by E!lf

Jenny DeSoto opened her eyes to darkness as a high-pitched beeping filled the house.

The smoke alarm!

She slid out of bed, shoved her bare feet into sneakers and sat on the floor to pull a pink bathrobe on over her Strawberry Shortcake pajamas.  Her night light still burned, a dim pink glow against the wall, and she used its light to find her way as she crawled across the room.  She stopped at the door and carefully reached a hand up to feel the wood.  It was cool beneath her touch, so she raised up just enough reach the doorknob and cracked the door open.

There was another, larger night light in the hallway, and by its glow she saw the fire on the floor, between her room and her brother's across the hall.  She peeked out just a bit more and saw a second fire in front of her parents' bedroom door at the end of the hall.

As she was kneeling there Chris' door opened and his eyes, blue like Daddy's, met hers.  The two siblings nodded briefly at one another and then Chris closed his door and Jenny closed hers. 

Hurrying as fast as she could -- time mattered -- she pulled the Rainbow Brite comforter from her bed and pushed it against the bottom of the door.  Then she crawled over to the window.  It raised easily.  The latch that held the window screen in place was simple to undo, especially since the hardware had been fitted with large parts, easily grasped by the small hands of a five-and-a-half year old girl who claimed to be six.

The screen came away completely.  Jenny dropped it behind her and pulled up the top of her window seat.  It was hinged at the front and the back raised up to reveal a cavity that held a rope and wood ladder.  She pulled it out and dropped it out the window.  It was no trick, then, for her to climb up on the wide windowsill, grab the top of the ladder and flip herself out the window so that her feet found the wooden rungs.  She had done it a million times, first wearing a safety harness with Daddy standing above her holding the line.

She flew down the ladder.  As soon as her feet touched the ground she let go and ran as fast as she could to the sidewalk in front of the house.  Daddy and Uncle Johnny were waiting there, leaning against the side of their squad.  Daddy was watching the luminous dial on his wristwatch and Uncle Johnny was eating M&Ms.

Chris arrived from his side of the house at almost the exact same time she did.  Daddy knelt and gave them both a big smile and a huge hug.

"Less than two minutes!  You did great!"

He stood up again, checking his wristwatch and watching the front of the house with a tiny, worried frown.  Uncle Johnny ruffled their hair and snuck them some M&Ms and the two children danced around on the sidewalk, excited to be awake and running around outside in their nightclothes at this strange hour.

Finally the window to Mommy and Daddy's room opened, the screen disappeared and Mommy tossed their ladder out and climbed down.  She ran up to them and smiled brightly.  Daddy frowned back and tugged on the sleeve of her shirt.

"What's this?"

"It's a football jersey.  L.A. Rams.  Maybe you've heard of them?"  She was also wearing jeans.

Daddy's mouth tightened.  "You're not supposed to take time to get dressed!  Jo!  In a fire, every second counts!"

"And in a real fire I wouldn't take time to get dressed.  But if you think a hallway full of cardboard flames is going to get me out here in front of Johnny -- hi, Johnny! -- wearing . . . wearing . . . wearing what I'm wearing under this, then, Blue Eyes, you've got another think coming!"

Roy snagged a finger in the front of her football jersey, pulled it out and leaned in to peek down his wife's shirt.

"Ah."

"Mmm.  Ah, indeed."

He put on a hurt look, pretending to pout.  "And what are you doing sleeping in that when I'm at work?"

She leaned close.  "Just trying to inspire some naughty dreams about my husband."  Their lips met and she clasped her hands behind his neck.

Johnny, standing shoulder to shoulder with Roy, turned slightly red.  He slipped the kids more candy, shoved a handful in his own mouth and spoke around it.

"Am I gonna have to get the garden hose?"

Christopher and Jenny giggled at the idea of Uncle Johnny dousing their parents with the garden hose and Roy and Joanne reluctantly parted.

