A/n: I was watching season 1 the other day and this sort of formed in my brain in bits and pieces. I have no idea why, nor why it's all dark and death-filled, but the plot bunny wouldn't shake off, so here it is. For further punch, try listening to "Win One For the Reaper" by Michael Giacchino (on repeat since it's quite short; and yes, where I stole the title from!) while reading this.

Warning: dark themes, character death.

"Waking the dead creates too many unfortunate variables. I'm just taking myself out of the equation." -Ned
(2x10 - The Norwegians)

Win One For the Reaper

He remembers the day he told Chuck that she and Digby were the only two alive-agains he'd kept alive for longer than a minute. He wishes he could go back there, back to when that was still true.

Olive was an innocent bystander when she died. Passing through, passing by. A robbery gone wrong and a stray bullet. She hadn't even realized she was dying, didn't realize that all that blood was hers.

He had been devastated when he'd heard the news. Chuck too; eyes puffy and face wet with tears of grief. Emerson had hung his head and been uncharacteristically silent, eyes glistening.

He hadn't planned it, hadn't thought long and hard about it, but when he arrived at the morgue, he knew he couldn't leave without her. He managed to send the coroner away and he went into the back, found her cleaned and far too pale.

"Oh Olive…" he whispered and touched her.

Explaining what had happened and then about his gift was somehow easier than he'd thought it would be, and certainly easier than getting her out the back door in his coat while he not-as-calm-as-he'd-have-liked made his way out the front door.

It was the homeless man in the alley who fell when the minute was up.

Emerson was investigating a grisly case involving a gang when he was stabbed in the chest. He'd been interviewing a suspect, all was normal, and then when he'd been on his way home, it happened.

The piemaker felt broken inside when he found his friend, and just as it had been with Olive, he couldn't leave Emerson dead. So he touched him and could never touch him again.

A woman in the apartment complex nearby was the victim then.

Because the piemaker was certain at this point that his life was slowly turning into some sort of living hell - where he lived with and interacted with and shared days with his friends and his love and his dog but yet could touch not a single one of them - it figured that it would only get worse.

Aunt Vivian was struck down with an incurable disease and when she passed only weeks later, Chuck begged the piemaker to do something, to bring her back. He protested while she cried and his heart broke all over again.

"Please Chuck," he ached to hold her, to make her understand. "I can't."

He'd never been able to refuse her for long. Besides, he'd already broken the one-minute-of-life rule enough times already, would it really hurt to do it again? (It did, oh God, did it ever…)

He made sure they were far away, especially Aunt Lily, and then he touched Vivian, the one time she didn't mind being touched. And so she joined the inner circle of alive-agains.

The neighbour across the street was the casualty that time.

He felt diseased, walking around never touching anyone. Sick with guilt over the lives he'd traded – who was he to play God? Even Chuck's smiles failed to warm him. That only made things worse. No matter how bad things got, she'd always been able to bring sunshine to his soul and help him see silver lining.

And maybe she tried, but he couldn't listen. He felt like all the oxygen was slowly leaking out of the room, making him dizzy and blue. He felt like a zombie, felt cold, felt cursed.

Felt like things could be, would be, so much easier without him. Without everyone walking on eggshells, without having to say or shout warnings whenever they moved.

Maybe he should move.

He did try. He tried to leave, to let them live their lives, to carry on the Pie Hole, and he would start another one somewhere else. They didn't want him to go, told him he was being silly, told him it was no trouble to never be too close, to always warn each other and him when they were close. After all, he'd given them all a second chance at life, it was the least they could do.

Yet still his guilt lingered, the darkness grew, the clouds came and even when the sun shone, he couldn't feel it.

That night in the cemetery, he thinks back to the time when he'd told Chuck that she and Digby were the only alive-agains he'd kept alive for longer than a minute. He thinks about the homeless man, the woman in the apartment complex, the neighbour across the street. How they were somebody's somebody, and it was selfish of him to save his somebodys just because he has this gift – this curse.

Wouldn't it just be easier to be normal? To grieve and accept death and move on? To be like everyone else, to love and lose? Maybe easier was the wrong word. But surely it was more right, not to be constantly messing with the natural order of things like this.

He'd had his gift – curse – under control for so long. But Chuck had changed that. Olive had changed it too. Emerson and Aunt Vivian. And now here he was, a shell, a plague, a leper to everyone he loved, because he couldn't follow the rules. Because he had to be selfish, because he couldn't face grief.

Leper… selfish, cursed little leper…

He sinks to the ground, his knees quickly made damp by the snow. He knows they're not going to understand, and how could they?

As he raises the gun with numb fingers, Ned almost wonders if his gift works on himself.

-end-

A/n: UM, ya, dark. I have no idea where this came from – certainly not what I ever thought my first PD fic would be. Thanks for reading! Feedback appreciated. :)