged the gun from 'Smudgee's' hands and unloaded it, before chucking each part a separate way.

When the police finally got there, he set them to round up the men and hand-cuff them, "and we need medical help here. NOW!" he repeated forcefully, before kneeling down by Jones who was attempting to sit up but failing miserably. His face was set in a pained grimace, with his hand clutching at the deep wound at his side.

"I'm sorry sir," he mumbled out through the pain flaring out through his body, "I messed up. Big time."

"What…really Jones? You did fine; you saved my life, thank you. You are going to be fine," he kept a hand on the younger mans shoulder, "help's coming, there's an ambulance on the way, stay with me," he squeezed his shoulder, "Jones! Stay with me!"

"You're fine, yeah?"

"Yes I am fine Jones," he said with a hint of frustration, typical, worrying about me before himself, "and you will be as well! Stay with me!"

Ben's eyes began to slip closed, "Jones…Jones!" Barnaby raised his voice, "don't you dare! Jones! Ben?"

There was no response.

"You know Jones, sometimes you really can be quite, errm, slow," Barnaby frowned, "then at others you tend to surprise me." Barnaby sat at Jones's hospital bed, where the young Sergeant lay, in a coma of sorts. "You pushing me out of the way of the gun shot, you saw that didn't you?" his face twitched slightly, "you realized what was going to happen and you took action?"

The silence was unusual for Jones, and even more unsettling for Barnaby, who only half knew why he was there, sitting by the young man's bed.

John sat at the end of his bed, he was leaning forward on his knees, hands clenched, eyes closed. The image of Ben Jones falling back onto the grass, bullet in his side, head wound bleeding profusely, constantly playing in his head. Guilt. Honest and true, it was guilt. The problem was though, that John Barnaby didn't usually get phased by this sort of thing, and he knew for a fact that Jones wasn't dead – thank god, but that didn't get rid of the fact that it should have been him not Jones, in that hospital bed. Barnaby knew where his sergeant was, but hadn't gone to visit him. He didn't want to see what his carelessness had done to the younger man.

"John," Sarah walked in with a hot mug of tea which she handed to her husband, he took it from gratefully but didn't take a sip. She sat next to him, putting a reassuring hand on his leg, "why don't you go see him? I know for a fact that it would make you feel better, talk to him."

"You know, Sarah, talking like that to a coma patient, one could be seen as strange." he replied, still not looking up from his tea.

"I disagree," she smiled slightly, "in this case, you're feeling guilt, for nothing more than the fact that Ben made a decision that got himself injured, so really you have nothing to feel guilt about. Hmm?" she placed a kiss on his cheek, "you need to let it go John. This, none of it is your fault, and I am sure Ben would say the same."

John looked up, it looked like he was battling with himself, "I could have talked them out of it."

"A mad man with a gun pointed at your chest? I believe you could, but they didn't give you the chance did they?"

John nodded, letting a hand drop t o stroke Sykes who had started to whine, staring up at them both with sad eyes. "I'll go see him now."

So there he sat, the constant beeping of the monitor, telling him Jones was still breathing. The young man looked so still, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, with very little colour left on his face. "You know Jones, when you wake up, I have a feeling you're not going to be the same, I just worry about how much you'll have changed," Barnaby swallowed and stood, but before he left he put a hand on Jones' unmoving arm, "that doesn't mean I don't want you to wake up."

He got to the door but something made him turn back, "so you better follow those orders Jones – wake up."