Author's note: About two thirds of the way through writing this story I came across a story called, I believe, The Choice written by an author named Sparky. I was surprised to find several similarities between that story and this one. Both deal with the same basic theme. More striking is a certain similarity between my original character, Lonnie Vickers, and an unnamed character in The Choice. For the record, these similarities are coincidental and I hope that Sparky will not be offended that I went ahead and completed this piece.
Many, many thanks to Ross for being my beta and for sharing her medical and technical knowledge. She is the soul of kindness. -- E!lf
Never Play God
by
Fireman Roy DeSoto, senior paramedic at Station 51, leaned his shoulder against the kitchen wall and spoke softly into the phone. "How did he do on his spelling test?" His short-sleeved blue shirt was rumpled after a long day, his fine, blond hair mussed. The towel over his shoulder was still damp from the dinner dishes. His face was tired, but his voice was gentle. "That's great! Tell him I'm proud of him . . . yeah, they're good kids . . . Mike made meatloaf. You? . . . That sounds good . . .I suppose . . . so, uh . . . " he turned into the wall more and his voice softened, "what are you wearing? . . . uh huh . . . yeah?"
He couldn't say for sure what it was that warned him he was not alone. A rustle of fabric? A breath that was not his? He turned quickly. The three bachelors on his shift were ranged around the kitchen table. They sat in identical poses, with coffee in their right hands and their left elbows on the table, left hands cupping their chins. They were watching him intently.
Roy glared at them over his shoulder, flapped one hand in their direction and mouthed the word "shoo".
John Gage, his partner and best friend, smiled brightly and shook his head. "Uh uh." Where Roy was slight and sturdy John was tall and lean, with dark hair and eyes and the high cheekbones and ruddy complexion that went with his Native American ancestry.
Roy rolled his eyes.
"Honey? I'm sorry. Can you hang on for just a second, honey?" He covered the mouthpiece. "Come on, guys! I'm trying to talk to my wife, here! Don't you have anything better to do than eavesdrop?"
Johnny's smile broadened into his trademark mile-wide, crooked grin. "Nope."
Next to him, Chet Kelly, curly-haired and mustachioed, spoke up. "Come on, DeSoto! Don't keep us in suspense. What's she wearing already?"
"Maybe she's getting ready for bed," Marco Lopez offered.
"Wearing that skimpy nightgown he got her for her birthday," Johnny chimed in.
"It's called a 'peg nwar'," Chet corrected him loftily.
Forgetting himself, Roy waved his hands around as his voice rose to an indignant squawk.
"Are you nuts? It's barely eight o'clock at night! And this is my WIFE you're talking about here!" A noise from the phone drew his attention. "What? Oh, no. Sorry, honey! It's just these idiots I work with! They're --"
The station's alarm tones cut him off in mid-sentence. For an instant the men in the kitchen froze, counting the alarms. "It's a big one," Johnny said, all levity gone. Roy spoke into the phone again, quickly.
"Sorry, sweetheart. I have to go. I love you. Goodbye." He hung up without waiting for an answer and ran. Johnny was already in the squad, fastening his helmet under his chin when Roy jumped behind the wheel. The announcement followed the klaxons.
"Station 51, engine 19, engine 113, squad 23, structure fire at the warehouse. 325 Secor Street. Cross street is Balzelle. Time out is 20:03."
Roy started the truck and fastened his own helmet as Captain Stanley spoke into the radio. "Station 51. KMG365." He ran over and handed the call sheet in the window to Roy, who glanced at it and passed it off to his partner. With lights and sirens blazing Roy pulled out of the station entrance. The engine at his heels, he led the way through the soft, early summer twilight.
#-#-#-#-
Station 51 arrived on scene to find police present in large numbers. The warehouse was a large brick and wood building, already heavily involved. Cap gave orders to lay down lines, then jumped out of the engine and joined Roy and Johnny to meet the officers who were converging on them.
"Anybody inside?" Roy yelled out as soon as the police were within earshot. Other units were arriving now, lending to the controlled chaos of a fire scene.
"Two men!" The cop who answered was Vince Howard, a friend of theirs. "One of them's one of ours. He chased a suspect inside just before the fire started!"
"Right! Cap?"
Even as the captain nodded his assent the two paramedics were donning masks and air tanks to go inside. Squad 23 was parked beside them now, the two men from that unit doing the same thing. Captain Stanley waved his engine forward. "Kelly! Lopez! Lay down a stream! We've got people inside!"
As the four paramedics made ready to enter the building, John Gage called out, "we got any idea what's stored in there?"
"Yeah," one of the cops called back. "Dried fish!"
John half laughed. "Smoked fish, you mean!"
They went in as a group, following Kelly and Lopez inside, then splitting into pairs inside the door. Squad 23 took the left, 51 the right. Their lights reflecting oddly in the puddling smoke, the rescue men began searching for victims.
The fire roared around them, greedily devouring wooden beams and partitions, pallets and barrels and crates and cardboard boxes. The noise was so loud that it stopped registering, becoming the background and masquerading as silence as it drowned out smaller sounds like footsteps and heartbeats and the hiss of their breathing. Flames cast weird, flickering shadows about the cavernous room and Kelly's and Lopez's helmet lights created auras in the spray from their hose, lending them halos as they concentrated on the fiercest flames.
The firemen fought the fire and the fire fought back. Keeping one another in sight, Roy and John moved away from their station mates and into the deeper shadows between towering walls of shelving and stacks of crated merchandise.
A shout penetrated the psuedo-silence. Moving into a cross aisle, Roy and John looked over through the smoke and saw the men from 23 heading for the door, one of them carrying a man over his shoulder. "That's one!" Roy yelled. John, two feet away, could barely hear him. The roar was louder now than it had been only seconds before.
John nodded. "Where do we -- Roy! Look out!" With the suddenness of a serpent's strike, the wall of crates to their left flared up. Sparks leapt over the narrow aisle and took hold on the right. Together the paramedics ran through a canyon of flame, escaping it just as the two walls tumbled inwards.
"Okay?"
Roy nodded. "You?"
Johnny nodded. Roy pointed up. "There he is!" Johnny looked and groaned. About ten feet ahead of them a metal ladder ran up to a narrow loft. A man's foot dangled, just visible over the edge.
Roy ran over and started climbing. Johnny ran down a cross aisle until he could see the hose crew, and waved his hands. "Chet! Marco! Over here!" Trusting that they were behind him, Johnny went back to his partner.
At the top of the ladder Roy froze suddenly, for an instant, then gingerly reached out. Johnny couldn't see what he was doing. "Roy?" Roy waved one gloved hand reassuringly, pulled the victim closer and draped him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. It was fortunate that the man had been close to the ladder. The loft was burning now; the flames rapidly approaching them in spite of the stream Chet and Marco were playing over it.
