2018 Diaz Residence, Los Angeles

Alisa Kayleigh Diaz woke up from a long slumber and slowly sat up as quietly as she could to not disturb her sleeping husband. Her blue eyes zoomed in on him causing her to smile at how adorable he looked, his normally coiffed hair was a mess and covered his forehead. After a few moments, she kissed his forehead before getting out of bed and grabbing a scrunchie on the bedside table to pull up her long and wavy auburn locks into a messy bun. She went out of their room to check on the next room, her son's room. She melted at the sight when she saw how snuggled up he looked and it was a sight she can never get tired of. "Well, time to start the day." she stretched as she walked towards their kitchen.

Alisa went to the refrigerator so she could take out ingredients for breakfast and make lunch for her 2 boys. She decided to make breakfast quesadillas and chicken fajitas for lunch later. 15 minutes into prepping, she could faintly hear her husband waking up and heading towards their son's bedroom to wake him for the day. "Good morning, mommy!" her sweet boy entered the kitchen and dining area, still dressed in his pajamas.

"Good morning, darling!" she greeted back, washing her hands so she could hug him, "How'd you sleep?"

"Amazing!" he hugged her happily, "How did you sleep, mommy?"

"That's good to hear, darling." she peppered his cheek with kisses, "Like you, I slept amazing, even with your father snoring." Christopher burst into chuckles.

"Don't listen to her, mijo. I don't snore despite what your mom says." came the voice of her husband, smiling from the entryway of the kitchen, "Buenos Dias, mi amor."

"Buenos Dias, Eddie." she replied, smiling brightly.

"Ready to seize the day, Christopher?" Eddie asked their son.

"Super ready!" he grinned and headed for the den, "Meet you there!"

The couple watched in amusement as he quickly made his way to the spacious den where he and Eddie would do morning exercises, Alisa would join them from time to time as she preferred doing something else. Eddie made his way towards her and she automatically met him halfway and wrapped her arms around his neck while he wrapped his arms around her slim waist. They stared at each other for a bit before their lips met in a kiss. "Daaaaaad!" Chris called from the den.

They chuckled and Alisa pecked his lips one more time, "Go, your son is calling."

"Before sunrise, he's yours." He whispered in her ear.

"Too bad the sun has already risen," she replied and went back to cooking, "mi amor."

The father and son duo were doing their morning routine as Alisa was making sure both were packed and ready for the day. She placed little notes in their lunch packs as she has always done in the 5 years she's known them. Afterward, she went to get herself ready once she was satisfied with her part in the morning.

"Woah, who are you and where's my wife?" Eddie teased, entering their walk-in closet in a towel.

"Who are you and where's my husband?" she teased back, appreciating the view.

"You look amazing, as always." he kissed her temple as he got a pair of his pants and underwear, "Where are you off to today?"

"Well, my friend from school, Ali Martin," she handed him one of his LAFD black shirts, "asked to meet up today for breakfast and later, meet up with a client since she's doing this as a freelance job."

"Oh? That's nice of her." Eddie listened as he dressed up, "I didn't realize you're doing consults again."

"Well, I own my own company, I can start whenever I want." Alisa smiled and hugged him, "I can also be as flexible as I want."

Eddie locked eyes with her and looked at her fondly, "I still don't understand how a guy like me has a girl like you… and it's been 5 years."

"Don't sell yourself short, Eddie. I'm the lucky one." she stroked his face, "I have you and Christopher. No amount of money could ever compare. The both of you gave me love and family I never knew I would experience." she kissed him softly.

He kissed back, "I'm so glad we found each other then… or I'm so glad Christopher found you." she smiled back.

A little while later, they piled in Eddie's 4x4 truck so they could drop Christopher off at school. Alisa was able to find a good public school in their area and the staff was very helpful and accommodating of Christopher's needs. The students at the school were also smitten with him due to his sunny demeanor and had made a number of friends already.

Eddie parked nearby so they could walk him to school. Alisa helped him get out of the truck and Eddie held his crutches while Christopher wore his backpack that carried his notebooks, materials, water bottle, and lunch bag. "Let's do this!" he smiled and led them towards the school entrance.

