A/N: Hello All! As some of you may know, I have been doing a huge writing blitz this summer, trying to get my groove back, and trying to finish stories that haven't been touched in quite sometime. I started with full re-writes of some of them and worked super hard to finish them, and I am almost done! This is the last of the stories that have been hanging out for almost a year and haven't had any real attention but it's finally happening. I've finished everything else (except for a Harry Potter that is way too ambisious to actually forsee an ending) and so this story has my undivided attention, and updates will now be frequent. I've done a little editing of these first 6 chapters and new stuff will be posted starting this coming Friday as I return this story to my update schedule. I hope you all like it!
Just a little reminder, if you haven't read my other Five-O stories, there are a few that I have written that I make reference to and that have characters that I created to fill a need and I've used in most of my Five-O stories. Rosie, the paramedic, is one of them and she is basically my way of paying tribute to Leslie Shay, a character that died in Chicago Fire, but also, she has popped up as my go to paramedic in most of my Five-O stories. The reference to being burried alive, is also from one of my stories called Hamau Pohaku. If you haven't read it, that's okay, it doesn't play into the plot of this story, but if you've enjoyed this one and wanna check out something else I've written, I recommend that one!
Anyway, that's enough babble from me, thank you for reading and stay tuned for updates! They will be coming on a weekly basis now!
Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Tempting Fate
If there was one thing to be said about fate, it was that you never questioned it, not aloud at least. Never ever state the obvious, especially with minutes left in a shift that had been uneventful to begin with. It was a rule, commonly know, that you just didn't break, you did not speak, but occasionally someone would forget themselves and it would just slip out. And that is just the way to turn a calm day into chaos and almost always guaranteed overtime even when it was unwanted. Just don't even think about it, put it out of your mind, because fate can read it, and it does not like to be tested.
The shift started out normal enough for Paramedic Rosie Paige of the Honolulu Fire Department. She'd arrived that Monday at noon for her forty eight hour shift and had laughed as the rain began, just as the fire fighters on the previous shift rushed to bring their rigs back inside the station. They'd just spent the end of their shift washing them down in the driveway.
"You should know better," Rosie called out the A shift team with a laugh as she hurried inside.
Rosie's partner Aaron Kirk was already inside the station, standing with the A shift paramedics and their shared ambulance; number twenty one.
"Coming in under the wire, Rosie? Is it that new boyfriend of your?" Aaron teased when he saw her. "He's taking up all your spare time."
Aaron knew full well who Rosie was seeing, but A team didn't, nor did most of her own team, but Aaron was her partner and had been since she started. He was her supervisor when she'd first arrived, the lead medic in the house to this day, and her best friend, trusting her in his own life and with his secrets. Aaron would never do, or say, anything that would ever compromise their partnership, or their friendship, because Rosie was the most stable, loving, and loyal person he'd ever met. She was the first person he'd come out to. She backed him up when people were intolerant and rude, and she introduced him to his now husband; her twin brother Jonathan.
You see, they were more than just partners in a high stress job, they were family.
"No, he's not the reason I'm late. I stopped for coco puffs, your favourite, and if you aren't nice to me I'm going to tell Jonathan you've broken your New Years resolution again!" Rosie countered as she held out the box and Aaron lunged at it but backed away at the mention of his significant other.
"It's because you're an enabler, and that is why I break my diet so often!" Aaron complained.
"I'm not the one jamming them down your throat!" Rosie almost sang and passed out of the apparatus floor and into the heart of the fire station. She was greeted by cheers from the rest of the B team at the reception of the sweet treats, and then moved on further to her locker and the true beginning of her shift.
"If you don't get in there, you're not going to get any coco puffs," One of the A team paramedics laughed at the cheers coming from in side.
"See, I'm super popular," Rosie flounced as Aaron came and joined her.
"Buying their love," Aaron said with a shake of his head.
"It has worked wonders," She whispered and moved out of the room to settle in for her shift.
The first twenty four hours of her shift passed away in the usual manner. A collection of repeat offender calls, and the occasional drug related call from down in Waikiki, took the ambulance out of the fire house more often than the trucks. One large house fire called had the whole company responding but no one was hurt, so after having dropped off the family for the doctors to clear, Aaron and Rosie were the first to return to the house.
