AN: Thank you to all the wonderful people who have been reading and reviewing this story! You guys are the best!
-o- FLY AWAY -o-
This was the kind of rescue were so many things could go so terrible wrong that Severide decided that there was no point worrying about any particular one.
He had met Bobby years ago, in a course of sea rescue hosted by the Coast Guard. Bobby had been the pilot assigned to their class, flying them in and out of the rescue drills.
Up until the moment he had met Bobby, Severide had no idea that a chopper could become such a static object in the sky without simply dropping down. He had heard of some of the stunts that rescue pilots pulled on the job, everyone had heard about those stories. Bobby, however, had managed to turn helicopter piloting into nothing short of an art form. When he said the helicopter would remain static, it meant that you could balance a beer bottle on the tip of the bird and not spill a thing.
So, if there was someone that Severide trusted implicitly for what he was about to do, Bobby was the guy.
Everything else was up for grabs.
There was the fact that the hook ladder needed to be perfectly secured on both ends, the chopper and the window edge. The slightest movement on either side and the ladder would become unstable and fall.
The whistling of the wind, at four hundred feet high, was hard enough to be heard over the helicopter's paddles. Standing by the door, Severide watched the ladder in his hands shake and quiver as the strong winds passed it by, both the ones that naturally occurred that high up, plus the ones the hovering helicopter was causing. Even though it as made of steel, Kelly knew that standing on that ladder, under those conditions, would feel like crossing a rope bridge over the Grand Canyon.
He knew that, despite the risk, Herrmann, Smith and Bowman would be up to the task. Dawson was a tough woman, and in any other situation Kelly would put as much faith in her as he did on the rest of the firefighters, but Matt was seriously hurt and Kelly knew how much that would impair her judgment. Still, he had faith in their tough little paramedic.
It was the civilian and Matt who Kelly was most worried about. The first one because he had absolutely no training and no idea of what to expect once he got on that ladder, and Matt because of his condition.
Severide had been there, in that ambulance, when Matt had started seizing after his initial brain injury. Despite the fact that it was something that he had witnessed countless times before, the sight of Matt's eyes rolling inside his head as his muscles started contorting like rubber bands, had been one of the scariest things he could remember seeing. If the same thing happened now, when they were pulling Matt across...
Kelly shook his head and focused on what he could control. Bobby had taken the chopper as close to the building as the paddles would allow him. Looking up, Severide figured that Bobby had probably gone a step beyond that, because he could swear there was less than a foot between the rotor's blades and the building's surface.
Severide quickly tied three ropes and a backboard to the ladder and started pulling. Right in front of him, less than ten feet away, Herrmann was waiting to receive his slowly extending ladder.
"Get us down about two feet," Severide instructed over the headset, seeing that the ladder would be coming too high for Herrmann to secure it to the window.
With surgical precision, Bobby maneuvered the chopper down until the end of the extended ladder hit the window ledge. Herrmann gave him a thumb's up before turning to head back inside.
-o-
Dawson wasted no time releasing the backboard from the ladder and placing it next to Matt. "Smith, give me a hand here," she called out.
Gabriela lost herself in the familiar motions. Waiting for the other man to tilt Matt's body, slipping the hard board underneath him, placing and securing the straps, those were all procedures she had done a thousand times. As long as her hands were busy and she kept her focus on Matt she wouldn't lose her mind second-guessing the sanity of what they were about to do.
As she and Smith got Matt ready for transport, Bowman and Andrew were already on top of the ladder, getting ready to be the first ones across.
They were taking as many precautions as possible, under the circumstances, but to her trained eye, the harness and rope they were securing to themselves still made the whole thing look like a leap of faith, held by nothing but spit and a prayer.
The idea of sending Matt on to that ladder, strapped to a piece of plastic, across an abysm of hundreds of feet, made her stomach twist and burn.
"Dawson, you're next," Herrmann's voice cut through her thoughts. When she looked up, Bowman and Andrew were already inside the helicopter, safe and sound despite the odds her pessimist kept warning her about.
"I'm crossing with Matt," she said, putting her foot down.
