Authors' note: In an alternate universe far, far away....

Riverside '83

Kate Salter and Rose Po

psitowin@aol.com

"I shake, I shout, from time to time. No attention is paid to mine.

I fear for you, not just for me. My heart beats on, why can't you see?

Don't steal my thunder, don't break my heart.

I'm your mother. Hear my beating heart."

--Joanne Shenandoah (Oneida) "Mother Earth Speaks"

"The local EMS agency shall ensure that policies and procedures allow advanced life support personnel and mutual aid responders from other EMS systems to respond and function during significant medical incidents."

-- Disaster Planning Manual CA EMS Authority

Epicenter:

Johnny Gage stared into the green eyes of the infant. Her mouth was fixed mid-cry as she studied his face; her intent gaze held him motionless, frozen on all fours. How much will you remember of this day? He looked down at the wreckage of the collapsed house lying between the two of them. The glassy, dead eyes of the baby's mother stared accusingly upward at him from where she lay, felled by the collapsing ceiling on the way to save her child. Not much, I hope. He ripped open the bag holding the yellow emergency blanket and spread the plastic sheet over the dead woman's body to protect himself from her congealing blood, which continued to soak into the layer of plaster dust covering the carpeting. He could read the pattern of the debris like a manual on how not to build for earthquake country. When the ground had started shaking, the pillars that supported the building on the hillside had sheared, dropping it to the ground below.

Gage picked his way carefully across the wreckage to the crib sandwiched between the fallen ceiling and the floor. By some miracle, the rails of the crib had kept the roof from crushing the child. "Somebody was looking out for you," he whispered soothingly. He blocked everything but the little girl's eyes from his mind, refusing to acknowledge the sensations from his knees and hands as he crawled to the child. The air was heavy with the smell of the infant's sour diaper and its mother's drying blood. "We'll have you out of there in a minute," he said, smiling. She shrieked in response. He took his forcible entry tool and began to break away two of the bars of the crib wall. Johnny reached in, checking the child's pulse and respiratory rates and noting the turgor of her skin. At his touch, her screams intensified and she glared angrily at him. "No problem with your lungs, little one," he grinned. She was dusty, frightened, and a bit dehydrated, but otherwise seemed unharmed.

Johnny loosened his safety harness, opened his turnout and slid the infant inside, wanting as much to protect her from the sight of the grisly scene as from the sharp-edged debris. He began an awkward three-point scramble across the floor.

*****

"Vultures, drawn to the smell of blood," hissed Johnny under his breath, as he glared at the TV cameraman filming the rescue crews rolling past. He waved to the ambulance driver as the rig pulled away, going back to make another run. And, God knows, there has been enough of it spilled. He grimaced, remembering crawling over the hopelessly crushed body of the woman. Gage forced his way past the crowd of reporters at the police line. Ducking under the black and yellow tape, he entered the haven of the Emergency Response staging area in Shamel Park. He looked at his watch. It had only been twenty-seven hours since the magnitude seven earthquake had hit Riverside, California; just a subjective eternity since last night, when he and the other men of 51's A-shift had joined the other L.A. County EMS and fire personnel sent to assist the Riverside Fire Department's rescue efforts. John made his way through the crowded field to report in.

"Gage," said Riverside's fire chief, reading Johnny's nametag and consulting a clipboard. "You and the rest of Team Six are on stand down for a few hours. Resupply, grab some chow, and get some sleep."

"Yes sir," he replied.

A glorious sunset was gathering to the west in a rare crystalline blue sky, an ironic splendor spreading over the crumpled city. Johnny shrugged off the shoulder strap of the orange nylon drug bag and trauma pack used by Riverside FD, dropping it on the table at the supply station. He hated other peoples' drug boxes -- they always left him feeling like he was fumbling, slightly off-balance. Brice was still on his 'shit list' for rearranging the drug box last time he was detailed to 51. Gage stretched his arm over his head and worked away the stiffness. He watched the sky while he stood waiting for a young man wearing a National Guard corpsman's uniform to finish re-supplying the bag. The adrenaline rush of the day's activity was long gone, and he felt like he was crashing to earth.

Johnny shouldered the heavy bag and stopped in front of the Red Cross canteen truck. His stomach twisted at the thought of eating, but he felt shaky and weak. Eighteen hours with nothing but water. My blood sugar level must be somewhere in my socks. He shoved his gloves under his belt. The pretty, young woman behind the counter smiled sweetly at John as she handed him two plastic bottles of water and a bag containing two peanut butter sandwiches and an apple. It's got to be pity, Gage decided, looking down at his sweat-soaked, dirty uniform. He favored her with a weak smile, feeling too grubby and tired to even flirt.

Johnny wandered further away from the command center, looking for a private place to eat. He wished for about the fiftieth time that paramedics were not in such short supply, so that he could have at least stayed with the L.A. County teams. Since this morning, the California Office of Emergency Service crews had arrived and filled the park with equipment and tents. Walking further away from the road, he spotted a perfect place -- a tarp-covered pallet of tires sitting between two parked army trucks. Gage settled himself into the bowl-shaped depression in the middle of a stack of tires and rapidly drained the bottles of water. Having rinsed the dust and the taste of death from his mouth, he felt much better. The sandwiches disappeared in a half a dozen bites each. The partially-eaten apple rolled from his hand as he fell asleep.

*****

"Guys," called Marco Lopez, gesturing for them to join him.

Roy DeSoto walked over to where Marco was standing next to a row of olive-green troop transports. Roy followed Lopez's pointing arm. Gage was asleep on a stack of tires, his head pillowed by his wadded-up turnout coat. Johnny's bunker pants were stiff with dust. His stethoscope hung around his neck and he still wore his safety harness. The radio and drug box rested in his lap. DeSoto smiled. His partner looked like an overgrown child who had decided to sleep with his toys.

Beside Roy, Captain Hank Stanley snorted at the sight, and Chet Kelly bent, selecting a small stone from among the stems of grass. Chet drew back his arm, taking aim at the base of the stack. Stanley caught Kelly's hand and forced him to drop the rock.

"Cap," Chet started, falling silent at Hank's glare.

"Kelly, let him sleep. Somebody screwed up, and a couple of the Riverside extrication teams didn't get any breaks," said Stanley.

"Johnny has been working since we arrived," added DeSoto.

Gage heard their voices, but he couldn’t find the energy to open his eyes. He would always regret it.

"Let's get something to eat," Stanley ordered.

*****

Roy vaulted the low parapet and leapt from the fallen second story of the parking garage outside a large suburban mall. The heaving ground twisted the chunks of concrete beneath him, knocking him off-balance. His gloved hand scraped the ground as he lurched upright, fighting to regain his equilibrium. Marco's boot clad feet nearly struck DeSoto in the head as Lopez hurled himself clear of the unstable wreckage. They raced away from the side of the building. Behind them the damaged structure shuddered and boomed. Over the groaning of the settling building, rang the terrified cries of still trapped victims.

When the ground stopped shaking, Roy turned to face the garage. "Wow," he said, choking on the dust cloud spreading through the dry desert air. "It's about ten feet shorter," he panted, trying to catch his breath in the thick air.

"Roy," said Marco, nudging DeSoto. He pointed to the top of the building. Roy looked up. Stars shone through a fissure in the top story of the structure, where once the view of the sky had been blocked by the dark mass of the upper deck. "Cap, we gotta move and get those people out," he called to Stanley. "Another aftershock may bring this place down."

Hank stood, head bowed, making sure the ground had stopped moving. He nodded to Roy, waving them toward the building. "Go ahead!" He watched the two men climb back into the ruins.

*****

Crouching at the margin between the harsh sodium yellow of the floodlights and the inky blackness of the depths of the wreckage, Roy unclipped his flashlight and pointed the beam into the crevasse. Dust motes floated in the air, reflecting the light, and bits of window glass glittered on the floor. Greenish-yellow coolant was puddled beside the crumbled remains of a car. He sniffed the air cautiously, alert for the tang of gasoline vapor. The flashlight beam caught the dust-covered hair of a woman lying in the gloom between the cars.

"Ma'am?" called DeSoto, crawling toward her prostrate form. Her back was toward him and she did not move. He pulled off his glove and reached across her neck, feeling for a pulse. Her skin was cold and still beneath his fingers. Roy brushed back the hair covering her face and saw the mottled blue pattern of lividity. She's gone, he thought, glad of the special latitude granted ALS personnel during mass causality incidents. Attempting to resuscitate her would be an obscenity.

Something, Roy wasn't sure quite what, drew his attention to the crushed car beside the woman. A piece of the roof had fallen, smashing the top of the car down onto the seats. A thin dark gap was all that remained of the window. He pressed his face against the overhanging concrete and peered into the crack. The narrow slash of light from his flashlight illuminated the face of a small boy lying curled in the foot well. "Hello," said DeSoto, praying the boy would respond.

The child's head moved.

"Marco, I need a pry bar, stokes and the drug box," called Roy. He turned back to the car. "We'll have you out in a few minutes." He listened for a response. The child whimpered.

*****

"Ok, we're going to open the door," said Roy to the child as he slid the blade of the pry bar into the crack around the car door and shoved. Taking a deep breath, he threw his weight against the bar, hoping sharp repeated bounces would free the door. Marco joined Roy in pressing against the lever. The metal squealed in outraged protest, but did not yield. DeSoto gestured for Lopez to stop. "It's no use. We just can't get enough leverage," he said, dropping the tool and wishing Johnny were here. He remembered watching John take a pry bar from the powerful arms of Hector Guiterrez and, repositioning the blade two inches higher, pop the door open with a quick shove. Hector had walked past Lopez muttering in Spanish. It was a full week before Marco could look at Johnny without snickering, recalled DeSoto. I could use Gage's talent for tearing vehicles apart right now.

Roy sighed, touching his tongue to his upper lip and looking at the yellow sheet covering the woman's body. He straightened as much as the confined space would allow and pulled his radio from his turnout coat pocket. "Team Eight, this is Roy. I need the Ajax tool."

"10-4, HT Eight. It's on the way, Roy. Team Eight out."

"I'll met them. They'll never find us here," said Marco ducking under a low hanging cement beam. He hurried toward the gap at the side of the building.

Roy leaned his face near the side of the car. "We'll have you out soon. We need to get a special tool to open the door," he called, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. Behind him, he could hear Marco and Chet scrambling over the debris. Kelly squatted next to the car, slipping his safety glasses in place and throwing open the box containing the Ajax tool. Marco set an air tank next to Chet's legs and connected the regulator. DeSoto smiled, summoning his most reassuring voice, "This is going to be a little noisy. I want you to cover your face." He nodded at Chet to go ahead.

"Ok," said the child in a trembling voice, speaking for the first time since they had arrived.

Kelly quickly tested the tool. He pressed it to the side of the vehicle, cutting through the latch. He grabbed the pry bar and levered the door open. "All yours, Roy."

The boy lifted his head and looked at the firefighters, his blue eyes huge and frightened. "Hi there," said Roy smiling. "I'm going to touch you, to check and see if you're hurt anywhere. Ok?" He reached in, examining the child. The child was terrified and had wet himself, but seemed relatively unharmed. DeSoto looked up at the crumpled roof of the car; it had stopped inches short of where the boy's head must have been. Thank you God, he prayed. He lifted the child from the car, placing him in the stokes. "We're going to give you a little ride." He pulled a length of wide nylon webbing attached to two carbiners from his pocket and improvised a restraint suitable for a pediatric patient.

"Mommy?" asked the boy, tears filling his eyes.

Roy gently placed his hand on the side of the litter. We don't know that's her. He said nothing. From somewhere in the ruins, he heard the wail of a baby.

DeSoto nodded to Marco, who remained carefully positioned to block the child's view of the body behind him. "Ready." The men lifted the litter, heading for the opening at the side of the garage.

Roy lifted the stretcher over the parapet to Chet and an unfamiliar Riverside firefighter, who were balanced on chunks of concrete below, reaching for the stokes. He heard an infant's cry. "Chet, Marco," he said as they took the precious load from his hands. "I heard someone. I'm going back to check."

"Roy..." called Marco, yelling at the back of the paramedic, who was disappearing into the darkness. Lopez shook his head. Gage is rubbing off on you.

Chet removed the boy from the stokes, placing him on the stretcher. As two Riverside EMTs lifted the child into the back of the ambulance, the ground started shaking. Behind Kelly the building screamed in agony.

"Roy!" yelled Marco, racing back toward the trembling structure. "Madre de Dios! Roy, an aftershock!" A burly man, in soiled yellow turnouts, jumped from the tilting deck to the convulsing ground and grabbed Lopez's shoulders, sweeping him away from the settling garage. "Cap!" Marco struggled to disentangle himself from the man's powerful arms. A choking cloud of dust rolled over Marco, blinding him. He forced his eyes open; the harsh beams of the huge lamps on the light truck penetrated the haze and trembled across the shaking walls of the building. Suddenly, the ground quieted. The young boy's cry of terror shattered the silence, tightening Lopez's throat and sending chills up his spine.

*****

Roy stopped, bracing himself against the tilt of the partially collapsed ramp between the second and third levels. He listened carefully for the lament he had heard as they passed this spot carrying out the stretcher. The baby's cry was repeated. He pointed his flashlight into the triangular space between the deck and the ramp. The beam struck a...

The concrete pitched beneath Roy's feet. His feet flew out from under him as the ramp folded. Two of the ramps from the upper stories fell, covering DeSoto.

*****

The low-pitched hum of gasoline-powered generators and the wail of distant sirens filled the night air in Shamel Park. On the horizon, a faint glow was still visible from the last stubborn fires in a neighborhood which had been consumed by natural gas-fed flames. Blue tinted light sliced through the darkness from portable floodlights, washing away normal colors, turning red to a reddish-black, like drying blood.

"Team Six to HT Six. Gage, report to the staging area in five minutes," announced the gravelly voice of Capt. Bob Wojceichowski from the radio lying in Johnny's lap.

John blinked at the bright light falling across his resting spot. He pushed himself upright and glanced at his watch. 1:25 am. John fumbled with his radio. "Team Six, 10-4, Cap. HT Six out," replied Gage somewhat sheepishly, while scrambling to his feet. He stretched. Johnny trotted toward the van where he had stowed his gear, hoping to brush his teeth and grab a clean shirt before they rolled again.

"Incident command, this is Team Twenty-eight," crackled his handy-talkie, "We have a report of a code I at our location. One man missing; presumed trapped after the last aftershock."

Johnny stopped with his head halfway through the neck of his undershirt.

"10-4, Team Twenty-eight. Will dispatch assistance when available," acknowledged the communications officer.

Gage hurriedly pulled on the clean shirt and stuffed his soiled uniform into his backpack. Scooping up the drug bag and radio, he raced to meet the rest of Team Six.

*****

Johnny stood on the upper deck of the crumpled parking structure of what had been a busy shopping mall, surveying the destruction. At his feet lay the lip of a gapping hole; the beam from his flashlight jumped and wiggled across the destruction below. Three-quarters of the pillars supporting the six concrete decks had practically exploded outward under the forces of the quake's ground-twisting S-waves. The entire western side of the garage had collapsed into a fourteen-foot high layer cake of concrete separated by crushed cars. The edges were stained with soot from the fires that had raged below and the stench of burnt rubber and flesh still rose from the gaps in the floor. A red compact car lay on its side in the pit, atop the gruesome mass like a child's discarded toy. John turned away. On the opposite side of the structure in the pool of light cast by their torches, he could see another extrication team, a field of yellow turnouts, surrounding one man in the brown turnout coat of LACoFD who was cutting a hole in the concrete deck. Team Twenty-eight, he guessed.

Gage skirted the edge of the pit, climbing across the uneven, cracked surface. The center of the garage had fared better. Most of the supporting pillars had crumbled, but twisted masses of rebar had kept the different stories farther apart. Survivors were still trapped in the wreckage beneath his feet. He joined the rest of the team searching out openings to the decks below. Over the drone of the K-12 cutting through the concrete, he could hear crying.

"Gage," called Wojceichowski, bending over a fissure in the concrete.

Johnny joined the Riverside firefighters at the hole. He studied the narrow gap, a jagged edged, vertical drop which accessed at least four of the underlying levels.

Bob gesturing toward the shaft, "Think you can fit?"

Gage looked down the hole, estimating. "Yeah, Cap," he replied, nodding. While a line was rigged over a pulley attached to tripod shaped frame, he pulled on his safety goggles and gloves. Johnny patted his hip checking for his scissors and flashlight and then tightened the strap on his helmet. No use losing it this time, he thought.

Wojceichowski gave each strap on Johnny's harness a gentle tug, double-checking that it was properly fastened before clipping the line to the carbiner at Gage's waist. "Ready?" he asked.

John gave the rope a final tug and nodded. Carefully, he climbed down onto a narrow lip of concrete at the edge of the fissure. "Ok, tension," he said, grasping the line over his head with one hand. He felt his weight shift from his feet to the straps of the safety harness running around his thighs and waist as the rope was tightened. In his chest, Johnny's heart started pounding with anticipation, as the impossible to explain exhilaration of his job washed over him. He stepped into the abyss.

"Down rope," Gage said keeping his free hand slightly outstretched, pushing his body away from the jutting ends of reinforcing rods. The sound of crying intensified as he dropped lower into the gap. He turned his head to shield his face from sharp edged debris. I can't believe anyone is still alive in this mess! "Stop," he yelled as he reached face level with what had been the fourth floor of the parking structure. Johnny momentarily closed his eyes, trying to locate the source of the noise.

He pulled himself up onto the deck.

******

"Two dollars and seventy-five cents a pound," whispered Joanne DeSoto, holding the package of lamb. "Criminal." She ran a mental tally figuring out which section of the tight household budget she would rob for this extravagance. Sighing, she dropped the lamb into the cart and compared its contents to her list. This was a shopping trip for supplies to make a special dinner for Roy when he got home, a celebration of their nineteenth wedding anniversary. Nineteen years ago today, she thought, smiling at the memory of Roy just back from Vietnam. He was so nervous. Joanne again saw him in his Army dress uniform, standing beside her with his shaking hand next to hers on the knife, cutting the cake while their families and friends watched. This was the first time he had ever been out of town on their anniversary. Smiling, she recalled the small box she had found under her pillow on the night he had left for Riverside.

Standing in the checkout line, Joanne reviewed her menu: lamb stew with rosemary and a touch of white wine -- Roy's favorite and always better made a couple days in advance -- artichokes, salad, and homemade bread. The woman in front of her began debating the price on an item. Stifling a sigh, Joanne turned to the rack of magazines; the current USA Today occupied a prominent spot on the shelves. The Riverside earthquake was the lead story. "Death toll rises to 178. Hundreds More Injured," screamed the headline. A lurid color photograph of a damaged parking garage with a cloud of dust rising around its base was plastered across the front page. Joanne picked up the paper. Figures in turnouts stood staring at the building or running further from the falling debris. In the middle of the picture, a powerfully built man in the yellow Riverside FD turnouts held the arm of a man in an L.A. County uniform, pulling him away from the structure. It's Marco, she realized. Joanne scanned the photo looking for Roy. She didn't find him.

"Twenty-one, sixty-five."

Confused, Joanne lifted her head. "Pardon me?" She fought to dispel the feeling of dread that gripped her.

"Twenty-one, sixty-five," repeated the cashier. "Terrible about that 'quake. Got family down there?" He counted back her change.

"No. My husband, he's... He's a fireman working down there. On the rescue efforts," stammered Joanne, still trying the shake the image from her head.

"Oh. Have a nice day."

*****

Johnny forced the car door open. Across the floorboards lay a sandy-haired, stocky man dressed in a biker's leather jacket. He was semi-conscious and his left leg was pinned awkwardly beneath the driver's seat. His face was pale and covered with clammy sweat.

Gage listened to the young man's breathing. Sounds ok. He wrapped his fingers around the victim's wrist, finding a fast weak pulse.

"Norman?" the man moaned in a low voice.

Johnny listened to the man's voice, judging his respiratory effort. He pressed his face against the space between the door frame and the seat back, peering into the back of the car. He lifted his flashlight, shining it into the narrow crack, illuminating the rear compartment. He didn't see anything. Gage quickly scanned the vicinity of the car, looking for an injured survivor. "Is there someone else with you?"

"Norman," repeated the man.

"Where?" John asked, frowning.

"Under the seat," he said grimacing.

For a split second Gage looked under the seat. He is disoriented -- shock. He shook his head. "What's your name?"

"JC," hissed the man, as a spasm of pain passed through his body.

John lifted his portable. "Team Six, I need the drug box, a backboard, trauma bag, and, uh, send Amaro down, he'll fit. HT Six out." He turned back to his patient. "JC...," he began to explain the extrication procedure, but the foundation underneath his feet started trembling. Gage ducked, curling over JC and covering his own head with his arms. The concrete overhead ground sickeningly on the crushed metal canopy of the car. From above came the distant sound of the teams on the roof yelling to one another. Beneath him, the young man moaned in pain. Johnny grimaced, biting his lip, as fist sized missiles of cement fell from the shaking ceiling and struck his back and arms. It's gonna take me a week under a hot shower to get my back to quit hurting. Slowly, the sounds quieted as the movement subsided. He stayed still for a moment, feeling sweat trickle down his spine and waiting to be sure the ground had stopped shaking. "You ok?"

"Uh huh," groaned JC.

"Team Six to HT Six. Gage?" crackled Bob's voice over his radio.

"HT Six. Yeah, Cap?"

"You all right down there?"

"I'm Ok. HT Six out," replied John sliding the radio back into his pocket.

Johnny leaned into the car, removed his leather gloves and resumed his examination. He reached his hand beneath the seat, running it up JC's leg, feeling for hemorrhaging or broken bones. Grunting, he stretched further into the ruined vehicle pressing gently on the man's hipbones. The young man ground his teeth in pain. "Sorry, man." Possible broken pelvis. As he moved his hands to check the abdomen, something small and furry erupted from beneath the seat. "Geeze!" yelped Gage. He yanked his arms back, pulling his body out of the car and colliding with the arriving fireman. A small rodent glared up at him from underneath the accelerator. "There's a... a rat in here!"

"Norman -- hamster." The young man sighed in pain as he shifted, trying to focus on the small creature.

"Hey man, don't move. You may have some broken bones and need to keep still. Johnny stared down at the muscular biker, incredulous. "You travel with your r... hamster?"

"Just got him," gasped JC. "Madam ZsaZsa said he was the reincarnation of my late Doberman."

Amaro's eyes went wide. "That's a Doberman?"

Gage rolled his eyes. You see all kinds in this job. He pulled on his leather gloves and, remaining motionless for a moment, watched the rodent's movements. He reached in quickly, snatching the animal and flinging it from the vehicle. Snake food, thought Johnny in disgust. Amaro flinched as the hamster scampered past. "Ok, let's get him out of here."

*****

Hank glanced quickly around him and seeing none of his men let his shoulders slump. He was angry, frustrated and worried. If DeSoto's ok, he goes on report. If he's not... He pounded his fist against the shattered remains of a pillar. "Damn it!" yelled Stanley. If we could just get some search dogs... But none of the precious animals were available.

"Cap," called Marco from somewhere deep within the wreckage, "are you all right?"

"Yeah, Marco." Stanley climbed down from the remains of the third story and walked across the toppled ramps that had originally led to the upper levels of the structure. They had searched every inch of the second and third levels of the garage that could be reached from this corner of the building. The ground floor beneath Hank's feet remained inaccessible, and a vast wall of debris, formed by fragments of the deck clinging to the untouched center of the building, bisected the ruins, keeping him from searching the north end of the structure. If Roy found a passage into any of these areas, it must have caved in during the aftershock. And if he had made it to the north side, then Team Twenty-eight should have already found him, he reasoned. He looked down at the deck below his feet with a growing sense of dread.

He pulled his radio from his turnouts. "Team Eight to team Twenty-eight. Earl, do you read me?"

"Team Twenty-eight. Go ahead Hank," crackled the radio.

"Have you been able to enter the ground level?" asked Stanley knowing the answer even as he asked.