"Are you excited for today?" Alisa asked as Eddie listened to them chatter.

"Yeah! We have science today and I always look forward to that… and art!" he grinned.

"Well, I can't wait to hear all about it later when I pick you up, mijo." she gave him a thumbs-up, "Sounds more exciting than my day already."

"Then go to school with me, mommy." he said.

"Oh mijo, I'd love to but I don't think your teachers would let me sit in." she shook her head, "But when they have an open house, your dad and I will go." Eddie nodded.

"Awesome!" he cheered.

"Well, I did say you could always ride along with us, mi amor." Eddie teased, "You're still qualified… highly qualified."

"I know, I know but I want you to get settled in with your team first." she looked at him, "Bond some more with them."

"Fine, fine." he sighed then smiled, "Never say I never offered!"

"Oh, you wish." she teased.

RIIIIING!

"Oh! That's the bell. I gotta go in now!" Christopher turned towards them and gave his parents a hug, "I'll see you guys, later! Have a great day! I love you!"

"We love you, too!" they replied and hugged back, smiling as they watched him enter the school.

"I'll Uber from here, Eddie, or you're going to be late." Alisa took out her phone.

Hollywood Palm Hotel

Alisa and Ali waited in the busy hotel lobby where people were checking-in and out of the hotel. There were students, families, and tourists bustling to get their things ready as the 2 women waited for Ali's client to let them know it was okay to come up. Alisa pointed out that Ali's client seemed to have no sense of time and urgency while Ali sighed as she was also getting impatient. "I'm really sorry about this, Alisa." the blonde looked at her apologetically.

"Not your fault, Ali. Don't apologize," she reassured her, "but thank you for inviting me. I haven't done this in a while."

"But you're doing great. I've been following you on Instagram, both personal and art accounts, you're one of the most sought-after young artists in the country." Ali smiled.

Alisa tilted her head, "Don't sell yourself short, Ali. You're amazing, too. You've got a lot of big-time clients and are making a name for yourself."

"For architecture, sweetheart." Ali laughed, "You're doing all types of art!"

"Eddie? Oh definitely." She sassed causing Ali to laugh even more.

"That good huh?" she received a nod, "How's your family?"

"They're amazing. Eddie's finding his footing at the 118 and Christopher is enjoying his present school. Eddie is still bad at cooking while Christopher is amazing at art!" Alisa shared and showed her some photos on the phone.

"He has talent, I'll tell you that." Ali grinned, "You know, family life suits you. I haven't seen you this happy in a while."

"Thanks… I didn't know it was possible for me until I met them." she replied, "Well, how about you? How are you doing so far? Any boys I need to beat?" she teased causing the other girl to laugh again.

PING!

"Hold that thought… we can go up now." Ali looked at her phone.

11th Floor

The 2 women took a deep breath before knocking on the door and schooled their expressions when the client answered in nothing but his boxers, undershirt, and bathrobe as he gestured for them to come in. Alisa had to bite her tongue when she noticed him eyeing them up and down but averted his eyes when he saw the black titanium wedding ring on her finger. "So sorry to keep you waiting, ladies." he grinned and sat on one of the sofas in the spacious hotel room, "I'm still a little out of sorts with the time difference and with all the traveling I've been doing, everything looks the same!" He crossed his legs and they coughed a bit, "Please, sit down! Sit down!"

"Thank you, Mr. Harlow." Ali sat on the opposite sofa with Alisa following her, "Shall we start?" he nodded, "Here are the designs we'd like to present to you. We took all the information about the design the company wanted and we were able to render these." she opened her portfolio bag and took out the designs.

"Oh, these look fantastic. How come there's 2?" he asked.

"I made the other one, Mr. Harlow." Alisa nodded, "As we had a vast amount of what was wanted, we decided it was better to make 2 designs, similar yet different."

Harlow sat beside Ali and she felt extremely uncomfortable as he moved to get closer. Alisa indirectly felt it as well and decided to stand up from the sofa so that the blonde could move further. His phone started to ring and he didn't seem to bother with it, "Aren't you going to answer that?" Alisa asked.

