Cyra was walking down the hall when someone pulled her to the side. "Whoa. Seriously?" Birch pulled away from Casey, but he held onto her arm tight. "What do you want?"
Matt finally let go once they were out of earshot of their coworkers. "We need to talk about this work situation. After shift, come over so we can talk."
"Right, 'cause that sounds like a spectacular idea." Cyra looked at him, her face showing her anger.
They both walked into the common area in silence, and people stared. "Seriously. What is it with you guys?" Otis questioned her.
"Stay out of it. It's none of your business. Okay?" She snapped.
The fireman backed up with his hands up. "Sorry." She walked out of the common room and towards the bay, most likely going to sit with her crew.
By the end of the shift, the tension was even worse. She was standing out by his truck. "Where's your ride?"
"Someone is borrowing it for today. I hope you don't mind."
"It's fine. Let's just go." They drove in silence to his house.
Once inside, she nodded. "Nice place."
"It's enough." They stood in the sunlight streaming through the windows as a few cars passed by. "Let's get our problems out in the open."
Cyra didn't waste any time, giving him a piece of her mind. "You are an arrogant, closed-minded jerk that only sees the bad in my family. You pretend to be so great, but you let your preconceived notions about me get in the way."
"Your family has killed innocent people!"
"Some of them, yes. But the ones like me haven't done anything. I'm from a horse ranch in California. So get your head out of your ass and take a good look at what you've ignored. When was the last time that we just talked or caught up?"
He paused, thinking hard about her question. "I... can't remember."
Cyra had tears forming in her eyes. She took a second, biting her bottom lip nervously. "I can. We were five years old. Do you know how pathetic that is?"
"I remember when I was 18, I got a phone call from your brother asking me to bail him out of jail."
"A few of us chose the wrong path. That doesn't mean we all did. It would help if you were mature enough now to see that. Please don't act like your family doesn't have its flaws. Your mother did kill your father."
"We do not talk about it!" Matt ran his hand through his hair and shook his head, frustrated.
"Well, I finished my piece. Your turn." She sat on the couch with her arms crossed.
"You think you know everything, and you are always in some trouble no matter what! You only think of yourself, and that's it. You talk about home and family, but at the end of the day, you don't have your dream family. And you take that frustration out on everyone else. It's not fair."
A heavy silence fell between them. Cyra looked up at Matt intensely from her seated position. "All right. Now we move on." Cyra was satisfied to get her points out in the open.
Casey shook his head. "We need to talk more about this."
"What's the point? You've held a grudge for over 25 years. I seem to be the only one who tries to connect with anyone on your side of the family."
"Excuse me? You're the one that insisted on being rude at the station!"
"Is that why you told the chief that he couldn't trust me?"
"He can't!"
"See! This is what I mean. You don't want to fix it. No, no. You just want to make things worse."
"I do not. I want to fix things just as much as you do. Well, assuming you want to fix things."
"Of course I do! Would I be here if I didn't?" There was a knocking on the door. Casey opened it and was taken aback.
"Excuse me, sir. Is there a problem here?" It was a police officer. "I was walking by, and I could hear you two yelling. What's the problem?"
"We had no clue we were that loud." Matt rubbed the back of his neck.
Cyra walked to the entryway, standing behind Casey. "Sorry, we have a couple of years of family drama to unravel." She laughed nervously.
The cop nodded once, turning to return to his patrol. "As long as you keep it down, we won't have any problems."
"We can do that. Thank you." The cop smiled and left the two alone again. "Bet you got nervous when he was at the door."
"Matt, I swear. That's the stuff you shouldn't say. We would get along so much better if you didn't."
"So what do we do now?"
Birch checked her watch before opening the door and walking out onto the sidewalk. "I'm only going to ask one more time for you just to let these crazy ideas of me go. I'm here to stay." A sleek black car pulled up, and the driver got out. He had brown hair and was very preppy and clean-cut. "Hello, Jonathan."
"Hey." He handed her a cup of coffee, and they kissed before getting in the car and leaving. Casey put his hands out as she drove away. They fell back to his side, and he went inside, shaking his head.
The next shift started like any other until Birch and Casey saw each other. "So. You do finally care about someone else besides yourself." Herrmann and Mouch watched them talk to each other in the hall with amusement.
"But your head is still up your ass. So, things can't get better until you do your part."
The amusement faded. "Why do you have to be like this? Did prison change you this much?"
"Prison? I have never been arrested!"
"Your brother called me saying you both had been arrested for carrying concealed weapons."
"That never happened. If it had, would I be here? Would I have this job? Probably not. Like I said before, think." Birch turned and saw the two snooping firemen. "What?" Her voice was harsh.
For three shifts, it carried on. Finally, the chief decided to intervene. "Birch. Follow me." She followed him to the briefing room. She saw Casey sitting at the table. Before she could say anything, the doors slammed shut, and the other men stood outside. "You two will work this out! You have to trust and respect one another to make this station function properly. You will be in this room until you fix things." He went to the door, and they stood dumbstruck. Otis and Tony stood by the door with their arms crossed. Occasionally they would glance back into the room. The cousins sat across the table from each other.
She noticed the firefighters looking in the room at them. "We have to do this. The men look to us to be mature and professional. How does it look to them that we don't get along?"
Casey turned and looked at Otis, sighing. "You're right."
"So let's start over. Forget everything we know about each other and hold nothing against each other."
"I agree."
She smiled genuinely when she stood up and held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Lieutenant Cyra Birch of the Chicago Fire Department."
He took her hand and shook it with a huge smile. "Lieutenant Matt Casey, truck 81."
"Nice to meet you. Do you enjoy working here?"
"I love it. I always wanted to be a fireman, and I did it."
"Not the same with me. I grew up with different goals and went to college, but somehow I ended up in the fire academy instead."
"Wait, really? What did you study?"
"Culinary arts. While I was in college, I worked at an animal shelter too."
"I had no idea."
"Yeah, I'm just full of surprises."
"That's great."
They talked until the next run. The alarm went off, and they ran to their vehicles. The building they arrived at was falling apart. There was screaming coming from one of the windows. "Birch and Casey on the ladder." The truck was moved, and the ladder started going up. Birch went first, and a frantic woman nearly jumped out on her when she got to the window.
"Whoa! Hold on. Calm down." She held onto the back of her shirt, trying to keep her from moving too much. It didn't work. She fell over the edge. Birch reached down and grabbed her arm. The woman's screams alerted everyone to trouble. She weighed well over 200 pounds, and Birch struggled to hold her up.
"Don't let go of me!" She started trying to climb up Birch's arm.
"Stop moving, woman!" Casey tried to climb up farther. "Stay there, Matt." Pulling her up, the woman made it onto the ladder underneath Birch. Cyra simply shook her head and returned to the window. A man was coughing from the smoke and ash. "Sir! Over here!" He made his way to the window. "Turn around and start coming down slowly." He followed her instructions, and they made it safely onto the ground.
"My shoulder hurts. It's that fireman's fault!" The woman pointed to Cyra.
"That's not something you hear every day." Chief Boden shook his head, disappointed at the woman's rude and ungrateful behavior.
"I guess she doesn't realize it's her fault. If she hadn't jumped out at me and panicked, maybe her shoulder wouldn't hurt."
"Yeah. Did you fix things with Casey?"
She looked at the chief, not expecting him to change the conversation abruptly. "Things are going to get better. We made progress. And maybe, if I can, I could work for 51 permanently instead of returning to my station."
He smiled at her. "We can talk about that later."
The chief walked away when Casey approached her. "Do you lift weights too?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind. Good job."
"Thanks."