"No. But Team Six has some men working a fissure near the center of the building. They have been able to get at a bunch of victims trapped down there."

"Thanks, Earl. Team Eight out." Stanley frowned. Damn it DeSoto, how did you get down there? That was practically a Gage or Kelly level stunt. He changed frequency and lifted the portable to his lips. "Team Eight to Team Six..."

*****

John held a hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sunlight that dazzled him after the hours in the darkness below. He lifted his knees slightly, touching his feet to the surface of the deck and pulling himself away from the hole. Two Riverside firefighters grabbed his arms and held him, keeping him from swinging back into the gap. "Slack!" He felt his weight shift back onto the soles of his feet as the ratchet on the belay line safety system was released, allowing him a little slack. Gage stepped away from the hole and unfastened the rope from his harness. "Off belay," he called. His eyes watered from the brightness, the dust and weariness.

"Gage, take a break," ordered Wojceichowski, gesturing for another man to come take Johnny's place. He pulled his radio from his pocket acknowledging a call.

Johnny nodded and walked away from the narrow fissure. He selected a relatively smooth area out of the way of the rescue efforts and dropped to his knees.

"Hey, County," yelled a young Riverside firefighter, tossing Johnny a bottle of water. In the dazing June sunlight, his red hair was a startling contrast to his yellow turnouts.

John drank thirstily. He made a perfunctory swipe at the fragments of concrete on the deck before stretching out. Resting his head on his arms, he lay down and closed his eyes. I'm never going to complain about a slow day again.

"County, we need you. They want you to search the ground level again."

Johnny looked up to see the redheaded firefighter again waving towards him, gesturing for him to come back. So much for a break, he thought, standing up. He poured the last swallow of the water into his hand and used it to rinse the grit off of his face. "Coming," he replied, checking his harness.

*****

Roy opened his eyes. You fell asleep. He blinked in the gloom. The light from the bulb of his flashlight had dimmed to a pale yellow glow. Or passed out, whispered some dark corner of his mind. "Joanne," he moaned. The ache in his legs had faded to a dull pins-and-needles sensation. Ischemia.

DeSoto lay across the larger of the two slabs of concrete with his legs pinned under a fallen chunk of the roof. Fragments of glass and metal from smashed cars surrounded his head. When the aftershock had hit, he had been knocked into the V-shaped trough formed by fallen slabs of the structure. The rest had been a blur of falling concrete, blinding pain and choking dust.

Roy turned his head and strained to look toward the small crack through which filtered the voices of rescue workers. "Hey!" he yelled, "I'm down here!" He arched his back, struggling to yell louder. The broken glass beneath his check scratched his face. Silence rewarded his efforts.

Panting, he relaxed, sliding back into a stupor. "Joanne," he repeated, letting his eyes close.

*****

Crouching on the concrete deck at the bottom of the shaft, Johnny closed his eyes, concentrating on the sounds around him. The intermittent crying heard by the teams working the wreckage had slowly weakened over the past eight hours, and was now silent. They had not been able to locate the source. He heard the dry rattle of concrete settling and the distant buzz of cutting equipment. Then Gage caught a sound that did not belong to the dying building surrounding him.

"Hey," Johnny called, examining the passage separating him from the source of the sound. A dark chamber lay beyond the narrow opening formed by a collapsed ramp, which was lying on the remnants of a felled beam. He carefully scanned the area looking for another way into the blackness. "Hello! Anyone back there?" he yelled. No reply came from the hole, but Gage was sure he had heard a voice. Oh well, he thought, removing his helmet, which was too big to fit the cramped space, and dropping flat on his belly. If there's another aftershock, Gage, your epitaph is going to be: 'How could he have been so stupid?' Painfully John inched through the passage. "Tunkashila, unshimala yo," he prayed, remembering his grandfather's words.

The opening widened slightly, allowing him to lift his head. In the gloom he could just barely make out the shape of a man, wearing a heavy winter coat. The man was pinned on his back in the fold between pieces of the entry ramp, lying half under a fallen chunk of ceiling. His hat had been knocked off his head and lay upturned in the debris. That's a weird outfit for June, he thought, straining to reach the flashlight clipped to his belt. The bright circle of light danced over the dashes of reflective yellow paint, which had once marked the center strip and caught on the hat revealing that it was in fact a firefighters helmet. Beneath the words 'L.A. County' was a green 51. "Oh, my God," he whispered, realizing it was not a winter coat but the heavy brown material of turnouts. "Roy!" yelled Johnny.

"Roy, answer me!" ordered John, while scrambling over the debris scattered across concrete floor. Roy is the code I! The chamber where Roy lay was just tall enough for him to scuttle toward DeSoto. Gage bent over his partner, checking his airway, assessing his respirations and feeling for a pulse. A huge piece of the overhanging ramp had fallen, pinning Roy's legs.

"Johnny," answered Roy, opening his eyes as John's fingers gently touched his neck. DeSoto's voice was distant and somewhat dreamy. "There's a baby crying somewhere. Go find it."

"Ok, goin' to get us some help first." Gage frowned at the sound of his friend's voice. He studied the slab covering Roy's legs. It rested against the ramp on one side and atop the crumbled remains of a pillar on the other, leaving a significant portion of the weight resting on DeSoto's left leg. He glanced at his watch, calculating the time since he had heard the code I report. Johnny directed his flashlight beam upwards, illuminating the overlaying layers of concrete. At least two of the ramps that had led to the upper levels of the garage had fallen. The lower of the two slabs had split on impact, dropping a six by eight-foot piece of concrete onto the fallen supports and his friend's legs.

Examining the cracks spidering across the ceiling, Gage pulled his radio from this turnout coat pocket, "This is HT Six." Static crackled. "Team Six, this is HT Six. Do you read me?" he asked, grimacing at the silent portable. Staring at Roy's legs, John fought to think clearly and remember which teams were assigned to the various frequencies. He switched frequency. "Team Eight, do you read me?"

"Unit calling, repeat. You're breaking up," scratched Stanley's voice, breaking and tearing in a storm of static.

"Team Eight. Cap, this is John..." He swept his flashlight beam in a circle, searching the surrounding rumble.

"Too much rebar," commented Roy.

"Where's your HT?"

Roy snorted softly. "Part of it is under my hip. The rest of it's over there somewhere." He gestured vaguely toward the concrete pressing on his legs.

"HT Six to Team Eight," repeated Johnny.

"...calling, repeat....."

Lips pursed in frustration, John placed his hand on DeSoto's chest, counting. "Roy, are you having any trouble breathing?"

"No." DeSoto started shaking his head violently back and forth. "The baby..."

"Hey, take it easy. Roy, lie still!" commanded Gage. He placed his hands on Roy's shoulders. "I can't transmit out. Look, I'm going to have to get out of here for a minute; call for help." He spoke slowly to ensure his words penetrated his friend's pain-drugged consciousness. "Then, I'll come back and look." Johnny gazed into his partner's eyes, making sure he still had DeSoto's attention "But, you have to stay still," he said, holding up his index finger.

Johnny wormed rapidly back through the narrow tunnel into the relative open at the bottom of the fissure. Sharp pieces of wire protruding from the concrete tore at his turnouts and skin. Johnny ignored the pain. He turned his face upwards into the narrow shaft of sunlight and lifted the radio. "Team Six, this is HT Six. Do you read me?"

"Go ahead HT Six."

"I need the drug box, O₂, and some help, now. I have a trapped man." Johnny rapidly relayed his location to the men above. "HT Six out." He again switched frequencies. "Team Eight this is HT Six."

"Team Eight," answered Hank.

"Cap, it's John. I found Roy. We're going to need more manpower." He squinted into the shadows while describing his location to Stanley. "HT Six out." He scrambled back into narrow channel.

"Look for the baby," said DeSoto, watching his partner emerge from the hole, coated with dirt and coughing.

Johnny looked at Roy. The sides of his friend's face were scratched, with fresh, still-bleeding cuts layered on top of old and clotted scrapes. Gray dust was crusted on Roy's wounds and lips. John didn't hear the baby anymore, but Roy was certain he had found the source of the cries. He isn't going to settle down until I look, he decided.

"Go. In there." Roy pointed to narrow ledge of concrete at the end of the v-shaped channel. Atop the projection was a narrow opening, beyond which the mangled remains of a car gleamed. The floor was strewn with metal shrapnel.

"Ok," said Gage, scrambling past DeSoto. He crawled back into the darkness, holding his flashlight between his teeth. He pulled himself up on the shelf and, lying flat, he slid beneath the collapsed wall. If the Cap saw me do this, he'd bust me back to probie, he thought, sneezing from the dust.

"I knew you'd find me," called Roy, his voice unnaturally cheerful.

Johnny listened to the sound of his partner's voice. Crush syndrome. He's euphoric. I bet the circulation to his left leg is completely cut off. "You keeping still?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good boy," said Johnny, wincing at his unconscious imitation of DeSoto. He peered into the shadows. His flashlight beam struck the crushed body of a -- he couldn't tell. 'That's what we call injuries incompatible with life,' whispered some part of his mind, using the voice of an old friend who had employed the weak reed of gallows humor to beat back a young rookie's terror. He turned away from the gore. Beside the body, a lump of fuzz moved. A cat, its hind leg trapped beneath a piece of fallen ceiling, opened its mouth, emitting a weak echo of its earlier protests.

"A damn cat," whispered Johnny, detecting in the cat's lament the baby's cries the rescuers had been hearing. "My partner's hurt because of you, furball." For a split second his hands tightened on the cat, then he lifted the concrete, freeing the animal's leg. He looked again at the body next to the cat. What's with people taking their pets out for a ride today? Johnny picked up the wounded animal. He crawled back toward the opening.

******

Stanley and Marco squatted next to the narrow fissure in the concrete deck through which Gage's safety line passed. Sighing, Hank straightened. There's no way DeSoto shimmied through that. Gage, yes -- but not Roy. He looked around, but no other opening was visible. The crack was on the northeastern side of the crumpled garage. They had been forced to enter the building from the northern side. "We're never going to be able to get though this."

Marco nodded his agreement.

Hank pulled his HT from his pocket. "Team Eight to Engine Eight."

"Engine Eight. Yeah, Cap?" asked Chet.

"Kelly, get the K-12 and a couple of spare masonry blades." Stanley described their position to the firefighter. "And, Buddy, move your butt. Team Eight out."

"10-4, Cap."

******

"I found our crying," said Johnny, setting the injured cat next to Roy. The cat snuggled against his partner's side. Johnny carefully ran his hands over Roy's head and neck, performing as much of his secondary assessment as he could without his equipment. DeSoto's eyes focused on him as John struggled to school his face to stillness and to reveal nothing of his partner's condition. "Roy, you and Felix just hang on, ok. We're gonna get you both out of here." Gage's voice involuntarily tensed as he again studied DeSoto's legs. Control.

Roy felt the warm little body curl up into a ball against his side. "Do you hear that cat; Junior's gonna get us out," he said softly to the animal.

John scanned the surroundings, looking for DeSoto's supplies. "Do you have your drug box down here?"

"It's topside. I couldn't crawl through this stuff with it."

"Roy, I gotta contact the Cap. Find out what the hold up is," said Johnny, scuttling toward the tunnel. As soon as his head was clear of the wreckage, he pulled the HT from his pocket. He grimaced in pain as he strained muscles, forcing his arm past the walls of the narrow channel. "Where the hell is my help?" Gage demanded.

"Coming, John," crackled the radio.

He crawled back into debris to his entombed friend.

******

"Gage!" Chet's voice echoed through the concrete tunnel.

"In here!" John scrambled toward the passageway.

"How did you get in there?" Kelly asked incredulously, shining his flashlight into the crevice. The beam struck Johnny's face.

"Slide in the drug box and the O₂." Gage reached for the equipment, blinking in the bright light. He quickly pulled the supplies into the chamber. "Get Marco or somebody skinny, I need some help in here. Get me a backboard, the MAST, datascope and defibrillator."

"How is he?" asked Kelly.

"Not good," whispered John, leaning toward the hole.

"Johnny, how stable is it in there?" The spot from Chet's flashlight bobbed on the walls of the passageway.

Gage returned to Roy's side. "Not too bad!" he yelled to Kelly. He wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his friend's arm.

"Chet," called DeSoto.

"Roy," replied Kelly. "Got yourself in a bit of a jam?"

"Yeah, I should have known to leave the confined space work to my able partner." Beside DeSoto the cat tensed as the cuff hissed. "Take it easy, buddy," whispered Roy, stroking the cat awkwardly.

"Naw, then we'd have to dig him out, and he whines too much."

Johnny's lack of response to Chet's needling, told Roy everything he needed to know. I should be more upset by this, he thought, recognizing the early symptoms of crush syndrome. He watched his partner perform his assessment.

Turning, Gage lay on his belly beside his friend, reaching under the slab, feeling Roy's left leg, searching for a pulse. The skin beneath his fingers was cold and still. Damn! Carefully, he ran his hand over the surface of the leg, feeling for blood and deformities. Levering himself upright, he crawled over to Roy's other side. DeSoto's right leg was terribly swollen but still had a weak pulse. Finishing his examination, he explored the space with his hand, trying to determine exactly how his partner was pinned. He pressed his face flat against the ground, peering beneath the block. The beam of his torch revealed a strip of swollen, purple skin between the left boot and the pant leg. Johnny swallowed hard, turning the light off. Dear God.

Gage pushed himself to his knees beside DeSoto and dug through the trauma bag. "Roy, I'm going to put a collar on you. You know the drill," said Gage, wrapping the rigid support around DeSoto's neck. He started the O₂, positioning the nasal cannula. He grabbed two administration sets and two bags of normal saline, getting ready to start a pair of IVs.

"One of those for Felix, here?" joked Roy, as Johnny cut the sleeves of his turnout. He frowned slightly. "I'm in real trouble, aren't I, Johnny?"

"Roy..." started Johnny, tearing strips of tape. He commanded his hands to stop shaking.

"Don't lie to me," ordered DeSoto, his voice no longer dreamy.

"Roy, I don't..." Johnny looked away, refusing to met his friend's gaze. He lowered his head, studying the tubing as he bled the air from the line. "Roy..."

"Rule One: don't lie to the patient."

"I thought Rule One was don't get emotionally involved with the patient." Gage let his world narrow to include only Roy's arm and the needle. Too late for that rule, he thought sourly. He lifted his head for a moment, meeting DeSoto's eyes. "Don't make me tell you what you already know."

"My leg has no pulse." Roy felt the first tickle of fear. He concentrated on watching John, choosing to treat the entire experience as an exercise in improving his understanding of the patient's perspective on pre-hospital care. Even though I may never treat another soul again. "I was pretty sure I had lost circulation, when it went numb." NO, he commanded, you will not think about that or about what Joanne and kids will do without you. He returned his attention to appreciating just how large a 16-gauge needle looked when someone was pointing it toward your arm. "Umm," grunted Roy, studying his partner's face as Gage inserted the needle into the vein, slid the catheter into place, and drew a blood sample.

"I couldn't tell for sure," lied John, breaking rule one. He knew his expression was betraying him. Damn it, Gage, you're supposed to be a "stoic Indian". Sarcasm boiled up within him.

You never could tell a lie, Junior. "When you take the weight off, I'm going to go sour." He caught Gage's gaze.

"Probably," sighed Johnny.

*****

"Gage!" called Stanley, crouching by the opening into the dark void. He watched Marco adjust his safety harness, preparing to crawl into the gloom. The supply-laden backboard sat beside the mouth of the tunnel. He waited for John to answer, but he heard nothing from inside the chamber. "Damn it, Gage, I need a report now," his voice cracked with the stress of the past hours.

Marco cringed at his boss's tone. "Johnny, I'm on my way," he said, lying flat and squirming into the narrow passage. He felt the concrete press against him. Gritting his teeth, Marco clamped down on a surge of claustrophobia. It's not natural, Gage being able to crawl through places like this, he thought, exhaling and squeezing past some metal reinforcing mesh. He must have to run around in the shower to get wet. I'm going to eat more, so Chet or Roy will have to thread themselves through all these lovely narrow places Gage likes so much. Lopez sighed in relief as his head emerged.

"Marco," said Johnny, dragging Lopez clear of the tunnel. John's face was covered with a layer of white dust, which almost concealed the dark circles beneath his eyes. "Watch him." He pointed his chin toward Roy. "Keep him still." He slid into the passageway.

Marco looked at the trapped paramedic. The discarded paper wrappers from medical supplies surrounded Roy. "How you doing?" he asked, looking at the concrete slab pinning DeSoto's legs. A ragged, gray cat was asleep against the man's side.

"Ok," he paused, "for now."

Marco bowed his head. DeSoto did look all right, but Lopez knew that appearance was deceptive; Gage wouldn't start two IV's without good reason. "We'll have you out of here in a little bit." He crawled over Roy and pressed his face flat against the debris-littered deck, calculating angles and weights, devising a lifting system.

******

"Well?" demanded Stanley as Gage pushed himself to a sitting position. He scrutinized Johnny's drawn and tired face, knowing immediately the situation was grim. Sweat made dark streaks through the dust covering John's face and his hair was stiff and gray with the powder.

"Hang on just a sec, Cap," pleaded Johnny, holding up his hand for silence. He pulled the radio from his turnout pocket and tuned it to the base hospital frequency. "Riverside General, this is HT Six. How do you read me?"

Hank bowed his head and closed his eyes, listening.

"Go ahead, HT Six," crackled the radio.

"We have a 40 year-old male with crush injuries of the lower extremities. Victim has been trapped beneath a slab of concrete for," Gage glanced at his watch, "thirteen hours. He is conscious and somewhat euphoric. Patient is complaining of pain and paresthesia in the right leg and numbness in the left." Johnny pulled a patient care form out his pocket and held it against his knee. "Vitals are: rate 95; BP 120/80; respirations 20, breath sounds are clear; pupils are normal and reactive; skin is flushed and warm." Johnny listened to his voice, marveling, that it sounded even remotely normal. "Distal pulses are not palpable in left leg, but are present and weak in right. Both limbs exhibit marked edema. Skin of left leg is cold and discolored; extremity is also deformed. Do you copy?"

Stanley frowned. I'm no paramedic, but I know this isn't good. He shook his head, thinking of Joanne and Roy's kids.

"10-4, HT Six," replied the base station. "What treatment has been initiated?"

"Victim is on O₂, six liters, and two IV's -- normal saline, 200 cc/hr each -- have been started. Request orders for pain medication."

"Does patient exhibit signs of a head injury?"

"Negative, Riverside."

"10-4, HT Six. MS IV push, 2 mg every ten to fifteen minutes as needed, titrated to pain relief. Monitor respirations and level of consciousness; notify base if resps. drop below 16. Have naloxone ready if needed."

Shifting the radio awkwardly to his left hand, Johnny scribbled the orders on the paper he held pressed against his knee. "10-4, Riverside -- MS IVP, 2 mg every ten to fifteen minutes as needed for pain relief. Be advised -- patient has not yet been extricated. Estimate 1-2 hrs to free him." His voice trembled, betraying him.

"Understood. Monitor victim for dysrythmias. Apply MAST suit upon extrication. Be prepared to follow appropriate standing orders for observed dysrhythmias," the voice on the other end of the line paused. "Notify base station prior to extrication."

"10-4," said Gage and then read back the orders.

Hank watched Johnny switch off the radio and carefully slide the paper into his pocket. "Well?" he repeated.

Gage slumped against the wall of debris. "The aftershock brought down a couple of the ramps. Roy is in a void between them. The deck directly above him has split, dropping an about eight by six by one foot piece across his legs," he sketched the relative dimensions in the air before him.

Stanley gave a low whistle and shook his head. "Two to three tons," he estimated, frowning. Now you know how he got down here. It is amazing he is still alive.

John nodded. "A broken support column kept the slab from severing his legs," he continued. He rubbed his nose, which itched from the fine dust.

Hank studied the paramedic's face. The worst is yet to come, he thought, tipping back his head. "Air bags?"

Gage nodded. "At least two of the small air bags, cribbing, and..."

Nodding, Hank listened to Johnny's list. Behind him Chet was fastening himself to the belay line, waiting for his orders. He pulled the radio from his pocket and nodded to Kelly, jerking his thumb upwards.

"Up rope," called Chet, wrapping his hand around the line.

"...and some more help." Johnny reached out and touched Stanley's arm, stopping him from lifting the HT to his lips. "Cap, we're going to need more than that. That slab is resting on the ground by his left side. It has crushed his lower left leg...." His voice trailed off. He swallowed, forcing himself to calmly describe his friend's condition. Shaking his head, Johnny looked into Stanley's eyes. "When we decompress him, a lot of toxins are going to be released. He'll go into shock very, very fast. We're gonna hafta get him out and transport -- immediately." John jerked his head back toward the hole. "We'll need a better exit."

Hank turned his attention to the passageway -- a problem he could resolve. "Is there any other way out?" he asked, crouching at the tunnel mouth and examining the layered rubble. He gingerly felt the walls with his gloved hand and tested their strength. Dust and fine grit showered down, coating his arm.

"No," said Gage, shaking his head. "If there were, I'd be using it."

"There's no way we can widen this." He pulled off his gloves and wiped the sweat from his brow. "We start digging -- it's liable to cave right in."

Gage nodded. "Cap, we're going to have to cut through the deck from above. Bring him out that way."

"That's going to bring down a lot of debris."

"I can't think of any other way." Pursing his lips, Johnny let his head drop back against the ruined wall. "Just don't cut right over us." He pushed himself to his knees, preparing to re-enter the pocket.

"Ok." Hank nodded to Gage. "Johnny..."

John stopped.

"If the ground starts shaking while you're in there..." Brushing the powdered concrete from his arm, he let his voice trail off. He looked up, trying to see the paramedic's eyes, but Gage was studying the pattern of cracks by his hand, refusing to meet Hank's gaze.

Johnny shrugged. "I won't have to watch him code."

Stanley frowned at Gage. "He's that bad?"

"Yeah, he is."

Hank lifted his HT.

*****

Chet watched the young redheaded fire fighter from Riverside finish marking out the area of the fallen ramps to be cut away. The man crawled across the floor, listening for rapping of Marco's hammer on the deck below. Impatiently, Kelly checked the K-12 and his face shield again.

"Go ahead," said the firefighter, climbing to his feet.

Chet nodded his head sharply, causing the face shield to drop, and started the motor. He knelt, pushing the blade down into the cement. The vibrations shook the muscles of his arms and traveled through his bones to the center of his being. Normally, he loved watching the blade slice into the concrete, and enjoyed the feeling of power that came with tearing apart supposedly indestructible man-made structures. The only thing I have in common with Gage, he remembered watching Johnny's expression as he freed victims from crumbled automobiles. Today, however, that sensation was absent. He carefully advanced the saw thorough the upper layer of the ramp. Hold on, Roy. We're coming.

*****

Johnny pulled the needle from the medication port. He paused and listened to the sound of the saw on the deck above. Fitting the stethoscope into his ears, he again checked DeSoto's blood pressure. He looked down at his partner's face. He could see the apprehension in Roy's eyes. "Up a little -- 130/90," he said as he unbuttoned his partner's uniform shirt and started to cut away the undershirt.

"Joanne is going to kill you," commented DeSoto.

"I think she'd be a lot more upset if I let anything happen to her 'Sweetcheeks'." He listened to Roy's embarrassed snort. Gage smiled slightly while he unrolled the cable and finished fastening the electrodes to Roy's chest.

"Sweetcheeks?" asked Marco incredulously.

"Yeah, want to make something of it?" demanded Roy.

"I don't even want to think about it," replied Marco, grunting as he maneuvered another piece of wooden shoring in place. "Johnny, I'm going to need a hand."

Roy watched Gage crawl toward Marco. Must be the morphine. I'm nowhere near as frightened as I should be. He reached for the scope lying on the concrete next to his head, trying to turn it so he could see the display. Johnny's hand closed over his and pushed it firmly down.

"No," Gage said, shaking his head and forcing a smile. "Remember our deal? You drive the squad and I play with the datascope." He slid the monitor out of Roy's reach. "You pull out that IV and you'll have to start the next one yourself."

