A/N: I finished my job today, and won't be going back to it until after my A-levels (in order to do coursework), but a side-effect of 12 extra hours of weekend is that I have extra writing time… so this may well turn into a long-ish multi-chap :) Yay on angsty goodness! Xxx Saffy
Dust to Dust
A 'Silent Witness' fanfic by Saffy Scarlett
Prologue
I'd never really given much thought to how I'd die, but I suppose I would have liked to have passed away of old age, in my sleep. In typical style, however, my wish wasn't granted.
I suppose, in some ways, that I was lucky; the war took me early on. It's the people who I left behind that I pity – not just because of their grief, but because of that fact that they had to carry on battling, through everything I was able to leave behind…
A churchyard, in March. The sunlight peaks through the clouds, and catches on the rain drops… and the tears. Two men, dressed in black, stand close together, holding their wives close against the bitter cold, as they watch a coffin being slowly lowered into the ground.
The older couple stare blankly down into the pit, their faces stoical. The younger man, too, is expressionless; the younger woman, though, cries bitter, painful tears into her husband's shoulder. He leans down and kisses her on the top of the head, carefully teasing a strand of tawny hair back into place, as the priest begins his mantra;
"Ashes to ashes; dust to dust…"
I gave up my fight so early on, it seems, with hindsight – I was fighting a losing battle from the very beginning. Before we even realised what was happening, the net was tightening around us, pulling us in, and trapping us, so that my death was the only outcome possible…
A gunshot goes off in the distance, and Harry, crouching, hidden, suddenly buckles, tears of rage and fear and frustration and grief pouring down his cheeks; it's over, then… it's the end… the moment they had all prayed would never have to happen… the moment which, inevitably, did…
We thought that we'd covered all the tracks; we thought that we had everything under control… but, from the very start, it was anything but in our control. I remember how it started, and I remember, too, how certain we'd been that we had every base covered. Harry once told me, I recall, that it was always me against the world… and, this time, I suppose that he was right. If only I'd not been so hell-bent on justice… if only I'd known when to give in…
"Leo, look at this…" A blonde woman in a lab-coat crosses the room, a pile of papers in her hand, and a defiant look on her face. She passes the papers to her boss, and smiles knowingly. He surveys the papers, and concedes that she was right all along…
"Be careful," he cautions her; "I don't think that you really understand exactly what it is that you're getting yourself into."
"I'm a big girl, Leo," she replies, "I can fight my own battles."
But… I couldn't, could I? Not really… not if it ended up like this…
I thought, all along, that I was invincible, and that they would never dare hurt me… that they'd not come after me, or make me fight this crazy war. But, they did… of course they did. They were always going to…
My name is Doctor Nicola Alexander, and this is the story of how I died…