a/n: This was just something that I decided to try. I don't own anything, and constructive criticism would be very much appreciated.
"Among my stillness was a pounding heart."
― Shannon A. Thompson, Seconds Before Sunrise
They wade through the smoke on the second floor until they mercifully reach a window, which Roy forces open. Johnny shifts the woman on his shoulder a little bit higher and gets a blurry glimpse of the fire trucks and the crowds of people filling the street. While they had been inside, someone had propped a wooden ladder against the side of the house, and Johnny can barely make out a girl around his age standing horrorstruck by a maple tree.
Roy begins to climb out the window and turns around to face Johnny, one hand gripping the windowsill. "Hey, hand her down to me, alright?"
Johnny nods and says the affirmative, even though he doesn't know whether Roy can hear him through his mask and the noise inside and outside. Roy begins to climb down and Johnny stoops over, preparing to shift the woman off his shoulder and into Roy's awaiting arms.
But then something happens, and Roy's foot slips from the top rung of the ladder and his arm connects with the power lines. Johnny bites back a scream as his partner's face contorts in agony and white-hot sparks fly from the wires. Roy's eyes are wide, his body is shaking and Johnny tries to help—he sets the woman to the side so she's leaning against the window and he tries to grab Roy to pull him back, but then Roy is falling and his body is totally limp as he hits the ground with an audible thud.
Johnny is terrified—he wants to scream, he wants to run, he wants to do something, anything, because it's damn near impossible to stand still when his partner could be seriously hurt. The people around the street and the house aren't doing anything, and he wants to berate them for being such idiots because the most important person in the world to him is lying unconscious on the ground after being electrocuted, and goddamn it all, someone has to do something.
And then the last person he expects to do anything personifies his thoughts, and Karen is running toward Roy. She turns him over onto his back (good, he thinks, his mind working overtime, good, that's what I would've done) and practically rips off his jacket. Johnny leans out the window to see better, and he sees Karen shoo away one of the other firefighters before pinching Roy's nose shut.
Johnny feels cold all over despite the burning smoke wafting in and out behind him, because he knows what that means. If Karen's breathing for Roy…then his partner isn't unconscious. He's dead.
Dead. The term seems so harsh when he and Roy use it nearly every day at work. It sounds so clinical and detached, and Johnny thinks that he finally understands the rush of emotion that the families of the victims feel when the phrase is said.
His best friend is dead, and Johnny has no idea what to do.
The same firefighter returns carrying a defibrillator, and a shriveled-up rock of hope starts to form in Johnny's stomach. Because all in all, he'd rather have a hard-nosed paramedic with a chip on her shoulder treat Roy rather than no one treat him at all.
Reluctantly tearing his gaze off Roy and Karen, Johnny stares in disbelief at two firemen dawdling in the middle of the street holding his replacement ladder. "Hey!" he barks, wanting to cup his hands over his mouth but doesn't dare for fear of dropping the girl on his shoulder. "Hey, over here! Come on, on the double! Get the ladder for me, the second floor is going!"
Besides, the sooner he can get the hell down from here, the sooner his patient gets to safety, then his priorities can switch and he can help his partner. Or he can help Karen help his partner. Whichever comes first.
From the ground comes a shrill beep, Karen yells, "Clear!" and Roy's body convulses once before going still again. Bile rises in Johnny's throat, but he swallows it and keeps watching. He has to keep watching.
In a single second, he curses the world around him because he wants to write a strongly-worded letter to whatever deity had been in charge of arraigning these circumstances. Why on earth did Johnny have to be two floors up in a burning building with an injured woman slung over his shoulder when Roy's heart ceases to beat? He swears miserably under his breath.
Karen sits back, and from his position he can't see her face or hear what she's mumbling to herself, but he can recognize someone that looks defeated when he sees it. Oh, God no, tell me she isn't just giving up on him.
And then her indecision vanishes and she's back on her feet, barking orders like they're a second nature to her. Johnny feels prouder of her in that moment as he's ever been, and then the universe's luck turns around as the other guys get the ladder set up against the side of the house. Someone whose name he can't recall at the moment climbs up, takes the girl away from him and climbs back down, leaving the area clear for Johnny to descend, which he does, almost slipping from going down two rungs at a time.
Come on, Roy, he thinks fiercely, come on, pally, you can beat this, you can beat this…
Johnny doesn't know what he's going to do if Roy doesn't come through, but he can tell that it won't be good.
He makes his way over to Karen, and she turns to face him, her expression inscrutable as she tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. The silence rages on and a bead of sweat forms above his upper lip as he looks from Roy to her, uncomprehending everything.
"He's got a pulse," she says softly, a smile making its way across her face, "and he's breathing on his own."
The declaration feels like the sun beaming out through gray storm clouds and Johnny breaks into a smile, the frantic beats of his heart slowing down to match Roy's steady heartbeat. Roy's okay, he's okay, everyone's okay. God, he wants to jump up and down and celebrate, but he reins himself in. There's still a lot of work to be done, and they're not out of the woods yet.
He nearly falls over himself taking off his glove and pulling out his handy-talkie. "L.A.," he says, his voice strong again, "this is Squad 51. Respond an ambulance to this address."
"Squad 51," the dispatch parrots back, and Johnny kneels next to Roy and Karen and watches his partner breathe for a while. Roy being alive is the best thing he's seen today, surpassing the pretty nurses in the emergency room by about six football fields.
Johnny looks up and sees Captain Stanley approach them, probably seeking confirmation that everything is alright. He's never been happier to give it. "Everything's under control, Cap," he says with another smile, shrugging one shoulder.
Thank you, he thinks, not one hundred percent sure who he's directing the statement at—maybe Karen for saving Roy, maybe Roy for pulling through, maybe even God for orchestrating everything.
Roy's heart is still beating, though, and for that, Johnny is thankful.