Pyrolysis: noun, a process in which material is decomposed into more simple molecular compounds by the effect of heat alone; pyrolysis often precedes combustion.
It had been a little over a week since the apartment fire. Nine days, to be exact. Anna had been keeping track as each day passed, wondering what became of the young woman.
"Young woman," Anna thought wryly. "As if we aren't both likely around the same age."
It had struck the probationary firefighter how close in age they must be as cradled the trapped woman close to her chest and hoisted her out the window to her waiting partner.
That was the thing about the job, it had a knack of putting a lot of things in perspective of the responder and where they are in life. How many people who are found on the brink of death, or broken beyond repair, and how often those people had many more years of life left that they were suddenly deprived of.
Sometimes, it kept Anna up at night. Despite the amount of education and sheer determination it took to pursue the career of her dreams, the cruelties of circumstance often gnawed at her optimistic outlook on life. In the earliest hours of a new day, the redhead could be found sitting near a window either at the fire station or at home, idly running a thumb across the callouses on her fingers as she tried to work through the crushing drive to be the best at whatever she threw herself into, and chase the wisdom of knowing that death shows mercy for no one. It, much like fire, takes what it wants at any time and asks not for permission.
Lately, the thought of the rescued victim from the apartment complex had occupied most of those pre-dawn hours. She replayed the moment the Captain told her that the woman would live in an attempt to ease her mind, but it only brought more questions. "What if she lived, but never regains consciousness? What if she needs a ventilator to breathe?" Anna knew how dangerous inhalation burns could be.
"What if," she thought with that familiar lump rising in her throat. "She doesn't actually make it? What if I failed, and no one wants to tell me because I noticed her too late."
As nails dug sharply into her palms in an attempt to keep herself from spiraling, Anna vowed that one way or another, she would find out what became of the woman who consumed her mind.
It was a general unspoken rule that patient follow-ups were not something responders had access to unless it was an extraordinary case, or the patient returned to thank them. Patient outcome was regarded as a private matter that could be viewed as a distraction for responders, lest they become too personally invested. Anna recalled the countless lectures from her days in Recruit School; any attachment to patients could add more emotional turmoil if the outcome were to be less than favorable. So, calls to service were to be treated as a 'rinse and repeat' activity. Once onto the next call, the previous one should have been wiped completely from your mind.
Anna weighted the potential consequences of digging for updates, and decided she could give less of a damn. She had to know, for her own sanity.
After the 72 hour off-time rotation, Anna returned to her assigned station predictably ten minutes before her shift.
"Probie" the Shift Commander regarded Anna with a flick of the news paper he was reading partially unfolded as she entered the kitchen. It's the standard nickname that is given to all new firefighters for their probationary year. Only after they earned their station shield designation are these individuals referred to by name. It drove Anna up a wall, but she did her best to hide her irritation.
"You know you're supposed to show up thirty minutes before shift change. It's shitty to leave a guy hanging over on a late call after working their 24." Anna had immediately turned her attention to preparing a fresh pot of coffee for her crew. Station chores mostly fell on the newest recruits, a tradition as old as time but probably not as old as the stained coffee pot that carried the lifeblood of a functioning firehouse.
"I apologize, I've never been the most punctual person but I promise to make a better effort," Anna replied in a steady tone, trying her best to hide the frustration of knowing that she was often held over on her shifts because her oncoming relief was often ten minutes late. What was definitely never covered in all the lectures she had struggled to stay awake through, was how many double standards existed in the world of public safety.
"You better," Captain Runeard grunted. "I don't tolerate underachievers on my crew."
"Always a man of such poetic wisdom," Anna thought with a roll of her eyes, her back still turned from the officer. With the coffee beginning to brew, she left the kitchen to begin her morning equipment check and placement of her gear near her assigned truck.
Arendelle Fire Department consisted of six firetrucks and four ambulances, divided between two stations on either side of town to cover the wide geography and support surrounding communities. Crews rotated between stations and trucks depending on the needs of the day and skill sets each crew member held. Anna made her way to the assignment board and found herself assigned to the heavy rescue for this shift. Scanning down the names, she felt her heart leap with surprise to find that Mattias was assigned to the ambulance at this station. She wasn't as close to the paramedic as other members of her crew, but they were friendly enough. Anna knew he was the provider who cared for the apartment fire victim and figured she had a shot at learning how the woman fared at the time of transfer at the hospital. She just had to be nonchalant about it.
