"Step aside please, miss, we need to get through."

The young woman looked up from her prone friend, and shuffled to one side, letting Doc and Carlos through, the former giving her a brief smile, before settling down to work on the fallen young man. He had a rather nasty cut on his head, and he was unconscious.

"You say he fell?" Doc asked the woman, removing his equipment from his bag, reaching first for his stethoscope. He put it to the man's chest, hooking it in his ears, and listened as the woman replied.

"Yeah. We were just walking along, and this guy comes running past and knocks him flying. He hit his head," she said, voice shaking, sniffling. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"Got a steady rhythm," Doc reported to his partner. Carlos nodded.

"Did you see the guy who knocked him down? Where was he going?"

The woman looked Doc in the eyes, and he could see her confusion and bewilderment. She didn't know what was going on.

The park was reasonably quiet for this time of day. It was close on when school's emptied, and the elder paramedic had no doubt that it would start to fill soon, kids would want to play on the swings, climb the trees, and play football. They needed to get this gentleman out of here before then. They would gather quite a crowd.

"I'm not sure."

"Okay. Well, a couple of police officers might want to ask you a few questions when we get to the hospital. Just calm down, try and think, and maybe we can get this all sorted out, okay?" Doc patted her reassuringly, and turned to Carlos. "Fetch the gurney?"

"Sure," Carlos agreed, and trotted off to do as he was asked. He was back quickly, wheeling the gurney in front of him, steering it competently through the small crowd. "Excuse me, please, thanks."

"Is he gonna be okay? Jake?" The woman aimed most of the comment at her friend who was now being loaded onto the lowered gurney. They had fixed a collar around his neck just in case, and were being very gentle.

"Is that his name?" Doc inquired, seeing the woman's nod. "Okay, Jake, can you hear me?"

The young man made no response, and Doc gave up after that. Carlos would try and get something out of him in the back of the bus, but for now, they just needed to get him to the hospital and get him checked out.

* * *

Jimmy Doherty slammed the door to the fire engine behind him, and swung his helmet onto his head, looking up and whistling at the sight of flames pouring out of the roof. That was not a stable building at all.

"What's goin' on?" he asked, waiting for a reply, hands akimbo, mask at the ready just in case. From the looks of it they had gotten everybody out in time. People were lined up next to Kim and Bobby's ambulance, coughing and smoggy.

"Not sure. We got a call that the building had just... gone up in smoke. Everyone managed to get out on their own. We're just trying to put out the fire now." The guy nodded once to Jimmy, and reached for a hose.

Jimmy tilted his head for a moment, trying to shut out the noise of the sirens and alarms, and narrowed his eyes. What was that? Moving a step closer, he lowered his arms, and listened more attentively.

He whirled back on the other fire fighters. "There's somebody in there!"

"What? They said there was no one else in there," Sampson said, shaking his head, looking to the others from the truck. They nodded in agreement.

"No, no, listen," Jimmy ordered them, holding up a hand. At that exact moment, a window above them shattered, glass raining down on the street below, and smoke poured generously from the frame above. A scream was heard, high-pitched and terrified.

"There!" Jimmy bellowed, seeing a small head poke out of the black frame, the face thick with grime, and tears streaming from the young eyes. It was only a kid, twelve at the most. "Come on!"

He put his mask over his face, re-donning his helmet afterwards, and raced into the doorway without another thought. He heard someone call after him, but he was too far in by the time he registered the shout. It was Kimmy. She had probably seen him run in.

He heard footsteps behind him, and for one horrifying moment, thinking it was Kim, turned, only to see Sampson, Willis and Hendrickson following him in, masked and ready.

"She's up there, the fourth floor!" Jimmy shouted over the din of roaring flames. There was a glow from up the stairs, and smoke had clogged up the corridors and hallways. Precariously, he ran up the stairs, checking his weight on each step before taking another tread. So far, so good. He knew not to be careless... he just wanted to get that kid outta here.

They managed to clamber up to the fourth floor without any of the stairwells giving out on them, but when they reached that floor, flames rolled across the walls, and thick black smoke was clouding across the ceiling, chokingly taking over the floor.

"Doherty! You're not going to be able to get to the kid in time!"

He waved a hand, and started to pick his way through, hearing the scared cries of the child from in the next room; adjacent to the hallway they were travelling through. A piece of ceiling collapsed, bringing a table with it. Sampson jumped back, but Jimmy just flattened himself against the wall, and waited for it to clear again. The floor above was gutted. They were going to have to be quick, or the whole place was going to come down around them.

