Hands and mouths
Mouch sat on the couch and put his second ball of chips on his lap, grabbing the remote in the process. The voices of his collegues in the background invaded his ears, leaving no space for his TV. He slightely turned around, too comfortable to actually turn to them.
"Shhh!" he groaned.
A loud giggle disturbed him again, he couldn't hear what Pablo was about to tell Josefina. Would he at last tell her he loved her?
The moment was gone, Josefina was crying. Was it a happy cry or a sad cry? He would never know, he pressed the rewind button and braced himself for that moment. That giggle again, at the exact key moment. He rewinded it again and grabbed the huge bowl with both hands pressing it upwards against his chest.
"No way!" "You're lying!" "Get out!" They shouted, their voices mashing like a broken tune.
"You get out!" He snapped,
Gabby, Mills and Cruz turned to him, "What's wrong? No calls so far, aren't we allowed to celebrate?" she said,
"No, no, no!" Herrman complained and Gabriella already regretted her words.
The alarm rang.
"Jinx!" Otis pointed at Gabby.
"Pff" Cruz dragged his feet behind his bestie.
All in uniform, they ran to their truck, Dawson stretched a hand before her to get some help but no support came. She blew out her frustration and grabbed the sides of the truck doorframes to pull herself in.
She found a spot just big enough to fit her small, athletic frame and sat. Her thigh collided with Cruz's and he immediately moved it away.
"The Jinx doesn't touch the Cruz" he held his hands out as a shield.
Gabby looked at Herrman, he shrugged "Boundaries, Candidate, gotta respect'em" he enunciated as if it were a golden rule.
Arms crossing over her chest she heard Otis go on and on about it.
"There always, ALWAYS has to be a dumbass to jinx a calm day"
The dumbass in question, her. Great, my first month as candidate's really going great.
Truck 81 and ambulance 61 had been called to a fire at the theater on Oak Street.
Casey closed the door behind him and twisted his torso to the side to look at his crew. He grabbed the side of the driver's seat. Unaware of the Jinx curse that Gabby seemed to have triggered.
"Guys, I know we had a pretty lazy day but now we need our full focus. You got me?"
"Yes, Lieutenant" She says, forcing herself not to look at the furious eyes of her collegues.
"Lots of people are still inside so we need focus, velocity at a clear mind." His eyes swept the truck and stopped at a few pissed off stares " Whatever animosity I'm feeling in here" He drew his hand in front of the stares " it's gone, understood?" No reply "Understood?" his voice got strict, the guy mastered authority. That was hot.
"You got it Lieutenant" Herrman was first to break the silence of the firemen, followed by Cruz, and Otis, the last one agreeing reluctantly.
At the scene of the fire, smoke of a medium shade of gray streamed off the roof of the building. People were coming out, huffing, coughing, crying and screaming. No time for Jinx stories, this was real life.
A primary instinct threw her to the wounded. A woman, badly burnt on her shoulder, arm and leg of the same side and a small child sat next to her. Hysterical, he didn't pronounce any coherent word. His guttural screams and panicked tears formed a heavy knot on her stomach. How did they get out?
First step, help the hurt. Protect, then calm the kid. She almost reached for her first aid kit when she realized she had no more.
Not a medic anymore. Right.
"Dawson we need help inside!" Cruz yelled, holding a heavy weight with Clarke, "You're a firefighter or what?"
Firefighter. Right. Think as one, live as one and you'll become one. You gotta believe it. She snapped out of her daze and nodded at the door, she called Shay and gestured toward the two injured people. When help got here she moved, faster than she thought she would. Blood pumped through her veins, the adrenaline, use it Gabby, feed from it. She ran behind Cruz and made sure everyone was at safe distance as they kicked the doors in.
If the doors were closed how did the two people I saw earlier get out?
There might be another way in than through those doors, one that would help a lot of people in less time. She turned around, spotted Shay and ran back there.
"Dawson!" She could hear Cruz swear again.
Screw you, I'm a hell of a firefighter! She pushed herself to the ground next to the woman, her body was twitching, Dawson knew breathing must have took effort but she had to speak.
"Where did you come from? Miss, miss. I'm sorry but you can't rest yet"
"Hah, uhhm" She tried.
"What was that?" Gabby encouraged
"Bathroom window. Luke wanted to pee"
She felt her lips stretch into a smile and a chuckle came out "He might have saved your lives, stay strong!" She tapped Shay's shoulder, sending her support to both and ran back to her crew.
"Two people came out of a bathroom window. It could lead to a theater room faster than the main entrance. I think we should send two teams, one through each entrance."
Cruz looked at Clarke as to consult his take on it, he shrugged and Herrmit came out of the flames holding a teenager.
"What'ya waiting for, this thing's like a human barbecue. Get your asses to work!"
"Clarke, follow Herrman, Dawson and I will take the bathroom"
"Move it!" Herrman yelled, speaking to all of them.
She haden't seen Casey out in a while. A big while. She looked at Shay and followed the finger she pointed the window with.
It was 5 feet above the ground. A bit too high to access easily.
