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While You Were Sleeping

Part 2

An Emergency Story by

Anela51
 

Links to Part 1. 2.

 

          

 

While You Were Sleeping…

Part Two

By Anela51

 

 

Johnny sat on a deck chair in Roy’s back yard. Inside the house was quiet, Roy and Joanne having taken the kids and gone to Parent-Teacher Conference night at their elementary school, so he had the house to himself this evening. As much as he loved Roy and his family, sometimes they could be just a little overwhelming to him.

 

He’d been staying with the DeSoto’s for just over three weeks now. He knew, when Roy’d insisted that he come home to stay with him, that he’d hoped that it would help Johnny let go of the belief that Roy had died in the wreck with the squad. When it hadn’t seemed to be working, Roy had convinced him to begin seeing a psychiatrist. Johnny could still remember how nervous he’d been when he’d walked into the office of Doctor Sarah Chandler and laid it all on the line with her.

 

“What is it that you need from me, Johnny?” the middle-aged woman asked him, appearing to be sincere in her request.

 

“I need you to hear me without assuming I’m crazy. I know how all this sounds, Doc, but I’m not crazy...at least, I hope to hell I’m not. But please don’t assume that this is the only reality there is and that my other life is all in my head. BOTH lives feel real to me, and I can’t tell the difference—which one is real and which one isn’t. And if you can’t help me figure it out without being objective about it, then please tell me now and I’ll look for someone who can.”

 

He’d been gasping for breath by the end of his desperate plea.

 

She sat quietly and looked at him, and Johnny felt as if she were looking right through him. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she said, “Yes, I can promise you I will be able to do that for you. I promise I won’t judge you, but will help you find the truth. I have a feeling that the truth is very important to you, no matter how hard it may be for you to deal with. But you don’t have to go through this alone. Together we can discover the truth and deal with it. Will you let me help you, Johnny?”

 

Johnny felt tears welling up in his eyes once more as he recalled the feeling of relief that had washed over him at her words. And she had been keeping her promise in every session he’d had with her since then, listening to him and not making him feel that he was living in a fantasy world of his own creation. While he didn’t yet feel any closer to figuring out what was happening to him than he had been, it was amazing the difference that just feeling as though he were truly being heard could make.

 

His first session had been the day before Thanksgiving and the holiday, normally a relaxing one when he spent the day with Roy and his family, had not been so this year. Oh, they had all tried to ignore the elephant in the room with them—even Joanne’s sister, Eileen, and her family, who had joined them this year—although there had been a bit more confusion on their part than with the DeSoto’s themselves.

 

Johnny still cringed as he remember the awkward pause when it came time for him to share with the others around the table what it was he was thankful for this year. With everything that was going on he felt like he was surrounded by a thick, black veil and he couldn’t see past it to all the good things he had in his life that lay just beyond it. Finally he’d mumbled his thankfulness that they were all together that day, and they had moved on to the next person at the table.

 

He had only managed to finally relax a little when the men sat around the TV in the living room watching the day’s football games, the women congregating in the kitchen as the kids played upstairs. It had been a relief, for everyone Johnny thought, when the day was finally over and the family retired for the night. Johnny had been exhausted, and had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 

That had been two weeks ago. He’d seen Doctor Chandler a few more times since then and, while she seemed to be keeping her word in trying to help him look at things objectively, that didn’t necessarily make talking about what was happening to him any easier. He recalled one particularly difficult exchange that occurred only this morning...

 

“Johnny, you’ve told me that your friends here seemed to be acting as they normally would, and that, in your other life, everything seemed to feel very wrong to you. But isn’t it possible that, because of their grief, they are not behaving ‘wrongly’ but just differently?”

 

Johnny frowned at her. “How do you mean?”

 

“Well, you’ve said that your crewmates hardly visited you in the hospital after the accident, that your only regular visitor had been your captain. Do you know if any of them have ever lost a fellow crewmate before—someone whom they considered a close friend?”

 

Johnny thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

 

“Well, could it be possible, then, that they didn’t come to see you because they didn’t know how to interact with you in this situation? Not only had they lost someone they were close to, but when they saw you, the one who was closer to Roy than any of them, they simply didn’t know what to say to you? That they were afraid of causing you pain by possibly saying the wrong thing to you? Or maybe that, in seeing your grief, it only made their own grief more tangible to them, so they tried to keep a handle on their own grief by staying away from you?”

 

Johnny considered her words, and immediately thought about when he’d lost his good friend, Drew Burke. Hadn’t he even told Roy that, as he was trying so hard to distance himself from his own grief, each time Drew’s wife, Pam, had called—which she had done frequently, reaching out to him in her own grief—it brought it all back to him? Yes, he could understand that the guys might be experiencing the same thing.

 

The doctor must have seen the answer on his face. “What about Joanne? Would it really be so wrong for her to seek comfort and solace from her parents in her time of grief as well?”

 

Again, Johnny remembered Pam Burke, who had also wound up leaving LA to be near her family and distance herself from all the reminders of Drew’s loss. He nodded silently.

 

“You’ve spoken to me about your friendship with Dixie McCall. Taking into account her grief, does her behavior truly seem wrong to you now?”

 

Johnny sighed, admitting to himself that nothing in Dixie’s or even Brackett’s behavior was much different than it normally would have been under the circumstances. “Yeah... Yeah, you’re right, Doc. I guess maybe things aren’t really as ‘wrong’ as they seem.”

 

“Okay, Johnny. Then what about here? If, objectively speaking, everyone is behaving as they normally would—albeit under very difficult circumstances—in your other reality, and you’ve already told me that everyone in this one is behaving normally too, then can you tell me exactly is not ‘normal’ here?”

 

Johnny found that he couldn’t speak past the sudden lump in his throat. His heart was pounding in his chest and he blinked back the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes.

 

The silence dragged on for what seemed like an eternity before he managed to choke out his answer.

 

“Me...”

 

Johnny finally allowed his tears to spill over, alone in the safety of this now-silent house that held so many good memories for him. He was the one that was not behaving normally...and he hadn’t the slightest idea if he would ever feel normal again.

 

~*~*~

 

 “So then you admit that your situation here is not as abnormal as you first believed?”

 

*sigh* “When I was finally able to think about it, Doc...I guess my friends here aren’t acting any more unusual than other people who’ve just lost someone close to them, so...yeah, I guess so.”

 

“And you understand that, just because your friends are also acting as they normally would in your other ‘reality,’ it doesn’t necessarily prove that that other ‘reality’ is the true one?”

 

“...Uh-huh...”

 

“So if, as that other psychiatrist has helped you to understand it, the normalcy of both ‘realities’ cancel each other out, as it were, you also now understand that it is actually you who are not exhibiting ‘normal’ behavior, correct?”

 

*weary sigh* “Yeah, Doc...”

 

“Well, why do you think that is, John?”

 

“...I don’t know, Doc...”

 

“Surely you have some idea?”

 

*silence*

 

“Let’s go back to the day of the accident. Why were you driving the squad that morning?”

 

“It’s like I told you before, Doc, I made a bet with Roy...”

 

“I understand that, John. I also understand that, since you bet your partner for a day behind the wheel of the squad, that apparently you didn’t get to drive it much.”

 

“Oh, I drive the squad every shift—each time Roy goes in the ambulance with a patient, I’m the one driving the squad to meet him at the hospital.”

 

“But you didn’t do much driving to the calls themselves, correct?”

 

“No...not very often, anyway.”

 

“Why not?”

 

*shrug* “I don’t know. Roy just does most of the driving, that’s all.”

 

“Why do you think that was?”

 

“We never really talked about it. I mean, Roy’s the senior partner, and when we first started working together he just started doing most of the driving. I guess it just became sort of a habit—he drives, I navigate.”

 

“Did you ever wonder if it was because your partner didn’t trust your driving skills?”

 

“No. There were many times that I’ve driven the squad out on calls over the years. Once, when we’d been accused of leaving the scene of a hit-and-run accident... Roy’d been driving, and he let me drive the squad for a while after that, at least until the investigation proved the victim was faking it and cleared us of any wrongdoing...”

 

“Any other times?”

 

“Sure...” *silence*

 

“Such as?”

 

“...Well...nothing really stands out to me at the moment... But it’s not like I never drove the squad on calls...”

 

“So Roy did let you drive the squad on occasion?”

 

*sigh* “Yeah...”

 

“And you don’t believe these infrequent occurrences were because he didn’t trust your driving skills?”

 

“No.”

 

“And how exactly were your driving skills the morning of the accident?”

 

*silence* “.......I...I don’t understand...”

 

“How would Roy have assessed your driving skills the morning of the accident?”

 

“He... Roy told me that he didn’t think he would have been able to control the squad any better than I had...”

 

“But, if that ‘reality’ was only one of your imagination, wouldn’t his answer be one that would mitigate your responsibility for the accident?”

 

“But...”

 

“In your honest opinion, John, if Roy had been driving the squad that morning, do you think the accident still would have occurred?”

 

“......No......”

 

***

Johnny sat across from Doctor Chandler and thought about the question he’d just been asked. “I don’t know if I want to continue being a paramedic without Roy as my partner, Doc. It just...it just wouldn’t be the same, you know?”

 “Explain it to me, Johnny,” she probed him further.

 

“Well, both Roy and I have worked with other paramedics before when one of us was out on sick leave or on vacation. The other guys ware good at what they do, don’t get me wrong, but... Roy and I just clicked from the very beginning. A lot of times we don’t even have to talk to each other to know what we’re thinking. We have a rhythm when we work that we can’t seem to recapture when we work with others.”

 

She tilted her head. “Couldn’t that just be because you know things are only temporary? I mean, why try to recreate something that you know is going to return again in a week or two or six?”

 

“Yeah,” Johnny replied, “That’s true, but still... Roy’s not just my partner, he’s my best friend. Sometimes he’s even kinda like the older brother I never had. I was partnered with Tony Freeman over at 10s for over a year, and things were just casual between us. He was my partner and we got along and all, but that’s where it ended. It’s not that way with Roy... Heck, our whole shift is like that. We’ve become more like a family. I was lucky to find them...to be a part of it all, but I just don’t think something like that happens every day...and I don’t think a partnership like Roy’s and mine happens every day, either...”

 

“Is that why it hurt so much when your shiftmate’s seemed to be avoiding you in your other reality?”

 

Johnny swallowed hard. “Yeah. Other times, when one of us was laid up, we’d be in and out all the time...”

 

“But not this time?” she asked quietly.

 

He shook his head sadly. “No...not this time. It’s pretty much been just Cap, although both Mike and Marco have dropped by by themselves once or twice...”

 

“And there’s been no sign of Chet Kelly?”

