A/N: This was kind of a semi-prompt/request, so here it is. It was just for a RED story, so I came up with this. No humor (that I can see) here, sorry. I don't know why I write so much angst – I'm actually a very happy person. Anyway, you know how the shooter who killed Joe was never revealed? Well, they are now. :) See the little button down at the bottom that says "Review"? That button is your friend. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own RED, the characters Victoria, Ivan, Joe or Frank, or anything else about the movie. I did write the story, but I don't have any money (literally, zero) so you would gain nothing in a lawsuit. Please don't let it come to that.
She hated this.
Guilt wasn't a problem; being a trained assassin, she had long ago learned to eradicate her conscience. And she hadn't seen him in years, so that should have helped her feel better.
But it didn't.
Yes, she felt pain. But what she was feeling now was not only sorrow for a friend. It was more than that. It was regret.
Regret that things had to come to this. True, he had been in a late stage of cancer, so it probably wouldn't have been long anyway. But not many things in life could get worse than the loss of a mentor, co-worker and ally. Not much could level up to that.
She knew she wasn't the only one feeling the same way. But Frank did what he'd always done: grin and bear it. He hid everything inside until it dissipated. That was his escape from emotion he'd rather not feel.
She had tried the same thing, but she wasn't as successful. Her outlet became her job. That had happened a long time ago.
So when her superiors doubted her loyalty, she had done what she would never have been capable of doing before. She shot the one man who understood her and loved her anyway. And she survived.
That was the first time she realized that she would do whatever it took to stay alive, and to keep away a lifetime of that same regret that hung over her shoulder now.
She never showed remorse because she never felt any. She did what had to be done. That was her job.
In her extensive career, she had endured hours, days, weeks of physically and mentally grueling tasks, no two the same, always doing what was demanded. In all that time, she had never failed a mission assigned her.
Not even now. When the target in the scope was, once again, someone she cared about.
And as she packed up her rifle and fled the scene, feeling nothing but regret, she wondered, not for the first time, if she had chosen the wrong path for her life. She'd become so cold, resigned.
That's why it was the right one, she reminded herself. Who else could do your job with as little damage as you? Who else could handle it?
No one.
She never looked back at the body. She wanted to remember Joe alive and smiling in her house as she stitched Frank up for the thousandth time.
That was her excuse, anyway. She wouldn't remember him like that.
She knew she would remember him standing in front of that house, the black lines of her sights set on him. She would remember the slight twitch of his right index finger just before she fired. The signal.
Go.
She would remember how she didn't wait to see him fall. She just left.
Just like before.
Just like all the rest.
A/N: Questions? Comments? An Earth-shattering revelation concerning the dichotomy of good and evil? Tell me when you REVIEW!