As the second half of the shift started, Rosie and Aaron inventoried the ambo, restocked and sanitized the medical area then checked gas, tire pressure, and other general maintenance issues to make sure the third member of their team. The ambulance itself, was in good shape to do the best job possible. They then settled in and read the books that Jonathan had bought them for Christmas and prepared dinner for the whole crew once they returned from the school call to test the fire alarms.
As was usual on the nights when they worked, Aaron and Rosie were called out to this or that club because some tourist, or other, had gotten too drunk and hurt themselves by stumbling around the beach, or by the rocky shore line. For the most part, as the new day, Wednesday, dawned the shift had been mightily regular and by the books.
Rosie was only slightly surprised that their favourite repeat customers, Five-O, hadn't called them and the only hint that the elite task force was functioning at full throttle came the evening of Tuesday, when Danny had called to say goodnight.
Yes, it was Danny, the new boyfriend, though they'd known each other for quite some time before Danny had asked her out. She'd seen the Five-Os carry on through years of working together and establishing themselves. She'd been called to help all of the Five-Os with her partner, and their ambulance, for many different reasons; stabbings, near drowning, car accidents, shoot outs, and attacks, in fact, Aaron and Rosie had met Danny on the first day Five-O had been established. They hadn't seen the Jersey native before he'd met Steve McGarrett, but they saw the partners, and their counterparts, on many occasions after that first day when Danny had gotten shot. As the years pass it became less and less shocking to hear from the Five-Os, when they found themselves neck deep in all manners of thing, being creatures of habit, as they were, and because of where station six was located, ambulance twenty one was usually the closest to respond to the Five-O shenanigans.
It was Danny who made the first move, after his most resent break up with Amber. Things just kind of fell apart there after events with his ex-wife, and the child that was never supposed to be his but was, and he made most of the moves on Rosie after that. Rosie was skeptical, slow to trust and independent, but Danny was straight forward, clean cut, and honest. He knew what he was looking for, and without sounding rude or condescending, he saw something in Rosie and her nurturing but blunt demeanour that were so much like his own.
Rosie was a smart woman with a good job and a medical background. When she wasn't on shift she was taking courses and seminars to better her knowledge of the job and medicine. She'd been the first person Danny turned to when he was told about Charlie's medical condition, and he went to Rosie for answered and understanding. She was able to explain it in a way that made Danny even more determined to be a part of the little boys life, a life he would now save. From a fatherly perspective, Rosie was a good role-model and influence for his daughter, Grace, and the part of Danny that still believed himself a young and attractive man, found Rosie easy on the eyes and soothing to the soul. She was every bit the independent, strong willed, confident, woman he wanted, but he'd come to know her heart, her loyalty and acceptance, and her desire to save lives at all costs.
Rosie was a lover, not a fighter. She'd visited the gun range with Danny, and trembled the whole time, and the protector in Danny loved and hated himself for putting her through it, but they both knew the dangers of his position on the elite task-force. Rosie perhaps more than Danny even understood himself, and if things were going to get serious, as they were bound to turn, both parties felt a need to be prepared for whatever Five-O might throw in their paths.
Forty eight hours with a quiet Five-O was an odd occurrence, a bad omen, Rosie thought as she eyed the wall clock in the fire house common room but she would never say it out loud. Truth be told, Rosie was a tad bit superstitious, even though she was skeptical most of the time. She knew better than to tempt fate, and would rarely voice her thoughts on the subject out loud, and so, as the hours ticked ever steadily by, she snatched up the days news paper and settled in for the last two hours of her shift, ever ready for the alarms to sound.
Fifteen minutes later, Aaron plopped himself next to her at the table and swivelled back and forth in his chair as if he were anxious.
"What's gotten into you?" Rosie asked when she could no longer ignore his fidgety behaviour.
"I'm bored." Aaron sighed. "We haven't had a call in hours and it's going to be an absolutely beautiful afternoon. This morning is just dragging itself out to torture me."
