"When I was a kid, I used to go to the zoo and I used to stand there and watch [the bears] for hours."

-John R. Gage, Sierra S1E5, 'The Urban Rangers'

Johnny's stomach growled as he pushed open the door to the kitchen. As soon as he and Roy reported for duty that morning, they'd gotten called out to a rescue, a woman who'd been trying to train her poodle and ended up locking herself in the dog crate instead. Luckily, the dog had knocked the phone off the hook in all the commotion, and the woman's shouting had been enough to get the operator to call the fire department. Johnny and Roy had made quick enough work of the crate with their tools, and Johnny hoped he'd have the time to scarf down some breakfast before they got called out again. He also hoped he'd have the time to get some caffeine into Roy, who wasn't looking much better than he had last shift.

He poured himself and Roy each a cup of coffee and snagged a doughnut from the box on the table, jamming a good three-fifths of it into his mouth at once before ambling over to the couch to see what Chet and Marco were up to. Chet had the newspaper in his hands, and Marco sat with Henry sprawled across his lap, droopily.

"Don't worry about it, Chet," said Marco, as he gave Henry's back a vigorous scratch. Henry's tail gave a few lazy thumps. "I have just the thing! It'll be perfect!"

"Jusht 'a fing for wha'?" Johnny asked, spewing doughnut crumbs everywhere.

Chet lowered the paper, which he'd held up as a defensive anti-doughnut shield. "Wouldn't you like to know!"

Marco brushed errant bits of doughnut off of Henry, who harrumphed and licked his jowls. "Say it, don't spray it, Johnny."

"Shorry." Johnny washed the mouthful of doughnut down with some coffee and swallowed, pointedly. "Is it that rash again, Chet? I can pick you up some ointment next time I'm at Rampart."

The tones went off before Chet could get a word in, but they did nothing to interrupt his hand gesture.

"Squad 51. Public Library. Child stuck in book return. 17906 South Avalon Boulevard. 17906 South Avalon."

Johnny hastily crammed the last bite of doughnut in his mouth and took a final gulp of coffee, waving to Chet on his way out the door. "Good luck!" he called. "Try to let it air out some!"

Chet shook his head, and picked the paper back up as the squad departed. "I don't know, Marco. You really think this'll work?"

"I even talked to my sister about it! She says it's a great idea."

"Fine." He sighed. "Let's see what you've got."

Beaming, Marco picked up Henry and disappeared out of the day room, only to reappear some minutes later, bearing Henry with a big pink ribbon tied into an oversized bow around his neck.

"Ta-da!" Marco held him up, and Henry stared at Chet, droopily. "Here we go! Isn't he just darling?"

"I don't know…"

"What? He's adorable." Marco gave him a couple scratches under the chin. "Yes he is, yes he is."

Henry preened, droopily.

"Yeah, but it lacks that certain…" Chet gestured vaguely with his hand. "Je ne sais quois."

"Je ne sais what?"

"Exactly." Chet set the paper down and stood up from the couch. "Dressing him up is a good idea, but there's gotta be something else…"

He headed for the door, and Marco set Henry down on the couch with a conciliatory head pat before following him out. Henry gazed after them, droopily.

Johnny kept an eye on Roy as they headed for the library. The coffee hadn't done much good; his partner looked just as haggard as he had an hour ago, and he slumped a little as he drove.

Johnny shifted in his seat, leaning his arm up against the window. "Your neighbor still at it with the lawn mowing?"

"No."

"Well, that's g-"

"This time it was the hedge trimmer."

"Oh." Johnny thought on it a bit, but no clever solution for excessive hedge-trimming occurred to him before they reached their destination, at which point the ensuing rescue put any ideas about lawn maintenance well out of his mind.

Johnny had figured "stuck in book return" to mean an "arm caught in door" kind of affair, but as the squad pulled into the parking lot, he and Roy were greeted with the sight of a pair of legs sticking out of the side of the building, kicking vigorously.

