Summary: Hank Stanley had been preparing to take the Chief's Exam for months. When the results arrive in the mail, he is forced to reconcile his past mistakes. It is only then that he realizes what truly makes a fire chief.
Takes place shortly after the series finale "All Night Long" (6.24).
"What Makes a Chief"
The stack of paper slammed onto the desk louder than a barrel of exploding gasoline. Unlike an explosion where flames kicked out like a boxer's fists, the papers just sat on the table. Deadweight. Like the suppressing anxiety building in his chest. He was about to explode—not from anger—from the pure dread encompassing him.
"This? This is all you had in you, Hank?" The words, like the paper, seemed to plummet to the desk.
"Oh, Hank! This is great. It really is. Finally, you got what was coming for you. You know, I was livid when I'd first heard you became captain. I didn't understand how a man who could light his own captain's hat on fire could himself become a captain. You know Hank? You're an arsonist. That's what you are. Always causing problems that grow into something uncontainable, then you run away and let everyone else deal with cleaning up the mess."
The clock ticked louder and louder, its voice joining with the amused silence of the papers glaring at him.
"But not this time. This is one time where you get to clean up the mess yourself. You're the laughing stock of the whole department Hank. And this afternoon when the exam results posted, there won't be one man left who won't see you for what you are: a coward, an idiot, a man who would risk the lives of his men rather than face danger himself. A disgrace."
He stopped talking for a moment, looking at his disgraced former engineer. A sly smile met his lips as he took a few steps to the door and opened it.
"Hey fellas! Why don't you all come into the office for a minute. Hank has something to share!"
He didn't have to shout for them to hear him. They were already gathered near the office door, hiding between the squad and the engine trying to listen to what Chief McConnicke was saying to their captain. Five pairs of boots scurried into the office which was already small to begin with. Shifting their eyes from the Chief to the Captain, they waited in anguished silence for Hank to speak.
"So Hank, do you want to tell them or do you want me? I think they deserve to know what kind of captain they serve. Besides, they'll know by tonight anyways."
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. He couldn't look any of them in the eye. His fist tapping the desk, he finally managed to squawk out the words in a voice that was a bit more high-pitched than normal.
"I failed the Chief's Exam."
"FAILED? Hank you did more than FAIL. You were annihilated. Obliterated. You and all the credibility you somehow managed to muster during your career."
He picked up the papers and faced Hank's crew.
"This is what your "captain" managed to pull off on Saturday."
Each white page was doused in an obscene amount of red ink. He had truly murdered this exam. He had murdered any chance he had of fulfilling his dream.
His thoughts were interrupted by roaring anger.
"Really Cap? And we trusted you? We trusted you with our lives and you can't even spell your own name correctly" Roy's voice stern.
"Question one: 'What is the purpose of a Battalion Chief?' Cap, this is a dead give-away. You don't know what a chief is?" Chet was incredulous.
"Ooh, look at this one. Question 14: 'Draw a diagram depicting the dispersion of units assigned to a three-alarm structure fire. Cap? I'm no good at math but I think you're missing a few engines. I mean TWO engines assigned to a three-alarm fire?" Marco shook his head.
"Gimee that!" John grabbed the exam and flipped a few more pages before slamming the test back onto the desk yelling, "You don't know what kind of rescue equipment the Squad carries? Of course we've got our own crow-bar! It's a damn crow-bar for crying out loud!" Gage was furious.
"And to think, this whole time I've supported you and your dream to be a chief. Great Hank. Now they'll all be laughing at me too, because I believed in you." The normally quiet Mike Stocker put his hand to his face, disbelief overcoming him.
"You good for nothing imposter! You are no fireman. You…" McConnicke cut out.
He was falling. The chair beneath him disappeared. Just as he was about to hit the floor, it too disappeared, melting into empty darkness.
"Hank! Hank, sweetie!"
"No! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" He tried to reach up, but all around him was darkness—nothing. Thrashing, he couldn't grab hold of anything. He couldn't breathe.
"HANK!" The floor returned beneath him, only it wasn't the floor he was sitting on. Something was holding his shoulders. It was soft, warm. A quiet ticking sound permeated the room. Cautiously, he opened his eyes. The room was dark, but familiar brown eyes hovered inches from his own. He recognized the warm hands holding his shoulders firmly yet gently.
"Hank? What happened?" The whisper landed on his ears, for the moment erasing painful words he'd just heard. She leaned in next to him, wrapping her arm around his body, letting his head rest on her breast as he fell into her.
"It was a dream! It was just a dream."
She ran her fingers through his hair with one hand as she held his side with the other. A feeling of security overcoming him, he began to sob, cradled in his wife's loving arms. She pulled him closer, tightening her grip, afraid that if she let go, he would float away, back into the nightmare that had been haunting him for two weeks.
