The Woman From Grouper Beach

"Is that someone down there on the beach, capt? Must've decided they were safer down there. And they've got a tent." Marco reported, pointing down a very steep incline, part of the trail had collapsed.

"They were right, that section of the beach is certainly big and high enough to stay dry when the tide comes in and still not let anyone on it get burned by this fire. Still, we can't leave them there, nobody can make that climb without assistance now that the trail's collapsed. Better send a chopper...but I expect that can wait until we're done."

"That's a...I think they have a walker. Better tell Central someone with mobility issues got clear on their own but will probably need help getting off that beach."

"They've got a large surf-fishing rig set up, with a big rod, too, sir. I guess whoever that is decided they might as well still try to get some dinner. The person seems to be setting up a firepit, probably for cooking on later."

Several fire fighters watched the fisher's methodical efforts for a bit.

"Well, whoever that is, is both careful and knows what they're doing...and there's plenty of driftwood down there to use."

"That's good. More than can be said for whatever idiot started this blaze." Their captain sighed. "Well, back to it, you guys."

When an assigned chopper was finally sent to overfly the beach, a large sign had been laid out with drift wood. He raised an eyebrow.

No Gage on board? No flying this gal ANYWHERE. I hate flyin' and you know it...even DeSoto can't calm me down enough by himself. Bring Johnny or send both on a LAFD or Forestry/Sea Patrol launch.

Go away, Charlie, 1, 2, 3 or 4...or Billy H. AND Hugh this most certainly does mean you, too. You are not special and you fly like a drunken bat.

"Well, she remembered all the pilots. And she's right about Hugh." Charlie 3 muttered. "LA, I don't think the lady stranded on the beach likes flying, she specifically requested assistance from squad 51 and a Forestry, Sea Patrol or LAFD launch. She's listed all our pilots by callsign, including me, requests our absence...and I need fuel anyway. Whoever it is, she knows us."

"That's certainly odd, very well; 10-4 copter 7, fish and game, sea patrol launch 4 and squad 51 please respond to..."

"There she is. Looks like she's already started supper." Roy chuckled as he and John grounded the forestry's launch they were in and anchored it to the dry part of the beach.

"Nice sized grouper, too. I just hope it's legal because those fish-steaks smell real good , she's made enough for all of us to have seconds and I'm rather hungry." A state game warden sighed and headed up the beach. She saw them coming, got out three more plastic plates and had her fishing license, complete with the salt stamp on it, ready for him. While he looked it over, she filled all the plates. She had hush-puppies frying and several veggies cooking in pots on the fire alongside long-cut grouper fillets, breaded ones.

"We're not in any rush, are we? You three can settle down and have supper with me before we pack me up, can't you?"

Roy's lips twitched as he sat on the sand on one side of her and took the offered plate. "No, no hurry."

Johnny chuckled and sat on her other side. "Beats the tar outta what they're getting at the station." He took eager possession of his supper. "Chet's cooking: Mac and cheese."

"Or my station, for that matter. I'd be glad for the mac and cheese, though." The Game Warden traded her license for the loaded plate with a broad grin. "It's Ghat's turn." He settled in on the other side of the firepit.

For some odd reason, the girl shuddered at those words. Then she said, "You poor bastard: I'd rather eat Stoker's first attempt at white chocolate candy, than Ghat's notion of food. Mike's soap tastes better. Much better, actually, I've had both, so I would know."

Roy stared at her...she looked up into his confused eyes, not understanding at first, but as realization dawned, she looked at him in horror, then she slowly looked up at Gage in dread and got a reassuring nod and a steadying hand run down her back. She relaxed, leaning against him. Her hurt eyes and trembling body were answered with a hug, but John was now glaring at his partner.

"Gage? Why are you angry?"

"Let it go, John. It's not worth having you two at odds. You need each other too much." She told him quietly, causing both the warden and Roy to stare at her.

"Sweetheart..." John had his hand on her cheek by then to make her look at him.