 

For all their kidding around at the station, Johnny had to admit that Chet’s absence had hurt worse than the others. “No.”

 

“Johnny,” the doctor leaned forward slightly in her chair, “what are you going to do when you get your cast off here?”

 

The sudden shift of topics threw him a little off balance. “I suppose I’ll have a few sessions of PT, then return to work.”

 

“With Roy?”

 

“Yeah...”

 

“How does the thought of that make you feel?

 

Johnny felt butterflies begin to flutter around in his stomach as he pondered his return to work. He blew out a quick breath. “Kinda nervous, I guess.”

 

“Why would that make you nervous? Roy’s been your partner for a long time. What would be different about working with him again now?”

 

Those butterflies started turning into angry bees. “The accident...”

 

She frowned at him. “Do you think Roy blames you for what happened?”

 

Johnny shook his head. “No—he’s already told me he doesn’t.”

 

“Then what would be the problem?” Chandler asked.

He sat silently for several moments, hesitant to give voice to the fears in his soul. But he had come here seeking the truth, therefore he had to be truthful to himself, if not to her, in order for this to work. “I’m afraid the problem will be me... That I won’t be able to back Roy up as I did before... How can I, when I don’t even feel like I’m the same person I was before?”

 

“Before...” she prompted.

 

“Before the accident—before I wrecked everything!”

 

“How did you ‘wreck’ everything, Johnny? The squad has been replaced—”

 

“Not the squad! Roy’s trust in me!” He desperately wanted to get up and pace, but the office was too small for him to safely navigate about the room with his crutches. He ran a hand through his hair nervously. “How can he possibly trust me with everything that’s going on right now?”

 

She paused a moment, allowing him time to get himself back under control. “Johnny, if Roy were here in the room with us right now, I’m pretty certain that he’d say that his trust in you has never wavered. Are you sure that’s what it is?”

 

He threw his head back against the pillows, unable to face her. Tears slid from his eyes to slip into his dark hair, unnoticed. “How can he possibly trust me right now when I can’t even trust myself...”

 

***

 

Johnny waited in the lobby for Roy to pick him up from his appointment. He’d dropped Johnny off that morning on his way to Rampart to get his cast removed, and would be picking him up afterward so that they could get in a little last-minute Christmas shopping.

 

Not that Johnny had much of a Christmas spirit right now, but he couldn’t let the DeSoto children wake up on Christmas morning and not find any gifts from their Uncle Johnny under the tree. Nor could he show Roy and Joanne how much he appreciated their letting him stay in their home all this time by letting the holiday pass by without receiving any gifts from him, either.

 

But Christmas shopping was the last thing in the world he felt like doing right now.

 

When he saw Roy’s Porsche pull up in front of the building, he pushed the door open with his body and made his way out to the car, adept by now in the use of his crutches. After pouring himself into the little sports car—the top up today so this took a bit of maneuvering—they headed off to the local shopping center.

 

“So do you have any idea what you’re going to get everyone this year?” Roy asked him.

 

“Not a clue,” Johnny replied absently.

 

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find something for everyone...”

 

It took some effort, and a little bit of luck and patience as well, but a few hours later Roy was lugging several shopping bags full of gifts back out to the car, although Johnny managed to carry a couple of smaller bags along with his crutches. Roy stored the bags in the trunk before climbing into the car beside Johnny.

 

“Well, alright!” Roy said happily as he started up the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be...this close to Christmas and all. Now we can go home and Jo can fix us both a late lunch.”

 

Johnny felt the butterflies returning as he cleared his throat. “Hey, Roy? You mind if we make one more stop on the way back to your place?”

 

Roy’s eyebrows rose in curiosity as he glanced away from the road to look at Johnny for a moment. “I thought you managed to get a gift for everyone on your list, Junior? But no, I don’t mind one more stop. Where are we heading?”

 

“I, uh... I really wanna drive by the accident scene...if you don’t mind the drive...”

 

This time when Roy turned to look at him, his expression was one of shock. “Why would you want to go back there for?”

 

Johnny sighed wearily. “I just want to see it, Roy...”

 

Roy returned his attention to the traffic in front of him as he silently contemplated Johnny’s request. Johnny hoped Roy wouldn’t refuse to take him—he’d been waiting patiently for the opportunity to ask someone to take him back up there, but he hadn’t been about to ask Joanne to do it. The silence went on for so long that Johnny began to fidget in his seat. Eventually Roy engaged the turn signal that would indicate the car’s intentions and move them in the direction of Old Ridge Road.

“Okay, Johnny. I’ll take you there.”

 

He smothered his sigh of relief before quietly responding, “Thanks.”

 

They made the drive in silence, which was fine by Johnny, as he really didn’t want to get into his reasons for coming here at the moment—not that he would have been able to articulate them to Roy. He wasn’t even sure what they were himself.

 

He spied the recently-replaced guardrail at the same time Roy began to slow the car down, and a moment later they were parked on the meager shoulder.

 

“Are you sure you want to do this, partner?”

 

Johnny couldn’t meet his eyes and only nodded his head as he turned to climb out of the vehicle.

 

They slowly made their way over to stand before the guardrail, Roy slowing his pace in deference to Johnny’s crutches. Johnny gazed over the side of the ravine, looking for evidence of the squad’s roll down its side, but the dry brown brush refused to yield its secrets.

 

It was several moments before the sound of his soft voice broke the cloying quiet. “I really don’t remember much about the accident, after that deer shot out in front of us... I remember thinking to myself, ‘Don’t go over... Don’t go over...’ but once the skid started, nothing I did made any difference.”

 

“It happened too fast, Johnny” Roy said gently. “There was nothing you could have done to avoid it.”

 

Johnny found it too difficult to reply past the lump in his throat at the moment, so he let his silence do the talking for him.

 

“I remember hearing you shout my name,” Roy filled in some of the blanks for him. “Then nothing after the first jolt of the squad going over onto its side...not until waking up to find Bob Bellingham working over me. I kept asking about you, but no one would tell me anything other than the usual, ‘He’s being taken care of, let’s just worry about you right now,’ It wasn’t until I was in a treatment room with Joe Early that I found out how bad you’d been hurt.”

 

It took Johnny even longer to respond this time, and his voice was no more than a whisper of sound when he finally managed to say, “I’m sorry, Roy...”

 

He felt Roy’s hand come to rest on his shoulder, although he kept his gaze focused on the ravine below. “You have nothing to apologize for. I wish you could just believe me...and let everything else go.”

 

“I wish I could, too...”

 

They stood that way for what seemed like hours before Roy gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Come on, partner. It’s time to go home.”

 

As they turned back toward the car Johnny’s gaze moved up the road a ways, and his eyes found the second hairpin turn. There was no shoulder to the road before the guardrail, and the side of the ravine fell straight away only a few short feet from the guardrail on the other side. That must be the place Cap mentioned the afternoon of A-Shift’s pre-Thanksgiving cookout. He was right—there would have been no way me and Roy would have survived if we’d gone over the side there...

 

“Quit dawdling, Junior,” Roy’s amused voice interrupted his thoughts. “I can hear your stomach growling all the way over here.”

 

Johnny forced his attention back to the present as he reached for the door handle. “Very funny,” he replied out of habit as he folded himself back into the vehicle.

 

But his mind was distracted for the entire ride home.

 

~*~*~

 

 “So you were able to get someone to take you to the scene of the accident?”

 

“Yeah, Doc. Roy finally got his cast off and I asked him to take me. I didn’t feel right asking Joanne to do it.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Ask her to take me to the place where her husband was injured on the job? I don’t think so...”

 

“Why do you think he agreed to do it?”

 

*shrug* “Because I asked him to? Because he thought it might help? I don’t know. I didn’t ask him for his reasons...”

 

“What were your reasons for wanting to go?”

 

“I’m not really sure. I mean, I don’t really remember much about what happened... I guess I thought it might jog my memory.”

 

“What do you remember about the accident?”

 

“...Not much. I remember fighting to keep control of the squad, seeing the edge of the road coming closer and closer and not being able to do anything to stop it... But nothing after that until waking up in ICU.”

 

“Was Roy able to supply you with any details?”

 

“Not really... He said he remembered hearing me shout his name as we went over...the initial impact...then waking up to find a paramedic working on him.”

 

“Why do you think he was unable to tell you more about the accident itself?”

 

“Gee, Doc, I don’t know... Maybe it was because he was unconscious?”

 

*pause* “Why did you want to go to the accident scene, John? Was it really just an attempt to jog your memory?”

 

*sigh* “...I really don’t know why, Doc... I just felt like I needed to go.”

 

“Were you hoping that, with Roy there, you would receive his absolution for what happened that morning?”

 

*slow head shake* “He’s already told me that the accident wasn’t my fault, Doc—more than once...”

 

“Well then, perhaps you were hoping to somehow prove to yourself that there was nothing you could have done to prevent the accident from happening to begin with?”

 

*silence*

 

“John...?”

 

*whisper* “......I think I was hoping to prove that there was...”

 

***

 

 “Well, John,” Doctor Joe Early said jovially as he prepared the instrument tray. “Are you ready to get that cast off your leg?”

 

“Doc, you have no idea...” Johnny said with a soft smile. He sounded relieved—and he was—because losing the cast represented freedom to him in more ways than one.

 

“Okay, then. Let’s get this show on the road.”

 

It only took a few minutes for the small saw to do its job, and then the weight of the heavy plaster cast fell away from his leg as Roy’s hands helped to remove it.

 

His leg was a bit pale, but it wasn’t as if he’d had the opportunity recently to be out in the sun as fall wound down into winter. His eyes could only detect a slight difference in muscle mass compared to his other leg.

 

“Now let’s get you up on your feet,” the kindly doctor said as both he and Roy helped him to move off the examination table. They held on to him as he took his first tentative steps but released him when he appeared to have retained his balance. Johnny took a few steps forward on his own before turning back toward them. “How does it feel, Johnny?”

 

“A bit weak, but okay,” he replied, walking slowly back to the exam table.

 

“Are you in any pain?”

 

He shook his head. “Not so much pain as pressure. It feels like it’s trying to support twice the weight it normally would, even without the cast.” He sat back down on the table.

 

Early handed him a metal cane. “That’s why, for now, you’ll need a cane for assistance. That heaviness will pass as you go through physiotherapy. I’ve scheduled your first session tomorrow, at the same time as Roy’s so that you can come in together. The rest of them you can schedule on your own, although I’ve made them aware that you’d probably prefer come at the same time as your partner here.”

 

“Thanks for doing that, Doc,” Johnny replied with a quick glance at his friend, knowing that Roy was not going to be happy with the news he was about to spring on him, “but now that I can drive again I’ll probably be heading back to my own apartment this afternoon...”

