AN: This had been sitting on my drive for awhile so I figured I'd go ahead and post it. All mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy :)

The three youngest members of 20-David are caught in an explosion. Will they survive?

Breath and Release - SWAT

It happened before anyone could shout a warning.

Simultaneous explosions racked the vacant building, a decrepit house on the edge of LA, with such force that sent three members of 20-David flying through the air. Thick smoke filled the rooms, walls cracked and crumbled as the weight of the structure shifted, effectively trapping them inside.

Chris awoke to a sharp ringing in her ears. Her head pounded in tune with her heart, fast and heavy. By the time she managed to crack her watering eyes open and peered through dust covered goggles, the sound was replaced with that of the area around her crumbling. It did not take her long to remember what had occurred previously, and with a realization that she was not alone, she sat up in a hast.

That was when her arm screamed at her.

Alonso collapsed back down, clutching her right arm to her body, willing it to go numb. It took what felt like an eternity, but eventually, the pain dulled to something she could manage. With that, she took a deep breath through the pain that remained, and looked down.

Her arm hung at an angle that should not be possible with the human body, and instantly she knew something was dislocated. Shoulder? Elbow? Maybe both. Using a simple breathing exercise, Chris worked through the pain and the problem, ultimately determining that it was her shoulder that was not where it was supposed to be. She knew how to reset a dislocation from a med training course she took a couple of years ago, but that was on another person. They, unfortunately, did not discuss how to reset a shoulder or elbow on oneself.

Working with what she had, she rigged a way to keep her arm tight against her chest by using her vest and some straps. Once that was done, she scanned the room for her teammates.

Small flames licked at the baseboards, sparks danced from the exposed wiring in the ceiling. The smoke in what was once a living room was building with each passing second. Right now, it was manageable, but the longer she stayed, there was an increased likelihood of her suffocating to death.

I need to find Street and Tan.

It took a great deal of effort, but Chris managed to get to her feet with the help of a nearby wall that was relatively intact. Black encroached around the edges of her visions, but she pushed it aside as best she could. After making sure she still had her weapons, she made her way through the rubble as she looked for Street and Tan.

Though the building looked very little to what it did when 20-David arrived on scene to arrest a known (and very aggressive) drug and weapons dealer in the area, she was able to use her memory of the blueprints to find the room Street was going to clear when the building exploded.

Except, when Chris all but crawled through the crumbled doorway, she didn't see Street.

Realizing she hadn't heard from the senior members since the explosion, Chris reached for her radio. "24-David to-" she stopped short when she noticed the device no longer resembled a radio, and was closer to that of a crumbling box as it burned in a fire.

Sonofa-

She had no way of letting anyone know what happened. Luca was back at HQ. Hondo and Deacon were busy clearing a small shed around 100 meters in the back when the explosion occurred. She had no way of letting anyone know that they were alive. Well, that she was, anyway.

No, can't think like that.

Using her flashlight, and letting out a string of curses when the smallest movement jolsted her injured arm, Chris scanned the area.

She stepped over broken chairs and a table, some burned dishes here and there, but she didn't see Street. Chris was certain he went toward the kitchen, but the pounding in her head, likely due to a concussion, told her her memory may not be what she thought.

Chris scanned the area carefully, searched for any sign of the youngest member of 20-David. When she finally spotted something, she wished it wasn't what she knew it to be.

A puddle of blood, red and angry against the smoke damaged walls and floor greeted her. And lying in the blood, was an unmoving Street.

Chris, slowly and painfully, made her way to Street's side. She got down on her knees and pressed two fingers to his clammy and dust covered neck. She couldn't feel anything. "No, no, no," she muttered. Shifting her stance slightly, she tried again. She held her breath. It took a few seconds, but there, ever so faint, was Street's pulse. "Dammit."

Holding her flashlight between her teeth, Chris used her left arm to move splintered wood, broken dishes and charred plaster away from Jim. When she finally cleared the debris away, an action that nearly left her breathless, Chris could finally begin to get a clear picture as to what kind of injuries Street had sustained.

The LED light shone over Jim's body. Chris could barely see the small rise and fall of his chest. She tried to ignore the amount of blood that was spreading on the floor, but she used its path to backtrack to Street's injuries. She didn't bother to stifle a string of curses once found the source of the bleed.

A piece of metal, scraps or something their suspect was using at one point or another, was protruding out of Street's left side, just under his vest and above his waistband. There was no way to tell how bad an injury like that was, so Chris first needed to get the bleeding under control. Using most of the gauze she had on her, she pressed the fabric to Street's side and tried to wake him up.

