Hey guys - thanks for the wonderful reviews. My class this morning was cancelled! Yeah! So I had some extra time to do a little writing. I'm really enjoying writing these oneshots, and I hope you are enjoying reading them as well. Love always.
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There were a lot of things snipers did to make their jobs easier. It wasn't easy taking a life. Not even when ending that life meant saving others. Knowing that letting a child-bomber run into a market would have far more devastating effects that shooting them didn't make it feel any better. Sam knew that.
The simplest, safest thing to do was to put away all emotion. To completely disengage from everything. You couldn't feel regret or pity or sorrow. You couldn't feel fear or anger. Not when everything was on the line. You couldn't afford to hesitate or tremble.
Steel. You needed to be icy steel. You needed to put aside your humanity for ten seconds, line up the shot and pull the trigger. When he stared down the barrel of that rifle he wasn't Sam Braddock anymore.
It was cold. It was calculated.
Only afterwards could you let yourself think.
But today wasn't like that.
Because the man he was lining up in his sights wasn't a misguided child. He wasn't an old man trying to scrounge up the funds to see to it his sick wife got the care she needed. He wasn't a father desperate to get his child the surgery she needed. He wasn't a scared teenager retaliating against his bullies. He wasn't an insurgent. He wasn't a thug. He wasn't an enraged alcoholic. He wasn't a grieving wife mourning her husbands' affair. He wasn't a frightened immigrant, scared of deportation. He wasn't a gang initiate, desperate to belong.
He wasn't any of those things.
He was the man who'd shot his partner. His friend. Jules.
Sam couldn't shelf the rage. He couldn't tuck away that fear, nagging in his head, that she wouldn't be okay. That she wouldn't get to the hospital in time. He couldn't hem away the guilt, that nasty, heavy guilt, that he should have shielded her. He hadn't protected her.
His hands were rock-still, stained with her blood.
He lined up the view, focusing in on the pair of shadowy figures in the engine room. They were interlocked – almost as if they were dancing. Just a few inches more he silently urged. Just a few more inches and he'd have a clear shot. A few feet forward and he'd step into the light. He'd step out of the shelter of the cement pillar.
The men shifted.
He squeezed the trigger.
The figure, dressed in the gunmetal grey of the SRU uniform, spun. Fell.
It was over.