 

And he was right. Roy’s face took on a disturbed expression. “Now just hold on a minute there, Junior. You never said anything about wanting to leave...”

 

“Well, you and Joanne must be sick of me being underfoot by now, Roy, and I’m sure the kids would love to get a little more of their father’s attention before you go back on duty—especially now that Christmas vacation is  right around the corner.”

 

“Look, boys,” Doctor Early interrupted, “You two can settle this argument on your own. Right now I’ve got some sick people to see. Call me next week after you’ve had at least four PT sessions, Johnny and we’ll schedule a time for you to come back in for me to check your progress. I’ll see you both later.”

 

“Thanks, Doc...” Johnny said.

 

“Yeah, Merry Christmas, Doc,” Roy added. He waited until Early had left before continuing his argument. “Speaking of Christmas, since Christmas Eve is in two days, and you usually spend the holiday at our house anyway, why don’t you at least stay through the end of the week...”

 

Johnny hesitated, and that was when Roy moved in for the kill. “The kids’ll be very disappointed if you didn’t—especially Jennifer. You wouldn’t want to make my little girl cry now, would you, Uncle Johnny?”

 

Johnny dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh, defeated. “Alright, alright. On one condition.”

 

http://www.tbillingsemergencyfanfic.com/images/Johnnysrover.JPG“What’s that” Roy asked cautiously.

 

“That we stop off at my place on the way home so I can pick up the Rover. Now that I can drive again, I won’t have to bother you or Joanne to shuttle me around anymore...”

 

He could tell from Roy’s expression that he wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but if he wanted him to stay... “Okay, Junior. Let’s go.”

 

Traffic was lighter this time of day, and it wasn’t long before they arrived at Johnny’s apartment building. “You want me to wait for you?”

 

“Nah, you go on ahead. I’m gonna go upstairs and do some stuff before heading back to your place,” Johnny answered. He had nothing specific in mind, but only wanted some time to himself for a while.

 

“Will you be back in time for lunch?”

 

He glanced at his watch, which read 10:05 AM. Three hours? “I’m not sure. Don’t wait for me, though. I’ll stop for something on the way home if I’m not back in time.”

 

“Alright. But you just got your cast off, so don’t overdo it.”

 

Johnny felt a crooked grin work its way onto his face. “Yes, Dad.”

 

That brought an answering smile. “See you later, Junior.”

 

Johnny climbed out of the car with the help of the cane and waited at the curb until Roy had driven out of sight before heading up to his apartment. He’d been in and out of the place while he’d been staying at Roy’s—picking up the mail held for him by a neighbor, and just checking up on things. Joanne had even done some light housework for him, keeping the dust bunnies at bay and such.

 

He sat down on the couch and let the quiet settle over him for a few minutes. It felt strange to him—being back in his apartment again. In his other life he’d been released from the hospital two weeks ago, having remained at Rampart an extra week based on the findings of both his doctors. Cap and his wife, along with Dixie, had been making sure he kept up with his therapy as well as his physiotherapy appointments and keeping his fridge and cupboards stocked, but he’d been pretty much on his own since his release. He hadn’t been in much of a mood to go out beyond that.

 

Here though, with Roy alive and the two of them returning to work within the next few weeks, he thought he would have felt differently about his homecoming. But he found being home alone in his apartment right now oddly frightening. He felt as though he were standing at the top of a huge cliff, and the vacuum that was his apartment was attempting to suck him forward and over the edge.

 

Maybe staying here alone wasn’t such a good idea...

 

Using his cane for support he got up off the couch and went into his bedroom, pulling some of his more formal clothing out to bring back with him to Roy’s to wear to church services on Christmas. He stuffed them into one of his carryall bags and then headed straight for the front door.

 

Once at the Land Rover, he opened up the door, tossed the bag inside and climbed in after it, not even waiting for the vehicle to air out. Unlike his apartment, the Rover had sat in its assigned parking stall  untouched for the past six weeks, or at least since one of the guys had brought it home for him from the station.

 

Inserting the key in the ignition and starting her up, he put the Rover into reverse and backed out, shifting once more in order to drive forward out of the lot. It was a little uncomfortable, driving on his newly-healed leg, but he’d manage.

 

His anxiety had lessened by the time he’d driven down the first block. He’d always enjoyed being behind the wheel—driving relaxed him. There was something about being on the open road that soothed his spirit, almost as much as camping did.

 

Maybe that was what he needed right now—just to go for a long drive. He made a quick lane change and headed out of the city, clearing his mind of as many distractions as he could.

 

It wasn’t until he’d pulled the Rover off onto the side of the road and shifted into park before he realized where he was.

 

He’d driven out to the accident scene on Old Ridge Road.

 

With a sigh he climbed out of his car and walked over to the barrier that had failed to keep the squad from rolling down the side of the canyon six weeks ago. The world around him was silent—no birds chirping, no breeze moving the brush... Nothing.

 

I wish I’d never won that stupid bet...

 

Everything was so different now—nothing felt real anymore. And yet, everything felt too real...so real that he felt as he were being crushed beneath the heavy weight of it all. What am I going to do...?

 

He looked around, desperately searching for the answer from the very place where he’d not only lost control of the squad, but had lost control of his life as well, and his eyes stopped once again on the s-curve 30 yards up the road. He slowly walked the distance between the two locations, coming to a halt at the guardrail at the central part of the curve. With no shoulder to speak of between the road and the guardrail, he moved right up to it and glanced down.

There was probably less than three feet of land before the sharp-edged drop-off of the cliff. From there it was a straight shot down, maybe 100 feet, to the bottom.

 

If the squad had been another 30 yards down the road when it went over the side neither of you would have made it...

 

Maybe it would have been better if we hadn’t...

 

No, that wasn’t fair. What if Roy really had  survived? Johnny would never wish any harm to come to his partner—even if it meant condemning himself to the continuous tortures of Hell for it. But if Roy really was dead...

 

I’m so tired...

 

He glanced back toward the accident scene, to the steep slope where the squad had rolled before coming to a stop about halfway down. Apparently it had been halted by a copse of trees... But the damage had been done.

 

We’ll fix it, partner...

 

Johnny shook his head in answer to his partner’s words, looking back downwards to the bottom of the canyon in front of him.

 

I’m not so sure it can be fixed, partner. I’m not so sure it can be...

 

He hung his head and turned to head back to the Rover.

 

~*~*~

 

It was Christmas day, and Johnny found himself alone in his small, undecorated apartment, the silence only broken by the occasional sounds of merriment and good cheer from neighbors and their visitors passing down the hall outside his apartment.

 

It had been a long time since Johnny had been at loose ends for this particular holiday. He’d spend the day, or at least part of it, visiting with his Aunt, or he’d be invited over to Drew and Pam’s place...and, after he’d partnered up with Roy, he’d spend the day at the DeSoto house.

 

But now Roy was gone, and Joanne and the kids were out of town. A part of him recognized that it was only a matter of time before he would be once again celebrating Christmas at the DeSoto house; that he’d be startled awake, as usual, by Chris and Jenny as they tore down the stairs, anxious to discover what Santa had brought for them this year, but...

 

The pall that had settled over his heart at the moment was very heavy indeed.

 

Hank Stanley had offered to take him back to his house so that he could spend the day with his wife and kids—A-Shift was on duty today, so they would celebrate the holiday the following day as well—but Johnny hadn’t wanted to intrude on what he considered to be a family holiday. Dixie was on duty at Rampart today, as well as Joe Early. He didn’t bother to ask about Doctor Brackett—Johnny didn’t think the man ever took a day off.

 

And so Johnny found himself alone on Christmas, and while a part of him hated the idea, a larger part of him was glad for it.

 

Grabbing his crutches, he climbed up from the couch and wandered over to look at the photographs on the book case in his living room. The large 8” by 10” picture of Roy’s family stood prominently at the center of the top shelf. It had actually been taken the first Christmas he’d spent with Roy’s family. —A-Shift had been off, and Roy’s mother had snapped the picture of Roy and his family opening their gifts that morning. Johnny was in the picture, too, sitting cross-legged on the floor, tussling with Jennifer as she helped him to open his presents...her own having long since been revealed in a frenzied but joyful tear.

 

Johnny felt tears welling up in his eyes, and he blinked them away furiously. He was not going to cry today, even if he was spending the day all alone, staring at the four walls.

 

A sudden knock at the door startled him, and he moved toward it slowly. He hoped it wasn’t his neighbor, Laverne, who might be cheerfully waiting on the other side with a plate of food—or tearfully waiting to unload on him after having had another fight with her boyfriend.

 

But when he opened the door, his mouth fell open in shock.

“Merry Christmas, Johnny!” Dixie McCall stood before him, smiling warmly, with several overstuffed bags in her arms.

 

 “Dixie! What are you doing here?”

 

Her smile grew even bigger. “If you don’t invite me in we’re going to have a bit of a mess in the next minute or so...”

 

“Oh! Sorry... Come on in!” He moved out of her way and she walked past him, carrying the bags to the kitchen. Johnny noticed there were a few more bags on the floor just outside the door. “Dixie, what is all this? I thought you had to work today?”

 

She went and grabbed the rest of the bags from out in the hall and brought them inside, and he closed the door behind her. She set them on the counter beside the others before answering, “There was a last minute change in the schedule, and I suddenly found myself with the day off. Since I hadn’t made any other plans, I decided that I wanted to spend it with a good friend of mine. And so here I am. Have you eaten yet?”

 

He noticed that she didn’t bother to ask if he had plans for the day, but decided to let it go. “No...not yet.”

 

By this time she had nearly all the bags emptied and the countertop was covered with groceries. “Well, good. You can help me put together this wonderful feast I’ve got planned for us...”

 

She parked him at the kitchen table as she worked at the counter, keeping him busy as together they prepared a small turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes and fresh green beans—it turned out she didn’t like green bean casserole either. The conversation was light, and she didn’t push him to talk, keeping things going when he fell silent, or just allowing the quiet to settle comfortably between them. Finally she sent him into the living room to rest as she finished cleaning up the kitchen.

 

Johnny didn’t know how much time passed before he noticed that Dixie was softly humming Christmas carols as she worked, and suddenly he felt his throat start to close as tears welled up once more in his eyes. Memories from last Christmas filled his mind...and suddenly it was no longer Dixie McCall’s soft voice he was hearing, but Joanne DeSoto’s.

 

She was working on fixing Christmas dinner for her family, shooing ‘her men’ out of the kitchen on no uncertain terms, and both he and Roy had shared a cup of coffee at the dining room table as they watched the kids play with their new toys beneath the tree in the living room. The sound of ‘Silent Night’ filtered out to them--Joanne’s soft humming deep and melodic. He could tell by the expression on Roy’s face that his friend was filled with a peaceful

contentment—that all was right in his world—and Johnny had felt the same sense of contentment settle over him...