Every so often, the moon would peak out from behind the cloudy night and cast her glow onto anything in her path. The sobs easing into short, forced breaths, he stared blankly towards the window, mindlessly watching the light emerge from the shadowy night only to recede back into her cocoon within the clouds. More tears, this time silent ones, welled in his eyes as he watched the moonlight's theatrics.
How easy it would be to fade in and out, without a care, if I were the moonlight.
Lost in his thoughts, he sighed deeply. A light kiss landed on his cheek.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Hearing the words, Hank kept his gaze on the window frame wondering if maybe he should tell her. It seemed fair.
After all, she's been the one holding me for 20 years. She's been the one to calm me down when I get home from a bad shift. She's been the one who always makes sure that I have a hot meal waiting for me and clean clothes to change into. She's been the one who has nursed me back to health when I'm sick. She's the one who answers the phone when I get hurt at work, and she's left to wonder if I'm okay. And if I wasn't okay, she'd be the one who would have to deal with the fallout. She'd have to finish raising our girls alone.
The tears again were streaming down his face. This time, instead of sobs only a quiet whimper left his chest. Sitting him up, Emily crawled in front of him, sitting crossed-legged on the bed. Entwining her fingers in his, she observed his face. Even in the darkness, she could see the bags hanging under his eyes. The wrinkles on his forehead that first appeared a few years ago were more defined now. Her gaze rested on his eyes, waiting for him to look towards her.
She's the one who has made all the sacrifices.
With one last exhale, Hank's eyes met hers. Compassionate, bold, concerned. He could read every emotion in them. Finally looking at his eyes, she could read every emotion in them. Fear, uncertainty. But there was something else that she didn't quite recognize. Guilt? Not quite. She scanned his whole countenance for a clue.
Regret.
They sat in a comfortable silence. Though a heaviness eradiated from him, her patience reminded him that she would wait until he was ready to talk, no matter how long it took.
"I'm sorry." Like sandpaper on plywood, the words skidded off his tongue, the harsh sound undermined by genuineness. She squeezed his hands.
"Sorry for what?"
"I'm not good enough."
"What makes you say that?" Concern was evident in her voice.
"I just keep messing up." His voice trailed off, leaving Emily confused. She had known that the nightmares from the past two weeks were about the exam and as suspected, something deeper was driving her husband's state of misery.
"Does this have anything to do with your nightmares?" He flinched at the word, too proud to admit that these dreams were, in fact, nightmares. Understanding the flinch to be a sign of his discomfort, "What happened in your dream?" she asked, intentionally using the word to encourage Hank.
"It was the exam. I keep having this…dream. It's the same one I told you about the first night I had it. I failed the exam." She could hear the edge in his voice.
Yep. It's more than the exam.
"It's only a dream Hank. And it will keep being only a dream until we get those exam results."
"Damnit Emily, it's not just a dream!" The sudden change in temper startled them both. "Emily, I'm sorry…" he began to say, but the words got caught in his empty mind. What was he supposed to say? He wasn't sure.
"Don't keep this locked up. Tell me. Please."
Like an ax breaking down a door, that one word shattered whatever wall that stood in his heart. His rescuer was here and wouldn't leave until she knew that he was safe from this nightmare.
"I keep dreaming that I failed the exam. But it's more than that. I failed because I didn't know anything. Because I didn't know anything, when my men found out, they felt betrayed. They trust me with their lives and I couldn't even spell my own name right. I couldn't answer basic questions about the fire department, let alone the technical questions about fight fires and safety and then there was the section on rules and regulations…"
"But there's something else, isn't there?"
Met with silence, she pushed.
"I saw it in your eyes Hank. Something I'd never seen before. You come home all kinds of ways: angry, scared, joyful, excited, tired, exhausted, contemplative, guilt-ridden," she'd intentionally emphasized that one, "but this morning, for the first time, I saw regret."
Instantly he tensed up, averting her eyes. She didn't say anything else, simply waiting for him to open up.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." He thought for a minute, considering how to tell his wife of two decades that he was the epitome of hypocrisy. That for the past six years he had gone to work and earned the glorious title of a self-less, self-sacrificing captain, yet he had never sacrificed a damn thing. Not for the men he sent into burning buildings and down rock cliffs. Not for the two teenage girls that he was glad were spending the night with his mother. But most of all, not for the one human being who knew him inside and out, each nuance of his personality; the one who stood by him come hell and flames, never wavering in love and support.
"I regret that I can't go back and change the things I've done. All the times I put someone into danger needlessly; all the times I abandoned you and the girls; all the times I wasn't a captain. I'm supposed to be strong, resilient, quick-thinking, technical, practical. I'm supposed to sense things before they happen, have an eye for predicting what will happen next. I might be the captain of a fire station, but I'm not self-less. I have never once sacrificed anything for anybody," he looked straight into her eyes, "not even for you. And all you've ever done is sacrifice things for me."