Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	"Almost" by Bowling for Soup

A Cop's Tale

Title: All In The Line Of Duty
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG-13ish... for violence
Main Characters: Unnamed police officer, Dallas Winston (of course)
Pairings: N/A
Spoilers: If you don't know what happens to Dally in the end, you might be in for a shocker!
Warnings: Death references, violence
Short Summary: He was just a kid. Only 17.

I helped kill a kid last night. He was 17. Only 17. And I shot him.

I knew the kid sorta. I don't know how I coulda made it bein' on the force without ever running into him. The kid had a record a mile long. His name was Dallas Winston, and all of us at the station had seen him at one time or another. He'd been hauled in for everything from petty thievery, to fighting, to disturbing the peace. Even hauled him in the other day for questioning regarding a murder.

Every time I saw that kid, I thought, "Man, he's really gonna get himself into some real trouble one day if he don't start actin' right." He was a hard one. And when they're already that hardened at 17, it's hard to ever get through to them again.

I'd see him in the station... sometimes I'd be the one questioning him... and I'd always tell him, "Stay out of trouble, kid. I don't like seein' you in here so much."

And he would just sneer at me and say, "Yeah, whatever, fuzzman."

I knew he was trouble, but I really hate to see a kid go down the wrong path. I never wanted to see him with a bullet in him. Especially not my bullet.

In ten years on the force, this is the first time I've ever killed anyone.

Why'd it have to be a kid? He never had a chance to be a man... But I just wonder... If he'd ever had that chance, would he have taken it?

But I'll never know.

You know what else makes it so bad? The gun he pulled on us wasn't even loaded. Not one dang bullet in it. Believe me... I've looked at it a hundred times in the past few hours. But it didn't matter. All I could think of was one of my men going down.

So I took aim and fired. And now I've killed a kid. And no matter how I try to forget it, I can't. I'll never forget that I took away any last vestige of hope that Dallas Winston might one day become a man, and not a hard, cold hood.

And no matter how many other officers pat me on the back and tell me it was all in the line of duty, I'll never forgive myself.