The recruit rounded the rear of the ambulance, which had its doors open and stretcher deployed with various equipment bags open on the middle of the cot. Mattias was sitting on the bench seat inside the patient care compartment of the truck, testing the vital sign monitoring unit. Focused on replacing the battery, he had not noticed a visitor was watching him work.
Anna leaned slightly against the stretcher in an attempt to appear casual and certainly not desperate for patient information, failing to notice the wheels were not locked. The stretcher shifted suddenly to the right, sending the recruit tumbling to the apparatus bay floor with arms flailing the entire way down. The stretcher, propelled by the failed attempt to use it for leverage, sailed directly into the side of the second ambulance parked diagonally from the first one. The unexpected commotion caused Mattias to jump and turn to find the sprightly redhead scrambling to pick herself off of the floor.
"Good morning!" Anna announced in a pitch that made herself wince. "Is the nonchalance in the room with us? Way to go. He's is definitely going to trust you, now," she thought with exasperation.
"Are you alright, uh-" Mattias struggled to remember the recruit's name. They had only worked together directly a few times since her on-boarding a few months prior.
"Anna," the bright eyed woman offered cheerfully. She smiled somewhat too widely for a person who actively worked to wipe the dirt from her uniform.
"Anna," the paramedic repeated in near monotone. "Is there something I can help you with? Aside from buffing out the new scratch you just unceremoniously added to our newest ambulance."
Anna turned her head sharply to the right, eyes wide with shock. She pulled the waylaid stretcher away from the side of the ambulance and checked the area it had made contact. Not locating any new unwanted additions to the paint, she returned her gaze to the paramedic, who remained sitting but with a wide grin replacing his initially stoic features. It made her relax, the tension in her back beginning to lessen.
"Full of jokes, I see," the young woman challenged. "I'm gonna need you to find new material that doesn't give recruits a heart attack."
Mattias laughed heartily before replying. "Kid, I've been doing this for a long time. I've seen my share of young bucks come and go in this job and if there's any advice I can give you now, it's that if no one jokes around with you, it means they don't trust you."
Anna had not considered the paramedic's age until that moment. She immediately noticed the way sparse silver hair was woven in his short, dark curls. Acknowledging both the life lessons this man had to offer and the offhanded compliment that he trusted her, Anna seized the opportunity to begin pressing for some information.
"Duly noted, I'm willing to be roasted on the daily if it means you guys trust me. So... The reason I came to bother you and accidentally assault your stretcher," she continued. "Is because I just need some closure on a call we had last week. I can't get it out of my head."
Mattias regarded her evenly, speaking as he crossed his arms, "So you're fishing for a patient update."
"Well," Anna shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking around the inside of the ambulance as she searched for the words she crafted so perfectly at two that morning. "If you want to word it that way, sure. Guess I am fishing. But in my defense, that was my first viable rescue. I- I just want to know she made it out of this alive and doing better than how we found her." The words felt like they were tumbling from her mouth, gaining momentum and spilling out onto the floor in a jumbled mess of anxiety and anticipation.
The paramedic was quiet for several moments, the silence between them highlighting Anna's investment in discovering the outcome by the way she began to wring her hands. He could tell that she was wrestling with her conscience and the rules of the trade. Mattias sighed and uncrossed his arms, trying his best to choose his words carefully.
"In every responder's career, there will always be calls that stick with us. There will be times of fear and doubt. You will torture yourself with understanding what happened and why. It's not up to us to find out the why. You take it on the chin and move on to help the next guy the very best you can." He paused to let the words sink in. "You learn how to move on with time and experience, but you never forget. The only update I have for you is that when she was transferred to the ER staff, she was very much alive."
Anna nodded thoughtfully, she recognized that this was the wall she was likely to hit with the attempted prying. Before the conversation began, she had already decided that she would do what she could on her own to find where the woman was recovering. She didn't want to intrude on her life or hardships, but the recruit felt something within herself pulled toward this stranger.