One look at Herrmann's soot-covered face, however, told her that this was a battle that she could not win.
"You know I can't do that, Dawson," he said, the empathy in his voice telling her that he was being truly honest. "Smith will get you across and I'll make sure that the lieutenant gets to you safe and sound, okay?"
Dawson nodded, her face pale with worry and fear. Deep inside, she knew Herrmann was right. If anything went wrong while pulling Matt across, he would be better suited to handle the situation. Her gut, however, also told her that if anything were to go wrong, there wouldn't be much Herrmann would be able to do, even though he would try to the end. And she would be helpless, watching as both her lover and a good friend fell to their deaths.
Gabby gave Matt a quick kiss on the lips, telling herself that this wasn't goodbye. "See ya on the other side," she said with a faint smile that was too weak to hide the glint of tears in her eyes.
-o-
Herrmann was praying under his breath as he watched Dawson and Smith make their way into the chopper. So far everything was going textbook prefect, which meant that his legendary bad luck should be striking any minute now.
Taking no risks, Herrmann made sure that all the straps were secure and in place before placing the oxygen tank between Casey's legs. The lieutenant's breathing had gained a shallow quality about it that was ringing alarm bells in his gut. "Okay, pull him in," he spoke into the radio, giving Severide a thumb's up.
The backboard started sliding effortlessly across the ladder, their sizes made completely compatible precisely because of these situations.
The hard board, however, wasn't strapped to the ladder in any form or else they would not be able to move it.
Herrmann was mostly worried about the wind. From where he was standing, near the edge of the window with his feet planted on top of the ladder, the wind was strong enough to almost push him back inside the office. Less than a foot away from him, there was also the helicopter's blades tunnel wind to consider, adding to his concern.
He kept his eyes glued to the backboard's slow progress, looking for any sign of it flipping up and being dislodged from the ladder by a gush of wind.
So, when the backboard actually started to move, it took Herrmann a couple of seconds to realize that the culprit for the sudden and dangerous motion wasn't the wind at all but Casey himself.
"Stop! He's seizing!" he yelled over the radio, even though it was clear to see from the look of panic in Severide's eyes that he was already aware of the fact.
With one last look to make sure that ladder's hooks were well secured, Herrmann wasted no more time. He started making his way towards Casey, eyes focused on the man rather than on the floor, hundreds of feet below.
The sound of the hard plastic of the backboard banging against the metal ladder became Herrmann's sole focus. He had to make that noise stop; he had to make sure that Casey stopped moving so that Severide could pull him in the rest of the way.
The helicopter was so close, like a giant carrot waiting to take them to safety.
Without any meds on his gear, Herrmann did the only thing he could when he reached Casey. He threw himself over the other man, his hands and boots serving as anchors to keep the both of them on that ladder. "Now would be a really good time for you to stop doing this, lieutenant," he grinded through his teeth.
The seizure went on for what it felt like forever. Despite all of his heavy gear, Herrmann could still feel the lieutenant's muscles underneath his body, alternating between being tense as rock and limp as noodles.
"Chris!"
Herrmann looked up, his jaw hanging open as he saw Dawson standing right in front of him. How on earth had she convinced Severide to let her out of the chopper again? "Dawson? What the hell!?"
The paramedic, holding on precariously to the ladder with one hand, held a loaded syringe in the other. "Midazolam. Jam it right in his tight," she instructed, too far to be able to do it helself.
Herrmann took the auto-injector and, going by touch, did as she told, instinctively trusting her judgment in all medical matters.
At first, nothing happened. He risked a glance down, wondering if he had missed the lieutenant's leg altogether or if maybe the clothes Casey was wearing were too thick and the needle hadn't reached skin at all...
"Give it a few seconds," Dawson said, guessing the doubts in his look. Even holding on for dear life in a metal ladder hundreds of feet from the ground, watching as her boyfriend seized, she was in her element, her comfort zone.
As soon as she had spoken those words, Herrmann could feel the beginnings of some change in Casey's convulsing body. The big, sudden movements became smaller and smaller until all he could feel coming from the body underneath him were some fine tremors.
"Let's get him out of here," he said, meeting Dawson's determined stare.