Gently shaking his shoulder, calling his name, tapping his face and any other idea Chris could think of in the moment did nothing to wake the younger man up. After checking his wound, which was still bleeding too much for her liking, she began to check him over for other injuries.

From what Alonso could tell, the object sticking out of Street's side was the worst of it. There was no way to tell if he had a head injury, and the small cuts and bruises would heal in due time. If he would just wake up, Jim could tell Chris what else was potentially wrong, but alas, he was not.

"Shit," she muttered. After searching for his radio, and not finding it, she added. "Damnit,"

Chris wasn't sure what sound made her look up, but it was enough to make her shine her light around the room a couple of times. The smoke was thicker now and her light barely cut through what was building in the room at a faster rate. She coughed, double checked that it wasn't Street who uttered those words, and listened again.

Fire cracked from other rooms as the structure shifted every now and then. Chris could barely make out Street's labored breathing beneath those other sounds, so she nearly missed it when she heard it again. It was a low voice that barely reached her ears.

After making sure the bandage around Street's belly was as secure as she was comfortable making it, she stood and looked around. Chris noticed how the roof over the kitchen was partially caved in, which is why she missed it the first time she entered the room. A door that likely led to a basement, was ajar. Chris did not remember a basement on the floor plans 20-David looked over before they arrived on target, but she just chalked that up to her likely concussion if it wasn't just a secret space to hide drugs and weapons in.

"H-hello?"

Chris quickened her pace as she approached the wooden steps. The railing was splintered in places, but was still connected to the stairs themselves. The stairs, however, had seen better days. As she descended the steps, a few cracked under her weight and she noticed the final five or so were gone completely. It was not a far drop, but far enough to where should she jump down, she would need to use both of her arms to pull herself back up.

Oh, and there was a broken pipe somewhere which was causing the basement to flood at a fast rate.

Stopping as far as she could go, Chris used her light and scanned the room. A section of the wall had collapsed near the stairs, leaving a pile of debris in the way. Part of the ceiling had also caved in toward the back of the room and what appeared to be a broken dresser was now resting drawers up, but that seemed to be the worst of it. Thankfully, the smoke was not that bad in the basement, which is the only way she noticed her teammate struggling in the far corner.

"Tan?"

"Chris," Alonso kept her light trained on her teammate, watched as he fought to pull himself from under an overturned shelving unit to no avail. "Are you okay? Have you seen Street?"

Chris was already waving Tan off. "I'll live. Street is unconscious in the kitchen,"

"Damn. Have you heard from Hondo or-" Tan stopped short and winced as he tried to push himself up out of the rising water. "Or from Deac? My radio keeps cutting in and out, I can't get anything through."

"Mine is dead. I didn't see Street's," said Chris. "You hurt?"

"Can't tell. This thing's got me trapped pretty good," said Tan through a grunt as he tried and failed to move the object that pinned him to the ground. He was on his back and the shelf was covering his legs and part of his right side, angled. Due to how the shelf was positioned, he did not have much room to move the object by himself and the water was getting dangerously close to his head.

Before Chris could say anything else, movement back in the kitchen caught her attention. Something shifted, then someone let out a string of curses.

"Street?"

"Go, go, I'll be fine," said Tan.

Chris paused, not wanting to leave Tan alone in such a state. She'd come right back, she decided and carefully ascended the creaky steps, winced when pain shot up her arm when the ground shifted as she got closer to the door. Once back on relatively stable ground, she had to take a few minutes to catch her breath and clear her blurry vision. Then she pushed forward to where she left Street, her injured arm held tightly to her body.

"Street?" Chris called out. Her teammate was still in the kitchen, but as the smoke was substantially thicker than when she left only moments ago, she nearly missed him. With her light she could see him struggling to move with the object still in his side. "Street, what are y-"

She watched as Jim weakly pointed toward the ceiling above them, and that is when Chris noticed the orange and red glow lapping out from broken ceiling panels. Thick smoke pumped out in waves as the fire licked at everything it could touch. Soon, it cracked and began to crash down around them.

Without thinking, Chris grabbed the back of Street's vest and shirt began to drag him through the room, away from the building fire. Her teammate screamed and struggled weakly in an attempt to help, and for a brief second she wanted to stop. But she kept going.

When she finally reached a different room, one that wasn't as destroyed as the rest of the building, Chris knelt down by Street's side.

"Hey, you with me?"

Street mumbled something that resembled a curse and 'no', which made Chris smile.

"Good enough," Chris replaced the soaked gauze and pressed it firmly against Street's side. When he didn't stir, she pressed harder. Still nothing. "Street? Street, wake up,"

She looked around, tried to gather her bearings and form a plan, when she heard it. A soft buzzing hidden beneath the cracking of fire in the next room. Soon the sound grew and eventually so did a new voice.