 

It all became too much for him then and, although he tried to stifle the sob that was suddenly torn from his heart, Dixie heard it and moved quickly to sit beside him. She drew him into her arms, wrapping him in a warm embrace as his grief spilled over from the depths of his soul.

 

When his sobs had finally quieted he gently pulled himself from her arms, wiping his face with the palms of his hands. “Damn it, I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do this today...”

 

“And why not, Johnny?” Dixie asked quietly. “Do you think you’re the only one who is experiencing grief during the holidays? This is a tough time of year for a lot of people who have lost loved ones... Give yourself permission to grieve—it doesn’t mean that you’re weak...only that you’re human.”

 

She gave him some time to pull himself together, and a quiet stillness enveloped them as they sat on the sofa. It was Dixie who finally broke the silence. “Has Doctor Smithfield been able to help at all?”

 

Smithfield... Johnny sighed. “Not really...”

 

“Well, these things usually take some time, but if you feel that it’s not working out with him, I could talk to Kel...see if he can recommend someone else. Not every doctor-patient matchup is a perfect fit...”

 

He didn’t tell her that he was already seeing someone else—it would open up a can of worms he didn’t want to open with her. At this point only Doctors Brackett and Smithfield knew what was going on—at least, in this reality. Captain Stanley, while he knew that he was seeing the psychiatrist, didn’t know the real reason why. He’d just assumed it was because of the accident—and Roy’s death—and Johnny had seen no reason to enlighten him further. Besides, he was right in his assumptions, as far as they went.

 

“I’ll remember that, Dixie. Thanks.”

 She got up and went to the stereo, turning it on and finding a soft jazz station on the radio, turning the volume down low. Then she went back to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. “What can I get for you, Johnny?”

 

“Just a beer for now, thanks.”

 

She grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and, pouring some into a glass, brought it out to him. “Dinner will be ready in a little while.” She settled in beside him on the couch again and they sat quietly, listening to the music.

 

They shared a quiet meal, Dixie making most of the small talk. Johnny hadn’t had much of an appetite, but he would dream of insulting his friend by not eating the wonderful meal she had prepared for him, and pushed himself to eat almost all of the food she had set in front of him. When they were done, Dixie tried her best to shoo him out of the kitchen while she cleaned up, but he insisted that he wanted to help her, as well as keep her company. In the end, he’d pulled up a kitchen chair beside the sink and dried the dishes she washed with a hand towel and set them on the counter so that she could put them away when they were done.

 

Once cleanup was finished, they returned to the living room and sat down on the sofa once more, sipping the last of the wine they’d had for dinner.

 

“Thanks so much for the dinner, Dix. You really didn’t have to go through so much trouble...”

 

“Nonsense. You’re worth it, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. I can see that your appetite hasn’t been very good lately...”

 

She was right. While he hadn’t gotten on a scale lately, he could tell by the loose fit of his clothes that he’d dropped at least 15 pounds...and probably more.

 

“...Besides, it gave me a reason to do some cooking. I don’t have to tell you that most people who live alone don’t want to make the effort to cook complicated meals just for themselves.”

 

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards involuntarily. “Well, since my meals usually consist of hamburgers and hot dogs—whether I’m here or at the station—I can’t honestly say that I have that problem...”

 

She jokingly gave him a punch in the arm for that response. “Oh, you... Just for that I might not give you the last surprise I have for you.”

 

His eyebrows shot up. “Surprise? You mean another one?”

 

“Uh-huh,” she said, leaning over and rifled through her purse for a moment before straightening back up, a small...something... now in her hand.  She regarded him seriously for a moment. “Well, on second thought, you were a good boy and ate most of your vegetables tonight, so...here.” She handed him a small, square giftwrapped package. “Merry Christmas, Johnny.”

 

His mouth dropped open as he stared at the gift in her hands, a slow flush working its way up his neck to his face. “Aw, man...after all you’ve done...” He looked up at her, shame-faced. “I’m sorry, Dix... I don’t have a gift for you...”

 

She smiled warmly at him, reaching out and wrapping a hand around his. “You’ve already given me the best Christmas present I could have received this year, Johnny. You shared your day with me. Now open it.”

He hesitated a moment longer, then slipped his hands from hers and accepted the gift. Normally one to tear off the wrapping paper quickly, with this special gift he took his time, doing his best not to rip the giftwrap too badly. When he opened the box beneath, he gasped in surprise. Inside lay a small but beautifully decorated gold compass.

 

“Dixie, this is incredible...” He removed the compass from the box and opened its cover, his eyes misting as he read the inscription on its inside. Pointing the way back to those who love you. He looked up from the compass into the soft blue eyes of his friend, finding himself unable to speak.

 

“I know you’re feeling very lost and alone right now, Johnny. I just wanted to give you something to help you remember that, no matter what dark valley you may find yourself in, there are still those who love you waiting for you to return. Just use this compass to help show you the way...”

 

“Thank you...” he whispered, reaching out to wrap her in a warm embrace. She gave him a tight hug in return.

 

Finding no need to say anything further, they settled back on the couch together and allowed the soothing sounds of jazz to envelop them.

 

***

 

He sat on the guardrail, his feet hanging over the other side a mere foot from the edge of the cliff. He didn’t understand why he kept coming back here, but he’d returned several times since Roy had first drove him out to the accident scene. He’d just come from physiotherapy and the session had left him feeling somewhat tired...and a little apprehensive as well. Roy had been cleared to return to work as of yesterday, and Johnny was scheduled for his checkup with Doctor Early on Friday. If all went well, he’d be back on duty next Tuesday.

 

It was the thought of returning to work that left him filled with anxiety.

 

It made no sense to Johnny. Roy was not only is partner but his best friend. More than that, the DeSoto’s had become like his family. He didn’t want to lose that...

But what if he already had?

 

Christmas with them had been extremely difficult to get through this year. He would have thought that, for all that he had missed Roy and his family when he’d spent the holiday with Dixie in his other life...he would have been overjoyed to have the opportunity to spend the day with them in this one.

 

But that hadn’t been what had happened. This year he’d made little Jenny cry...

 

It was still early morning and they had just finished unwrapping the gifts, when Jennifer glanced around the room as if looking for something. She turned back toward him, her bright blue eyes staring intently at him for several moments, before she got up and began looking around the tree.

 

“Jennifer, what’s the matter?” Joanne asked her daughter.

 

“It’s not here! Santa didn’t bring it!”

 

“Bring what, honey?”

 

“What I asked him for,” Jennifer said, sounding very upset. “I asked him for a special gift this year...” She turned back to face him again before continuing, “But he didn’t bring it!”

 

Anxiety blossomed in the pit of his stomach as the young girl continued to stare at him. “What was that, princess?” he asked her. Roy’s entire family now sat silently, watching the scene unfold, and he felt an overwhelming sense of dread as he waited for her to answer.

 

“I asked him to make you not be so sad anymore, Uncle Johnny...but you still are—I can tell!”

 

Johnny felt the blood drain from his face as his heart plummeted down to the soles of his feet.

 

Jennifer began to sob. “Why didn’t Santa make Uncle Johnny better?!” she wailed to the world at large.

 

Several things happened at once. Joanne got up and rushed to console her daughter, who collapsed into her arms sobbing loudly. Roy stood up and began moving toward Johnny. Chris just sat there, looking from one person to another, obviously wondering what the heck was going on. And Johnny had unconsciously leapt to his feet, the urge to run nearly overwhelming him. At the last moment he forced himself to turn away from the front door—where the Rover sat waiting for him in the driveway beyond it—and bolted past Roy toward the patio doors and the backyard deck outside.

 

“Johnny!” Roy called after him, but Johnny didn’t stop moving until he literally hit the handrail at the edge of the deck. His breaths coming in harsh gasps, his hands clutched the handrail convulsively in an effort to get a grip on his out-of-control emotions.

 

Roy caught up with him a moment later. “Johnny...”

 

“I...I think I should go home, Roy...” If he hadn’t felt them come out from his own mouth Johnny would not have recognized the words he had just spoken.

But somehow, Roy had. “She loves you, Johnny... She didn’t mean to upset you...”

 

Johnny whirled on him. “Upset me?! It’s my fault that she’s the one who’s upset! I didn’t mean to ruin her Christmas... I shouldn’t be here! I’ve done nothing but cause trouble for you and your family since the day of the accident and I’m so sorry for that, Roy! If there was any way I could undo it all I would, but—”

 

 Roy reached out and grabbed both his shoulders, giving them a tight squeeze and a none-too-gentle shake. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute there, John. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The accident was not your fault! And you have not caused any trouble for me and my family. You’re a part of that family, too, and while we’ve all been worried about you, we’ve got no regrets for having you stay here with us. Understand?”

 

Johnny stood there, breathing hard and wanting desperately to believe him, but he was torn—as he had been from the day he’d regained full consciousness in ICU and had been told that Roy had died—as to what was real and what was not.

 

“Now of course Jennifer wants to help her Uncle Johnny to feel better—we all do—but she doesn’t understand what’s going on, or that things don’t always happen as fast or as easy as writing it down in a letter to Santa Claus. But she is old enough to understand that families stick together in times of trouble, and she wouldn’t want you to leave because of her. So why don’t you come on back inside before you catch a cold out here in nothing but a T-shirt and sweats, and I’m sure she’ll do her best to make her Uncle Johnny feel better as soon as she’s calmed down.”

 

He took a deep breath and allowed Roy to lead him back inside. He’d no sooner stepped through the sliding glass doors when Jennifer barreled into him, wrapping her small arms around his legs and squeezing for all she was worth, not allowing him to move into the room any farther. “I’m sorry, Uncle Johnny! I didn’t mean to make you feel bad! Don’t be mad at me! Please don’t go away!! I’m sorry—please don’t go away!!”

 

Feeling like a heel at her abject apology, Johnny leaned down and lifted her up into his arms. “I’m not mad at you, Jenny Bean. I swear I’m not. In fact, I’m very grateful that you wanted me to get better so much that you even asked Santa to make it happen for Christmas... Thank you for that, Sweetheart. It means so much to me...”

 

“But he didn’t make you better, Uncle Johnny,” she protested as he carried her back into the living room.

 

“Well now, honey, Santa’s great at making toys and raising reindeer and all, but some things are beyond even Santa’s power to do. But that’s okay, and I’m not mad at him for not bringing your gift. And if I’m not mad at Santa, then you shouldn’t be mad at him either, alright?”

 

Her blue eyes widened in shock. “You’re not mad at Santa?!”

 

“Nope.”