He and Roy grabbed their equipment and pushed through the small crowd that had gathered, including one bespectacled young woman—presumably the kid's mother—standing there with her hands on her hips and an exasperated look on her face. "William George MacPherson, you stop that kicking right now!"

Roy tapped her on the shoulder. "What happened?"

"The book was due, but he didn't want to return it, so he went into the book drop to try to get it back," she said. "I told you, Billy, you need to learn to share!"

In answer, Billy only kicked harder.

Another woman - older, and with a nametag that read LIBRARIAN pinned to her sweater vest - stepped forward. "We've tried pulling him through and pushing him back out, but he's stuck pretty good," she explained, with an apologetic shrug. "We use oil on the book trucks and we tried oiling him up with that, but it just made it harder to keep a grip on him."

It may have looked dire, but with Johnny pulling the kid from inside the building, Roy pushing him from outside the building, and a little disassembly of the book drop's security flap, they soon had a mostly-unharmed, only slightly oily four-year-old, carrying a mostly-unharmed, slightly oily book. Once he was freed of the book drop's rectangular embrace, Johnny picked him up and carried him back outside.

"Hey, sport, what book did you take out, anyway?" he asked. It must have been something good to risk grievous bodily harm.

Billy turned to him, lower lip stuck out dramatically, and held up his bounty: Animals of the World: An Illustrated Atlas.

"Aw, that looks like a good one." Johnny set him down. "Why don't you go talk to the librarian? I bet she'll let you take it out again."

Still clutching the book, Billy toddled off toward the librarian, who was frantically mouthing the word "no" and shaking her head, while behind her, his mother buried her face in her hands.

Chet rifled through the closet in the engine bay, and then emerged, holding his prize aloft. "Here! Look, this is perfect."

"Cap's hat?" Marco made a face. "Can't we just use one of ours?"

"No, we can't just use one of ours! For one thing, the color is all wrong. Henry's got brown and white fur, so he needs a white hat to really make things pop. For another, this is a modeling campaign. A captain's hat is far more regal."

Marco shrugged. "If you say so. You sure you don't want to ask Cap first?"

"What? No! This'll take all of thirty seconds. He doesn't need to know about it."

They'd nearly made it back to the day room when an extensive series of tones went off, sending everyone scrambling. The tone sequence was so long that Chet had already climbed into place on the engine by the time Sam started reading out the dispatch. Whatever this was, it was big.

"Engine 51, Station 125, Engine 69, Station—"

"Chet!" Marco hissed, next to him.

"What?"

"—brushfire, Topanga State Park—"

Marco gave a pointed glance downwards.

He was still holding the hat. Oops. Chet looked around, frantically, trying to figure out what to do with it. He shifted, as the engine rumbled to life. "Should I put it back?"

"—via Trailer Canyon Fire Road—"

Marco flung out an arm to stop him. "No time!"

Think fast, think fast…With a silent Hail Mary, Chet closed his eyes and flung the hat away from him as hard as he could, just as Cap hopped aboard.

Phew. He breathed a sigh of relief as Big Red rolled out of the bay. He would put it away when they returned to quarters, and no one would be the wiser.

No sooner had Johnny and Roy climbed back into the Squad than the radio crackled to life.

"Squad 51, are you available?"

"Squad 51, affirmative."

"Assist Engine 51, brushfire, Topanga State Park."

"Squad 51, 10-4."

Johnny turned to Roy and raised an eyebrow, only to be met with a shrug. He hadn't expected to get called out there again so soon, but brushfire was brushfire, and brushfire meant all hands on deck. They buckled their helmets on, and got rolling.

As far as brushfires went, this one could certainly have been worse. It was already well on its way to containment by the time he and Roy got there. They were getting ready to take care of the usual smoke inhalation and eyewash cases when Cap showed up and snagged them away. "We've got a rescue. Couple of trapped hikers. Let's go."

