Author's Note: This is a birthday fic for my good friend Ani-Maniac494. She provided the prompt for this story and I was hoping this was going to be nice little one shot, but it got so long, I turned into a two chapter story! So, I believe that is all I have to say and y'all should go message Ani-Maniac494 and say happy birthday cause she is just an awesome person.

Beep… beep… beep… The sound of the heart monitor filled the otherwise deathly quiet hospital room that would keep Hank Stanley, my captain, for the next few days while he recovered from his fractured ribs and concussion. It's strange seeing the man who is practically my older brother lying motionless in the bed, I mean, it's usually John Gage who is a patient at Rampart General since he has the longest list of on-the-job injuries out of everyone at Station 51. Why did it have to be Cap who got hurt? Why did that driver have to be careless with his match? Why did I have to be the one left in charge? A million questions bolted through my head as I thought about the events leading up to this moment.

It had been a relatively slow day at the station, so while Chet Kelly made his "famous" Irish stew for lunch, Captain Stanley was doing work in his office, John, his partner Roy Desoto, and Marco Lopez played poker, and I read the newspaper. I felt a small weight on my thigh and found the station's basset hound, Henry, had rest his head there; I pat his head, but before I could go back to reading, the tones sounded.

"Station 51, heart attack. 1677 Watson Drive. 1-6-7-7 Watson Drive. Time out 12:33."

The six of us dropped what we were doing and rushed to our respective vehicles. I climbed into the driver's seat of Engine 51 while Cap copied the address and passed it to Roy. The second he had climbed in, I followed the paramedic squad out of the bay, lights flashing and sirens screaming. I carefully maneuvered Big Red until we were ushered into a gas station by a small crowd.

"He's over here!" A woman cried to John and Roy before they had even gotten out of the squad.

"Mike, help John and Roy. Chet, Marco, help me get these people back." Cap ordered. I carried the biophone over to the man lying on the ground and set it up while the paramedics took the his vitals.

"Mike, get on the horn with Rampart." Roy said as he grabbed his blood pressure cuff from the drug box.

"Rampart, this is Squad 51."

"Go ahead 51," Almost immediately, the voice of Dixie McCall answered.

"Rampart, we have a male, approximately age fifty-five years old, possible heart attack. Victim is unconscious."

"51, what are the vitals?" It wasn't Dixie who spoke this time, but Doctor Brackett.

"Pulse is 98." John said.

"Blood pressure is 150/90," Roy added. "We better patch him in for an EKG."

As the paramedics patched in their patient, I relayed the vitals.

"Rampart, pulse is 98, blood pressure is 150/90. Stand by for EKG."

"10-4 51. Start an IV D5W, then administer five milligrams MS IV."

"10-4 Rampart. IV D5W followed by five milligrams MS IV." I heard the sirens of the approaching ambulance and looked up in time to see it pull into the station. Once they had the man stabilized, John, Roy, and the ambulance attendants loaded the man into the ambulance.

"John," I called the younger man as he shut the ambulance doors behind his partner. "Think that man is going to be alright?"

"As long as we don't have any issues on the way to the hospital, I think he has a chance."

"Hope he lives, he seems like a good guy." As John and I cleaned up the mess of drug wrappers and equipment, I noticed a gas truck pull into the station; I don't know why, but I felt my stomach twist into a knot. Something bad was going to happen.

I stood on the sidewalk next to Big Red and kept my eye on the truck. Cap was speaking with the station's owner and the fact that he was closer to the truck than he was to the fire engine made me more concerned. John had already left to retrieve Roy from the hospital and Chet and Marco were talking about some movie they saw on television last night, but I tuned all that out; all I could hear was the sound of gas rushing through a hose into the ground, filling up the pumps.

My eyes drifted to the truck driver leaning against the cab if his truck; he looked barely forty, but the wrinkles and bags under his eyes aged him by at least ten years. However, it wasn't his looks that grabbed my attention, instead it was what he was doing- he had a cigarette in his mouth and a lit match in his hand. Before I could tell him not to smoke, he tossed the match onto the ground and into a small trail of gasoline that had leaked from the truck, flames quickly making their way to the truck.

Cap heard the gasoline ignite and called out, "Chet, Marco! Pull an inch-"

BOOM! The gasoline inside the truck ignited with a deafening explosion that knocked everyone to the ground. As I picked up myself up from the concrete, I saw Cap had been thrown forward and was lying unconscious on the ground, his turnout coat lightly smoking.

"Marco, pull an inch-and-a-half! Chet, help me move Cap!" I ordered the linemen.