Kids. It had to be kids.
"I got three civilians on the bravo side of the structure," Jake was yelling into his comm. In front of him were three seriously scared kids - behind him the whole world was on fire.
"Are you really a fireman?" Leave it to an 8-year-old boy to make small talk in the middle of a fiery maelstrom.
"I'm a smokejumper, which is… ok, never mind!" A timber crashed to the floor really close by and Jake knew it was time to get out of there.
Then, he suddenly had his arms full of kids. A two-year-old wrapped herself around his neck while the conversational little boy grabbed him around the middle. The teenage girl who was with them held onto a bicep that was thicker than her arm. Jake clipped belt-loops and button-holes to every carabiner he had on his safety belt.
"I'm gonna clip us all together and we all go at once, ok?"
It had to be ok, because they were suddenly jerked upward as the cable connecting them to the chopper hovering overhead started to crank up. His crew hadn't waited for the signal to go because the entire roof was collapsing. At that point, training said "don't wait - you'll live with the consequences, but there will be fewer fatalities." Leaving someone who wasn't clipped on behind was supposedly better than losing everyone altogether. Luckily in this case, three coughing kids and a soot covered smokejumper were hauled into the chopper. The sudden thunderstorm would take care of the rest of the job.
"Take the children to St. Stephens for medical eval," Jake commanded Rodrigo. The little girl was still clinging to his neck and he unconsciously put a comforting arm around her.
"Why? We're fine!" the teenager objected, albeit through chattering teeth in 95 degree weather - she obviously didn't know the pathophysiologic dangers of emotional shock very well.
"Hey Supe, storms on top of us!" Rodrigo yelled above the noise of the chopper, even though Jake could hear him as if he were inside his ear through the comm. "Winds are at 20 knots and I need to set down now!"
Jake cursed under his breath. It wasn't that he didn't like kids. The opposite was true, in fact. He wanted to have a parcel of his own someday. But the subject of children was an emotional roller-coaster for him and had been for the last five years. He thought he was over it, thought he could get on with life, but his date with Amy Hicks had shattered that glass front pretty damn quick. The moment she had mentioned she wanted a large family someday, the mental defenses he'd though were thick as a brick wall proved to be paper thin and he'd had to excuse himself to use the restroom before they were completely shredded right there in front of her.
"Fine," he shouted too loudly into the comm, "Head back to the depot. We'll evaluate 'em there."
