Hey, I got writer's block with my other story. i know where i want it to go, but to do that i had to get this out of my head. Hope you like it. Just a simple one shot with a twist at the end. Enjoy!

One shot.

One chance.

If he messed this up, there was no going back.

He stared at the man across the floor, holding his partner in a choke hold and raised his other hand to steady the gun.

It felt cold in his hands, foreign. It didn't belong there, never had. But they didn't belong there either. They weren't supposed to be facing these demons now, they weren't supposed to be rethinking their lives.

They were just on a freaking coffee run.

The man was yelling, screaming something that made little sense. No one heard him anyway. The women were screaming; the children were crying. The people huddled on the floor, hid under the counters.

He tuned them out.

His partner needed him.

It didn't matter that in all his career he hadn't fired a damn gun. Sure he'd pulled one, but that was just for show, to command attention. No one messed with you when you have a gun aimed in their general direction.

The man didn't see him. He was too busy waving the gun in every direction, demanding attention, panicking when no one listened. He raised the gun and fired a single shot in the air. Plaster rained down on them. Women screamed and choked on their tears.

An eerie silence filled the shop.

He leveled the gun on the counter, took aim.

The man put the gun to his partner's head. He yelled. His partner winced, his eyes frantically searching the shop for him. He didn't meet his eyes. He wouldn't be able to take the shot if he met those eyes. Doubt was a luxury he couldn't afford.

One shot.

One chance.

He took it.

The bullet sailed through the air as reality caught up to him. He wouldn't be able to take that bullet back. He wouldn't be able to close his eyes with out seeing that man's face, knowing he took a human life. Guilt would consume him, erode him down.

The bullet struck the left side of the man's head, just above the ear. He jerked to the side, his jaw going slack. The hand holding the gun went limp, the finger slid off the trigger. He crumbled to the floor.

As he watched his partner stumble and pull away to look at the dead body and look up at him with complete disbelief in his eyes, he knew it would all be alright. It may not be perfect, but it would be alright.

Because they were both alive.

He stood, trying hard not to look at the corpse on the floor. He tried to block out the screams of terror and the curses and haunted looks sent his way as he walked across the shop to stand beside the man he called friend.

"You shot him."

He understood the disbelief in his voice. He felt it too. But he couldn't explain his reasons or his actions. Just this once he didn't want to offer up an explanation because really, they were self explanatory.

His partner was in danger.

He acted.

That's all there was to it.

His partner turned to him and with a genuine smile he said, "Thank you."

He nodded and held out the gun.

"Here's your gun back, Peter."