"Help me, please!" he heard the girl cry, and he smashed open the door to the room she was in, feeling the wood shatter out of the frame. It splintered and flew everywhere, and within a couple of seconds, he could see the outline of the girl there. He rushed over to her, seeing her crouched and shivering in the corner.

"It's okay, you're alright, we're here to help," Jimmy told her, pulling his mask off, and giving it to her so that she could breathe. He hoisted her into his arms, and felt how frail she was. She was so small, thin and helpless. He turned, and started to make his way back, but the frame was starting to collapse into the room, fire eating greedily at the wood.

"Doherty, where are you?" he heard Sampson yell frantically.

"I'm in here!" Jimmy shouted back, and coughed twice. "Dammit..."

He looked back to where he had first seen the girl emerge from the window, only to see that it too had started to deteriorate with the flames that swelled around it hungrily.

"Doherty, we can't get through! We gotta go back, man!"

"Get outta here!" Jimmy called to them, hearing them shout for a minute before retreating. He turned, seeing a small door behind him. The girl in his arms was crying. He kicked the door, and then again, feeling it crack and give way weakly beneath his weight.

There was a window. It was tiny, about the size of a bathroom opening. He cursed lightly, and set the girl down in a safe corner near a dresser, taking a small fire axe out of his belt, and swinging it hurriedly at the glass, felling it shatter immediately. He heard the ringing of the glass as it flew outwards, and he broke the rest of it away, before leaning out of it, and calling to the firemen below.

"Get a ladder over here! We can't get out through the stairs!" He saw Kimmy below, staring wild-eyed up at him, standing stock-still in the street, paramedics and fire fighters bustling about her. Bobby grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. Jimmy shook his head, and turned back on the girl. She was reaching out to him. Jimmy coughed madly for a moment, and then took her in his arms, hearing the whir of the ladder being raised.

Looking out of the window, he saw the ladders swinging in close, and looked to the young girl. She was terrified, staring with saucer-eyes out of the window, as though going through it was potentially the most frightening thing she would ever do. He only now noticed that she clung tightly to a teddy bear in her arms.

"It's okay, sweetie, we're gonna take you down the ladder, alright?" He coughed, feeling the burning of the smoke in his lungs. "Don't be scared."

The ladder made contact with the window-ledge, and Jimmy started to take the girl over, and he began helping her through.

Within moments, she was safely on the ladder, staring up at Jimmy, and sobbing something. What was it she wanted now?

He managed to pick out the word teddy, and he spun around, eyes scanning the floor, before he spotted the fuzzy and soiled bear on the floor, beady eyes staring up at him. He grabbed it in a gloved hand, started coughing, and climbed out of the window, showing the girl the teddy.

"I got the bear, kid, don't worry, I got him," he said reassuringly, and told her to start climbing down the ladder, which she did slowly, at her own pace. Jimmy coughed and breathed deeply, trying to take in some clean air.

They reached the bottom at last, and a cheer went up from the occupants of the building who were now below, and Jimmy nodded, distracted. He turned to the little girl, and handed her the teddy bear. She hugged it tightly, latching onto Jimmy's leg, and squeaking words of thanks. He smiled, and patted her on the head, taking the mask off her, and holding it in his hand, taking in a deep breath.

Kim and Bobby came over, Bobby leading the kid over to the ambulance, asking her questions, like whether or not she was okay, and how was her breathing, or was she burnt.

Jimmy watched her go, wiping his now-gloveless hand over his eyes, and letting out a deep breath, coughing afterwards. Kim was staring at him.

"Are you crazy? Rushing in there," she stated, her voice displaying her anger and concern both at once. She always did this. Ex-wife's prerogative, he supposed.

"Did the others make it out?" he asked, ignoring her comment, and saw her nod.

"Yeah, all three of them made it out just before you smashed the window. You could've gotten yourself killed, that girl too. Why didn't you just wait for the ladder? You could have gone up there and got the kid."

"I don't know, I just did it on instinct."

"Yeah? Well, what happens next time your 'instincts' kick in and Joey suddenly doesn't have a father, huh?"

"Kimmy, I'm fine," he wheezed.

"Let me take a look at you. How long were you without your mask?"

He shrugged under his thick jacket, and sighed. "Five minutes?"