The trapped hikers turned out to be a woman standing on the trail, coughing and terrified but not at all trapped, and a man on a little ledge on the hillside—really, steep enough to be called a cliffside—below her, coughing and terrified and definitely trapped. He had no climbing gear to speak of, and a large camera hanging around his neck.

Johnny shook his head, puzzled. This wasn't a good place for free climbing, and no place was a good place for free climbing if you were dressed like these folks were. "What's he doing down there?" he asked, as he got himself kitted up and tied off.

"He was just—" a violent cough "—just trying to get a better picture of the bear!"

"The bear?" Bears again?

"We thought we saw a bear down there! Dave was going for a better shot when he lost his balance and fell! And then this awful fire started. You have to save him!" She started coughing again, harshly, and Roy led her away from the edge.

Once Johnny got down to him, Dave turned out to be no worse for his ordeal—just needing a hand up, a little oxygen, and a ride out of the danger zone.

"Be careful out there, you guys!" he said, by way of farewell. "Don't let the bears get you."

Once the remaining brushfire hotspots were contained and Engine 51 returned to quarters, Chet did not, in fact, return Cap's hat to its rightful place. Rather, he took care of his gear, scraped the grime out of his mustache, downed a bowl of leftover chili that was only slightly questionable no matter what Johnny said, and went home, forgetting all about matters haberdashical until he reported in for his next shift.

He was mopping the engine bay, humming to himself, when he got that niggling feeling in the back of his head that told him he'd forgotten something. But what?

He looked around, trying to figure it out, and then his gaze landed on the closet, and it hit him like a ton of bricks.

Oh no. Oh no.

The hat.

He looked around again, more closely, and didn't see it anywhere.

Marco. He had to go find Marco. Maybe Marco put it back. Maybe Marco knew where it was. Maybe Marco could save him.

Chet made for the door, but before he could get to it, it burst open, and Cap strode through, walking towards him like a man on a mission.

Chet's life flashed before his eyes. Suddenly he regretted spending all that time operating heavy construction equipment instead of cultivating a photographic memory. Or a better aim.

"H-hi, Cap," he said.

Cap grinned at him, a wide smile that definitely didn't reach his eyes. He reached out—

—this was it, he was done for—

—and threw an arm around Chet's shoulders. "Ah, Chester B.!" Cap said, far too perky for someone about to wreak unholy vengeance upon a peon who'd done him wrong. "How are you doing, buddy?"

Wait.

Did he not know?

Maybe he didn't know.

Maybe there was still a chance for Chet to save himself. He tried to smile back, and hefted the mop as best he could, considering that Cap had his arm pinned. "Uh, doin' fine, Cap. Just moppin' out the ol' engine bay."

"Good, good!" Cap's arm was awfully heavy, and he tightened his grip on Chet as he spoke. "No problems, then? No workplace grievances? No concerns of any kind?"

"No, Cap." Chet tried to pull away, and found that he couldn't. It was also becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. "You're, uh, crushing my trachea, Cap."

"Right, Kelly, right." Cap kept him pinned there a moment longer, and then give him a slap on the back so vigorous that it knocked him off balance. While Chet was busy righting himself, Cap turned on his heel and strode away, the door swinging in his wake.

Utterly dumbfounded, Chet stared after him for longer than he should have, before he came to his senses and went running for Marco. This was bad.

Johnny, meanwhile, had finished his assigned chores without any difficulty, and was currently sprawled out on the couch reading a book. Several other books lay strewn around him, and Henry drooped placidly over his shins, paying him no mind.

Roy strolled up, coffee cup in hand, and tilted his head to read the title of the book Johnny was holding. "Bears: Fact or Fiction?"

"Yeah! See, that rescue the other day gave me an idea."

Roy looked around at the other books, scattered on the floor. "Bears: Friend or Foe?"

"So, on my day off, I swung by the library!"

"Bears: Above and Beyond."

"And, wouldn't you know it, Roy, these books are really informative!"

Roy retrieved the last book from where it had been shoved half-under the couch, and examined the spine. "Bears: Nature's Murderers. That's a little extreme, don't you think?"