"We need to get back to the station," Roy sighed.  "We were just out this way on a run and it got cancelled, so I thought it'd be a good time to stage a surprise fire drill.  Let's go inside for a minute and I'll help you tuck the munchkins into bed again."

When they were inside and back upstairs, Joanne gathered up the cardboard fires that Roy had set out and put them away in the top of the hall closet while Roy and Johnny picked up the childrens' comforters and put them back on the bed, repacked the rope ladders and replaced the window screens.  Then Roy settled each child into bed with a hug and a kiss.

"You did good," he told them.  "You did real good and I'm proud of you."

With the kids in bed and their doors closed, the three adults paused a moment in the upstairs hallway.

"You," Roy said, pointing a finger at his wife, "you are still in trouble, young lady!"

She leaned against their bedroom door and tilted her head at him.  "Are you going to spank me later?" she teased.

"Count on it."

"Oh, I am!"

Johnny rolled his eyes.

Roy leaned in and kissed her, his hand slipping under the front of her football jersey.  Johnny grabbed him by the back of his collar and dragged him away.

"Sorry, Pally!  We don't have time for you to tuck her in!"

"Spoilsport!" his partner complained good-naturedly.  Joanne stuck her tongue out at him, then disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door behind herself.

Together the two paremedics went downstairs and Roy stopped to double check that all the ground floor doors and windows were secured before they left.

#-#-#-#-

As they drove back to the station through the quiet night, Roy was conscious that his partner was sitting sideways in his seat watching him.

"All right," he said finally.  "What are you thinking about?  And it better not be what my wife was wearing under that football jersey!"

Johnny grinned, but answered seriously.  "I was thinking we'd have a lot fewer casualties at fires if a lot more families took the time to be prepared like that."

"Yeah, I know.  I can't understand why they don't, myself."

"I guess they just don't think about it."

Roy shook his head.  "How can you have kids and not think about their safety?"

"It's probably easier when you don't have to go around pulling bodies out of the rubble," Johnny said.  "I will tell you one thing."

"Oh?  What?"

"Remember a while back when we had that teenage girl who OD'd?  The one whose mother refused to believe it?"

Roy had to think about it.  Sadly, teenage girls OD-ing wasn't that unusual.  He remembered the one Johnny was referring to though.  "Yeah?"

"Well, when we were talking about it, you said something to me about wondering sometimes if you're doing right by your kids?"

"Yeah.  And?"

Johnny reached over and slapped his shoulder.  "You are."

They were driving through an industrial area, the streetlights far apart.  Roy glanced over and the band of illumination they were passing through showed his mouth pursed in a tiny smile, even as his eyes remained worried.  "Thanks," he said.  "I hope you're right."

"You doubt me?"  Johnny's indignant tone raised a sincere grin that was quickly gone.

"It's just that, sometimes I wonder if I tell them too much.  They're so young."  His children were only sixteen months apart, with Chris barely seven and Jenny only five and a half.  "The thing is, I'd spend every minute, if I could, right there with them, standing between them and the big, bad world.  I'd wrap them up in cotton wool and build big, strong walls around them, and no one and nothing could ever get by me to hurt them.

"And they'd undoubtedly grow up hating me and probably be in severe need of counseling."

"Undoubtedly," Johnny agreed with a grin.  He could have expanded on that, but he didn't want to interrupt his partner's train of thought.  Roy was a quiet, introspective man, rarely talkative, and Johnny enjoyed the occasional glimpses into his mind, as he cherished the close friendship that it bespoke.

"So I have to give them the tools to protect themselves, for when I can't.  Knowledge is power, so I teach them.  Only, to teach them how to protect themselves from the bad things that can happen, you have to let them know that bad things can happen.  How do you draw the line between preparing them for possible dangers and destroying their innocence?"  He sighed and flipped on his turn signal, edged into the turn lane and swung around the corner.  "Jo's mother thinks I tell them too much.  She says I'm going to give them nightmares, and that I'm destroying their 'carefree youth'."

