Author's Note:  WARNING!  Death of a major character.  Implied deaths of all other characters.  Gosh!  Sounds gloomy doesn't it? *G*

Embarkation

by E!lf

"May there be no sadness of farewell/

 when I embark"

            Alfred Lord Tennyson; "Crossing the Bar"

"I've known for a long time that this day was drawing closer.  I expected it years ago, tell the truth.  But now that it's here, a part of me can't believe it's really happening."

"It's hard, I know."  The nurse took Maisie Detweiler's arm and guided her along the hall.  The nursing home seemed unnaturally bright and she was hyper aware of each detail, the blue-and-cream walls, the floral arrangements, the smell of disinfectant.  She was also hyper aware of the fact that this could be her last visit to this place that had been so important to her for the past dozen years.  "Are more of your family coming?"

"I called my brother but I couldn't get hold of him.  I left a message.  I'll keep trying his cell.  Several of our cousins are on the way.  The DeSoto twins were both on duty, but they've gotten someone to cover their shifts and they're going together to get my mother and drive her over.  I just hope someone gets here on time.  I don't want to be alone when . . . ."  Maisie was no longer young herself, with laugh lines around her mouth and iron-grey streaks in her long black hair, but today she felt like a frightened child.

"I know."  The nurse . . . the nurse?  She had a name and Maisie knew it, too.  Kate!  The nurse.  Kate.  Of course.  Kate patted her hand as they paused outside the door to room 51.  Grandfather had insisted on that.  "Would you like me to come in and sit with you until they arrive?"

"Please!  Oh, yes, please!"

Kate pushed the door open and together they went into the light, airy room.  Fifty-one was actually a small but comfortable suite and they passed through a sitting room crowded with pictures and fire fighting memorabilia, through an open doorway and into the bedroom beyond where John Roderick Gage lay dying.

Johnny was aware when the women came into the room.  He glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye.  He even knew who it was, though he couldn't have said how he knew.  He could no longer focus his dark eyes.  Even the glasses he had eventually given into for reading didn't help anymore.  His once-keen vision was lost in a sea of blurred colors and soft-edged shapes that refused to resolve themselves into objects or people.

Johnny was old.  He was beyond old.  He was ancient.  He had passed the century mark more than a decade earlier.  Until just the past year he had remained physically hale and mentally sharp.  As his health finally began to fail, however, his mind wandered, trying to recapture past glories and dear friends, long gone.

The women moved over to his bedside, lowering themselves into wing backed chairs there and talking in hushed voices.  Beyond them, in the doorway, Johnny suddenly saw one clear, bright, sharp patch of color.  It was a narrow triangle, no more than a sliver of light blue, just at the edge of the doorway, at shoulder height.

He stared, trying to make sense of the vision, but it remained just beyond his powers of comprehension.

He didn't have his hearing aid in, but he suddenly realized he could hear the women and even, almost, understand them.  He concentrated and their words tuned in like a radio station he might have tried to capture on his eight-track stereo back in the distant days of his youth.

". . . we can do?" Maisie asked.

"Just try to make him comfortable," Kate replied.  "I checked him just before you got here.  He's clean and dry and doesn't seem to be in any pain."

'Clean and dry.'  Johnny flinched at the implications.  He was wearing a diaper and he couldn't even change it himself anymore.  He couldn't go to the bathroom, couldn't dress himself, couldn't even pull himself out of bed to sit in a chair by himself.  He couldn't feed himself.  'And this is how they know me,' he thought.  'This is what they'll remember.  But I was young once, and strong and agile.  Roy and I.  We walked through fire and scaled buildings and mountains; we fought death on narrow ledges in the sky while clouds and eagles flew below us.'

He tried to speak, found his voice hoarse and weak.  Maisie leaned in close and he tried again.  "I shouldn't have eaten that damn sandwich!"

"His mind is wandering.  It's not unusual," Kate said.  But Maisie knew her grandfather and she was shaking her head and fighting tears.

"No.  He knows . . . what he means, I mean.  I know what he means.  You see, once, when he was young, back when he was a paramedic with 51s, he pulled a muscle on a rescue and the guys were teasing him about being a weakling.  He went on this bodybuilding diet kick, but he got sick of it so he made this huge sandwich and when his friends caught him eating it he told them it was a miracle food.  He said it would make him live to be really old and that it was going to revolutionize the care and feeding of the elderly.  When Papaw Roy," Maisie's voice broke as tears bubbled over and it took her several minutes to compose herself.  "When Grandpa's best friend was dying, the last thing he said was, 'guess I should have eaten one of those magic sandwiches'."

"Oh."

A hubbub in the outer room announced the arrival of the DeSoto twins with Johnny's daughter, Maisie's mother, Dixie Jo Gage Fontaine.  Johnny opened his eyes and was surprised to find that he could see them all.  A rich, purple gold suffused the room, like the stormlight that came when a late sun dipped below thunderheads.  It cast everything but the people in sharp relief.  Maisie, Dixie, the nurse and the twins seemed to fade in comparison, become insubstantial.

Johnny sighed and in that instant he grew light, the weight of his aged and weakened body falling away.  He sat up easily in the bed, looked around, and the devil appeared beside him.

He was a classic devil, dark red in body with horns on his head and cloven hooves.  He carried a tri-pronged pitchfork and he pointed it at Johnny.  Sulfur-scented steam rolled from his nostrils and he spoke in a breathy growl.