 

“And you’re not mad at me?”

 

“I promise, sweetheart, I’m not mad at you, either.”

 

“And you’ll stay?”

 

He smothered a sigh. “Yes, princess, I’ll stay for the rest of the day, like I promised.”

 

She hugged him tightly, a bright smile dawning on her face. “Thanks, Uncle Johnny. I love you!”

 

He swallowed the lump in his throat and replied, “I love you, too, Jenny.”

 

As he moved to set her back down she gave him one last hug. “But I still wish you would feel better soon...”

 

“So do I, sweetheart,” Johnny whispered softly as his thoughts returned to the present.

 

While the rest of the day had gone a bit better, he had been more than relieved when the time came for him to return to his apartment that evening.

 

The only problem had been that the relief hadn’t lasted very long. He felt at loose ends, finding reason after reason to get out of his apartment during the day, and to stay out as long as possible—and he felt exhausted, emotionally and physically.

 

And so, here he was, dreading to return home for the evening, and he couldn’t help but wonder what else could possibly go wrong in his life.

 

~*~*~

 

 “Why do you think you had such a difficult Christmas holiday, John?”

 

*shrug* “...It was hard, trying to act cheerful when that was the last way I felt. I tried my best, but...I wasn’t fooling anybody—not even Roy’s daughter, Jennifer.”

 

“What about here?”

 

“That was a little better, although still pretty rough. Dixie came over and spent some time with me.”

 

“Nurse McCall, from the ER?”

 

“Yes. She brought over some food and cooked us Christmas dinner. She even brought me a gift.”

 

“And did you spend Christmas with Ms. McCall before or after your Christmas at the DeSoto home?”

 

“Before.”

 

“John, do you understand the implications of what you’ve just explained to me? You said that you shared a fairly decent Christmas holiday with Ms. McCall, but a difficult Christmas in your other ‘reality’—the one in which you were with your partner and his family. Why do you think Christmas at the DeSoto’s was more difficult for you to get through than your Christmas here?”

 

“...I don’t know...”

 

“I think you do know, John. I believe that, subconsciously, you are aware that this is your true reality: that you were involved in an accident in which you were driving and which resulted in the death of your partner and friend. And I believe that you find this fact so difficult to accept that you are subconsciously fighting the truth tooth and nail, and so you’ve created this fantasy world where your partner is still alive. But you know—deep down, you know the truth. Deep down, you know that your other ‘reality’ is not real, and so you are unable to find the very solace you seek from it.”

 

*silence*

 

“So the question you need to ask yourself, and be willing to answer honestly, is: Why?”

 

***

Johnny paced the length of Doctor Chandler’s small office, no longer needing a cane and once more strong on his feet. He’d been cleared to return to work this upcoming Tuesday, when A-Shift was next on duty, but he was far from sure he was actually ready to do so.

 

 “And what Doctor Smithfield said disturbed you?”

 

“Yeah...”

 

She watched him pace, making no effort to stop him as of yet. “Why?”

 

He whirled on her abruptly. “Because what if he’s right?!”

 

She observed him silently for a moment before answering. “Johnny, I actually do think he’s right...but not in the way that he intends.”

 

He took a seat on the couch opposite her, anxious to hear what she had to say.

 

“Okay, here’s what I think. I think that, subconsciously you are fighting the truth ‘tooth and nail,’ but what I believe is the truth is not the same as what Doctor Smithfield believes is the truth. Yes, you were involved in an accident in which you were driving and in which both you and your partner were injured. So tell me, truthfully, how does that make you feel?”

 

Johnny’s stomach clenched and he felt like he was going to throw up. “Guilty...”

 

She nodded understandingly. “Yes, Johnny, you feel extremely guilty for being what you perceive to be the cause of your friend’s injuries. I can only imagine the list of ‘if onlys’ that are running through your mind—If only I hadn’t made that bet... If only I hadn’t been driving that morning... If only I’d done something more to avoid the accident... If only Roy had been driving, he would have avoided the crash...

 

“But the ‘if onlys’ didn’t happen, and so you are left with only what you perceive to be the truth: that the accident was your fault and that you need to be punished.

 

“But you’ve run into a major problem—your partner refuses to lay the blame for the accident at your feet. In fact, he’s rather adamant that it wasn’t your fault. But you are so convinced of your guilt that you don’t know how to handle the conflicting emotions caused by Roy’s absolution.

 

“And so your subconscious mind made its own decision as to how to handle things. In essence, your subconscious mind has found what it considers to be the only appropriate punishment to fit the crime you have convicted yourself of. Your subconscious mind has decided that, because you believe you are guilty of nearly causing the death of your partner, it was going to finish the job, so to speak, and it created for you a world in which to live where Roy has indeed died—the ultimate result of the consequences of your actions.

 

“Hence the conflict between reality and fantasy. Or rather, as it truly seems to you, between one reality and another.”

 

Johnny felt as if the weight of the world were pressing down on his shoulders. Was she right? Was his guilt so overwhelming that he was in fact dreaming of life in a world in which Roy was dead?

 

“But how can I know for sure?!”

 

She looked at him sadly. “I’m afraid only you can answer that question, Johnny. Because it will only be when you are ready to let go of your guilt and move on will that you will be able to see and accept the truth for yourself.”

 

~*~*~

 

Johnny clutched the metal cane tightly as he walked down the hallway to Doctor Smithfield’s office. He’d just come from having his cast removed, and it was good to finally have the extra weight off his leg. But the dull ache and discomfort he was experiencing right now told him that he’d be in for some extra sessions of physiotherapy with this injury.

 

He entered Smithfield’s outer office just as the doctor was coming out the door that led to his main office. “Oh good, John. You’re here. Should we get started?”

 

He held the door open for Johnny as he passed through the doorway, allowing the door to close quietly behind them. “I see your cast has finally been removed. How does it feel?”

 

Johnny sat down gratefully, glad to be off his leg. “Not too bad. I start PT tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be back to 100% soon.”

 

“And then what are your plans?”

The question stopped Johnny cold. “I’m sorry?”

 

“Will you return to Station 51 and work with a new paramedic partner? Will you stop being a paramedic and return to being just a fireman? Will you try and move up the ladder?” Smithfield paused before asking his next question. “Will you stop being a fireman altogether?”

 

Johnny was silent. He still didn’t know how to answer the doctor’s question. Tomorrow, in his other life, he would be returning to work for the first time since the accident, but he’d be returning to work with Roy. But here...

 

“I don’t know, Doc...”

 

“Do you think you will be able to work with a new permanent partner? Most likely you would be in the position of Senior paramedic.” The doctor paused again, then added, “I guess that means you’ll be the one driving the squad now, won’t it?”

 

The thought made Johnny’s stomach churn.

 

“Does the thought of driving the squad make you uncomfortable, John?”

 

Unable to speak, Johnny merely nodded.

 

“Why is that?”

 

Unable to answer, Johnny found himself beginning to breathe more rapidly.

 

“Is it because of the accident? Because you were driving when your partner was killed?”

 

He began to fidget, his breath coming in short pants.

 

“You’re returning to work in your other ‘reality’ soon, and you’ll be working with your partner once again. How does that make you feel?”

 

 He finally found his voice. “Worried,” he manage to rasp.

 

“Why worried? I mean, if that ‘reality’ is the true one, shouldn’t everything be back to normal for you now, with your returning to duty?”

 

“...I don’t want anything to go wrong...”

 

“Are you afraid you will do something that will cause your partner another injury?”

 

Johnny was once again reduced to silence.

 

“Or is it that your guilt from being the cause of his injuries is finally catching up with you?”

 

He could no longer sit still. With the help of his cane he climbed to his feet and began to pace the length of the office, the feeling of being a trapped animal on its way to the slaughterhouse suddenly overwhelming him.

 

“John, don’t you see that you’ve backed yourself into a corner? You are so torn up with guilt over the death of your partner that you’ve created a whole separate ‘reality,’ one in which the man is still alive. And for a while things were better for you. He was there with you, absolving you from your guilt, relieving you from having to face the true reality, the one in which Roy DeSoto was killed. Instead of the truth your subconscious mind has carried on this little charade to a point now where that buffer of safety—the both of you being away from the dangers of your job—has evaporated. And now those feelings of guilt are coming back as you are now forced to once again be responsible for your partner’s ‘life,’ the very thing you’d created this other ‘reality’ to protect you from.”

 

Johnny stopped pacing and whirled on him. “You don’t know that!” he shouted, feeling as though he were drowning and was making his last, desperate attempt to reach for a life preserver.

 

“But you do. It’s why the panic you’re feeling is beginning to overwhelm you. You have to accept the truth. It’s the only way for true healing to finally begin.”

 

He stood there, at a loss as to what to do next. Who was right—Smithfield or Chandler? “I don’t know... I don’t know...”

 

Unknowingly he’d whispered his answer aloud. Smithfield glanced down at his watch, then back up to him. “We have time. John, for the remainder of our appointment I would like to take you somewhere. Will you come with me?”

 

Confused and unsure, Johnny nodded and followed the doctor out of his office. He’d assumed they were going to another area of the hospital, so he was somewhat surprised when Smithfield led him down to the Physician’s parking lot. The doctor opened the front passenger door of a brown 1974 Chrysler New Yorker and waited until he’d settled inside before closing the door and moving to the driver’s side. A few moments later they were driving off hospital property.

 

The drive was made in silence, Johnny’s mind still lost in the chaos of his confusion. But when they arrived at their destination, his stunned mind went completely blank and the nausea returned in full force.

 

Resurrection Cemetery.

 

“Doc...”

 

Smithfield did not answer, but drove the vehicle down the long drive before pulling off onto one of the side lanes and parking the car along the curb two blocks in. He shut off the ignition and turned to face him. “John, there’s something here I believe you need to see.”

Filled with dread, Johnny numbly followed the doctor down the narrow pathway that wound its way through the headstones, and when they finally stopped, Johnny instinctively clenched his eyes shut, not willing to see what he suddenly knew with certainty the doctor planned to reveal to him.

 

“Open your eyes.”

 

“No...” The whispered plea was torn from his soul.

 

“Open your eyes, John,” Smithfield repeated insistently.

 

Wondering if he was going to pass out, Johnny forced himself to open his eyes. In less than a heartbeat they fell on the gray, newly-set headstone before him.

 

DeSoto

Roy William

Nov. 7, 1948 -

Nov. 10, 1975

 

“See the reality,” Smithfield stated quietly yet forcefully. “Roy DeSoto is dead, John. Accept it. Believe it. Only then will true healing begin.”

 

Johnny felt as though he were having an out-of-body experience as he seemed to be watching himself move slowly toward the headstone, his left hand reaching out to touch the cold hard stone.