Johnny snorted.  Jo's mother, in his considered opinion, was an evil old bat who wasn't intelligent enough to appreciate what a great son-in-law she had.  Or, for that matter, what a brilliant and charming partner her son-in-law had.

"What?" he asked.  "By having fire drills?"

"No, not that so much."  Roy shifted uncomfortably as they approached the station.  "If something happens to a kid on a run, if it's something that was caused by the kid doing something stupid or not doing something smart, if there's some way it could have been prevented, I tell them about it.  I mean, I don't get graphic or anything.  I'm really not out to scare them, you know.  But I want them to know how to protect themselves and I want them to be aware of the potential consequences of their actions."

"Like, for instance?"

Roy backed the squad into its place and turned off the motor, but neither made a move to get out.

"Remember the kid who tried to jump his bike from the top of one apartment building to the top of the next one?"

"Oh, yeah."  There'd been nothing they could do but treat his mother for shock while they waited for the coroner.

"And the guy who choked on his pop tab because he dropped it into the can he was drinking out of?  And the woman who got her hand caught in the electric mixer?  And that other one who got her arm caught in the wringer washer?  And the man with his hand down the garbage disposal?

"My kids are just little, but they know about those things.  They know what to do in case of a fire, or an earthquake, a mudslide, a hurricane, a flash flood.  One of Jen's classmates is allergic to bee stings, so I went to the school at the beginning of the year to teach all the adults how to give her a shot of epinephrine if she needs it.  I wanted to teach all the kids, too, but the school officials thought that they were too young, and too immature.  My kids know how.  They know how to treat bleeding and how to splint a broken bone and they have the numbers for the fire department and the police memorized."

Roy shifted to face his partner and grinned suddenly, pride replacing the concern on his face.  "I guarantee that Chris knows more first aid than most adults," he said.  "Did I tell you about taking him to class with me?"  The senior paramedic was still actively involved in paramedic training, volunteering two or three days a month.  The program had blossomed dramatically since his sincerity and enthusiasm convinced John Gage to join up, but they were still far short of the number of paramedics that were needed to serve the six and a half million people in Los Angeles County.

"No, I don't think so."

"Oh.  Well, I'd been taking Chris to class with me for two or three months.  It was a good chance to hang out together, you know, and he was interested, and he came in handy playing a victim when we'd act out scenarios.  Then one day one of the instructors called me and asked me not to bring him anymore."

"Why not?"  Johnny was incensed.

Roy grinned.  "Seems when I was out of the room the last time the guy noticed Chris talking to one of the trainees while they were taking a test.  He thought Chris was bothering him and went over to chase him away.  When he got close enough to hear what was going on . . . Chris was giving him the answers!"

The two men laughed and then Roy opened his door.  Johnny followed suit and they left the squad and headed for the dorm.  Just before they settled back down to sleep Johnny hissed and called out in a loud whisper.

"Hey, Roy?"

"Yeah?"

"What was Joanne wearing under that football jersey, anyway?"

Roy only laughed and refused to answer.

#-#-#-#- 

"Now, kids, come over and look at this."  Roy sat at the kitchen table.  Joanne had left to join her garden club -- most of the neighborhood women -- at a botanic garden in Escondido and Roy was home alone with his children.  They crowded close, one on either side of him, as he pulled over a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies and a partial bag of storebought chocolate chip cookies that they had wound up with after the firefighters' picnic the week before.

Roy took one cookie from the plate and one from the bag and broke them both open.

"You see that?  That's the difference between your mom's cookies and the store bought cookies.  Your mom's cookies have real, actual chocolate chips.  See?  And the store ones only have little brown spots that are supposed to be chocolate chips."  The kids readily agreed that Joanne's cookies were better.  With that important issue decided, they settled down to the business of eliminating them.

The phone rang and Roy reached around to answer it.

"Hey, Junior!  How's it going?  You're still coming over to watch the game this afternoon, right?  No?  Aw, geez!  That stinks . . . Yeah, I guess you're right . . . Who are you riding with? . . . That's not too bad . . . .  Well, wanna try for tomorrow? . . . Okay.  You take care of yourself, then!  I mean it!  Be careful! . . . Yeah, yeah.  Okay, see you tomorrow."