Johnny waved a hand, dismissively. "Oh, don't pay attention to that one. It's anti-bear propaganda, is what it is."

"What's all this about, anyways?"

"I thought it might be helpful, what with these bear sightings we've been having. See, I've always had a fascination with bears—"

"Spare me, Junior, you're not getting a date with me."

"C'mon, Roy, I'm serious! I wasn't just trying to get Julie to go out with me. I do like bears, a lot! And I think I've got a certain affinity for 'em. Ol' Crunchy was nice enough—"

"His name was Cruncher, Johnny, and I seem to recall you tossing him a sandwich and hightailing it out of there!"

"Well, you gotta establish mutual trust first, Roy, that's the key to any friendship. That's why I let you stab me with that needle back when I was in training. Build your confidence up, you know."

"Built somethin', all right," Roy muttered.

Johnny had just opened his mouth to argue that Roy did too need confidence building, sometimes, maybe, when Cap poked his head around the doorway. "Gage! DeSoto! You got a minute?"

He snapped his book shut, a finger marking his page, and sat up, dislodging Henry with great effort. Henry shot him a dirty look, droopily. "Sure thing, Cap."

"I think we need to have a talk." Cap pulled a chair up across from them and gestured at the space next to Johnny. "Sit down, Roy, sit down."

Roy took a seat next to him, and Johnny stared at Cap in sudden, abject terror. "A talk about what?"

He'd fixed the non-regulation radio on the squad. He'd moved that family of squirrels out of the drop ceiling. The log books were all up to date. And he was planning to get a haircut next week, honest. Sure, there was that thing with the—

"Arson."

Johnny's abject terror took a swift U-turn into abject confusion. "Huh?"

Cap leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, and locked eyes with both of them in turn. "Take it from me, fellas. Arson feels good in the moment, but it's never the right answer to your problems."

Roy's brow furrowed. "Are - are we being accused of arson, Cap?"

"What? No! Of course not! It's just that…" He laced his fingers together, and rested his chin on his hands, somber. "Look…if you ever felt the need to commit a certain, special kind of arson, you know you could come talk to me about it first, right?"

Roy spoke first. "Uh…"

A multitude of thoughts rocketed through Johnny's brain, each more concerning than the last. Most concerningly of all, he figured that 'arson' might be some kind of metaphor or something, and he really didn't want to follow where that train of thought was going. He gave Cap his winningest, most charming, patented-aw-shucks-it's-Johnny-Gage grin, and hoped it would do the trick to end this conversation. "Yeah, Cap. Of course."

"Good!" Cap reached out and clapped them both on the shoulder. "Remember, my door is always open to you." With that, he got up and walked away.

Whew.

Roy turned to Johnny and asked, voice low, "You got any idea what that was about?"

Johnny shook his head. "Not a clue."

Late that night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, Chet and Marco returned the engine bay, flashlights in hand.

"It's gotta be here somewhere," said Chet.

"Where did you throw it?"

"I don't know! I wasn't paying attention! I just threw." He swept the beam of light to the corners of the room. Nothing. "Maybe it didn't land on the floor. Maybe it landed on the engine."

"Wouldn't someone have noticed that by now?"

"You have any better ideas?"

"…no."

"Look, you check over there, I'll check over here —" Chet turned to climb into the cab, and jumped when he bumped into something that hadn't been there before. A very large, very person-shaped something. "Yaaah!"

He swung his flashlight around to see Mike Stoker standing there, propped casually against the door, a small smile playing across his face. "Hi, Chet," he said softly. "Hi, Marco."

Chet had never before noticed quite how many teeth Stoker had. Or how much white there was around his eyes. "Oh. Hi, Mike."

"What're you guys doing out here?" The smile widened. "I know you're not touching Big Red."

"Of course not," Chet stammered, hands up. Behind him, Marco slowly began to back away. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Stoker leaned in towards him. "Good."