"He'll catch on eventually and then he'll make it right. You know he will. And it will bother him, but we'll get past it. We always do."

He subsided, nodding.

"Eat your suppers, then the warden can get the surf-fishing rigs in, John can pack up the camping gear and Roy can get me set up. I am not going to be able to use the ladder on the launch...so I'll let him do the poking and prodding."

"Miss?" Roy didn't understand her wince or John's scowl at his use of the polite term.

She swallowed hard and just said. "Sprained my knee. I can't use steps with that leg, so any form of ladder...no thanks."

"Which leg?" John asked.

"The one with the clue-bus on the front, he'd only need to look." She was referring to a distinctive scar she had.

He snorted. "Here's hoping it doesn't get that far. It's her right one, Roy."

"Look at the bright side, we don't get to see Roy make this much of an idiot of himself often. We might very well never see it again. At least nobody's gettin' hurt."

"Um, sweetheart, you count too and don't try to tell me he didn't just hurt you, quite badly: I know better. You're not as steady as you want me to think. This whole thing is painful enough to watch."

"Gage?"

"What?"

"Do you know who she is?"

"Yeah. And so do you. You need to get your head outta your ass, Roy."

Roy paused, studied her and...then realized she wasn't meeting his eyes now. In fact, she had her face half-buried in Johnny's chest and had gone around to Gage's other side, hiding from him...and Gage was letting her hide. But the only person who he'd allow to do that if something unthinkable happened and she needed to hide from him was...

"Oh shit. Jane..."

"Finally got it, did you?"

Roy ignored John's remark. "Jane, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"How okay do you think you'd feel if she forgot what you look like?" Gage snapped. "You've only known her since she was six!"

"I know." There was both pain and guilt ladled freely through his voice and posture now, but he was reaching for her with hands that knew her and eyes that saw her now. She hesitated a moment, then almost fell into his arms, finally letting the tears she'd been holding back, out.

The game warden, Ernest Tailor, winced once he realized what was going on. Roy was in rather deep doo-doo. Hell, he knew who she was, now, too. He decided to leave the trio to it, and got her rigs in, instead. It would give them some space. He also noted some really nice tricks she had out that were both legal and ingenious...and took notes. He'd never thought of using catfish 'chicken' bloodbait for grouper...but she'd caught rather a lot of them with it.

Roy had by now gone around to the other side of her to reach for her and had wedged in tightly against her, she gone from trembling to outright shaking now...and not in a good way.

"Baby girl..."

"Changed your mind. Knew you would."

"No, absolutely not, I wouldn't."

He hated having hurt her like that. There were very few things she couldn't just pass off as unimportant, when coming from him or Johnny, but this...this was definitely one of them. She apparently still had very little self-esteem and what she had was still directly tied to their approval. As long as they both still welcomed her, all was right with her world, but tonight...he couldn't have hurt her more if he'd been trying to. He and John were all she had, after all.

He did the only thing he could do and pulled her to him, got her onto his lap, snugged in tight. "I'm so sorry." He told her once he got her tucked under his chin. "Come on up here, come on. That's it, lean back." He coaxed her in close, keeping the girl's right leg free of him and simply started rocking her as she cried.

She'd been willing to mash the painful looking thing against John's hip just to hide from eyes that looked at her without really seeing her. He understood the horror he'd seen in her own, now. All three could see her knee was quite was swollen and red...but she was relaxed now. She'd been correct, Roy had caught on and then he'd made it right. And as usual, she gave no further sign of discomfort. He felt humbled as he had many times before, by how simple her world view was.

"Nice save, Roy. Make her stay there while I tend to this."

"Is this her's?"

John looked up and saw a soft cast, one of the Velcro jobs that strapped on. "Yeah I think it is, that's pretty new and it's one of the ones with a foot rest at the bottom. I bet she just took it off to allow her skin to breathe for a while. Gimmie a second to brush the sand off her skin and I'll get that back on her."