"Shouldn't be too hard, Junior. You managed," retorted DeSoto, closing his eyes. I hope Joanne and the kids will be all right without me.

*****

Roy looked at the nest of pneumatic hoses running from the air tanks to two slender, reinforced black rubber bags sitting under the edges of the fallen piece of the ramp. Neat stacks of foot-long lengths of thick wooden beams shored up the slab, waiting to stabilize the ruins when the air bags were inflated. He had spent the last half-hour watching Johnny and Marco use hammers and chisels to cut narrow slots for the air bags beneath the edge of the deck. The noise had been the last straw for the poor cat. Lopez had been forced to hand the animal out to Stanley. Roy could imagine Hank staring at Marco as though he had lost his mind. DeSoto missed the animal, something he could worry about besides his own condition.

"How's the pain?" asked Johnny.

"Better," answered Roy, watching Johnny crouch next to him. Gage was still ricocheting between the slab and his side like a hysterical pinball, checking his vitals every ten minutes. He's doing the worrying for both of us. John had already leak-checked the manifold for the air bags twice and was running out of things to do. Roy smiled at his friend's nervousness. Johnny climbed up the inclined surface toward his supplies. DeSoto could hear Gage spreading the MAST over the backboard, preparing for his extrication. "Junior..."

"Gage!" called the Cap from the passageway entrance.

"Yeah, Cap," replied John while gesturing at Roy to wait.

"We're ready to begin cutting through the last layer."

"Ok." Johnny turned toward Lopez and jerked his thumb toward the opening. "Marco, better get out." He watched Marco crawl toward the tunnel. "Hey, gimme that," he said pointing to the plastic bag containing an emergency blanket.

Marco tossed the bag to John.

"Thanks," said John, ripping open the bag.

"Lopez," summoned Stanley.

"Coming, Cap," said Marco, worming into the passageway. As he lay down, bracing himself for the squeeze through the narrow channel, he saw Johnny stretch the plastic sheet across his back. Gage bent, covering DeSoto with the blanket and his body.

Johnny set his flashlight across Roy's chest. He crouched over Roy with his eyes closed, listening. Outside, he could hear the Cap talking to Marco. "Is there any point in my trying to order Gage outta there?" Johnny could hear the frustration and the understanding in Hank's voice. John detected Stanley's sigh as Marco replied, "Only if you want to have to write him up." He tightened his grip on the blanket, increasing the tension of the plastic sheet and preparing himself for the falling rubble from the rescue crew above. He was sweating.

"Junior," started Roy. He looked up at Gage's face, which was barely a foot above his own. "You should go with Marco."

Johnny shook his head.

"First rule of rescue work: 'don't become a victim'."

"I thought the first rule was 'don't lie to the patient'."

Roy tried to shake his head in frustration but the C-collar and John's hand held him immobile.

"Be still."

Roy surrendered and quit trying to move. The back of his head was hurting from having his weight resting in exactly the same spot. He didn't really want Gage to leave. His presence is very comforting, realized Roy, finally feeling the icy stab of panic. Can't be selfish. "Johnny, get outta here," he ordered, his voice trembling slightly.

John didn't answer until he heard the whine of the saw. "Too late."

Roy listened to the rattling of small fragments striking the blanket. He flinched as a large chunk of the overhanging deck slammed into the ground a few feet away. His movement caused Johnny to open his eyes.

"You ok?"

"Fine," he said, searching Johnny's face, seeking some sign about his condition, something to contradict what he had already surmised. His partner's normally expressive face was still and impassive. Gage's professional mask was firmly fixed over his features. He's gone, recognized Roy, looking into Johnny's eyes. John had withdrawn behind -- what Joanne called -- the 'Great Wall of Gage' and was hiding what he was feeling from those around him. "John," began Roy, hesitating.

John, not Junior or Johnny. The bantering is over and he's getting scared. Gage turned away from Roy's gaze. Is his condition beginning to deteriorate? He shifted awkwardly, trying to maintain a protective position, yet check DeSoto's vitals. He inflated the cuff and measured his friend's blood pressure again.

"...do you believe in God?" finished DeSoto when Johnny removed the stethoscope from his ears.

As unobtrusively as possible, Gage checked the color of Roy's nailbeds and lightly squeezed his fingertip, timing how long it took the nail to pink up again. Is his anxiety a symptom of hypovolemia? Not yet, he decided, based on his observations. He shrugged. "Marco's the religious one around the station."

Not good enough, Roy thought, waiting. "Come on, Johnny. Chet's not here; no one can hear you. Tell me." He reached up and touched Johnny's arm. "Please."

Gage looked down at his friend, studying DeSoto's anxious face. His answer seemed very important to Roy "Guess it kinda depends on what you mean by God. I believe in powers."

"Like those hawks you made offerings to?" Another chunk of the ceiling fell, shattering as it hit the ground. He could see Gage wincing as some of the fragments ricocheted off his back.

"Yeah, kind of... It wasn't to..." Johnny stopped at a loss for words. "It's not that simple." He shifted nervously, adjusting his grip on the blanket.

DeSoto lifted his arm and examined the IV line. He looked at Johnny's nearly illegible handwriting snaking across the tape. "What about an afterlife?" He exhaled slowly, having finally found the courage to give voice to his fears.

Gage interrupted, "Not all of the those powers I mentioned are good. But they are always listening." The muscles along his jaw tightened. The flashlight cast odd shadows across his face, breaking his features into patches of light and dark. "Don't give them the strength of your words."

"John..."

He shut his eyes. "Don't..."

"No," commanded Roy. "You will not close your eyes and withdraw from this one. Use some of that famous Gage glibness and talk to me." He looked at Johnny's startled expression. Blocks of concrete fell on the floor beside them, sounding like a string of firecrackers exploding. "John Gage, do you believe in Heaven or Hell?"

Johnny looked at DeSoto. You can't bluff here, can you Gage? he thought. "I -- uh..." He fell silent, remembering his catechism and the stories his grandfather told. "I think a part of you lives on," he finished, lamely. "I don't know where." He shrugged. "I haven't ever thought about it. I've never really thought I was going to die," lied Gage.

Roy fell silent for a few minutes. He closed his eyes, listening to his body and allowing himself to feel its pain. He lay remembering a time when Johnny had believed he was going to die.

******

The ambulance attendant knelt next to Roy, counting and getting the rhythm of the chest compressions. He slid in, relieving DeSoto.

Roy took his place at the head of the stretcher, squeezing the ambu bag. The patient beneath his hands lay still; a straight line divided the monitor screen in front of him. Asystole. Three more minutes, he thought, looking at the window and noting the landmarks. He glanced over at the bench, where Johnny lay on his side in the stokes, still wearing his gloves and ladder belt. His partner had contracted the virus that was killing Tim Duntley. Gage's eyes were closed, his face was no longer flushed but was instead alarmingly pale and the tension in his jaw muscles reflected the intensity of his battle to keep from throwing up. "Johnny..."

At the sound of Roy's voice John opened his eyes; they failed to focus. "Roy, I want to..." his voice was strained and weak.

Roy could see the fear in the dark depths of Gage's eyes. It was the first time he had ever seen Johnny really afraid. He thinks he's going to die, he realized. "Junior, when you get over this bug," he interrupted, "we're going to have to talk about the meaning of the question: 'Johnny, are you ok?' You seem to be having some trouble with that one."

The corners of John's lips curled very slightly.

******

DeSoto opened his eyes and looked up at Gage. "I need you to take care of Joanne," he whispered.

"Roy," John's voice acquired a hard edge. He turned his head away from DeSoto. "Don't..."

Roy gazed up at Johnny, his eyes pleading and his voice serious. "I know what's going to happen when you get this slab off me, Junior." Roy swallowed hard. Sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead and he was shaking. "Promise me..." He grabbed Gage's arm, his grip was deathly tight.

"I'll promise, if you'll promise to settle down," said Gage pushing down firmly on DeSoto's shoulder, holding him still. "Roy, you're not gonna die, if I have anything to do about it."

Roy relaxed visibly.

"Gage," called Stanley, leaning his head through the newly formed hole. "We're ready up here."

John quickly squeezed Roy's shoulder. "ETA on the ambulance?" He lifted his head, letting the plastic sheet slide to the ground behind him. A square of sunlight fell on the ramp beside DeSoto.

"It's waiting."

"Ok, let's move," replied Gage, his voice hardening.

*****

Johnny crouched on the floor and quickly reviewed the extrication procedure with the rest of the men, while Hank conducted a final safety check of the lifting system. He saw John scan the faces of his team, making sure they understood the plan. Chet and Marco nodded and Billy, the redheaded young man from Riverside, jerked his thumb upwards, gesturing his comprehension. Stanley knew he'd never forget their expressions: Mike's calm, centered gaze, the look of a man who could be trusted with lives of the men on the hose lines; Marco, his eyes closed in prayer; Chet, his boyish grin covered by the mask of an older man, a man who had stared down into the ashes at death many times; Billy's milky, freckled face excited and frightened; and Gage's normally handsome features distorted by the weight of fatigue and responsibility.

Johnny lifted his radio. "Riverside General, this is HT Six. How do you read me?"

"Go ahead, HT Six."

"Riverside, be advised we are now ready to extricate our crush injury victim." Gage wiped the sweat from his face.

"10-4, HT Six," crackled the radio.

"Riverside, victim is trapped within a dead zone. We may lose radio contact." Johnny looked up at Hank, who was standing at his side gazing down at the radio in Gage's hand.

"Understood, follow standard treatment protocols for managing dysrhythmias. Administer 10 cc bolus of 10% calcium gluconate if tacharrythmia occurs and monitor for bradycardia."

"10-4, HT Six out." He slid the portable back into his pocket.

Stanley met Gage's eyes. "Ok." He watched Johnny disappear through the hole into the chamber where DeSoto lay. The rest of his men followed. Please, Dear God, he prayed.

Roy watched his friend position the backboard above him. John had changed from the nasal cannula to a mask, which closed over his mouth, leaving him feeling claustrophobic. He fought the urge to breathe more rapidly. The smooth black hoses of the MAST suit bore an uncomfortable resemblance to hungry snakes. His attempt to distance himself from what was happening by analyzing the patient experience was no longer working. Get hold of yourself, he commanded, shutting his eyes briefly. Snakes are Johnny's hang-up. He grappled for humor -- a joke to drive away death. Joanne, Chris, Jen! He gazed up at Gage, who was adjusting the flow rate of the IVs to full. He resisted the urge to grab his partner's hand. "Johnny..." he started, his voice breaking.

John glanced down.

DeSoto's face was flushed and frightened, moisture was gathering on his upper lip. He looked at the MAST like it was going to bite him.

"Roy, close your eyes." The trapped paramedic continued to stare fixedly at the medical supplies next to him. "Roy," Johnny said, sharply, "close your eyes." When DeSoto complied, he continued, "I want you to think about the camping trip you, me and Chet took up near Bishop last fall." Gage gestured his readiness to Marco.

"Remember the stream, east of the Owens River Gorge." Johnny gazed at the orange drug bag, again locating the medications he might need in the unfamiliar container: Lidocaine, epinephrine, procainamide, calcium gluconate, bicarb...

Chet and Billy positioned pry bars against the wooden cribbing. They prepared to stabilize the stacks until the compressive force of the shifting load could lock the wood in place. Kelly nervously shifted his hands on the metal shaft of the lever. The confined chamber was stiflingly hot in the bright California sun. The still air was heavy with the smell of sweat and hot rubber.

Hearing them move, DeSoto opened his eyes, trying to see what they were doing. Inches from his head Johnny was twisting himself into one of those improbable Gage pretzels, straddling the backboard and preparing to pull him clear. He felt icy waves of fear break over him, chills prickled along his spine.

"Roy, I need you to calm down," ordered Gage. "Close your eyes. Listen to me and ignore them." He nodded to Mike, who was kneeling beside DeSoto. Hank took his place on the other side the backboard. "Remember the aspens?"

"Yes," whispered Roy, trying to focus on the image. "Pretty -- gold. And the cottonwoods." He felt Mike and the Cap's hands close on his belt and arms. Unconsciously, he grabbed Stanley's arm, holding on to his wrist as an anchor for what was to come.

"Just let us do the work, pal," said Hank.

"Ok, Marco," called Johnny. He placed his hands to support DeSoto's neck and maintain its alignment throughout the move. For a split second he squeezed shut his eyes, trying to remember the right words. Grandfathers, spare him, he pleaded in English, unable to recall the proper phrase.

Marco adjusted the regulator and opened the valve. Air hissed within the hoses. The bags began slowly inflating and the concrete groaned

Roy's lashes fluttered at the sound.

Johnny saw his partner's eyelids move. "And the cottonwoods, jack pine and..." He continued listing the flora of the Sierra mountain gorge -- a ritual formula against DeSoto's terror.

Chet pressed the pry bar against the stack of lumber, steadying the wood as it shifted and groaned. Next to the Riverside firefighter, a piece of the shoring from the makeshift support slid precariously from one of the layers. "Billy," snapped Kelly. Beside him the young man colored, pressing the metal rod against the displaced piece of lumber. The wood moaned as the inflating air bags transferred the weight of the slab to the shoring.

"On three," said Gage, breaking into his botanical monologue for a second.

Roy tried to concentrate on Johnny's voice, shutting out everything else as his partner continued to recite like a demented guidebook. Suddenly, a wave of cramping, burning pain washed through his right leg. Circulation's back. He gasped in agony. His lower left leg remained woodenly and frighteningly insensate, while cramps knotted the muscles in his thighs. Beneath his breastbone, his heart began pounding. He panted desperately for air. My BP must be going through the floor, he thought panic rising like wild beast, tearing at his throat. This is what it, feels like to go into shock. Stars swam in the darkness behind his closed eyelids and the ground began twisting and dipping drunkenly underneath him. "Johnny, an aftershock..." he moaned.

"One -- two -- three," grunted John.

Roy felt himself moving. He clawed at the rough pavement, trying to stop his slide, but his fingers were rubbery and useless. He clung helplessly to Stanley's wrist. "Joanne," he whispered.

"Watch the MAST!" yelled John

Hank twisted painfully, forcing his leg sideways to clamp the garment against the ground with his foot. His muscles screamed at his unnatural position as he pulled DeSoto away from the slab.

"Ok, stop," ordered Gage. Carefully he released DeSoto's head and quickly reassessed his friend's vitals. Shit! He's going out too fast. "Let me in there, Mike." He pushed past Stoker and wrapped the panels of the anti-shock trousers around Roy's legs and abdomen. The sound of the catching Velcro reminded him of tearing fabric -- a sad, desperate noise. He rapidly inflated the compartments. He scuttled to the foot of the spine board and pressed his fingers against the blood vessels on DeSoto's feet, checking the pulse. On the right, it was rapid and weak against his fingertip. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he touched the cold and swollen flesh of his friend's left foot. Hang on, Roy.

"Get him ready to move," ordered Gage, crawling back to his position at the head of the board.

Stoker rapidly secured the straps around Roy's legs and chest, pulling them tight. "Ok," he said softly.

I haven't been on a backboard since training, DeSoto realized. He closed his eyes and let himself return to those training exercises, recalling when the only stakes in the race to secure a patient was a round of beer. His hearing went muffled and distant as Johnny placed foam blocks against either side of DeSoto's head, stabilizing it. He fought to look up at his friend, to respond to the touch of Gage's fingers as John wiped the sweat from his forehead. Johnny wrapped a thick strip of adhesive tape around the board and his head. The only part of his body that could move was his stomach, which twisted under his ribs, churning. Electrolyte imbalance, I'm going to -- 'barf', he thought, quoting one of his daughter's friends. "Junior...," he moaned.

Johnny pulled the IV bags from the makeshift stand and slid the tabs between his teeth, preparing to lift the board. He swiveled back toward DeSoto and caught sight of Roy's pale face. Roy swallowed hard. "Get him on his side!" John exclaimed, words distorted by the mouthful of plastic. "Roll him!" He grabbed the edge of the backboard, helping Stanley and Stoker tilt DeSoto on to his side. Gage pushed the mask away from his partner's mouth.

Roy vomited. Eyes watering and throat burning, he looked out the corner of his eyes at John. "Sorry," he murmured, embarrassed. His voice was weak and abstracted.

"Shh," whispered Gage, wiping Roy's chin. He held the tissues lightly against DeSoto's lips. "Spit." The injured paramedic's pallid skin was slick with icy sweat. He could feel Roy panting, fighting to catch his breath. I hate to think about what his BP is this point. He slid the oxygen mask back into place and lifted the IV bags as high as he could get them. "Ok, let's get him outta here."

*****

Billy sat frozen, his thin face immobile. He tried to look out the window, to stare past the injured medic on the road cot in front of him, but every time he attempted to lift his eyes from the semi-conscious man he failed. The old guy's partner hasn't left his side, he thought, finally tearing his gaze away from DeSoto and watching the other paramedic work. He was still stunned to find himself in the back of the ambulance. Gage had grabbed the front of his turnouts and demanded 'EMT, right?' When he had nodded, he had been dragged bodily into back of the rig.

Johnny glanced out the window at the wounded city speeding by, forcibly breaking his concentration on the cardiac monitor. John checked Roy's vitals yet again. "How much longer?" he asked the young firefighter sitting on the bench. He swallowed a sigh when the kid didn't answer, praying he had not made a mistake when he had decided to spare the Station 51 personnel what he knew was to come. "ETA?" he snapped.

Billy leaned forward, looking out the back windows of the ambulance, seeking a familiar landmark among the ruins. "Eight to ten minutes," he estimated.

"Johnny," croaked Roy. His mouth and tongue were so dry he could hardly force the words past his parched lips. His body felt as though it were melding with the backboard and becoming wood itself.

"Roy?"

"How bad?" he asked, referring to the vital signs Johnny was scribbling on the patient care form.

Johnny bit his lip and debated. "Pulse 120, BP 80/40 and respirations 26."

Roy tried to snort. He grimaced. "Junior, my chest feels funny," he struggled to recall the term for what he was feeling. "Palpitations."

Gage glanced sharply toward the datascope. The familiar quartet of peaks was distorted, with the low, gently sloping peak that was the electrical signature of the heart muscle 'resetting' itself for the next beat, having become a sharp, terrifying indicator of his friend's deteriorating condition. Occasionally, large amplitude transients wandered through the trace. PVC's! Hyperkalemia, he thought, feeling his own heart start pounding. Not too bad -- yet. The contents of the dead and dying cells in the crushed tissues were spilling into Roy's bloodstream, poisoning him. How am I going to call this in without freaking him out?

"PVC's?" DeSoto asked, his words spoken in a pale shadow of his professional voice. Grey spots danced at the edges of his vision.

John remained silent.

"Need some help reading that thing?" Roy tried to smile but his muscles wouldn't cooperate. Dear God, I feel horrible.

Johnny shook his head, unable to respond to his partner's teasing even though he knew it would help calm DeSoto. He dug through the drug box, retrieving the medications the base physician had ordered. "Yeah, PVC's," he finally whispered, acknowledging Roy's diagnosis. He prepared to administer the drugs, which would hopefully force some of the toxins from his friend's blood and stabilize his heart rhythm.

Roy strained to see what Johnny was doing, but Gage kept bobbing disconcertingly in and out of his peripheral vision -- appearing first by his shoulder then reappearing unexpectedly by his knee. No wonder victims panic when they wake up strapped to the board, he recalled the struggles of some of his patients. DeSoto fought to distract himself, but didn't succeed. The odd electric sensation again passed through his chest. I love you, Joanne. He let himself fall into the gentle white fog encroaching on his consciousness.

Gage studied the rhythm on the monitor. Minutes ticked by. The pattern disintegrated, as Roy continued his downward slide. "Roy?" DeSoto moaned feebly at John's voice. "Roy, listen to me. Hang on buddy." He swiveled on the balls of his feet, turning to face the kid on the bench. "Get base and request permission to repeat the calcium gluconate dose." Johnny looked at the kid's pale face, beginning to suspect this was one of the first times he had ever been near a patient who wasn't a plastic training mannequin. Damn you Roy, for sticking me with a complicated case and the newest fireman in the state of California.

Billy swallowed hard. "Base, this is HT Six...."

The cardiac monitor began to wail. John turned back, placing his hand on Roy's diaphragm and his fingers against DeSoto's throat, feeling no motion. "V-fib," he yelled, recognizing the pattern on the datascope. He grabbed the defibrillator paddles. "Bag him." Billy hesitated for a split second. "Bag him!" repeated Gage.

"Yes, sir," stammered the kid, landing on his knees beside DeSoto's head. He fitted the mask over the comatose paramedic's mouth and nose and began breathing for him.

Hurriedly, Johnny smeared the conductive gel on the paddles and positioned them, confirming that the nightmarish wiggle was real. Not fair! It couldn't have just been a bad electrode. Time stretched; Gage felt like the air had become thick, resisting his every move, and he saw each of his actions in slow motion. Transferring the second paddle to his left hand, he pushed the charge switch. "200 J." After a few interminable seconds, the machine beeped its readiness at him. "Clear!" he yelled, slipping the paddles into place. He glanced at Billy, making sure the kid had actually moved. He pushed the buttons. DeSoto convulsed.

"Tunkashila, unsila yo," John begged, ignoring the young firefighter's curious stare. The horrible electrical wandering of Roy's heart continued. He reset the energy level and jabbed the charge button. "Clear!" Roy jerked as the current arced through him, but the trace on the monitor continued it erratic oscillations. Again, Johnny adjusted the machine. "360 J... Clear!" He watched his friend's body involuntarily yank against the restraints, bruising his arms. "No conversion. Damn you, Roy! You couldn't make this easy."

Gage grabbed Billy's arm and shoved him toward DeSoto's chest. He could feel the kid shaking beneath his hand.

Billy touched the slick skin of the injured firefighter's chest, located the end of his sternum, and positioned his hands. I'm going to be sick, he thought, trying to ignore the clamminess under his palms. He began CPR.

Johnny knelt by the head of the stretcher. Focus, he ordered, fishing the intubation supplies from the bag at his feet. Fifteen seconds -- no more, Gage. Ungracefully, he sealed the mask with one hand, inventing new methods to squeeze the bag while using his teeth to rip open the envelope containing the endotracheal tube. Focusing on the instruments of his profession, he forced himself to objectify his partner's face, making it as generic and featureless as the manikins and cadavers they used in training. Get it right. He hyperventilated Roy, saturating his friend's blood with oxygen. "Stop CPR." John positioned the laryngoscope and inserted the tube. He secured it, then fastened the mask to the adapter. Stretching awkwardly over the end of the litter, he listened to Roy's chest and belly, checking the airway placement. "Ok," he said, pulling the stethoscope from his ears and gesturing for the young man to resume CPR.

"Think about Joanne and the kids; they need you. You can't do this to them!" shouted Gage, ignoring the shocked stare of the young firefighter. Not used to nut cases that scream at their patients? He checked the label on the pre-fill a fourth time, fighting off the feeling of disorientation caused by the strange supplies. Epi. Quit wasting time, Gage. He popped off the tops, assembled the syringe, bled out the air, and administered the dose. He looked up at Billy. "Trade places."

Billy scuttled past John and grabbed the ambu bag.

Checking the monitor, Johnny lifted the defibrillator paddles and pressed the charge button. "Clear!" he exclaimed, hearing the charge tone. His friend's body jerked beneath his hands. The random wiggle continued to meander across the datascope screen, mocking him. "Lidocaine," he mumbled, reaching into the drug bag, pulling out another syringe. Gage re-read the label and glanced at DeSoto, calculating the dosage. He injected the drug into the IV line. Dear God, let this do the trick. He again defibrillated. The monitor ceased its wailing and began a soft regular ticking. Johnny stared the trace, willing the frantic but regular pattern to remain stable. He checked Roy's pulse. "V-tach," he announced, sitting back on his heels and letting his body sag against the stretcher.

"ETA?" Gage asked, preparing a third IV bag.

"Two or three minutes," replied Billy, his voice shaking.

