A/N: Sorry for the long delay. I moved, and was without internet for a while, plus my muse got packed in a box accidentally. But here's an update.
January Surprise: Chapter 7
Morning at the station was a tense time. The engine hadn't had any runs all morning, and it was all Cap could do to keep the peace—especially after a photocopy of the pose with the kitten appeared on the inside of the door of the bathroom stall, and another inside a kitchen cabinet.
The weather was miserable, with heavy rain and the occasional clap of thunder, so there wasn't the usual option of sending someone outside to put some distance between the men. Cap thought the station had never seemed smaller, and almost hoped for a call, just so everyone could think about something else for a little while.
Lunch was an uncharacteristically sullen affair at Station 51 that day. Marco tried asking Chet about his body-building phase, but didn't end up lifting his mood.
"Look, I quit for a reason, all right? It's not just the hours a day of lifting, but you can't eat hardly anything that's any good, either. Egg whites, and chicken breast, and vegetables," Chet said, talking around a gigantic bite of hamburger. "Plus, with being a fireman, I couldn't keep up the training without just being exhausted all the time."
"Nobody's criticizing, Chet," Mike said mildly.
Chet ignored him. He had figured out that either Stoker or DeSoto must have been responsible for the slide-show edits, and was making a production of snubbing both of them.
"They said they weren't going to use them," Chet muttered to himself, for what must have been the hundredth time that day.
The meal was completely consumed, and Mike managed to finish the dishes just as the tones dropped.
BWAAAAMP, BWOOM BWEEEEEEP!
"Station 51, Engine 116, Station 127; stove fire, 1840 Pleasant Hollow Drive, 1-8-4-0 Pleasant Hollow Drive, cross street Milagro. Time out: 1251."
The men headed to their vehicles. Mike grabbed his turnout coat from his seat, and threw it on. He was just stepping into the cab when he heard the first comment from behind him.
"Oh, come on! This is getting really, really old!"
Mike cracked a small grin as he thought about the chill of the previous shift's water bombs, and started the engine, drowning out any further commentary. He would have to imagine what he knew would happen next, but that was good enough.
Marco, however, could both see and hear perfectly. Taped to the glass window that divided the front of the cab from the rear was the calendar photo where an under-aged-looking Chet was wielding an axe, flexing his abdominal and pectoral muscles to full effect.
Predictably, Chet leaned forward to rip the page down, crumpling it furiously.
He stopped in mid-crumple, however. Behind the page he had ripped down was an identical photo. He swiped his hand across the glass to rip it down as well.
Nothing happened.
Marco couldn't suppress a snort as he realized that the perpetrator had taped the second copy against the other side of the window, where Chet couldn't touch it.
Chet swore a blue streak, knowing there was nothing he could do about the calendar page until they were completely done with their incident. He slouched in his seat, watching the scenery go by, the pouring rain washing away everything except his foul mood. And the picture.
Marco didn't bother trying to say anything—the air rushing past the engine, plus the sound of the siren and the additional noise of heavy rain pounding on the roof of the cab made any attempts at speech pointless.
They arrived at their street, and Mike paused at a hydrant near the corner. Marco hopped out and looped the supply line around the hydrant, and Mike took off down the street, putting the engine just the right distance from the front door of the house. Marco could see light smoke coming from the house, but not the thick black smoke that spelled serious trouble. He uncapped the hydrant, connected the hose, and opened the valve at Mike's signal. Once the supply line was turgid, Marco trotted to the scene. He was glad to see Chet heading into the front door with an inch-and-a-half—maybe being on the nozzle and putting out the fire would calm him down.
"Marco, go on in with Chet," Cap said.
Roy and John were just getting out of the squad as Marco got to the scene. There were two young women out in the pouring rain.
"Is there anyone else in there?" Johnny asked, just cinching up his SCBA straps.
"No," one of the women said, voice shaking. "It was just the two of us, like we told the tall guy. I don't know what could've happened! All of a sudden the stove was on fire, and the flames started climbing up the wall!"
