Dark Justice

CONTENT:
Rating: Teen
Flavor: Drama
Language: actually, no
Violence: mentioned
Nudity: none
Sex: none
Other: none

Author's Note:

I approve of Malcolm's choice in letting Daniel Brickwell live. But... not for the reasons Oliver stated. Sometimes, death is too good for them. Here's what I'd like to see...

Dark Justice

===#===

I spared a man's life tonight.

The irony is, of all the people I've killed, this man is the one who deserved it the most. Daniel Brickwell. This is the man who killed my wife, my beloved Rebecca, all those years ago.

Oh, I wanted to kill him, believe me. All the rage and pain that has built up inside me these past twenty years screamed for his death. But I couldn't do it. I realized that once he was dead, I would never know the answer: Why?

Why did she have to die? Why did my family have to suffer her loss? Everything I've done since that moment when they told me she'd been shot has been an attempt to make things right. To set the world right again.

I destroyed my relationship with my son in pursuit of intangible Justice. Even so, we had a chance to reconcile. If we had more time... But Tommy was killed. And it's my fault, again.

The friends I betrayed, that I killed. The friends who betrayed me. Tommy's death. The loss of everything I had as Malcolm Merlyn - my company, my reputation, my life, my name - all of it was the result of this one incident. One man's action. One man's decision to pull the trigger. Why?

Every time I have killed, there has been a reason. Every death I caused had a purpose, a carefully calculated and precise purpose. Yet when I asked this man why, why he had killed Rebecca, he had no answer. Oh, he remembered killing her. She was his first, he told me in perverse delight. He tried to goad me into killing him, telling me, even as I had him on his knees at the point of his own gun, that she had been weak, that she had cried and pleaded with him to live, and it disgusted him. He tried to make me kill him in rage.

But these were lies. He chose her at random. He had to shoot someone as part of some gang initiation. And, coward that he was, he chose an easy, defenseless target. He killed her for no reason. He had no reason to exist! His life was nothing but an empty waste of space, and every fiber of my being burned to kill him.

Yet still, I could not. I knew... I knew once he was dead, nothing would have changed. What was the use? Even his imminent death did not cause him to repent. It wouldn't put my family back together. The only shred I had left to cling to was Thea. She despised killing. Like Tommy had. Like Rebecca had. After what I'd done to her, my own daughter, I knew she was lost to me, anyway.

Then Oliver gave me hope. Hope of forgiveness if I showed mercy. I let him take Brickwell to the authorities. I truly didn't care any more.

As I distanced myself from the confrontation, as I cooled down, I could see the wisdom in this course of action. Oh, I had no delusions about the Justice System actually being able to dispense true Justice. They would simply throw Brickwell in prison.

You know that old joke, 'Hell doesn't want me, because they're afraid I'll take over'? That will be him. He's tough - and smart, too, which is a dangerous combination. It won't be long before he topples the current power structure and becomes King of Iron Heights. It isn't as grand a kingdom as the Glades he managed to take over, but I hardly call that 'Justice.'

When Brickwell comes to power, that will be the time to put my plan in motion. It won't do to move too soon; they may give him special dispensation at his sentencing. No, let him enjoy his petty power; it won't last. Oh, he won't be killed - death is too good for him, after all. Just... crippled. Enough to make him weak. Unable to defend himself as he's used to.

That way, every time they come for him, every time they throw him to the ground, every time his pleas for mercy, his cries for help fall on deaf ears... he will know exactly how she felt on the night she died.

That, my friend, is Justice.

===X===