A/N: So I was feeling a bit angsty and decided to write a short shot about Peter's really crappy day. Reviews make great gifts!
Chapter 1- From Bad…
I should have known that it was going to be one of those days. I just had a bad feeling in my gut when I got a phone call a mere 5 hours after pulling a double shift begging me to come back in to cover a shortage. While the company was far from the only ambulance service in New York City, you would swear it was based on the number of hours I alone put in- forget everyone else. There were times I thought I was the only licensed paramedic in town. Despite my desire to save the world, I had to admit that I was only one man that had limitations and lately I'd been pushing those pretty far.
I had just enough energy to hold the phone to my ear as I fought to remain conscious. I didn't know if it was actually possible to die from lack of sleep, but I didn't want to be the first confirmed victim. I was startled awake by the loud beeping sound that resulted from my cheek pressing a button on the dial pad.
"Peter? You still there?" My boss all but yelled. He was a good man with a high pressure job, but at his core he had no heart when it came to filling his schedule. The joke on the crew was that he didn't care if his medics were just about as dead as the patients they were expected to rescue. He had a lot of faith in adrenaline, but Hesam often joked that I should stock a few extra epi pens in the rig just in case our adrenal glands burned out from fatigue and we needed an extra boost to get through. I was starting to think it was a good idea.
"Yeah." I mumbled incoherently. "I would and all, but you know I just came off a double and I have to be back at 11 tonight for my regular shift."
"Yeah, so what's a few hours early?" He half laughed. I didn't get the joke and I frowned at the phone. Every minute he spent talking was one more minute that I could have been sleeping. In this job you learn very quickly that every minute counts. "Look, Peter," He started in a more serious tone, "I know I've been riding you a lot lately, probably more than the others. But it's because at the end of the day I know that you're one of the few that really gives a damn about your job and the patients you bring in. Don't say I ever told you this, but Emily called in because her kid got beat up pretty bad at school. Bad enough that they had to put him in the hospital. I need you to cover for her and I swear I will do what I can to get you a break."
I sighed and rubbed my forehead. Poor Emily. She rode along with Hesam and I when she was still in training and in the few slow periods we had, I got to know her. She was a young, single mother with four kids. Her husband was killed in a car accident a few years ago and she had to move to a rough neighborhood to make ends meet. She hated it there because the area was known for gang activity and she often feared for her kids, but just like me she took extra shifts to try and save up to move to a better place. Unfortunately that meant she was away from home a lot. She told me that no matter her schedule, she would get up to walk her kids to and from school in the hopes that it would deter any violence, but it looked like her plan failed. I felt bad for her because she really was trying to do the right thing. I felt obligated to help because if I was out working, she could stay by her son's side where she belonged. "Alright." I growled. "Be there as soon as I can."
"Thanks, Peter." He gushed. "I won't forget this."
I hung up the phone and muttered, "Yes you will." He knew exactly who to call and I felt used yet again; he knew I was a sucker for a sob story. He probably already had my name on the board before he picked up the phone.
It was cold and snowing outside, not unusual for the city in December but the perfect weather for mishaps. I darted into a coffee shop on the way in and scored a cup o' wake-up for myself and one for my mystery partner as a gesture of goodwill. It wasn't just a nice thing to do, it was almost a necessity for me these days. You wouldn't really think that other healthcare professionals would be jealous of the number of lives saved, but that was exactly what was happening to me. My track record was apparently too good to be acceptable among some of the crew and I was something of a pariah- as if being from a rich, powerful family wasn't enough of a handicap. They didn't know that I was aware of the office betting pool to see how fast I would wash out. Many of my co-workers thought I was just slumming so to speak and it was just a phase. Soon I would get tired of getting my hands dirty and retire to take up polo or something.
It seemed like Hesam was the only one that kept an open mind about all of it, although even he had his suspicions. For the most part we worked together just fine and made a great pair; he had nerves of steel to drive through the thickest traffic and I had…well…I never told him what I had that helped me do my job. We just kind of had an unspoken understanding that I just did what I did and he didn't ask too many questions. But I knew that someday I would slip and he would have to say something. He could only look the other way for so long and I felt bad because he really did deserve better.