Johnny rocked the bag to mix in the medication to stabilize DeSoto's heart rhythm. "Good job," he commented, attaching the label to the bag. Turning his back on the kid's weak smile, he hung the new bag, sliding the needle into the port on the existing line. "Don't you ever do that to me again," he whispered, looking at Roy's gray face, allowing himself to again see his friend and not an anonymous victim. Cold sweat trickled down Gage's flanks.

*****

Johnny straddled Roy's legs, kneeling on the moving stretcher. He stared down at his arms, which moved of their own volition, and refused to acknowledge the vertigo induced by the movement of walls, doors and people sweeping past him. The rhythm of the chest compressions obliterated everything else. Gage's damp, dust-encrusted hair hung in his eyes, obscuring his view. Billy trotted along behind him, squeezing the ambu bag, breathing for Roy. Two attendants steered the stretcher, leading the trio through the maze of Riverside General's ER.

DeSoto had arrested again as they pulled into receiving. The poisons spilling from the oxygen-starved tissues once more overwhelmed his body's defenses, deranging the electrical signals that kept his heart pumping.

The floor stopped moving beneath Johnny. A nurse stepped up on a stool next to gurney, waiting to take Gage's place. She pushed his hands aside. Billy had already been relieved and was heading out of the treatment room. A tall blond-haired woman caught John as he half-climbed, half-fell from the litter. She pulled the patient care form out of his pocket, took his elbow and firmly led him into the hallway. Gage opened his mouth, but for once in his life he was speechless. The door fell closed between them.

Johnny stepped backwards into the hall. He looked around, confused. Billy had disappeared; a stretcher nearly hit him. He staggered out of the way and his back struck the cool plaster of the wall. Abruptly, the weariness of the past days caught him and his thighs shook, collapsing. Gage slid down the rough surface. Hugging his knees, he leaned his head against the wall. Tears ran through his hair into his ears.

Around him, the chaos of the disaster outside the halls continued bleeding into the emergency room. No one had time to notice one firefighter sitting on the floor, crying.

"Incident command to HT Six, return to scene," crackled the radio by Johnny's feet.

Slowly, Gage lifted the radio, gazing uncomprehendingly at the black box in his hand. He was so numb and exhausted he couldn't think. He sat for a moment. "10-4, HT Six out," he replied, pushing himself off the floor and sprinting for receiving.

Aftershocks:

"Jen!" yelled Joanne, dropping bags of chips into the two lunch bags. She glanced at the kitchen clock -- 9:00 am. "You girls are going to be late." Upstairs, she could hear a satisfying rustle as Jennifer and Meridith -- the young woman her daughter had met at her Saturday program for the gifted and talented -- gathered their books. Meridith, thought Joanne, sighing. She and Roy privately referred to Meridith as their daughter's odd friend or 'the girl with three holes in her ear'. But, she seemed decent enough. "Jen!" repeated Joanne.

A blast of music escaped a slamming door. "Coming!" replied a somewhat surly voice.

Over the noise Joanne wasn't sure which teen had answered. I should be glad they are even up. They had still been awake when she had declared a midnight lights-out and had gone to bed. Despite Roy's absence she had fallen soundly asleep, unlike the girls, whom she suspected had spent most of the night talking.

"You're not going to have time for breakfast."

A car horn sounded outside -- Meridith's mother, Amanda Grayson. Grabbing the lunches and a pair of muffins, Joanne went to the bottom of the stairs. "Jennifer! Meridith! Mrs. Grayson is here!" Shaking her head, Joanne unlocked the front door and walked to the waiting car, bags in hand.

"Hello, Amanda."

"Hello, Joanne," greeted Amanda, her English accent seeming so very soft and out of place here in Southern California.

"The girls were no trouble at all. They should be right down." Joanne smiled.

"Wonderful! I really can't thank you enough for inviting her for the night. Meridith does have a good time with Jennifer. This last move has been so hard on her." Amanda smiled, as she sipped at a take out container of tea. "Oh, I brought you a coffee."

Joanne took the bag from her. "Thank you." Joanne took a swallow of the coffee -- the fancy stuff she couldn't afford. "Mmmm. I don't know how much sleep they got last night, they were still jabbering away at one another when I went to bed last night. Excuse me." She turned back toward the house. "Jen!" she called summonsing the authority of motherhood up from the earth beneath her feet.

Amanda laughed, "So I guess they had a good gossip then, the two of them." On the passenger seat of the new Ford Thunderbird sat the morning's newspaper. 'Riverside Rescue Efforts Continue as a One Firefighter is Killed'. Amanda followed Joanne's gaze. "Have you heard from your husband yet?" she asked adjusting her wire rimmed eyeglasses and pushing back the black velvet headband that held her medium length brown hair.

Joanne shook her head, and pushed back a stray lock of her own dark brown hair. Time to get it cut, she mused. "No, I was hoping he'd get a chance to call, but rescue efforts like this usually mean Roy'll be out of contact for a few days."

"That's a shame," Amanda sipped at her tea. "I don't know how you do it, Joanne. I'd be worried sick all the time."

Joanne smiled wryly. "I don't know either some times..." Her thoughts were left unspoken, interrupted by the slamming of the front door. Both girls were in jeans and short sleeved tops -- Jennifer topping the outfit with a floppy beach hat. She raised an eyebrow. Jennifer did not wear hats. What did those two do? "I made lunch for both of you and breakfast," Joanne said holding out the muffins and scrutinizing her daughter. A few stray black hairs escaped from the brim of the denim hat. Joanne cringed. BLACK?!! Jennifer's hair is blonde. Oh no... She eyed Meridith's spiked green tipped hair with trepidation.

Jennifer took the food from her mother, trying to act nonchalant. "Thanks Mom." She avoided her mother's eyes, heading rapidly for the car.

Joanne cleared her throat and said to her daughter, "Give me a hug, before you go."

Jennifer stopped dead in her tracks. Her expression was that unique mask of teenager agony induced by being forced to publicly acknowledge a parent. "Shit," she whispered, knowing her mother had seen her new look. She returned her mother's embrace.

"What did you do with the towels and we'll discuss your new haircolor, later." Joanne, whispered into her daughter's ear. Her tone let Jen know that this matter was not over.

"Behind my dresser," Jennifer muttered, breaking away and climbing into the car.

"Good bye." Joanne called as they drove away.

******

Joanne stood in the middle of her daughter's bedroom. The light pink canopy was still on the bed, but a poster of a man with flame-red hair and addict pale skin, wearing skin-tight leather pants, stared at it disapprovingly. The cryptic caption, Stray Cats, seemed incongruous. The sleeping bag that Meridith had used lay on the floor and the room was cluttered with all sorts of junk. Roy will be getting some extra pay for the work at Riverside, she mused. And it might come through by July or August. Maybe I can manage to redo Jen's room over the summer. Then Joanne spotted the bottle of black nail polish. But God knows what color she'd want to paint it. She sighed as she fished for the towels that were hidden behind the dresser. Jennifer was growing up

******

Joanne sat at the kitchen table, beginning the monthly ritual of bills, checkbook and creative thrift. She glanced at her watch. Christopher is in his Calculus final right now. She smiled. He is doing so well. Chris had announced he would be home 'in a day or so' when he'd called from Fresno State last night. She stared at the pattern of light reflecting on the table, wishing Roy had been home to talk to his son. Joanne lowered her head, forcing herself to concentrate.

She was paying the last bill, when she heard a car pull up to the front of the house. Joanne tipped her head back, craning look out the living room window -- a flash of red caught her eye. Fire Engine Red. The chief's car from the LACoFD. Joanne's blood froze. Stiffly she rose from the chair, the newspaper's headlines echoing through her head. Roy! The carpeting in the hall turned to molasses under her feet, quicksand swallowing her future. She stood in the doorway, struggling to assign names to the familiar faces as the two men in dress uniforms came up her walk -- Father Riordan and Chief Howells. A jumble of thoughts tore through the numbness fogging her brain: The Dean's office will be able to find Chris. What is the schools number? Where did I put that black dress....

*****

Roy became aware he was lying on his side, causing his breastbone and ribs to hurt. Disturbing dreams lurked just at the edge of his awareness, visions of dark cramped holes closing in on him. Throat aching, he tried to swallow the rising terror. There was something in his mouth -- something with the harsh bitter taste of plastic -- keeping him from swallowing. An airway, he realized, tongue grappling with the irritating obstruction, trying to push it out. A soft voice whispered to him and gentle hands pulled the airway from his mouth. He swallowed gratefully, sinking back into the darkness.

"...Mr. DeSoto, how are you feeling?" asked the quiet voice. A hand rested lightly against his diaphragm.

'Speak when you are spoken to...' whispered his mother, in his dreams. Let me sleep, DeSoto thought, drifting deeper. But the smell was overwhelming, a sweetish odor, reminding him of industrial solvents -- maybe acetone with a hint of chloroform. His stomach churned. Only the fact that he was cold kept him from being sick. Roy swallowed and licked his lips.

"Mr. DeSoto?"

"Umm..." he moaned. Suddenly, memory returned. My leg! Frantically, he struggled to drag his arm to his leg. He traced his hand down his side, fingers tangling on the tape and tubing at his hip, finally reaching the dressing wrapped around his thigh. He probed lower, closing his fingers around empty air. It's gone! The movement made his chest ache. A pair of hands guided his arm back to a pillow; he was too weak to resist their efforts.

"Come on, open your eyes."

Roy's head ached. He refused to open his eyes, denying his nightmare the reality of vision.

"Let me see those pretty blues..." coaxed the disembodied voice.

DeSoto's skull pounded with every word. He pried his eyelids apart, praying that the voice would go away. Roy squinted in the bright light, pain lancing through his head. His head swam and his belly twisted.

"Very good," said the nurse. "How do you feel?"

"Lousy," Roy groaned, letting his eyes close. He lay, hoping the warm darkness would again enfold him and blot out this dream. But, it did not come. The recovery room odor and chill persisted. The horrible non-pain where his leg had been did not disappear. And Roy's chest continued to ache, reminding him of what had happened. "Johnny should have let me die."

*****

Dixie McCall was standing next to the doors in receiving, staring through the glass windows into the parking lot. She was technically off-shift, but she stood vigil, waiting for one of their own to come home from Riverside. Her platinum hair was wilted and her feet hurt. Dixie's day had already included: two psychotics whose delusions had not featured a kind, caring nurse; a four year-old biter with facial lacerations; a full arrest; a resident with a bad attitude; a senile old man with a urinary tract infection and really sharp fingernails. ...And a partridge in a pear tree, she thought, running a hand over her head, glad caps were no longer the fashion, because after today hers would be dangling by one bobby pin and the nursing supervisor would have her on report. I should have taken that job in Vail. The work's the same; the administration is still a pain in the ass, but the skiing is better. And, I wouldn't be standing here waiting for a friend to come in on a stretcher.

Outside, the ambulance backed toward the doors. The reddish line of the fading sunset reflected off the white and blue paint. The gathering gloom matched Dixie's mood. Inside the rig, she could see the dark-haired nurse shifting, readying herself to help the EMT's unload Roy. She was surprised not to see Johnny in the back. They must still need paramedics down there. Quickly, she glanced toward the base station; Kel, Joe and Mike all milled around the counter, pretending not to be waiting. Sharon Walters was off her floor and stood against the wall, hugging a clipboard to her chest. The gurney came through the doors and McCall fell into step beside one of the young EMT's. Joanne climbed stiff-legged from the cab and trotted after them.

Dixie looked down at Roy. His face was puffy and white; his eyes were tightly closed. Dozens of scratches crisscrossed his checks. "Treatment 2," she ordered. Sharon caught Joanne's arm at the door of the exam room and gently led her to the staff lounge, knowing this intrusion on the sanctity of the staff's private space would be forgiven. McCall followed the stretcher into the treatment room, listening to the nurse's report and accepting the stack of paperwork.

The EMT's gathered their equipment, heading back to the rig. One patted their fallen colleague on the shoulder. The nurse signed off on the transfer paperwork. "Goodbye, Mr. DeSoto," she said, shrugging slightly at Dixie when he did not respond.

Dixie closed the door after everyone left. She studied Roy's face while unrolling the BP cuff, and remembered the young man who had sat drinking coffee with her after a bad call, persuading her to help him change EMS in L.A.

*****

Dixie stepped into the hall outside the treatment room and slowly lifted her head. As she looked up, she noticed her white shoes were spattered with blood. A sandy-haired, young man leaned against the wall opposite the door, biting his lip. His brown turnouts were stained with soot, grease and now blood. She could smell the lingering traces of smoke that clung to their heavy material. His blue eyes meet hers. "Nurse McCall, is he... Did he?"

She shook her head.

He chewed his lip for another moment and turned toward the wall in frustration. "Damn it."

DeSoto, she read from the back of his turnout coat. "He had just lost too much blood before you got him free."

DeSoto turned toward her. His eyes flashed with an unaccustomed anger. "This wouldn't have happened in Viet Nam. We'd have been able to do something!" His voice was loud and harsh.

Dixie looked at the staring staff and patients' families. She took the young firefighter's arm and dragged him into the staff lounge. "This isn't war." McCall filled a cup with coffee. Sniffing, she could smell the tarry scent of burnt coffee but she hoped it would soothe him.

"But, it is war. A war against time." He dropped wearily into a chair.

"DeSoto," she said, sliding the cup across the table.

"Roy," offered the fair firefighter. He drank deeply. Roy looked up, meeting her gaze with his startling blue eyes. "Hell, if he had wrecked his car in Miami he would have made it. They have ALS personnel."

"The AMA is opposed..."

"So is the Union," Roy said, referring to the California Professional Firefighters Association. "They think we should stick to fighting fires." He took another sip, grimacing at the bitterness, as if he had just noticed. "As I recall, the AMA also opposed the Emergency Department Nursing Association's efforts to expand an ER nurse's scope of practice." A wry smile crossed his lips. "Your role in that battle is legendary."

Dixie smiled. This is one hose jockey who knows his way to a woman's heart. She shook her head, recalling the bitter conflict required to move the nurse's role in emergency medicine beyond changing sheets and giving bedpans, to administering meds IV push and triaging patients. She still had enemies among the old guard.

"Don't you think the people out there deserve the chance to make it to the hospital alive?" His voice softened. "Help, us Miss McCall. No -- help them."

She stared at the blood on her shoes and nodded. "Dixie," she replied extending her hand.

*****

Dixie checked Roy's vitals, knowing he was awake behind the closed eyelids. Gently, she moved the sheets, checking his various monitors and lines. "Roy?" she asked quietly.

"Leave me alone, Dix..." His voice cracked with weakness and the tone was distant and apathetic.

Dixie made a mental note to contact the psychiatric nurse about his depression. Slowly she lifted the blankets and examined the dressing on his stump. She looked at his pale face; his eyes were now open. The blue orbs stared fixedly at the ceiling.

*****

Dixie knocked gently on the door of the staff lounge, giving Joanne some advance warning and a few seconds to collect herself. She smiled as she walked into the room and headed for the coffeepot. DeSoto's wife looked exhausted; dark crescents were carved beneath her eyes and her normally immaculate hair was windblown. She sat hunched over the table as though expecting a blow, steeling herself for more bad news.

"Dixie?" asked Joanne, staring into the cup of tea on the table in front of her.

"As soon as they get him settled upstairs, you can go see him. Kel Brackett and Joe Early are in with him now." McCall sat beside Joanne. "How are you holding up?"

Joanne studied the dark depths of the mug. She thought over the past couple days -- commuting through quake damaged Riverside, dealing with a rebellious teenage daughter, seeing her husband lose his leg... She rubbed her eyes. Everything was blending into a montage of images and sounds, like the annoying music videos Jen watched. The voice of a kind ham radio operator in Torrance, who had relayed Captain Stanley's and Johnny's messages, bypassing the impaired and overloaded phone system, mixed with the face of the young wife of the redheaded Riverside firefighter who had opened her quake-damaged home to Joanne and faded into the tent city of rescue workers and displaced families that she had searched for any LACoFD personnel. She closed her eyes and saw Roy's swollen, bloodied right leg and bruised chest. Oh Dix, she thought in unconscious imitation of Roy. Let me tell you all the new phrases and words I've heard: rhambdomyolosis, hyperkalemia, oliguria, acute renal failure... It's been a real -- learning -- experience. She sighed and opened her eyes, looking up at McCall. "About as well as can be expected."

Dixie winced at the platitude. "We'll take good care of him." She took Joanne's hand. "Roy is tough."

"Not this time," Joanne whispered.

*****

Hank twisted in the front passenger seat of the county van and looked back at his men. Marco had given up warding off Chet's drooping head and was dozing despite Kelly snoring against his shoulder. The two guys from 36's were soundly asleep. Even the injured stray cat DeSoto or Gage had rescued slept, lying in a cardboard box labeled '5% Dextrose solution inj., USP'. In the driver's seat beside him, Mike drove with his customary care, following the line of apparatus returning to the city. If the circumstances had been different, he would have spent the ride teasing Stoker about driving the van wearing his helmet and turnout gear, asking how he intended to run this thing code 3 without lights. But Gage sat staring out the window, his eyes moist and glistening, and Roy lay in a hospital bed.

John was no longer wearing the L.A. County uniform shirt, having run out of clean clothes, but had acquired an orange Riverside County Fire Department tee shirt. His badge and nametag were pinned to the suspenders of his bunker pants. The headlights of the oncoming traffic on the other side of the Jersey barriers flashed across his face. Gage was ashen with fatigue, and his eyes were sunken into the dark circles surrounding them. He held DeSoto's duffel bag on his lap, twisting the handles.

Hank noted with alarm the black and blue bruise starting at Johnny's right wrist and disappearing under the sleeve of the shirt. Normally, he'd be talking up a blue-streak: begging sympathy for his ' wounds', rooting around trying to find something to eat or going on endlessly about anything. Nobody would be getting any sleep until his adrenaline buzz was over. Instead, the paramedic looked on the verge of collapse. I'd be surprised if he's gotten more than a total of twenty hours of sleep in the last five days. In his twenty-one years with the department, Stanley had seen more than one man bury his reactions to the injury of a colleague by trying to be superhuman and save every victim on the scene. "Johnny..."

Gage continued to gaze out the window, lost in thought.

"John!" repeated Stanley, raising his voice slightly above the whisper with which he had started this conversation. One of the men from 36's shifted and moaned the name of a woman -- Monica.

"Yeah..." murmured Johnny. "Yeah, Cap?"

"When did you last sleep? Or for that matter eat?"

John shrugged. "Dunno." He paused, clearly struggling to remember. "Yesterday, maybe."

"Why don't you take a nap?" Hank watched Johnny lean his head against the glass, but John's eyes remained open. He thought back over the past few days. If I ever get my hands on the -- bastard -- who called Gage back into the field before he knew whether or not they had been able to bring DeSoto back, that SOB will need more than a paramedic. He stifled a sigh, knowing he wasn't being entirely fair. "Johnny, they'll take good care of him."

He shook his head. "Cap, he's going to lose -- probably already has lost -- that leg."

"You're not a doctor."

"Muscle tissue can survive six, maybe eight hours of warm ischemia -- max. He was under there for nearly fifteen." Johnny turned back to the window, shutting out any further arguments Hank might make.

Stanley slumped in his seat, bowed his head and let the flashing of the Bott's dots passing on either side of the van hypnotize him. He remembered working the Parkfield quake in '66. He hadn't thought of it in years, but when he had finally gotten in and had seen Roy pinned under that slab, it had all came flooding back. Jim had been trapped while trying to get a kid out of the wreckage. He had laughed and joked with Hank and the rest of the crew, while they muscled the debris off. They hadn't had paramedics back then. Jim had taken three breaths -- more like death rattles -- and had arrested. Hank closed his eyes and relived performing CPR, helpless to stop his friend's death. Jim's was the first departmental funeral in which he participated. Chills ran down his spine as his mind's eye again saw the coffin riding in the hose bed and the piper on the hill above the grave. Stanley straightened when Mike turned into the parking lot at headquarters, pulling away from his increasingly dark thoughts.

Gage climbed clumsily from the van, stumbling. Chet grabbed his arm, catching Johnny, steadying him. "Oh man," groaned Gage softly, gritting his teeth. Every muscle in his body had stiffened during the ride. John bent, trying to stretch the tightness from his limbs.

"Kelly, give him a ride home," ordered Stanley.

Abruptly, Johnny straightened, ignoring his body's protest. "Cap, I am going to go to the hospital."

"No."

"Cap!"

"No," said Stanley firmly, "You won't do Roy any good if you fall asleep behind the wheel and kill yourself." He reached into the van, retrieving Gage's backpack and shoved it into Chet's arms. "Kelly, take him home."

*****

Chet walked around the living room of Johnny's apartment. He hadn't been to this one, the latest of Gage's digs, and he was curious. I can see what Roy meant. At the thought of DeSoto he sighed, remembering what Roy had said. 'It's a great place if you don't mind living in an apartment abandoned by the Grateful Dead.' A faint smile twisted Kelly's lips as he recalled Marco's shocked expression when the name of the infamous psychedelic rock group fell from the straight-laced DeSoto's tongue.

From the back of the old duplex, he could hear the shower. Kelly's stomach growled, and he wandered into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. He dug through the cupboard, retrieved a dish, and poured himself a bowl of Corn Flakes. Reaching into the refrigerator, he pulled out a carton of milk and sniffed cautiously at the contents. Grimacing, he jerked the container away from his nose. Bachelor milk, Chet thought, hearing the words in the voice of an ex-girlfriend. He poured the lumpy liquid down the drain. Never mind, Gage probably drinks straight from the carton anyway. He could no longer hear the water running.

"Johnny?" Holding the bowl of cereal, Chet peeked through the partially open bedroom door. Gage was sprawled across the bed, wearing only his shorts and still holding his undershirt clenched in his hand. His brown back was blotched with the purple and yellow marks of bruises. Kelly lifted a faded quilt from the floor and draped it over John's sleeping form.

*****

...Fourteen, fifteen. Breathe -- Breathe. One, two... Sweat sparkled and burned in Johnny's eyes and streamed down his back and sides, soaking the underarms of his shirt and pooling at the base of his spine. His arms were leaden, his muscles burned and cramped. Where is the squad? He was gasping for breath, barely able to inflate his victim's lungs. Gage leaned down, bending low over the patient's face when he overbalanced, crashing to the ground -- exhausted. Desperately, he tried to push himself upright. Keep going! He thrashed and twitched, like a cow that had eaten locoweed, unable to rise. His victim's profile filled his field of view; no longer was it the bland, plastic visage of Resusci-Anne, but was instead the familiar features of his partner....

Panicked, Johnny kicked away the quilt tangled around his legs. He was soaked with perspiration. The crisp light of the clear early summer sunrise streamed across the bed. He lurched to his feet and every muscle in his body shrieked. Shit, he thought, hanging on to the chair beside his bed. I'm getting too old for this. Carefully, he released the chair and stretched, trying to loosen the stiffness that had settled into his limbs.

From the front of the duplex came the all-too-familiar sound of snoring. Gage walked into the living room. Sprawled across his sofa was Chet, head back, chin pointed toward the ceiling and mouth open, making a noise that threatened to loosen tiles from the roof. An overturned cereal bowl lay on the floor beside him. Spilled Corn Flakes were scattered across the polished boards, disappearing beneath the couch. He returned to his bedroom.

"Humph!?" moaned Kelly, hands fumbling for his boots and turnout pants. Wait, there is no alarm ringing, he thought, disoriented. Something soft, warm and green had wrapped itself around his face and neck while he slept. "A towel," he mumbled, pulling it off his face. Blinking, he sat up to find John staring down at him.

"Yeah, it goes with the washcloth, the soap and the shampoo. Go take a shower." Johnny jerked his head toward the bathroom. "You stink."

Kelly tipped his head toward his chest and sniffed. He frowned. "Good morning to you too, Gage." He stood up, stretching. Chet took one look at John's face and decided today would not be a good day to mess with Gage. He turned and headed for the shower.

"Hurry up, I want to get to the hospital. There are some clothes that might fit you in the second drawer," called Johnny.