"Dawson, Hand-ladder" He ordonned, since when did he make the rules again? She would have objected, but saw no better alternative.
She solid joined her hands together and held them high enough to be used as a jumpstart. He raised his eyebrows, something she only got when he separated his own fingers.
"You first" she said, refusing to admit aloud that she wouldn't have been strong enough to pull him in once there.
His foot sat on her hands and she tensed her biceps, struggling to offer enough support for a guy of his built. He pulled his body up with unexpected ease and in a matter of seconds, seemed to have his arms ready for her.
The black smoke created a heavy cloud that covered the whole room and left little to no visibility. She forced on her eyes to make out her surroundings and cautious but nervous to be quick, they called out.
"Fire department, call out!" She heard him scream.
Nobody is here, dead or alive so she moved faster toward the door. Once opened She saw a hoard of people on the floor, coughing their lungs out right outside the theater rooms. She looked at Cruz and gestured him to the right, she squatted down in front of a man and his mother, probably watching the newest Meryl Strip movie, too bad it ended this way.
The woman was passed out on the floor, about 65, the man didn't seem far from going there also. She pushed on his arm and shook to awaken him.
"Follow me" she screamed. She grabbed the woman by her wrists and dragged her body toward the door. The bathroom window was closer but it wouldn't do. She passed other people and told the ones able to walk to follow along. Casey painfully dragged a young woman, he hadn't stopped ever since he'd first came in. At least he was still standing.
The people behind her started running and screaming to the front, oblivious to any injured people they could walk all over. She felt a ball of anger form at the very spot the heavy knot had been.
They got out but their panick seemed to multiply at the sight of the gathering of the neighbors, firefighter trucks and news reporters. Out the door she tried to get the hang of either Brett or Shay but both their hands were tied with other vitims. Another ambulance came in, followed by truck 35,
what are they doing here? We've got this!
Their leutenant seemed to be giving orders, she slowed her pace down, trying to make out his words. Their ambulance team ran toward her and took charge of the 3 people still following her.
"Dawson, go back inside!" Bowden said, she could tell by his eyes, it was an order.
"A lot of people came out running, they should be looked at"
Casey was out now, handing over the people he'd had helped. He looked at her and his expression was hard to decipher. Fires like that, they didn't leave you intact.
Burnt skin, coughing people, crushed people. Screams for help, cries of loss and chaos pushing people in every direction, it all could get so overwhelming.
No thinking just doing.
She dived back inside, grabbed the first person she saw and dragged them outside. Mouch came out holding a little girl, she ran toward him and could see that something had embedded onto her skin. Some kind of melted plastic, the little girl was passed out, lucky for her. At least she didn't see that, she would on the other hand be scarred for life.
Shay, Brett and the other ambo' teams had long, suffering faces. There were too many people, they needed help, it was a fact. They needed her. The theater was empty, there was no harm in staying and helping the ambo, was there?
She walked confidently to Casey and prepared to ask persmission to stay outside,
"Dawson, Otis get the water" He said, he turned the other way and discussed a technique with Bowden and Cruz.
She stayed a second longer trying to get his attention. Otis had already moved accordingly to the order, he turned back,
"You comin' o'what?" he asked, his hands giving away his impatience.
"yep'" She ran to the truck and help unroll the big tube, part of her wished she had been holding another type, way smaller type of tube. She grabbed the end and connected it to the waterfountain. She waited for the signal through radio and sent the water.
A second after the water started flowing, a bursting sound startled her and the people were hit by a new wave of pure chaos, this was going to be a long day. A window blew up and flames came flooding out, licking the walls and shattering the glass on their way.
Casey was still inside, Gabby looked at Bowden and he was busy screaming inside his radio, probably requesting some news. She ran close enough to the building she could feel the heat of the flames lick her face.
"DAWSON!" She heard Bowden snap,
She ignored the calls and tried her best to have a good glance inside. The window she stood beside had just been shattered and she was confident she would see the flames before they could attain her. Casey was inside, he might have been needing her help, she couldn't be useless. That wasn't her job.
A fireman came out dragging someone else on the way. It was a uniform, Only Herrman and Casey had had enough time to get inside. The question was, who dragged who?
Afraid to find out, she still however, sprinted over to her two male homologues.
"What happened? " she asked, her hand distractedly feeling her neck for her stetoscope. Her heart slowed down and the city seemed to be moving in slowmotion the moment her eyes laid on Casey's, shut, it sucked the life out of her.
"We were sending the water but something blew up and Casey got hit by a loose piece of the rooftop. It fell over his casque but he collapsed instantly.
She checked his pulse immediately, first response was his best chance. The moves she had been trained for, the ones she had done so much they now were second nature, the same moves she had saved so many lives with came back naturally. She knew what to do, what to do it with and when to do it. What a pity to be giving that up. Jumping in a flaming house, that was an unprecedented feeling, but feeling the heartbeat of a man after you've felt it stop was its own kind of unfathomable. What a shame to be limited to one occupation when both gave so much. Had she decided well ? Or had the academy detected her lack of involvment at her first try? Thus the failure at the test. It all seemed plausible.
