Author's note: for this chapter I tried something different, I didn't start with a quote, but I invented a scene that wasn't in the episode. I used details from Otis' past that popped out in the previous seasons; I tried to invent the least possible and I deducted and guessed the rest.
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Dimitri entered Molly's bar, and approached the counter, "Hi, are you Dowson or Kidd?" He asked the waitress.
"Who wants to know?" Asked wary Gabby.
"You're right, sorry, I'm Dimitri... Zvonecek," he replied, "I'm..." "you're Brian's brother," Hermann interrupted, popping up from the back.
"Yep, and you must be Hermann!" He quickly replied.
Hermann shook his hand:"Christopher, nice to meet you and this is," "Gabriela Dowson," she added.
While they were making presentation other two man approached from the bottom of the counter, "Hi I'm Mouch and this is captain Casey," one of them said. "Nice to meet you, I heard a lot about all of you," Dimitri replied.
"C'mon have a sit, we'll offer you a drink," Hermann told him.
"Sorry I can't, I'm a doctor and I'm on call tonight, I just stopped by to thank you for all you're doing for my brother, it's so important to know you always have his back."
"Hey, he is our brother too," assured Hermann, while everyone nodded.
Then Dimitri set on a stool in the corner, and started talking about his family: "I mean, the Zvoneceks are a really big tribe, but when my parents came to the US from Russia, they were alone. They had to start a new life, raising their children in a new country, and that was challenging for them," he paused looking around.
"You know, Brian is the youngest of three children, and he struggled all his life to keep up whit us," he continued;
"Vlad, our older brother, and I were always competing for something, always trying to do better than the other, from school to sports, everything was good to be our next challenge. Brian instead... He has always been different; he never pulled back a challenge, that's for sure, but he always tried to track his own way, and in this own way, he was always up to something new and often wierd, I bet you know what I'm talking about."
While everyone smiled thinking about the Japanese robot and all the other stuff Otis was non-stop up to, Hermann started thinking more deeply.
The situation sounded familiar to him, he has a big family too, and he started to understand more about his friend and about why he was always so unsure, and willing to do more.
"My parents never really wanted him to be a firefighter," Dimitri continued, as his audience was listening carefully;
"they told him all the time to be more like his older brothers, to become a doctor like us, and all those kind of things, but he never listened;
he has always been the stronger among the three of us..." He paused, thinking about his younger 'brat' in an hospital bed.
"He had the strength to follow his dream, despite anything, and if now he can't do that anymore I don't know..."
"Hey he will always be a firefighter, no matter what, " interrupted Casey putting a hand over Dimitri's shoulder, "we will do everything we can to make sure he is ok."
"Thanks, he will need you..." Dimitri took a deep breath before going on, "I can tell being sick is the thing Brian fear the most.
You know, when he was 17 my father got sick, leukemia, he fought hard for two years but it wasn't enough...
Vlad was an intern at the time, and I had just started studying medicine, so we could understand in a better way what was going on, and tried to pull strength for him...
But the truth is the one that did most for my father was my little brother... he was the one still living at my parent's home, he was the one who was there for the little things, day and night to the very end.
That hit hard on him, the last couple of months were heartbreaking. He had to give up a lot of things in that period, and I'm sure what he is thinking now is that he doesn't want anyone to be put in a situation like that;
he prefers to try on his own, but I don't know if this time he can."
The firefighters were silent for a moment, they knew that for people like them asking for help wasn't easy, their pride had to be strong to do what they did, but they didn't expect a story like that.
"We are not people who give up easily," assured Mouch with the others' approval, "we know how to break through a door if it is necessary."
