Disclaimer: I do not own Universal's Emergency!


Idiocy

Cassie walked outside to find Gage and DeSoto both leaning against the side of the squad. DeSoto was quietly speaking to Gage, whose jaw merely clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

Cassie didn't feel as if she had anything to feel sorry for, even after Dixie's talk. Cassie was well aware that she'd been to harsh with Gage, but he would get over it.

"He's a tough man afterall," Cassie mused sarcastically.

Cassie sidled up to the two paramedics and said, "Are we ready to leave, or are you guys going to stand here all day?"

DeSoto looked up and Cassie detected a glare in his eyes. Did he expect for Cassie to come and crawl on her knees, begging Gage for forgiveness? She gritted her teeth as she said, "Let's go."

DeSoto sighed and walked to the opposite side of the car and got into the driver's seat.

Cassie moved in front of Gage to open the car door, but was surprised and somewhat irritated when Gage's hand landed on the handle first, automatically attempting to open the door for her.

"What are you doing, Gage? I'm completely capable of opening the door myself," Cassie growled, smacking and elbow into his ribs to make him back off.

Gage grimanced as her sharp elbow connected with his ribcage and he lifted his hands in defense.

"All right, fine!" he snapped, giving a mock bow of apology.

Cassie flipped her ponytail defiantly and opened the door herself, climbing into the middle seat.

Gage hopped in seconds after her and slammed the squad door shut, and DeSoto pulled out of the hospital's parking lot.

Gage reached over Cassie's knee and pulled the radio off the hook and spoke into it, "Squad 51, available."

"Squad 51," the dispatcher acknowledged.

"So..." Cassie said, pulling out her notepad, "Can I ask you guys a few questions while we drive?"

"Might as well. You haven't stopped talking and asking questions since you got here," Gage mumbled.

Cassie threw a nasty look at him, then looked up at DeSoto expectantly.

"Shoot," DeSoto agreed.

"I'm glad to see someone is being cooperative," Cassie hissed at Gage, then asked DeSoto, "How many calls do you get a day."

"We've had as many a ten calls only in the daytime that we can respond to, while somedays we'll only get one. That does count all the false alarms we get too," DeSoto replied.

Cassie wrote this infomation down and inquired, "Now, in your personal opinion, if we had an all-female fire station, how many responses do you think we could make."

"Oh God," Gage moaned, dropping his face into his palm.

"I suppose that depends on the kind, just as it does with all-men fire stations," DeSoto answered, looking perplexed.

"Do you have to turn everything into questions that are covered in women's lib?" Gage asked, fully turning in his seat to look straight down at Cassie.

Cassie scowled and swivelled to look him directly in the eyes, "I keep on telling you, Gage, that I'm a writer for a women's lib column. Of course I'm going to ask you questions regarding your prejudice against women."

Gage's goofy smile brightened his face as he scoffed, "I'm not prejudiced against women."

"You're prejudiced when they are trying to prove that they can do as much as you men can do rather than snuggling up into your arms and lapping up every word you speak," Cassie retorted, wrinkling her nose in defiance.

"Do you have a proglem with being snuggled by men?" Gage answered quickly, his brown eyes narrowing smugly.

"I do not mind if they don't expect that is all women can do," Cassie sighed, leaning back to face the road again.

"Well-" Gage started with a comeback, but Roy cleared his throat to cut him off.

"Why don't we call that one even and go to neutral corners for a while," DeSoto said to them.

Gage gave a huff and crossed his arms. Cassie rolled her eyes and scowled. Not a sound was heard from either one of them until the alarm went off on the radio.

"Squad 51, man stuck. 155 Beachmont Ave," the dispatcher relayed.

Gage reached forward to the radio and replied, "Squad 51 responding."

Cassie watched as DeSoto flipped on the sirens and accelerated towards Beachmont Avenue.

Within minutes they arrived on scene, which was a sleazy, little donut shop.

The squad's tires squealed as it came to a stop and Cassie, Gage and DeSoto all exited the truck. The two paramedics grabbed their equipment and headed inside, Cassie following close behind them.

"Fire Department!" Gage called out as they entered the shop, which appeared to be empty.

"Back here!" a male voice replied from the kitchen.

DeSoto, Gage adn Cassie trooped into the kitchen and looked about. Cassie almost could not contain her laughter when she saw a man with his arm stuck in a large dough-mixer.

Gage was the first to step forward and examine the man.

"Hey, what's your name?" Gage inquired.

"Harvey Cromwell," said the man, who looked to be in his early fifties.

"Are you in a great deal of pain, Harvey?" he asked gently, looking into the mixer.

"No, I'm just stuck. I was mixing some dough for tomorrow's sales and I reached over to turn the switch off and somehow my wedding ring clipped off and fell in there. You see, I've been losing a lot of weight since my wife wants to go to the Bahamas for our 25th anniversary. And I guess I lose a lot more fat in my fingers than I expected," the man said, looking completely flustered.

"But how'd you get your hand jammed behind that mixing tongs?" Gage asked, looking completely discombulated as he stared into the mixer.

"Well, I reached my hand down as quick as I could to grab the ring before it got mixed into the dough. The mixing tong ran over the part of the bowl where my hand was and it jammed. It hurt at first, but it didn't try to move anymore after my hand got caught. I reached over and turned the switch off after that happened, though. Anyway, I was luck I have a phone on the wall right next to the mixer. Otherwise, I would have been stuck here until my customers came in the morning!" Harvey told Gage.