*****

"Gage, do you own any clothing for which reflective tape is not the perfect fashion accessory?" yelled Chet. He was shirtless, barefoot and wore a pair of bleach-spotted shorts that said 'Property of CSU Dominguez Hills,' shorts that had to have been 'born' in a laundromat dryer. Digging through Johnny's dresser and shaking his head, he sorted through dozens of fire department and EMS service tee-shirts from all over the country. Gage and his tee shirts, Mike and his collection of die-cast fire engines. These guys need lives and better hobbies. He finally found a large blue shirt with the white outline of an eagle feather surrounding a Star of Life and the words 'Rocky Boys Ambulance'. It fit.

Johnny stood staring into the refrigerator holding a glass. Where's the milk? Beside him, a pot of oatmeal simmered on the stove. Kelly entered and headed for the coffeepot. "Did you drink all the milk?" John asked, still looking into the icebox.

"It wasn't milk anymore." Chet sipped gingerly at the dark brew. Much better than the -- stuff -- he makes at the station. He looked disdainfully at the grayish brown mess in the saucepan, remembering why he skipped breakfast when Gage cooked.

"I just bought it a few days ago." John closed the door.

"We were gone five days."

"Ok, nine days ago," sighed Johnny, leaning against the counter, filling a bowl with the steaming cereal and heaping sugar on top.

Chet poured himself another cup of coffee. Kelly studied Gage's face as he ate; his features were still drawn and dark circles were burned under his eyes. "Johnny, why don't you get some more sleep? It's not visiting hours. They won't even let you see Roy."

Gage tipped his head back and sighed. "Joanne will be there."

Kelly set down his cup and turned off the stove burner. "I'll get my keys."

*****

Dixie stepped out of the treatment room. The young resident in green scrubs followed her, anger marring his handsome face. McCall leaned against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She glanced around and then firmly whispered, "My nurse was not disputing you. She was presenting her professional observations." Dixie shook her head, cutting off the man's objections. "She is not there simply to hand you things. She is there to assist the patient in healing. If there is something about that patient's condition she thinks you should be aware of, she will tell you."

The resident jerked his head back as though slapped. He parted his lips, looked at Dixie's face and then closed them, clearly reconsidering the wisdom of what he had been going to say. Instead he nodded sharply and walked away.

McCall sighed and turned back to the nurses' station. Chet Kelly was pacing by the counter wearing mismatched, ill-fitting clothing and looking acutely uncomfortable.

He stopped and smiled as he saw her coming. "Dixie," he said.

"What did you do, dress from the Salvation Army collection box?" she quipped, knowing Chet used humor as a coping mechanism.

"Yeah, Gage's closet." He jerked his head toward Johnny, who sat on the edge of the counter with his head leaned back against the supply cabinets.

Dixie studied Johnny. The sight of Gage in 'civvies' always took her by surprise. He was dressed in jeans and a dark blue tee shirt with a white Maltese cross on the breast, the center of which proclaimed Local 1014. His eyes were closed and he was ignoring Kelly's crack. An oddly mixed expression, equal parts fatigue (a look she recognized from too many long brushfires), concern and guilt, occupied his face. The crisis is over and now the post-response analysis has begun. And, you have found your performance wanting, Johnny Gage. She sat on the stool and resumed filling out supply orders. McCall paused, looking up into Kelly's blue eyes. "It's a while until visiting hours, why don't you go get something to eat, " she suggested, glancing meaningfully in Johnny's direction.

"Ok. Gage, want anything?"

"I ate," replied John.

"Wallpaper paste," grumbled Kelly, heading for the cafeteria. "See ya later, Dixie."

McCall patted Johnny's leg. "Let's get a cup of coffee." She nodded toward the staff lounge. "Looks like you need one."

Johnny slid from the counter and followed Dixie through the door. He hunted among the Tupperware, mismatched dishes and mugs in the dish drainer, finally selecting a white mug that read 'Cardizem CD, diltiazem HCl.' Sighing, he dropped onto the couch and stretched out his legs, pointing his toes and sipping at the steaming liquid.

Dixie filled her cup and pulled a chair over to the couch. Gage was bringing out her mothering instincts again. She found herself wanting to smooth his disarranged hair. Despite being two years older than she had been when she had become head nurse in Metro's ED, there was something about Johnny that suggested a child's vulnerability. This characteristic caused her to occasionally wonder how many of his relationships floundered precisely because the expected 'little boy' turned out to be a man.

"Roy?" asked Johnny, quietly.

Dixie had a momentary debate about confidentiality and decided that this was a professional communication. "He is suffering kidney problems caused by the toxins released from damaged muscle tissue. We're trying to get that under control."

"Permanent?"

"We don't know yet. There is a possibility he may need dialysis, at least temporarily. His serum potassium is still very high."

"And his leg?" Gage's voice shook slightly as he spoke; he tipped back his head and closed his eyes.

"Johnny, it had to be amputated at mid thigh."

"Geez, that's worse than I had expected," said Johnny softly.

McCall remembered the dark, brooding pit of anger and sadness into which Roy had sunk. "He is very depressed."

"Understandable. His career with the fire service is over." John opened his eyes.

Dixie nodded.

"Joanne?" His voice was barely audible.

"She is being..." Dixie again saw the frozen expression on Roy's wife's face. "...strong."

Gage let his head drop and stared at his chest.

"And you, Johnny?" asked Dixie.

"What does this have to do with me?" he demanded sharply, touching his hand to his chest, pointing. "I'm fine. For once I didn't get hurt."

Dixie pursed her lips and shook her head. "Come on, Johnny, I know that look. Sometimes you're just as bad as Roy; it's not your fault." She reached out, touching his leg.

He lifted his head, meeting her gaze. He remained silent but his eyes said, 'It is my fault.'

*****

"Johnny," called Joanne, as Gage emerged from the staff lounge.

He went rigid at the sound of DeSoto's wife's voice.

Walking next to John, Dixie saw him tense. "Johnny, you ok?"

Drawing a deep breath, he squeezed his eyes closed. "Wakatakiya Tunkashila...," he appealed hopelessly, trying to recall the prayers his grandfather had taught him.

Dixie gave him a curious look.

Johnny nodded quickly and turned, forcing his face to impassive stillness. "Joanne."

"Johnny," repeated Joanne, wrapping her arms around him. She held him, seeking support, desperately needing to drop her facade of strength and be weak for a moment. Tears prickled in her eyes, the first she had shed since this nightmare had begun. She wept.

Dixie reached for Joanne, intending to pull her away from Johnny.

He shook his head. Awkwardly, Gage patted her back. "Joanne," he said. He tried to give voice to one of his myriad of well-practiced, calming platitudes but he could not speak. Instead, he stood holding her while she cried.

Sniffling, Joanne wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away her tears. She released him. "Johnny, what went wrong? Why did this happen? I need to know."

He looked down at her, eyes clouding. "Joanne, I..." Abruptly, he stopped unable to continue, falling mute.

Hurriedly, Dixie began to tell Joanne the details Hank had related to her, suspecting Johnny had started to tell her that he was what had gone wrong.

*****

Johnny stared at the display on the cardiac monitor over Roy's bed. He looked back down at his partner's face, examining DeSoto's features. Roy was so pale his skin was almost translucent and the red scratches on his face stood in stark contrast to its waxy surface. An errant lock of hair lay across Roy's forehead. Sickness had aged his friend's countenance alarmingly, settling the skin into laugh lines and crow's feet. Gage cringed at the tubes invading Roy's body. Familiarity rendered them more distressing, for he knew each length of plastic was an indicator of the severity of his partner's condition. He carefully avoided turning toward the foot of the bed. He didn't need to -- he could feel the unnatural hollow in the sheets where his partner's leg should have been, looming behind his back like the dark presence of some malevolent giant.

I'm no good at this, Johnny thought, disgusted with his own failure. I should have given my five minutes to Chet or Mike or someone who could do him some good -- at least talk to him. He ran his fingers through his hair, shifting nervously. Come on, Gage, where is your renowned inability to shut up? Opening, then closing his mouth, John stared down at Roy recalling a time DeSoto had stood vigil by his bed.

*****

Feeling returned first -- a sense of blessed stillness, with the room stationary, rather than spinning and twisting in caloric waves. Gage was no longer sticky with sweat, and the uncomfortable plastic cooling blankets were gone. The vicious pounding behind his temples had at last ceased. Indeed, his head was threatening to float away from his body, now that it had been freed from its leaden burden. He was too weak to move. Nausea swept through him, cautioning against even trying. Johnny felt like he was still a child, sleeping in his grandparents' unheated back bedroom, immobilized by the massive hand-woven textiles his Grandmother had brought from Sweden to her new home in America.

Gage realized he could again hear what was going around him. The roaring in his ears was gone, and the incessant distorted voices were at last silent. Instead he heard Roy.

"... I remember when I was told, I could pick my own partner from the new class of trainees. I told the battalion chief I wanted you...."

A wave of panic washed over Gage, squeezing his heart. Roy must have contracted the virus and died too. Frantically, Johnny struggled to open his eyes.

"...One of the guys at 43's, who had worked with you over at 8's, said I was nuts -- or more to the point, that you were. But I knew you were just what I needed to keep me -- to quote my wife -- from worrying myself into uselessness." Roy paused and John felt DeSoto's gloved fingers close over his hand. His voice was very soft when he continued. "Johnny, you scared me. I saw you fall. I..."

John finally managed to open his eyes. Nothing he had ever been told by either the nuns or the elders had suggested the afterlife would look like the isolation ward at Rampart. The doc's must have found a cure. Gage looked toward Roy and was rewarded by seeing the unflappable DeSoto rapidly shift his gaze to his watch, pretending to check Johnny's pulse. I'd at least try to find a blood vessel, Roy. He attempted to speak, but his tongue was fused to the dust-dry roof of his mouth. You tell ME, I need a refresher course! He let his eyes drift shut.

*****

"This isn't the way it's supposed to be, Roy." Johnny's voice was quiet. He rested his hands on the bed rail and studied his fingernails. "You should be standing here -- worried but healthy, able to go home to Joanne and the kids. I'm the one who's supposed be lying there." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "Gotten good at it over the years. But, this..." Closing his eyes, Gage paused, letting the sounds of the hospital wash away his words. "Well, you know me. Do something: grab the jaws, get on the hose line, start an IV... But, this not being able to do anything...." He stopped and pounded his palms on the rail in impotent fury. "Hell, listen to me going on about myself. You deserve better."

"Junior," croaked Roy. He fought his way through the medication-induced haze, which was hopelessly intertwining his every thought.

"Shh." Johnny held a finger to his lips and looked down at his partner. Roy's eyes were red-rimmed and watery. "Take it easy."

"Am I still alive?"

"Yes," answered Gage.

"Damn you," DeSoto cursed, his voice weak but angry. He shut his eyes, closing out his friend.

*****

Dr. Annie Park stopped just inside the door of the conference room at headquarters, inhaling the intoxicating scent of fresh coffee. Her assistant for this Critical Incident Stress Debriefing -- Dr. Helen Cason -- slipped past, heading to the vacant table next to the refreshments. She began spreading out an assortment of pamphlets and brochures. Annie continued into the room, her hazel eyes scanning the group of firefighters and sorting out familiar faces. She moved slowly through the crowd, wanting to let them ease into the idea of talking with a psychologist. As one of the men walked by, she caught the faint tang of smoke. 16 must have just gotten off a fire.

This was the mandatory debriefing for Station 51's A-shift and 16's C-shift -- some of the County personnel who had served at Riverside. Annie watched the men's faces as they gathered cups, munched cookies and selected chairs, particularly interested in identifying the firefighters from 51. They were of special concern to her, since they had seen a member of their crew severely injured in the line of duty. She spotted 51's dark-haired station officer standing next to the coffee urn. Hank Stanley, she recalled. The bushy-haired and mustached Chester Kelly sat next to the quiet handsome Hispano, Macro Lopez. The engineer had engaged one of 16's men in an intense, animated discussion of the department's new apparatus. She couldn't identify 51's paramedic. Annie walked over to Helen and whispered, "Which one is 51's 'medic?"

Helen jerked her chin toward a slender dark man standing in the back of the room, leaning against the wall with his hands jammed in his pocket. His expression dripped with contempt for the entire proceedings. "John Gage, fifteen years with the department. He was Roy DeSoto's partner," she whispered, bending close to Annie's ear.

"How long?"

"Eleven years."

"Wow." Annie shook her head. It was very unusual for two men to work together for so long. She took her place at the table.

With mounting concern, Hank watched Johnny continue to stand. Gage could not have been more emphatic about his resistance to the proceedings. Stanley grabbed a cup of coffee and a handful of chocolate chip cookies. He walked over to John. "Join us, pal," he said, pressing the coffee and cookies into Gage's hands and then gesturing at the chair next to his own. The look in your eyes could teach a rattlesnake a thing or two about venom. Stanley pointedly ignored the paramedic's glare. Johnny stepped past him, dropping into the chair. Gage slid down until his weight was resting on his coccyx and stuffed a cookie into his mouth. Hank straightened, his back aching from just watching, and offered a silent prayer of thanks that none of his boys had John's table manners.

Helen leaned against the table in the corner, listening to Annie make the introductions and outline the format of the debriefing.

"...In addition, any experiences discussed during the course of this meeting should be held in strict confidence. Participation is encouraged but not required...."

Cason surreptitiously watched the men sitting around the central table, studying their faces. She loved working with firefighters. The paradoxes of their lives fascinated her: the tough, macho guys who could be so gentle; the paramedics who valued the autonomy of their job, yet worked within a confusing web of overlapping, occasionally conflicting, jurisdictions... They could be supremely confident in a moment of crisis, then harshly critical of their performance when the emergency was over. They lived in a subculture that came as close to a tribal society as anything in 20th century America, trusting each other with their lives, sharing a rare breed of brotherhood. Daughter of a second-generation firefighting family, Helen found herself fiercely protective of the men and women who lived in that world.

"...Does any particular thing or event stick out in your mind?" asked Dr. Park, her voice carefully soft and empathetic. A long silence followed her question, people shifted uncomfortably but soundlessly, waiting for someone to start talking.

"Hands," whispered Marco, suddenly. He paused, his face fixed in the distant expression of memory. "A hand -- a woman's hand -- sticking out of a pile of concrete rubble, and the pocket book it had been holding resting nearby..."

Beside him, Chet gripped Lopez's shoulder.

Now, we're getting into to it, thought Helen, twitching involuntarily, afflicted by the same tension as the firefighters.

"We were working this garage by a mall... Funny, I can't even remember its name." Lopez's voice cracked. "It was.... It was hot, and you could smell that some cars had caught fire with people inside."

Hank could sense Johnny next to him going rigid, withdrawing into his own memories of the garage. He glanced out the corner of his eyes at Gage's motionless face, trying to read some hint of what was going on inside the paramedic's head.

"I was searching this one area -- where a section of wall had come down. It had just crumbled to pieces from the shockwaves, you know," Marco said to the assembled firefighters. Some of the men nodded. "The was a lot of dust from somewhere, a thick blanket of white grit that covered everything. The only way I even knew anyone was in there, was that bloodied and broken hand reaching helplessly for the sky." He stopped.

Stanley stared at his own fingers, dark against the white surface of the table, and tried to recall on which day this might have occurred. If it were a fatality you wouldn't even have been involved, he realized with a start of shock. Too busy trying to coordinate efforts for the still living. Marco's voice dropped into a register that made his throat ache.

"Her purse was on top of the debris. Madre de Dios. The pictures of her children and her driver's license had spilled out. Her name was Elena Cortez and her daughter looks like my niece." Lopez's voice began to tremble. Taking a sip of coffee, he stopped, trying to collect himself.

Annie nodded encouragingly.

"I dug through to see if I could do anything -- she might have been in a pocket of air. Stupid waste of time. I knew I was too late. I had touched her hand -- it was cold and stiff. I should have moved on." Marco tipped his head back, looked at the ceiling and grasped his outstretched right hand with his left. "But, her gold wedding band was shining in the sun, and I knew she's someone's beloved wife, mother, daughter..." he paused, his eyes glittering. "I uncovered her face. Her mouth and nose were completely filled with that damn white dust; she had this horrible expression. She had suffocated." Marco stopped, unable to continue.

Kelly squeezed Marco's shoulder.

Annie shifted on the table. "How did that make you feel?" she asked.

Lopez stared up at her as though she had gone insane. "How am I supposed to feel?" he demanded, nearly shouting. "There wasn't any way I could have helped this woman. I was too late!" His voice kept getting louder, until he was shouting at the callous forces that had allowed the woman to die. "We did everything we could -- we even gave that damn earthquake one of our own -- but..." He paused. When he continued his voice was a mere whisper, "But, still I keep asking myself what more could I have done?"

Helen took at deep breath. "Marco, there was nothing else you could do. It's OK to feel angry and helpless..."

Hank listened to the remainder of the debriefing, heart aching for his men. He kept hoping Gage would speak up, air out some of the things that had been eating at him, but John sat immobile and silent. Johnny really only talks -- talked -- about things of importance with Roy. You haven't been able to reach him, neither has Chet, and you two have at least known him for a while. He was still thinking of Gage when the debriefing broke up.

******

Gage fidgeted with his empty Styrofoam cup, pressing his fingernail into the rim and staring at the indentations. He was waiting for everyone to head out. Slowly, he stood and walked to the trashcan placed beside the door, careful to avoid looking at the window. This conference room was the very place he had met Roy. He remembered his friend, sitting at the desk, which had been placed in the room for the occasion. The young DeSoto's gaze had been so intent and forceful, that he had turned the chair in front of the desk sideways so he could evade the invasive directness of Roy's eyes. When he had tried to look at Roy's face, he had found himself staring past DeSoto's ear at the red blooms of the oleander, which filled the window behind the fair firefighter.

Johnny realized he had stood in the doorway too long, trying to sidestep his colleagues. The younger of the two shrinks walked toward him. He felt a surge of anger at her intrusion.

"Mr. Gage, do you have a moment?" asked Cason, carefully.

Johnny nodded, suspiciously.

Helen held out the business card for the Urban Indian Mental Health Project, which she had picked up at a seminar on cross-cultural counseling techniques. "I know it is hard when your partner gets hurt. These folks may be able to help."

Gage's jaw tightened as he took the card and read it. His head started to pound. "You have colonized the land. Must you now colonize our souls?" He handed back the card.

*****

Johnny turned off the trail along the upper reaches of Tujunga Creek and climbed the steep slope out of the canyon, pushing carefully through the brush. He wanted a private place where no one would interrupt him. A scrub jay scolded Gage from a cluster of elderberry bushes heavy with purplish-black berries. The sight made John's mouth water, reminding him of his mother's sweet wojapi. The ground sloped sharply upwards in places causing him to scramble on all fours. The yellowing grasses were slick beneath his feet. The lush leafiness of the canyon gradually transformed into a drier pine-covered, buckwheat-carpeted mountainside. Breathing heavily, Johnny stopped atop an outcrop of gray rock near the crest and stood watching the sunset between the reddish-brown trunks. The wind carried the whispering of the cottonwood and alder leaves in the arroyo. Casting a suspicious eye toward a narrow cleft in the warm rock, he sat down and studied the sky -- thinking.

The moon rose over the dark bulk of Mt. Gleason, a narrow silver inverted crescent low in the dark blue sky. A Kiowa moon, thought Johnny, wrapping his sweater tighter around his shoulders against the descending chill. His fingers traced a slender vein of milky quartz, which snaked across the rock face upon which he sat. An unfamiliar bird cry sounded from the canyon floor. It is time. He stood, reached into his jeans' pocket and fished out a small plastic bag which glistened in the weak moonlight. From the bag, he removed a string of tiny yellow thumbnail sized pouches -- tobacco offerings. Awkwardly, Gage pulled the string between his fingers, feeling the uneven spacing, a product of his unpracticed hands. Facing first the west, he offered the string to each of the four directions, then he bowed his head in prayer.

Venus rose on the eastern horizon, barely visible between the folds of the mountains behind him. The cool dawn wind blew across John's perch, ruffling his hair. He sat, knees hugged against his chest and head cradled in his folded arms. I failed you, Roy. Gage raised his head, looking at the fading stars. Messing around on the upper levels, practically walking right over you. A couple fewer hours and you might still have that leg. He shivered.

Stiffly, Johnny climbed to his feet, still holding the string of tobacco ties, and climbed to a lone incense cedar, sliding a little on the slippery grasses. Fingers clumsy with cold, Gage stretched up, grabbed a branch and tied the string to the limb. He briefly buried his face in the fronds, inhaling their sharp scent, the smell of the traditional sanctifying smoke of the Native American Church. "Have pity on my friend," he begged, releasing the branch into the rising dawn.

*****

Roy lay in the darkness, listening to the squeak of the nurse's tennis shoes on the tiles in the hallway as she made her night rounds. His roommate's breathing was a soft rhythm, like the ticking of a clock, counting away the rare moments when he could be alone with his thoughts -- touching them or leaving them be as he saw fit. He couldn't sleep in this bed. It was soaked with the sweat of his nightmares, and God alone knows how many others. Holding his eyes closed and imitating the even inhalations of sleep, DeSoto waited for the nurse to pass the door. When he heard her turn the corner, he opened his eyes, staring into the gloom. The light leaking around the door cut a bright slash across the bed. It stitched a golden stream, traversing the sheets and settling in a pool where his missing leg should have been -- indeed felt like it still lay. Roy pushed the sheets aside.

The pale bands of the Ace bandages wrapped around his groin and descended to encircle what remained of Roy's thigh, shaping it to fit the prosthetic. The crisscrosses of the dressings formed black x's, like those he saw crossing out his future. He unfastened the thin metal clips, and feeling the tiny teeth bite into his fingers, he embraced the small pains. He stared at the textured surfaces of the bandages, remembering. One of the nurses had commented, as she demonstrated the wrapping technique, that being a paramedic, he should have no problem mastering the skill. "I'm not a paramedic any more," Roy had replied and he allowed the nursing staff to put on the therapeutic dressings whenever he could get away with it. It made his skin crawl to touch his leg. He reached down and unwrapped the bandages.

In the darkness, DeSoto let his hand trace the outlines of his stump. Quietly, he leaned back and wept.

*****

Craig Brice's shoulders sagged under the weight of fatigue. Steam from the running shower curled around him, condensing on the cool bathroom mirror. Carefully, he wiped clear a patch of glass. He stared into the smooth surface, holding a toothbrush and studying his face. No, he decided, the last shift did not actually age me a whole year. It just feels that way. He sighed. Brice closed his eyes, seeing the whole incident again.

*****

The railyard was engulfed in chaos. Tank cars and boxcars lay sprawled on their sides or jackknifed into terrifying arches. Smoke and flame billowed from a half a dozen toppled tankers. Men ran in all directions. Every signal light in the yard was blinking a tortured rhythm of short red bursts.

Brice straightened in his seat, looking out the windows, as Johnny pulled across the tracks, following the engine into the yard. The shrill wail of a train whistle exploded beside his door. Craig turned his head to see the lights of a huge diesel locomotive bearing down the tracks toward the squad. He could hear the equipment sliding in the compartments as Gage threw the squad into reverse. Black block letters proclaiming 'anhydrous ammonia' flashed past the windshield as a row of white tank cars rushed past.

"Damn!" John exclaimed, grabbing the radio microphone. His eyes were wide. "Engine 51, this is Squad 51. We have anhydrous ammonia in some of the tank cars."

"10-4, Squad 51. All personnel use airpacks," said Stanley. "L.A. this is Engine 51. Respond a second alarm assignment to our location and a hazardous materials detail. Alert police to prepare for a possible evacuation.

"10-4, 51." The tones echoed over the radio. "Station 127..."

Brice leapt from the squad and, nearly colliding with Gage, pulled on his turnout coat and SCBA. Sliding his helmet back into place, he raced toward the rest of team. A man in grease-stained blue coveralls caught his arm, stopping him. His face was white beneath his soiled cap; he spoke to Brice, a blur of sound further distorted by his mask.

