After resupplying the ambulance at Chicago Med, Sylvie had stopped off at the coffee shop that she had promised to introduce Alexa to on their way back to the firehouse.
"This is good coffee," Alexa said approvingly. They were back in the ambulance, parked out front of the little family-run shop.
"Good prices, too," Sylvie said, savouring her first caffeine hit of the shift. "So, are you going to tell me what Dr Halstead meant by his comment? Something about you being enough to turn a good girl bad?"
"I think I'll leave that to your imagination, Sylvie," Alexa said, her eyes gleaming and a cute, innocent little smile on her face.
She's in 'actress mode' again, Sylvie thought. But she had the impression that the comment was of a sexual nature, therefore implying that Alexa was into women. She considered it impolite to straight up ask her new partner if she was gay, so instead she decided to drop the subject.
"What about hobbies then?" she asked instead. So far, she was uncertain of Alexa, and therefore needed to know more about her.
"Hobbies? I'm addicted to coffee and addicted to anything to do with Disney. And I love to cosplay."
"Oh, okay. I've never done that," Sylvie said, making it clear that she was interested. "I've dressed up for Halloween, but that's about it."
Alexa smiled over the top of her coffee cup. "I'm sure you've had some good costumes though. What else do you like to do?"
"Oh, I'm a boring person," Sylvie said, suddenly feeling embarrassed. "I like to draw, read, or binge watch TV series in my free time."
Alexa drank some coffee, making quick progress with it. "Boring is a subjective thing. Everyone finds different things entertaining. Everyone finds different things boring. What do you draw?"
"People, or landscapes. My drawings are nothing special. It's just a hobby. Something to pass the time, you know?"
"I do know."
Sylvie drank some coffee and looked at Alexa. She was such a beautiful woman. It wasn't even fair how some people won the genetic lottery like that. To her embarrassment, Alexa looked at her and their eyes met. Sylvie looked away, wondering exactly why she was embarrassed. Was it because she had been caught looking? Or was there something else to it? She decided to shake it off and get back to work.
"Back to 51," she said, firing up the engine.
"Let's do it," Alexa said in a relaxed manner.
Soon they were back at the firehouse, where they could go their separate ways for a while.
"I'm going to finish unpacking my stuff," Alexa said, heading for the locker room.
"Okay. Come find me when you've done that and I'll introduce you to Chief Boden."
"Okay. I've heard his name before."
Sylvie nodded. "He's a good man. Very good Chief. Doesn't take any crap though."
Alexa giggled, already walking off. "I'll consider myself warned."
Heading into the canteen area, Sylvie found Stella Kidd there, having just made herself a coffee. Mouch, Herrmann and Gallo were sitting at a table, thick as thieves like they always were.
"How did that go?" Kidd asked, setting off for her office. Sylvie walked with her, glancing around to make sure Alexa wasn't going to overhear.
"Her work was good. Competent. Professional. But I don't know what to make of her. I have mixed signals so far."
"Mixed signals?" Kidd asked as they walked into the office, inviting her to elaborate.
Sylvie closed the door behind her. "It's hard to explain. I mean, she seems nice on the face of it. Pleasant, chatty, sweet, even. But I get a vibe that she's a very good actress and she likes acting, too. So what is the real Alexa and what isn't? Plus, we took a patient to Med and we bumped into Will Halstead. He knows Alexa, apparently. He said to me, 'She's enough to make a good girl go bad.' Not sure exactly what he meant. It made me wonder if she's gay."
"Well that's not a problem, is it?" Kidd asked.
"Of course not," Sylvie quickly insisted. "I'm not explaining well how it made me feel. I knew I wouldn't be able to explain it. Anyway, we've only done one call so far. Let's see how the rest of the shift goes."
An idea occurred to Kidd. "Why don't you call wherever her last posting was an talk to the PiC there? See what they made of her?"
"Alexa said the guy was a real micro manager and a pain in the butt. Eventually she couldn't put up with it any longer so she left."
Kidd nodded. "That's her version. Might be an idea to get the other side of the story."
"You know what? I'm going to do just that," Sylvie decided. "I've got her file in my locker, so I can remind myself where exactly she came from. I'll give the guy a call."
"Let me know what he says."
"I will," Sylvie promised, and with that she left the office.
On her way back through the firehouse, Sylvie noticed that Alexa was now in the canteen, with Gallo standing with her in conversation. Sylvie rolled her eyes, thinking how predictable it was that he was all over the pretty lady as soon as she showed up.
Sylvie went to the locker room and checked Alexa's file for her work history. Then she looked up the phone number for Firehouse 45, where Alexa had last been posted. She went out front of 51, where she could make the call with some privacy, and dialled. A firefighter eventually answered, identifying himself as Lieutenant Richards.
"Good morning," Sylvie said politely. "My name is Sylvie Brett. I'm PiC over at 51. I was hoping to speak to your PiC about a floater who has joined my Ambo today, Alexa Bliss. I'm looking for an opinion on her."
"Our PiC, Daly, is on annual leave today I'm afraid. But I can talk to you about Alexa Bliss. Daly is a friend of mine, so I know how he felt about her."
"Okay, thank you," Sylvie said.