 

And at that moment reality finally hit home.

 

“Roy...” he gasped as he collapsed, first to his knees, then down onto his left hip to rest on the ground, the engraved letters in front of him blurring as he reached out to touch them. “Oh, God, Roy... I’m sorry...” he sobbed out his grief to point where he thought he’d die from it all. “It’s all my fault... I’m so sorry...”

 

Time held little meaning for him, but eventually the sound of Doctor Smithfield’s voice penetrated his surroundings. “It will be alright now, John. Now you can finally begin to heal.”

 

As the older man helped him to his feet and led him away from his best friend’s grave, Johnny knew that there would never be any healing for his broken heart.

 

Never.

 

***

 

The sound of the alarm going off woke Johnny from a sound sleep. He rolled over and blindly reached out to slam a hand down on the snooze button in order to stop the offending noise. He knew he needed to get up now if he didn’t want to be late for his first day back to work.

 

Back to work?

 

“Aw, man...” he moaned aloud in desperation. It had happened again.

 

Why am I here?!?!

 

He had expected, and fully believed, that after his visit to the cemetery yesterday that these dreams of Roy being alive would stop. So why was he back here...again?

 

What if Doctor Chandler was right and this life was for real...and Roy being dead was just the dream?

 

“Damn it!”

 

He sat up in bed and ran a hand through his hair. Was this nightmare ever going to end?!

 

An hour later he drove the Rover into the station parking lot and pulled into his usual spot. His stomach was in knots as he got out of the car and went inside.

 

Charlie Dwyer was in the locker room getting something out of his locker. “Hey, Johnny! Good to have you back, man.”

 

“Thanks, Charlie. How was C-Shift?” he asked as he opened his locker and stowed his gear.

 

“Slow. You know what that means...”

 

“Don’t say it,” Johnny replied superstitiously as he began to change into his uniform.

 

“If you insist,” Charlie laughed. “Well, since you’re here, I’m gonna take off. I’ve got someplace I’ve gotta be and Hookraider said I could split as soon as one of you guys showed up. Have a good shift!”

 

Dwyer grabbed his bag from his locker and took off as Johnny buttoned up his shirt. “Yeah, see you, Charlie.”

 

By the time he was finished dressing the rest of A-Shift had arrived, welcoming him back with warm smiles and slaps on the back. He’d seen Roy giving him a not-so-subtle once-over from the corner of his eye, but he held back from saying anything with the rest of the guys around.

 

“Roll call!” Stanley shouted from the apparatus bay.

 

They filed out of the locker room to start their day, Johnny falling into step behind Roy. His partner stopped in the open doorway, turning to him and asking quietly, “Are you ready?”

 

Johnny shrugged, not meeting is eyes, but offering him a crooked smile in reassurance. “As ready as I’ll ever be...” Then he gently shoved his partner out the door.

 

“Well, John,” Hank said as he began roll call, “welcome back. You were definitely missed. Today I’ve got some rope drills scheduled this afternoon, so let’s try to get to our chores before lunch. Mike and Marco, C-Shift left some hoses hanging out back. Roy, dorms and apparatus bay. Chet, you’re cooking today, pal, so you’ve got the day room. John, that leaves you with latrines. And, if you finish that up before Roy’s done you can help him finish up. Alright, men. Let’s get busy.”

 

Johnny and Roy moved off to the squad to begin the standard morning checks, Roy pulling the drug box out of the side compartment and Johnny reaching for the biophone to conduct the standard calibrations with Rampart.

 

“Looks like the drug box is well stocked, so a supply run to Rampart can wait,” Roy informed him.

 

Once again, Johnny found he couldn’t meet his eyes. “Good. I’m gonna go take care of the latrine.”

 

“Johnny...” Roy stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”

 

Their eyes met briefly before Johnny’s shifted away to glance around the bay. “Nothing’s wrong... I’m just a little nervous, my first day back and all...”

 

“Uh-huh,” Roy replied, definitely not buying his answer.

 

The sound of the Station Control Unit put a halt to their conversation. “Squad 51, woman down. 235 West Hillside. 2-3-5 West Hillside. Cross street Danvers. Time out: 08:25.”

 

They quickly put the equipment away as Captain Stanley acknowledged the call to the dispatcher, climbing into the squad and pulling their lap belts on before donning their helmets. Cap handed the call slip to Roy, who automatically passed it on to Johnny.

 

And they were off.

 

The call turned out to be a woman who had fallen off the curb in front of a grocery store and broken her ankle. They’d no sooner delivered her to Rampart when they were called out again, this time for a child having an asthma attack. That call was followed by a woman in labor, and he’d helped Roy to deliver a healthy baby boy before delivering both mother and child to Rampart.

Dixie met up with them at the base station. “Hey, welcome back, Johnny,” she greeted him with a warm smile as she moved to sit on the stool behind the counter. “How has your first day back been going so far?”

 

“Busy,” Johnny replied as he handed her their supply list. “You just getting in?”

 

“Yes. I’m working a double shift tonight, covering for one of my nurses who called in sick,” Dixie quickly gathered together all the items they needed. “So how does it feel to be back?”

 

He thought about that for a moment. So far the day hadn’t been all that bad...so long as he didn’t dwell too much on the fact that he still wasn’t sure if the man he was working beside was really alive or dead. They’d fallen right back into their natural rhythm while on calls...it was the down time in between that was giving Johnny difficulties.

 

“Hey, Roy, I think your partner needs another cup of coffee,” the sound of Dixie’s voice brought him back to the here and now. “I’m not quite sure he’s awake yet.”

 

Roy glanced meaningfully at him and said, “Oh, he’s awake alright. Aren’t you, Johnny?”

 

Suddenly feeling decidedly uncomfortable, Johnny ducked his head and reached out for the supplies Dixie had boxed up for them. “We ought to be getting back... We’ve still got our chores to get done before drills this afternoon.”

 

He ignored Roy’s sigh from beside him. “See you later, Dix!”

 

Wearing a puzzled frown, she replied, “See you later, fellas.”

 

Johnny was not looking forward to the drive back to the station. Now that Roy had him alone, and they weren’t on a run, he was positive Roy was going to start asking questions Johnny either couldn’t or didn’t want to answer.

 

No sooner had Johnny called them in as available then Roy turned to him and said, “Johnny...” But oddly enough, he said nothing further.

 

Johnny kept his gaze in his lap, but he could feel Roy’s eyes on him, and the silence finally unnerved him enough that he turned to his partner and looked up. “Roy?”

 

Roy’s expression was one of deep sadness. “Is it really that bad?”

 

The heartfelt question brought tears to his eyes as his mind flashed back briefly to the scene in the cemetery the previous day, and he blinked them away furiously. When he answered, his voice was no louder than a whisper. “You have no idea...”

 

“Do you want me to ask Cap to call in a replacement for you?”

 

He shook his head furiously. The last thing he wanted was to return home to his empty apartment. “No, Roy—don’t! Please...”

 

Roy continued to stare at him...although to Johnny it felt as though Roy was looking right through him. “Alright, partner. I trust you. Let’s head back to the barn.”

 

Roy shifted the squad into drive and pulled away from the ambulance bay, and the thought came unbidden to Johnny’s mind: Don’t trust me, Roy... You shouldn’t trust me after what I’ve done...

 

When they returned to the station they found that the guys were in the process of finishing up their assigned chores for them. They pitched in to help and by the time Chet called out that lunch was ready, everything had been completed.

 

They managed to eat most of their meal before the tones went off again. “Station 51, unknown type rescue. 3428 Bosley Place. 3-4-2-8 Bosley. Cross-street Dixon. Time out: 13:08.”

 

Stanley depressed the button on the microphone. “Station 51, KMG 365.”

 

As the squad and engine arrived at the scene they saw a teenaged girl standing with two younger boys in the front yard of a small bungalow style house. Captain Stanley approached them and the girl met them at the front fence gate.

 

“I’m sorry. Jason here called you. There was really no need for you to come,” Johnny heard her say as he and Roy joined their captain at the gate.

 

“Well, what seems to be the problem?” Hank asked.

 

“Twilight!” one of the boys piped up as they moved to stand beside the older girl. “He climbed up the tree this morning and we can’t get him to come back down!”

 

The men looked up to see an orange tabby cat peering down at them from a limb about twenty feet up.

 

“I’m sorry,” the girl said again. “But my folks had to go out today and left me in charge of my brothers. Twilight’s an indoor cat, and somehow he got out of the house after they’d already left.”

 

“And if he’s not back inside before they come home again we’re gonna be grounded for life!” the other boy added.

 

“Could you help us...please?” The girl practically begged.

 

“I’ll get it, Cap,” Johnny responded as he and Roy went for one of the ladders on the side of the engine. Marco and Roy braced the ladder as Johnny made the climb. “Hey, there, Twilight... Don’t be afraid, boy... Everything’s gonna be alright...”

 

The cat hissed at him, but made no move to climb higher. Johnny slowly reached out for him. Fortunately the cat allowed himself to be handled, and in less than a minute both man and beast were back on the ground.

 

Johnny handed the cat back to the girl. “Here you go, young lady.”

 

“Twilight, you bad boy! Thanks, mister!” The three kids turned and ran back into the house.

 

Johnny glanced at the amused expression on his captain’s face. “Wish all calls were this easy, huh, Cap?”

 

“Yeah, you got that right, pal. Come on, let’s get back to the station for those drills.”

 

The rope drills passed quickly and, although Johnny’s time was still the fastest—and Chet’s the slowest—his time was well off its usual mark. Unfortunately Johnny wasn’t the only one that noticed.

 

“Slowin’ down there, aren’t you, Gage?” Chet teased as they wrapped the ropes back up for storage. “You’d better watch it, Roy. Keep an eye on your partner there or else you just might find yourself fallin’ from a cliff with no safety net below you.”

 

Johnny blanched at the other man’s comment, and he could feel Roy’s eyes upon him once more, but before he could think of anything to say in reply, the tones went off and Sam Lanier’s voice filled the air. “Station 51, Engine 45, Engine 36. Structure fire. 62 Victory Blvd. 6-2 Victory Blvd. Cross-street Federal. Time out: 14:28.”

 

As they rushed toward the squad, Roy grabbed Johnny’s arm and slapped the keys into the palm of his hand. “You take this one, partner.”

 

This time Johnny could literally feel the blood draining from his face. Behind them he could hear Captain Stanley’s voice acknowledging the call. Aw, man... “Roy...”

 

“I want you to drive this time, John. Now let’s go.”