John grabbed the man's arms, leading him toward the Captain, trying to dispel his panic and get him to repeat himself more slowly. "Calm down, man. Tell us what happened." While he spoke, Johnny looked the man over, searching for obvious signs of injury.

"We were shunting some tankers onto a siding, when one of the cars hit a split switch and derailed," repeated the man, gasping. "It blew. There are a couple of gandy dancers down there."

Stanley looked at his paramedics and shrugged. "Gandy dancers?"

"Track workers," answered Craig.

Stanley nodded. He examined the surroundings with a practiced eye. High-pitched whistling could be heard from the emergency venting mechanism atop one of the huge black tanks squatting next to the fire. Its sides were discolored and the paint was blistering in the heat. "What's in those tankers?"

The man shrugged, "Hexane. I don't know what else." An earthshaking boom rolled through the yard. The end of one of the burning tank cars flew into the side of an adjacent boxcar, propelled by the force of the explosion. Flame and smoke billowed into the cloudless sky. He twisted in Gage's grip, broke away from John, and ran from the burning wreckage.

Hank looked up. Silhouetted in the window of the switching tower, Stanley could see the signalman screaming into the telephone receivers he held in each hand. Reaching a decision, he picked up the radio. "Engine 36, Engine116, this is Engine 51. Set up water curtains to keep the cars on the east side cooled. We will wait for the hazmat team before going in." Stanley gestured to Chet. "Kelly, go find the yardmaster, Pal. Get the manifests for all the trains on these tracks. The AIE's should have been read for everything in the yard. We need to know what is out there." He rested his hand on Marcos' shoulder for a minute. "Lopez, you'll be with me. We'll set up a monitor on the west side to cool those tanks." He looked over at Gage, who was jiggling impatiently from foot to foot. "Brice, Gage, make a sweep see if you can find those men. But, stay back of the hose lines. Don't get too near those tankers."

"Ok, Cap," replied Johnny nodding.

As Brice ran after Gage, he could hear the Cap ordering an evacuation of the surrounding area.

*****

Brice slid the tie further down the length of the fallen rail, improvising a support. The dark-haired man lying with his leg beneath the heavy metal span cried out as the pressure on his leg eased. Perspiration glistened on the victim's sallow face, dripping into his hair.

"Relax, we have you out in a minute," reassured Johnny, his voice muffled by the facemask. "Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a mess." He pulled two stacked ties a foot closer to the trapped man and repositioned a pry bar across the ties and underneath the rail. "What's your name?"

"Jim," replied the man, his voice strained with pain.

Craig shifted slightly and looked at the mess surrounding him. A track maintenance vehicle had rolled over a low embankment after being caught by the derailing train, trapping the worker under a length of fallen rail. He couldn't believe it, but it appeared Gage's crazy scheme for quickly extricating the victim without the delay of setting up special equipment was going to work. Brice shook his head. The middle of a burning railyard and he chats with the victim. He felt a tickle of jealousy.

"Jim, we'll have you out in a minute." Johnny nodded to Brice. "Again," he said as he strained against the pry bar. The two ties served as a fulcrum, allowing them to inch one end up, forming an ever-widening triangular space beneath the rail. He waited for Brice to slide the length of wood again. Gage dropped the lever and scrambled to the fallen worker's side.

Craig remained still, squatting beside the wood and staying safely out of Gage's way. He'll plow you right down. I wonder how DeSoto survived all these years without suffering impact-related injuries.

Carefully, Johnny eased his hands in next to the crushed leg, pulling gently on the fabric of the worker's pants.

Jim moaned.

"Sorry, man." He turned back toward Brice. "We're going to need a little more."

Craig looked at Gage. John was sweating and red-faced behind his mask and was obviously fighting to control his breathing, conserving the precious air supply. "I'll get it," he said, climbing to his feet. As he rose, a movement between one of the tank cars caught his eye. Liquid splashed onto the gravel below the car. Must have been punctured by flying debris. He could see the sinister silvery ripples of the dense vapor, glimmering like a mirage and rolling down the embankment into the hollow where they were now standing. Methylethylketone, Brice read from the side of the tanker. When that stuff reaches an ignition source... We'll be immolated. He clambered up the side of the tracks, clearing the vapor bank.

"Brice, get back here!" yelled Johnny.

Craig continued to retreat, watching the shimmering lines. Should be clear. He pulled his radio from his pocket and pushed the transmit key, praying that no stray vapors would locate a poorly insulated connection. "Engine 51, this is HT 51. Cap, we have a MEK leak." Looking down at John, he described his position.

"Brice," repeated Gage, standing and grabbing the pry bar. Jim began to cough from the vapors.

"Gage, we've got a MEK leak. Any spark..." he called.

Johnny nodded. He bent and slowly set the metal bar back on the ground, careful to avoid any jarring, potentially spark-producing movements. Kneeling next to Jim, he began clawing frantically at the hard ground under the dark-haired man's leg.

"10-4, HT 51. Get out of there. Let 127's handle it," said Hank.

"Gage, we've been pulled back." Brice waved to Johnny.

John continued digging.

"Gage!"

"Don't leave me," moaned the trapped man. He was blinking and coughing from the rising fumes. He clutched the edge of Johnny's turnouts.

"John," yelled Brice, sliding down the embankment and grabbing the paramedic's arm. "127's on the way. They'll get him out."

Johnny shrugged free of Craig's grip. He never stopped raking his gloved hands through the dirt.

"Brice! Gage! Get out of there!" screamed the Cap.

Craig winced; he could practically hear Stanley's yell without the radio. He caught sight of John's face through the transparent faceplate of his mask. What he saw chilled him. He didn't know exactly where Gage thought he was, but Craig was fairly certain it wasn't the switching yard. "John!" He seized the paramedic's shoulders, dragging him away, just as Johnny managed to free Jim's leg. Gage tumbled backwards. Brice froze, waiting for the searing blast of an explosion. White blobs floated down onto his turnouts. Snow, he thought, irrationally. Johnny twisted, landing curled on his side to avoid striking the metal air cylinder against the gravel. Beside him, Jim frantically tried to scramble to his feet. A pair of firefighters, wearing helmets proclaiming 127, took the injured man's arms, helping him out of the hollow to safety. Turning, Brice could see his 'snow' was stray globs of foam from 127's vapor suppression operations. He caught Gage's hand, dragging him upright; he could feel John shaking. They scrambled clear of the depression.

*****

Craig pulled out of the parking lot at Rampart. He shifted uncomfortably in his still wet clothing. Dale Hopkins, a paramedic at 36's with whom Brice had worked a couple of times, had taken the job of hosing him down to wash away any lingering traces of the solvent quite seriously. Cold, wet underwear is very -- unpleasant. He twitched. Dale had done an equally thorough job on his partner. In the passenger seat beside him, Gage made faint squishing noises when he moved. The dark-haired paramedic looked like a drowned cat, shrunken in on himself against the chill autumn air.

Brice stopped at a traffic light. He was surprised Johnny had let him drive. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the shivering firefighter. Gage had excellent technical skills and an easygoing manner with patients that he frankly envied. Gage is no DeSoto. He is no more a 'people person' than I am, but... He knew the volatile paramedic had a reputation for being a touch reckless, but nothing had ever hinted at the bad judgement he had shown today. The number of paramedics who had fled A-shift at station 51 had been fodder for department gossip for weeks. He suspected today's incident had something to do with what had happened to DeSoto. John shivered again. Brice reached over and flipped on the heater.

"John..." Craig swallowed hard, trying for an empathetic tone. "I was at Riverside too...."

"Shut up, Brice. If I want your opinion, I'll ask," Johnny snapped. His face was a dark mask.

"John, you're going to ruin your career. It would be a real loss for the department..."

"Brice, you're not my partner. You don't have the right to perform the 'Junior' and the old wise paramedic routine." Gage's voice was hard and angry. "You're not Roy..."

Craig shook his head. I tried. He signaled, backing the squad into the apparatus bay. In the side mirror he could see Stanley standing in his office door. His face reminded Brice of the menacing soot-heavy, flammable gases that built up in closed and burning room just before it flashed over.

Hank watched Johnny climb from the squad. "Gage, in my office, now." His voice was deadly still.

*****

Brice stood in front of the mirror, staring into the now steamed-up glass. He realized he had been brushing his teeth for nearly twenty minutes. Slowly he returned the brush to its holder and buried his face in the thick pile of a hand towel. He jumped as a pair of lips touched the back of his neck.

"Sorry, Craig," said the owner of the lips, wrapping her arms around his chest and leaning over his shoulder. Her wet red hair tangled with his as he tipped his head back to return her kiss. She caressed his tense shoulders.

"Umm," Craig moaned, closing his eyes and rolling his head sideways. He playfully nipped at her fingers.

"Cut that out." She lightly slapped the top of his head and resumed kneading his shoulder muscles. His head dropped forward. "Penny for your thoughts."

Brice turned to face her. "I wouldn't want to be in Gage's shoes right now."

"Good, because if you were Gage, you wouldn't be getting into my bed." Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling Craig against her. She released him, picked up the brush and bent over combing out her hair. "I hate it when you're detailed to 51. It makes you crazy."

Brice watched her fix her hair, admiring the smooth movements of her muscles beneath her skin. She always knew how to get him to relax and after all these years she could still captivate him. He sighed, letting go of the day's worries. Craig leaned forward, opening a drawer, retrieving the small bottle he had bought at the tiny perfumery in Redondo Beach. He held up the massage oil, inhaling the heady odor of sandalwood. "Beth, we'll have to do this massage in a logical, orderly manner. Shall I start with your toes and work my way up?" he asked, eyes twinkling.

*****

Johnny glared at the letter of commendation hanging in its frame on the wall. '...actions are in the finest tradition of this department....' Lot of good that did Roy. He slammed his fist into the certificate, shattering the glass. Blood spattered the paper. He sank to his knees.

Gage looked absently at the blood flowing down his hand. He bowed his head and remembered the scene in the Cap's office.

*****

Stanley studied the firefighter standing before him. John stood at attention, staring fixedly at a point just beyond Hank's left ear. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights of an on coming truck. His uniform was settled in sodden folds and the drying strands of his longer-than-regulation hair had been pulled into an awkward halo by his helmet. Johnny was cold and miserable. "What the hell was that stunt out there, Gage?" Hank demanded.

"He was almost free, Cap...."

"So you disobeyed orders."

Anger flared across Johnny's face. "Cap..."

"Shut up, Gage! That wasn't a question." Hank turned away from the paramedic. "If you had struck a spark, you, your victim and your partner would have burned to death. You not only endangered yourself; you put your team at risk." He raised his hands and massaged his aching temples. "You are not trained for hazmat work."

Johnny struggled to keep the anger from his voice. "I didn't know when 127's would arrive. In my judgement, the victim was in imminent danger of being overcome by fumes...."

"Your judgement!" exploded Stanley, whirling to face Gage. "You were working one small portion of the incident. Of course, you didn't know when 127's men would arrive." His face flushed with rage. "On what did you base your judgement? Did you know how many men were working in the area? Did you know what was in the adjacent cars? Or what your other options were? How many lives you endangered with that stupid reckless stunt?" He stared at Johnny, waiting.

Gage remained silent.

"Your judgement fills me with endless confidence," snapped Hank sarcastically.

John bowed his head.

Stanley lifted a sheaf of paper from the top of his desk. "I'm filing a formal report with the Chief. I am requesting that you be suspended without pay for a week and that a letter of reprimand placed in your file." He threw the paper onto his desk. "I am also submitting a letter documenting my recommendation that you seek counseling."

John opened his mouth, took one look at Hank's face and closed it. His head felt like it was exploding. His face was burning with rage and shame.

"Understood?"

"Yes, sir," answered Gage from between gritted teeth.

"Get out of my sight." Hank dropped into his chair. "Try to finish this shift without me even knowing you're here, Gage."

*****

Johnny clenched his fist around the drying blood streaked across his palm. He stood up, pulled the remains of the frame and certificate from the wall and threw them in the trash. Sighing, he walked into the kitchen and dug through his junk drawer, hunting for his small battered address book. Gage pulled a worn business card from the book. He lifted the phone, "Hi, Bob Shields? It's John Gage. Good to talk to you too. Yeah, it has been a long time. You remember last fall at Del Valle..."

*****

Roy sat in the dusk-darkened living room, watching the shadows creep across the magazine he held in his lap. Jennifer's closed bedroom door did little to muffle the pathetic excuse for music to which she was listening. At least he could understand the lyrics to this song. "People are People, so why should it be that you and I should get along so awfully?^# " the male singer pleaded over the throbbing of synthesized sound. As far as DeSoto was concerned, what he was hearing was not music but the torture of defenseless eardrums. "Jen, turn that garbage down!" he yelled. In response the volume dropped to a level comparable having a jet plane land in his daughter's room. He gritted his teeth.

Roy picked up his magazine and reread the page for the tenth time. He wiped sweat from his face. Like my life, my home is falling apart. The air conditioning had failed on the unseasonably hot day. On the roof, he could hear Joanne fiddling with the swamp cooler, doing the job he was no longer able to do.

Roy felt a thud that shook the house as something -- or someone -- fell. "Joanne?!" he yelled. Silence. Panic squeezed his heart. The magazine fell from his hands. He closed his eyes, seeing eleven years' worth of fall victims, all with his wife's face. DeSoto grabbed for his crutches, forgetting exactly where they were and knocking them to the ground. He fought his way to his feet, desperate to go help his wife. Thigh muscles quaking with the tension, he took three unsupported steps. On the fourth step, his artificial leg caught on something. Roy landed in a heap on the carpet. "Joanne!" he repeated.

When she did not answer, he took a deep breath, "Jennifer!" There was no reply. Lying helpless on the floor, Roy shook his head as he performed a quick self-assessment. The only thing injured was his pride. "Jennifer!" Roy shouted again. His ears strained to hear anything on the roof. Damn it! he thought. What the Hell is going on up there? "Jennifer!!!!"

The music got louder as the bedroom door opened. "What?" asked his daughter sullenly, forgetting her efforts to be polite to her father.

"Get down here, now!" Roy struggled to get himself off the floor. The aluminum pylon of the training prosthesis tangled in the braided rug that had caught his foot. His mouth was filled with the taste of his blood from his split lip. He could hear Jennifer clomping down the stairs. She always clomps with those stupid boots on.

Jen stuck her head in the door of the living room. "What?" she demanded scornfully and then she noticed that her dad was on the floor. Jennifer moved to help him.

The pity Roy imagined he saw in her eyes shamed him. "Not me," he hissed.

Jennifer froze.

"Your mother is on the roof. Go check on her, now!"

Jennifer ran out of the room and headed for the backyard.

Roy struggled to untangle himself. What the heck is taking Jennifer so long? "Jennifer!"

"It doesn't matter if this all shatters, nothing lasts for ever..." Jen's stereo wailed.

Roy pounded his fist on the floorboards, the despair of the lyrics matching his own. He felt useless. "Joanne! Jennifer!" he called hoarsely, willing the two women to answer. There was another thud on the roof. He again pounded his fist ineffectually against the floor. Damn it! Damn me for living!

"Dad," said Jennifer from the door. "Relax, Mom just dropped the cover. She's OK." Jen reached for her father to help him stand.

DeSoto pushed his daughter away. "I can get it!"

Biting her lip, she fled.

Roy pulled the rug free from his leg and crawled to the recliner. Placing his hands on the seat, he managed to get his good leg beneath his body and drag himself back into the chair's embrace. His chest heaved from the exertion. DeSoto brought his right hand to his face, touching his bleeding lip.

*****

Chet knocked at the door of Johnny's apartment. No answer. He waited a few minutes and pounded on the door again. Leaning close to the weathered panel, he listened for movement. He raised his fist.... Abruptly, the door flew open, nearly tumbling him onto Gage's feet.

John glared at him. Exhausted, he ran his fingers through his already tousled hair, tipped his head back and pursed his lips. "Go away, Chet." He put his hand on the door frame -- a jagged cut ran down his hand and disappeared beneath the band of his watch.

Kelly stepped froward, blocking the path of the door. "Johnny," he said, careful not to look the dark-haired man in the eyes, avoiding confrontational body language. He knew somewhere along the line John had been taught that you didn't refuse a guest hospitality. If he remained silent and didn't inflame the paramedic, Johnny would step aside, let him in and even make him coffee. He may not listen, but... He stood, not moving a muscle, sensing the inner struggle of which John was, himself, unaware. You never expect me to understand a thing about how you think. Hence the years of amusement extracted at your expense. Gage, you don't survive as the youngest in a 'blended' family without an acute understanding of human behavior. Chet kept his head bowed, remembering his delight at no longer being the youngest person in the station. Gage's volatility and his prickly, defensive pride made him a perfect target. He had carefully observed his victim, until he even knew which behaviors were peculiar to John's tribal background. Then he had pounced. "Go on my pigeon," he mouthed voicelessly, aware that Johnny was on the verge of a decision.

Sighing, Gage stepped out of the doorway, allowing Chet to enter. "I'll make coffee."

Kelly followed him as far as the living room. From the kitchen, he could hear the clinking of dishes. A tape played in John's stereo, "...Tonight, I wear black in the middle of the road./ I wait for the semi to take me home./ The stars they seem bright tonight. My vision seems so blurred./ Tonight I wear black....^**"

Crumpled in the dustbin by the small desk, which sat in the corner of Gage's living room, was the letter of commendation Johnny had earned a few years before. Kelly reached down, pulled it from the trash and read the text, recalling Gage's dirty face after eleven hours on the mountainside, ashen with exhaustion and absolutely triumphant as they finally carried the victims to the ambulance. Chet folded the paper and pulled the heavy coffee table book of Ansel Adams photographs -- a book that Roy had given John for his birthday -- from the bookshelf and slid the letter inside.

"...In the middle of the road you don't make a stand./ You lay down and die in the middle of the road," continued the woman's voice on the tape.

Chet shuddered. Somehow the idea of his colleague listening to songs about suicide after today's events was disturbing. He pushed the stop button. "If you play this depressing stuff for the chicks, Gage, I see why you never get a second date."

"Ha, ha," said Johnny from the kitchen door, holding two mugs of steaming coffee and a plate of cookies. He handed Kelly a cup. "Chet, why are you here?"

Chet settled onto the couch and took a swallow of the coffee. He watched the paramedic from beneath his bushy brows, as John sat in the recliner. "What are you doing to yourself, Gage?" he finally asked.

"Mind your own business," Johnny replied, mildly. He leaned back, crossed his legs and took a deep breath. The tension of his jaw muscles betrayed his efforts to remain calm and unruffled by Kelly's comments.

Encouraged by the fact he had survived the initial inquiry, the firefighter continued, "Johnny, what were you thinking out there yesterday?"

Anger flared in Gage's eyes. "Don't you get started on me. The Cap has already chewed my..."

"Do you really think destroying yourself is going change anything -- help Roy?" interrupted Kelly.

The paramedic straightened so quickly he spilled his coffee down his hand, scalding his fingers. "Damn it!" he exploded, leaping from the chair and shaking the liquid from his hand.

"Run it under cold water," suggested Chet, helpfully.

"First you are a shrink, now you're a paramedic. Why don't you become a magician and disappear?" Moving closer to the couch, he pointed to the door.

Kelly looked up at John, refusing to be intimidated by the man's physical proximity. "You are too good a firefighter and paramedic, for me to stand by and let you do this."

"Get out!"

"Johnny," pleaded Chet.

"Out," hissed Gage, from between clenched teeth. He took a half a step closer to Kelly and then abruptly turned and disappeared into the back of the duplex.

Kelly sat for a few minutes, staring at the lines on the palm of his hand.

*****

Roy lay in bed motionless and rigid, suffused with rage. He glared into the darkness, watching the shifting shadows of the branches on the tree outside the bedroom window move across the drapes. He listened to the house sighing and settling, willing the night to remain still. Joanne had finally quit trying to caress the stiffness from his shoulders. He could hear her soft breathing and feel her warmth. She had been a saint, which was part of the problem. DeSoto lay fuming. Hating: Johnny for not letting him die; the Cap for suggesting he quit pitying himself and get on with his life; Joanne's new job; even, God help him, Joanne and -- most of all, himself.

The familiar choreography of the past twenty years, the one that had given them two beautiful children, had failed him. No, he corrected, sternly, you failed it. The shrinks had discussed sex in rehab; he had sat, head bowed -- mortified. "It will take time, experimentation, and patience," the young psychologist had said, tapping his own prosthetic legs while warning the men sitting in wheelchairs around him. "A good sense of humor helps." Roy had been mute, unable to speak, as uncomfortable with baring his intimate secrets as he was with revealing his new body to the eyes and hands of the pretty young nurses who cared for him. Tonight, the more he and Joanne tried, the more he felt himself a clumsy fool. Half a man, DeSoto. Finally, he had turned his back on her need, abandoning Joanne and transmuting his own desire, pain and shame into anger.

"Roy," whispered Joanne, wrapping her arms around him.

Her sweet scent drifted toward DeSoto, he imagined caressing Joanne's hips and legs and watching the soft light outline her breasts. Humiliation rose, bitter and burning, in his throat, choking him. He pushed her hands away. "No," he said, feeling his entire body tense against her touch. He closed his eyes, only to be tortured by images of his wife's smooth skin.

"No," she said, her voice hardening. "You will not push me away. This is about us..." Joanne struggled to keep the pain and rejection she felt from her voice. She did not succeed.

"No," he hissed, awkwardly rolling over to face her. The bedding hopelessly entangled his stump. Furious, he tore the sheets from the bed and threw them across the room. Joanne lay frozen before him, her nightgown a pale blur in the darkness.

"Roy..."

"This is about me." DeSoto's voice grew louder. "You're still whole. It's me that's broken."

Joanne's eyes began to fill with tears. The pain beneath the anger in his voice tore at her heart. She reached through the darkness for him.

Roy pushed away her hands. "You deserve a real man -- a whole man," he declared, a lump rising in his throat. "Not the -- the 'limbless wonder'. You want a man who can..."

Joanne felt her heart pounding in her ears, her sympathy burned away. Furious, she stared open-mouthed at Roy, then drew back her arm and slapped him. The hollow crack rang through the night. Shaking, she dropped her arm. The slap had shocked her as much as it had stunned Roy. "Roy DeSoto, don't you tell me what I want!" she yelled. Weeping, she ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

Under the bedroom door leaked a narrow stripe of light, the glow from the bedside lamp in Jennifer's room. DeSoto grabbed his crutches and started to rise, when he remembered the exhausting flight of stairs between himself and escape. "Oh hell," moaned DeSoto, cheeks flaming. He dropped back onto the bed, rolling over to bury his anger and shame with his face in the pillows.

*****

Roy sat on the living room sofa, gritting his teeth, praying the phantom pain from his non-existent foot would stop. He unclenched his jaw and took a deep breath. Struggling to force his breathing into the pattern of the relaxation exercise he learned in rehab, he stared at the blocks of sunlight on the polished wooden floor. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

"Roy?" asked Joanne, from the kitchen doorway. Her face was wrinkled into a worried frown -- the only expression she seemed to use anymore. Behind her, he could see the procedures manuals from her new job spread on the kitchen table. "Are you all right?" In her hands she held a flowered dishtowel, which had been dyed a faint pink, a casualty of Jennifer's new responsibilities.

"I'm OK," he replied more forcefully than he had intended.

Joanne jerked her head back at his tone of voice. "Want some lemonade?"

"That'd be fine." The normal cadence of his speech was broken by his efforts to breathe rhythmically. He watched her face and knew that, once again, he had hit the wrong tone. Damn it! He could feel his pulse hammering at his temples. DeSoto sighed. One, out -- two, he thought, taking one slow breath after another, trying to calm the pain in his leg. He lost the rhythm, distracted by the intermittent pounding outside.

