OTP Competition Round 4: Firefighter AU

AU 100 Points Competition: In my free time I teach kids how to bake something for their parents and I can't help but see how especially your child adores you AU -

Katie hated going home nowadays. At age 26, with a solid internship at the local hospital and a stable lifestyle, albeit a single one, any sane person would have respected her for being so well-off. However, her mum was not a sane person. Going home meant hour long conversations about her lack of a significant other, how little time she had left before her age would start to show, and how her ovaries were going to shrivel up before she even thought of having children.

So, no, Katie did not like going home. Perhaps that's why, when attending church one Sunday morning, the advertisement caught her eye.

Looking for a job? Love baking? Love children? Apply now for our weekly Children Bake Sessions, on Sunday's at 2! Baking experience preferred, but anyone is welcome!

Katie had baking experience. Well, she made a ridiculous amount of biscuits around the holidays, and her friends always loved it when she baked for them. And baking with children sounded like fun. It wouldn't be that bad, would it? And it would give her an excuse to be busier on Sunday afternoons.

With the thought of avoiding conversations about her shriveled ovaries, Katie made sure to pick up an application on the way out.

"Miss Bell, these biscuits are delicious! Wherever did you learn to bake like this?" Ms. McGonagall said as she tasted the sweets. Part of the application process had been a baking interview, which had simply been Katie baking cookies while she and Ms. McGonagall chatted. They were simple chocolate chip cookies, but Katie had added a little cinnamon for some spice.

"Oh, I've always loved to bake. My mum taught me when I was little. I've just been trying things ever since and seeing how people react. It's a good relaxer after a long day at the hospital."

"Ah, yes, your internship there! Well, talented and smart. How are you not married yet?" Ms. McGonagall said with surprise.

Katie blushed. "Well, I guess I've never really gotten around to that part of life. Maybe someday, though."

Ms. McGonagall smiled sadly. "It'll happen without you even realizing it. Trust me, dear, falling in love is the easy part." She took another biscuit, smiling wider as she bit into the sweet treat. "Now, I think it's safe to say you're hired. I'll have to talk to the head pastor about it, but you're the one I want in the job, and Albus really doesn't know how to say no to me. He's just an old softie, despite his clever little sermons."

Katie laughed as the tall woman led her towards the pastor's office to work out the details. She couldn't wait to start the next Sunday.

She'd taken the job a month ago, and it turned out that baking with young children was difficult. But even so, the kids were so adorable most of the time that Katie didn't mind the hard work. Especially when she got to work with one child, Robby Wood. He was the sweetest kid in her class, and she wished she could play favorites and tell him so.

Today, they were baking gingerbread men, since Christmas was coming up in two weeks. Katie walked around the class, helping here and there as they shaped the men and used cutters to make shapes. She stopped by Robby as she noticed him meticulously trying to attach something to his gingerbread man's hand.

"Robby, what's that you're trying to make?" She bent down to look closer. He'd added a little hat to the gingerbread man, but she couldn't tell what exactly it was, since the eight year old wasn't the best artist yet.

"I'm making a firefighter like my dad. But I just can't get the axe right," he said, frowning down at the gingerbread.

"Well," Katie said, glancing around her cookie cutters. "What if we cut a triangle and rectangle and shaped them together like this?" she said, cutting the gingerbread to make a simple axe and pressing them together. She held the little axe she had made up to the little man. "There you go. Now your gingerbread is a firefighter, just like your dad!"

Robby grinned. "Thanks Miss Katie! He's gonna love it!"

Katie smiled. "Do you want to make a cookie for your mum as well? I have some extra dough up front."

Robby's smile dropped. "I don't have a mum. I never had a mum. Just a dad."

Katie's heart sank. She'd noticed that Robby was always picked up by his dad, but she hadn't realized that his mum wasn't in the picture. She hated seeing his face look so sad. "Well... you know, your mum could really be anyone. You could make a cookie for a mother-like figure, such as your grandma, or a nice neighbor, or an aunt. It doesn't have to be your birth mum. Think of who you would want to be your mum if you could choose, and make a cookie for her! Does that sound like a good idea?"

The smile was back. "I like that idea, Miss Katie! I know exactly who I want to make a cookie for!" he said, and Katie laughed as she went to go grab him extra dough.

"Here you go, Robby. Get to work! We've only got another hour and the cookies still need to bake!" She left him to his cookie making and went to go check on the other kids.