Johnny steadied his partner as best he could as they backed down the ladder. As soon as they were down they made for the exit, Johnny leading slightly and watching for hazards his burdened friend might not see. They passed the hoses and Chet and Marco backed out in their wake.
This building was going; there was no stopping it now. All the fire crews could do was hold off the monster until everyone was out and then fight to keep it from spreading.
Once outside Roy and Johnny ran for their squad, where their equipment was set up and waiting for them. Chet and Marco fell back and joined the other engine crews dousing the flames. Roy lowered the victim to the ground and administered oxygen while Johnny contacted the hospital. Fifty feet away squad 23 worked frantically over a second still figure.
"Rampart base, this is rescue 51. How do you read me?"
"Loud and clear. Go ahead 51." The voice belonged to Joe Early, a kindly, silver-haired neurosurgeon.
"Rampart, we have a male, approximately fifty, 180 pounds. He's suffering from severe smoke inhalation, also second- and third- degree burns on his back, arms, legs and face. Vitals are --"
"Respiration 24 and shallow," Roy supplied without looking up. "Pulse is 96, thready and irregular. BP 80 over 40."
"Respiration 24 and shallow," Johnny repeated into the biophone. "Pulse, 96. Thready and irregular. BP 80 over 40."
"Can you send me a strip, 51?"
Roy already had sensors in place on the victim's chest.
"It's coming now, Rampart," Johnny reported. "Lead two."
"Acknowledged, 51." There was a short delay while Early read the EKG strip. "Do you have an ambulance on scene?"
Johnny glanced up and his searching gaze rested on one. "Affirmative."
"Start an IV with Ringer's lactate and transport immediately."
"There may be a problem there, Rampart. Squad 23 is on scene with a victim also and we only have one ambulance between us."
Joe Early's soft voice was gentle with regret. "You only have one victim, 51. Twenty-three's man didn't make it."
Johnny waved the ambulance men over and settled back on his haunches to wait for them. Looking towards squad 23 he saw the victim was covered now. Cops stood around in groups, body language broadcasting anger and sorrow. Vince was approaching Roy and Johnny.
"One of theirs," Roy said softly. Johnny nodded and turned away to help with the gurney as Vince's footsteps drew near.
"Roy. John."
"We heard about your friend, Vince," Roy said. "We're very sorry."
Vince didn't answer directly, but nodded towards the man on the ground. "What about him? He going to make it?"
"It's too soon to tell yet."
"It's not fair, you know that? It's just not fair. Lonnie Vickers. Know what he was wanted for? He beat a sixteen-year-old prostitute to death. And now he's murdered a cop. God. Barnet was only 24. He had a wife and a kid."
Johnny held the IV bag as the ambulance attendants lifted Vickers onto the stretcher. Roy was already gathering up their gear.
"We don't really know yet that Vickers started the fire, Vince." Johnny offered.
"Maybe not, but it doesn't really matter. Barnet didn't die from the fire. He was shot to death. Vickers did it. It had to be him."
"Yeah, it was him all right."
Johnny looked at his partner in surprise and Roy paused to glance up. "You didn't see it, but there was a gun in his hand. When I got to the top of the ladder and looked over it was pointed right at me."
"I saw you stop to move something."
"Yeah. I was afraid the heat would make it go off."
"So how can you work so hard to save this piece of filth?" Vince asked, his anger clearly visible now, and his pain. "You know what he is. Why does he deserve your care?"
Johnny rose and backed towards the ambulance as they moved Vickers. He was glad to leave this particular discussion to Roy. His partner was better at these things.
"Look, Vince, I know that it hurts to see him alive and know that a good man is dead. But we're not qualified to play God out here. We're just paramedics. All we can do is try our best to preserve the lives that are put in our hands. The bigger decisions are up to a higher authority." Roy paused in snapping the med case long enough to jerk one thumb upwards.
Vince sighed. "Yeah, I guess." He followed as they lifted Vickers into the ambulance. "Your patient is still in my custody, Gage. Don't let him go anywhere. Unless it's to hell."
The ambulance driver slammed the door. Johnny saw Roy stowing their gear in the squad, Vince standing dejectedly in the middle of the street. Then the ambulance driver jumped in and took off. The squad followed behind them, lending its lights and sirens to theirs, and Johnny let the outside world get on with its business and turned his attention to his patient.
They were slightly less than halfway to the hospital when Vickers went into cardiac arrest. Johnny had the biophone tucked against his shoulder as he set up the defibrillator with quick, practiced efficiency. "Rampart patient has gone into cardiac arrest."
"Understood, 51. Defibrillate."
"Acknowledged." Johnny adjusted the controls on the front of the machine, waited the precious seconds that it took to charge up, placed the paddles on Vickers' chest and shocked him. His body jerked violently. The EKG readout jumped, then returned to flatline.
"Nothing, Rampart. I'm going to hit him again." He shocked Vickers a second time, again with no result, and set the machine for a third attempt.
Though he was facing the back of the ambulance and the scene behind was clearly in his view, his attention was focused entirely on his patient. For that reason, what happened outside didn't register on his consciousness until it was over.
But then, again, it was over so quickly.
"Rampart, preparing to defib -- ROY!!"
The ambulance was speeding down the outside lane of a two-lane, one-way street through a run-down industrial area with the squad following about thirty feet back in the inner lane. They flew through an intersection with a larger cross street, but the squad never made it. A speeding tractor-trailer blasted in from Johnny's right and caught the little squad truck right at the driver's side front bumper, punching it sideways and all but hiding it from view.
Johnny jumped towards the back of the ambulance, the phone tumbling from his shoulder, the paddles forgotten in his hands as his anguished cry echoed around the cramped space. The cables of the paddles stopped him and he looked down at them, then back towards the accident site, rapidly falling away behind them.
His partner lay back there, tangled in wreckage, and the only thing that prevented Johnny from going back to him was his duty to a murderer, a cop-killer who was probably already dead.
#-#-#-#-
At Rampart Emergency Hospital Joe Early and head nurse Dixie McCall, a wise, softhearted blonde, stood at the paramedic base, monitoring John Gage's transmission. Kelly Brackett, the head of emergency medicine at Rampart, stood a few feet away at the desk reading over a chart. All three heard the paramedic's soul-wrenching cry, faint but clear over the biophone.
Brackett leaned over and hit the button to transmit. "Fifty-one, what's your status? Gage! What's going on out there?" Only silence answered him. Dixie stepped to the fire department radio and adjusted the volume just as a call went through from the driver of the ambulance transporting Vickers.
"Dispatch. Squad fifty-one has been struck by a semi. Corner of Hale and Landstrom. Advise full response."
The three hospital staffers listened grimly to the rest of the chatter, then Brackett tried to raise John Gage again. This time the younger paramedic's voice came back, tired and ragged.
