Disclaimer: Still don't own…
A/N: In most of my song-fics the words are enough, but in this case they aren't. So, if you don't already have it, move your mouse over to Youtube and bring up 'Kings and Queens' by 30 Seconds to Mars for this fic.
This is for the rumour going around at the moment of a character death. It would be nice to see a character death (they've suddenly become too rare) but does it really have to be her?
Children…
Into the night
Desperate and broken
He'd lost count after eight, ignoring the whispered tones of DC Will Fletcher reminding him that he had to work in the morning, that maybe he should stop, maybe he should head home. Head home and do what exactly? Stare at a blank wall, replaying the image over and over in his head? At least the alcohol made the image fuzzy, made the gunshot less rattling, made the reality easier to bear.
They still weren't recognizing his existence – uniform. He didn't really blame them, but it would've been nice to come to her memorial drink and not be reminded over and over and over again of the times he'd let her down, ignored her feelings, suppressed his own, then finally put the bullet in the gun and pulled the trigger.
Metaphorically of course, not that he hadn't done it before, and like 'metaphorically' really made the difference. He'd killed her; it was that simple. He'd planned the move, he'd requested they fire, he hadn't even realised she wasn't there beside him until it was too late.
He'd never really been very good at noticing her. What she could do, how she could succeed where others failed, how involved she became and how she could fight the good fight. So unlike himself. She was rarely wrong, a good judge of character, but he could do neither.
She'd judged him worthy of herself.
He hadn't realised until it was too late that this judgement was who he wanted to be…
Now he'd left the pub, spurned on after tripping over and whacking PC Ryder in the arm. She'd scowled at him, whispered that it would be better if he just left before PC Roberts did something he'd later regret, so he'd paid heed to her advice and left. It was a little after 11pm, still early, but Will had been right about having to work. He had an 8am shift. A shift that he knew he couldn't get out of. She'd made friends in CID, real friends, and they'd been distraught by her death. They would not be appearing on Monday morning.
Straight after the shooting he had been offered leave, to work through what he'd done, but he'd stayed emotionless, cold, and told DI Manson he was fine. With a sceptical look, but no option otherwise, Neil rostered him on for the following Monday.
Now that the funeral had ended and the world had caught up, he wondered if telling his DI that he was fine had been a good idea.
Because he wasn't fine at all.
In fact, he was far from it.
The sound of a fight
Father has spoken
"That's the last hostage sarge." PC Roberts' voice came over the radio and he picked it up, responding.
"Okay. Block the doors, we're going to get them from the front."
Nate's voice returned. "Yes sarge."
He nodded at the CO19 figure beside him. "I'll need two on the back with the PCs please sergeant, just in case."
The CO19 sergeant, a 30-something man named Paul Nicholls, just nodded and motioned for his men to move away. As they did, he caught sight of the hostages being led around the side and back towards the ambulances by PC Taylor and Sgt. Stone. He mentally counted them. 14. That was the number right?
A shot from inside the bank made him turn away, forgetting the hostages, as the front window burst open in a volley of gunfire and everyone hit the deck or snapped back behind the cover of their vehicles. A voice came from inside. "Unless you all want to end up like the lady, you better get back."
The hostage-takers/bank robbers were talking about a woman who'd been killed before CO19 could arrive, a woman who had tried to take on the men when they had threatened her daughter with one of the weapons. A live CCTV hook-up had allowed the Sun Hill team to re-watch the footage of the woman's death, the girl running away between the figures as they started to fire at the roof, walls and anywhere they could. This wasn't just a bank robbery – it was a campaign and the men had already proven they'd do anything to get what they wanted.
Allowing the CO19 sergeant to try and talk down the men, he went to the IRV nearby where a pretty young PC sat watching the CCTV coverage live on a laptop. She turned it towards him and he could see one man in the window and the other at the back of the room, looking for something. But he wasn't after money, that much was obvious, because the cupboards he was searching weren't used to hold money. There was something else.
"What is he after?"