Through the glass of the new sliding door -- a door he had put in two days before being sent to Riverside -- he could see Johnny standing between the joists of the unfinished deck. Gage held a long redwood two-by-four against a pair of spacers, while Jen inexpertly nailed the board into place. The nail bent beneath her uneven strokes. My daughter is voluntarily working on a home improvement project. During the summer, Jen had fallen in with an odd crowd. She was always angry lately, fighting with her mother, resisting the new chores required of her now that Joanne was working, not participating in family activities... But, almost always solicitously polite with her cripple of a father, he thought bitterly. Jennifer pushed her damp hair back the flat bluish - black of the horrible dye job her friends had given her now streaked with the natural blonde of her growing hair. As she fought to pry the damaged nail from the deck, he could see a darkened fingernail on her slender hand from a misplaced hammer blow. His heart ached from the pain he was causing his beautiful daughter.

"Roy," said Joanne, handing him a glass.

DeSoto caught her scent -- soap, clothes dried in the sunshine, lemons and something uniquely Joanne -- as she reached toward him. The smell reminded him of how desperately lonely he was and how terribly he had failed her. "Thanks," he whispered. She hesitated for a second, then disappeared into the kitchen.

The rhythmic pounding resumed. Gage had taken the hammer from Jennifer and was securing the board with quick even strokes. DeSoto found himself hard pressed to decide which was more disruptive, Jen's faltering erratic taps or Johnny's regular impacts, as even and maddening as a dripping faucet in the darkness. His leg throbbed in time to the hammer blows, until he felt like they were driving the nails into his foot. A foot you keep imagining is still there, DeSoto, he thought, ignoring the assertions of the physical therapists, who insisted his pain was real. He sighed in relief as the hammering stopped. Outside, Joanne was pouring lemonade for Jen and John. His former partner pressed the dewy glass to his face for a moment, then drained the cold liquid. Johnny said something to Joanne that made her laugh, a sound DeSoto didn't hear around his house anymore. Roy clenched his jaw, crushing a fold of skin between his teeth, flooding his mouth with the salt of his own blood. On the half-finished deck, Gage was smiling. Enjoying finishing my project. Enjoying my family! DeSoto pounded his fists against his stump.

Johnny butted the next piece of decking against the length he had just secured and pushed the thin pine spacers between the boards. He pressed his hip against the wood. Eyes closed, Gage stood motionless for a second savoring the warmth of the late autumn sun on his shoulders and hair, the smell of the lumber, and the labor which allowed him to forget his problems for a while. He opened his eyes and drove the long, galvanized nail into the wood with four quick blows.

"I'd have thought you'd have something better to do with your day off," said Roy sarcastically, balancing carefully on his crutches amid the hardware and tools. He looked around. Jen was in his garage workshop, trying to find another hammer.

Johnny ignored the unpleasant timbre to Roy's words and smiled at him. "You know my luck with the women." He snorted. "Lately, my love life hasn't exactly..." His voice was faintly tinged with regret.

"Get one of your own."

"Huh?" asked Gage, holding the hammer poised over a nail and shading his eyes to look up at Roy.

"Get your own family." DeSoto watched Jennifer emerge from the garage. When she spotted her father talking to Johnny, she turned and headed for the old swing hanging in the tree by the vacant lot. The sight of his daughter fleeing his presence made Roy's blood boil. "I'm sick of your morbid fascination with mine."

John didn't reply. Instead, he pounded the nails into the wood with greater force, sinking the fasteners with three powerful strokes. Ignore him. He tried to suppress his irritation, battling not to respond.

"Who asked you to do this?"

Gage shrugged. He looked at his feet and studied the ground around his shoes, the sunlight reflecting on his hair. "It needed done," he answered, in the careful even tones he used with strung-out junkies and violent psychotics.

Roy recognized Johnny's manner. "I can take care of my own family!" he exploded, his face twisting with rage. Liar! screamed a voice within his head. You can't even drive your own car.

"Then do so."

"What's that supposed mean?" questioned DeSoto.

"You heard me, Roy." Gage snapped, his temper getting the better of him. "Quit sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Quit calling yourself a cripple and rejoin the land of the living."

"What do you know about it? I can't even work."

"No, you can't be a fire department paramedic." Johnny refused to think about the stranger that rode next to him in the squad. "But, you can teach or go to school. You always told me you were the brains of the team. Figure something out." He winced at the acerbic edge in his voice. Slipping from between the joists, he grabbed another two-by-four and lifted it into place.

"Did the Cap send you over to give me that speech?" Roy asked derisively, as he watched John pull the spacers from the gap between the newly mounted boards.

Gage pressed the new piece of flooring into place, held the nail and started it into the wood. Each blow rang like a shot. He worked his way halfway down the length of the deck before trusting himself to speak. "You don't have an exclusive patent on pain."

"When did you have your leg cut off, Gage?"

The face of the hammer struck the nail at angle, neatly bending it into an L shaped hook. "Damn it," swore John, prying the fastener from the surface. "Do you really think you’re the only one who has suffered..."

"Oh, the sad tale of one of the many injuries of Johnny, the clumsy paramedic with nine lives." Roy's stomach turned at the ugliness in his voice, but he was helpless to stop the flow of venom. You can't even control your own tongue, let alone your life. His face flushed with embarrassment.

Gage dropped the hammer, sending it skidding into the bag of nails. His heart pounded in his ears. "There are other kinds of pain. Do you think you're the only one this has affected?" he demanded angrily, his face darkening. "You have sunk so far into your own personal pity party, you have no idea what is happening with anyone else. For your information, this isn't my day off; I'm on suspension." John stopped, he hadn't intended to tell DeSoto about his suspension. His hands shook from rage and shame. He pursed his lips and looked at his former partner from the corner of narrowed eyes. "And, I apparently lost my best friend to that damn slab of concrete," he finished quietly.

Roy felt remorse rising, but it was burned away by a fury as merciless as a brushfire driven by the Santa Anna's. "Here we go again. John Gage's juvenile, self-centered tirade on how this affects him. I've put up with your egotistical whining for eleven years -- the world's oldest spoiled brat. I don't ride with you anymore, so I don't have to take it anymore!" He watched pain and anger spill across John's face. The sight aroused a strange delight; he found himself wanting to hurt his friend before any more of Johnny's words could touch him. "I've got news for you Gage -- something I should have told you years ago -- the world does not revolve around you."

"This does affect me and a lot of other people, too!" said John loudly. Wanna play dirty, Roy? he thought, viciously. "Jen tells me she's afraid to even talk to you anymore. Chris is wondering if he needs to quit school and come home to help out. And Joanne..."

At the mention of his family, something deep inside his chest crumbled. DeSoto took two uneven steps toward Johnny and pounded a crutch against the deck. "You weren't even looking for me. I was counting on you -- my partner!" he shouted desperately, wanting his words to wound.

"I didn't even know..." started John, his voice suddenly soft.

"You heard the code I."

"Yes." Shuddering, Gage found himself in the garage again, engulfed by the smell of rubber, dust and decaying flesh. He stared past Roy, transfixed by his private vision of hell, and swallowed, again tasting the salt of his sweat running into his mouth as he preformed CPR. "There were eighteen civilians still trapped in that structure, I was..." His voice shook.

"You didn't even try," interrupted Roy.

Inside, Joanne emerged from the carport utility room, a laundry basket in her arms. The men's voices greeted her; she heard the pain and anger before she could understand their words. I got to stop this.

"You think I haven't torn myself apart over that day?" Johnny looked down at his trembling hands; he squeezed them together, vainly trying to stop their shaking. "I keep asking myself what I could have done differently." He looked up at Roy, praying his friend would tell him that he had done all he could, putting everything in perspective, just as John had done for Roy so many times. Even as he looked into DeSoto's eyes, cold chips of ice embedded in his partner's familiar face, he knew Roy wouldn't. "I don't know. There weren't enough rescue workers, and we weren't in the right places. There were too many people who needed me...." Gage clamped his jaws together, endeavoring to trap the words, not wanting to give DeSoto any more ammunition; however, his voice continued to spill from between his lips. "You, the child whose body was still warm when I found her..."

"My heart bleeds for you," interrupted Roy.

With DeSoto's declaration, John's grief transformed into fury. "Joanne asked me to do this!" he yelled, pointing at the pile of lumber. "She couldn't stand to see the unfinished deck, reminding her of the husband she lost..."

Roy's face drained of color.

Joanne threw open the sliding door. The glass shook as the door slammed against its stops. "Johnny!" She saw DeSoto draw back his fist. "Roy, no!"

The impact sent Gage sprawling onto the ground; stunned, he lay on his back for a second. Shaking his head, he pushed himself into a sitting position, trying to clear his vision. Quickly, Joanne clambered from the deck. Blood streamed from John's nose and split lip, as he staggered to his feet.

"Johnny," said Joanne, reaching toward him.

Gage caught her elbows, pushing her away, keeping DeSoto's wife from touching him. He gazed up at Roy, then over at Jen, who stood in front of the swing staring at her father in shock and fear. He wiped his hand beneath his nose and looked at the red staining his hand. John walked away, disappearing down the driveway.

Joanne stood listening to Gage's Land Rover start. "Jennifer," she called calmly, "go to your room and get your things together."

The teen stood frozen, her hand wrapped around the swing chain, delicate face white with shock.

"Jennifer," repeated Joanne. Jen ran into the house.

"Joanne," pleaded Roy, maneuvering his crutches awkwardly among the tools on the deck. Tears glistened on his checks.

"Don't talk to me right now, Roy DeSoto," she said coldly, turning back to the house. She pulled the door shut between them.

Roy gazed at his face reflected in the glass, and a stranger stared back at him.

******

John pulled the Rover to the curb a block beyond DeSoto's house. Blood still ran from his nose and lip. The metallic taste filled his mouth, gagging him, drowning the taste of rage. He reached into the back of the truck, fishing out the first aid kit. He tore open a couple of four-by-fours, pinching his nostrils with one and holding the other against his split lip. Sighing, Gage shifted slightly, moving his face into a shaft of fading sunlight, letting it warm his skin and ease the ache of his battered face. He closed his eyes.

The blow had broken something inside him. Reaching deep, Johnny found nothing remained to anchor him. DeSoto can go to hell, he decided. He stared at the sky, watching until the Seven Sisters and the Man Carrier slowly emerged above the darkened horizon. He turned the ignition key; he had a phone call to make.

******

Roy sat at the kitchen table. Outside the window, the last traces of the sunset faded from red to purple to Prussian blue. A gray gloom crept from the corners of the room to swallow him. The glare from the neighbor's security light cut a slash across the worn Formica, elongating the sharp shadow of the empty beer bottle. Roy considered getting another bottle or two, but he couldn't muster the energy to cross the kitchen floor, open the door and face the harsh glare of the refrigerator's lighted interior. DeSoto smashed his fist against the tabletop, knocking the bottle to its side. Holding his breath, he listened as the bottle rolled to the edge and shattered on the floor, the breaking glass sounding just like he felt.

Shit, he thought, staring into the gathering darkness, which blurred but failed to conceal the hundreds of things that reminded DeSoto of his wife. Even the damn table. His fingers traced the oddly shaped tan and gray pattern, which had been the height of fashion in the late fifties, and was sadly dated even when they had first brought it home. This table had been the first thing that he and Joanne had been able to afford for their first apartment. They had found it in a second-hand store in Van Nuys, and that night Joanne served him a meal of meatloaf and fresh green beans to christen their new table. Over the years, they had debated discarding the ugly thing, but he always remembered the kiss she had given him as she set down the plate and, found some way to repair the worn table. When his colleagues saw the battered old table in the middle of the house Roy and Joanne had scrounged and saved to decorate, they had to fight to conceal their amusement. Only Johnny had ignored the thing.

Unable to stand it any longer, DeSoto pushed away from the table and struggled to his feet. In the hallway, he stopped at the bottom of the long flight of stairs leading to his bedroom. He flicked on the light and positioned his crutches for the long haul to the second floor. As he placed the supports, he again heard the voice one of his physical therapists asking when he planned to stop using them. I don't blame Joanne for leaving -- I have become a pathetic quitter. Disgusted, Roy tossed the crutches aside. They skidded across the tiled floor, fetching up against the wall. He grabbed the railing to steady himself, used his good leg to lift himself onto the first stair, and pulled his artificial leg onto the tread. Roy felt his heart start to pound within his chest, and he prayed that he had his weight balanced in the appropriate position to properly lock the limb's knee joint. Wrapped around the wooden railing, his knuckles turned white from strain and fear, as he trusted himself to the assemblage of plastic and aluminum. He lifted his good leg to the next step and lurched upwards. Burning sweat streamed into his eyes as Roy fought his way to the second floor. Panting, DeSoto slumped against the wall and looked back at the stairwell that had become his personal Everest. Rappelling down the outside of a building has nothing on climbing those steps.

Roy collapsed on the bed, wrinkling the thick chenille spread as he fell. His skin prickled from the drying sweat on his back and sides. Shifting, he realized he was lying on Joanne's side of the bed. DeSoto pressed his body against the mattress, fitting himself against the contours his wife's body had carved into the soft surface. He buried his face in her pillow and inhaled the scent. Tears flowed from his eyes, soaking the lavender pillowslip.

"Roy," called Joanne, reaching down and touching his face. She bent to kiss him....

DeSoto opened his eyes, blinking in the morning light. The vision of Joanne evaporated in the brightness, leaving his face tingling where he had dreamed that she had touched him. His stump pained and burned from the pressure of the prostheses' socket and his knuckles ached from punching Gage. His mouth tasted of stale beer and tears. Fumbling, Roy reached into the nightstand and pulled out the card the department's psychologist had given him. He dialed the number.

Rebuilding:

Roy awoke to the sweet scent of Joanne's shampoo. He rolled over and studied his wife's face in the early morning dimness. She still lay where sleep had separated them, her arm draped across his chest. The dawn light leaking between the curtains caught on her features. The past year had added a few gray hairs to her head and fine lines to the corners of her eyes. She had also gained an assurance in her own power, which he found very attractive. DeSoto brushed a strand of hair from Joanne's face. He let his mouth lightly brush hers and he flushed, feeling the heat of her skin on his lips. She sighed, stirring slightly.

Letting himself settle back into the bedding for a moment, he stared down at her and reflected on the past year. Are you happy? he asked himself. Yes, finally. It's not that I don't miss the fire service or am glad this happened. It's just... He shook his head. Sometimes when the wind carried the smoke of a distant brush fire -- or even a barbecue grill -- to his nose, he felt a terrible pang and mourned the loss of his ability to do battle with the beast. But despite expectations to the contrary, life had gone on. Rather than growing away from him when she took a job, Joanne had grown in a whole new dimension. And, Roy found himself enjoying teaching more than he had ever imagined possible. He closed his eyes, seeing the faces of his paramedic students. Much to his surprise, it took them longer to get past his reputation as one of the county's first PM's than it did for them to adjust to his artificial leg. Sometimes it seemed to DeSoto like he had a dozen young John Gages on his hands -- eager, cocky, and occasionally uncertain.

At the thought of Johnny, he sighed. The one last unresolved issue. He pushed himself upright. Roy sat, pulled the thick wool stocking over his stump, strapped on his prosthesis and got up. He started to dress.

"Roy," whispered Joanne sleepily.

"Go back to sleep, Hon." He dug through his dresser drawer, retrieving some spare stump socks. In case we go hiking, he thought, slipping them into them into his overnight bag. "I'm going to turn in my grades and then head up there. Depending on how things work out, I may stay overnight. I'll call you."

"I'm still surprised that Johnny didn't stop by when he was in the city for training last month," said Joanne, propping herself up on the pillows.

"I'm not." Roy finished buttoning his shirt. "I took eleven years of friendship and used it as a weapon. I wanted to hurt him and I did everything I could think of to do so." His face colored with shame.

"But, surely Johnny understood you were depressed...." Joanne let her words trail off.

"Normally, I think he would have. But...." DeSoto closed his eyes. Unbidden, the images of flies crawling on the pools of blood and the bitter taste of the gritty dust returned. Roy shook his head. "Things were far from normal. Our work during those days was pretty grim. Johnny was on extrication detail throughout the whole thing and I imagine, by the fifth day, the work was mostly body retrieval. And he was called back into the field before..." He stopped.

"Before?"

Roy swallowed hard. "I arrested on the way into the ER. Chet tells me they pretty much showed Johnny the door, then he got sent back out before..." Bowing his head, he paused. Despite the intervening months he still found it difficult to discuss the hours before his arrival at the hospital.

"Before Johnny knew if you had lived?"

DeSoto nodded. "And the first thing I did when I next saw him was to curse him for saving my life."

Joanne sighed. She stared past her husband, remembering the hours spent standing at his bedside in ICU or pacing the halls, not knowing whether Roy would survive. "That must have been hard on him."

"Hank told me that after they got back to L.A., Johnny was resistant to participating in the debriefing sessions." He recalled the expression on Gage's face as John had wiped away the blood from his nose -- blood DeSoto had spilled. "I really don't know if we'll ever be friends again." Roy made a final sweep of his dresser, searching for anything he might have forgotten. He braced his good leg against the side of the bed and bent forward, kissing her. "I'd better get moving."

*****

"Dad."

Roy turned. His daughter sat at the kitchen table, poking at the remains of a grapefruit and looking bleary-eyed. Six a.m. was not Jennifer's best hour. She was dressed in a black Tee shirt that proclaimed 'Human League' -- decorated with figures who looked anything but human -- black cut-offs, a heavy chain necklace that reminded Roy of a police dog's choke collar and hiking boots. "What is it, kiddo?" he asked, eliciting the requisite wince at her father's 'uncoolness'. I don't like pop art, rock music, I don't smoke pot, cut my hair too short, take a shower everyday... he thought, recalling his words on a long-ago response.

"Can I go with you to see Uncle Johnny?" Jen stood up, shouldered her knapsack and fingered the chain around her neck.

"No, Jen," he answered softly. "I need to talk to Johnny alone." DeSoto wrapped his arms around her.

"I miss him too," she whispered.

Sighing, Roy held her tighter. "I know." Jen's chin touched his shoulder, reminding him forcefully she was growing up and growing away from him. He remembered spending last weekend finishing Joanne's deck with her help.

******

Roy straightened, stretching his back. He shifted the hammer from one hand to the other. Content, he watched his daughter, surprised and pleased with her developing competence.

Jennifer lifted the last redwood plank, sliding it past her father. Sweat running down the frame of her safety glasses, she climbed onto the deck and positioned the narrow spacers. She held the board while Roy drove in the nails. "Can I mark the edge?" she asked, pointing to the uneven ends of the boards.

"Ok." He watched her stretch the chalk line, carefully aligning it.

"Roy."

DeSoto turned. Joanne stood, holding a glass of ice water. In her eyes, he could see the memories of the last autumn's deck construction. He reached for her, pulling her to him and burying his face in her hair. The cold water splashed on his side.

"Roy, you made me spill," scolded Joanne.

"I don't care," he whispered, brushing his lips against her forehead. He tipped Joanne's head back, kissing her, tasting the sweetness of her mouth. Releasing her, DeSoto turned back and nearly had a heart attack. Jennifer was holding the circular saw; his face shield was pushed up over her head. She nodded her head sharply, dropping the clear plastic over her face -- a gesture which reminded him so strongly of Johnny that his chest hurt where Gage's hands had been positioned while performing CPR. Jen prepared to start cutting the ends of the boards.

"Jen," called Joanne sharply.

DeSoto shook his head at his wife.

"Be careful," she finished, shooting an agonized glance at Roy.

"Go ahead, Jen," said DeSoto.

******

Roy looked down at Jennifer. His daughter's teenage mask had been pulled back into place. The expression currently on her face was generally only seen in paintings and sculptures depicting the final moments of a suffering saint's life. Modern teenage martyr. DeSoto snorted, releasing his daughter. "I'll tell Johnny you said hello."

******

Roy parked in the crumbling lot behind the Inyo county courthouse in Independence. It was a stately, turn-of-the-century brick structure with tall wooden Corinthian columns -- an example of a uniquely American architecture that was part Jeffersonian ideals and part Victorian grandeur. Across the street were a group of tan trailers. One bore a hand-lettered sign 'Inyo County Sheriff's Office, Search and Rescue'. An ugly prefab garage with two bays sheltered a blue and white 4x4 with high backcountry suspension. The side carried the seal of the Sheriff's department and the inscription 'SAR'; a small Star of Life decal decorated the lower left corner of the rear window.

DeSoto had no eyes for the scenery. Instead he watched Johnny, wearing well-worn civvies, leaning against the back bumper and listening to a powerfully built, Native woman in a brown and white uniform. Roy studied his friend. Gage had let his hair grow, drawing it into a short ponytail which accented the sharp lines of his face. The sun and wind had darkened his skin. Against the backdrop of the purple mountains he seemed tall and rangy, very different from the man who had stood beside Roy's hospital bed. The woman placed her hands on Gage's shoulders and kissed him. Smiling, John walked her to a beige police car, labeled 'BIA Office of Law and Order, High Pine Band of the Owen Valley Paiute - Shoshone'.

Roy knew John had seen him. They had made eye contact on his third pass down Main Street. He kept hoping his former partner would come over and talk to him. "Besides," he murmured, looking out the window at Gage's mud-spattered vintage Land Rover, "you have to go home some time, Johnny." He rolled the window down further and leaned back in his seat, preparing to wait all afternoon if necessary.

Across the street, John stood squinting in the bright sun. He looked at the curb and decided. Gage crossed the street. "If you're lost, take 395 back to SR-14. It'll take you right to the Golden State Freeway."

Ouch! DeSoto examined his former partner's face. Gage's smile was gone and he was studying something beyond the roof of his car, refusing to make eye contact. I deserved that, Roy determined.

"I think you can find your way back from there."

"I was hoping to get a cup of coffee." Roy looked up at Johnny. "And, I am looking for an old friend. I need to apologize."

John pointed with his chin to the trailer across the road. "We don't have any of that fancy L.A. coffee." He started toward the prefab.

Roy climbed out of the car and crossed street. He felt Johnny watching him. Slowly, he walked past the 4x4, admiring the array of blue cases packed with medical supplies, bags of ropes, harnesses and various components of braking and anchoring systems that filled the back of the vehicle. DeSoto felt a pang as he recalled the terror and exhilaration of leaning back over the edge of a rock face, hanging in space. He followed Johnny up the stairs into the dim little building.

Roy sipped his coffee. He looked around the dark paneled room. A huge map of the county covered one wall and a large whiteboard filled with unfamiliar names hung over a table full of radio equipment. Gage hadn't spoken a word since the parking lot, except to tell DeSoto he had a few things to wrap up. Roy chatted with a pretty young EMT, learning more than he had ever wanted to know about Inyo Country's Search and Rescue operation.

Johnny finally came to rest behind a paper-strewn desk, which was obviously his, with his feet propped up on a box of pamphlets by Aspen Mountain Rescue entitled 'This Booklet May Save Your Life', listening to the radio traffic from a brush fire working in the National Forest. His arms were folded behind his head. A list of phone numbers, radio frequencies and local EMS services, taped to the wall, framed John's profile. Roy could discern a still-smoldering anger from across the room. At the corner desk, the young woman twitched, feeling the tension, although unaware of the source. DeSoto ran his tongue slowly over his upper lip and stifled a sigh. "Johnny, do you want to talk?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

"Yeah, not here, though," replied Gage nodding toward his colleague and grabbing his keys.

******

Roy followed John's Rover up a narrow dirt road, winding between the trunks of the tall Jeffery pines with their reddish vanilla scented bark, and the shorter sugar pines, top-heavy with thick-walled cones. The wheels slipped slightly, raising a cloud of yellow dust, and he downshifted on the steepening road. The narrow track followed Little Pine Creek, meandering toward the Inyo National Forest. As he drove, DeSoto recalled what he had learned about Johnny since their fight.

******

"Roy!" The call echoed very slightly between the walls of the wash, startling a nuthatch from a clump of manzanitas.

DeSoto stopped in the shade of a eucalyptus and wiped his brow. He bent, hands on his knees, panting for air. Halfway down the canyon behind his house, he was winded. He had started the nightly hikes two months ago in an attempt to hone his skills at negotiating uneven surfaces and to rebuild his endurance. So far, Roy thought with a wry smile, Joanne hasn't called dispatch when I've been late, because I've was too tired or had trouble getting up after falling.