Roy relaxed a moment later, adjusted his grip on the young woman who's head lolled as she let out a low snore and laughed lightly. "She's out." He told the other two, then kissed her hair.

John worked quietly for a little while, "She gonna be touchy for a while after we get her home. Won't let it out at the station, but I pity Kelly." He finally answered. "Soft cast and walker, yeah, time for her to come home where we can keep our eyes on that thing." He sighed, speaking of the leg.

"I know she will and that's my fault."

"You'll fix it. As she said, we'll get past it. We always do."

"I get the stokes we brought, that'll be easiest." Ernest offered.

"Nah, no need. She's got an odd psycho-semantic quirk or two. She's not feeling it now. She stopped hurting the second John touched her, that was all it took. Watch this, easiest thing in the world." Roy shook his head, allowing John to take her weight while he got up, then took her in his arms like a babe and headed for the boat. "She won't even wake up unless we hit rough water. However, she's way underweight."

"No drugs, no stokes...just what? She just wanted a ride?"

"Yep. And she hates the choppers. Has no head at all for heights. Let's get this tent shaken out and back in it's bag, shall we?" John just grinned at him. "She's still a legal residence of 51 because she's still the station mascot..."

"I think she may have already been here fishing before the grass-fire came this direction," John told DeSoto after they packed her stuff up and were back in the boat, headed in. "The beach-grass was pretty flattened, like she'd been here a good while, a few days maybe. I think she walked down the cove trail, but the fire dried it out so much it was unusable to come back up with, even if she were dumb enough to try it after it collapsed, which she's not."

"It's a nice fishing hole, I'll give her that." Tailor agreed. "I let several good rock grouper go, but I did put two medium-sized ones in her cooler for her to take home. That'll give her three, so she's still under her limit. She's got a motion activated aerator in that thing, too. The one we had for supper was huge...the filets are in her ice chest, already in baggies."

"She hasn't budged and she's snoring. Drugs?" Morton asked.

"Who, Jane? Hell no, she's had an unpleasantly emotional afternoon is all. Roy finally got her settled and she went to sleep on him again. Better not let her hear you suggesting something like that. Remember the last time? Want another slap?"

"More like the back of her hand, and no, no really." Morton chuckled.

"So, why did you bring her by?" Joe asked, frowning at her knee.

"Want her right knee checked by you, before we take her back to the station. You are still her doctor, Joe." John handed over the out of state paperwork on that damned knee. "Want to make sure those people knew what was going on and she wasn't just giving them enough of the right noises to be turned loose." He said as Roy removed the support.

Mike Morton snorted and got busy. "She has done that to me a few times, back when I was new and pushy. Well, that certainly doesn't look good."

"Well, the paperwork says she's had it three weeks, but it looks fresher...plus, she's using a walker."

"Yeah, it does. Either she's not wearing the brace enough, she's on it too much or the wrong issue is being treated."

"Which is why we're here." Roy nodded. "We'd like to know which misbehavior or problem we're dealing with."

"Can't put a stop to what we don't know about." John sighed.

As it turned out, it was a bad diagnosis: Joe ordered a hard cast, let her keep the walker and between himself and Morton, got a correct diagnosis going...with a matching treatment.

"Sprain my ass." Mike told his paramedics in disgust. "Try disconnected tendons...and the bastards told her in the discharge notes that it was fine to walk on. Joe's reported that hospital's ER Doctor to the State, the AMA and the Licensing Board, because it's not the first time we've had to sort one of his foul ups...and we've had enough of it. She was actually following directions for a change."

"For all the good it did." Joe was annoyed. "That will support her correctly." He said of the already signature littered cast. "But that bad diagnosis from those idiots is going to make it harder to make her mind me going forward...and take a lot longer for her to heal from this."

"She'll not be happy about being in that for as long a while as she's going to be." John sighed, as he and Roy got her back into their squad and took her home to the station she'd been raised in. "Well, we'll just have find something to keep her occupied."