Of everyone I worked with, he was the only one to genuinely tell me he was sorry to hear that Nathan died and that really meant something to me. Sure I got a generic sympathy card and a small plant from the company, but what I got a lot more of was silent stares and whispers behind my back at the very time that a small handshake or even a hug would have helped tremendously. It wasn't a lot to ask for some basic human empathy, but then again that just came naturally to me. I certainly would have done that for them regardless of how well I knew them or not, a loss is a loss no matter who you were and Nathan was a huge loss for me. They couldn't have known that his death felt like a supernova explosion and I was left drifting in the cold darkness of space, missing the warmth I used to feel in his presence. Hesam and I joke around a lot, but when he put his hand on my shoulder to offer his condolences, the sincerity in his eyes was almost overwhelming. You would have thought that someone in his family had died the way he seemed to take it so personally. I guess it wasn't much of a stretch; in this job you see so much death but you don't have time to mourn. Maybe in that moment he took the opportunity to grieve for himself.
I punched the time clock and half expected the readout to display, 'You again?!' before jogging down to the bay to meet my partner in rig #087. On the way I wondered if the clock reported hours to the state labor board- we all had to be in major violation of labor laws in the state of New York. I slowed to a stop, careful not to spill the coffee and located my ride with a groan. I didn't look at the board to see who I was working with, but I should have known it would be Marshall.
James Marshall was an Ivy League med school wash out who still believed he was God's gift to medicine. For reasons still unknown to me, he had a particular dislike for me because Nathan was a senator. I could only guess it was because Nate had actually attained a position of significance and influence that he was never able to and he was projecting his frustrations onto me, or maybe I was just guilty by association. Either way, he hated me and was probably the source of most of the rumors circulating about me. This was going to be the longest shift of my life.
Still, I put my best foot forward and offered him the coffee with a smile. Maybe if I could start things off right, it might not be so bad. He took one sip and threw the cup into the parking lot. "Shit's cold." He complained with a screwed up face. Or, maybe not. I decided the best course of action was to just stick to my job and take inventory of the rig before we set off.
The morning drug into the afternoon at a snail's pace. Nothing had been said the entire time, we each pretended that the other didn't exist and I looked out the foggy window at people shoveling snow between yawns. The steady sound of the windshield wipers rubbing the snow away was hypnotic as was the mindless chatter on the CB. Considering the weather, things were incredibly slow. When it snows as it had been, people get into car accidents or their houses catch on fire because they are using space heaters. Occasionally when it gets cold like this, we get calls to pick up the bodies of homeless people who have frozen to death for lack of a place to go. We find them on park benches, under bridges, and in abandoned houses. Every time I get a call like that I always wonder where their families are. Somewhere out there people should be wondering about them, but the medical examiners tell me that those same people largely go unclaimed and they are cremated and put into a mass grave. More often than not they are buried as John or Jane Doe because their identity can't be established. How sad to live your entire life in such a sea of humanity only to die unnoticed and nameless.
Some of the medics gripe about it and will even carelessly toss the body onto the stretcher and shove it into the rig with the attitude of no one else cared, so why should I? But I don't do that. True, they are gone and for many you have to wonder if it wasn't a good thing judging by the degree of emaciation from starvation or open wounds either from lack of basic medical care, complications of disease, or sometimes drug abuse. But I take care with them and treat them with respect because they were human beings who had names, even if I will never know what it was. They deserve the same level of decency and effort that I would give the wealthiest patient because a life is a life no matter how it was lived and no one is more deserving of it than anyone else.
"MVA at the corner of St. Mark's and 2nd. Multiple vehicles. Requesting all available fire and EMS." The CB droned.
"That's us." I sighed picking up the radio. "Copy. Unit 087 in route. ETA 4 minutes." It was always a rough guess, but traffic wasn't too bad today.
"Four minutes?" Marshall howled. "Do you think we are going to goddamn fly there?"
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what his problem was. He could have cut over one street and hit the sirens to clear the way down a major road before turning off. It was a quick trip that Hesan could make with time to stop off to gas up the rig. "Fine." I growled. "I will meet you there." I reached in the back for my pack and bailed on foot. He could take his sweet ass time if he wanted to, but people needed help and every minute counted. When I rounded the corner of the block, I hit the turbo boost and ran like the wind to the location the dispatcher had directed us to.
At first glance, the scene was not as bad as it sounded. Five cars had slid into each other, but the damage seemed moderate at best. I have definitely seen worse: like the kid that was racing his dad's Porsche and it hit the curb and went flying into a concrete pillar. There was almost nothing left of the car. I spent nearly four hours helping NYPD search the area for human remains and all I found was a finger tip. It was a very useful find though, because the morgue used the print on that finger to ID the body; it was all they had since the rest of the kid's body was so intertwined with the twisted metal that their only other option was a DNA test on the bits of flesh that they could extract. I have never seen anything like it before and I hope I never do again.