Johnny’s heart was pounding as he rounded the squad and got behind the wheel, sweat breaking out across his forehead and palms as he put on his helmet and turned the engine over. He handed Roy the call slip then, flipping on the lights and sirens, gripped the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. As he drove he could feel the sweat running down his back, and what little concentration he could spare from his attention to the road was used up in trying to prevent himself from hyperventilating.

 

By the time they reached their destination he felt totally spent.

 

His hands were shaking as he pulled out his turnout coat from the side compartment, and it took two tries to get all the clasps locked into place.

 

“Gage, DeSoto,” Cap called out. “Make a quick sweep of the place. But don’t take too long—this structure looks like it could go any minute.”

 

Quickly donning their gear they entered the building, a single-story consignment shop on the edge of a run-down neighborhood.

 

“You go right, I’ll go left,” Roy shouted through his air mask over the roar of the fire.

 

They separated. Johnny kept low to the ground as he made his way through the rows and aisles of the shop toward the back of the building. When he got to the office he kicked the door open and searched inside. Fortunately, it was empty. A quick check of the restroom also revealed no victims.

 

He turned and headed back toward the front of the building. He heard Roy’s muffled shout, “Johnny—look out!” Suddenly he was being shoved forward from behind and, unable to control his fall, he landed on the ground hard, a heavy weight landing across his legs.

 

“Roy!” he shouted, twisting around to see a pile of debris on top of his lower legs and spreading out a few feet behind him. With a surge of adrenaline he reached for the debris, tossing the first piece aside. No sooner had he reached

for the second piece with the entire pile began to rise up before him. “Roy! Are you alright?!”

 

“Yeah,” came the muffled sound of his partner’s voice. “The place is empty. Let’s get out of here!”

 

They helped each other to their feet and quickly covered the distance to the front entrance, exiting the building. By the time they reached the squad the adrenaline rush had Johnny shaking so badly he knew that, if he took off his turnout coat, he’d never be able to keep it from Roy. He pulled off his helmet and mask. “Are you alright?”

Roy, bent over at the waist and arms bracing his thighs, looked to be working off the worst of his own adrenaline rush. He straightened up and began removing his helmet and SCBA. “A bit banged up, but otherwise no worse for wear.”

 

Johnny’s relief was overwhelming but hot on its heels followed a surge of anger. “What the hell did you think you were doing?!”

 

Roy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “What did I do?”

 

“You nearly got yourself killed, that’s what you did!”

 

“Johnny, I was coming up behind you after finishing the sweep and saw the ceiling start to come down...”

 

“And you couldn’t have just told me to get out of the way?!” Johnny’s voice was a near-shout.

 

“You wouldn’t have had enough time!” Roy shouted back at him. “By the time you’d have turned around and figured out where the danger was coming from you’d have been buried directly beneath it!”

 

“Hey, what the hell is going on?” The sound of Stanley’s voice behind them startled both men. “I could hear you all the way over by the engine.” He finally seemed to notice they were both covered in dust and soot. “Are you both alright?”

 

“We were caught in a ceiling collapse, Cap,” Roy replied, his voice once again controlled and level. “We’re a little banged up, but okay.”

 

“Well, since there are no other injuries, both of you head over to Rampart and get yourselves checked out. And try not to kill each other before you get back.” He turned away and started back to the engine.

 

Johnny felt like a heel. His partner was only looking out for him...something Johnny seemed to be failing miserably at lately. He glanced down and noticed the tear in Roy’s left pant leg. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked quietly. “Let me take a look at that leg, Roy.”

 

Roy let out a deep breath and seemed to calm down as well. “It’s just a little scrape. It can wait until we get to Rampart. How about you? You went down pretty hard there...”

Johnny shrugged. “Just bumps and bruises, I think...thanks to you.” He grabbed his gear and returned it to its compartment in the squad. Sensing Roy coming up behind him, he said softly. “I’m sorry about what just happened...”

 

Roy rested a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, me too.”

 

But Johnny knew it wasn’t enough. “Thanks for saving my life back there, Roy...”

 

Giving his shoulder a squeeze, Roy replied, “That’s what partners are for, partner.”

 

Yeah... That’s what partners are supposed to be for... Something else I seem to be failing miserably at lately...

 

When Roy turned for the driver’s side of the vehicle, Johnny swallowed hard and asked, “Do you want me to drive?”

 

Roy looked at him seriously. “Are you up for it?”

 

He nodded, hoping Roy couldn’t tell how nervous he really was.

 

“Okay, let’s go.”

 

Roy got into the passenger’s side of the squad, while Johnny once again climbed in on the driver’s side. Roy picked up the microphone and said, “LA, Squad 5110-8 to Rampart Emergency.”

 

“Squad 51,” Dispatch acknowledged.

 

They were both checked out by Doctor Morton, and other than some bumps and bruises for Johnny, and a nasty scrape on Roy’s left leg, which was cleaned and bandaged, they were both cleared to return to work.

 

It was after 5 PM by the time they returned to the station, and they both headed into the kitchen and began clearing away the lunch dishes they had left behind. “Look, Roy,” Johnny said, “why don’t you sit down on the couch and put your leg up and I’ll take care of things here.”

 

“I can help,” Roy protested.

 

“But you heard what Morton said—you should rest it as much as possible. No go on and let me take care of this.”

 

Roy sighed, but did as he asked, picking up the newspaper and sitting down to read.

 

Johnny worked quietly at the sink, trying to lose himself in the normalcy of routine. He could feel Roy’s eyes on him more than once, but his partner didn’t seem to want to tempt fate twice in one day. Johnny shook his head unconsciously. I can’t believe I blew up at him like that... But he could have been killed! He tried not to think it, but his subconscious mind supplied the word anyway. ...Again.

 

Maybe Roy would be better off with a different partner...one less likely to get him killed...

 

The sound of the bay door opening drew him out of his morose reverie, and he put the last of the dishes away as the crew walked tiredly into the kitchen.

 

“Thanks for doing the dishes, Johnny,” Chet said wearily as he began pulling the fixings for supper out of the refrigerator.

 

“So how did it go at Rampart, boys?” Hank asked.

 

“We’re fine, Cap,” Roy answered from the couch, although he was no longer stretched out with his leg elevated, but had swung himself around to sit normally as the engine returned. “Bumps, bruises and scrapes, that’s all.”

 

“Well, while the rest of the crew grab a quick shower, why don’t you get a little rest before supper.”

 

But the opportunity to sit down and eat never came as calls once again came in for the squad, one after another. First a possible heart attack that turned out to be indigestion, then a man trapped half-in and half-out of his basement window after having locked himself out of the house. That run was followed by another possible heart attack—this time the real thing.

 

They had managed to restock the drug box and grab a bite to eat in the hospital cafeteria when the HT went off. “Squad 51, what is your status?”

 

“Squad 51, available at Rampart,” Johnny answered the status check.

 

“Squad 51, stand by for response.” Three beeps then sounded. “Engine 51, Squad 51, attempted suicide. 1803 Kirk Road, Suite 201. 1-8-0-3 Kirk Road, Suite 201. Cross-street Simpson. Time out: 20:39.”

 

“Squad 51, 10-4.”

 

 The engine was just pulling up in front of the office building as the squad turned the corner and approached the scene. Johnny grabbed the biophone and oxygen while Roy took the drug box and defibrillator, and Stanley held the door open for them as they went inside, Marco and Chet bringing up the rear.

 

They slowed as they approached the correct suite and Hank knocked on the door. “Fire Department.”

 

“Go away!” came a shout from behind the door, which was opened a moment later by a man Johnny assumed was not the man who had been shouting.

 

“Oh, fellas, I’m glad you’re here. He’s in real trouble...”

 

“Chet, Marco, you wait out here with the equipment while we see what we’ve got inside,” Stanley advised his linemen. “John, Roy, let’s go.”

 

They set the equipment down and followed their captain inside. The office was one large open area with two small office cubicles set in both corners, against a wall-to-wall window. An open designing area sat at the center between the two cubicles. Johnny could tell by the papers and drawings strewn all about the table and floor that the place must have been an advertising firm of some sort. Another man was crouched by the window in the open area behind the design table. He appeared to be in his mid-30s.

 

“What’s going on here?” Captain Stanley asked the other man.

 

“I’m David Wilkins,” the man replied anxiously, “and that’s my partner, Jerry Layton. We run this advertising agency together, and things haven’t been going so well lately. I’ve been out all day, and just got back to the office a little while ago. Jerry was still here—and the place was just as you see it. He was extremely upset. I finally got it out of him—he’d taken these...” David handed Roy a bottle of prescription medicine.

 

Roy read the label. “Tranquilizers.”

 

Wilkins nodded. “It was a full bottle. He told me he was going to the pharmacy to pick it up on the way home from work last night.”

 

Johnny met Roy’s gaze anxiously. Typically there were enough pills in a bottle to last for 30 days.

 

“How long ago did he take them?” Roy asked.

 

Wilkins glanced at his watch. “Maybe 30-minutes ago?”

 

Both Johnny and Roy could see that the pills were already beginning to have an effect on the man. Slowly they began to approach him.

 

“Mr. Layton? My name is Roy DeSoto, and this is my partner, John Gage,” Roy said slowly, his voice gentle, soothing. “We’re paramedics with the LA County Fire Department. Do you know what a paramedic is?”

 

The man jerked his head, still highly agitated in spite of the dawning lethargy. “Para...like some kinda doctor, right?”

 

“That’s very close, Jerry. We work with the doctors at the hospital to provide emergency treatment to people who need it. We’d like to help you, Jerry... Will you let us help you?”

 

Johnny watched silently as the man shook his head violently. “No! No... I don’t want your help! Go away!!”

 

“Jerry,” Roy continued, “without our help you’re going to get very sick. The drugs you took, they’re very dangerous, Jerry. Now we can help you get better, but we have to do it soon...before the drugs make you too sick to get well again.”

 

“I don’t want to get better! I just want to die!!” Jerry shouted at them. “Leave me alone! I don’t want your help!”

 

Johnny remained where he was. Roy backed off, moving back to his captain and David, but Johnny could hear the conversation going on behind him. “Cap, can you open a line to Rampart and give them an update on the situation? Have them stand by until we have a patient.”

 

“You got it, Roy.”

 

“What do you mean,” David demanded, “until you have a patient? He needs help now!”

 

“I understand that,” Roy answered quietly so that Jerry would not overhear. “I’m sorry, but it’s the law. He’s conscious and coherent, and he refuses treatment. He has the right to do so. Once he passes out, then we can begin treatment.”

 

“Will there be enough time, at that point?”

 

“That’s up to him...”

 

Johnny ignored them and crouched down to Jerry’s level. “Why are you doing this, Jerry?” he asked softly. “Your friend, David, wants us to help you... Why won’t you let us?”