"-vid, anybody copy?"

"Hondo?"

"Chris! Chris, are you okay?" asked Hondo from the other side of the wall. "Are Tan and Street with you?"

"I've got Street. He caught some shrapnel and is losing blood, I can't get it to stop," Chris said between a series of coughs. The smoke in the room, and likely the crumbling structure, was getting very, very thick. "Tan's trapped in the basement," more coughs. "It's flooding,"

Chris didn't hear anything else that Hondo may have said because she was too busy fighting for her next breath. But, somehow, through the blurry vision and thick smoke, she saw a hole appear in the wall to her left. And through that hole, Hondo appeared next.

"Hey, hey, I've got you," he said. His voice was muffled because of the mask he wore, but Chris could hear him well enough. "You injured?"

Chris had started to shake her head but she managed to shift her shoulder just enough to where it was enough to make her vision go completelyblack for a moment. When she opened her eyes, Street was nowhere to be found.

"Wh-where's Str-"

"We've got him, he's with the EMTs. C'mon,"

Chris was gently but swiftly pulled to her feet, right as the floor beneath them shifted and buckled. Part of the room behind them completely caved in and fell into the area below with a sickening splash.

Chris froze.

Tan.

Before she could even think about pulling away and heading in the direction that may or may not be heading toward the basement, Hondo had picked Chris up and was walking as fast as he could toward the way he came in.

Dawn was on the horizon but most of the lights came from the multiple emergency vehicles surrounding the remains of the building. Chris winced when Hondo lowered her down onto a waiting stretcher, absentmindedly wondering how much time had actually passed because she couldn't remember when they first arrived at the house. She glanced around, tried to find Street, but came up empty. So she turned to one of the EMTs who was to her left.

"Where's Street?"

"He's already en route to Memorial," he said as he turned to his partner. "Okay, let's load up and get going,"

The EMTs had just started to load Chris into the waiting ambulance when she noticed someone come out of the building with something slung over their shoulders. By the time the stretcher was locked into place, the scene before her cleared up.

More EMTs and paramedics rushed over to the body Deacon had placed on the ground, and Chris knew who it was. The red, white and blue lights, plus some sunlight, was not enough to make the scene look any less grim, but she couldn't turn away.

Tan lay motionless and soaking wet on the debris covered lawn, hair plastered to his forehead. Deac did CPR while the medics hooked the younger man up to various monitors. The familiar beep filled the air before the shock jolted Tan, once, twice.

The door slammed shut and the ambulance sped off before Chris could see what happened next.

#

When Chris woke up, all she saw was white. She blinked a few times, waited for the seconds to pass as the image before her cleared up and shapes appeared.

"Hey,"

She turned toward the voice on her right and noticed Hondo leaning against a window seal with a cup of coffee in his hand. The memories of what caused her to end up in a hospital bed came rushing back and before she knew it, she was asking, "Street and Tan? Are they okay? Are they-"

"Take it easy, Chris. Easy," her boss said. "Street is in the middle of getting some more tests done, the docs want to make sure the stitches are holding, but he's healing well. Keeps bugging 'em about going home. He's gonna be okay, thanks to you,"

Chris sunk back into the pillow at the sound of hearing Street would be okay. The memory of that shrapnel jutting out of his side, all of the blood on the ground when she actually got to his side… she couldn't help but think of the worst, even if it were only for a moment.

"And," she paused, tried to get a read on Hondo's state of mind right now as half of his team was currently in the hospital. Or was it just two? "And Tan?"

Hondo sat his now empty cup on a nearby counter and stepped closer to Chris's bedside. He said, "He's alive,"

"Is he going to be okay, though? I wanted to, I mean I tried to go back for him but-"

"He was completely submerged by the time Deacon got to him, we don't know for how long. It took a couple of minutes to get him free, but by then he was already unconscious. They had to intubate him on the ride over,"

"But, but-" she was stuttering now, unsure what she could even say.

"They removed the tube late last night. Deacon and Annie are down there with Bonnie, waiting for him to wake up," Hondo said. "We're switching out here in a bit,"

Chris nodded at that as she closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. "Will you let me know? When he wakes up?"

"Of course," said Hondo. "Now that you're done worrying about the guys, how are you feeling?"

Chris rubbed her aching shoulder, needing to reach under the strap of the brace. "Sore, sleepy,"

"Okay. I'll go tell the other's you said hi,"

"Hey, Hondo?"

Once at the doorway, Hondo paused and turned back. "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Anytime."

FIN

AN: I love protective Chris and there needs to be more interactions between her and Tan.
Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.