"Rampart. Third attempt at defibrillation was successful. Pulse 28. Respiration 16. Our ETA is 12 minutes."
"Acknowledged. Gage, squad 23 is responding with your engine to the accident. There's an ambulance rolling. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything."
"Thank you, Rampart."
Johnny set down the biophone and hung up the paddles. He checked Vickers' vitals once more before turning his haunted gaze to the street behind him, watching as the miles spun away and the seconds crawled past.
#-#-#-#-
The ambulance carrying Vickers arrived at the ER and they hurried him inside. As soon as they were in the door Johnny Gage handed off the IV to an orderly and rushed the desk. Joe Early, going by to deal with Vickers, laid a hand on Gage's shoulder in passing.
"Dix? Doc? Anything?"
Dixie, her eyes downcast, shook her head. "No, nothing yet John. They arrived on scene a few minutes ago. It shouldn't be long now."
As if on cue the base phone lit up. "Rampart this is rescue 23. Do you copy?"
Brackett answered it. "Go ahead 23."
"Rampart, we have a male victim, approximately 25, 140 pounds. He's been involved in a traffic accident. He has fractures of the right wrist and right arm. Right shoulder is dislocated. He's also suffering from multiple lacerations and a possible concussion. Pulse is 84, respiration 28 and regular, blood pressure 120 over 70."
"Not bad," Johnny breathed, the fist around his heart easing its grip a fraction. "All things considered, that's not so bad."
Kelly Brackett glanced up at him, then leaned over the radio. "Twenty-three, confirm, please. Is this victim Fireman DeSoto?"
"Negative, Rampart."
The fist returned, the walls crashed down.
"This is the semi driver. We haven't located DeSoto yet. Will advise when we do."
Brackett's mouth turned down but he nodded at the radio, even though he knew they couldn't see him. "All right, 23. For victim number one . . . " Not admitting the possibility that there might not be a second victim, Brackett began his instructions for the truck driver.
Johnny, meanwhile, was backing in horror away from the desk and away from Dixie's attempts to calm him. "Haven't found him yet? They haven't even FOUND him yet? Oh, I have to get back there!" He spun in the hallway, searching in frustration for a means of transportation, and there was Vince in the entryway like an angel in blue.
"Gage! Let's go!"
Johnny took off at a run and the two disappeared out the door. Dixie McCall stood looking after them, then glanced up to find Brackett's sad eyes on her. She shrugged very slightly -- the movement would have been missed by a stranger. Kelly responded with a tiny smile that had no humor and did nothing to ease the sorrow on his face.
"Hope for the best, Dix. All we can do is hope for the best."
#-#-#-#-
Johnny jumped into Vince's cruiser and they sped away from the hospital.
"Hang on, John. We'll have you there in no time."
"Back there," Johnny corrected bitterly.
"What?"
"Back there. I was there. I was right there when it happened, Vince. And I left him. I saw it happen and I went off and just left him."
"You had a patient in the ambulance. You couldn't stop. Roy wouldn't have wanted you to. Not the Roy I know."
"He's my friend. My best friend. What kind of guy goes off and leaves his best friend like that?" The young fireman's voice was bleak. Ahead of them red flames lit the sky and the buildings reflected the lights of numerous rescue vehicles.
"John Gage, I'm going to tell you something that someone told me less than an hour ago. You're not qualified to play God. You're just paramedics. All you can do is do your best to save the lives that are put in your hands and leave the big decisions to a higher authority."
Johnny closed his eyes and tried to breathe. He could still hear Roy saying that. Would he ever hear that voice again?
"Here we are."
Johnny opened his eyes, jumped out of the cruiser and froze. "What the hell . . . ?"
"It's become a major incident," Vince said simply.
The tractor-trailer had wrapped itself around the little red squad truck like an angry fist and punched it across the intersection into the corner of an abandoned store, one end of a string of derelict buildings. Those buildings now, for reasons Johnny couldn't yet imagine, were engulfed in flame.
There were half a dozen engines on scene; some laying down foam around the wrecked vehicles while others doused the burning buildings. Vince had stopped near 51 and Johnny's station mates' shouts drew him around the wreckage, to where they worked in a little pocket between the crashed semi and the burning store. From here Johnny could see the front of the squad, crumpled horribly. The only bright spot, if bright spot it was, was that the squad had hit the building right at the shop window and the passenger side, though partially embedded in the wooden window frame and covered in shattered glass, was relatively intact.
Mike Stoker and some hose jockeys borrowed from larger stations were keeping a stream of water over the squad, holding the fire at bay, while Chet, Marco, and the squad 23 paramedics worked to cut the front end off the truck. Cap, supervising and helping where he was needed, stepped back to explain.
"We think he's under the dash. We don't dare climb in over the hood for fear of crushing him, so we're cutting the truck apart. Chet thought he heard some sounds there when we first arrived, but it was too faint to be sure. Then the buildings went up. Apparently some hot metal or something from the wreck went in and lodged in among the debris. When it caught it was a firestorm. All we've really been able to do since then is keep the fire away from the squad and call for back-up."
Johnny surveyed the scene, desperation lending his imagination wings.
"Cap! I gotta get in that truck!"
"There's no way to get in there, Gage!"
"Yes, there is! I can go through the store, come out the window and in the passenger window of the squad."
"John, that store's an inferno."
Johnny spun around, his face dark with sudden fury, eyes slitted, and shouted through clenched teeth. "He's my partner!"
Cap looked at him, just looked at him for a long minute. "Go get Mike Stoker's gear," he said finally. "I'll arrange for a stream. We'll give you all the cover we can."
Two minutes later, dressed in Mike Stoker's turnout coat, helmet and gloves, Johnny stood at the store entrance. The initial blast when the store caught had taken the door off its hinges and now the ragged doorway gaped open, like the mouth of hell. A team of hose jockeys from 118 forced their way into the store behind a powerful jet of water. Johnny followed them inside. The window he needed to climb through was only about ten feet to his right, but they didn't dare spray in that direction for fear the force of the stream would knock out the wall and bring the whole building down on them, on the squad truck, and on the men who were working on freeing it. Johnny would just have to run for it and hope he made it in one piece.
The hose crew forced the flames back as far as they could, then the leader nodded. For the second time in an hour Johnny Gage walked into the flames, but this time he walked alone.
#-#-#-#-
Outside the store, the men of station 51 stopped cutting on the squad truck for a second to watch John Gage. They saw him disappear from the doorway. A few seconds that seemed like hours later he appeared in the window, his protective gear now hampering him as he wriggled through into the crashed squad. When he was in the squad the hose crew withdrew from the store, but remained in front, spraying it down.
Johnny, meanwhile, had stripped off helmet and gloves and was leaning over, his face taut and his expression intent. His station mates watched, trying to read his body language as they resumed cutting.