"Uncle Johnny's not coming?" Chris asked as his dad hung up the phone.

"No.  He'd like to, but the paramedics at 36 got hurt in an explosion and he and Kirk got called in to cover them.  He said he'll come over tomorrow, though."

Jenny climbed into his lap and settled back against his chest, enjoying the warmth and security of his strong arm around her waist.  "I'm glad you didn't go to work today, Daddy."

"Me too, angel."

When they had finished their milk and cookies Chris cleared the table and Jenny stood on a chair at the sink to wash the dishes.  Roy got the job of putting them away by virtue of being the only one tall enough to reach the cupboards.  With the kitchen clean they went outside.  The kids ran to play on the swingset in the back yard and Roy strolled around to the side of the house, to where his beloved sports car was parked in the driveway.

It was a glorious day.  The sun was warm, but it was shady along the driveway and a cool breeze blew through between the houses, ruffling the blond hair on Roy's forehead.  He was relaxed, his mind at ease.  He was comfortable in an old blue fire department tee shirt and a pair of shorts.  The afternoon stretched ahead of him, to do as he saw fit.  His friends were all healthy and safe, his wife would be in a good mood after having a day to herself, and his children were laughing in the back yard.  Just at that moment Roy DeSoto's life was as perfect as it ever got.

He should have known that something was about to go horribly wrong.

His car was parked facing the road -- after driving the squad, backing into a parking place was second nature.  He popped the trunk, exposing the engine, and checked the oil, then fiddled with the belts.  The serpentine drive belt felt a little loose to him, so he circled around to the front of the car and opened the hood to get his toolbox.

He wasn't paying attention to the occasional cars passing on the street out front, so he didn't turn to look behind him until the sound of an engine grew suddenly loud.  Spinning, he found a strange green El Dorado coming up the driveway, heading right for him.  He did his best to dive to safety, but he never stood a chance.  The El Dorado struck the little sports car at an angle, catching Roy in a crushing embrace.  The sports car gave way, bouncing back as if trying to spare its master, and Roy fell to the gravel drive.  The driver's side front corner of the El Dorado plowed into the house, neatly taking out the telephone relay box, and then the bigger car rebounded as well, a sharp edge on its dragging bumper ripping a gash in Roy's left leg.

The driver of the El Dorado muttered to himself in a drunken stupor, slumped over in his seat and passed out, completely oblivious to what he had done.  On the driveway in front of him, Roy DeSoto lay unconscious, panting for breaths that would not come while bright red arterial blood spurted from his leg with every heartbeat.

#-#-#-#-

"Daddy!"

"Daddy?"

"Daddy!  What happened?"

At the sound of the crash, Chris and Jenny abandoned the swingset and ran around the house.  Chris was the first one to come past the sports car and see his father lying crumpled and broken on the ground.  He put a hand back to catch his sister and gave her a brief, fierce hug as she gasped in shock.  Then he pushed her towards the house.

"Jenny!  Quick!  Go call the fire department!  Then bring me Daddy's medical bag.  And a blanket and the pillows from the couch.  Hurry!"

She swallowed hard, then nodded and ran.  Without bothering to watch her go, seven year old Chris dropped to his knees beside his father.

Looking him over quickly, he identified the spurting blood as the most immediate problem.  He pulled off his white tee shirt, wadded it into a thick pad and put it over the wound, holding it down with both hands as tightly as he could.  Roy moaned weakly and tried to move away from the pain.  Chris only pushed down harder.  Using just his right hand he pulled his belt off, wrapped it around the leg and the makeshift bandage and  pulled it tight.  It wouldn't buckle, so he secured it by tucking the end under.

Jenny ran back, her small frame all but hidden under a blanket, two pillows and Roy's medical bag.  "Chris!  Chris!  The phone isn't working!"

