The sun is shining, barely any clouds in the sky as Maizie drives through LA traffic for the first time. Now, she's experienced it before when she visited her brother, Noah, but he drove everywhere and sure, it sucked but actually driving in it is way worse. The drive from Illinois is already long enough and traffic is making it worse, her just ready to get to her brother's apartment and relax. And just breathe.
The only thing really keeping her calm through the traffic is how nice it is outside and how pretty LA is, with the music playing and the AC cranked. It's hard to be upset when it just seems like pieces of her life are falling together. But, then her brother calls and interrupts her rather calm atmosphere of her car.
"Hey, when are you getting in?" Noah asks, his voice coming through the speaker.
"GPS says half an hour with traffic, why?" Maizie asks, keeping her eyes on the road.
"I thought you were gonna be here tonight?"
Maizie chews her lip. "I only slept two hours and decided-"
"Maizie." Noah groans.
"I couldn't sleep. Too anxious. I'm wide awake, it's fine. So, I'll be there sooner." Her voice is higher, as if to be convincing her brother that not sleeping was better since she'll be there sooner rather than later.
"Well, you'll probably wanna stop here first." Noah says, Maizie hearing the hesitance in his voice.
"Um...why?"
"I kind of forgot to put a key under the mat in case you got before I got home." Noah chuckles, knowing full and well that should have been the first thing he did when Maizie said she was on her way twenty-four hours ago.
"I asked you to do one thing, literally you had exactly one job and couldn't do it." Maizie laughs. "How have you survived in LA without me for two years?"
"By not having someone nag me to put a key under my mat." Noah jokes.
"Oh, burn." Maizie rolls her eyes. "Well, now I have to pull over and put in the address. You wanna, ya know, text that to me so I can get into the apartment."
"Oh yeah good idea, wait till you're off the highway and pull in at a rest stop or something."
"Yeah, yeah." Maizie mumbles.
"Well, at least you'll be able to meet everyone now."
Maizie pauses and it's not that she doesn't like meeting new people, it's just...anxiety-inducing. Of course, she's moving across the country so she has to meet new people. The only person she knows in the entire state of California is her brother but meeting new people wasn't exactly on her itinerary on her first day. She likes a schedule. Things should be planned and stay the plans. Life isn't always that perfect and she knows that but when tossing in the move, the changeup with going to the station (somewhere she's never been), and meeting new people all in one day, it's a lot for her to handle and she just feels the anxiety slowly start to creep in. It's like it just starts in her back and starts traveling up and down and to the front just cocooning her in anxiety.
"Look, I promise, you'll love them." Noah reassures.
"I know." Maizie chuckles. "They all sound-"
In the middle of her sentence, Maizie is cut off by a sudden rumble beneath her car, the ground shaking violently underneath her, causing her and everyone else in front of her to slam on their breaks, cars crashing into each other all around her.
"Noah!"
"Maizie?!" Noah yells, the entire station shaking with him as he starts running to take cover from the earthquake. "Maizie!" Noah yells again, but the line has already gone dead as he reaches safety with Hen and Buck.
The earthquake lasts about thirty seconds, everything rumbling and shaking across the city. It might have only been thirty seconds but thirty seconds is a long time for an earthquake and it feels even longer for everyone experiencing the earthquake. It's like everything just slows and you wait and wait for the shaking to stop, hoping wherever you were able to take cover is going to be okay, hoping that wherever you're tapped in safe enough to keep you alive and unscathed. It's terrifying and an excruciating thirty seconds, especially for those who lost contact with their loved ones in the middle of the earthquake, like Maizie and Noah.
"C'mon." Noah grits his teeth, the earthquake having finally ceased. His fingers run over his phone, trying to access messages, calling, and Life360, anything to try and get ahold of Maizie or see where she is but nothing's working. Not a single thing will load or go through and that's when panic sets in. "Work!" He yells, glaring at his phone screen.
"Everything okay?" Hen asks, seeing Noah's distress over his phone.
"Nothing's working." Noah lets out an exasperated sigh.
"Everything is probably down." Hen says, voice calm and soothing. "Who are you trying to reach?"
"My sister." Noah says. "I was on the phone with her, she wasn't supposed to be here until later but she drove out early. She was on the highway and then the line went dead."
