Homing 1

She let herself in with her key, through the common room door at around ten in the morning. She could hear the door opening and the bay was bare, but there were no echoes of sirens fading in the distance and a moment later both vehicles were backing into the empty bay.

The 19-year-old let her pack drop on the table, untied her wheeled suitcase from her waist and leaned more completely on her walker, bone tired and her whole body sore. John was going to have a fit when he saw her leaning on this thing. She really didn't want to take another step, to be honest. It would hurt way more getting back up, if she sat down though, so she stayed where she was.

The reaction trembling finally started when she heard the squad doors bang shut and Roy's voice and the tears started as soon as her eyes met Johnny's...mostly because he came through the doorway first.

"Missed you, in so many ways. Johnny, I'm never going camping again without you. It was a complete disaster." She told him, wet tracks making paths through the dust on her grimy face. She was too used to the various issues she had right then to pay the ones that didn't hurt quite as much, much mind, but two pairs of experienced eyes scanned her and found a lot more wrong than either liked. Neither man missed just how heavily she leaned on that walker or the way she stood to keep any sort of pressure off her right leg. John just replaced her mobility aid with himself, by simply scooping her up into his strong arms and took her to the bunk-room...bracing for the storm that clearly needed out. It started halfway across the bay and it was violent but brief. Stress-induced, then, he noted. Extreme stress, he thought, rocking her gently.

The other four had entered quietly behind Roy who'd been almost on Gage's heels. Stoker pointed at the bag he held up as soon as she calmed, sat across John's lap and her face still buried in the side of Gage's neck. "Laundry?"

"Most of it. There's a laptop in there, too, though, Uncle Mike. And scripts...from a dump." She didn't bother moving, her lithe form already starting to relax.

"Scripts." Roy repeated. "Dumpy scripts. Dumpy scripts we were unaware had been issued."

"Skipped the last dose until I find out what Joe wants to do. I need to make an office appointment, I guess. Could be something different. Hope so, those were not exactly effective. I torqued it pretty good and some of the tendons aren't as connected as they should be, if the idiots in the dump were even correct. And then the wrap they put on it at the dump started cutting off my circulation, so...off it came. I really want doctor Joe to look at it, please?"

"Let's get you cleaned up, first." Roy told her, "Then we'll get a better look, so we'll have something to tell him. Which dump?"

"Southside, but that's Frankie's fault."

"Her right knee is huge, hot even through her dress and extremely sensitive to touch: I'm not surprised she isn't putting weight on it." John said quietly. "But, she just needed to cry more than anything. Told you that trip was a bad idea. What does Frankie Ghat have to do with it, though? You were in a different district: How'd you wind up at Ghat's?"

"Yeah." Roy nodded. "There's that...and, aha, look, look...there, down she goes." He grinned watching their girl go limp and drift off to sleep in the security of John's arms. "All right, I'll get wipes and the gear. Sleeping that soundly, she won't notice a thing. Bet Joe will authorize a shot that will keep her out, too. Get it dealt with long before she wakes up."

By the time she did wake up, it was dark and felt late, she was clean, pain-free, her entire leg was in some sort of stiff support, instead of just the knee; plus they had it elevated and although she was tucked between a sleeping Roy and the wall, she smelled like the ER.

Still, they'd clearly already taken her to Joe, so she snuggled in tight against DeSoto's warm bulk, put an arm around his waist and went back to sleep. Once he was sure she was out, he grinned, having woken as soon as she stirred...and went back to sleep himself.

The next morning, Roy shook her awake and helped her get into a clean dress and out into the dayroom since it was change-of-shift, while John stripped both bunks and left the usual stack of clean linens and a fresh blanket on each.

"Oh, poor girl." Charlie crooned, as he came in the door from the parking lot for his shift. "What happened?"

"Stupidity. Not mine, mind you, but I was still attacked by a really nasty case of Stupidity." She grumbled. "That's the last time I go camping without Johnny along, never mind with a Girl Scout tweenie. Idiot claimed experience she didn't actually have and then I found out the hard way that the little twit really, truly and honestly believed that adventures which are dangerous are the best fun and that angry black bear mamas whose cub you just snatched, 'just want to play'."

She heard most of the listeners start swearing at that point.