"Okay, all right," Johnny said. "Take it easy. Let's get you out of the rain, all right? We'll just step into the cab of the fire engine, here, and me an' my partner'll just make sure you're completely okay."
Johnny and Roy helped the two women climb up into the rear of the cab. They each folded down one of the jump seats that faced the regular seats.
Johnny, the avid observer of female behavior that he was, noticed the two women look at each other slightly askance. The one with the dark hair, who was sitting in front of Roy, laughed nervously. The blonde, in front of Johnny, covered her perfectly-lipsticked mouth with her hand, giggling.
"Are you okay, miss?" Johnny asked. The two young ladies showed every sign of a bit of a nervous breakdown, as far as he was concerned, with their sudden shift from near-panic to a fit of the giggles.
"We are now," the woman in front of him said. "Boy, you sure know how to make a girl feel right at home!"
Johnny frowned lightly. "Huh?"
The blonde woman pointed at a spot right between Roy's and John's heads.
"Him," she said, as Johnny and Roy turned to look simultaneously.
Johnny couldn't suppress a laugh. "Yeah, well, that's one of our guys. In fact, he oughta be just about done puttin' out the fire in your kitchen right about now."
The woman's eyes bugged out of her head.
"He's … in our house? Putting out our fire?"
"Now, take it easy; he's perfectly all right once you get to know him," Johnny said. "I mean, mostly all right. Don't you worry about a thing."
The woman squealed, the sharpness of the sound causing Johnny to involuntarily pull back. He winced as the long rear brim of his helmet clanged against the divider.
"Sharon!" she shrieked. "Ohmygod, ohmygod! Did you hear that? Mister January is in our kitchen! Right now!"
Sharon squealed right back at her friend, stomping her feet on the floor of the cab in excitement.
"Ohmygod, we're gonna, like, meet him!"
Roy looked at Johnny, who shook his head.
"I think you ladies are probably okay," Roy said, putting away the pen light he'd gotten out from his utility belt. "I think my partner and I oughta go see what we can do to help out inside."
"What's his name?" the blonde woman asked. "Is he a real fireman? How old is he?"
"Duh, Tracy; of course he's a real fireman, or he wouldn't've just dragged a hose into our kitchen," Sharon said.
"Wow …" Tracy breathed. She sighed, staring at the picture.
Johnny had to shake his head quickly to rid himself of the disbelief, and, when he was honest with himself, a mild feeling of discomfort at the situation. It was one thing for men to ogle the ladies, but the reverse just made him feel a little tiny bit—just a teensy smidgen—not quite right.
"For cryin' out loud," he muttered to himself, as he swung himself down from the high cab.
"I wonder if we can get our picture taken with him," Johnny heard, just as his feet hit the ground.
Johnny shook his head again, and met up with Roy at the back of the engine.
"Looks like Chet's got a fan club," Roy said.
"Yeah, well, I hope they're not too disappointed when they meet the real thing," Johnny said, on their way to see Cap about an assignment."Which they seem determined to do."
"Where do you want us, Cap?" Roy asked.
"Well, it was a quick knock-down, so we're about ready to overhaul and salvage. Not that bringing anything outside the house is gonna help it any on a day like this. But it shouldn't take too long," he said. "And I'm assuming the occupants are okay?"
"Oh, they're fine, Cap. Just fine," Johnny said, grinning broadly. "We stashed them in the cab of the engine to keep 'em out of the rain."
"And this is funny … why?" Cap asked.
"Because," Johnny said, striking a pose with an imaginary axe, "Mr. January is plastered on the window."
"Oh boy," Cap muttered. "Kelly's gonna kill … whoever did that." He squinted at Roy and John. "Roy, are you absolutely sure that Gage had nothing to do with this?"
"Absolutely sure," Roy said.
"Honest, Cap. My hands are clean," Johnny said.