He straightened and made a motion for them to stop cutting, then tipped his head back and took a long breath.
"Ah, damn," Chet Kelly said. "Damn, damn, damn, damn!"
The men gathered as close to the front of the truck as they could and Gage leaned towards them. They were bracing themselves for the worst but in a voice that was a strange mixture of fear and elation Johnny said, "he's alive."
"Alive?! Dammit, Gage! You made me think --"
"Shut up, Kelly," Cap said shortly. "Go on, John. What do you need?"
"Okay, listen. First, you're really close to cutting him out. We need to be very careful, though. I can't tell anything about his injuries at this point. It's possible that the pressure from the dashboard is the only thing keeping him from bleeding to death. Also, we need to consider spinal injuries. Now, I'll need a blood pressure cuff for starters, and a stethoscope. Get someone on the phone to Rampart --"
"They're standing by," Shefflin, the senior paramedic from 23, cut in.
"Good. And have a backboard and a stretcher ready. While I'm getting his vitals, I want you make a vee-shaped cut through the engine, like you were notching a tree to fell it. Be sure you don't come too close to the cab! We don't want to cut him. When we're all set, we'll use the jaws to slowly lever the dash up off him. Everybody understand what we're doing?"
Behind Johnny's back the fire raged out of control, but he ignored it and concentrated on his fallen friend.
Shefflin passed the stethoscope and cuff in through the shattered windshield while his partner collected the backboard and stretcher. Chet and Marco started on the vee-cut through the tangle of metal that had been a top-of-the-line engine block only that morning. Partway through they paused so that Shefflin could hear to relay Roy's vitals to Rampart.
"Pulse 128 and thready," Johnny called out. As intent as he was on conducting this rescue, the worry seeped through in his voice. "BP 70 systolic. Respiration," John swallowed, "respiration 12 and shallow. That's all I can get for you right now. I'd like to get an IV into him."
Shefflin relayed the numbers and came back with orders to start an IV of Ringer's lactate and the equipment Johnny needed to do that. "Rampart wants to know if we've got him on O2 yet?"
"Negative! Can't until we get him dug out more."
"Jeez," Chet muttered as they waited out the exchange, "even I know those numbers aren't good. You know, I'm gonna be really ticked off at DeSoto if we go to all this trouble to rescue him and then he goes and kicks off after all!"
"Shut up, Chet," Marco growled as they fired up the saws and resumed their cut.
#-#-#-#-
Johnny knelt in the tight space. Roy was below him, jammed between the floorboards and the dash. He lay on his right side with his head towards the passenger window. Only his left arm was free. His legs were somewhere in the tangled mess below the steering wheel. It was a sure bet that they were both broken, possibly broken numerous times, and it would be a miracle if he didn't have at least one compound fracture. His right arm, chest, face, most of his head, hell! Most of his body was still out of reach. Johnny could tell only what the blood pressure and pulse revealed and the list of things that could be wrong with his partner was endless.
They were close now, though, very close to freeing him and finding out.
Following Johnny's instructions, Chet and Marco eased into the space between the squad and the storefront. Fifty-one's steady stream of water had kept the area around the wrecked squad wet enough to prevent the fire encroaching too closely and now it was finally beginning to burn itself down and give them a break.
The two men cut a line down from the corner of the windshield opening to the floorboards, then, very slowly and with Johnny directing every inch, they cut a small notch into the floor for the Jaws of Life. On the driver's side, where it wasn't possible to cut without endangering Roy, a team from Engine 118 was working a second set of jaws into the crack by the door hinge.
Squad 23 brought in a heavy tow chain and hooked it to the middle of the windshield opening, then drove forward until it was stretched taut, to prevent the engine compartment from falling back onto Roy should one of the jaws slip or give way.
And then they were ready and it was finally time to move.
"Okay," Johnny said, "slowly now. Slowly." He held Roy's limp arm in his right hand, his fingers curled around his partner's clammy wrist as he monitored the all too faint pulse he found there. With a dismal groan the heavy metal rose into the air. As soon as there was a slight clearance between the blond paramedic and the dash Johnny called a halt long enough to check Roy's BP again. It was still much too low, but holding steady so they lifted the dash another three inches.
Johnny stopped them again. This time he reached under, running his hands over Roy's back and head, trying to sort out his legs from the debris beneath the remains of the steering wheel.
Blood. There was a lot of blood. Not unexpected. What Johnny was mostly concerned about, though, was the possibility that his partner was impaled on some sharp object that would be ripped out forcibly when the dash went.
"A flashlight! I need a flashlight!"
Someone passed him a flashlight and he leaned down, putting his head as close to the seat as he could and peering into the darkness. "Good. Good. Hell."
Roy's legs were twisted in a tangle of electrical wiring. Johnny called for wire cutters, maneuvered himself around until he could reach under the remains of the wheel, and snipped the wires. He was, he knew, walking a tightrope here. One second too long getting to the hospital and Roy would die. One careless move and Roy would die.
But Roy was his partner and Roy was his best friend and John Gage had no intention of letting him die.
"Okay! He's clear. Quickly, now! Quickly! Let's get this thing off him!"
The jaws started up again and squad 23 strained forward, dragging at the towrope. The engine block bent away at the groove they had cut, then suddenly gave way. With a thunderous roar the rest of the front of the little squad fell away and skidded across the asphalt in a shower of sparks.
As soon as the front was gone Johnny jumped over his friend and down to the street. Shefflin ran over with a full kit and the biophone and Johnny dug into the kit for an oxygen mask and a penlight and tucked the biophone against his shoulder.
"Okay, Rampart, victim is nearly free. I have more information for you. Victim is suffering from massive blood loss, head trauma, right arm is broken both above and below the elbow, two ribs are broken, compound fracture of the left leg, pupils are sluggish and unevenly responsive, skin is clammy . . . ."
#-#-#-#-
Joanne DeSoto wandered aimlessly around her dimly lit house. It was nearly eleven, her normal bedtime, but she was restless and uneasy, wishing Roy would call to let her know he made it back to the station safely. They had had a busy night, she knew. The late news had covered two major fires, both close enough that 51 could have been called to them. One of them, at news time, still wasn't completely out.
And Roy was unlikely to phone her this late anyway. He was too considerate to wake her, too kind to frighten her with the sound of a phone ringing in the dark.
Joanne wondered if her husband would ever understand that she would gladly endure any amount of fear and trepidation for the simple pleasure of hearing his soft voice.
The kids were long asleep, the house quiet. She yawned and headed for the front door, to lock it for the night. She had almost reached it when a car drove up fast and came to a stop on the street out front. Car doors slammed. Joanne's stomach tied itself into knots. She pulled open the front door to find four men striding up her walk.
Johnny, she realized, and Captain Stanley, trailed by Chet Kelly and Marco Lopez. They were filthy, all of them, come straight from some fire in rumpled, sweat-soaked, soot-blackened clothes.
