Title:     Counterbalance
Author:    dtg
Email:     dgoggans@earthlink.net
Website:   http://home.earthlink.net/~dgoggans/
Rating:    PG
Archive:   Just let me know.
Keywords:  155 word vignette
Spoilers:  None
Summary:   Skinner reflects on choices made.
Notes:     Written in response to a Scullyfic
           challenge. Skinner in 155 words.

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Counterbalance by dtg

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Ten years old. 

I had a car older than that, that last summer on the 
other side of the world, back before I knew how it 
feels to take the life of a child. A child who was 
about to blow us all, and himself, straight to hell. 
I saved six lives at the cost of one that had barely 
begun. 

So, why has it never felt like a fair trade?

Twenty-five years later, I'm even less sure what's 
right or wrong...or maybe I've simply recognized that 
there's no clear-cut definition of either. 

War makes strange bedfellows. I've sold my soul to a 
man who values his own so cheaply that he can't 
comprehend the price he demands. In exchange, he's 
allowed me to keep my life, and he's given back the 
lives of my friends.

Two and half decades after the death of a child, the 
lives of my friends almost even the score.

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end