Chris glanced up and saw the smashed telephone box.  He took the things she was carrying.  "Go to the neighbor's!  Anywhere you have to!  You've got to call the fire department!"

Jenny ran off again and Chris opened the medical kit.  It was only a basic first aid kit, but it was a paramedic's idea of a basic first aid kit.  Pulling out a stethoscope, he listened to his dad's heart and lungs.  He found a penlight and checked Roy's pupils, shining it first into one eye and then the other.

His face grim, he crawled around behind his father and moved him as gently as possible so that he was lying on his injured right side, making it easier for his uninjured left lung to expand to full capacity.  Then he used the pillows to prop up Roy's leg, raising it to slow the bleeding.  Finally he covered him with the blanket.  Roy was pale and breathing rapidly and Chris suspected that, on top of everything else, his dad was going into shock.

#-#-#-#-

At station 36, John Gage was helping Kirk inventory the drug box.

"So," Kirk said, "what plans did the L.A. County Fire Department ruin for you today?"

"Aw, man!  I was gonna go over and watch the game with Roy this afternoon!"

"Roy?"  Kirk looked up.  "Roy DeSoto?  Your partner?  You mean you'd voluntarily spend your day off with your partner?"  He sounded like he couldn't imagine such a thing.

"Sure.  Why not?"  John's voice was just a bit defensive, though he couldn't imagine what Kirk would have against Roy.

"Oh, I dunno.  No reason, I guess.  I just know that, for me, the whole point of having a day off is to get away from my partner."

"Well, yeah," Johnny grinned.  "But you ride with Wheeler.  I ride with Roy."

"So you guys are actually friends, then?"

"The best!"

"Huh.  It must be nice.  Um . . . I don't suppose you'd want to trade?"

"Partners?"  John Gage laughed.  "Sorry, pal!  Roy's my partner.  Wheeler's all yours!"

#-#-#-#-

Jenny was scared and she was getting frustrated.  After trying the houses on both sides and the three across the street, she finally found one where someone was home.  Unfortunately, it was crabby old Mrs. Fenchurch, and when Jenny asked to use her phone to call the fire department she tartly informed her that she didn't have time for little girls playing games.  She slammed the door in the child's face and Jenny heard the latch sliding home.

Dashing tears from her eyes, Jenny returned to the house next door to hers, on the other side of the driveway.  The front door was tall and forbidding, but there was a patio door in the back with a long, multi-paned window beside it.  Looking in the window she could see the phone, with a long, long cord, sitting on the counter in the dark kitchen.

She knew that her daddy sometimes broke windows in an emergency.  He had come home with a cut on his arm once from doing so.  Deciding that this was an emergency, she picked up the heaviest rock she could lift and smashed it into one of the small panes of glass beside the door.  Careful not to cut herself, she reached in and unlocked the door, slipped through, grabbed the phone and dialed the well-known number for the fire department.

Even as it rang, she picked it up and carried it over to the window that overlooked the driveway.  She pushed up the window as the dispatcher answered.  Now, as she talked to the fire department, she was close enough to see Chris and talk to him as well.

#-#-#-#-

Familiar tones sounded and Johnny tossed the drug box into its compartment and jumped into the squad before he realized that, this time, station 51 didn't mean him.  Kirk was laughing at him and Johnny grinned sheepishly, but the grin died on his lips when he heard the call.  It was for a man struck by a car and Johnny knew the address very well.

"Gage?  What's the matter?"

"That's Roy's house!"  He listened, knots forming in his stomach, as 51 acknowledged the call.  His muscles were clenched so tightly that it hurt to breathe and he began to feel a little lightheaded from the lack of oxygen.  "It should take them four and a half to five minutes to get there," he figured aloud.

A minute and a half later one of 51's B-shift paramedics came over the radio.

"L.A., Squad 51.  We're experiencing mechanical difficulties.  Unable to respond.  Please assign another unit to our call."