Hen's brows furrow with worry for her friend. "I'm sure she's okay, Noah."
"Yeah." Buck says. "She's probably fine." He tries to reassure but it doesn't help at all.
"We don't have earthquakes in Illinois. Tornadoes, blizzards, rain. Not earthquakes." Noah runs his hand over the top of his head, the stress building with the passing minutes.
"If she's on the highway, there will be a lot of people there, help will be there if something happened." Hen says, trying to calm Noah down.
"Hen's right." Buck agrees, but there's worry in his eyes with his words. Noah talks about Maizie all the time and they seem to have a similar relationship to him and Maddie. Buck knows he's worried for Maddie even though he knows she's probably fine at the dispatch center. It's different when it's family. "She'll be okay."
"You don't get it. She...she has this thing and...forget it." Noah lets out a sigh, walking away from the two, meeting to where Bobby was standing, looking around to see his firehouse.
It's not that he doesn't trust Buck and Hen but to tell Buck and Hen would mean to expose his own problem. The LA fire department knows about it and so does Bobby but that's it. And for Maizie, it's not his story to tell and she doesn't like people knowing before they even know her. She thinks it makes people pity her so they pretend to like her. Noah, of course, couldn't care less he just doesn't want to be put on the sidelines by his coworkers so it's different for them but neither want people just know. Need to know basis. So, Noah is stuck worrying by himself until he hears something from Maizie.
"Everyone okay?" Bobby calls out, walking to the center floor, looking around.
"All good, Cap." Chim says, him and Eddie meeting everyone by Bobby.
Everyone in the firehouse is luckily mostly unscathed by the earthquake besides a few bumps and bruises from falling equipment. Once Bobby is certain no one is injured, he instructs everyone to start picking up and preparing for the calls he knows they'll be getting within the next few minutes.
Meanwhile, Maize is trapped on the highway. There's a pile-up behind her, cars crashed into the cinderblock sides, cars mostly rear-ended, and a few cars that seemed to have escaped any damage. Maizie, not one of those people.
Her head throbs as she looks around, seeing everything around her. What has she learned today? Steering wheels definitely hurt when you hit your head on them. Also, earthquakes suck. But, she doesn't focus on the throbbing of her head or the people getting out of their vehicles or the part of the highway that was once above, now on the same stretch of road she was driving on. Instead, she reaches for her phone and tries to call and text Noah, but she only does it twice and then gives up. If it doesn't work the first two times, it's not gonna work the third. And now she realizes she's alone in the middle of an accident caused by her first experienced earthquake.
Floods of panic start to set in because she's alone. She doesn't know anyone. She didn't tell Noah where exactly she was. If she can't reach him, he can't each her. She's stuck on this stretch of road with no clue even where she is. Her hands are shaking, elbows going weak, while her stomach turns and her head goes dizzy. Her breathing becomes shallow and she just doesn't know what the hell to do.
What would Noah do? Maizie thinks, looking around her car and then it's the most obvious answer. Help.
Maizie doesn't sit longer, instead, she pushes through the panic attack and gets out of her car. She goes to the back of her car and grabs the three first aid kits she has packed. It's always seemed a little excessive until now and Noah made her pack at least one for emergencies. So, now it's time for her to step in and try to help people with the very little bit of information Noah has taught her since becoming double certified as a paramedic and firefighter and the bit she's learned from first aid classes.
"Are you okay?" Maizie asks someone sitting beside a car, holding their head with blood trickling down their face.
"Yeah, I just hit my head." He explains.
"Let me see. I might be able to bandage it for you." Maizie says, squatting down to the man's level.
Usually, for Maizie, talking to strangers increases her anxiety. She can do it sure, but it's always more nerve-wracking but now she's in fight or flight mode and instead of the flight her body typically wants to do, it's all fight. Fight to help anyone with minor injuries. It's like her need to just help and focus on that one task pushes every piece of anxiety from her body. Nothing matters besides this.
The man removes his hand and the gash on his head doesn't seem too deep so Maizie opens one of the first-aid kits and grabs a disinfectant. She disinfects the wound to the best of her ability and then takes a nonstick gauze pad, pressing it the wound.