After an hour, the cookies had been baked and the parents were all gathered outside the kitchen door, laughing and smiling as their kids went to show them the beautiful cookies they'd made. Katie smiled as she saw Robby run over to his dad with the two cookies on his plate, then she turned back to washing the dishes as the room cleared.

A few seconds later, after she thought the room had cleared, she felt a tap on her elbow. "Miss Katie?"

She turned around, and there stood Robby holding the other cookie, his dad hanging back a few paces and watching his son with a smile. Robby pushed the plate with the mum cookie on it towards her. "I thought about it, and if I could choose my own mummy, I'd want it to be you. So I made you the cookie! Please like it," Robby said uncertainly as he saw the look of shock on Katie's face.

"I-Robby, I- Robby, thank you! I love it! That's the sweetest thing a boy's done for me, you know."

Robby blushed. "Miss Katie, this is my dad. Daddy, this is Miss Katie!"

Katie smiled as Mr. Wood came forwards. "Please, call me Katie."

"I'm Oliver Wood. It's nice to meet you, Katie. Robby's told me a lot about you. He loves your class."

"And I love having him in class," Katie said, smiling. Robby's dad wasn't that much older than she, and now that she knew Robby's mum wasn't in the picture, she was insanely curious how someone who could only be 27 or 28 already had an eight year old child. But it wasn't appropriate to ask that.

"Robby, should we say goodbye? You've got football practice," Oliver said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder and smiling at Katie. "It was nice to meet you, Katie. We'll see you next week."

Katie smiled. "You too, Oliver. Robby, thank you again for the cookie. I appreciate it."

As they left the room, Katie turned back to the dishes, finally allowing herself to blush and smile as much as she'd wanted to during that talk. She couldn't wait for the next Sunday so she could see Oliver and Robby again.

"Bell, what bee's gotten into your brain this week? That's the third time you've washed your hands in the past five minutes, and you've barely touched anything. Where's your head?" Angelina Johnson asked as she watched her friend absentmindedly wander around the lounge. They were both on a fifteen minute break and Angelina had been talking about the date she'd gone on the night before, but Katie wasn't even paying attention to what her friend was saying.

She'd been thinking about a certain Oliver Wood.

"I'm sorry, Angie. I've just been thinking and thinking. I'll pay attention, I swear."

"Nah, it's alright. It's not important anyways, the date wasn't good enough for a second one. What's on your mind?"

Katie smiled. "I met someone. Sort of. But he has a son, and I'm not even sure he'd like me, and..."

"Oh my god, Katie, don't tell me you're becoming a home wrecker!"

"NO! Ange, the mother isn't in the picture. I mean, I don't know what happened, but he's so sweet. His son adores him. He's in the baking class I teach on Sunday's, you see. And last week, he made a cookie for his dad and spent half an hour trying to tell me how much he wanted to be a firefighter like his dad. And Oliver adores Robby as much as Robby adores Oliver. You can just see it. I'm not sure a third person would be invited into that kind of family, you know?"

Angie nodded, sitting up off the couch and grabbing her shoes. "Well, it's certainly something to think about. Next break, we're discussing this more. For now, though, I think there's an ambulance on it's way! Let's go meet it!"

Katie smiled and grabbed her stethoscope, slinging it back around her neck. "Fine. But wait to be paged first!"

Angie grinned and winked. "And miss out on the action? No chance!"

It was almost midnight, and Katie was exhausted. But it was Friday, and after the night shift she only had one more day shift before her break. She only had to make it through another hour before she could go home, assuming nothing major happened and she got stuck here. It had happened before. But for now, the ER was pretty quiet, and the patients were all satisfied.

"Katie, there's an ambulance on it's way in. And I want you to meet it tonight," Dr. Pomfrey said as she stuck her head out of her office.

"Me?" Katie hadn't ever been the first to meet the ambulance. It wasn't difficult, but usually one of the more experienced nurses was first call.

"Yes, you. How else are you to get the experience? The paramedics called and said there's possible spinal injury and the patient is unconscious. They'll tell you more when they get here. Just get outside and get ready to work!"

Katie nodded and ran out the door towards the ambulance bay.

She could see the ambulance lights coming towards her. She wondered what had happened this time - probably a drunk driver or some sort of home fight involving substances, since that seemed to be everything she saw after ten at night. But she wasn't expecting to see the firetruck following the ambulance.