By the time 36's tones rang out and the radio dispatcher called for them, Johnny and Kirk were out of the station and halfway down the block.

As they drove the dispatcher came back on.  "Squad 36, we have additional information on your call.  Caller is a young girl and she is apparently relaying information from a third party.  The victim is a 28 year-old male, 170 pounds.  He has been caught between two cars and the right side of his chest is crushed, with numerous broken ribs, a flail segment and a pneumothorax.  In addition, he is suffering from an arterial cut on his left leg, below the knee."

Johnny began to relax slightly and when Dr. Brackett's voice came over the radio he was the one who answered.

"L.A., this is Dr. Brackett at Rampart Emergency.  Do we know where we are getting this patient information?"

"Doc, this is John Gage, riding with squad 36 today.  Doc, the address for this call is Roy DeSoto's house.  Sounds like Roy must be treating the victim."

"Excellent!  L.A., do we have any more information?"

"Affirmative.  Caller reports that the victim's pulse is 132, blood pressure is 76 by palpation and respiration is weak, rapid and shallow.  Patient is pale and cyanotic.  He has been placed on his right side, his leg is elevated and direct pressure is being applied to the wound.  He has not regained consciousness since the accident, but both pupils are equal and reactive."

"Okay," Brackett said,  "Gage, when you get there I want you to start two IVs, one of normal saline and one of D5W, both widebore, full open.  Get him in here as fast as possible.  You'll need to get him hooked up to a heart monitor and send me a strip, but if the ambulance is there, wait and do that en route.  Time is going to be of the essence."

"Right Doc!  Our ETA is three minutes."

The dispatcher came back on the radio.  "Roger that, 36.  L.A. out."

#-#-#-#-

The squad pulled up in front of the DeSoto home even as the ambulance approached from the opposite direction.  Johnny yanked the oxygen tank and drug box, leaving Kirk to gather the rest of their equipment, and ran up the driveway, wondering only briefly about the strange green car that sat there.

He rounded the El Dorado and pulled up short in shock as his first wild fear, the one that he had all but dismissed, was unexpectedly realized.  It was Roy, his partner and dearest friend, lying broken and bleeding on the ground.

Jenny leaned out the window of the house next door, a phone to her ear, and Chris was kneeling beside his father.  He was shirtless and spattered head to toe with blood.  His blue eyes looked dark in a pale face.  He glanced up at Johnny and in just that instant, with a stethoscope dangling around his neck and blood on his face, he looked very much like his father in miniature.

"Johnny," now that there were adults here to help the boy's voice held its first note of panic.  "His BP's dropping."

Shaking himself out of his stunned daze, Johnny dropped down beside the two DeSotos, thrust the oxygen at Chris and ripped open the IV's Brackett had ordered.  Chris administered oxygen without being told and Johnny put a tourniquet around Roy's arm and fought to raise a usable vein.  It occurred to him briefly that Brackett would have a fit when he realized he had prescribed treatment based on information that came from a seven-year-old -- and that Johnny had acted on that prescription without verifying the information.  But knowing who had taught Chris about first aid, Johnny was inclined to trust him, and he could see by looking that time was, indeed, of the essence.

Kirk ran up with the rest of the equipment and Deputy Vince Howard followed him.  In the window overhead, Jenny thanked the dispatcher politely and hung up, then disappeared.  A few seconds later she ran around from the back of the house.  Vince had checked on the driver of the El Dorado and determined that he was unharmed, merely intoxicated.  He cuffed him without waking him and took his car keys, but then left him there until Roy had been transported.

When Vince stepped back Jenny went up and tugged on his shirt shyly.

"What is it, honey?"

"I broke a window," she said.  "Our phone wouldn't work and nobody was home but that one lady and she wouldn't let me call anybody, so I broke a window and went in to call.  I'm sorry.  It was an emergency."

He put an arm around her shoulders.  "It's okay, sweetie.  You did real good."

"Do you think Mrs. Mulligan will be mad at me?"

"I guarantee that no one is going to be mad at you.  I'll explain it to Mrs. Mulligan myself, okay?"