"Oh My God, I can't believe that just came out of your mouth," Rosie stated and slammed the paper down on the table. "You know better than that!"
"What? I just want to get a call out, or for the next two hours to hurry up!" He said and threw his arms up.
"Good job, now you're gone and done it. You just couldn't leave well enough alone!" Rosie said with a shake of her head. "We're in for it now."
"You've been hanging out with that Jerseyan too much," He teased. "His pessimism is rubbing off on you."
"Says the man who just jinxed us," She accused.
"I did nothing, I'm just telling you how I feel. You asked. I cannot wait to get outta here. I just want to surf. Maybe I'll make a nice dinner for Jonathan to surprise him when he gets home. Do you think the farmers market will still be open when we get off?" He asked as he leaned back in his chair again and began the swivelling once more.
Rosie shrugged and leaned over to re-tie her boot knowing that things, if fate was really at work, were just about to kick in to high gear, and then he said it, the dreaded words to tempt fate and change the progress of their entire day.
"It really had been a slow shift, wouldn't you say?"
Shaking her head, Rosie sighed again as she straightened up in her chair, but before she could answer the alarms bells sounded in the fire house and the voice of their dispatcher range out crips and clear.
"Ambulance twenty one. Truck forty two. Respond: Child in distress. Koko crater botanical gardens. Child in distress." The voice repeated the scenario as everyone in the fire house jumped into action.
"I hope you're happy now!" Rosie snapped as she rushed toward the rig with her partner.
"I'm never happy when children are involved," Aaron stated soberly, his entire mood changing. It was time to work.
The ambulance arrived on the scene right after the fire truck and already a crowd had been gathering. The call was to a city run garden. Fresh new flower beds were being planted along the parking lot by a division of the city works program, and as the fire men broke a path in the gathering crowd, Aaron and Rosie arrived on the scene of the very grim sight.
"What happened?" Aaron asked of one of the workers as Rosie announced that the paramedics were coming through.
"We just found her!" A panic stricken man stated.
Two people, both in city uniforms, worked without halting as they provided CPR to a little girl covered from head to toe in soil.
"We're the paramedics, let us help," Aaron said when the two people finally noticed them.
"She was in the flower bed, clawing her way out. I saw her little fingers poke through the soil and I pulled her out. She stopped breathing, choking maybe, I don't know," the one woman in the group of workers explained as she made way for Aaron and Rosie, and the men stopped their compressions as the portable defibrillator was set up. "She was alive when we found her!" the woman shrieked.
"Thank you, you've done very well," Aaron said calmly as Rosie ripped at the little girls shirt to place the pads of the machine on her bare chest, and then Aaron check the young girls airway.
"She looks to have swallowed a lot of soil, or maybe inhaled it. I'm getting really raspy, weak lung sounds," He announced as he scooped out her mouth with his gloved fingers.
"We have a pulse," Rosie stated as the machine started to read the vitals.
"I don't think I can clear her air way," Aaron continued to speak out loud to his partner as he shone a light down into the girls mouth. "There is so much soil, I can't see. I don't know if it's in her lungs!"
"Do the emergency tracheostomy. We've got to get that airway!" Rosie stated and handed her partner the equipment. "Her heart rate is elevated."
Silence fell like a blanket over the chattery crowd as it seemed like everyone held their breath for the little girl.
Rosie cleaned the little girls throat as best as she could, as Aaron changed out his gloves for a clean pair and unpacked the instruments he needed. He measured and cut, and then with hands that could diffuse a bomb he inserted the tube into the girls neck, pulled the stopper and attached the plastic pumping bag that would be her breath. When the little girls chest rose and fell, and the monitor seemed to stabilize, Aaron let out a sigh.
"We've got to move!" Rosie yelled as two of the firemen rolled the gurney into placed and a second slipped a back board under the child as Rosie and Aaron supported her head and neck, and rolled her to one side, only to place her down once more as quickly as possible. Rosie and the three fire men lifted the back board onto the gurney as Aaron continued to breath for the little girl and in a matter of moments they were running again and the child was loaded into the back of the Ambulance.