J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read! Here we are at the end of this story. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Rosemoor: I want to give you a special thank you for reviewing all the chapters! I appreciate it so much!

Callensnext1: Thank you also for all your reviews! I'm sorry the last chapter felt a little rushed. I suspect that might be because I intended to have the resolution in this epilogue, so hopefully this will make the ending more satisfying. Thanks for the constructive criticism! My goal is to be the best writer I can be, and honest opinions from readers are a huge help for that!

Guest: This isn't a rewrite. There may be another story floating around with a similar storyline. If so, I'm not aware of it, but perhaps that is what you are thinking of. Thank you for reading!

Sbacigalupo: Thank you for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope to be writing more, too, when I get the chance.

And to everyone else who has read, reviewed previous chapters, followed, and/or favorited, thank you! God bless!

Epilogue

Five Years Later

"An ice cream stand!"

Roy was just coming around the squad to go to the day room when Johnny seemingly appeared out of nowhere and said those words. After working with him for so many years, Roy should have learned by now what such seemingly random proclamations meant, but he was sufficiently caught off-guard that he didn't understand right at first.

"What about an ice cream stand?"

"I know a guy who has one for sale," Johnny replied. "He's not asking very much. You and I go in on it together and then take turns on our days off selling ice cream in one of the parks. Just think of it!"

"I am thinking of it." To be fair, Roy hadn't been hit up like this in at least a couple of months, so it took him a few seconds longer than usual to try to think of a way out of it.

He was still thinking when three civilians walked into the bays, a man and a woman with a little girl. Instantly, Johnny dropped his big plan—for the moment, anyway—to greet them. If they were wanting a tour, he hoped Roy would handle it. He was better at that sort of thing than Johnny.

"Excuse me," the man said. "Is this Fire Station 51?"

"Yes, it is," Roy replied. "I'm Roy DeSoto, a paramedic with the fire department, and this is my partner, John Gage."

"Albert Donovan." The man held out his hand to shake Roy's. "This is my wife, Cindy, and our daughter, Jessy." Then Albert turned to Johnny. "So you're John Gage."

"That's right," Johnny replied. There was something in the way Albert said it that made him feel the man had heard his name before this.

Unexpectedly, Jessy darted forward and wrapped her arms around Johnny's knees. "You're the fireman who saved me!"

"I…am?" Johnny furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He didn't remember ever seeing any of these people before.

"It's a real honor to meet you, Mr. Gage," Albert said, grasping his hand and shaking it heartily.

"It certainly is," Cindy added, grasping Johnny's other hand in both of hers. "Jessy has wanted to meet you for so long."

Johnny looked helplessly at Roy, who could only shrug. Apparently, he didn't remember these people, either.

"Well, I'm glad to meet you, too," Johnny replied, "but are you sure you have the right person? I don't quite understand."

"Oh, of course!" Cindy said. "That was stupid of us. Of course, you don't know who we are. You rescued our daughter when she was a baby."

"You saved me from a building that fell down right on top of me," Jessy asserted. "I don't remember it, but the 'doption people told Mommy and Daddy all about it and they told me, so that's how I know."

"The adoption people…" Johnny repeated. There was only one baby he could ever remember rescuing from an abandoned building: the one who had been abandoned by her parents five years ago. Johnny had always wondered what had happened to her.

"We adopted her a few months after that," Albert explained. "We couldn't have children of our own, so we were looking into adopting. When we heard Jessy's story, we knew we needed to give her a home."

"We've wanted to find you ever since," Cindy added. "We were able to learn your name and the station you work out of, but we thought we'd wait until Jessy was older, so that it would mean more to her."

"It's my birthday," Jessy said. "We don't know my real birthday, but Mommy and Daddy picked today to be my birthday. I'm five today. And I wanted to come here for my birthday."

"It's all she said she wanted," Cindy said.

"Well," Johnny replied, looking down at the girl, "I do remember you. We had quite the time together."

"I don't remember it," Jessy repeated, disappointment in her voice.

Memories of those hours of being trapped beneath the debris crowded back into Johnny's head. "You're not missing a whole lot. It wasn't that much fun."

"It sounds exciting," Jessy said.

Johnny grinned. "It was a little exciting. Say, Jessy, have you ever been to a fire station before?"

Jessy perked up, forgetting her disappointment at not remembering the traumatic event. "No."

"Do you want me to show you around?"

"Yeah! Can I sit in the fire truck?"

Usually, Johnny felt a twinge of disappointment when kids were always more excited about the engine than the squad, but this time, he let it slide. "Sure. You can even sound the horn."

He led her to the engine and lifted her up into the engineer's seat. He showed her how to sound the horn, and all the adults covered their ears as the sound filled the enclosed space. Roy and the Donovans chuckled, but then Cindy wiped a tear from her eye.

Albert glanced at her and then at Roy. "We…we understand that Mr. Gage was trapped in that building when he was rescuing Jessy."

Roy nodded. "That's right."

"They also told us that he used his own body as a shield to protect her from falling debris," Cindy added. "They said she probably wouldn't have survived if it wasn't for him. We can never thank him enough."

"Yeah," Roy replied. "She probably wouldn't have. I'm glad that after all that, she was able to find a good home."

"She's our greatest joy," Albert asserted.

"And to think that someone just left her in that building to…to die." Cindy had to swallow hard. "I don't understand it."

"Me, neither," Roy agreed. "Did they ever find the mother?"

"No," Albert said. "We have no idea who she is. In a way, I'm okay with that. She was probably desperate, and as terrible as what she did was, she probably didn't fully understand what she was doing, so I wouldn't have wanted her to be punished for it. I still hope we can find her someday, so she can know that Jessy is alive and happy and wanted."

"And so she can see the beautiful girl she threw away like trash," Cindy added bitterly.

"Cindy," Albert said gently, "there's nothing to gain by being bitter."

While they were talking, Johnny had lifted Jessy back down from the engineer's seat, and she went running to her parent, giggling with excitement.

"Did you see? Did you see? I blew the horn!" she shouted.

"Yes, we did see." Cindy put on a smile to replace her somber mood a few seconds earlier. She hugged her daughter and then looked back up at Johnny. "Thank you so much, Mr. Gage. For everything."

Johnny grinned back at the family. "It was worth it."