She nodded and sniffled, then turned her face up to him.  As Chris favored his father, Jenny looked like her mother with dark hair and eyes.  Roy called her his "brown-eyed girl".  Now those brown eyes swam with tears.  "Is my daddy going to die?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

Vince knelt and enfolded her in his arms.  "Everybody is going to do everything possible to make your daddy well again, I promise!

#-#-#-

In the ambulance, speeding towards Rampart, Johnny hooked his friend up to the cardiac monitor and sent Brackett the strip he wanted.  He had told the doctor that Roy was the victim so they could access his medical records and be ready when he arrived.  Brackett hadn't thought to ask yet who had treated him at the scene and Johnny hadn't volunteered the information.

The kids were with Kirk, following in the squad.  Chris would need a shower and a clean shirt.  Joanne needed to be located and informed, and Cap and the guys from the station would all want to know what had happened.  At the moment, though, all of those things took a poor second place in Johnny's mind to the task of getting Roy to the hospital alive.

His heartbeat on the monitor skittered alarmingly and Johnny spoke aloud to him.

"Come on, Pally!  Man, don't make me shock you!  You know how bad that'd hurt with those ribs."

The D5W ran out and Johnny replaced it with a new one.  When he looked back down Roy was looking up at him, panic in his eyes.

"Easy!  Easy!"

"Chris!"  Roy gasped.  "Blood?"

"You saw Chris and he had blood all over him," Johnny guessed.  Roy nodded and Johnny put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.  "It wasn't his.  It was your blood.  You got hit by a car and he took care of you until we could get there.  Do you remember?"

Roy had to think about it.  "Green."

"Yeah.  A green car.  That's right."  The ambulance swung around and Johnny recognized, from long experience, the turn into Rampart and the maneuver to back into the emergency entrance.  Roy's eyes were starting to glaze over and Johnny leaned down close, wanting to give him something to hang onto during the coming ordeal in the emergency room.  "Roy, listen to me, I've gotta tell you something.  Your kids, man, your kids did really good today.  They kept their heads and did everything right.  You can be really proud of them.  They were the ones who kept you alive until we got there.  Don't you dare go and let them down now!"

#-#-#-#-

When Joanne arrived the entire garden club arrived with her.  Johnny was sitting in the waiting room with Chris and Jenny and all the guys from 51's A shift.  With his best friend's life hanging in the balance, Johnny had asked the captain at 36s to find a replacement for him.  Kirk was finishing out the shift now with Craig Brice, possibly the one man in the department who could make him appreciate having Wheeler for a partner.

Chet and Marco had stopped by the DeSoto's and gotten Chris a change of clothes and he was clean now, though still a bit pale.  Jenny ducked her head bashfully against Johnny's arm, then braced herself and faced the women.

"I broke your window, Mrs. Mulligan," she said.  "I had to use your phone.  It was an emergency."

A stout older woman leaned down to hug the child.  "I know, honey.  It's okay.  The officer explained everything.  Mr. Mulligan has some spare glass down in the basement.  He'll have that old window fixed before you can say Jack Robinson!"

"Yeah," one of the other women muttered.  "And then we're going to take the broken glass over and feed it to Edna Fenchurch."

There was a dark murmur of accord from the group and Cap leaned over to speak quietly to Mike Stoker.  "If I was Mrs. Fenchurch, I think I'd be inclined to move about now!"

Joanne embraced her children even as her fearful gaze found Johnny.  "Roy?" she asked.

"He's in surgery," Johnny told her.

"Correction.  He was in surgery," a new voice said from behind them.  They turned to find Kelly Brackett had entered the room.  He looked tired but his posture was relaxed and he was smiling slightly.

Finally Johnny felt the knots in his own shoulders start to loosen.  "He doing okay?"

"He's doing good.  All things considered, he's doing great."

"Can I see him?" Joanne asked quickly.

Brackett considered it.  "Sure, I don't see why not.  But just for a minute.  Dix?"