"Basically, she started off okay but became a pain the ass. He found her hard to give direction to. Said she seemed to think he was the pain in the ass, when he was simply the PiC issuing orders. Maybe it was a personality clash though? I don't want to bury the girl. Personally, I quite liked her. Found her sweet and fun to be around."
Sweet, Sylvie noted, suspecting that meant Richards had liked Alexa because she was hot. Or because she had worked a spell on him with her 'actress mode'. She seemed capable of doing that for sure.
"Was it Alexa's decision to move on?" Sylvie asked.
"It was," Richards said. "As I heard it, she decided she couldn't work with Daly anymore. Apparently she decided the same thing at a previous posting too. You might have your hands full with that one."
"Yeah, I might," Sylvie said, grimacing. "Thank you for your time. Have a good day."
"You too," Richards said, and the call ended.
Sylvie sighed as she walked back into the engine bay. The report had not been a good one. Alexa was starting to sound like she could be high maintenance, and wasn't easy to get to know either. But, as ever, Sylvie tried to be positive. Rather than writing off her new partner on her first day, despite several negatives, she decided to take it as a challenge. She would try to get to know Alexa, and give her a fair crack on Ambo 61. Only if that didn't work would she ask Boden to move Alexa on.
"We're actually heading to a bar called Molly's tonight after shift if you'd like to join us?" Gallo was saying to Alexa when Sylvie walked into the canteen.
"Sorry, not tonight. I have plans," Alexa said casually.
"Oh. Okay. Another time then," Gallo said, failing at trying not to look mortally wounded by what was fairly obviously a blow off. "Brett, are you coming for drinks tonight?" he tried next.
"Sorry, I've got plans too," Sylvie said. It was a lie, and lying wasn't something she liked to do. The truth was she was already feeling knocked off balance by Alexa's arrival. She wanted some time to herself when the shift was over so that she could properly think things through regarding her new partner.
"Fine. I'll have to make do with Ritter then," Gallo said, for comedic effect making like the idea greatly disappointed him.
With perfect timing, Ritter walked into the canteen behind him. "Thanks. Means a lot," he said dryly.
Alexa giggled at Gallo and made her way towards the coffee machine.
"What's she like?" Gallo whispered to Sylvie.
"I don't know," Sylvie replied honestly.
By the end of the shift, Sylvie felt no closer to deciding how she felt about Alexa. On each callout they had responded to her work had been efficient, professional, and there had been no issues, so that was a positive. But Sylvie had the feeling that there was something she was missing on a personal level. There was too much of 'actress mode' and not enough of the real Alexa coming through. There was also Will Halstead's comment.
"Enough to make a good girl go bad. What does that even mean?" Sylvie muttered to herself, curled up on her couch under a blanket with her phone in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
For some reason, the next thought that came to mind was to look up Alexa online and see what came up. She opened Google on her phone and typed 'Alexa Bliss Chicago' into the search bar. An Instagram account came up, and not much else.
Sylvie touched the link to the account and it opened in the Instagram app. It was the correct Alexa, Sylvie saw straight away from the profile picture and the first row of posts. She was about to begin scrolling through the pictures, but she noticed something. Alexa's account was already following hers.
"Huh," Sylvie said to herself, pleasantly surprised. She navigated to her notifications. It was rare for her to get one as she didn't post often and didn't have many followers. However there was a notification saying that Alexa had started following her 9 minutes ago. It made Sylvie smile.
Navigating back to Alexa's profile, she tapped to follow. Then she started looking through Alexa's pictures. There were plenty of regular selfies, if selfies of someone so pretty could be called regular. Others, though, were odd, in Sylvie's opinion. There was one that showed a close up of Alexa's wrists and hands, with the wrists bound together with silky kind of cord. There was a selfie where Alexa had a strip of duct tape over her mouth. Further down, there was a picture that made Sylvie stop in her tracks.
"Holy..." she said, feeling herself blushing just looking at the image. In it, Alexa was wearing a black one piece leather outfit that didn't leave much to the imagination where her body was concerned, along with matching elbow length leather gloves. In one hand she was holding what looked like some kind of short whip. In front of her, a very attractive blonde woman was on her knees, her hands apparently bound behind her back and a red ball gag in her mouth. She was looking up at Alexa in a submissive manner.
Sylvie heard Will's voice again. "Enough to make a good girl go bad." Her cheeks grew even warmer. What if she was put into that kind of situation by Alexa?
"What am I even thinking?" she asked aloud, fidgeting on the couch. There was no denying it, she was feeling turned on. No woman had ever caused that to happen to her before. Her hand took on a mind of its own, it seemed, and she tapped reply to the image and sent a wide eyes emoji.
"Sylvie!" she scolded herself, wondering if she should delete it and pretend it had never happened. Pretend she had never looked at Alexa's Instagram. Pretend she had never seen the image of Alexa dressed in leather with a bound and gagged woman on her knees in front of her. Pretend that image had not turned her on. Pretend she hadn't contemplated herself being in that situation.
Before she made a decision, the notification indicator appeared. Sylvie felt an equal mix of horror and excitement when she saw that Alexa had replied to her eyes emoji comment.
'Your place or mine?' followed by a fire emoji and a devil's face emoji.
A/N: A relatively poor report from Alexa's previous firehouse, but Sylvie has found her work satisfactory so far. Is Alexa right for 51?
And what has Sylvie got herself into by losing her self control on Alexa's Instagram page?