"No, it's just my wife." he shrugged, looking through the designs, "Well, would you ladies like a coffee?"

"No, thank you." Ali shook her head.

"Medically not allowed, I'm afraid." Alisa responded stoically.

"How about a mimosa?" he scooted closer and placed a hand on her thigh, "In the shower."

The mortified expression on their faces and clear disgust with the man reflected against the panoramic windows of the hotel room. They immediately protested and started packing up their belongings. "Hell no! Are you out of your mind!?" Ali yelled, getting up from the sofa and walking towards the door.

"You two are blowing this out of proportion! Wait a minute!" Harlow chastised them, playing the victim.

"There is no proportional OR appropriate response to a client or boss asking an employee or consultant to take a shower with them!" Alisa spat and followed the blonde, "You disgusting pig!"

"I am reporting this to HR and the board! We're a publicly-traded company!" Ali threatened.

"HR is terrified of me and I handpicked every member of that board." Harlow calmly said, "I'd invite them on my boat and forget they ever heard of you." Ali looked about to falter, "I will destroy you."

"Well, if that's the case, as a consultant, I will be pressing charges against you and I will make sure I will look for every nook and cranny about these… harassments you've hidden." Alisa threatened, "If you can't treat your employees right, well then, I'm taking this one with me."

The glasses and furniture started to shake. Alisa immediately told them to hold on to something as a powerful earthquake was happening. The females grabbed onto the bar while Harlow was tumbling around with the furniture, the table breaking and flying out of the window. The hotel shook very hard causing the girls to lose their grips on the bar and slide down. "Ali, grab onto the pillar!" Alisa instructed as she slid down first.

"Ahh!" Ali almost missed but the auburn-haired female managed to catch her as the building shook some more, "Thanks!"

"I got you! I'm not letting go!" Alisa pulled her up so they could use the pillar for support.

"But whose got us?" Ali gulped as they turned to look at Harlow lying flat on the window and the rest of the furniture still slid down, including the tv wall that pressed Harlow even further.

Although they couldn't see it, the licensed architects were sure that Hollywood Palm Hotel was exactly the Leaning Tower of Pisa right now as the earthquake stopped.

Station 118

The station shook and the firefighters of 118 scrambled to duck for cover and away from anything that could hurt them. That being said, while the earthquake was happening, Eddie was maintaining the rig and ended up sliding from it while Buck tumbled off while he was cleaning and caught a tank as he fell. Eddie couldn't get off the trolley but one of his colleagues, Hen Wilson, saw him and came to his aid as the wires and pipes fell. The glass partitions broke and their O2 tanks fell, some even breaking and releasing O2. Bobby Nash, the captain of the 118, was screaming out orders. "Is everyone okay!?" he received a round of confirmations.

When the shaking stopped, they received dispatch orders and were off towards the Hollywood Palm Hotel.

Along the way with sirens blaring, Evan Buckley a.k.a Buck was observing the nervous expression on Eddie's face as he was trying to send messages on his phone. He couldn't help but ask in concern, "Is everything okay?"

"There's no service." Eddie replied, "No texts are getting through." he looked up at Buck.

"Who are you trying to get a hold of?" Buck asked.

"My son and my wife." he replied hesitantly, "I'm trying to reach both of them."

Bobby couldn't help but look in concern from the officer's seat. He was the only one in 118 that knew Eddie was married with a son.

"Oh wow! You're married and have a kid!?" Buck asked happily, trying to cheer Eddie up.

"Yeah. His name's Christopher and my wife's Alisa." Eddie replied fondly despite the anxious expression on his face. "Here they are." he showed a photo of the two on his phone.

"Your son looks super adorable!" Buck grinned, "And your wife is really beautiful."

"We've only got each other. I love them to bits." Eddie replied.

"Where are they right now?" the blonde firefighter asked.

"He's at school but Alisa's somewhere… she mentioned she was with a friend for a client meeting." he browsed through their messages, "Hollywood Palm Hotel?"

