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A/n this is a one shot. What Ryan was thinking between the time he passed out and when the fireman found them. Spoilers for "Under Fire."
A Dream of Fire
He didn't feel the strength leave his body. His knees buckled and he caved in like the roof over his head and fell, and it seemed like he fell forever. His brain didn't register when he tipped to the side and rolled to his back on the filthy, debris covered basement floor.
Overhead, the fired still burned, but it didn't matter anymore. The crackling of the flames, and the stench of smoke in his nostrils, was nothing compared to the overwhelming need to close his eyes and let sleep gather him to its bosom forever.
The raw and clawing rage at his fate dimmed and went out as a fire robbed of precious oxygen.
Need oxygen, have to get up and find a way out.
His eyes blinked and sweat rolled off his face, but he didn't feel it or taste it as it mingled with the tears on his cheeks.
Jenny!
He thought he heard a baby crying somewhere in the distance. His eyes fluttered. Why try to keep them open? He was so tired. He thought about trying to roll over, but his eyes wouldn't stay open.
Her face formed in his mind as his breathing slowed and he ceased to smell the fire, or feel the ferocious heat on his cheeks and hands. His heart beat so slowly he could count to ten between beats.
Love you, Jenny
She smiled at him. Her blond curls danced around her beautiful face. He reached out a hand to her, but she backed away from him as if drawn away by some unseen presence.
Goodbye.
He should be alarmed, but his heart didn't register the stress. It just thumped slowly in his chest. He couldn't see her face anymore or remember why he tried to hold on. Everything went as black as ashes on a funeral pyre.
He blinked and he was looking down instead of up. He lay on the floor, but he was above where he lay at the same time. All around him was the rush and flame of fire, but he couldn't feel the heat anymore. He reached out and his hand passed through the orange and red flames like a ghost.
You're slipping away. Hold on, Beckett will find you in time.
He knew it wasn't true, though. He looked down again, but he wasn't there and Javier wasn't there. The fire was the only thing to see and it was so beautiful it hurt. It licked at the wall and the floors of the warehouse. It consumed them like some wild animal that couldn't be stopped. He could see every molecule of the flames dancing around him in such a beautiful dance he never wanted it to end.
Come back, said a voice he remembered.
A pressure built in his chest and he fell, down through the flames and the heat, and smoke and ash. He drifted down like paper ash on the wind and blinked.
A hand touched his shoulder. He blinked again and a face wearing a mask hovered above him. The hand rose up and pulled the mask from the face. It was a kind face, a relieved face, and it said. "Welcome back."
Suddenly everything rushed back. He coughed and waves of acrid smoke assaulted his senses until the face gave him his oxygen mask. He breathed in cool, pure air and began to cough. His chest hurt, but he found that he could stand with the help of the firefighter.
"Come on, we need to get you out of here."
He could hear again, and the fire wasn't beautiful anymore. It was a vicious hungry thing that wanted to devour. The building creaked and whined around him as the fire tasted more and more and its hunger multiplied.
"Yeah," he said and coughed. "Javier?"
"Here, bro."
He looked and Javier stood there with ash on his face and his arm over the shoulder of a fireman. "We've been here long enough, let's go."