"Roy!" repeated Stanley.

DeSoto scanned the rim of the canyon, looking for Hank's familiar shape. "Down here, Cap, -- uh Hank," he corrected. Pebbles loosened from the dry dirt rattled in the brush as Stanley quickly descended the path.

"Pal," greeted Hank. He struggled to keep a look of frank amazement off his face -- he failed. "How you doing?"

Roy bowed his head, hiding a pleased smile at Stanley's surprise. He knew the guys at the station had given up on him, and long ago had quit expecting him to snap back from his accident. "Pretty good, Cap." Calling the man, 'Hank' still felt unnatural and he found himself reverting to the man's title.

"Congratulations on the teaching position, Pal." He slapped DeSoto's shoulder.

"Thanks." DeSoto gestured toward the path and began climbing the steep grade. "I'm adjunct faculty through the summer session, and then I start as a full-time instructor in the fall."

"Daniel Freeman has a good program," commented Stanley, naming the paramedic-training institute in Inglewood. He covertly observed DeSoto as Roy walked. He was impressed. "Which just got better." He smiled.

"Thanks," replied Roy, flushing. They hiked in silence for a few minutes, DeSoto aware Hank had something else that he wanted to talk about.

"You talked to John recently?" asked Hank.

Here it comes. I should be surprised it has taken this long for someone to come and talk to me about it. Word of their fight must have spread throughout the station. He should have expected it. Johnny's bruised features would have been hard to hide. "No," Roy answered quietly. He had not seen Gage for nearly three months. The counselor had begun to hint at the need to 'obtain closure'.

Stanley cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable.

Roy turned studying his former boss' face. "Did something happen?" His voice caught.

"He left the department."

"What? Why?"

"He took a position with the Inyo County Sheriff's Office -- starting a professional Search and Rescue team." Hank examined the rim of the canyon, shaking his head. "John's been..." He paused, watching a hawk circle on the thermals over the arroyo. "Difficult to work with since you -- since Riverside. And, his judgement has been a bit off. He wouldn't participate in the CISD, even though he really needed some help."

"He wouldn't." Roy recalled John's disdain for what he called 'touchy-feely psycho-babble'. He preferred to tell me about it, thought DeSoto with a twinge of guilt. He lowered his head, again seeing the ugly scene on the deck. "I'll talk to him, Cap."

"Roy, he's already gone."

******

Roy sat in Chris' room, which he had converted into an office, grading the quizzes from his Invasive Procedures Lab. Much to his chagrin, he found himself occasionally echoing Dr. Bracket's long ago comments as he corrected the papers.

"Roy," called Joanne. "Chet is here."

"I'm upstairs!" yelled Roy, capping his pen. "Did you catch any fish?"

"Yeah," moaned Kelly from the stairwell.

Roy raised his eyebrows at the sound of Kelly's voice. "Chet?" He heard vague shuffling noises and the sound of Joanne choking back laughter.

Kelly groaned. "I'm coming."

Roy braced his artificial leg and folded his good leg beneath his center of gravity, pushing himself upright. He walked to the end of the hall and peered down the steps. Chet clung to the railing, hobbling up the staircase. Kelly's face was twisted into a grimace of pain. "Chet," he said, trying not to grin, "that must have been some fishing trip. Want a hand?"

Kelly looked at Roy's prosthetic. "No, thanks. I'll make it."

Roy shook his head. "Whatever. Hope you're not on shift tomorrow." He sighed, realizing he no longer knew which shift was on duty at 51's. Saddened, he returned to his office.

Chet limped into the room and dropped onto Chris' bed. "Gage is a sadist," he announced in an aggrieved tone.

"You went to see Johnny?" Roy frowned, thinking of his friend.

"Why sleep in a tent when you have a free hotel in the neighborhood?" Kelly smoothed his mustache and folded his arms behind his head. His eyes twinkled at DeSoto.

Despite his mood, Roy snorted. "The convertible chair. You'd have been better off in a tent." His mind insisted on providing him with an image of Kelly floundering in the flabby recliner, like a beached whale.

"I wish. No, he got a call while I was there -- a backpacker over a cliff. Of course I had to go along -- to make sure Johnny did it right."

"Of course," smiled DeSoto.

Kelly sat up, groaning as he stretched the muscles along the back of his legs. He collapsed onto his elbows. "It was nearly ten miles, Roy! And, we had to carry everything in. Ever packed a Stokes ten miles?"

Listening to Chet's aggrieved tone, Roy found himself hard pressed not to laugh. He shook his head Chet on a roll could be as bad as Johnny. I'd give anything to hear one of Johnny's tirades right now, he realized.

"Anyway, we get there and this guy is wedged in a chimney halfway down the cliff." He sketched the hiker's position with his hands. "He's out cold..."

Roy listened to the firefighter describe the rescue, thinking about Gage. Are you happy, Johnny? He chewed his lip, wishing he could undo the damage of the past year.

"...It was after midnight when he got back from the hospital. Woke me up." Chet stopped. "Roy?"

"I'm listening." He sighed. "Just thinking about Johnny."

"Five a.m. the next morning, Gage is kicking the side of that damn chair, imitating the tones. 'Time go fishing!' he yells," quoted Kelly. "And he had been the stretcher tender on the ascent. It was inhuman." He shook his head in wonder. "Seriously, Roy, he is a good team leader. You should have seen him planning out that rescue." He looked at Roy, his blue eyes filled with concern. "You miss him, don't you?"

"Yeah," sighed DeSoto.

"He asked how you were doing." Chet sat up. "Go talk to him."

******

John parked in front of a small wooden cabin, nestled into a fold in the hillside and shaded by stands of pine. He walked across a small clearing, carefully swept clear of fire-feeding brush and fallen pine needles. A long porch stretched the length of the cabin and wandered around the western corner of the structure. He bounded up the porch stairs two at a time and disappeared though the door.

Roy slid from the car, still stiff-legged from the long drive from L.A. and the wait in Johnny's office. The rapid-fire tapping of a white-headed woodpecker greeted his exit. He concentrated on appearing confident as he navigated the unfamiliar terrain, knowing Gage was still assessing DeSoto's recovery. Roy blinked as he entered the dim interior. His clearing vision gave him an impression of a tight, utterly spartan, dwelling.

Johnny leaned against the bedroom doorjamb as Roy wandered around the cabin getting his bearings. His mobility has really improved. DeSoto had stopped at the fireplace and was examining the photograph of John and Tillie -- the Law and Order officer for the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone. With a slight smile, Roy nodded, noting the climbing gear they were both wearing, coming to conclusions that he didn't even want to consider.

The sight made Gage's temper flare. DeSoto turned, starting to ask a question, caught a glimpse of the paramedic's face and the words evaporated from his lips.

You have no right, thought John angrily.

Roy quickly set the picture back on the mantle.

Johnny wasn't sure he wanted to hear what DeSoto had to say or whether he was going to accept Roy's apology. "Beer," he offered, standing in front of a small icebox, holding a bottle.

"Umm, yes." DeSoto surveyed the combination living room, dining room and kitchen, seeking a place to sit. He eyed the large rocker next to the fireplace skeptically. I haven't tangled with one of those since..., he thought, retreating to the rather worse-for-the-wear convertible chair. "Thanks." He took the bottle.

John sat in the rocker, sipping his beer and watching DeSoto. From behind the faded calico curtain, covering the shelves beneath the sink, limped a stringy gray cat. The animal crouched next to the rocker, preparing to leap into Gage's lap.

"Felix," recognized Roy.

The cat regarded DeSoto suspiciously, glaring at him with yellow eyes. She made a distrustful sound midway between a yowl and a growl. "Felicia," corrected Johnny. At Roy's curious glance, he said, "He is a she, so... Besides, I got tired of calling her furball." The cat leapt and settled onto Johnny's lap. Roy could see her ivory claws flex as she kneaded John's leg.

"I wondered what happened to him -- her."

"Mike brought her back L.A. and gave the vet my phone number. I kinda ended up with her." The cat lifted her head, begging to have her chin scratched. "You could have asked, I'd have been glad to give her to you."

Roy hid a smile at the sight of Johnny stroking the cat on his lap. Gage had always expressed disdain for any pet other than dogs, ignoring the fact that most dogs greeted him with growls or at best a profound distrust. On the other hand, Jen's cat, Muffin, was one of the few females unable to resist the 'Gage charm.' "I suppose I could have. I was... I wasn't paying much attention to anything other than myself."

"I noticed...."

Roy shifted uncomfortably and swallowed the flare of anger. "Oh, I have a message from Chet. He said you need to look in the book of photographs I gave you for your birthday." His voice conveyed his perplexity at Kelly's enigmatic message.

Roy followed Johnny's skeptical gaze to the bookshelves. He got up and grabbed the heavy volume, praying it wasn't loaded with one of the Phantom's famous pranks. Frowning, he struggled with the urge to open the book, instead handing it to Gage.

John slowly opened the book. A thick white piece of paper dropped into his lap. "Hmm," he grunted, unfolding the sheet.

Roy recognized John's letter of commendation, no longer in its frame and spattered with dark spots that long years of experience told him were blood. He remembered the call: Johnny had come within one knot of dying that day. Their second victim panicked, shoving Gage from the ledge and sending him tumbling down the sheer rock face, hurtling helplessly past Roy, only to be caught by the tightening of his Pursik hitch. John seemed genuinely surprised to see the paper. He must have thrown it away, realized DeSoto. "Johnny," he began.

John set the paper on the small table next to his chair. He turned his head, looking away from his former partner. He absently rubbed the uneven purple scar on the outside edge of his hand.

"I... I wanted to hurt you." Roy took a deep breath. "Every word you said shamed me, reminding me how I was failing my family -- and you. I would have done anything to shut you up." His face colored as he remembered what he said. "I didn't mean what I said. I was hurting so much and I wanted you to hurt as much as I did." DeSoto studied Gage's impassive face, unable to tell if John was even listening. "I am sorry."

Johnny remained still. Too many words had been spoken to be erased with a simple apology. Felicia delicately slid her pink tongue between her claws, grooming. He tried to decide what he thought. The air grew heavy.

Roy sat for a few minutes, listening to the ticking of the refrigerator and the tapping of the woodpecker in the tree. Stirring uneasily, he began to talk, explaining how he had felt, his words ringing hollowly in his ears, sounding weak and selfish. You've lost him, DeSoto decided, falling silent. Say goodbye. It is a self-inflicted wound, and, in time, it will quit hurting. He started to stand. "I'd better be getting back."

John stopped, his hand poised over the cat's back. If I don't say something he will leave. Am I still so angry, I want to lose his friendship forever? Yet, he couldn't speak. Lately, I think the Powers have struck me mute, to punish me for spending fifteen years wasting words. He looked at Roy's face, plaintive and hurt. Gage dislodged the cat from his lap and stood. "I was just going to fix dinner. There is enough for two."

DeSoto stood in the middle of the room, staring at Johnny's back as he dug through the cupboards. He realized he was grinning like an idiot. Roy walked into the kitchen and fell into the long familiar patterns of meal preparation.

******

"Want to go for a walk?" asked Roy, balancing the last wet plate in the dish drainer.

"The ground's pretty rough out there...," started Gage.

"I can manage," Roy interrupted, tersely. I hope you don't regret this, DeSoto.

Johnny shrugged.

******

Roy paused, taking deep breaths of the crystalline mountain air, reacquainting his lungs with an atmosphere untainted with ozone, sulfur dioxide, photochemical smog, and nitrogen oxides. He coughed. Johnny waited impatiently further up the hillside, intent on reaching the destination he had picked. Thank God I logged all those miles in the canyon! The fair-haired paramedic took a drink from his canteen and resumed climbing. Gage was headed for a gray outcrop of granite in a bald near the crest of the ridge. Smiling, Roy watched Gage examine the warm rock face, checking for sunning snakes as DeSoto finished his ascent. Some things haven't changed.

Sinking to his elbows, John stretched out. Buckwheat and blue gramma sprouted in clefts in the stone and a pine sapling, which had managed to sink roots into the thin soil, rose as a slender green and brown twig. A hot, dry wind tugged at his clothes and ruffled the loose strands of hair lying across his forehead. His eyes prickled with unshed tears as he watched Roy climb, remembering the ease with which DeSoto used to hike. He closed his eyes, again slipping into the nightmare dimension of memories from those days in Riverside. His former partner's shadow fell across him, cool and dense.

Roy turned, gazing down into the valley. "Oh my," he gasped. Before him spread the sharp creases of the Sierras, forced up by the very same uneasy ground which had claimed his leg. The nearby peaks were mottled green, brown and yellow, and the distant pinnacles were a purple haze. The sun balanced on the horizon.

The corners of Gage's mouth twisted upward. "I bought the place because of this view."

A flash of yellow and red in the trees caught Roy's eye. Narrow streamers of red, yellow, white and black cloth fluttered among the limbs of a sugar pine a few tens of yards below the outcrop. He could barely make out the clustered strings of tiny bundles of tobacco. Offerings, he realized, recognizing the physical markers of a site used for Lakhota ceremonial practice. Gotten religious since Riverside, Johnny? He felt Gage's eyes on him.

"The yellow ones are for healing," he remarked softly, smoothing his dark hair.

"Life is strange, you know," remarked DeSoto. "A year ago, I didn't want to live. I thought everything was over -- my job, my marriage, my life. Sometimes, I miss firefighting so much I can hardly stand it." Gazing at the setting sun, Roy paused. "I feel like I would give anything to have my leg back. But, when I look at how my relationship with Joanne has changed... Or even with Jen and Chris... I don't want to give that up. And, it took losing my leg to make those changes." He sighed. "It's as though I finally realized what I had, and what I was beyond 'Roy DeSoto the paramedic'." As he talked, Roy watched his partner out the corner of his eye, observing the features he had spent over a decade learning to read.

Listening Johnny followed the path of a flash of blue, a bird of some kind, moving in the trees. His grandfather had told him that a man needs to know a piece of land as intimately as his own skin, then it would speak to him. John hadn't forgotten; he could still close his eyes and see every detail of the ranch on Bear-Kills-Woman Creek or this place. Gage wondered what his grandfather would say about DeSoto.

Roy decided to talk until Johnny found the words he needed. "Teaching feels so right. I became a paramedic because I believed in the program -- wanted to build a better system." He leaned back on the rock, next to John. "Now, I help train better paramedics to serve the people I used to serve." He sighed. "My life is mending." He turned and looked at Johnny. "Except that I have lost my closest friend."

John turned his head slightly. "Mislaid," he whispered.

Roy scrutinized the lines of his friend's face -- the pain and anger still showed on the sharp planes of Gage's countenance. He took a deep breath. "But, my words are not yet forgiven." It was a statement of fact.

"Understood, yes." John closed his eyes, deciding. "Forgiven? No, not yet." He looked at Roy. "I'm working on it."

The sun was sinking below the horizon, staining the hills with a reddish-gold light. DeSoto watched the sky slowly darken. He could hear Johnny begin to stir restlessly. Past experience told him Gage would be unable to sit still for much longer and would soon wander off. He jerked his chin toward the tree decorated with prayer flags. "Are any of those yellow ones for you?" He knew John wouldn't reply, but his partner's expression gave Roy his answer. "Hank told me why you left, about the trouble at work."

Gage abruptly sat up, turning away from him.

"...About the nightmares." He could sense John desperately wanted to get up and pace but was restraining himself. "How are you?"

Johnny bowed his head, bit his lip and then looked past DeSoto at the first stars appearing over their hillside. I can just imagine what Cap told him. He probably thinks I've gone off the deep end. Sometimes it feels like I have. He frowned, remembering the last nightmare.

******

Johnny crawled through the narrow space between rows of smashed cars. His helmet scraped against the overhanging concrete. Through the fractured glass of one of the car windows he could see a woman pinned against the seat. Blood was pooled on the upholstery and floorboards. The cracks in the window cast a strange spider web-like shadow across her face. John pushed the pry bar into the crack around the door and shoved. With a screech of tortured metal, the door opened. He pulled off his glove and reached in, touching her neck. The skin was warm and resilient beneath his fingers -- and very still. Gage turned away. As he moved, his flashlight briefly illuminated the interiors of the surrounding cars in each he could see another figure. Overwhelmed, he spun away, facing the dead woman in the car. Except, in her place lay his partner -- still, face and nails blue....

"Roy!" yelled Johnny. Something held his arms. He grappled with the obstruction.

"John. Johnny!" Tillie held Gage's wrists. He sat upright in the bed next to her, gasping for air.

John looked down at Tillie, her dark eyes reflecting the dim starlight shining through the windows. She was watching him sit, shivering from the cool air and the nightmare. He turned away, embarrassed by his outburst. Gage felt her hand on his shoulder as she pulled him back down.

"Get back under the covers, you'll catch your death." She covered his shoulders with the quilt and pulled him close, holding him until the shaking stopped. "And, don't give me any of that paramedic nonsense about how that is an old wives' tale."

Johnny relaxed next to her warmth and fitted his head against her neck. Her strong fingers gently traced the outlines of his shoulders and back. He lay staring into the darkness.

"Tell me about Roy?" asked Tillie

"He's the guy I worked with in L.A."

"No, tell me why you have terrible nightmares about him." Tillie stroked John's hair, tangling her fingers in the thick locks.

Gage bit his lip, debating. Very quietly he began to tell her, his voice hoarse and soft. When he finished, he wept for the first time since the ER at Riverside. He half expected Tillie to leave, shamed by his weakness. Instead she wrapped her arms tighter. Her touch felt like a warm blanket.

******

Johnny met Roy's gaze. He found himself remembering not the blow that sent him flying to the ground, but his friend's eyes as Roy looked at him, trusting him to free DeSoto's leg. Abruptly, the thick shell that had formed after Riverside, entrapping and smothering him, broke -- setting his voice free. Gage took a deep breath. "The nightmares have mostly stopped," he admitted, softly.

DeSoto stared at John, shocked that the paramedic had acknowledged this much. "Johnny..." he started.

"The worst part wasn't body retrieval, it was enjoying the early stages of the work." Johnny surrendered to the urge to move, walked to the edge of the outcrop and bent, gathering loose pebbles. "Here were all these people who had lost their homes and loved ones, and I was getting a buzz rapelling down the wreckage of their lives. At least until my partner was taken from me." He turned, flinging the rocks one by one into the brush. "Wakunza," he said, naming the Lakhota concept of imminent divine justice.

Roy was quiet for a few minutes, then he sat. "You know, Bracket told me how high my serum potassium was when I got to Riverside's ER. He was -- amazed -- you were able to keep me going long enough..." He could see a shudder pass through John. "I'm proud to have worked with you. I hope my students will become half the paramedic you are."

Gage froze. "Provided they look in the right place for their victims." Suddenly, he threw the last stone, sending it ricocheting off a tree trunk.

"Johnny..." DeSoto struggled to rise to his feet, but his prosthetic kept slipping on the smooth rock. He held out his hand; Gage grabbed it pulling him upright, John's sturdy brown fingers in sharp contrast to Roy's fair hand. DeSoto continued to hold his partner's wrist to keep him from walking away. "Johnny, you did the best you could." He shook his head. "You were only one person; you couldn't search the whole building. Yes, people died, but you couldn't be everywhere or have worked any harder," said Roy, squeezing John's wrist hard, forcing Gage to look at him "Your first duty was to aid the civilians and you fulfilled that responsibility, as well as was humanly possible." He paused, looking into Gage's eyes. "And, Johnny, what happened to me was not your fault."

John tried to pull away.

Roy grabbed his other arm, preventing Gage from breaking away. "Are you listening to me?"

Gage slowly nodded.

******

DeSoto awoke, unsettled by the strange bed, lack of traffic noise and loneliness. Johnny's alarm clock glowed in the pre-dawn darkness, 6:11 a.m. A waxing moon rode low on the horizon outside the window, its bitten edge tangled in the dark silhouettes of the pines. By its light, he could just make out the bright colors of a T.C. Cannon print reproduced on the glossy paper of a poster. Rolling to a sitting position, Roy listened as he pulled on a stump sock, strapped on his leg and got up. Quietly, he walked to the bedroom door.

The infamous convertible chair/bed was empty. Johnny lay wrapped in a sheet, on the rug in front of the fireplace. His arm was thrown over his eyes and the paramedic's long hair spread in dark waves across the pale blue pillowcase. In the gloom between the windows, the pale green LED on the HT's charger blinked the quiet rhythm of satisfied electronics. Felicia glared at Roy from her position atop Gage's legs, her yellow eyes reflecting the faint moonlight streaming in the windows. Leaning against the doorjamb, Roy watched John sleep.

"All SAR personnel report to headquarters. Hiker overdue..." The explosion of noise from the portable radio brought Gage to his feet. DeSoto found himself gasping for breath, startled by the sudden onslaught. "...WNXZ 5 - 4 - 1." John grabbed the HT.

By the time Roy caught his breath, Johnny was dressed, holding his boots and standing in the door. "Roy, he called, tossing a ring of keys to DeSoto, "Drop them off at the sheriff's office before you leave."

The door closed on the end of Gage's sentence, leaving Roy alone. The slightly shaky, somewhat hyped feeling of a canceled response stayed with him. He could hear the Rover's engine as John drove off. A wave of grief washed over Roy. God, I miss working with Johnny. He dropped onto a chair and watched the cat settle herself on his former partner's abandoned pillow. The creamy white paper of the departmental letter of commendation sitting on the mantle caught his eye. The sight of his friend's prized possession cast aside saddened him. Roy rose, walked to the fireplace and picked up the paper.

******

John opened the door. The moon threw the dark shadows of the pines across the floor. Felicia called her greeting from somewhere in one of the shadows. Gage's shoulders slumped with fatigue and his hair was escaping its tie, hanging in his face. It had been a long two days. He was exhausted -- and hungry. Turning on a small lamp, he stumbled into the kitchen. The sheet and pillow were no longer lying on the floor. Tillie must have picked them up when she fed the cat, he decided, filling a bowl with corn flakes. Too tired to bother with milk...

John sat in the rocker, holding the empty bowl and staring through the bedroom door at his bed. He tried to amass the energy needed to walk to the bedroom and fall across the bed. Roy changed the sheets, he thought, noting with amusement the military precision with which the bedding was placed. An unfamiliar white rectangle was barely visible on the wall opposite the bed. What? He walked to the door. In a new frame hung his letter of commendation. A slender strip of bright yellow cloth hung over one corner. Gage closed his eyes and swallowed hard, accepting his friend's prayer.

-----------------------------------------

^* , ^** "Mother Earth Speaks" and "In the Middle of the Road" are by Joanne Shenandoah and are part of her album Once in a Red Moon, Canyon Records. For over forty years Canyon Records has been providing the best of tribal music from William Horncloud's Rabbit Dance songs to Clan Destine's Native jazz.

^# Depueche Mode (at least according to Kate :) )

Rose's notes -- This story was a major undertaking and would not have happened without out the assistance of many people. Riverside was born on Feb 28 (1998) when Mary Morris leaned over in Station 51 and suggested someone throw Roy's funeral. I promptly had a vision of DeSoto lying half under a slap of concrete (Yes, I do know they have medication for this kind of thing.) In the intervening months, Mary has had plenty of time to regret her idle comment. First, I would like to thank my co-author, Kate Salter, when she came along and saved this story when the pathetic specter of widows and orphans became overwhelming. Secondly, I need to thank my intrepid technical advisors -- Mary Morris, Aline Koppel, Deb Flint, MA and E.D. (FWFD). They helped with everything from extrication to hyperkalemia to foam to what a recovery room smells like. A special thanks goes to friends from the fandom who loaned their bodies and persona to create a few special characters -- Mary, Heather, MA, and especially JC (and Norman). A hearty thank-you goes to my brave proof readers -- CB, Kel, MA and Karen. Finally, my thanks goes to all the people who provided endless emotion support, to name a few -- Heather, Kate W., Karen, Betty, Heidi, Carol, MA, Kel, Mary, Pat, Tashia, Deb, JC, Howie, Bill, and all the others from Station 51 and the E!FIC list. Pilamiya ye!