"Just hold that there for a sec and I'll wrap it." Maizie says, swapping hands with the man before grabbing the gauze wrap and the pair of scissors from the kit. She wraps the pad to the man's head and is done with him. "I'm not a paramedic but I don't think it's too bad. So, just make sure to actually get it checked out by a paramedic when they come or a doctor. The wrap should help though and stop it from bleeding and keep it clear of anything. If it starts bleeding through before anyone else comes, come find me or call for me and I'll rewrap it. My name's Maizie." Maizie offers a kind smile to the man.
"Thank you." The man says, returning the smile.
And just like that, Maizie walks through the wreckage, helping as many people as she possibly can. It's not much but she did take first aid classes as well CPR and she keeps up to date with her certifications. Ever since she was severely injured and some random bystander happened to also be certified, she swore she'd keep up to date because you never really know when someone is gonna need help and every second counts even with help on the way. But, as Maizie helps more people with the minor injuries, she realizes help seems like it might not be coming.
She isn't sure how it works in these situations. Is this low priority because it's a highway? Or did something way bigger happen? Was this an average size earthquake or was this a big one? Maizie is left completely in the dark but based on what Noah's told her and her previous trip to California, she just has to think help would be here already if it were coming anytime soon. So, she keeps moving until she gets to the point where the overpass fell. There she sees one car, upside down and then she hears the groaning.
"Is anyone in there?" Maizie asks, approaching the car slowly.
"Help!" The man yells. "I'm in here. I'm stuck." The man yells again so Maizie gets closer and bends down to look inside the vehicle. There she sees the man hanging upside down with blood on his face and arm extended towards her.
"Oh." Maizie says, shocked at what she's seeing and knowing she cannot help this man. "Hi, I'm Maizie."
"Dean." Dean says. "I can't get out." He moves his head.
"Dean, I really don't think you should do that." Maizie says as she notices the trickling of liquid from above the man, the smell of gas undeniable.
"Get everyone out of their cars before the rest of this overpass comes down!" Maizie hears a woman yelling to someone. She looks over and sees a woman in an all black uniform.
"Oh thank God." Maizie sighs. "Hold on, Dean." Maizie says before standing. "Officer!" She calls, getting the officer's attention. "There's a man stuck and it smells like gas!"
"He's stuck in there?" The officer rushes over to Maizie.
"Yeah, his name is Dean." Maizie explains before the officer bends down and looks inside the vehicle.
"Hey, Dean. I'm Sergeant Grant. There was an earthquake, you were in an accident. Help is on the way." She says to him and she's only down there for a few seconds before she walks back over to Maizie.
"Did you find him like that?" The sergeant asks, her and Maizie walking away from the flipped car together.
"Yeah, he was calling for help. I didn't know what to do." Maizie lets out a breath and it's like she feels everything crashing around her now that someone has arrived to help.
"I'm Sergeant Grant. What's your name?"
"Maizie. Maizie Jackson. I just...I was just...I was driving here to move here to be close to my bother and...then there was an earthquake." Maizie explains and then anxiety starts to take over again, only this time, it's just her rambling. "He's a firefighter for the 118 here. So I was just trying to help people as much as I could because they needed it and it's just kind of what he taught me and stuff I learned in some classes I took." Maizie rushes her words out.
"Maizie. Are you Noah's sister?" Sergeant Grant asks, brows pulled together as she remembers Noah mentioning that his sister was supposed to be move here.
"Um...yes? You know Noah?"
"His Captain and I go back." She says with an almost smirk. "You can call me Athena. You wanna help me get this man out of there?" She asks as they reach her squad car, opening the trunk.
"Um..yeah if I can. We don't have earthquakes in Illinois." Maizie lets out an awkward laugh. "I think I have a jack, jumper cables, some tools, and a fire extinguisher in my car if that helps."
Athena looks at her and almost laughs. "Huh, you are prepared. Grab the jack and the extinguisher in case this thing starts going up." Athena says, herself grabbing a crowbar before looking back to the car just as it starts going up in flames. "Just the extinguisher." Athena switches, gabbing her own from her trunk while Maizie starts making her way to her own car. Athena starts running towards the now burning car but she turns her head just enough and yells "And welcome to LA!"