The reflection of a freckled face mirrored back at Anna as she buffed the rims of the heavy rescue, finishing up the task of washing and shining the vehicle. Entrenched in building a plan, she hardly noticed the tall, bullish figure approach her from behind.
"You've been buffing the same spot for ten minutes, y'know," Anna startled at how close the voice was and suddenly noticed the short blonde hair sharing the reflection. "I think you got the hard water spots off," the man added.
She turned around, still crouching on her toes and looked up at her best friend. "You're always super funny when you scare the hell out of me on the regular. You know how much I just love that."
Kristoff laughed at her thickly-laden sarcasm. He continued to tease further. "They assigned us to the same shift so I could keep you on your toes, don't you know?"
Anna hummed in mock agreement as she stood, deciding the task at hand had been completed for some time now.
"Certainly it had nothing to do with you all but groveling to the Chief about how well of a team we are and the 'life-changing impact we could bring to the Town of Arendelle together!'" she recited with animated air quotations and gesturing toward the map of the town as if she were revealing a prize on a gameshow. Kristoff felt his cheeks flush and he leaned forward to push his friend's shoulder playfully.
"Alright, alright I get it, thanks for the weekly reminder of what I did in order to make sure we stuck together. I'm always having to do the lion's share of the work, anyhow," he added that last statement knowing it would get a rise out of her. Anna shot a glare before taking the towel in her hand and twirling it in the familiar motion that warns anyone nearby that someone was about to get hit.
Kristoff leaped back, laughing and putting his hands up in mock surrender. "Spare me the welts, would you? And just tell me what's eating at you. You've been out of your element for a few days now and it's starting to freak me out."
Anna balled up the towel and tossed it toward the dirty linen basket, missing by a considerable amount. Her partner stifled a laugh and followed her to the front of the rescue, opening a door to allow her to climb into the back while he took a the front passenger seat. This routine was called 'Cab Confessional' where the person in need of advice would speak with full transparency from the rear crew seats, and the other would offer snippets of advice or just simply listen without judgement from one of the front seats. It was the only space they could retreat to where they weren't eavesdropped on and could work through the things that haunted them both on and off shift. It was a practice that brought the young firefighters closer than they had ever been, despite growing up together.
It was quiet for long enough that Kristoff wondered if she was waiting for him to ask once more what was bothering her so much. As he opened his mouth, Anna spoke.
"I need to know what happened to the girl we pulled from that apartment. I know it's against protocol, but I can't stop thinking about it. It keeps me up at night, wondering if she's actually going to be okay or," she paused, trying to blink away the sudden tears and regain control of her voice. "I just need to know. With or without anyone else's help, I am going to- I don't know- maybe bring some flowers, or a stupid card, but for my own sanity I need to see that she'll be alright."
The young man nodded thoughtfully, digesting all of what his friend had just said. He came to the conclusion that whether he advised her not to pursue the answers she sought, Anna had always been stubborn and determined beyond reason. If nothing else, who was he to deny her the peace that she was so clearly in need of?
"Alright," he finally said.
"Alright?" Anna asked, tossing her hands up in frustration and letting her palms hit her thighs with a dull slap.
"You want answers and... I think you deserve them. You saved that girl- I mean, we both did, but you're the one who went in and got her. I think that earns you some grace to find out what happened to her," Kristoff reasoned with a shrug. He turned in his seat to face the readhead, tilting his chin down sharply and raising his eyebrows, causing her to laugh at his expression.
"One way or another, we'll find out what that room number is," he affirmed, his expression more serious as he held her gaze.
Anna reached forward, Kristoff meeting her halfway and giving her hand a single promising handshake, something they always did before they agreed to something likely considered reckless and foolhardy.
It was in the middle of preparing for dinner when the station alarm trilled for the report of a multi-vehicle accident on the two lane highway that connected Arendelle to the rest of the world. Anna ran halfway to the rescue before realizing she still had a bell pepper in her hand, which she decided to throw haphazardly toward the back of the apparatus bay and hoped that she would remember to find it later.
She absolutely would not remember to do that.
It was a chaotic scene, as most were. There were four patients total, two from each vehicle, which had collided head-on with each other. They were suffering from various soft tissue injuries but were stable enough to be transported in pairs between the two available ambulances.
