Indirect Method Coda

(Author's note: The end of Indirect Method struck me as weird. I decided it needed a bit more.)

Johnny waited in the hall outside Roy's hospital room until Karen, the first female paramedic trainee they'd dealt with, came out. She was still bubbling with excitement over performing her first medical procedure on her own and he could tell she wanted to linger and talk, but he didn't want to take the time just then.

"You riding with me again tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yeah, a half shift again."

"Good. We'll sit down and go over Roy's accident in detail. We haven't really had time to do that yet."

"But it was okay, right? I didn't screw up?"

"You didn't screw up, no." Johnny chose his words carefully, looking for a balance between teaching and tearing down. "There are a couple of things you'll need to do differently next time, but you did good and came through when it was important. Hey, my partner's in a hospital bed instead of a box today. That's what matters, more than I could ever tell you."

"Can you give me a hint?" she asked, anxious.

"Tomorrow," he promised with a kind smile. "Right now I gotta go talk to this guy," he nodded towards Roy's door, "before they kick me out of the hospital."

"All right," she relented, "tomorrow, then."

He smiled at her as she turned away, then cautiously edged Roy's door open and stuck his head in. "Is it safe for me to come back?" he asked. "If I promise to behave myself?"

Earlier his partner had chased him from the room with a withering stare. Now he studied some imaginary pattern in the hospital blanket and did not look up, but shrugged without answering.

"Gee, don't fall all over yourself to welcome me," Johnny joked, letting the door close behind him and hopping up to sit on the end of the bed.

"Sorry," Roy said, still not looking up.

"Hey, man. You're not really mad 'cause I made that crack about you being a married man, are you? I mean, we both know you'd never mess around on your wife. I'm pretty sure Karen knows that too, even though she is a very attractive young lady and, hey, some chicks dig boring older men with thinning hair and no charisma."

"I'm not mad," Roy was still studying the blanket, his voice tired and bleak.

Johnny pulled the bed table over between them and leaned on it, studying Roy's face and trying to meet his elusive gaze. "Roy. Pally. I'm just teasing you."

"I know."

"And you're really not mad about the 'married man' remark?"

"No, I'm not mad."

"Okay, so what are you upset about?"

"I'm not. It's just . . . it's nothing. I'm just tired, okay?"

Johnny thought for a minute. "You know what you're doing?" he asked suddenly. "You're acting like a chick."

Now Roy did look up, swift with astonishment and disbelief. "What?!?"

"You're acting like a chick. That's what chicks do. They get all mad or upset or whatever, and you can tell they're upset, but then they claim it's 'nothing' and won't tell you what's wrong so you can at least try to fix it. Man! Don't be a chick. Be a tough guy. Tell me your feelings."

"I thought it was girly to talk about feelings," Roy countered.

"Nah, now, Roy. You're just behind the times. It was girly in the fifties and sixties. But these are the seventies. Real men are supposed to be sensitive and talk about their emotions and get in touch with their feminine side."

"So, in other words, they're supposed to act like chicks. So I had it right in the first place."

"Now you're just being evasive." Johnny dialed down the humor and let his voice soften into seriousness. "Come on, man. I know something's bugging you. This is me. Johnny. If you've got a problem, I've got a problem. Tell me what's the matter, Roy."

Roy lifted his shoulders in a desultory shrug. "It's just . . . it's stupid."

"Probably," Johnny agreed, not unkindly, "but tell me anyway."

Roy sighed and took a minute to gather his thoughts. "Dixie told me that Karen ran the code on me."

"That's right." Johnny considered. "Are you bothered because she's a woman? You know, I'm pretty sure that mouth-to-mouth resuscitation doesn't count as infidelity, if that's the problem."

"No, it's not that."

"Well, what then?"

Roy turned his hands with his palms up on the sheets, a gesture of helplessness. "I would never, ever stand back and let someone else treat you when you were seriously hurt. Never! Not even Kirk or Wheeler or Dwyer or Stoney. I was clinically dead and you gave me to a trainee. It just makes me think that," he hesitated, then spit it out, his voice thick with hurt, "it makes me think that I must not be as important to you as you are to me."

Johnny studied his partner in silence for a minute, then reached out one long arm and cupped his hand behind Roy's neck, pulling him closer, but gently. Sitting up in the bed, Roy looked like he was all but healed, but Johnny knew what was under the sheets, the broken ribs, the painful electrical burns down his left side and on both legs, the wires attached to sensors monitoring his not-quite-reliable heartbeat. He tipped Roy's head down and very deliberately examined his scalp.

"I think we need to get you back to the ICU," he said. "I think that concussion is worse than we thought."

"Am I wrong, then?" Roy demanded. He wanted to be wrong. It was in his voice and in his expression.

"What do you remember about the accident?"

Roy thought about it. If Johnny was reading his expressions correctly, what he mostly remembered was pain. "I don't . . . really, I . . . I don't really remember anything clearly."

"Do you remember what we were doing before you got hurt?"

He tried, closing his eyes and scrunching up his face in concentration. Then he sighed and shook his head. "No."

"Well, I'll tell you. We'd gone up to the second floor of a burning building to rescue an elderly invalid who was trapped there. Our escape got cut off by the fire and we made our way to a front window, but most of our guys were around trying to re-claim the stairway we used to get up there. Some guys, neighbors, I guess, picked up a ladder that was on the ground and put it up against the roof of the little porch that was right under us. You climbed out on the ladder and turned to take the old woman from me, but the ladder slipped and threw you into some power lines. When you fell, you took the ladder down with you.

"You were dead, Roy. You're right there. I was looking right at you when you hit the power lines and I saw dead in your eyes. And there I was, standing there in that window with the floor burning away behind me and an old woman in my arms and there wasn't a damned thing that I could do for you but watch while Marco fumbled with the oxygen and Karen fired up the defibrillator. By the time they got me another ladder set, Karen had your heart going again and you were breathing on your own. I let her go ahead and call Rampart while I double checked all your vitals. But I'm the one who started your IV and we both came in with you in the ambulance, because there was no way in hell I was letting you out of my sight just then."

Roy was looking down at the blanket again, embarrassed now. "I'm sorry. I should have realized there were extenuating circumstances."

"Yeah, you should have," Johnny said, but softened it with a grin. "Do you know, when it was all over and they were sure you were going to be okay, I went to call the station and let the guys know what was going on? But I had to have one of the nurses dial the phone for me, because my hands started shaking so bad I couldn't hit the right buttons."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Well," Roy said, "thanks, then. For . . . you know? Hey! Whatever happened to the victim? The old woman?"

"Heck, I don't know. I threw her at some other fireman and forgot about her. Haven't even thought about her since. I had more important things on my mind."

Eyes closed, smiling faintly, Roy nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment. Johnny grabbed his chin and forced his head up.

"Look at me, Pally."

Roy did and found Johnny's face serious, though he kept his tone light.

"Since we're both such big, tough, macho, modern 1970s girly men, I'm gonna go ahead and say this. But I'm only gonna say it once, so pay attention. Okay?"

"Uh, okay."

"Okay. I love you. A lot. And I always will. All right?"

Roy was choked up and it took him a few seconds to answer. "All right."

"Well, all right then."

The end

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