"Oh, no," she breathed, worry creasing her brow. Fire trucks only came to the hospital if there was a fire or an injured firefighter. And there was no fire tonight.

She sprang into action the moment they pulled into the drive, already preparing herself for the worst. Burns could be ugly and nasty to treat. Hopefully they wouldn't have to do a skin graft.

"Nurse-"

"Bell. Nurse Bell. What's happened?" she demanded as they went to remove the person from the back of the ambulance. There was a mess of brown hair from what she could see, but the stretcher was still above her eye level.

"Firefighter got hit in the head/shoulder area with debris when the building began to collapse. Probably smoke inhalation issues as well. He didn't have his gas mask on the entire time," the paramedic said, and Katie moved out of the way as they brought the stretcher down. "We've got him on oxygen..."

But Katie was tuning him out as shock and horror filled her body.

She knew that face. She'd last seen that face grinning at a small boy handing her a cookie.

"We've got a kid and his mum on the way too with some minor smoke inhalation, but they're pretty much ok, just need to be checked out for minor things. They called a cabbie. Nurse, you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she muttered, pulling herself together. She checked Oliver's pulse as she rushed the stretcher down the hall. It wasn't as strong as she'd like it to be, but it was strong enough. She was more worried about all the blood on his head.

"Alicia, get me a room ready ASAP!" she called down the hall to the other nurse on duty, who got up and ran into a room on the left of the hall. Katie followed.

"Nurse, is he gonna be ok?" a voice behind her asked, and she realized one of the other firefighters had been following the entire time.

"I can't make any promises," she started, her voice shaking a bit as she realized that when she said that, she really couldn't make any promises. "But I can tell you that I'm going to do everything I can to make sure Oliver gets through this."

She turned away before she could see the confused look on the other firefighter's face, and then she and the paramedic were moving Oliver onto the hospital bed and Alicia was setting up the vitals as Katie got the iv ready.

It was half past two in the morning, and Katie was so tired she felt awake. Her shift had ended two hours ago, but she'd been so busy treating Oliver's wounds that she hadn't even noticed. Alicia was doing paperwork now that they'd stabilized him, and Katie knew she could go home, but she kept staring at the room from her desk, unwilling to leave.

"You called him Oliver, you know," she heard someone say, and she looked up to find that same firefighter standing there. He was burly and ginger-haired, and he looked at her quizzically. "I'm Charlie Weasley. And you're Katie Bell, aren't you?"

"Sorry? Do I know you?"

Charlie grinned. "It is you! I thought it might be when you called him Oliver, but I wasn't sure. You're Robby's cooking teacher."

Katie nodded. "Yea, I teach cooking class on the weekends. How did you know that, though?"

"Oliver's been going on about you for a month. I've never seen him so interested in a girl before. Even with Andrea he wasn't that observant."

"Andrea?"

"Oh, that's Robby's mum. She left him and never looked back. Good riddance, honestly. They weren't right for each other in the first place, and honestly, as much as I love Robby, he was a mistake that didn't make the situation better. Well, in a way it did. It got Andrea to leave, cuz Oliver sure wasn't going to," Charlie said, then frowned. "You know, I really don't know why I'm telling you all this. He should be telling you. But you're just so easy to talk to. I don't get why he finds it so difficult."

Katie smiled. "Speaking of Robby, where is he? Is he waiting for his dad to come home? He's welcome to come here if he'd feel better knowing his dad is okay. I can help watch him."

"You've got enough on your hands, Katie," Charlie said uncertainly. "And he's actually here now. He's in the room with Oliver."

Katie blushed. How had she missed her favorite student coming in to the hospital? She'd probably been checkin in on one of the other patients.

"I'm actually clocking out, so I can keep an eye on him. I wasn't going to go home anyways. My next shift starts at 7 and the tube is closed. I'll keep him entertained."

Charlie nodded. "Thanks. I'm sure Oliver will appreciate it. I'll be back in a few hours to bring some things if that's alright?"

"Yea, that's fine." They went in their opposite directions, Charlie towards the exit and Katie towards the very door she'd been staring at all evening.

"Robby?" The little boy was curled in a chair when Katie walked in. He was half asleep, but he sat up groggily when she entered.

"Miss Katie!" he whimpered, slipping out of the chair and running to give her a hug. He jumped into her arms and she hugged him tight, sitting down in the chair with him on her lap. There were tear tracks on his cheeks, and Katie's heart went out to him.

