Title: Helpless – Pt. 4

By: FanofRandy

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The men below heard more than saw John's tumble. He had managed to catch himself after missing about four steps. "Johnny, are you okay." Mike yelled as he began to run up the steps to check on his crewmate.

Roy and the others had heard Mike's call and were out of the bay in moments. They all gathered at the bottom of the hose tower as Roy followed Mike's lead, taking the steps two at a time. When they reached their friend, he had already pulled himself up and was sitting shaking his head back and forth.

"Johnny, are you okay?" Roy repeated Mike's earlier question as he moved past the Engineer to check on his Partner.

"Yeah, m' okay…I just lost my footing for a minute is all. I caught myself." John sounded more disgusted with himself than anything. Roy and Mike could both see the tear in John's pants and the blood seeping from a cut on his knee.

"Well, you didn't do a very good job...of catching yourself, I mean." Mike joked, but thought better of it when he saw the look John flashed him. "Sorry, man." Mike said soberly.

Roy began his assessment, "Were you dizzy, Johnny? What made you lose your balance?" Roy's worry was apparent in his questions and his tone of voice.

"I just took a misstep. That's all Roy. Let's go to Rampart and get it checked out." John said as he got up to make his way to the Squad.

Both Mike and Roy looked at John, then at each other, and back to John. "What?" John exclaimed. "You know Cap is gonna make me go anyway. I might as well just keep him from the trouble of ordering me to, huh?" He reasoned with his coworkers.

Roy and Mike reached out to help John down the stairs, but he brushed away their hands and moved carefully down on his own. The two men followed behind him, again looking at each other and wondering what had gotten into John Gage. It was certainly NOT like him to be the one to say he needed to go to Rampart.

"What happened there, Pal?" Cap asked as John exited the hose tower door. He walked over to the young man and put a hand on his shoulder and glanced down at the leg he was now favoring as he walked toward the station.

"Just lost my footing is all, Cap. It's okay, really. Roy's gonna take me to Rampart to get it checked out. I'm sure it's nothing…just a scrape." John admitted to his superior.

"Let me get this straight, John. You are willingly going to Rampart, without me having to TELL you to go?" Cap clarified.

John just shook his head. "Cap, you would have ordered me to anyway, right?"

"Well, yeah, I would've. Right, you and Roy go to Rampart so they can check you out, Pal." Cap said with a ring of authority and a subtle hint of confusion. He gave Roy a sideways glance as he exited the tower with Mike. Roy just shrugged his shoulders and followed his Partner to the Squad.

"We'll be back as soon as we can, Cap." Roy called behind him.

"I will stand the Squad down for the next hour, until you let me know how he is." Cap called back.

John limped into the bay and shot Chet a look that said, "NOT NOW" and Chet 'heard' it loud and clear. He nodded to John as he passed and said, "Hope you're okay, Gage." As he handed him a towel to apply to the wound until he arrived at the hospital.

"'M fine, Chet. Just a scratch is all." John reassured Chet as he passed and accepted the offer of the towel. He settled into the passenger seat of the Squad and waited for Roy. He took a deep breath as he recalled the memory that had caused him to lose his footing as he applied pressure to the wound on his knee.

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Rampart was busy when they arrived. Nurse Carol assigned John to Treatment Room 4 and told him that she would try to find him a doctor. "Uh, not Morton, huh?" He called behind her as she walked out of the room. She glanced back and gave him a slight smile and looked at Roy. Roy nodded and she left.

"What do you have against Morton?" Roy asked John after Carol had left the room.

"Uh, nothin'. I'd just rather have Bracket is all." John answered carefully. Roy knew that his Partner and Morton were not on the best of terms, but in their work, they had to respect all doctors and their skills—even the residents. Mike Morton made up for his lack of bedside manner in his ability and knowledge. But, John would need someone with working knowledge of "Gage" today.

Just then, the door opened and Brackett stepped into the room. His brow furrowed when he saw John sitting on the exam table. "What did you get yourself into now, hose-jockey?" He teased as he walked toward his patient.

"Just missed a couple stairs and took a bit of a tumble is all, Doc." John explained. Brackett looked to the other paramedic, thinking there was more to the story. Roy merely nodded and shrugged his shoulders.

Brackett pulled the towel away from the wound and John flinched slightly. The bleeding had already abated and the wound was fairly minor. "I don't think it will need any stitches, Johnny. And, there doesn't appear to be a lot of swelling to indicate anything broken. Did you hear anything break or crack?" He asked.

"No, nothing like that, Doc. Just missed a couple steps when I lost my footing and came down on my knee…no big deal, but Cap made me come get checked out." John said as he glanced at Roy. He wondered if Roy would contradict his story since John had been more than willing to come to the hospital before Cap told him to. Roy made eye contact with John and tilted his head as if to question him, but John looked away quickly.

"Okay, Johnny, I'm gonna have Carol come back in here and wash this up really good and apply a sterile dressing. When was your last tetanus shot?"

"Uh." John paused as he remembered a man who worked at a nursery Roy and he responded to that had fallen ill with tetanus. The guy had been pretty bad off, but he lived. "I can't remember."

"Well, while Carol is in here cleaning this up, I will go check your records. If I can't find that you have had one in the last few years, then I will give you one before you leave just as a , we will also give you a shot of antibiotics just to be safe." Brackett told John as he began to walk out the door.

"Hey, Doc." John called after him, "Can I talk with ya' a minute before you go?" His eyes diverted to Roy, "Uh, Roy, can you give us a minute, please?" Roy looked at his Partner curiously, but obliged. He stepped out into the hall as Brackett turned his attention back to John.

"What is it, Johnny?" Brackett asked in a concerned tone. He had never known John to dismiss Roy from any discussion of his health concerns before.

"Well, Doc. I—I—well, I haven't been sleeping well since that rescue…you know, the one with the kids in the storm drain." John confessed to the doctor before him.

"Johnny, by my understanding the kids were fine. They were released yesterday. They had no injuries and no ill effects from the gas they inhaled. What's got you bugged?" Brackett inquired.

John looked the doctor in the eyes and took a deep breath and shared, "I don't know for sure. I think it has something to do with the car accident when my parent's died. And, you are the only one around here who knows all the details to that time in my life. I haven't even told Roy about all that stuff yet." John spat out. He took a few deep breaths as he was once again overwhelmed with a sense of drowning and helplessness.

"Hey there, now...what is it? Are you having difficulty breathing?" Brackett walked to his patient's side to assess his respirations.

"No. It's been happening since the rescue. Roy passed me the kid that was unconscious and I put my mask on his face to get him some air…well, when I turned to get out of there, I got hit by this rush of water that took me under. I tried to keep the kid up, but I went under a couple times. Roy came to get the kid and I made my way to the ladder. But, then I lost my footing again. I swallowed some water and I felt like I was gonna drown. I got outta there okay, but I just had this sense of déjà vu—like I had almost drowned before. Today, on the hose tower, I had this flash of going under water just before I fell, but it wasn't the other night, it was when I was 12. I feel like I'm goin' crazy, Doc." John summed up his story.

Brackett shook his head and gave John a smirk. "I've often wondered if you were a little off, Johnny." He joked and was rewarded with a slight grin from his patient. "But, there has to be some explanation. It sounds to me like you are having some kind of flashback or memory recall that was brought on by something that happened during the rescue. Think, Johnny, did anything remind you of the night your parents died?" Brackett inquired.

John had spent a long time trying to put that night behind him. He did not want to think about it all, but it always seemed to be right at the edge of his daily thoughts and permeated his sleep in the form of nightmares. "It WAS raining and, there was this smell, Doc." John admitted.

TBC