Joanne caught the doorframe for support, not even realizing that she had stopped breathing. She wanted to scream but no sounds would come out.
Johnny, striding up the walkway, saw her first, standing there in the darkened doorway, shaking her head and mouthing the word, "no". He increased his pace, taking the steps two at a time and speaking as soon as his foot hit the porch.
"He's alive."
She took in a raspy breath and might have fallen had not Johnny pulled open the screen door and gathered her into his strong arms. He laid his cheek on the top of her head, hugged her close and repeated, again and again. "He's alive, Joanne. He's alive. He's alive."
The other three firefighters reached them and Johnny took Joanne's shoulders and stepped back so he could look down into her eyes. "It's bad. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's really bad. But he's alive and he's got a chance and that's what we've all just got to hang onto. Okay?"
She nodded through tears. "But . . . what happened? A fire? Was he burned or . . . ?"
"A little of everything," Johnny said, unhelpfully. "Come on, we need to hurry. I'll tell you in the car."
"But . . . " She waved towards the house, "the kids. I've got to find someone--"
"You found them, Joanne." Chet said as he and Marco stepped forward. "That's what we're here for."
"We'll take good care of them," Marco agreed. "Don't worry about them at all, okay? Just go to Roy. He needs you now."
Swallowing another sob, Joanne touched each of the men on the arm, reached back to grab her purse from the hall table and ran with Johnny and the captain back to the car.
#-#-#-#-
Joanne waited quietly, sitting still in the middle of Rampart's emergency waiting room. Johnny circled the room nervously. He stepped outside to lean up against the wall and watch the door to treatment three, where the doctors worked on Roy.
It would be easy to become obsessed with that door. Every time it opened his heart stopped as he waited for someone to come out and tell him that a piece of his world was gone forever, but each time, so far, it had been only a nurse or an orderly intent on some errand.
He went back into the waiting room and crouched by Joanne. She was putting on a brave front, but he could see that she was trembling and he made her his focus. As long as he had something to do, someone to be responsible for, this was bearable. Otherwise he would go mad. Down on one knee, talking softly, he missed when the door did open. He only realized someone had come into the room when Joanne looked up with hope and fear in her eyes.
Spinning and looking up, Johnny saw that it was Brackett. He read bad news in the doctor's face and stance, but not the worst news. At least, not yet. He turned to sit beside his partner's wife and took her hand in his.
"Doc?"
Brackett pulled over another chair and sat facing them.
"He's hurt very badly. Aside from a number of broken bones, he has a severe concussion and some internal injuries. We won't be able to tell the full extent of the internal injuries until we get inside.
"So you're going to operate?" Joanne asked.
"We need to, yes. The problem is that he's not strong enough. If we attempted to operate on him right now his chances of surviving surgery would be almost nonexistent. We've managed to reinflate his right lung, which had collapsed, and we're pumping plasma into him and treating him for shock. He's bleeding internally and that's making it difficult to get him stabilized. We need to go in as soon as he's strong enough. If his vitals start dropping, we'll have to go in regardless. It will be the only chance he has."
Brackett turned all his attention to Joanne. "I know this is very hard for you, and this is a lot to take in, but there isn't any time to spare. I'm asking you to go ahead and sign a consent form now so that we can operate as soon as it's possible. Or necessary. Will you do that for us, Joanne?"
She glanced at Johnny, sitting beside her with his face drawn and grave, dark eyes hooded. He caught the look and met her eye, nodding almost imperceptibly.
"Yes, I'll sign it. Where do I go?"
"Dix?" Brackett said.
Dixie McCall had come in unnoticed. She advanced now carrying a clipboard with a pen attached. Brackett stood up.
"I'm going to get back to him now. I'll let you know as soon as I have any word. Just don't give up, all right?"
Johnny followed him to the door and watched him go back in the treatment room while Dixie explained the forms to Joanne and showed her where to sign. On her way out Dixie stopped by the younger paramedic.
"You going to be okay?"
He shrugged. "You'll know that before I do, Dix."
She touched his shoulder in silent sympathy, but he stopped her as she started to slip past. "Uh, Dix? I was just wondering. Lonnie Vickers? The guy we were bringing in when . . . ?"
"Oh," she dropped her eyes and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Johhny. He didn't make it. He coded out almost as soon as Joe started on him."
Neither woman was prepared for John Gage's reaction.
He spun and punched the back of the nearest chair. "DAMN!" The room rang with echoes of his rage.
Joanne jumped up in a panic. "Roy!"
"No! No!" Johnny held up his hands reassuringly, immediately calm again in the face of her fears. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry."
Dixie hovered in the doorway, needed elsewhere but unable to leave. "Another patient John brought in, Joanne. He didn't make it." She gave them a small, sad smile and was gone.
Johnny led Joanne back to her seat and sat beside her. Now it was her turn to offer comfort.
"Johnny, I'm sorry. I know how much you hate to lose someone. I see what it does to Roy all the time. I also know you did everything that you could."
"Oh, yeah," Johnny said, his voice rich with bitterness and self-loathing. "Yeah, I really did everything I could all right."
Joanne studied him. "Johnny, I know there's something going on here, but I can't figure out what it is. Help me out, okay?"
He closed his eyes, unable to look at her as he explained.
"You know I wasn't with Roy when the squad wrecked. I was with a patient in an ambulance and Roy was following behind us in the squad. When the accident happened I wanted to go back to help, but I couldn't. I had a patient I was responsible for, so I couldn't go back. So I left him lying there and just went on. And the patient died anyway."
He sighed, still not looking at her. She took his hand and squeezed. "You did what you had to do. What other choice was there, Junior?" Johnny's shoulders shook. Junior was Roy's nickname for him. "Let someone else die so that you could turn around and go back? You couldn't do that."
"No, I couldn't. But I wanted to. And I wish I had."
#-#-#-#-
"How's your partner?"
In the wee hours of the morning a quiet voice interrupted Johnny's bout of gloom and self-recrimination. He looked up to find a young paramedic in the waiting room doorway. He knew him, but couldn't quite put a name to the face. Reilly? Ryan? Something Irish, though. From squad 63.
Johnny glanced down at Joanne and found her watching them quietly, fatigue plain on her face. Still, he answered honestly. Joanne already knew the truth.
"Not so good. Right now we're just waiting. Oh, do you know Roy's wife?"
The strange paramedic stepped over and shook hands with her. "Ma'am. I'm Chad Roark from squad 63. We were all sorry to hear about the accident. There's probably no one in the department who's done so much for the paramedic program as DeSoto. I probably wouldn't be a paramedic myself if he hadn't talked me into it. I didn't think it was anything I really wanted to do, but you just couldn't resist his enthusiasm and his conviction that we could make a difference and save lives. You know?"