"Yeah, true, but I'm very glad you checked with me." Early told him soberly, having followed them out.

"So are we." Roy told him soberly.

"Funny how she still sleeps through anything, so long as you two are close by. Wonderful thing, the way she trusts you." He didn't understand Roy's flinch.

The two men forgot it had been four years since she'd lived in-station, acting like she'd never left. Roy had brought a wheel chair with them, had strapped it to the top of the squad which he got down while Johnny woke her up. By this time, Hank had come out and noticed John calling her by name and his eyebrow met his hairline, especially when the cast came out the squad's passenger-side door.

"Gage?"

"What?

"Who...?"

"Jane's home."

"The beach lady?"

"Yep. She was down there already before the fire spread that direction. She'd been there for several days, actually."

"Fishing?"

"Yes, she was. We had a lovely fried fish and vegetable dinner on the beach."

"And I suppose she cooked."

"Oh, yes. She did. Didn't get to finish, though, something came up." Johnny grinned at the disgruntled older man. "Beats anything Kelly might have come up with." Hank stepped aside as Roy got her wheelchair in place.

"Now, the other hospital, according to Joe, was full of it and were treating the wrong thing..." Roy started as soon as she was awake and paying attention. "Since that only aggravated the original issue, you're stuck with that for three or four months." He told her, smiling with sympathy at her expression.

"Walker use is for the kitchen, in and out of bed, the restroom or coming in or out from showering, only." John informed her. "You're going to be in the chair mostly, instead: If you're not on the couch or in bed."

"Johnny..."

"But, you'll get ton of snuggles that way, though."

"True."

Now, Roy will get you settled, while I go kill and clean the rest of your fish, and filet them out. Ernest said he kept two big rock grouper for you, so you're still under your limit...we could feel the back of the squad sagging, too, so he wasn't kidding. The aerator to keep them alive and fresh was a good idea."

"Don't kill'em, Johnny. That's not what the ones in the aerator are for. I bought a place close to your's and put in a huge saltwater tank. I want them for my tank. I've got the steak filets from the rest of the one I cooked on the beach in the ice-chest. It was huge!"

"Grouper filets?" Hank repeated sadly. "Oh man. You two get all the luck. Kelly burned the mac and cheese."

"Well, if you'll call in unavailable for ninety minutes, I'll make a phone call and dinner will be here in fifteen minutes."

"We can do that." Hank grouched. "Who're you going to call?"

"You'll see. It's already arranged, just need to tell them to bring it. I just didn't know which day I'd need them."

"What is?"

"You'll see."

"Golden Corral...I didn't know they catered."

"Now you know. I've also arranged them to cater 51's tent, lunch and supper at the picnic this year. Already paid for in lieu of entry fees, they're bringing the whole buffet, the salad bar, the dessert bar, ice cream and tons of steaks."

"Paid for? Well, no sense wasting money, we accept of course." Stanley's eyes were closed in bliss as he chewed a seriously good bite of sirloin steak.

"Yeah, for the next ten years running."

Chet paused in spooning sweet peas onto his plate to look at her in horror. "You're going to cream me again."

"Oh yeah. Best have someone winning that thing who actually knows what they're doing, right? My main run entries are already in, previewed, approved and entered; anything else is going to be extras...via streaming from the recording cameras."

"Crap."

"We'll have the trophy back, that's for sure." Mike grinned heartlessly at Kelly. "I'm guessing all of Chet's bad luck this year was orchestrated. She never makes fewer than thirty main run entries."

"Eat up, Kelly." She told him. "I have plans for you and you'll need your strength, for attempting to dodge, mostly. Your failed attempts at dodging are always so much fun to watch! I get really, really high points for those because you know you're being hunted. Probably just as well I'm not a real predator, though. You've got no nerves to speak of."

Gage sniggered at Kelly, but didn't say anything as he took another big bite of expertly turned out ribeye steak.

"So, this beats overdone mac and cheese, right Papua?" She asked Hank, who was just finishing off his potato salad, his steak being long gone by then.

