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| Page Ten |
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Hank's talkie came to life. ##Engine 51, to HT 51. All the gear's stowed. Want us to put the Engine available?"## Hank lifted up his talkie and said. "When we're base bound, Engine 51." ##10-4, HT 51.## came Lopez's reply. And the station frequency fell silent. Rubbing his mouth, Cap could see Mike and Marco watching them from where they sat in the idling engine cab, waiting. He flashed them an okay sign without radioing back. He saw them visibly relax. Cap sat by Roy, not directly looking at him, as he took in the same spectacular view of the valley over the concrete river bed that Roy seemed to be looking at. He took in a deep breath of the canyon's sweet, spicy air. "Hear that, Roy? The birds are still singing..." Roy swung red, swollen eyes towards him. "Hear what, Cap? All I hear are the sounds of all those school kids, screaming, as that hill came down on top of them. I just wanna know why it had to happen. That's all. Is that too much for a guy to ask for?" But Roy didn't cry again. His face remained only dusty and flushed. Cap handed DeSoto back his helmet and slowly put on his own. "Come on, let's go." he said, grabbing a hold of Roy's gloved hand to pull him to his feet. "We'll take the engine home." DeSoto clasped Cap's dirty hand numbly, and then used its strong steady leverage until he stood. Cap watched Roy put on his helmet only after he seemed to contemplate the purpose for which it stood for long, unseeing moments. Then he saw Roy sigh a lengthy quavering breath. Roy's face was now a little less pale but his voice was weaker than a baby's. He murmured. "Yeah. Let's get outta here." Cap, threw a stokes blanket around Roy's shoulders and together, they went up the hill to the road. ----------------------------------------------------- |
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************************************* Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 10:34:05 -0800 (PST) From: "Patti or Jeff or Cassidy" <voyagerliveaction@yahoo.com> Subject: Come Uppance... It was four hours after the L.A. river call. Marco Lopez looked up from where he was dishing out chow for Henry. The longish hound was snuffling excitedly as the Rival can of dog food filled his chrome dish. All the guys were watching him get worked up. And some of them even had their fingers crossed for luck while Marco finished. Stoker, ignoring their "sport", was the first to see Cap enter the kitchen. "How's he doing, Cap?" "Roy? Still resting. I did order him to take a nap. And yes, I explained to Joanne what happened and then called the crisis counselor just a few minutes ago. She's coming for a station visit, and she's towing along Roy's wife. They'll one to one with him first and then we'll get our session over dinner as planned." Hank announced. He knelt and petted Henry as the dog licked his lips in anticipation of supper. "That's good. Maybe ..having Joanne around will help Roy get back his equilibrium." Kelly said thoughtfully, arching his balled up snack napkin into a wide shot for the trash bin. It landed perfectly. "I know it will." Cap said empathetically, rubbing some dust out of his nose. The gang fell to the moment as the salty scent of horsemeat filled the air. "Do it Lopez.." Stoker said with anticipation. "This time it's gotta work." Marco carefully set down the dish gingerly, as if jarring it would cause Henry to lose interest. "There you go, Henry. Dive in." The slowish hound looked up, licked Marco's face, jumped down from the leather couch, almost on top of the food bowl, and then he kept right on truckin forward and straight out the kitchen door. "Hey, where are you going ya crazy mutt?!" Kelly said from where he was sipping coffee at the kitchen table. "What a schmo...Geez, that's two cans of grub now, slated for the trash can.." Hank only chuckled. "You forgot Henry's a true station dog there, Kelly." Cap grinned. "Can't you see he's making a house call? It's more important than food to him." "Yeah, Chet. He does it all the time whenever one of us is feeling out of it." Marco said, retucking his shirt in around his belt. He had just come out of the shower. Johnny neatly rose to his feet, abandoning his coffee mug. "That's my cue.. Excuse me guys. I'm right on Henry's angle.." and Gage, too, exited the kitchen for the bunk dorms. On a second thought, he grabbed a couple of donuts on the way out, one for him and a second one for Roy. Gage noticed that Cap had pulled all the shades down around Roy's bunk and had even set a water pitcher on the desk tabletop with a paper already opened to the horse racing section next to it. Gage smiled when he heard Roy stir in his sheets to play with Henry. Respectfully, he knocked on the wooden doorframe first before he entered the room further. "Roy?" "Yeah, Johnny. I'm awake.." his partner said. "Didn't anybody feed Henry yet? He's acting like he wants his bowl now." Gage walked into the room and grabbed the chair from the desk, inverted it, and straddled it to sit. "Now, Roy, you know Henry won't eat for anyone else but you. And we're dumb enough to keep forgetting that. He turned his finicky nose up again at Marco just a minute ago when he opened a can right under his face. You sure got a way with dogs." |