Anna was sweeping up debris from the wreck as the two patients were being loaded into the second ambulance. Kristoff had been picking up the larger pieces of plastic paneling when the realization struck him that an opportunity had presented itself. He dropped the panel and cleared his throat, Anna turned to look at him questioningly. He tipped his head sideways toward the still open rear doors, motioning repeatedly until he saw the recognition wash over her face.
"How exactly am I supposed to hitch a ride with them to the hospital, just hop in there with a 'let me squeeze right past ya' and wedge myself in the corner like a stowaway?" Anna asked incredulously.
"Allow me," Kristoff replied confidently. He turned back toward the ambulance and called for Mattias, who appeared unimpressed with being pulled away from treating his patients.
"What could you possibly need from me in this moment, probie?" he asked, obviously irritated with the distraction.
"It looks like a handful in there, care for a second hand in the back?" Kristoff thumbed back at Anna, who immediately dropped the broom she was holding and stepped over it.
"I can help! I need to keep up with my splinting skills, anyway. I've barely had any medical ride time," she affirmed. Mattias narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the pair.
"Get in here and don't make me regret my decision to let you on my ambulance," he finally lamented with a dismissive wave before turning back to the patient on the stretcher.
For the first time in over a week, Anna felt her heart swell with hope. This was likely the one opportunity she would get to find that woman and she wasn't about to squander it. She nearly leapt into the back of the ambulance, shutting the doors behind her while Kristoff looked on, giving her two thumbs up and an encouraging smile. She shuffled her way to the jumpseat that was behind the head of the stretcher where the second patient sat, cradling his arm. As the ambulance began moving, Anna reassured the patient they would be well taken care of as she assessed his likely broken arm and began fashioning a sling for him while trying to control her racing heart and voice that shook with newfound adrenaline.
The transport was brief, the hospital only being roughly five miles from the stretch of highway they were responding from. As she assisted her patient from the ambulance to walk beside the stretcher being wheeled through the large sliding doors of the Emergency Room, nervous excitement only seemed to intensify despite all the ways Anna worked to keep herself calm. She figured there was a 50/50 chance of the woman either being in the ICU, or the step-down unit where patients required basic monitoring and rehabilitation but were closer to being discharged. She just needed an opportunity to break away for all of ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.
Like most days, the ER was overwhelmed with patients of varying acuity. There were other ambulance crews with patients waiting outside of rooms, waiting for an open bed to transfer their patient to. 'Holding the wall' was one of the least favored activities of a provider, but was a near daily occurrence. Patient turnover could be as quick as five minutes, or as long as an hour, there was no telling how long it would be.
"Is this patient able to move to triage?" The sudden appearance of an ER technician startled Anna, who had to look around several times to find the tech in the shuffling chaos.
"I- yes?" She finally answered as the technician tapped her clipboard impatiently.
"What's he got going on, then. Just the arm injury, or..?" The incessant clicking of the technician's pen made Anna's eye twitch. She took a deep breath and collected herself.
"Suspected radial fracture and concussion, he denies losing consciousness, though," Anna replied, the tech nodding and jotting notes as she spoke.
"Very good. If you got something for me to sign, give it here and I'll take him down to have a seat." Shuffling through her own paperwork, Anna presented the patient transfer form that the technician signed without hardly looking at it before taking the patient's hand and leading him down the hall to the waiting room.
"Now, how is it you got out of this so easily," Mattias halfheartedly complained. "I always have to hold the wall for a century."
"It's because you're smarter, which means you get to do cooler stuff, which means you have to wait for people even more important than you. And that's hard to find," Anna joked. She feigned checking her watch and shifting her weight for a few moments before adding, "Hey, where's the bathroom around this place?"
Mattias pointed down a hallway opposite of where the ER technician had taken her patient. "Down there- take two lefts and a right and you'll run into it. Don't dawdle, I wanna get out of here as soon as humanly possible, got it?"
Anna managed to nod before walking down the first hallway, trying to keep her pace normal. As soon as she rounded the corner, she searched the right-hand wall for the sign she knew was somewhere nearby. Once she spotted it, she began to walk at a fast clip past the arrow that read 'Elevators' and completely disappeared from sight.