"John knocked me out with a fast and dirty stress-dump once I got home and I'm guessing they took me in, cuz I smelled like the hospital when I woke up in the wee small hours...and was already tricked out with this thing." She pointed at her soft-cast support. Which means I didn't have a chance to warn either of them about the stitched up bear claw marks...that's when I torqued my knee twisting and dodging. Or the gravel rash because the idiot tried to cross a river with the cub she insisted on 'bear-sitting' and I ended up yanking the cub away and tossing it at his mother...while attempting to get that fool girl to just stop and leave the bears alone."

She looked up at the press of John's slender frame behind her. "At least I was the one who didn't end up with a weather related cold, a bear bite, a poison ivy rash, a citation for permit-less freshwater spearfishing and arrested for molesting wild bears. I don't think she knows how that looks on paperwork. Took my moderate gear, the tent, a decent bedroll and my fishing license stays in my wallet. Did get some really big trout, fished out of a good sized tree once Dia tried to play patty-cake with that bear and I was high enough I could see exactly where to place my lure. Used one I opened up to shut that squalling cub's twin up. It took off with it's free dinner, got pounced on by the other cub and the squalls from resulting fight over the fish led the mother off. I'm so glad you two taught me how to rope climb without using my feet."

He snorted. "Someone was bitten. Lovely."

"Johnny, she tried to pet an enraged she-bear on the nose. She's lucky she didn't lose her arm to the shoulder." Jane protested.

"Oooooh! Yeah, gotta give you that one. Wow, that's stupid."

"Hell, she screamed more because I cut up her best sundress for strips (yes, that was deliberate) to do the best I could with her bite because the idiot thought bringing pretty clothes on the off chance of meeting a handsome boy, made more sense to her than bringing the mandatory aide kit. So, if I didn't tell her that I had mine, and just soaked those strips in rubbing alcohol first...just to make sure pain was clearly associated with her 'adventure', I think I had cause. I'm not you, Roy or Charlie, I'm not carded or official so she had to take what I was willing to give her. Besides, bear bites infect faster than cat scratches, so..."

Both shifts groaned.

"Then she got pissed off because I made her wait for enough time to go by so somebody would come looking...calmed down and fixed her makeup when I told her that the person was likely going to be a big strong man, not a boy...and then got even madder when I warned the game warden off where her brains were concerned. Told him she was a walking, talking Barbie...then reminded him that those dolls are both hollow and air-filled...especially the heads. Cuz she didn't apparently have any sense at all...and I figured he needed to be made aware of that, pronto...especially in case the bears came back."

"Would help." Hank Stanley confirmed in disgust. "That poor man."

"So, after I handed him my license and got it back, I mentioned I was pretty sure she didn't believe me when I'd told she needed one, given how much squalling she did when I refused to let her use my pole and that she'd made a spear and was...trying...not succeeding, mind you, to kill fish, but he caught her trying."

"Mean." Kelly commented. "Deserved it, but telling on her was still mean."

"Kelly, the second he caught her, she became his problem, not mine. I needed the little idiot to be someone else's problem. At that point, I had a non-functional knee and was dripping blood from being raked across my back by the bear. He was the guy in uniform, it was his district, so she was supposed to be his problem."

Chet could only agree, that was how it worked, after all. "Yeah, okay." He muttered.

"Why do you think I shove so many barbies at you and make sure that they understand that because YOU are in a uniform and not currently busy, they need to stick to you like glue? Gives you something constructive to do and keeps them out of everyone else's hair. There are some advantages to having lifetime ride-along status with these two, y'know."

Every man in the room, including his captain, hooted at Chet's sour expression for a few minutes, before Roy prodded her for the rest of it.

"Barbie?" Stoker snickered.

"I like the term. I think we should use it for the type..." Marco agreed. "It's amazingly self-explanatory."

Jane just grinned at the big firefighter. "Anyway, he finally herded the barbie back to camp and smelled like fresh skunk when they got there...boy was he in a foul mood...should have seen the glares he was aiming her. So, he made her pack up, and thanked me for the highly accurate warning about the barbie's complete lack of common sense.

It was at that point he finally realized I hadn't moved, looked closer, spotted why and that was because I couldn't walk: Like all of you, he'd seen enough of such things to know it was just no use with just him there by himself. He liked the knee about as much as you did."

"Yeah. I bet." Roy agreed.

"Plus, he had been alone with her long enough to get skunk-sprayed when the barbie saw what she thought was a pretty cat that she just had to take home with her...and that meant his nerves were starting to go where mine had gone hours before, so he started cussing. Cuz there was just no way to help me out and keep a watch on whatever that little addle-pated twit was gettin' herself...and anyone nearby...into." She heaved a huge sigh. "Poor bastard."