"Well, you should be fine. Just don't pull any stunts like that again."

Jimmy smiled his most charming smile. "Yes, mom."

She slapped him on the arm, and shook her head. She wasn't amused... she rarely was anymore. Ever since their divorce she never laughed at any of his jokes. She only ever smiled in matters concerning Jimmy when he was with Joey, then she was the happiest he ever remembered seeing her. He supposed she felt like they were a family when he was with his son... he sure as hell did.

* * *

Sully popped another fry in his mouth, and glanced over at young Davis, shaking his head at the melancholy expression on the dark face. It was no good for the kid to keep mulling over things that were out of his control.

They had taken the guy back to the station... the one who had found the dead body in the alley, and had questioned him thoroughly. But that had been in the hands of the detectives, the hotshots, as they liked to think they were. They weren't so special. It was people like Sully and Davis, and Bosco and Yokas, who were out here on the streets solving the problems. The detectives just took a look at the mess left over, shook their heads with a quiet mutter about something or other, and moved it along.

"Hey, you gotta eat, kid. Have a burger or something," Sully advised, wagging a fry at his young partner.

Davis glanced his way, and shook his head. "No thanks. I'm not hungry."

That was that. Sully wasn't going to watch this guy mope all day, worrying over something he couldn't have done anything about. "Look, we're out here everyday, trying to solve problems, and we do the best we can, right? Sometimes we get it right, sometimes things go bad, that's out of our control. You gotta forget about it, detach yourselves from the bad ones. Sure, something goes good, and we solve a problem, then you can go home at the end of it all, and smile yourself to sleep... but don't punish yourself because one guy was already dead when we got there. You weren't to know that guy was going to die today... I bet no one really did. It was just the way it was supposed to happen, okay?"

Davis considered Sully for a moment, as the elder policeman ate a couple of fries, smiling at him wanly, and he nodded. Davis understood, even if not fully... he was pretending to, and that was enough for Sully.

* * *

Yokas stared over at Bosco as he kicked a can rather noisily along the path in the park, and sighed loudly, noticing he turned his head in her direction.

"What did I do now?"

Faith stopped, glancing around the edges of the bushy park for a moment before she replied, "Do I have to remind you of what you did?"

"I didn't do anything." Bosco turned away, kicking the can as hard as he could manage, sending it careening a good ten feet across the grass. "The guy pushed me, Faith. You should've let me hit him back."

"And what would that have accomplished, huh? He could have pressed charges," Yokas said to him, hopefully jogging his memory of just what they were and were not allowed to do in their job. She took her hat off for a moment, tucking a strand of rebellious hair behind her ear, donning the cap again afterwards.

Bosco didn't turn back to her for quite some time, gazing off somewhere into the distance. After a few minutes, he turned back to her and said, "What are we even doing out here?"

He had changed the subject... as usual. He always moved the conversation along when it turned onto him doing something he shouldn't. Bosco didn't like confrontation from Yokas that much. She knew as well as he did that the easier they could work together, the better.

"We're looking for a young guy, mid-twenties... weren't you listenin' to the radio?"

"Of course I was," he retorted, snatching his hat off, ruffling up his hair for a moment in the cool New York air. He did not replace the hat on his head. "I just don't see the point. All the guy did was..."

"See? You weren't listenin'. Might as well turn the damn thing off," she grumbled, and then turned to face her partner properly. "He was harassing a group of kids. Parents were worried he might be some sorta gang member or somethin'. He's wearing a dark blue jacket and a baseball cap."

"He white?"

"Yes, he's white," Yokas snapped, eyes scanning the park.

Bosco began walking away from Yokas, his back to her, and that gave her time to regard him seriously for a while. He was being especially... what was the word? Pissy?

That'll do, she thought without a scrap of humour. He had been like that since the moment he had strolled casually into the locker room. Late no less. He hadn't even seemed bothered at all either, and that annoyed the hell out of Faith.

"You say that guy was wearing a dark jacket and baseball cap?" Bosco inquired suddenly, and Faith could see his body tense. She had seen him do that countless times before. She knew what it meant.

"Yeah. Why?" she asked tentatively, already reaching for her radio, watching Bosco turn back to her halfway.

"'Cause he's just over there," he said quietly, words rushed. "Here." He tossed her his hat, which she fumbled to catch. He took off at a brisk pace whilst Faith called in the sighting to the station.