"I'm sure your son is going to be fine and your wife too." Buck reassured him, "Schools have protocols in place."

When they arrived at their destination, the 118 stared in awe at the leaning building. Among the buildings they passed, it was the high-rise hotel that took the most damage. "Eddie, not to cause you to panic or anything but," Buck gulped, "this is Hollywood Palm Hotel."

Eddie looked at him with fear in his eyes, "What?"

As they stood, they could hear a hysterical family screaming as they were being evacuated. They were telling the police officers that their young daughter, Kat, was still in the building. Bobby called for their attention so they could find the Incident Commander to get their orders and they followed. Chief Williams, the Incident Commander, met them at the triage and she had them follow her to the base tent as she briefed them of what they were able to do so far. Eddie was paying attention and was looking at the triage to see if Alisa was there. He couldn't relax as he couldn't see her and he wouldn't rest until he found her. The other stations were still performing evacuations while it was still safe and he could only hope that she gets evacuated soon as they searched for survivors. "Right now," Chief Williams pointed at the hotel, "it's only the reinforced steel that's keeping this from fully collapsing. One good aftershock and…"

"The whole thing could come down." Bobby finished.

"I thought a highrise was supposed to be the safest place when an earthquake hits." Buck commented.

"Not when you're built right on top of a faultline." she replied, "This was a 7.1 earthquake."

"7.1? Northridge was only 6.7." Hen said.

"This makes it the largest in SoCal in the last 20 years." Howard Han a.k.a Chimney said.

"How many crews do you have in there?" Bobby asked.

"Not enough." Chief Williams bluntly replied, "We put in a request for Heavy Rescue 3 but they're held up at a freeway collapse. We can use every hand we can." she nodded and left to proceed to the other teams.

"Okay, listen up. Here's how you will make it through the end of the day." Bobby called for their attention, "Don't worry about the things you cannot do anything about. Focus on one task at a time. I can't order you to enter that building and I won't judge you if you walk away right now." Each of his members looked at him determinedly.

"Hen, you got a kid." Chimney noted.

"Yeah but I hope if someone had a chance to save him because it's their job, they'd take it." Hen replied.

"What about you, Eddie?" Bobby asked, "You have a wife and kid, as well."

"Same sentiments as Hen, Cap." Eddie replied, "If my wife is in there, I hope to God we find her, if not me then whoever's job it is. I'm bringing her back home to my kid one way or another." Bobby nodded, "Now, where do you want us?"

"Hey, you might wanna see this." a police officer approached them.

The 118 followed him to the other side as he pointed up. Chimney suggested that they could set up a bag on the side of the building however Bobby deemed it too dangerous for anyone to work on the side of the building and that a team is going to have to get the man, Harlow, who was flat on the panoramic window. "Buck, you say that's the 11th floor?" Eddie observed.

"I would." Buck replied, "I bet we could take the ladder to the 4th floor. Cut the distance in half." Eddie and Bobby nodded at the plan.

Once the ladder was set up, Buck and Eddie climbed up to the 4th floor and broke the window with a halligan. While doing so, Buck was telling the older male about the measures FEMA took to retrofit all schools in the LAUSD earthquake-ready after the big one in Northridge, Christopher was in the safest place as he could be.

As soon as Eddie gave the clear, they entered the tilted fire exit and avoided the debris as they made their way up. "It's only six flights." Eddie looked up, "Not exactly Mt. Everest."

Buck panted, "Yeah, except Everest might not collapse and crush us like a bug." He took another step, "!" the building shook a bit causing him to hit the wall.

Eddie hugged the railing and looked at the younger male, "You good, Buck?"

"Yeah." Buck regained his balance.

"Then, let's keep going."

Room 1101

HELLO! HELLO! LAFD!

Alisa's ears perked up as she heard a familiar voice before looking at Ali and nodded, "We're in here!"

"In here! In here!" Ali shouted.

"In here!" Harlow also screamed from his spot on the window.

This one here!

The door busted open and the 3 occupants sighed in relief when they heard the LAFD callout. They could hear the ropes and staggering footsteps of the firefighters as they made their way towards the inside of the room. "Oh God." Ali whimpered, "Thank God. Please, please get us out of here." she said from the spot near the column.