I approached the cars, looking into each one to see who needed the most help first. Some of the cars were empty, the occupants standing with a dazed expression on the sidewalk mostly unharmed. In a small blue car was an elderly man slumped over the wheel. I called to him and banged on the window, but he didn't move. I tried to open the door, but it was jammed and I looked around frantically for the fire department. They have the tools to cut the car open like a can of tuna, but they hadn't arrived yet although I could hear the sirens approaching. I took another look at the old man and my heart sank when I noticed bright red blood trickling from his ear. It was a bad sign that he had massive head trauma which meant I had to get to him at all cost. The passenger door was blocked by another car, so I took a deep breath and slammed my elbow into the window. Thanks to my thick coat, the shards didn't cut me to ribbons and I reached in to feel for a pulse but found nothing. He likely died on impact. The collision wasn't severe, but for the elderly it doesn't take much to tear blood vessels in the brain and cause hemorrhaging. As sad as it made me, I had to keep working.
"Under the car!" A bystander shouted as she pointed hysterically.
I dropped to my knees to see a young woman under the car. She was apparently a pedestrian that was struck during the pileup. I reached out to touch her arm. "Ma'am?" I called. "Can you hear me?" Her hand grasped the sleeve of my coat weakly. "I'm here to help you, ok? More help is on the way, but right now I need you to stay still. Don't move, ok? Just stay still and I will get you out of there."
She began to cry and looked at me pleadingly. "Please don't leave me." She begged as the tears ran down her bloodied face. "I'm so scared."
"I know." I said gently as I held her hand. "You're probably in a lot of pain right now, but if you move you could make it worse. I have to check on the others quickly, but I won't leave. I promise."
"Don't go." She whispered as she squeezed my hand tight. Her breathing had become labored and I was worried she may have internal injuries. Where the hell was Marshall and the others?!
"What's your name?" I asked softly.
"Mary." She replied sniffling.
"I'm Peter." I nodded. "Mary, I'll make a deal with you. Give me two minutes to take a look at the other people in the accident and I'll be right back. You can count if you want. One Mississippi, two Mississippi- like that. Ok? Two minutes and I'll be right here. Can you do that?" She nodded weakly and I gave her a reassuring smile before scrambling to my feet.
I too was counting in my head even as I triaged the remaining individuals. There were the expected number of cuts and bruises, and one possible broken wrist, but none seemed as bad off as Mary and it was about to get worse. The road had become slippery and from a distance of two blocks I saw a car spinning wildly out of control toward us. I had seven seconds at best to do something. If I moved her, I might make her injuries worse but if I left her there, she would most certainly die. Of course I could also die if I couldn't act fast enough, which meant I had to get my ass in gear.
I hit the pavement and crawled under the car as far as I could. I could feel jagged metal cutting me at the waist where my jacket had slipped up, but both of our outcomes depended on this. From under the car, I could see wheels fast approaching and I grabbed Mary's arm and leg and began to pull hard and fast while I scurried backward. She screamed in pain and I wanted to explain to her, but there was no time for words. I pulled her clear just as the car hit and instinctively ducked to avoid any flying fragments while I protected her with my own body. I'd like to tell you that I thought it all out as I was doing it, but that would be a lie. I only figured it out after the fact, while it was going on it was all a blur.
"Peter." Came a muffled voice from my chest. "You saved me." I released my grip somewhat and gave her a quick, embarrassed smile. I was an accidental hero at best.
"Petrelli!" Came Marshall's voice as he slammed the door to the rig. "What the hell? You know you never move accident victims! Is this your first day on the job?" I was still too stunned from my near death experience to respond when Mary began to cough. The sound was unnaturally wet and I looked down to see blood covering her pale lips.
"Shit." I muttered looking at Marshall. "Get the stretcher! She has to go now!" If she was coughing up blood it was a sure sign of internal bleeding and she had a very short time to get proper help. I knew it. I could tell by the way she was breathing that there was a serious problem and no doubt my pulling her so hastily only made it worse. We quickly loaded her up and sped away at a much slower pace than I would have liked. God what I wouldn't give for Hesan right now.
"Peter." She called reaching for my hand. I looked down as I readied the oxygen mask and she coughed again, spraying blood on me. I jumped away, immediately aware that the sensitive linings of my nose and eyes may have just been contaminated. As nice a person as she seemed to be, the truth was I didn't know her and she may have just spread a communicable blood borne pathogen. I quickly swiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket and placed the mask over her nose and mouth while I held her hand the rest of the way.