Johnny found himself smiling sadly. "Yeah, I know. He dragged me in kicking and screaming too. I still can't figure out how I got lucky enough to wind up as his partner, but don't tell him I said that."
"Don't worry, I won't say a word. Is there anything that I can do for you?"
"No, no, but thank you."
"Well, I guess I'd better go then. We just brought in a heart attack and we need to get back on call. When you see DeSoto, tell him we're all pulling for him."
Roark left. There was a short silence and then Joanne spoke up.
"Did you mean that, Johnny? You really don't know?"
"Hmm? Don't know what?"
"How you wound up as Roy's partner."
"Oh, that. Just luck of the draw, I guess."
"No, it wasn't. You two got partnered because Roy requested it. He'd been working with the program long enough and hard enough to have some pull, and he made up his mind he wanted to ride with you the first time you came in to find out what a paramedic was."
"Joanne, at that point I didn’t even know myself that I wanted to be a paramedic."
"Yeah, he made up his mind about that too."
"But . . . ."
"You're sitting here wearing the uniform, aren't you?"
Johnny looked down at his grungy clothes and sooty, grimy badge. "Yeah, I guess I am. Like that guy said, Roy's a hard man to resist when he makes up his mind about something." He reached out to the coffee table and toyed with a Styrofoam cup of cold coffee. "Joanne?"
"Hmm?"
"Did he . . . do you think . . . did he ever regret that he decided to ride with me?"
Joanne looked up at him slantwise and gave him a watery smile. "Well, there was that time you took up the bagpipes . . . ."
#-#-#-#-
At eight fifteen AM Johnny left the waiting room to take a phone call from the station. When he returned there was a set to his shoulders and a new depth to the lines this night had drawn on his lean face that told Joanne DeSoto something had happened.
He dropped to one knee beside her chair. "I talked to Dr. Early out in the hall," he said. "They're getting ready to take him up to surgery now. His condition stabilized somewhat during the night, but now he's started slipping again. They think this is probably the best they're going to get. If we go out into the hall we can see him for a second as they go by. Okay?"
She nodded dumbly and Johnny helped her to her feet. They went out together and stood side by side in the hallway. It was less than a minute before the door to treatment room three opened and a cluster of medical personnel came out surrounding a gurney. When they drew level with Johnny and Joanne they halted.
When Johnny had last seen his partner Roy was wearing his bloodied uniform. He was clean now, dressed in a white hospital gown and covered with a white sheet. His face was whiter still. His dark-gold hair was almost brown by contrast, eyelashes dark against pallid cheeks.
Joanne leaned over him, swallowing tears and making an obvious effort to be brave. "Roy? Honey? I love you. I'm the luckiest woman in the world to have you. If I don't always remember to tell you, it doesn't make it any less true. Okay? I love you Roy. I love you so much!"
Johnny leaned down. "Pally? You just hang in there, you hear me?" He tried to say more but the words he wanted choked him.
"John," Brackett prompted.
Johnny swallowed hard and nodded. "I'll talk to you when you get back," he said and stepped back to watch as they pushed the gurney down the hall and disappeared into an elevator.
Looking down, Johnny saw that Joanne was weeping silently. He gathered her into his arms and held her, his cheek against her hair. One of them was shaking, but he couldn't honestly say who. When the worst of the tears had subsided he led her back into the waiting room and they settled down to a grim and fear-filled vigil.
#-#-#-#-
A-shift had gone off duty at eight without ever going back on call. By nine they were at the hospital, camped in the waiting room with Johnny and Joanne. Joanne's sister arrived with them, staying just long enough to reassure Joanne that the children were fine and that she would take care of them for as long as she was needed.
"They were really good kids," Chet said. "They didn't wake up at all, all night. We gave them pancakes and juice for breakfast. I hope that was okay?"
"Yes, it was wonderful of you. I can never thank you all enough."
"Hey, don't worry about it. Roy would do the same for us." Chet waited expectantly. When Johnny didn't answer he said, "come on, Gage. Don't you have some little witticism to add? Like, 'yeah, Chet, in the unlikely event you could find a woman who'd agree to marry you'?"
Johnny remained silent, fallen into a stupor of worry and fatigue. Chet leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin on his fists. He sighed loudly.
The wait went on.
#-#-#-#-
It wasn't until early afternoon that the door opened to admit Kelly Brackett and Joe Early. Johnny rose to meet them and everyone else in the room stood around him, like a phalanx of soldiers on guard.
"Doc?"
Brackett gave them a tired half-smile, "he's made it through surgery. He's still in critical condition, but I think we can safely say that the worst is behind him."
Joanne staggered with relief and Johnny caught her, steadied her and helped her to sit back down. Feeling suddenly weak himself he sat beside her and everyone else present, including the doctors, gathered close and found chairs.
"What can you tell us, Doc?" Johnny asked.
"Well, we've repaired and re-inflated his right lung, tied off not one but three places where he was bleeding internally, done some work on his liver and kidneys, sutured a tear in the wall of his stomach, and put his rib cage back together, for starters."
Joe Early cut in. "I've seen jigsaw puzzles that were in fewer pieces than that boy."
"Mmm. We've also set and cast his right arm and both legs. He's got a rough road ahead of him, but his pulse and blood pressure have steadied and he's reacting to stimuli in all extremities. That's all to the good. Frankly, when you brought him in here I really didn't think he had a chance, but now I'd say there's every reason to hope he'll make a full recovery."
The firefighters gathered cheered at the statement, but Johnny realized that there was still something the doctors weren't saying.
"What about his concussion, Doc? How serious is the head injury?"
Brackett and Early exchanged a look. "Joe?" Brackett prompted.
Early turned to address John and Joanne, his soft voice gentle. "That's the one question that we still don't have any answers for, John. We can't even begin to evaluate the possibility of brain damage until he wakes up."
"How long will that be?" Joanne asked, her voice registering fear again.
"I'm sorry, I can't say. At best, given time for the anesthetics to wear off, ten to twelve hours."
"And at worst?"
Johnny pulled her close and drew her into a hug, already knowing the answer. "At worst, Joanne," he said, "is never."
#-#-#-#-
Anxious hours stretched into days. By the time A-shift was expected back on duty the fire department had provided a new squad and a series of paramedics to temporarily replace DeSoto. As much as he wanted to remain at the hospital and keep vigil over his fallen friend, John Gage knew he had to return to work.
"I have to, Joanne," he said. "The work is too important. And Roy has put too much of himself into the paramedic program. If I let a shift go uncovered just so I could sit here, I wouldn't just be ignoring my duty. I'd be betraying him a--" he broke off, but Joanne understood his meaning.
"You can't betray him again, Johnny. You didn't betray him in the first place. I wish there was some way I could get you to believe that."
He shrugged, unconvinced. "Anyway, I'll check in with you as often as I can. And you'll call me if you need anything, right?"
