[MaC] "Now we know..."

[Mel Mason]

>> > As soon as the third shot left the pistol, the Group
>> > Commander was running again, the pistol still in hand.
>>
>> When he arrived, Philip was down. The blood was bright red, most of it;
>> probably a lung wound, then. Philip was gasping for breath with no 
>> apparent
>> success, and his eyes settled on Michael's after a few moments. There was 
>> no
>> anger in the eyes, no hatred, just confusion and regret.
>>
>> Philip took a deep breath, in obvious pain, and tried to say something, 
>> but
>> instead he simply died.
>
> "Bloody hell," Michael spat on the rubble. He dropped to his knees
> next to the body and closed the pilot's eyes. He whispered a prayer as
> his own eyes began to tear.
>
> "We're even Skeffers. One got away, this one didn't. A null game," he
> said to no one in particular. He holstered his pistol out of sheer
> reflex and watched the red stain slowly darken more and more of
> Powell's uniform. It was different watching a plane billow with smoke
> and fire as it fell from the sky, a result of your weapons. There was
> a detachment that Michael just couldn't find here.
>

Oswald moved forward, his hand resting on the other man's shoulder.  "You 
did what had to be done, Warren," he said, using the other's true name at 
last.  "If he had survived ... well, what he had to look forward to wouldn't 
have been very pleasant.  This might be the way he preferred.  There's a lot 
of death around us - some glorious, and some messy, and squalid.  What 
you've done ... you've saved him one of the worst kinds.  Just as you saved 
Dr Marsden seven years ago.  That time - she lived to thank you.  This time 
... I believe he would have thanked you too."

He let his hand rest a moment longer, and then turned to Inspector Gideon.

"We'd better go back upstairs," he said.  "There's a man we believe to be 
dying - and something else you should see too."

"Coming?" he asked Michael.


(OOC - who is at the bottom of the stairs?)