The PC shrugged. "Did you get them all?" she asked, glancing up at him with wide eyes. She was worried about the innocent patrons of the bank and that didn't surprise him. She'd always been that kind of emotional. He gave a curt nod. "The girl too?"
He frowned. "Where was she?"
The PC tapped onto a few keys and brought up a picture of a back storeroom. She motioned to a back cupboard. "She was in there, I watched her run in there and hide after the men shot her mother."
He picked up his radio. "I'll check with Sgt. St…"
But he stopped as she gasped, still pointing at the screen. "It moved sarge, the door moved." As he leant closer he saw it too, then a hand dropped and a face looked out. The PC covered her mouth with a gasp. "She's still in there."
We were the kings and queens of promise
We were the victims of ourselves
He should've seen the Ace up their sleeves. They'd known 7-year-old Abbie Harlem was still in there with them when they'd agreed to release the other hostages. They'd kept her as leverage, in case things went wrong. Their only problem was that they didn't know where she was and now the hunt was on. But once they had her, were able to use her to gain an escape, they were free with millions in their hands.
He should've read that move.
But instead he'd let everyone down.
He should've known that as soon as his back was turned she'd go after the girl. It was just the type of person she was.
She should've known how he'd react when the men inside the bank had started spraying the road with gunfire again. The way one of them darted away from the window, headed to the back of the bank and out of sight of the waiting policemen.
She should've known how worried he'd be that the bank robber would find the small side window, a window they'd attempted to secure but failed to. A window that looked out on the policemen side-on. A window that would give the men inside the perfect angle to fire-on and even kill a policeman.
How, when a figure appeared in the window near the front, headed for that small back-room, he would assume the worst and tell CO19 to take the figure out.
Not realising it was her.
Not realising she was in there and the item she was holding, that in silhouette looked like a sawn-off shotgun, was just a crowbar she'd used to get in through a locked back door. A crowbar she'd used to bypass trouble and get to the girl.
He saw a full-grown figure holding something and told CO19 to fire.
His move had only been proven idiotic when he turned back to the IRV to ask her if she had footage of the man going down and found her gone.
Found the note.
Realised she was in there.
And when the other man's voice came from the front of the bank, yelling he'd kill them all for shooting his friend, that was when his heart sank into his stomach and his hands shook.
He'd ordered them to fire on a figure that was now proven to be all right.
So who had CO19 just shot then?
He asked the question despite knowing the answer, the frame of the figure returning to his mind – too petite, the gun looked crooked at the top, had he mistaken a ponytail for a backwards-facing cap?
He leant against the IRV then, reality taking hold.
His impetuousness, her impetuousness, and their lack of knowledge of one-another… they had all killed her.
He had killed her, and that reality tore at his very essence.
He'd hurt her… but most of all he'd hurt himself.
Maybe the children of a lesser God
Between heaven and hell…
He wasn't sure why he'd attended the funeral that day. To see what he'd done, remind himself once again that he was a killer, he was a cold, heartless monster.
Her mother was crying in the front row.
Her sister just sat stock still, jaw tense, staring at the coffin.
Her father's hands shook in his lap, but he said nothing.
The priest muttered something about prayers or something – he wasn't religious and it seemed she wasn't either, but she'd been born a Baptist and seemingly would now die one.
He didn't believe in heaven and hell, but right now he hoped that there was a heaven and that she'd be let into it. At least that way she'd finally be where she belonged – an angel amongst the people. She'd always been.
A smiling, naïve little angel on Earth.
Unlike himself.
That was three now – people he'd killed. Two in the line of duty and one by way of words.
And as he looked upon her family he knew that once again none of them had been sensical. None of them had been warranted. None of them had been necessary.
All of them would haunt him.
One of them changed him. One of them came back to challenge him.
But only this one would tear him apart inside.
Because this time a little bit of him, the good part she had seen, died with her.
Into your lives
Hopeless and taken
He'd only taken ten steps away from the pub, still able to hear the voices from inside, and he glanced back at it slowly.
