"Whoo, I love the smell of PHOS-CHECK in the morning!"

Jake Carson sat at his computer, staring at a blinking curser on an application that he had pulled up on the desktop. The sound of his men going about their morning routine in the background was a comforting reminder that he had nowhere to go but up. Then, things started to get rowdy when Rodrigo (resident chef, chopper pilot, and fire-retardant huffer) painted one of the burly woodsmen-turned-smoke-jumpers named Axe pink with a snowball of the dry-powder. Foam and gel began to fly as others got in on the game. Jake pushed himself out of his chair, annoyed that he had to break up a snow-ball fight between hardened fire-fighters.

"You crushed it man," Rodrigo was congratulating class-clown Mark, who had painted the floor behind an opponent with gel and caused the man to execute a classic banana slip.

Jake stood in the doorway, scowled and crossed his powerfully muscled arms. Silence descended on the garage as members of his crew noticed his presence. Rodrigo was last to realize the Superintendent was standing behind him after mocking some of the men who had suddenly dropped out of the game: "We don't need you! We… don't…need… uh… oh…"

The garage and men were a mess of pink splatter. It was as if a "My Little Pony" party had exploded.

"Man, I am so sorry Supe," Rodrigo said lamely. "The guys were just blowing off steam. I apologize."

"There will be time for steam re-allocation later," Jake quirked a grin at his witticism. No one else seemed to get it. "Our main priority," he continued, "is to get this depo tip-top for Commander Richards' inspection. Is that clear?"

"Yes future division commander!" Mark stood ramrod straight, saluting as he barked the answer like a recruit trying to impress the drill sergeant at basic training.

Jake might have been able to come up with a soon-to-be-commander response, but an alarm started blaring from his office at that moment. He hurried in and stood in front of the monitors that constituted his command center - digital maps, weather forecasting, news feeds, and the depot's twitter feed (as Mark had a habit of posting inappropriate things that Jake would have to take down before someone got a screen-shot of it).

"Fire down by the lake," he said as his pink-dabbled crew crowded in behind him. "It's small, but there are cabins down there and you never know what a fire is going to do."

"We need eyes on the ground," said Rodrigo, realizing a moment too late what the implications of that were. "Ah…no need to be nervous…" he said, lamely as usual.

"Are you telling him to call Dr. Hicks," Mark's eyebrows would have shot up into his hair, if he'd had any. "after that date…?"

"It wasn't a date!" Jake shot back. "There might have been an occasion where we may have sat together… for chow. But I decided our spending time together was taking me away from this. So I decided to press pause…"

"…in the middle of our date?" A female voice suddenly filled the room with a tone of incredulity.

"Dr. Hicks!" Jake looked wildly around the room before realizing the voice was coming from the speakers mounted on the walls. He crossed quickly to his desk and found the quizzical face of Dr. Amy Hicks filling his monitor. Axe, never much one for words, grunted and stepped back from where he'd initiated the virtual connection. Axe was a man of action. He felt one shouldn't waste time quibbling about a botched rendezvous when there was a fire to be punched in the face.

At the moment, Jake felt he was doing a pretty impressive "Axe" impression, though he looked more like a fish gasping on dry land as he scrabbled around in his brain for something to say.

Dr. Hix sighed somewhat wearily. "What's the problem Superintendent Carson?"

Jake was taken aback. He hadn't expected her to be so forward, demanding even, to know what his problem was! How did she know anyway? Had Mark, the man he felt was like a brother, leaked it to her? Surely not. Mark was idiotic, but when it came to his job or his trust, friends didn't need to give a second thought to him having their back.

"Why do you assume," Jake was proud he didn't stammer, "there's a problem?" He didn't realize he was goggling like the aforementioned fish, trying with all his might to exude an aura of innocence.

"Unless you're calling three months later to apologize for going to the bathroom during our dinner and never coming back…"

Jake nearly swallowed his tongue.

"…than I assume there is some problem you need me to check on with my equipment."

"Oh … oh! That problem!" He was so relieved, he almost laughed but got hold of himself in time. He planted his serious face in place. "Ok, there is a problem."

That's how they'd met nearly four months ago, the circumstances being her equipment and his problem (he'd written this phrase in a report and had to stare at it for a long time to get over the inuendo). Dr. Hicks was doing a study on some local wildlife. She had cameras all over the woods within a hundred-mile radius. Jake had satellites, weather stations, and an elite fire crew under his command. What he didn't have was an corpus of cameras that could pinpoint a possible hot spot and let him know whether it was the beginning of a wildfire, or a troupe of boy scouts with a dozen campfires setting up for the night on the ridge. (On that occasion, to the poor kids' chagrin, the chopper blades had pretty much snuffed out their hours long work in a couple of seconds). Since Dr. Hicks had been in the area, he'd spent much less in man hours and helicopter fuel checking on one-alarm fires that turned out to be someone with an oversized barbeque.

"I need you to bring up your cameras. There's a fire down by the lake."

What would she ask for this time, he wondered? The first time had been a tour of the depo, then there was a ride in the helicopter, and then the date.

Instead of listing her demands, Dr. Hicks just silently acquiesced and brought up the cameras, not asking for anything in recompense. Jake felt his pride being stomped on like a size-15 boot smothering a grass fire.

The next moment, he forgot everything except for what the image on the screen meant. "There! Zoom in on that cabin. Right there!" The screen was suddenly filled with fire as a cabin on the edge of a nearby lake was threatened by a stand of blazing trees. Jake noticed the fishermen running out of the screen, hauling ass and their prohibited explosives out of there. Apparently, something had gone wrong with their fishing methods and the tinder-dry brush had caught fire. The trees had gone up like match-sticks and, even as they watched in horror, one came crashing down on the roof of the cabin. Soon, the entire structure was in flames.