Gabby woke up disoriented and coughing. Something was wrong, very wrong. She reached toward her bed light and frowned when, as she turned the light switch, nothing happened. She felt foggy and tired, just wanting to go back to sleep but something told her she couldn't so she opened her eyes and surveyed the room. It was only then she noticed the foul smell in the air. A smell she knew all too well, fire. Suddenly wide awake she knew she had to get moving.

Quickly throwing on a jumper that was within reach she moved towards her door. As she opened it more smoke entered the room and she quickly held her jumper in front of her face to minimise smoke inhalation. Knowing she didn't have a lot of time, she quickly ran to the front door of her apartment. She reached for the doorknob and as she closed her hand around it she realized her mistake. How many times had she seen the guys check the door before going into a building? A thousand times? More? Now she remembered why, the door knob was scorching hot and as she pulled her hand back she knew she'd have burns there.

If the knob was that hot, it meant there was fire right behind the door and her escape route was blocked. She lived in an old building that had no emergency ladders outside; she didn't have a balcony either. As she started to panic suddenly Casey appeared in her mind and she calmed. She knew what to do, hell, she was in love with a fire fighter, she worked with them, and she knew what to do.

She quickly crouched to the ground and crawled toward the window. She could now clearly hear sirens and knew help was on the way. She would have to sit tight. She could probably open a window but she knew it was risky. There was no way to know if this was a chemical fire or something else. Remembering the leak her landlord had spoken to her about that afternoon, she knew opening the window could potentially bring oxygen into an already dangerous mix, an explosive mix.

The sirens were now right outside and she knew she'd not risk other tenants and fire fighters by opening the windows. She started coughing as the smoke became thicker and more constricting on her airways. She knew it was only a matter of time until she would lose consciousness and she quickly prayed Casey would hurry up and get her out of here. He wouldn't let her die would he? As a paramedic she knew it was hypoxia setting in when she saw Casey in front of her, but at that point she no longer cared. Her last thought before losing consciousness was that she would hang out in burning buildings more often as long as he came to get her out.

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Casey felt the panic clawing its way up to his throat making him barely able to shout instructions to his men. As they arrived at the burning apartment building his heart felt like it was being squeezed dry. Gabby was in there.

He quickly set the men to work and then assigned himself to her floor. He had taken a quick look at the gathered tenants that had made it outside and he hadn't seen her, it worried him. If she had made it out he knew she wouldn't be idle in helping others, he just hoped she'd gotten to safety.

He strapped on his oxygen mask and ran in to the building, the normal rush he got doing that being replaced with a tense feeling of worry and dread. Running up the burning stairs he sidestepped burning debris and quickly made his way up to the third floor. He realized he should check the other apartments, but at that moment he couldn't make himself care. As long as Gabby made it out.

He reached her hallway and was taken aback by the wall of fire that met him. If she was still inside he couldn't get her out this way, not without protective gear. Shaking his head, he knew there was no time to waste and he quickly braced himself and shouldered a way through the flames.

As he came to her door he turned and with a swift kick it flew open.

'Gabby!'

He listened intently over the roar of the fire but he heard nothing. Knowing the most logical place she would be would be next to the window he all but ran the few feet towards the other side of the apartment.

'Gabby!'

He called out again and this time was rewarded with a small cough that sounded like it came from somewhere in front of him. He crouched down and felt around with his hands, the visibility being nearly zero. Suddenly he felt a lump and he knew without a doubt it was his girl.

Quickly getting rid of his mask he felt for her face and kept the mask in front of her holding her neck firmly in place.

'Gabby! Come on girl, breathe!'

Suddenly he sees the tell-tale condense on the mask, signalling her breathing.

'That's it, come on.'

As she took another deep breath, Casey considered his options. He could call for the ladder, but her window was on the side of the building and hard to reach or he could carry her through the burning corridor exposing her to the heat of the flames. He realized it wasn't even a real choice, one just wasn't really possible without exposing her to a lot more smoke inhalation as they waited on the ladder, but the other was equally if not more dangerous. Quickly deciding and consequently breaking every safety rule he knew, he grabbed the front of his jacket and ripped it open. Shrugging out of it he quickly place it around Gabby in the dark, hopefully protecting her from the sea of flames they were about to travel through. The fact he was now in nothing more than his t-shirt didn't bother him, Gabby was more important than a few burns.

He quickly took the mask off her again, knowing that if he was going to carry her out, as much as he hated it, he would need it more than her. Once more attaching the mask to his face he picked up the motionless woman and quickly moved to the hallway.

He tried to shield her as much as possible with his body and he was pleased with the way she was burrowed in his jacket. Ignoring the burn of the heat on his exposed arms he quickly moved down the stairs and sent a quiet thank you to the man upstairs for the fact they hadn't collapsed yet.

He heaved a sigh of relief as they finally made it outside but knew she wasn't out of the woods yet.

'Gabby! Please wake up.'

He whispered it but right next to her ear and he took her moan of pain as a good sign meaning she was conscious and she had heard him speak. As he looked up he saw a medic running towards them with a gurney and he walked to meet him half way.

'She was breathing relatively steadily in the apartment; she used my mask for a bit.'

He gave the medic the necessary information and lay Gabby down on the gurney. I hated the way she stayed still, it wasn't like her.

No time was wasted as they quickly hooked her up to oxygen and checked her vitals. They left his jacket on her and he realized then that Gabby wasn't wearing all that much and probably needed to be kept warm with it.

He had no idea where the rest of the men were or whether the fire was under control or not and he didn't care, all he wanted was to see her brown eyes staring back at him. He wasn't moving from her side until they did.

'She needs to go to hospital.'

The medic must have seen the panic in his eyes as he quickly took a step forward.

'It's just to get her out of here, she's going to be fine but she did inhale quite a bit of smoke, I just want to make sure ok?'

Before he even had to ask she added:

'You can go with her.'

He nodded and they quickly made work of getting Gabby into the ambulance as the other two paramedics of house 51 took care of her. He jumped into the back and only at the last moment radioed his team that he was leaving the scene, not realising the entire team had been watching him since the second he'd walked out of the building. The doors closed and he grabbed her hand, hoping the medic was right and his Gabby would be just fine.