"Yes, and don't worry. If there's any change at all, I'll call you first."
#-#-#-#-
The days became a week and the week became two. Dixie McCall and Drs. Brackett and Early sat in the break room one quiet evening and talked softly in solemn tones.
"How's Gage handling this, Dix? Do you know?" asked Brackett.
"Well, he's putting on a brave front, especially around Roy's wife. He's pretty badly torn up about it, though. You know, he's blaming himself."
"But why should he blame himself?" Early asked. "He didn't cause the accident. And from what I've heard he went above and beyond just getting in to Roy and getting him out."
"He feels guilty because he left the scene when it first happened. He was in the ambulance, you know, with Lonnie Vickers, and Vickers was in cardiac arrest. Johnny thinks that if he had let Vickers go and turned around to help, he could have gotten to Roy sooner and that might have made a difference in his condition."
"But, dammit, Dix!" Brackett's easily riled temper stirred. "We can't have paramedics going around playing God! You can't pick and choose who you're going to treat based on who you think deserves to live the most. We start letting those boys do that and the entire foundation of the program could be undermined."
"I know, Kel! I know," Dixie said placatingly. "I know it, you know it. John Gage knows it. He did the right thing, Kel. But he's hurting and he's scared. And maybe it's easier for him to blame himself than it is to admit that he was powerless all along."
Brackett sighed, feeling all at once very old. "Yes, you're right of course. Do you think it would help any for me to have a talk with him?"
"I think there's only one person that Johnny needs to talk to."
"Yeah, I know. But we've done all we can. Now, I'm afraid, it's up to a higher authority."
#-#-#-#-
"Dixie?"
Dixie froze with one hand still raised to check the level of Roy DeSoto's IV drip. Had she heard that? Or was it only wishful thinking? Johnny was on duty today and Joanne had reluctantly left for a few hours to see to her children. There was no one in the room with her but Roy, lying silent and all too still at the center of a nest of tubes and cables.
Setting down her clipboard, Dixie bent over the bed and studied her patient. Her friend. His eyes remained closed and there was no change in his breathing, nor in the pattern of his heart rhythm that was running across the monitor above his head.
"Roy?" she tried. "Roy? Are you in there? Come on and let me see those pretty blue eyes."
His eyelashes fluttered. Dixie steadied herself against the bed railing and sharpened her voice. "Come on, mister! Up and at 'em! Open your eyes! Wake up and talk to me!"
Again she heard a mumbled, barely audible, "Dixie?" Then his eyes finally opened and she found herself looking down into her friend's bewildered blue gaze.
Swallowing tears, she hit the intercom and called out, "Dr. Brackett to emergency 303 stat!"
#-#-#-#-
Johnny was just coming in through the emergency entrance, walking beside a gurney carrying a stroke victim, when he heard Brackett paged to 303. The old man on the gurney tapped his arm.
"You okay, son? You look worse than me all of a sudden."
"What?" Johnny forced his attention back to the patient. "Yes, I'm all right, but I have to go now. You're in good hands, okay? I'll come in and see you later."
He charged to the bank of elevators and hit the button, bouncing on the balls of his feet in impatience. Each second that passed felt like hours and he quickly gave up waiting, pushed open the door to the fire stairs and charged up two flights, flew through the hall and pulled up outside Roy's room.
In all his life fear had never kept John Gage from going through any door, but he did hesitate, one hand on the handle, long enough to take a deep breath. He pushed the door open quickly and stepped inside.
Medical personnel gathered around his partner's bed, hiding Roy from view. Kelly Brackett was bent over the bed with his back to the door. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Johnny and gave him a lopsided smile. Johnny echoed the expression, but hesitantly. On his face it was a question. Smile . . . like this? Can I do this? Is it okay to make a face like this again?
"He woke up, John."
John's smile blossomed into the real thing. "He's awake? Pally?"
"He's not awake right now." John's face fell, but Brackett gave him a reassuring slap on the shoulder. "It's all right. He's drifting in and out, waking up slowly. We're running some tests and waiting for Joe Early. When he gets here we're going to see if we can't go ahead and bring him out of it. You're welcome to stick around, if you'd like."
"Yeah. Yeah!" Johnny looked around. "Joanne?"
"She went home to check on the kids," Dixie answered. "Would you like to call her?"
"You bet!"
"Why don't you use the phone at the nurse's station?"
Johnny dashed out of the room and made a quick, jubilant call to Joanne, who assured him that her sister was with her and that she wouldn't have any trouble getting to the hospital immediately. On his way back to Roy's room Johnny ran into his temporary partner, Craig Brice, in the hospital hallway.
"Gage. Dashing through the halls is unseemly behavior for a professional paramedic, don't you think? Are you ready to go?"
Johnny's eyes lit on the radio Brice carried. "Give me the HT."
"Really, Gage, I think that, as the calmer and more rational of us, it would be better if I were to retain possession of the --"
"Oh, shut up," Johnny said good-naturedly, snatching the radio and raising it to his mouth as he returned to his partner's room.
#-#-#-#-
"Roy?" Joe Early said. "Roy? Can you hear me? Come on, Roy, I need you to wake up now."
His eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Johnny leaned forward. "Doc? Can I try?"
Early nodded and Johnny raised the HT to speak into it. "Dispatch, this is Gage from 51. Are you ready?"
"10-4, Gage. Dispatch, standing by."
"Go ahead then."
There was a short pause and then the countywide wake-up tones echoed through the hospital room. Roy's eyes flew open and he tried to get up. Gentle hands restrained him. Dixie held a straw up to his mouth so he could drink.
"Roy?" Early asked. "Do you know where you are?"
Roy's eyes roamed around the room. "Rampart?"
"Good! Very good. Do you know why you're here?"
He thought about it for a minute. "No?"
"That's all right. We'll work on that."
Johnny, meanwhile, had raised the radio again. "Station 51, this is squad 51. Please stand by for transmission."
"Station 51 standing by."
Leaning over the bed, Johnny held the HT up in front of his partner's face. "Go on, Pally. Say something to the guys at the station."
Roy blinked muzzily and said the first thing that came into his head.
"Squad 51 available."
Johnny stood back, hands on his hips, and laughed happily. "If that isn't just typical! I give him the radio and he puts me back to work!"
#-#-#-#-
Johnny tapped on the hospital room door and stuck his head in. Though still largely immobilized by casts and IVs, Roy was propped up almost sitting. He was alone for a change and he welcomed Johnny with a smile.
"Hey, Junior! Are you between runs?"
"Just a supply run. Bellingham's riding with me tonight. I left him down in the lounge drinking the hospital out of coffee." Johnny wandered in and looked around awkwardly, not meeting his friend's eyes. "Just wanted to stop in and see how you were feeling."
"Better."
"Better?"
