Natalie didn't try to knock on the door to the house, she walked in through the back door which led to a kitchen that had the same layout as hers. But this kitchen was in shambles, it was a place that looked like no one had bothered to clean up after last weeks dinner.
No one could bother interrupting the parents. Mr. Noble was not someone anyone wanted to bother with. He still wore his work overalls that were stained with oil as a car mechanic. He was starting to go bald on top. Mrs. Noble was a shorter woman with a bobbed haircut. She was yelling just as loud at her husband as they stood in the middle of a trashed front room yelling at each other.
"HEY!" Natalie yelled, tossing a magazine at the two adults. "Do you even care that your daughter is out back unconscious?"
Both parents looked at the intruding woman, the crazy garden lady from next door.
"How did you get in my house? I thought the doors were locked." Mrs. Noble took two steps towards Natalie.
"You have a daughter don't you? She's out back with the paramedics that I called. Come on." Natalie turned around and headed back in the way that she had come from.
Luckily the Nobles followed her out of the house and when they saw the two paramedics working on their obviously downed daughter, that was when the real fear came in. At least with Mrs. Noble.
"My Baby! What happened? What happened to my baby!" Beyond agitated and edging on to hysterical, Mrs. Noble stopped as Natalie grabbed her arm. "What's wrong with my baby?"
"She fell." Natalie said as John glanced at her. "She fell because she was standing on that pile of wood you were supposed to use as a deck."
Mrs. Noble turned towards her husband. "I told you that I wanted that done. I told you." She tried hitting her husband but Natalie wrapped both of her arms around the distraught woman, to keep her from doing something stupid. "I told you but you never do anything right."
"Me, what about you!" The large man yelled right on back.
Natalie stood between them, pushing them apart. "You both are going to stop and you are going to listen to me now."
She knew that the voice she used was often implemented on her students. And both adults just stopped yelling and looked at her.
"This is not helping your daughter. What they are going to need is your permission to give her an IV so that she can get the help that she needs." Natalie told the two adults. "You act worse than my students." That part she said under her breathe. "How is she doing, Mr. DeSoto?" She asked.
"Uh, unconscious at the moment but her vitals are relatively good." He glanced at his partner as he was trying to contact Rampart Emergency on their BioPhone.
Natalie knew that she could not interfere in this case, Jessie's life depended on it. She needed her parents to stop and focus on her. Natalie made it her business to keep the girl's parents away from the paramedics.
"Anyone here!" A new voice yelled out.
"Back here, Vince!" Roy DeSoto yelled back.
Natalie saw a cop come around the side of the Nobles' house and he was being followed by a couple of ambulance attendants. Now she could breathe a sigh of relief with help being there to take the girl to the hospital.
"We need to start an IV and get a cervical collar on." John said.
John did the cervical collar and Roy put the IV on Jessie's right arm. Natalie was thankful that the officer came over to talk to the parents, though Mrs. Noble was still distraught over Jessie falling.
"He was supposed to put the deck up but he can never do anything right." She pointed at her husband.
Mr. Noble puffed out his chest and looked at his wife with as much contempt as she was giving him. "Me, you don't clean enough. The house look likes my scrap yard. At least the scrap yard is up to code."
"Enough!" Using her Voice again, Natalie stopped the two of them. "Stop the fighting. Look, Mrs. Noble, they are loading your daughter up on a gurney. You go with your daughter. Mr. Noble and I will clean up the wood." The woman opened her mouth to say something but Natalie held her hand up. "No, do as I say. Go with your daughter. You have enough from her, Mr. Vince?"
"Yeah, for right now. I'll know where to go to ask you any more questions." The cop answered, glancing at the blond woman. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
"I've been around, hanging out here and there. Probably so." She lifted one shoulder. "I live next door to the Nobles. I'm a school teacher for LA County Public Schools, Douglas MacArthur Elementary school." Natalie pointed over towards the white fence where her elaborate garden was growing.
She watched the officer take note of that and then caught John standing up slowly with his orange phone case thing and Roy was the one that was heading out to the Squad.
"I'm sorry, I'll be right back." Natalie said before briskly walking after the firefighters.
John was getting in the ambulance with Mrs. Noble and it was Roy was the putting the stuff up in the Squad when Natalie came up to Roy.
"Mr. DeSoto, I just wanted to let you know something." She said.
Looking down at her, Roy spoke up. "About the little girl?"
"About your little girl. I'm her teacher, Ms. Brisk. She's doing very well. I just thought I would like you to know."
"Uh, well, thanks." He smiled. "I really appreciate that." He turned to put the rest of the stuff in the Squad but when he turned around again to say something Natalie wasn't there.
She had disappeared on him.
John could not stop thinking of her, the woman Natalie.
After he and Roy had left the hospital and were on their way back to their fire station.
"Brackett says the little girl will be okay." Roy said as a way of making a conversation.
But John was not paying attention to anything his partner was saying. His thoughts were on a particular blond haired woman.
The way she talked, the way she carried herself. He had seen her say something to Roy before walking briskly back the way she had came. And like that, he could not see her anymore.
"What did she say to you?" John asked, his attention mainly out the front window.
"Who?"
"Natalie, what did she say to you?"
"She wanted to tell me how well Emily was doing in school."
It took a moment for John to process that little bit of information. "What do you mean how well Emily is doing in school? How would she know your daughter?"
"She's Ms. Brisk, the new teacher that took over Mrs. Winston's class after Halloween. Two years ago."