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Roy's face unexpectedly fell at Johnny's comment. and he stopped petting Henry's broad back. "Yeah, well. I wish I had a way with children right about now. Lately my luck's been running kinda dry." Johnny scoffed gently. "Now what's that supposed to mean? You got two wonderful kids who're incredibly proud to call ya dad. You got a beautiful wife. That's more than what I got. What more can a man want?" "To turn back the clock for starters. How about turning it back about..oh,...forty eight hours or so. Then I'd truly be a happy man, Johnny." Roy said, with a groan. He flopped back onto his back and drew his sheets up to his chest as if chilled suddenly in his T shirt and boxers. "Roy, cut it out. You shouldn't be ashamed of your emotions. What happened out there today, happens to all of us. H*ll, Cap's been there. He just told us when and why over coffee a few minutes ago. And I bet if we took a poll, we'd find that there isn't a single guy on the rosters who hasn't been in the same shoes you wore this morning." Johnny said. "I'm not immune either. I've been there. Remember? I lost it only two weeks into the paramedic program.." Roy regarded Gage quietly for long seconds, "Not everyone, Johnny." A slight smile curled his lips, "What about Craig Brice?" "Oh, yeah.." Johnny chuckled. "Brice. Forgot about him. How can a man without sense of humor find something about our line of work that'll make him lose his lunch? Brice sure can't. He's an Iron Man." Johnny grumbled, answering his own question. "Maybe he should team up with Detello at ten's for a while and learn something about compassion." Johnny took a bite from his donut, then belated remembered that he had already bitten into the first one. Lamely, he offered the pastry to Roy. DeSoto took it, and began offering the pieces wearing Johnny's tooth marks to the snuffling Henry who had sprawled his heavy weight across Roy's legs. "Here, buddy. Yeah, that's a good boy.." and he smacked Henry's hide loudly in affection. The rest, he popped into his mouth. "Nausea finally gone?" Johnny asked. Roy looked up, almost as if he had forgotten his partner was there. "Yeah, that anti-emetic you gave me worked." he said chewing slowly. "Who authorized that?" "Joe Early. He knew what you had been up against yesterday. And understood the need for the hypo today." "Does everybody know about ...what happened to me?" Roy asked quietly, caressing Henry's ear as the dog snoozed in his lap. "Only those who care a whip about ya." Gage quipped. Then he leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. "Listen, Roy, so what if it took six years for you to finally crack on a call. Big deal. You're a human being. It means that you care.." "Yeah, maybe I care a little too much." Roy said softly. Johnny rubbed his mouth in frustration and then he got angry."Oh, boy, here we go again. You didn't make that driver hit the bus. You didn't cause that canyon wall to come caving in on us. And unless you're really Moses, I know you didn't cause that rain storm to flood us out like it did. So knock off the pity pit. A paramedic's GOT to have empathy. H*ll. You're the one who taught me that.." he sat back with exasperation. Roy was silent for a time. Then he said. "I'm thinking about leaving the program Johnny. I really think I can't hack it any more." he pointed to the uniform that Cap had folded neatly on the dresser and said. "I really don't know if I can ever get myself to wear that uniform again. Ever. It now hurts too much.." and his lip quavered. |
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Johnny showed no sympathy. "You're just saying that. Now what would I do in a few months if Kelly kept good on his threat and suddenly became my new partner?" Johnny asked drily. Roy finally smiled and laughed. "You two'd probably, most likely kill each other the first week out." "There ya go.." Johnny said. "So don't leave me in that kind of spot. And quit talkin like that. You're just hurting, that's all. You're not disabled. A little time taken with the family will make it all right again." "Now you're sounding like Cap." Roy said. "Good, cause he's right. And that's what he said worked for him when he cracked over his own child call." Roy sat up. "You know something Gage?" "What..?" Gage said, curling Henry's tail and scratching its white furred tip until Henry picked up his head to see who was messing with it. Henry's tail started wagging when he saw who it was. "You're right. M- Maybe that's all I'll need. A little time off. Just enough ta.. get my clear thinking back again and maybe I'll even find that sense of inner balance that I had before.. " he said, grinning. "That's the ticket.." Johnny beamed, taking another bite out of his donut. "No, wait a minute, I can't go on leave." "Why not? You got enough vacation time coming to ya. As long as I've known ya, you've only been on vacation twice. Once to Santa Rosa with me, and the other time when you took Joanne and the kids to the f--" he broke off. "You can say it, Johnny. Farm. I'm not mad at you over that any more. I mean who can control circumstance?" "And that's it right there, Roy. On your coming days off, hold that thought and you think about it, real hard.." With that, Gage disappeared, leaving the rest of his donut abandoned on the bedspread. Roy blinked, amazed that Johnny could move so fast. And that, in itself, made him think all the more about Roy DeSoto. Johnny's cool advice and Henry's warm tongue on his fingers, made him mull over what was really the most important thing going on in his life apart from his family. Sighing, Roy picked up the donut and began doling out the correct pieces to the proper mouths. Then, feeling thirsty, he reached for the water container. And a bit later, after a long tearful talk with the crisis counselor and Joanne,.... ...Roy DeSoto reached for his uniform.. ---------------------------------------------- It was a week later. And the gang on A shift finally felt like they were a whole crew again. Roy DeSoto was back on the job. But Gage sighed and didn't even turn around when he felt Roy sit on the locker room bench next to him and opened his locker. |
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"Mornin.." Roy said cheerily. He broke off into a jaunty whistling tune. One he knew would irritate Johnny. Gage didn't reply. He just changed in silence. "What's the problem, Johnny? An explosion knock out your ears or something? I'm back." "Good for you Roy. I'm proud ya made the right decision." Johnny said finally. "But frankly, I'm really depressed right now if you have to know." |
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