"Ma'am," Buck grunted, "Please don't move! We'll come and get you!"

"Uh, no offense but I don't think this is a situation where 'women and children' apply first!" Harlow protested as Eddie threw more rope at Buck.

"Did you just say 'no offense'?" snarled Alisa, "Everything about you is offensive!"

"Mi amor?" Eddie gasped when he got to Buck.

Alisa adjusted her position a bit to look at him, "Hola mi amor. Am I late for our date?" she couldn't help but joke.

"Dios mio!" he sighed in relief, "Thank God you're alive. I don't know what your brother and dad would do to me if we didn't find you."

"So, who's that guy by the window?" Buck asked, "And uh… Hi, Mrs. Diaz!"

"Alisa, please. You work with my husband." she cleared her throat, "It's finally nice to meet you, Buck. I've heard a lot about you from Eddie. Oh, guys, meet Ali Martin."

"Hi!" the blonde greeted back nervously, "I'd shake your hands but as you can see. Anyway, that disgusting pig propositioned us and amazingly he is married with 5 kids!"

"Didn't stop him from asking us to shower with him even when he saw my wedding ring!" Alisa added as Eddie readied himself to slide towards him, even if he was boiling mad inside.

"Sir, have you not seen the news since last year?" Buck sassed as he supported Eddie's line as he walked towards the window.

"Seriously, keep up with the times!" he growled and sneaked a glance at his wife and Ali, "Buck will hand you a rope. Do you remember what to do?"

"How could I forget?" Alisa sassed, "You made me do drills with you."

"That's my girl." he grinned.

"Alright! Fine! I'm ancient!" Harlow yelled, "I'm a relic! Whatever! For God's sake, just get me the hell out of here!"

Eddie reached him at the end of the tirade, "Okay, whatever you do, don't move or the glass might break. Got it?" He noticed the windows cracking as the building creaked.

"Okay, just hurry!" Harlow cried.

Meanwhile, Buck threw ropes at the girls that were anchored to him and instructed them to tie them around themselves securely. Alisa helped out Ali first since she was shaking like a leaf. Once finished, Alisa started to tie the rope around herself.

"The glass is starting to crack!" Harlow yelled again.

"I'm gonna come around to you. You need to stay totally still, sir." Eddie instructed, removing the furniture blocking his way, "Don't even talk."

Ali watched nervously at what was happening as Alisa had her walk towards Buck first and slowly followed her with the other rope.

"All right. I'm going to tie this webbing around you, and we are going to get you away from the glass." Eddie informed the whimpering man.

The building started to rumble causing the occupants to panic as an aftershock was imminent. Buck managed to pull Ali towards him and she went behind the bar but Harlow panicked and started moving. Alisa and Eddie yelled for him to stop but the glass broke causing him to fall off along with the furniture that trapped him, screams filled the air on the ground. "Ah!" Alisa's rope snapped causing her to fall.

"No! No!" Buck panicked, "Hey! Hey! Eddie!"

Eddie's ears caught Alisa's panicked yelp as she slid down. He didn't hesitate to dive in after her and caught her as she fell by her arm. Alisa tried not to panic as she looked up at her husband, "Give me your other hand!" he grunted while he reached for her, "You can do it, Alisa!" She shut her eyes and swung her other hand towards him, "I got you! I got you! Open your eyes!" she opened her blue eyes to look into his brown ones, "I got you."

"Pulling you guys up!" Buck called.

"I'll help!" Ali added.

The two managed to pull them up to the bar before they felt another aftershock. When they managed to exit the room, Eddie hugged her tight as he almost lost her if he didn't catch her in time. "I'm okay." she whispered in his ear, "Thank you." she then looked at Buck, "And thank you, too, Buck." he nodded then she pulled Ali into a hug, "Are you okay? Any injuries?"

"No, I'm okay. I should be asking you that." Ali replied.

"I'm okay as I can be." she replied then looked at the firefighters, "Shall we make our way down?"