I had planned on doing one fic and one pic per episode, but I don't think that would have worked out, so I'm sticking to one fic per episode. I'll be uploading one a day throughout January, and if I have time, there'll be a bonus fic at the end too. So without further ado, here is the first ficlet.


1.01: Armed and Extremely Dangerous

A Moment

There was a moment, when his partner was aiming a gun at him, when Dempsey thought he would die. And despite his quip "life is hard and then you die", he wasn't ready for that. He may recognise that his time would come, but that didn't mean he had to lie down and take it. It was Joey or himself, and Joey was a traitor.

Dempsey had work to do. He knew that he was the only one who knew enough to do something about the corruption in the police force. His badge had always been a source of pride for him, ever since he had earned it as an idealistic young man, and there was no way he was going to let someone else's greed tarnish his joy in his work.

So Dempsey shot his partner.

Joey took Dempsey's trust with him when he died. Any last trace of naivete was lost from Dempsey's mind. He recognised that, even among police officers, not everyone had the same ideals of harmony and peace as himself. Police officers were no longer worthy of automatic trust and respect; they were fallible, just as everyone else was, and Dempsey didn't know how to deal with that.

When he was young, he had seen police officers as a bit of a nuisance, interfering with his and his friend's games. As he grew into a lanky late-teen, he began to understand that they were trying to help. They were trying to stop kids like him turning to drugs and violence. And one day, he decided, he would fight for the innocent too.

Dempsey never questioned that he had done the right thing in shooting his partner. But that didn't mean he had to like it.