Was it her place to act, to save anymore? Who was she if not the one to maintain life even when it only holds to a thread? Was she Gabby Dawson if she no longer reassured and relieved victims of their pain? Firefighters did little to nothing about pain. They had no time for emotions, no time to appease only to deliver the sick and the injured. Did she want to relieve or did she want to deliver? There seemed to be a fine line between to two, but a line nonetheless. One that linked two professions by their similarities but separated their ambitions. On the life saving spectrum, where did she belong?
But Casey was there, in need of help, her eyes met Herrman's. Had it been enough for him to pull his Lieutenant out? He'd come out and looked for help. Had delivering been enough for him? His eyes said no.
Guilt imposed itself in her head as she realized that she hadn't been solely focused on the problem. She'd let her head wander in places that wouldn't help Casey, or anyone else for that matter.
No way! She couldn't be helpless. That wasn't her job.
She layed Casey flat on his back and listened for his breath.
Non exitant. Quick response, as always, she started compressions and blew two mouthfuls of air in his mouth every 30 compressions. Herrman ran to an ambo' alerting of the endangered fireman's life.
Seconds passed.
Why wasn't he breathing again? Compressing, mouth to mouth, compressing, listening for heartbeat, feeling for a pulse, compressing, mouth to mouth. As went the never ending cercle of saving lives. Devastation settled inside of her, this would be their relationship all along, him saving her from a free falling elevator, her compressing his chest after he'd forgot to look after himself for the common good. How could they be when sacrificing themselves would involve another person? When their personnal sacrifice would be a conscious sacrifice of their loved ones as well?
Well below, underlying was a regovirating pleasure. The thrill to be striving for someone else's life, the uncertainty of getting it back and the power her banal looking hands were given at that moment. Soft skin and five fingers, painted fingernails came in a quasi symetric pair. Nothing special, just hands, the same she used to eat, the same she turned to for touch. The ones she used to grab her purse and put her lipstick on. Just hands, there was nothing crazy about hands.
And it seemed surreal that these same hand were given such power. Surreal and unreal but what was more real than life and death? What had more impact on Casey's life than her banal looking hands? If she stopped compressing his chances at life would be null, but if she kept them going. If she maitained a motion so rehearsed, so second nature, then he might live, and if the mouth she used for speaking kept blowing air into the one he used to save lives, then he may live. And if she repeated the two motions long enough than hopefully it meant that he must live. Because that was the point after all. He must live.
Seconds passed.
The underlying won the battle, surface emotions were after all just there, on the surface. They screamed to your brain and demanded attention, they expected to control your every move. But they were weak emotions in a strong emotion desguise. They didn't last, they only had the power you gave them. So Gabby gave them none. She shut them down and took control because her every move were his every chance.
Shay finally glanced at them, the ground had been invaded by hurt people and now was the only free moment she had had ever since her ambulance had stopped there. Days like these could never be expected, their darkness followed you, no matter how strong-minded, with each intervention, you carried a little more weight. So you piled it on and shoved it in the back of your mind, you made sure it was locked and feared the moment it would all come raging back. But you didn't want to stop the process, you didn't want to walk alway from that life. Somehow you just knew; sometimes you had to sacrifice a bit of yourself to give another their best chance at life. That was what it took and it was fine. Inconsiderate, completely selfless and emotionnally devastating but in the grand scheme of things, it was fine.
Leslie threw a leg before the other and hurried to use that leg as leverage to close the distance between her and the Lieutenant in seconds. She expected tears in Gabby's eyes but detected none, Dawson just seemed focused. Perfectly guiding her hands on his chest, almost mechanically repeating the life saving process.
And finally he coughed. Gabby's hands relaxed and her endorfines flooded her brain. What a day. Shay waited for the stretcher and sent Casey on the first available ambulance.
Dawson looked around her, the fire still ate away the walls of the theater but less people needed help. And now her urge was to put the fire out.
Gabriela Dawson, Chicago Firefighter.
Gabriela Dawson, Chicago Paramedic.
Who the hell was she?
In the hospital bed that same night, he slept, peacefully. Out of the woods, the Doctor's words to describe him.
Gabby sat on his bedside and waited for these orbs to transcend her the way they did.
"Hello sunshine." He said and for a second Gabby wondered if he remembered.
"We have to stop seeing each other like that" she smiled, but raw, the truth can be a joke.
"But that's the only way we do. See each other" he had a point.
"Oh. You got yourself in here so you could see me? C-"
"Cute?" he cut her off with puppy like eyes.
"Creepy" she corrected but ornated her word with a low chuckle, almost under her breath.
"Maybe we should. See each other. I mean, outside these depressing white walls"
"I'm sorry Lieutenant what was that?" she laughed
"Gabby!" he scolded,
"I'm kidding, why not?"
"Why not" he repeated.
Bowden came in, checking in after the long day.
So what did you think? I know it was a long time coming but I hope the quality of the chapter makes up for the wait. Please comment, I love reading your opinions. Do you think the career path doubts blended in nicely?