Everybody snorted.

"So, I decided to make things a bit easier for him to deal with, by telling him who I was, who I belonged to and asked him how far he was from Frankie Ghat's district and he said three days walk: That's I started cussing. But, after that, it was easier because he's got guys like Roy and John he's used to working with too, y'know, so we could talk without him thinking I was some sort of tourist. We started flinging ideas out and finally, I told him to just help me back into my tent and bring me a horse in the morning after he'd dropped the barbie off at the jail and had a tomato juice bath.

That's what I called her, too...right in front of her, and it was in no way intended as a compliment, but she couldn't figure out why he started laughing, she collects the things, from what she was babbling by then, she certainly thought it was a compliment...although, from his reaction, clearly he got it."

"And?"

"And what? He got me a horse; he took the barbie and her stuff with him on foot and came back the same day, smelling like a tomato, probably because A. I knew what I was doing and B. I tried to be nice and not add to his stress level...mounted on a BLM horse and leading a spare. Took a bit to make it lie down for me, I shocked Ernest, I think, but the gelding did damned good with it, for a first timer. And I made sure to explain what I was doing like when John taught me how to do it. But there was no chance for a normal mounting, so I kinda had to."

"Nice." John grinned. "Ernest Tailor?"

"Yeah? Why?"

"He's a lot like Brice."

"So...they maybe deserved each other...mutual Karma? He wasn't uptight, though. At least, not with me. The barbie had discovered he had some issues with her, but I can't really see how that's his fault. I had issues with her too, after all. He wasn't any worse than that Tim Fletcher on 43rds."

"Probably, not...he had you right there to compare to his new barbie. You had every reason to scream your head off, but I know you, so I know you held it in and just got on with it. And, if you managed to get the pole out of his ass, all the better."

"Wasn't much else to do, was there? Can't see hollerin' would've helped anything. Anyway, we rode down to Frankie's outpost, camped one night on the way down...oh boy, it was nice knowing he wasn't going to do anything stupid...like molest bears or play with skunks...told him so too...set him laughing again. We worked on the incident report while supper cooked...him, I let use my pole and tackle-box while I wrote out several complaints against the barbie...and after dinner, he filled out an official affidavit, grilled me on the details and had me sign it. So, the paperwork is done.

We finally got to Ghat's, and he said C shift was on and he wouldn't let me wait until morning and that his phone was out, so he couldn't just call one of you at home. He also refused to take me to the right hospital, which is why I ended up in southside at that dump they have down there. At least I had my monthly bus pass, also in my wallet."

Roy sighed, muttering. "And you came home instead of going in because 51 is closer on the bus route, right?"

"Yeah. You're five miles closer and frankly, I admit with no shame whatsoever that your drug-box was a big part of that decision. I hurt so much at that point I really didn't want to move further than I had to, to get in the door. I didn't sit down because I knew it would hurt a lot more gettin' back up. Besides, except for Chet and the Trashcan Specialist, people here actually have working brains."

"HEY!" A deep voice protested behind her. "Don't lump me in with Kelly!"

"Insistence on trashcan polishing does not lend itself to the impression there's much going on between your ears, old man. Not when there's a ton of small repairs that are needed around here a lot more...and you know it." She snapped. "I've had enough stupidity in my life recently and I'm not tolerating more of it from anybody, at this time. There's a reason why Chet didn't say a word, you know?"

"Or look at me quite like that."

"Let it go. She's not going to put up with it and in that mood, she'll take you off at the hip with that sharp tongue of her's. Right now she's not seeing you, she's looking at a man that almost always annoys her." Stanley warned the other captain. "You know how she is and from the sound of it, she's loaded down with good reasons to be irritable this time. We certainly would be after a trip like that. At an educated guess, I'd say her temper is completely shot."

"Yes, I suppose you are correct."

"Besides, she's right about the repairs...which is what I usually have them doing."

"Anyway," John said to distract her, running his fingers through her hair, which was always soothing for her. "Joe said three months, minimum, for the tendons to re-anchor themselves. He's got that strap-on soft cast on you for the duration and said for you to keep using the walker."

She sighed and watched Roy grab her stuff. "So, your ranch-house, extended cuddles with both of you and no idiots allowed within shouting distance until I have to? This does mean no Chet."

"Promise, on all counts." Roy nodded, smiling a bit. He took a rather official looking notice she held out..."Oh, the court date for the barbie...as a witness for the state forestry department:...Yeah, we'll make sure you get to that."

FINIS