"And you never told me?"
"How many Brisks do you know out there. I never met Ms. Brisk, only Jo Anne has seen her. She's the same Ms. Brisk that was Christopher's teacher. I didn't put two and two together this last Halloween, not until my kids told me that they saw the rescue."
"And you still did not tell me? Really, Roy. I'm your best friend."
Roy shook his head. "Well now you know. I don't know why I didn't tell you any of this. Maybe you could go see her at school."
"Why would I do that?"
John watched Roy roll his eyes, sigh but kept on driving.
"Roy," John started.
"What?"
"What school does Emily and Chris go to?"
The older of the two again rolled his eyes. "I thought you had to work Thanksgiving."
"I'll think of something. I always do."
Roy that John's plans did not always work out.
Tuesday - - - Next Week
"Ms. Brisk, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?" Emily DeSoto asked.
"Spending three quiet days and a weekend at home. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I talked to my Mommy and Daddy about inviting you over for Thanksgiving. That way you can see Chris, my brother."
"I know who your brother is, Emily." Natalie smiled at the young girl.
The rest of the class was getting ready to head home, considering that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were day offs for Thanksgiving. A lot of the kids were talking about the Turkey wreaths that they had made in Art Class with Natalie. But Emily DeSoto was acting a little strange.
"Uncle Johnny is picking me up today." Emily said as she put her composition notebook on top of her math textbook inside her desk.
"I see. What about your brother? I know you go home together on the school bus."
Again the girl fidgeted, not really looking at her teacher. Natalie really knew that something was up, even if it seemed to be a benign thing.
"He's going home with a friend named Carl. Chris is going to spend the night at Carl's house."
"I see."
Walking back to her desk, Natalie sat down and shuffled around the equation packets that the children had all turned in. She needed to do something, something to get her mind off of those brown eyes that belonged to a man she had not anticipated on seeing again. She was thankful that he did not know where she worked.
The bell rang for the end of school.
"Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Be safe and I expect to see your short essays on your Founding Fathers by Monday." She called out to them.
All except for Emily had left the room. Emily stood at her desk, looking at the doorway and then back at Natalie. She fiddled with the hem of her nice yellow dress as if she was nervous about something. Putting her red pencil down, Natalie stood up.
"Emily, why haven't you left yet?"
"I, uh, I told Uncle Johnny he can pick me up here." The little girl said.
Natalie did have that meeting at four to go over Fourth Grade Literature for her class. She was out of books to have the kids read but then again the other fourth grade teachers had their own schedules of things to do.
Just as she was about to say something, the door opened to the class room. Both Natalie and Emily turned to see a tall man stroll into the room wearing jeans and a plaid blue button up shirt that was tucked in his pants. And it was this man that made breathing slightly harder to do for Natalie as she stood staring at him.
"Hi, Uncle Johnny." Emily waved at him.
Uncle Johnny was John Gage, firefighter? How many times did it take for Emily and Chris to describe this Johnny who was Native American to her? How many years had she heard about an Uncle Johnny, even Jo Anne had spoken about him in their parent teacher conferences.
"Hi, Emmy. Hi, Natalie." He said looking over at Natalie as she stayed rooted to in front of her desk. "How are you doing?"
Blinking, that was the only thing she was capable of doing. And there was John, smiling at her as he had a hand on Emily's shoulder.
"I'm, well, I'm a little shocked to be honest."
"Well, how do you think I felt last week on Friday when I saw you? If I remember right you told so many people that you would probably never see me again."
She rubbed the back of her hand, the blush spreading more across her cheeks. "Well, this is LA County. Do you really think that I would ever meet you again?"
"Maybe. You could have just come on by the fire station. It's not like you didn't know where I worked, you had a pretty good view of my helmet."
Natalie couldn't help biting at her lip. He had been right. She did know what station he was from. And yet she still didn't look for him. Even with the recent events going on.
"I thought you would have a girl waiting back at home. I'm not the kind to step where I am not wanted." She quickly thought that up on the spot.
Rubbing her hands on her jeans, she looked away from John. The decorations would have to come down, she thought trying to dislocate herself from the situation. The kids would take them home the coming Monday and they would start with a new batch of lessons.
"I have a meeting to get to soon." She declared then looked at Emily. "Don't forget to do your homework."
"Can you come to Thanksgiving with us? Uncle Johnny will be there. He finally got someone to fill in for him tomorrow."
"I don't know where you live." Natalie glanced at John, who was now smiling like an idiot.
Emily looked up at John and he pulled something out of his back pocket. It was a folded up piece of paper and he held it out to her with his long fingers.
"Here, Roy and Jo Anne are expecting you by two o'clock." He told her.
"And wear something nice, that's the tradition of my family. Grandma is going to be there and she likes things to be perfect."
"Don't I know that." John mumbled. "I can't wait to see you tomorrow, Natalie. Come on, Emmy."
"See you Thanksgiving, Ms. Brisk." Emily waved, grabbed her books and notebooks off her desk and followed John to the door.
John stopped at the door and turned to look at her. That smile was still plastered there on his face and it made her question if this was a good idea. In due time she was going to have to face the fact.
She was going to have to get used to the idea that the what ifs were over, that this was the here and now. John was here and now. The what ifs didn't count anymore.
A/N: I hope your Thanksgivings are going to be okay. I may or may not update tonight when I have a chance to. Right now this is all that I can give everyone. I hope you liked it.