A COUPLE OF MONTHS LATER

The team had been called out to a serious multiple MVA where four people had already died; fifteen were trapped either in or under cars and only two people had been rescued so far by bystanders who had managed to help them out of a burning car before it exploded. Every available person was needed meaning that Vince and Michelle were out of the office, with Michelle having to help out as well as still taking calls from every media contact she knew and the governor of rescue operations. To top it off she had to try and answer questions from the hundreds of people who had gathered around the perimeter, terrified that their friends and relatives were involved.

The bodies of the four already deceased patients had been moved before too many people saw them, and had been put into the back of one of the ambulances which had taken them to a nearby hospital morgue before returning. However, nobody as of yet had been taken to hospital alive except for the two lucky people who had been helped. That left the seven rescue team members, only ten firies (due to a fire at a warehouse the other side of town), the available ambos and police officers (who weren't on crowd control or taking witness statements), to try and free the fifteen patients who were still trapped. Of these fifteen six were critical, three were stable but needed urgent transport to the hospital, five were injured but stable and just needed to be freed from the vehicles and one more person had just died. That left fourteen patients alive.

The firies were trying to help rescue to free the patients but at the same time were trying to get the fire caused by the explosion under control, but because of all the leaked petrol it was causing a major problem. The crowd perimeter had been moved back so far that those people could no longer see anything that was going on, and so some people had left and gone home or gone to higher ground for a better look. Things were getting heated (no pun intended) between all the different departments in that the firies were trying to get people to move faster in case there was another bigger explosion, rescue were trying to free people the safest way possible while getting told to hurry up by the firies which was making them frustrated and the ambos were trying to help rescue but were constantly in the way and weren't of much use until the patients were freed and transferred to the waiting ambulances. However, even though people getting freed was good it meant that they were losing ambos and so there was hardly anybody to look after the patients after they were freed.

Even though everybody was on their last nerve, they kept it together for the sake of their patients. Eventually after nearly five hours at the rescue site every patient had been freed from the cars and were safely in the hospital. The fourteen patients who were alive had all survived, and only five patients had died. Knowing that only one person had died though, when rescue was on scene had given them a small measure of happiness and relief. The rescue team had gone back to HQ, showered, got changed into civilian clothes and had sat around the briefing table. The whole time nobody said anything. However, everybody was thinking about things in their minds.

Dean's thoughts were about Heidi. He had worried about her the entire time they were out there because nobody was able to be with her while she was treating patients, and she had treated a couple of men. The MVA was too severe for people to be doubling up unless it was to help free someone from a car. Every spare moment he got he had looked over at her and hoped she was coping okay. A couple of times when he looked, she hadn't been there and his heart skipped a beat as he started anxiously scanning the area for any sign of her. When he had caught sight of her assisting at another car he had released the breath he didn't know he was holding and had been relieved that she was alright. However, he always noticed that her face looked visibly terrified. She had the same look on her face every time he looked, a look that said she didn't want to be where she was at that moment, that she wished she was with somebody she knew. But she had always carried on and had completed the job she was meant to do.

Looking at her now, nobody could see that she was upset, that she was scared. Nobody but Dean. He had lived with her for almost a year now and had gotten good at knowing when Heidi was hiding something. He knew that she didn't want people to know how scared she was because she didn't want them all worrying about her, when they were all probably feeling similar to her themselves. She didn't want it all to be about her. Dean knew that she was trying to be as normal as possible and that it wasn't easy when everybody was constantly observing you for signs of a breakdown. He had decided to talk to her when they were in the privacy of their own home and where she was most likely to open up to him.

Michelle had started the briefing by telling them all what a good job they had done and that this was an example of how well they worked together as a team. Everybody had then pretty much started talking about how successful the rescue had been, and then the talk turned to what people were doing over the weekend. Because of today the team had been given the weekend off, including Michelle by the rescue committee board who had decided that they deserved a break. After that everybody had left either separately or together, like Chase and Lachie, and Dean and Heidi.

AT HOME – DEAN AND HEIDI

Heidi hadn't said a word all the way home. She just sat quietly, staring out the window and I noticed her hands shaking a little. When we got back I got out of the car and went round to her side because she hadn't registered that the car had stopped, she was still staring out the window. I opened the door, undid her seatbelt and lifted her head to look at me.

Dean: 'Heidi, talk to me.'

Heidi: 'I treated two men today. And they didn't hurt me. I touched them and I let them touch me. And they didn't hurt me. And I don't understand why.'

Tears started falling down her cheeks so I helped her out of the car and took her inside. We went over to the sofa and sat down, and I held my arms open to her and she fell into them.

Dean: 'They didn't hurt you because they were decent kind people who were very grateful that you were helping them. They were in a position in which they couldn't help themselves, they were hurt and scared and needed somebody to tell them that they were going to be okay, that they were going to come out of the situation alive and they had that. They had you. They didn't want or need to hurt you. There are so many men out there who aren't like Jordan.'

At the mention of Jordan's name, Heidi was surprised and looked up at him. He smiled at her and knew she was confused at why he brought up Jordan's name.

Dean: 'Everybody has been acting like Jordan doesn't exist anymore, but the truth is he does. He may not live in Sydney or be part of this team but he is still in existence. Everybody knows that, and try as they might they can't shut that out of their lives. It's just, they don't want to bring it up in front of each other in case nobody else is thinking about it, they don't want to be the only one.'

Heidi: 'A couple of months ago I wasn't sure if any of what happened was true. I didn't know if it actually happened or whether it was all in my head. But I didn't want to ask anybody because I didn't want them to be upset. Then, when I thought about it, I thought it had to be true if I was worried about making you all upset. But I couldn't talk about it when I wanted to. I don't want everybody to block Jordan out of their lives because there is always a very real possibility that he will come back, and if he does how will they cope with that if he hasn't existed in their lives all this time?'

Dean: 'You want them to remember Jordan?'

Heidi: 'Yes. I don't want them to remove him from every memory they have or to act like they've never heard of him if somebody asks. I especially don't want them to do it if they think it is what I want. I want to be able to move on properly, but I can't do that if every time they hear his name they are going to deny the truth.'

Dean: 'You know, you must be the first woman I've ever met who doesn't want to forget the man who put her through so much pain.'

Heidi: 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.'

At this Dean laughed and Heidi smiled. He promised to talk to the team about it, and he also told her that if she ever wanted to talk about Jordan he was here and listening. Just hearing those words made her feel better because she knew that she didn't have to keep it all to herself any longer. So later on that night when they were sat in front of the television, she started to talk to Dean about Jordan, about everything she had been thinking about and feeling the past couple of months. And he sat with her in his arms and listened to every word.