**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**
Major Character Deaths - BE
WARNED! TURN BACK NOW IF THIS ISN'T YOUR THING!
**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**WARNING**
Finding Peace
by elfin
Tom threw his whiskey glass into the grate. No fit of pique, no
angry outburst. He felt nothing.
His last emotion had been elation before the explosion of horror.
After that... only numbness.
"You just took on a whole platoon,
Sir."
"With your help, Troy. With
your help."
A shared smile as they'd walked to the car.
He could never have seen it coming. Maybe... maybe Troy had
witnessed the sudden terror in Tom's eyes, maybe he'd heard the silent
shout of warning as the words had formed on Tom's lips.
"He didn't feel a thing, Tom," George had reassured him later.
He never stood a chance.
The baseball bat had been swung with incredible force; smashed into the
base of his skull. Shattered fragments of bone had been pushed
into his brain. He'd hit the ground so hard the impact had broken
his neck.
A second, two perhaps. No more.
Tom hadn't cried out. The shout had never felt his mouth.
Too late for that. He'd dropped to his knees in the gravel,
inches from his sergeant's head.
He'd expected the same fate, expected to look up and see the bloodied
bat swinging down. But the squadie was staring too, laughing like
a hyena, shifting from foot to foot like a madman, bat clasped straight
up in front of him.
Troy lay where he'd fallen, arms under him, knees bent, head turned so
that the wound was hidden. Striking blue eyes stared lifelessly
back at the imposing manor house.
Someone had called the emergency services. Tom hadn't heard them
arrive.
The blue flashing lights had cut through the black spots dancing at the
peripheral of his vision but the sirens hadn't made a dent in the
buzzing he could hear.
The ambulance crew had called the coroner.
Tom remembered reaching out, tangling his fingers in Troy's soft, brown
hair. They'd come away sticky, red with blood. He
remembered brushing the backs of his fingers over a warm cheek, over
lips still curled into the smile of triumph they'd shared.
No one had come near them until the coroner had arrived. George
had crouched beside him, putting one hand on Tom's shoulder and his
other on Troy's back.
It was the last scene George attended; he'd resigned two days later.
Several times over the last couple of days, Tom wished he could
remember what his friend had said to him as they'd sat there in dawn's
light. But he couldn't recall any sound other than the terrible
noise in his head.
Finally George had indicated that his two assistants should take the
body away. Tom hadn't moved. In his mind's eye he'd frozen
the image of Troy's final smile, eyes shining with pride. The
moment he moved, he'd known, reality would smash that picture and Troy
would be gone.
Feeling nothing had seemed like the best defence. And so he'd
waited until the sharp pain in his heart numbed. He'd waited
until he could no longer think but only focus on each new second.
He waited until his own existence was a single point in time; no past,
no future, just the here and now. And then he stood.
He drove to the station but was gently told that it was best he didn't
see the prisoner; the man who'd murdered his sergeant. Another DI
had been put in charge of the case. But there was no case.
Thirty or more witnesses could have testified in court but the defence
was to protest their client wasn't fit to plead. He'd be
sectioned for however long the doctors and authorities saw fit.
Tom would never see his sergeant's killer go to jail.
Stepping into the clinical, sterile morgue was the hardest thing he'd
ever done.
"You shouldn't be here, Tom." But George knew his words were
pointless.
"I have to say goodbye."
Troy lay on a cold metal slab, naked and pale, covered from toes to
shoulders with a green plastic sheet. His head was turned so that
he was facing the door, his eyes now closed. At first he looked
peaceful. But as Tom approached he saw the cuts in the stubbled
cheek were the gravel had bitten. And the bloody mess the
baseball bat had made.
"It was instant, Tom. He was dead before he hit the ground."
He'd always believed that telling bereaved parents their loved one
hadn't suffered helped in some way. It didn't. He felt no
better. He felt nothing.
George gave him some time, stepping back but never leaving them alone.
Tom touched his thumb to Troy's forehead, traced the curve of his cheek
and jaw with trembling fingertips.
"Goodbye, Gavin."
It was all. What did it matter that he never told him he loved
him? It was too late for both of them now.
He hadn't been able to tell his wife and daughter. George had
left Tom at his home and gone to the Barnabys' to tell them.
He'd gone home eventually to be met with hugs and genuine
sympathy. The two women in his life had cried, grieved for their
lost friend. Tom was sure he wanted to cry but he couldn't.
After the funeral, Cully had accused him of being heartless. She
was heartbroken, he knew and didn't hate her for her words, not even
for a moment.
He was heartbroken too. He just didn't know how to cope.
Worse, he didn't know how to heal.
The evening of the funeral Joyce said to him, "The worst is over,
Tom. We can remember him now."
How can anything have been worse than watching his sergeant, his
friend, murdered right in front of his eyes?
How could he live after that? How could he ever feel anything
again when he knew the horror had seeped into his every pore and was
just waiting for him to open himself to it?
Tom threw his whiskey glass against into the grate, the alcohol
momentarily feeding the dying embers so that they sparked and danced
for just a few moments more. He stared at the red of the fire in
the splintered shards on the carpet and saw the blood on his own hands.
One sharp edge winked at him from the marble hearth.
Getting up, he crouched to take it between his fingers.
He didn't need to leave a note. He'd already left his final words
with the stonemason in charge of carving them into Troy's headstone.
It was a relief when the glass cut into his wrist, because all he felt
was peace.
fin
elfin