"Oh yeah. Steak night? Beats it by miles." The older man agreed, reaching for what he thought were fat baked, baby carrots but turned out to be oven baked and then mashed, rolled and lightly, finely breaded, fried sweet potato fingers...he immediately adored them. "Oh, wow, these are really good."

Stoker was finishing off his heaped main plate with something that had turned out to be a mix of beer-battered, deep fried broccoli heads, mushrooms and brussel sprouts. Then Marco brought the deep-pan peach cobbler from the oven where it had remained warm while John got up to fetch the ice cream.

Twenty-minutes after dessert was over, Stanley placed the station back on active status...and while the full-bellied Chester B. lounged around in the Day-room, Jane in her chair loaded his helmet with a small amount of diluted hair bleach.

"Kelly, what happened to your hair? It seems to have developed white and yellow splotches, shit...you look like a Holstein cow...did you manage to get nailed already?"

"I don't want to discuss it."

Hey, Chet...remember those splotches?"

"Yeah?"

"They've turned pink and green."

"AAARRRGGGHHH!"

"What's going on with Kelly's mustache?"

"Dunno, but the tips to seem to be moving on their own."

"Got blue lights in the ends, too."

"Yep. Wonder how she pulled that off?"

BBBBBBBBBUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHHHHHH!

"Kelly?" Came five immediately inquiries.

"She put a joy buzzer inside the seat of my turnout pants!" He said holding the thing up and panting in outrage.

"Kelly, didn't you say forgot to bring spare boxers?" Mike asked.

"I did." He answered, face flaming. "She got direct contact with my left buttock!"

"Got the reaction in high def on DVD, from the camera feed I've got streaming, goes straight to the entry committee! He got tagged really good that time, too. Shift's over in thirty minutes and now, I've got a couple of days to come up with new ideas."

"You poor bastard, her score this year's going to be massive!" Roy chuckled.

The trio of battalion chiefs sorting through the final main entries for the Annual Practical Joke Awards were laughing so hard they were in tears.

"Wonder what he did to tick her off? A joy buzzer there?" Wheezed one man.

"Who, Kelly?" the Fire Marshal told them. "Not a thing, he's just her favorite target: He's always been her favorite target. She'll have nailed everyone but DeSoto and Gage a couple of times...those are simply opportunities presented to her on a plate, but she goes after Chet like a hungry coyote goes after a fat, crippled bunny...he can't outrun her and she won't leave him with anywhere to hide. Glad she's back home, though. Her entries are always wonderful. She won this thing for eleven years in a row, when she was younger. It's a big fund-raiser and when people find out she's back home..."

They got her in the front door of their house after dropping the new fish in the colorful, artificial reef of the salt tank at her's and leaving food in there for them...and while John brought her stuff in, Roy got her to Gage's bedroom. He'd started for the couch, but she'd insisted. Roy didn't argue, he knew what she wanted. He got her a nightgown and once she'd changed, settled her in the center of their big bed. He took her right side, leaving the left for John.

She'd held off the private stuff until now, but he knew she'd been so vicious with the jokes on Chet because she'd needed the outlet...and couldn't really let go at the station. He could feel her starting now as her body went from shivers to shaking in a few moments...and reeled her in. He got her head settled onto his chest and just held on. He knew she wouldn't say anything about the beach incident, he'd apologized and now there was just her beating herself up to deal with. She'd blame herself for doubting him, he knew that without bothering to ask. That was how her mind worked, anything that went wrong with the three of them, to her, was her fault.

For the millionth time he mentally cussed out her biological parents.

It took him two hours to calm her down before John's presence a few feet from her could help. He could feel it when she finally clicked over and so did Gage, who touched her shoulder.

"My turn." He coaxed. That was easiest.

She rolled over and her head came to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, felt the long arms draw her in tight and sighed, grabbed onto him tightly and then just as she felt Roy's chest against her back...she was asleep.

TBC