"Robby, it's going to be okay. Your dad's going to be fine. The burns are minor, and though he's going to be really sore for the next month or so, he's going to get better. He's only asleep right now because we want him to be asleep so he can heal."

Robby simply curled up tighter and snuggled closer. The two of them drifted off in the chair, lulled to sleep by the quiet beeps and the sound of Oliver's breathing.

Katie was woken up by coughing. Quickly she slipped the sleeping Robby off her lap and stood up, crossing to Oliver's side in two short steps. He was coughing in his sleep, and she adjusted his bed to sit him up.

Her watch said it was 5:30. She'd been asleep for almost three hours. Peeking her head out the door, she saw Angie sitting at her desk flirting with another red headed man.

"Ange?"

"Katie! What are you still doing here?" Angelina jumped out of her seat and hurried over to her friend. "Wait, have you been in there the whole time? What were you thinking?! I thought you were going to go home!"

"You're Katie Bell, aren't you? The Katie Bell? Charlie told me you'd be here. Oliver won't shut up about you!"

"Who are you?"

"George Weasley. I'm Charlie's brother. He took me along so he could go straight from here to work. Oliver's a family friend, though. So where's Robby?"

"Asleep in Oliver's room," Katie said, pulling her hair back into a neater ponytail. "If you'd like to follow me, I'm about to go check on them both. Might as well since I'm up, right?"

Angelina shrugged. "I'll go start the other rounds. Page me if you need anything."

Oliver was awake when they walked in, and Katie was filled with relief and anger that he seemed to be fine.

"Katie?"

"Hello, Oliver! So I've got you on an IV drip with a light dose of morphine in it, and your arm is in a sling, which is to stay on for at least another two weeks, because you've dislocated your shoulder. You also have a concussion, but we've got you scheduled for an MRI later on. And-"

"Sorry, George, do you think you could take Robby to go get some food? He's getting restless."

"On it, Wood. Come on, little man!" Before she could blink, the only defense she had was gone.

"Katie?"

"Is there anywhere else in pain that you might want to mention?"

"Katie, Robby told me you slept in here."

She blushed. "Well, someone needed to look after him, and the tube was closed by the time I got off work."

"Oh. Well, Charlie said you seemed worried when I came in," he prompted, and she glared at him.

"Of course I was worried! You're a single parent, Oliver! Robby's only eight, who's going to look after him! And you go and get into an accident because you weren't wearing your helmet or your gas mask! Why?" she demanded, slamming her pen down on her clipboard.

"Well, I went back in to get a kid. And he didn't have anything. You know, I think he was about Robby's age. Probably 8 or 9, and screaming of his mum, but she was stuck outside and couldn't get to him. And I just thought that if Robby was in that situation, I'd want whoever rescued him to make sure he got out all right. So I gave him my helmet and gas mask and got him out alright. It was really that simple of a decision."

Katie stopped. "You're such an idiot!"

"What?"

"If you held the kid against your chest and bent over at a small angle, anything that fell would have hit you. And then you would have been protected by the helmet. It was simple physics!"

"Well, excuse me for not remembering my physics lessons in the midst of rescuing someone from a burning building!"

She smiled weakly, exhaustion catching up to her.

"Hey, you look really tired. Come sit down for a second. Please?" he added when he saw her hesitation.

"I'm technically not supposed to do this when I'm on duty..."

"Are you on duty?"

She glanced at her watch. 6:07. "Technically not."

"Good. Because I'm pretty sure patients asking out their nurses isn't okay with your boss either, huh?"

Katie raised an eyebrow. "Are you asking me out? On a date?"

"Yea, I figured it's only fitting I say thanks for saving me."

Katie grinned. "Well, in that case, I guess it's only fitting for me to accept."

"Where can I take you?"

"Why don't I make you dinner? Because you shouldn't be driving with a dislocated shoulder. At least not for a while."

"But nurse! When am I supposed to take you out if you're the one who ends up doing the work?"

"I don't know. Figure something out, Oliver," she teased, getting up and heading towards the door.

"Wait, Katie, come here," he said, reaching out with his good arm.

"Yea?" she said, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her in, kissing her quickly on the lips.

"Thanks for saving me," he whispered, and she blushed, before smiling and pressing her lips back to his just as fast.

"I'll see you around, Wood," she whispered back, then went outside to tell Angelina what had happened.

As she walked out, she realized that Minerva McGonagall was right. It was easy to fall in love.