Inside people spoke about her fondly; they'd said so many things he hadn't known about her, little things he'd never had a chance to learn. Little phobias, little snippets from history, little fragments of life kept secret outside of Sun Hill's walls.
He'd known the PC she became when she stepped through the front doors. Well, he'd known the parts of her he accepted as faults, the parts he made to point out to her on pretty much a daily basis. But he'd never known her, and to be honest that hurt him a lot.
It was a definite case of not knowing what he had until it was gone.
Hearing the stories as he sat quietly in the corner of the pub or stood at the back of the church, the little things her family had brought for her to be buried with, taught him the side of her he'd never tried to see.
But even without knowing that side she'd intrigued him.
He couldn't ignore her like he could so many others.
She got under his skin.
He made out it was because of how opposite they were. How naïve she was. How foolish she could be.
But as soon as she was gone, as soon as he saw her that day, forgiving him, he knew then that wasn't it at all.
She'd got to him, made a chink in his armour, and to be honest he'd wanted her to continue filing away at that wall.
He'd liked her… he'd just been the naïve one by denying it.
We stole our new lives
Through blood and pain
The second man had finally emerged, now alone in his campaign, and been arrested. With Sgt. Stone and PC Taylor behind him, he'd rushed into the bank, headed directly for the front room, finding it to be one of those small offices the bank manager would've worked in. It came directly off the small back store room the girl had been hiding in and he guessed she'd come in here because it was the only room with a large lock on the door. She'd locked it too, PC Taylor bursting it open with a few hard kicks. That was when he'd seen her, laying on the floor beside the desk, the small sniper hole in the window at about stomach level. And that was where her hand now clutched, shaking as blood dripped from it. She lay in a pool of her own blood, whiter than he'd ever seen her and shaking, but she was still alive.
Just barely but still alive.
He went to her and knelt beside her, removing his tan jacket and pressing it to the wound, but he knew it wouldn't do. A CO19 bullet, he knew from experience, would've gone right through her. The blood wasn't just seeping from this front entrance wound but the exit wound somewhere on her back as well.
But she seemed content with the new pressure and gave him a small smile. "She's under the desk sarge." The sentence was whispered and she struggled for breath between words, meaning the sentence, which should've taken a second to say, actually took almost a minute, but then he glanced back at PC Taylor who was watching with a heavy frown, and motioned to the desk. At this Leon sprang into life and moved towards it, removing the crying child and leading her from the room, shielding her from the sight of the bloodied PC on the floor.
Once she was gone he looked back at the PC as she drifted slowly, her eyes closing. "No, no, wake up, come on…" he gave her a small shake, struggling to even say her name. Saying her name made it real, made it her. Right now in front of him wasn't her. She talked back, she called him wrong, she glared right back when he glared at her.
But this figure, this bloodied white figure, wasn't her.
"Sarge?" Her soft whisper broke his thoughts. "What happened?"
"I, uh, I thought you were someone else."
Her hand caught his. "It's okay sarge, it's not your fault."
But it was his fault. It was all his fault.
It was always his fault.
And now they were both about to pay…
In defence of our dreams…
She'd died before the ambulance had arrived, one minute whispering that it wasn't his fault, then closing her eyes very slowly and just going. He could feel it before he saw it. The way her fingers slackened in his hand, the way her chest gave one final heave before it fell silent, and then the blood just seemed to stop seeping under his jacket and onto the floor.
Death wasn't beautiful, but hers was strangely poetic, her eyes fluttering closed and she just seemed to drift away. Then she just lay there, completely still, until he realised what had happened and let go of her hand. It hit the floor with a soft thud, breaking him from the words on his lips.
He'd been about to tell her it had been his fault, that she'd been let down, that she was always right. But she'd gone before he had a chance. It was like she didn't want to hear him confess his faults. Didn't need to recognise them.
Maybe she already knew them all and had accepted them?