"Sir, why didn't you just turn the machine off, then grab your ring?" Gage questioned.

The man's face went deadpan, then his cheeks reddened, "I guess it didn't occur to me. People do funny things in desperation."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Gage chuckled, glancing over at Cassie.

Cassie felt a feminism tirade coming on, but she got a warning glance from DeSoto. She bit her lip and settled on glaring icily at Gage.

"Do these tongs have a release switch on them?" Gage asked, his mind quickly going back to his job.

"Yeah, it's on the back. I would have released them myself, but I couldn't reach," Harvey replied, pointing towards the back of the mixing machine.

Gage twisted around and strained to hit the release switch, the prongs soon coming loose. Gage popped the prongs off their ports and tenderly pulled Harvey's hand out of the mixer and examined it.

"Well, Mr. Cromwell, it looks like you don't have any broken bones. It might bruise a bit, but if you get any serious pains, I want you to contact your doctor, all right?" Gage said handing a towel to Harvey to wipe the dough off his hands.

"I will. Thanks guys, I really appreciate it," Harvey responded, standing up and putting the prongs back into their ports.

"Glad we could help," Gage answered, walking back out of the kitchen.

Once outside, Cassie couldn't contain herself.

"All right, DeSoto, you told me not to mention anything about what I think is stupid in front of a victim. But I'm not in that fool's presence anymore. He would have never gotten himself stuck if he weren't an idiot!" Cassie cried out, waving her hands around for emphasis.

"You don't know that," Gage said as he slipped the drug box into the squad's back compartments.

"Things happen, Cassie. That could have been a male or female and still have happened. It wasn't his fault. Sometimes people do things without thinking," DeSoto added.

"I bet if someone compared men and women's awareness of the obvious, men would lose by a long-shot!" Cassie said as she slid into the squad's cab between Gage and DeSoto.

"Will you cool it? Can't we hear a friendly word or a kind comment? I'd much rather you say something like, 'Gee, I'm glad that man's hand wasn't broken,'" Gage asked after he told the dispatcher Squad 51 was once again available.

"How completely sexist of you," snorted Cassie, "I forgot that if I'm a girl that I should be tender and sweet all the time."

"You know," DeSoto suddenly said, "We firemen aren't as rough as you think we are. All this time you've been saying that women can be as strong and tough as firemen. To be a fireman, you have to have some gentleness within your spirit. It's part of any fireman's character to be kind and tender."

"I don't see how that would apply to your job description," Cassie replied with a roll of her eyes.

"Maybe I can't explain it to you now, but hopefully before the week is out, you'll know what I'm talking about," DeSoto stated.

Cassie went over his words in her mind, but she couldn't think of how the firemen would use gentleness in their job.

"Engine 51, Squad 51, Engine 10, Engine 116, Structure fire. 161 West Bellview St." the dispatcher suddenly said over the radio.

Gage plucked up the radio and replied, "Squad 51."

Gage's eyes glanced over at Cassie and he muttered, "Looks like you get to see your first fire, Fireman Roland."


A/N: You reviewers have some very interesting points that I did not think of. I realize now that I was being selfish about the 'I'll stop writing' bit. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to come off as a person who is saying, 'You guys are reading, not responding, so I'm going to punish you by not updating.'

Haha, yes the stove...I came to the realization that a stove could not crush one's legs so bad that it would kill the person. I'll be more careful from now on.

The Jaw of Life is a big mistake. I'm very sorry about that, I meant the port-a-power and I'll fix that asap! Thanks for letting me know!

I don't completely agree with Dixie myself either ;) But I needed someone to be the one to be the female that calls Cassie back to the other point of view. In the episode 'Women,' Dixie states that all the men around the fire station and hospital were superior to her and she loved it, so I attempted to take that side of her and try to reason with Cassie. As for her being in a fire...you read my mind. That might possibly be in her future :D

Kelmin: You are right about firefighting taking all kinds. And I believe some women are able to be firefighters. On my authors note below my 2nd chapter, I write a paragraph about what I truly believe. I don't wholeheartedly agree with any of my characters except for maybe Roy. Dixie is too non-feminist, Gage is too anti-feminist, and Cassie is too libbest. Roy seems to understand where Cassie's views are coming from and he doesn't really care what she talks about, as long as it doesn't interfer.

And about Dixie. You're right, I believe they mentioned that she was in Korea in the Wedsworth-Townsend Act. As for this story, I'm not going to delve into that 'sometimes libbest' that came out of her.

As for volunteering, Cassie might look into it, but overall my goal is to somehow have mutual understand between all of them.

Thanks for reviewing everyone! I have a quick question for my readers though. I've been contemplating this as a subplot, but I'm not sure. How would everyone feel if I threw some romance into the story between Johnny and Cassie. Of course, it wouldn't be anytime soon. I was thinking maybe their arguing could slowly change into attraction. Should I through this idea in the trash, or go ahead with it? I really take your suggestions very seriously, and I'm so grateful to all the readers for saying they are excited about the story despite my previous mistakes :)

Kind comments, compliments, and constructive criticism are welcomed!

~Face