"John Gage!  You've evaded me far longer than you should, but no one escapes forever!  You've enjoyed a long life of sin and debauchery and the time has come to pay up.  Your soul is MINE!"

A familiar figure appeared behind his satanic majesty and slapped him on the side of his horned head.  "What are you doing?!?  Don't do that, you twit!"

"But, Cap!" the devil whined.  "Come on!  This is a once in a lifetime prank!  I mean, this is LITERALLY a one in a lifetime prank!"

Johnny grinned and stretched, relishing the ease with which his muscles responded and the complete lack of pain in his body.  "It's no good, Chet," he said.  "I knew it was you.  I mean, seriously, man!  If you're gonna pretend to be the devil, at least wear a disguise!  Hiya, Cap!"

"Johnny.  Good to see you, pal!"

"Ha ha, very funny."  The devil shifted and melted back into the figure of Chet Kelly.

Johnny pointed his finger at Chet.  "Now that's not right," he said.  "I knew you when you were as young as that and you didn't have any mustache at all, let alone a great big one."

"Well that just shows how much you know," Chet said sarcastically.  "Here, I can look any age I want to and I can have as much mustache as I want!"  He shrank and shifted and Johnny was looking at a five-year-old Chet Kelly with an enormous mustache.

Two more figures came into the room.  "Hey, look!" Marco Lopez said.  "Chet's finally settled on a physical appearance that matches his mentality!  Hi, Johnny!"

"Hey, Marco!"  Johnny swung his legs over the edge of the bed so he could reach out and shake his friend's hand.  Johnny still wore his old man pajamas.  'I wish I was in my uniform,' he thought and that simply he was wearing his old firefighter/paramedic uniform.

"I'm not babysitting!  Hi, Gage!"

"Hi, Mike!"  Johnny looked around and noted who was still missing.  His heart was in his throat.  He was almost afraid to ask, but he needed to know.  "Um, Roy's not with you?"

"He didn't come in?" Cap looked around.  "He's here.  He's been here all along.  He was waiting in the outer room to give you some privacy with your family."

"Yeah, he's thoughtful like that," Mike said.  "Unlike some people."

Chet blew him a raspberry.

Johnny looked over to the open doorway again and again noted the patch of blue, the first thing he'd seen when this began.

"Hey, DeSoto!" Cap called.  "Somebody in here looking for you!"

The sliver broadened out and became the edge of a blue sleeve on a uniform shirt worn by someone who was leaning against the outside edge of the door jamb.  A familiar shoulder came into view, and then the back of a red-gold head, and then Roy turned and grinned at his partner.

Johnny grinned back, feeling like his face would split, jumped off the bed and met his best friend in the middle of the room.  The two men locked in a massive bear hug.

"That's my partner!" Johnny crowed.  "That's my Pally!  Is this real?  I missed you, man!  Oh, God!  I missed you!"

"I don't know why," Roy choked out.  "I was never very far away."

"Gee, this is touching," Marco commented drily.

"Brings a tear to the eye," Cap agreed.

"How come we didn't rate a hug?" Chet asked.

Johnny stepped back, squeezed Roy's shoulders once more and then spun on Kelly.  "The Devil wants a hug?  I'll give you a hug!"  He looped on arm around Chet's neck, got him in a headlock and gave him a noogie.

The men were all laughing, but then a soft sob penetrated their awareness and they stopped and looked at Johnny's family and Roy's great-grandsons, shadowy now and insubstantial.

"Aw, man."  Maisie and her mother clung together weeping.  One of the twins hovered near them while the other stood beside the bed, gazing down at Johnny's still body with tenderness and a gentle sorrow.

Roy put his hand on Johnny's shoulder.  "It's hard, I know, watching the people you love grieve for you.  Not being able to tell them you're alright."

"Yeah, you should know."  And Johnny remembered all too clearly how hard it was being on the other side of this rift.  "Is there anything I can do to make it easier for them?"

"Not really.  But they will be okay.  This is the way life is supposed to work.   They have each other, and they're young and strong."

"Yeah," Chet chimed in.  "And you were really old.  And you smelled funny."

Johnny turned with one finger raised in warning.  "Chet!"

"Yeah?  Whatcha gonna do?" Chet scoffed.  "You can't fool me, Gage!  I saw you cry at my funeral!"

"From relief, Chet!  They were tears of joy!"

"Oh, whatever!"

"Are you ready to go now, Junior?" Roy interrupted.

"I don't know," Johnny hedged.  "What's it like, you know?  Over . . . ?"  He twitched one shoulder in a gesture meant to indicate the great beyond in general.

"Well," Roy said, "you remember how we used to watch TV at the station, way back when?"

"Uh huh.  Yeah."

"And a show'd come on, like, say, Adam-12?  And it'd start with a little, like, a part of a scene.  Just a teaser?  And then there'd be a bunch of commercials and then all the good stuff, all the action and drama and humor and everything, all that'd come after the opening credits.  Right?"

"I guess.  Yeah.  But . . . ."

"Here's the thing:  Life is just the teaser.  After all this, we've still only gotten to the opening credits."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay.  So what happens next?"

Roy grinned and put his arm around Johnny's shoulders.   "Everything!"

"Everything?"

"Everything!"

Laughing, the six men went together out through the wall and into eternity.

The End

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