Later, as he'd left her to the ambulance officers, his hands dripping with her blood, Leon had rejoined him, hoping for good news about his friend. He could only shake his head.
It was at this point that Leon hit him again with what he'd always suspected but not yet been able to face. "She liked you, you know?" Leon could only look at his feet as he spoke, struggling to put past tense on his friend's stories. "Never really said why, but she did." Leon caught his eye. "Just thought that you should know that.
He'd have been happier never knowing that, just accepting another mistake on the list of those he'd made in his life, but now it was different. He hadn't just killed another innocent. This time he'd killed someone who had seen past his bad moods and just general anti-social behaviour.
Someone who'd wanted to know him.
That's when it hit him what he'd really done… killed someone that actually wanted him, the real him.
And that was when, with pursed lips and a deep breath, he'd left the bank in search of fresh air.
The age of man is over
A darkness comes and all
The inquest into her death would take place in a week, requested not just by her family but also by her Inspector. Smithy wasn't talking to him, and so far the few PCs that had spoken to him since that day hadn't said anything supportive.
Why would they?
They were pained at losing their friend and it was his fault.
They didn't know he too was in agony. They didn't have any reason to care. He deserved to feel like crap. He deserved to wake up in the middle of the night, every single night, with the memory of what he'd done playing over and over in his head. He deserved to see her in the walkways of Sun Hill, find himself haunted by her. He deserved to have it listed on his personal record, have the mistake terrorise him forever. He deserved to have the DCI question whether it was a good idea to keep him at Sun Hill, not move him on. He deserved the hate. He deserved it all.
He'd spent the entire day after the shooting just sitting in his lounge room, thinking and staring at the wall, just caught up in what he'd done.
The day after that he'd gone into work, despite not being rostered on, to go through some files and try and take his mind off things. That was when DI Manson had requested he take some leave. He couldn't sit at home and stare at the wall for another day so politely declined.
The next day he'd spent back home with parents. It was his mum's birthday and she threw a party. He spent most of the day ignoring everyone's questions, even his sister's, and sat in the corner of the garden just frowning to himself.
The day after that had been her funeral and he'd dressed up and gone to the church for god only knew why. He hadn't spoken to her parents, had stood in the darkened corner ignoring the death stares of uniform, and stayed at the back of the group when they took the coffin out to the burial site and committed her body to the ground. When others lay mementos on her grave stone, he hung back and lay nothing. Then, as the others began to depart, her fellow female officers crying on the shoulders of their friends, he stayed.
When it began to rain and her younger sister ran for cover in the car, he stayed.
When her mother was soaked through and her father led her away, he stayed.
He stayed until he knew the drinks were about to begin then walked away with heavy heart.
He'd walked away and not looked back.
These lessons that we learned here
Have only just begun…
But he'd known he would return soon enough. So, after leaving the pub and finding himself aimless and with no desire to head home and stare at the wall, he walked to the cemetery. He found her grave instinctively and he stood over it, his hands shoved in his pockets and unable to find the words to say.
He'd never really been good with words.
So instead he left one last thing. The grave's dirt, still fresh and now wet, was dotted with flower bouquets and stuffed bears. The gravestone itself glistened in the droplets, but one area that was shielded by a vase of flowers stayed dry. He brushed his hand over it and moved the vase aside to give himself space. Then, withdrawing from his pocket the last thing he had from her, he stuck this gift to the gravestone.
A small yellow post-it he'd found attached to the laptop when he'd returned to the car to find her missing, having gone (he knew now) to save the girl.
'I'm going in to get her. I'll be quick'
Underneath, in the tidiest scrawl he could manage with a shaking hand, he'd added just one last line, the only words he could find that would truly convey the disappointment that had been that day…
'You lied'
We are the kings…
Amelia Jacinta Brown
Born March 14th 1983.
Died 23rd December 2009, aged 26.
Killed in the line of duty.
Beloved daughter and sister.
Loyal police officer.
Friend to many.
Will never be replaced.
We are the queens…