"I'm coming to a conclusion here that I don't know if I actually believe," Cap said, shaking his head. "Go on, you two. Let's get this thing mopped up."
Cap radioed in a status report, and glanced back at the engine. Mike was quietly tending the pump panel, as always, looking a bit bored, because there really wasn't much that was interesting for the pump operator during overhaul. Cap watched as Mike picked at a spot of something on the engine, and then swiped his sleeve over the area. It was hard to believe that Mike, who was quiet sometimes to the point that Cap wondered whether everything was completely okay in his head, was the one who'd engineered the morning's entertainment.
Cap laughed at the verb his mind had chosen. He knew perfectly well that behind the quiet exterior, the engineering engineer was wickedly smart, and had a sense of humor that Cap sometimes didn't entirely understand. Chet had picked the wrong guy to water bomb.
Feeling ever so slightly sorry for Chet, Cap decided to check on their unhappy displaced residents. They'd been beside themselves when the engine first arrived, even though Cap assured them they'd make quick work of extinguishing such a small fire.
As he approached the engine, he heard talking.
"How old do you suppose the picture is? I mean, I wonder if he's, like, thirty now," Sharon said.
"Heck, Sharon, I don't care! I kind of like older men. And even this young, he's just so … dreamy," Tracy said.
Cap's substantial eyebrows rose. He didn't want to barge in on this apparent fan club, but he also didn't think he could sneak away at this point. Plus, as the PR slideshow—the real one—had reminded him that very morning, part of his job as the incident commander was to communicate with the residents, now that the incident was stabilized.
"Are you ladies okay in here?" Cap asked.
"Oh, we're just fine, sir, thank you," Tracy said, "now that we know that Mr. January is taking care of things."
"I hope he's not offended if he sees our calendar," Sharon said.
Cap looked even more surprised than he had a moment ago.
"You mean … you have this … thing? In your house?"
"Well, it's not really our house—and oh, I hope the landlord doesn't kill us, but he probably will. But a lot of the girls we know at the university have it. It's a benefit for the animal shelter, and we're vet students, so … your Mr. January is pretty famous right now. I can't wait to actually meet him!" Tracy exclaimed. She looked at Cap's face, and backpedaled a bit. "I mean, if that's okay. I'm sure you're really busy."
"I think that could be arranged," Cap said slowly, feeling progressively less sorry for Chet. "In fact, he's just about due for a new air bottle, and we've got more than enough manpower for such a small overhaul job. So how about if I send him your way?"
"Would you really? That might even make this whole thing not seem so horrible," Tracy said. "But … but … I look terrible! I know I got some smoke in my hair, and when I tried to use that fire extinguisher it got all over the place!"
"Tracy, I bet he's seen worse," Sharon said dryly.
"I'll send him over," Cap promised, as he exited the cab.
Cap headed back to the front of the house, just as Chet was exiting.
"Chet, pal, I've got a new task for you," Cap said.
"Sure, Cap—I need a new bottle, though. Could you swap me in a new one?" Chet said, turning his back to let Cap at the empty bottle in his air pack.
"No need," Cap said. "I've got a little exterior work for you."
"Fine by me," Chet said, starting to pull his pack off. "Whaddaya need?"
"PR," Cap said, pointing to the engine.
Chet looked at the engine, and reddened as he realized there were two women in the back of the cab. Right where the picture was.
"Aw, Cap—c'mon. That's just not fair," Chet complained.
"Actually, I think you'll find it more than fair," Cap said. "You see, it seems that you have a fan club."
Chet paused for a moment.
"No kidding?"
"No kidding," Cap assured him. "They're dying to meet you. The blonde, in particular. It seems you're quite famous in their social circle."
Chet smiled for the first time since the projector screen went up that morning. "Well, then, I better go greet the public, then," he said. He checked his appearance in one of the side mirrors on the squad. He swiped his hand across the shoulder of his coat, and then across his forehead, applying an artful smear of soot, and turned toward the engine, with a spring in his step.
TBC