"Yeah. Lots better. Tell me what's wrong, Johnny."
Johnny glanced up, caught by surprise. "Wrong? Why should anything be wrong?"
"I don't know. That's why you have to tell me. Look, I've been worried about you. This is the first chance we've had to talk without an audience. I know that something is bothering you. Come on, John. Won't you just tell me? Please?"
Johnny sighed and leaned against the wall. "Do you remember the accident much yet?"
"No, not much. I remember the fire, and getting in the squad to follow you."
"Do you remember Lonnie Vickers?"
"The patient?"
"Yeah, that's right. The patient." Johnny shook his head, surprised that this was so hard to say. "Roy, he flat-lined in the ambulance. I had already shocked him twice when you got hit. I wanted to let him go. I wanted to just let him go and turn around and go back to help you."
Roy's eyes softened. "But you didn't," he said reassuringly. "Listen, Johnny, you can't go around beating yourself up for things you wanted to do. You may have been tempted, but you did the right thing."
Johnny just stood and stared at him, amazed that his friend could misunderstand so completely.
"Look, John. Anybody can make the easy choices. You made the hard ones. That's what makes you so good, and it's why I'm so proud to have you for my partner."
Johnny shook his head in disbelief. "Roy, I'm not kicking myself because I wanted to let Vickers go and come help you. I'm kicking myself because I didn't do it."
"But --"
Johnny stalked over and leaned down to look his partner in the eye. "You're the best person I know," he said, his voice quiet but fierce.
Taken by surprise, Roy found his throat flooding. Tears spilled down his face and he was humiliated because he had neither the strength to hide them nor the ability, tethered as he was by casts and IV lines, to wipe them away. He turned his head away briefly, fighting for control, but he needed to look his friend in the eyes.
"John," he said, his voice choked with emotion, "I can't imagine what could ever make you think such a thing, but having you say that means more --"
"You are!" Johnny hissed, and there was fury rather than tenderness in his tone and his stance. "And Lonnie Vickers was a worthless piece of murdering scum. And I left you lying there bleeding to death so I could try to save his life. What does that make me, Roy? Just what. In the hell. Does. That. Make. Me?"
"What does that make you?" Roy echoed, his own voice climbing with disbelief and anger. "What does that make you? I'll tell you what that makes you, John Gage. One damn good paramedic, that's what that makes you!"
"Yeah?" John snorted softly, dismissing the pronouncement. He turned away from Roy and stood facing the corner, back ramrod straight and arms crossed high over his chest. When he spoke again there was pain in the words he tossed over his shoulder.
"And what kind of a friend does it make me?"
The silence seemed to stretch on forever, though in reality it was only a matter of seconds before Roy answered casually.
"I got no complaints in that department." He waited a moment and then went on, hesitantly. "You, um, . . . you did get rid of those bagpipes, right?"
Johnny spun around in surprise and found Roy watching him with concern and affection. Humor lurked around the corner of his mouth, waiting to see if it was safe to come out. And at that point something gave way inside John Gage. The last of the knots untied themselves and finally he let himself relax, release the guilt and the fear and the self-recrimination and give way to his best friend's infectious smile.
"Yeah," he said, laughing tiredly. He went over and leaned on the bed rail and used to heel of his hand to brush the tears from Roy's face. "Yeah, no more bagpipes, I promise."
"Well, then . . . "
"Although," John sat back on the arm of the visitor's chair and gazed up at the ceiling in the attitude of someone being inspired. "I have been considering getting an accordion."
"Oh, no! Please no!"
#-#-#-#-
Kelly Brackett, with Dixie McCall close behind, pushed open the door to Roy's hospital room.
"Oh, no! Please no!"
John Gage sat on the arm of the visitor's chair looking like himself again finally. His pose was relaxed and his face alight with mischief. Roy was laughing, his color better than it had been since the accident.
These two men were good for one another. Was that the definition of friendship? Part of it, anyway.
Roy saw them first and called out cheerfully.
"Doc! Help! He's threatening me with an accordion!"
"An accordion." Brackett let his gaze roam around the room, taking in the absence of menacing musical instruments. "I see."
"Yeah, Doc," Johnny said animatedly. "Yeah! See, what I figure is, it gets awfully boring, just sitting around a hospital room all the time. So if Roy here doesn't get well, like, REAL SOON . . . well, then, I can come in and play the accordion for him to keep him entertained. I can come in on my days off and between runs. Heck, I can be here ALL the TIME! I can play Lady of Spain and Beer Barrel Polka and . . . Lady of Spain."
"I see." Brackett crossed his arms and tapped one finger against his chin. "And do you play the accordion, John?"
"Well, no. Not yet . . . . "
"Mmm hmm." Brackett went over to Roy's bedside, leaned down close and spoke to the senior paramedic with mock urgency. "Roy, heal fast!"
As the laughter died away Dixie came around Brackett carrying a med tray. She set it on the bedside stand. "All right, children. Playtime's over. Time to go home, John."
"Oh, but I was just gonna . . . "
"You're just going to go remove Mr. Bellingham from our break room while we still have a break room. Roy's going to take his medicine and go to sleep now. You can come back and bully him in the morning."
Johnny stood and gave in graciously. "Well, I guess that tells me! Pally, you call me if you need anything, okay? Anything at all. Even if I have to sneak it past the dragon lady here."
"Flattery will get you nowhere," Dixie told him.
"I'm fine, you just take care of yourself. You hear me, Junior?"
"I always do. I'll see you in the morning. Oh! I have to tell you what Chet did! You can help me figure out how I'm going to get even with him."
"Say goodnight, Johnny," Dixie prompted.
"Goodnight, Johnny," Johnny quipped and allowed himself to be pushed out of the room. Brackett, following a moment later, found the younger paramedic lingering in the hall.
"He looks good, doesn't he Doc?" Johnny asked.
"Yes, he looks very good."
"So, um, I guess he's really going to be okay, right?"
"Yes, he's really going to be okay."
"Great. I mean, of course, I knew it all along."
"Of course you did. Um, Johnny?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you, ah, did you talk to Roy about what happened? With Vickers and the accident, I mean?"
"Oh, yeah." Johnny shrugged self-consciously. "He said I did the right thing."
Having said the same thing, and numerous times, Brackett allowed himself a look of mock surprise. "Really? Gee, why does that sound so familiar?"
Johnny laughed sheepishly. "I know, I know."
"But here's the thing," Brackett persisted. "Do you believe Roy?"
Johnny studied the pattern of the floor tiles. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"Well, good then!"
"But, Doc?"
Brackett looked up and found John Gage's eyes on him. All traces of humor had fled from his face. Shadows still lurked in the depths of his dark eyes and his voice was somber.
"You know I could never have believed anyone else?"
Brackett studied him for a long moment, then gave him a tiny, reassuring smile. "I know, John. I know."
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