Dixie McCall had come in behind him and she held out a hand now and guided Joanne out of the room.  Brackett turned back to Johnny.  "There is one thing, though, that I'm wondering about, Gage."

Uh oh, Johnny thought.  "Um, what's that?"

"Well, if Roy was the one who was injured, then who was taking care of him at the scene?"

"Oh, yeah.  Well, uh," Johnny thought fast.  "It was, um, it was a paramedic trainee.  Someone Roy's been tutoring, you might say, for quite some time."

"He did a damned good job!" the doctor said.  "Is he in training now?  Which one was it?"

"Oh, no," Johnny said.  "No, he's not in training right now.  Actually," he stepped closer to the doctor and lowered his voice confidentially, "actually, he got kicked out of the program for cheating.  But we're pretty sure he didn't realize he was cheating," he added hastily.

Christopher had been listening to the conversation and now he spoke up indignantly.  "Hey!  I wasn't cheating!  I was just telling the guy what the answers were.  I didn't spell them for him!"

"You see," Johnny explained to the doctor, "in the second grade the only tests they have are math and spelling.  So Chris figures if he wasn't spelling the answers, it doesn't count."

Brackett's eyes widened as he caught up with them and he waved one hand at the child.  "Him?!?  Christopher?  A seven-year-old?"

"Yup."

"Good grief!"  Brackett sat abruptly, as if his legs would no longer hold him.

"He did a damned good job," Johnny reminded him, tossing the doctor's own words back at him.

"Yeah, he did that."  He regarded the boy for a long minute.  "You realize, Gage, when he hits twenty-one we're all going to have to watch out for our jobs."  He turned his attention to Chris.  "So, do you want to be a paramedic when you grow up?  How about a doctor instead?"

"No, I'm gonna be a paramedic like Daddy and Uncle Johnny."

"Well, I'd say you've got a good start on it."  He turned his attention to Jenny.  "How about you?  Are you going to be a paramedic?"

"No."  She wrinkled her nose.  "Blood is ucky.  I'm gonna be a firefighter."

"Like Uncle Chet?" Chet prompted hopefully.

"No," she said, not unkindly.  "I'm gonna be way more cool than you are.  I'm gonna be in charge of the snorkel-mounted water cannon.  Or maybe fly a helicopter."

In the midst of the laughter, Johnny slapped Chet on the back.  "Try not to take it too hard," he said.  "She just can't help it.  Everybody's way more cool than you are!"

* * * * *

Roy opened his eyes to darkness as a high-pitched beeping filled the house.

The smoke alarm!

Three weeks had passed since his accident and he was very nearly ready to return to work.  There was barely a twinge in his injured side as he rolled off the bed and hit the floor.  He reached back to waken Joanne and found her gone.  His stomach knotted and he swallowed hard, crawled across the floor and felt the door.  The wood was cool so he pulled it open a crack and peeked out.

By the glow of the hall night light he saw the fire in the hall, all the cardboard flames from the closet piled together in front of his door.  With a sudden, impish grin he closed the door, pulled the comforter down and stuffed it in the crack and crawled over to the window.  It was the work of seconds to pop the screen out and toss down the ladder from the window seat.  Barefoot and clad only in boxer shorts and a tee shirt -- he knew Joanne would give him hell if he took time to dress -- he swung himself out and climbed down to the ground.

He found his family waiting with Johnny at the curb.  His partner was watching his wristwatch and as Roy ran up he shrugged slightly and said "A minute fifteen.  I suppose that's acceptable."  He looked Roy up and down.  "Nice boxer shorts.  Race cars, eh?"

Roy made a face at him but didn't bother to answer.  "So what's the big idea?" he asked instead.

"Well," Joanne said, "we got to talking while you were in the hospital and we realized that, while you give us surprise fire drills all the time, no one had ever given you one.  So we thought it was high time to rectify that.  Because sometimes taking care of the people you love means making sure they have the power to take care of themselves."

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