"Joe!" cried Chloe, shaking him softly. "Joe! Wake up!"
Cruz grunted in surprise, and then fear. "Chloe? What is it?"
"You were having a nightmare. You said the same word like five times."
Cruz scrubbed at his eyes. "What word?"
"Something in Spanish. 'Flaco'. What does it mean?"
Cruz swallowed with an audible click. "Slang term. I must have been bitching someone out in my sleep."
"I'll add it to my collection of Spanish curse words."
"I wouldn't use that one," he answered quickly. "It's pretty derogatory and, uh, not politically correct."
"It sounded like you were sobbing in your sleep. Do you remember any of the dream?"
"No," Cruz lied. Flaco. One single word that had the power to destroy his whole life. Two syllables that could undo everything he had built with Chloe, end his career, bring shame to 51, send him to prison…
He remembered the nightmare alright, Flaco's pleading dark eyes begging Joe to save him, not to leave him to the flames. Joe had willingly turned his back on a human life to save his brother Leon from Flaco's gang. It had seemed a fair exchange at the time, a win-win: Chicago rid of just another thug, his brother free to make a new beginning. Cruz had gone to prison anyway, in his head.
Not a day passed without some reminder. Sometimes it was the sound of another firefighter calling the all-clear from somewhere down a smoky hallway, or a pair of dark, wide eyes on someone passing by him on the street, or bangers and their corner boys lounging on a curb. His wife's pregnancy and the kicking of his unborn child could trigger vivid images of the way it smelled in the apartment building that day, the caustic heat and the sour smell of Joe's fear and the guilt that ate away at him like cancer. He would never be free. Bit by bit it would gnaw what was left of him until he was reduced to ashes, like Flaco had been.
Sometimes there were good months when there were no dreams, when the triggers were less demanding; then there were the days when he was frantic for absolution that was never coming, the weight of the lie so heavy he wondered how he could continue breathing, walking, working.
Casey was the only one who knew, and he had kept his word and never mentioned it again. It was Casey who knew without asking when Cruz was struggling to carry it. It would do no good to unburden his soul to Casey.
He had tried in his own way to make it right somehow. He had left envelopes of money in Flaco's mother's mailbox. Had groceries delivered anonymously. They felt like banners announcing his guilt, like handwritten letters proclaiming that Flaco's death had been no accident and his killer was trying to make amends, though Flaco's mother had likely not been surprised he had met so violent an end. Joe had agonized over the possibility of confessing to her, longing for her anger and blame and condemnation, though it would change nothing.
Joe had not had enough to pay Flaco what he demanded to release Leon from the grip of the Insane Kings. Even paying him off might not have been enough, and Joe would have been forced to act. Joe had become a master at this particular argument with himself, which always ended with 'I'd do it the same again' even though he knew it was a lie. He could have taken out a loan.
He had pulled Flaco from the burning building a thousand times in his head just for the momentary relief such daydreams brought, but it never lasted. There was no way out of the mental prison he was serving a life sentence in.
Somehow he had gone on to build a life with Chloe, a family. He listened to the water running as she showered, simple sounds of daily life that deepened the remnants of the nightmare he could not shake off.
He had to get up, make coffee. Go to work. Give everything he had that day to whoever needed him most. Tomorrow he would do the same. He would hang on with all his might until he either learned to deal with the guilt or until it broke him. There was someone out there who knew better than anyone how to navigate the place Joe was now, and he had been doing it far longer. Joe scooped up his phone from the nightstand and scrolled through his contacts.
"Yeah, hey, Sergeant Platt. It's Joe Cruz from Firehouse 51. Is Hank Voight around?"