 

Jerry met his eyes, and Johnny could clearly see the despair there. “David and I used to work with a large advertising agency, but I convinced him to go into business with me and open our own agency. It was working out for a while, but lately... Today we lost our biggest client. Without them we don’t have enough money to keep the place open beyond the 15th of the month. We’re gonna lose everything...and it’s all my fault!”

 

Johnny could feel the knot in his stomach growing. “I know it seems pretty bad right now, Jerry. But can’t you just go out and get some new clients?”

 

Jerry shook his head. “It’s not that easy...and there’s not enough time... We’re gonna lose everything and it’s all my fault!”

 

Johnny was aware of the silence behind him now and his palms began to sweat. “Why is it you’re fault, Jerry?”

 

The man’s gaze moved from Johnny up and over the table to Wilkins. “David’s my best friend. He’s the brains behind the outfit...I’m just the dreamer. I was the one who talked him into this gig. He and his wife...they sunk everything they had into this...and they’ve got a baby on the way. If we lose the agency they’ll lose everything... I can’t be the one to cause all that, man... He’s my best friend...”

 

Johnny couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat as Jerry’s words poured salt on the open wound in his heart. Behind him, David spoke up in answer to his friend. “Jerry, it doesn’t matter. Helen and I’ll be just fine, and so will our baby. But we won’t be okay if we lose you, man. Let these guys help you... Please!”

 

Jerry slid down the wall as the tranquilizers gained the upper hand on him. “I’m sorry, David...” he kept repeating over and over as he began to sob.

 

“Come on, Jerry,” David pleaded with his friend as he came up beside Johnny, and Johnny fought down his rising nausea. “Let us help you.”

 

David reached out for Jerry’s hand. “For me, Pal... Please?”

 

At Jerry’s slow nod, Roy and Stanley surged forward, followed immediately by Chet and Marco as they brought in the equipment. Johnny hesitated, and Roy glanced up at him a moment later. Roy never said a word, but the clear blue eyes spoke volumes to him. They spoke of concern and encouragement and hope, and Johnny forced himself to respond. He moved in and began to work beside his partner to save the victim’s life.

 

In short order they had their patient ready for transport. Johnny drove the squad in behind the ambulance, feeling absolutely numb inside save for the boulder that sat in the pit of his stomach. He pulled the squad in as the gurney was pulled from the back of the ambulance and rushed inside. Johnny followed more slowly, but stopped at the door of the treatment room, unable to bring himself to enter. He heard the sudden rush of activity behind the door, as well as repeated shouts of ‘clear’ from Doctor Brackett... and then silence.

 

And then he knew.

 

The boulder at the pit of his stomach began to force its way up through his esophagus, and Johnny whirled and made a mad dash for the men’s room, making it to a toilet in the nick of time. Tears ran down his face as the boulder, along with a host of other emotions he couldn’t begin to name, were violently purged from his system along with his supper, leaving him weak and trembling.

 

He had no idea how long he knelt there before he heard the outer door open slowly and his partner’s voice hesitantly call out, “Johnny?”

 

He scrambled to his feet, flushing the toilet with one hand and furiously wiping away his tears with the other. “Yeah! I’ll be out in a minute. Wait for me at the base station, alright?”

 

There was a brief pause, and then a quiet, “Okay.”

 

The door closed again a moment later.

 

And that’s where Johnny found him a few minutes later, drinking a cup of coffee and chatting quietly with Dixie. Johnny didn’t ask about Jerry, and Roy didn’t offer any information about him, and Johnny knew that Roy understood that he was aware of what had happened.

 

“Hey, Johnny,” Dixie said gently, “are you okay? You’re looking a bit pale.”

 

“Just tired,” he replied with a shrug. “Long first shift back...” He didn’t want Dixie to probe too deeply, so he turned to Roy and  asked, “You ready to go?”

 

Roy nodded slowly. “Yeah. See you later, Dix.”

 

“Bye, Dix,” Johnny added, not wanting to walk away from her without saying something. Their eyes met for only a brief moment, but it was enough for him to read the concern in her eyes... and for her to read the apology in his.

 

The ride back to the station was silent—each of them lost in his own thoughts. When they arrived back at the station they found the rest of the crew watching a movie on TV in the day room.

 

Captain Stanley had gotten up to wait at the doorway for them. “How did it go?”

 

“He didn’t make it,” Roy replied as Johnny moved to the refrigerator for some milk. He filled a glass, drained it without coming up for breath, then poured himself another one. He put the carton back in the fridge and went to sit at the table.

 

Roy joined him without getting a drink for himself.

 

“Well, uh, I’ll be in my office,” Stanley said a little louder for the rest of the men’s benefit. “Lights out at 11.”

 

They sat silently at the table, not watching the movie but wrapped up once more in their own thoughts, until 11 PM rolled around, and Johnny followed the rest of the crew into the dorm as they prepared their bunkers for the night. He stripped off his uniform and lay in his bed with his eyes closed, drawing his right arm up over his eyes and listening as, one by one, the rest of the men turned in. When their restless tossing and turning had settled down into soft snores, he drew back his arm and opened his eyes once more. He had no intention of falling asleep that night, unwilling to risk moving from this reality to the other one mid-shift. He swung his legs over the side of the bed silently, not wanting to wake up his partner, who was sleeping soundly in the bunk beside him. When he was sure he hadn’t disturbed Roy, Johnny grabbed his bunkers and, getting up, left the dorm and went back into the day room. He placed his bunkers beside the couch and then, turning the sound down low before turning the TV set on again, he plopped down into one of the faux-leather chairs and settled in to watch Johnny Carson. The thought crossed his mind to find out what the late-late show was tonight, but he let it pass without acting on it. It didn’t matter what it was, he’d find out soon enough, anyway.

 

But he never did.

 

The station tones went off at 00:52, calling them out to a warehouse fire that kept them occupied until nearly 05:00. Since there were no injuries involved, he and Roy had worked the hoses, ending up staying for overhaul and clean-up afterwards. They returned to the station exhausted and, each man grabbed a shower and what little sleep he could find until the wake-up tones went off at 07:00.

 

Johnny returned to the day room after his shower, turned on the lamp and grabbed Mike’s novel off the table to read but, unable to focus, he never made it past the first page.

 

At 06:30 he set a pot of coffee on the stove, knowing the guys would soon be straggling into the day room and heading straight for the stove. As the world outside began to lighten under the rising sun, he went outside for the paper. He had just sat down to read it when the SCU went off.

 

“Station 51, traffic accident with injuries. Woodside Avenue and Belmont Place. Woodside and Belmont. Ambulance is responding. Time-out: 06:47.”

“Station 51, KMG 365.”

 

 Johnny directed the squad to the scene in just under 7 minutes. It was a one-car accident, but the car had flipped onto its roof, the driver’s side coming to rest against a concrete barrier, making the doors on that side of the car inaccessible. Johnny and Roy jumped out of the squad and grabbed their gear, moving quickly toward the crumpled vehicle.

 

“Kelly,” Stanley called, “Get a line on that gasoline leak, pal. Lopez, grab some of the forcible entry tools.”

 

As the others moved into action, Johnny and Roy reached the car. Roy knelt down beside the passenger window and attempted to reach the first victim while Johnny grabbed one of the forcible entry tools from Marco and worked to pry open the rear passenger door. He needed to get inside of the vehicle in order to reach the driver.

 

Roy climbed to his feet as Johnny successfully popped open the door. They shared glance and Roy shook his head, then moved off to inform their captain that they had a Code F.

 

Johnny crawled inside the car through the back seat to the driver, an older woman in her early 60s. She was alive and regaining consciousness as Johnny reached out to check her pulse. She began to moan as she became aware of her pain.

 

“Ma’am, ma’am, don’t move around so much, okay? Just stay still,” he tried to reassure her, blocking her view of the dead driver with his body. “Now my name is Johnny Gage, and I’m a paramedic with Los Angeles County and I’m gonna get you out of here, alright? Now me and a bunch of other firemen are here to get you out, so just relax and let us do all the work, okay?” Behind him he could hear some of the crew working to remove the man’s body so that Roy could join him in the car.

 

The woman moaned again and mumbled the name, “Harry?”

 

“I need a C-collar and some bandages,” he called out, his focus on the woman never wavering. “Don’t worry about Harry right now, he’s being taken care of. Now you just relax and stay still while I check you out, alright? You’re gonna be okay.” He noticed that her eyes were now open. “What’s your name?”

 

“Janice...”

 

Suddenly Roy was in the front passenger compartment and helping him to assess the woman. “Well, alright, Janice. My partner and I are gonna take good care of you, so you just relax and stay calm, okay?” Johnny reassured her, shifting his body back to a more comfortable position.

 

Since Roy had the better angle to work from he focused on her head and neck, working to get the collar on her, while Roy assessed the rest of her body.

 

Stanley popped his head through the rear passenger door. “What have you got, Roy?”

 

“Not good, Cap. She must have hit the steering wheel pretty hard—I’m getting broken ribs and probable internal bleeding. Her legs are pinned beneath the dash. We’re gonna need the Jaws to get her out.”

 

It took time for them to get the woman out of the damaged vehicle, and Johnny stayed with her, attempting to calm her down from the back seat as his crewmates worked around them. Each time she called out for ‘Harry,’ he did his best to reassure her that he was being taken care of. It was one of the hardest aspects of the job, lying to the patient when it was in their own best interests.

 

Once they got her out, the engine crew carried the backboard a distance away from the car, and Johnny and Roy followed the treatment protocols they received from Doctor Early at Rampart, getting the IV and meds started and the M.A.S.T. suit inflated around her lower body. As her blood pressure rose she regained full consciousness and once more began asking after the driver. “Harry? Where’s Harry? How is he? Was he hurt?”

“Now, Janice, don’t worry about Harry now,” Johnny once again tried to reassure her as he glanced behind him at the yellow blanket covering the man’s body. “He’s being taken care of. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”

 

“He’s my husband... We’ve been driving since last night...coming home from our daughter’s house up in San Francisco... Harry wasn’t feeling well, so we switched places at a rest stop up in Frazier Park....” she rambled on. “I wanted to get him home to take him to see his doctor as soon as possible... But I must’ve fallen asleep... Harry? Where’s Harry... Is he okay? Oh, God, he’s hurt, isn’t he? It’s all my fault...!”

 

She was becoming quite agitated and Roy contacted the hospital again for further instructions while Johnny tried yet again to calm her down. “Janice, Janice, calm down now. Shhhh... Everything’s going to be alright, but I need you to calm down. You’re gonna hurt yourself even more if you don’t calm down...”

 

She didn’t seem to even hear him as her anxiety continued to grow. “The accident...it’s all my fault! Where’s Harry? Harry! Harry?! Where are you?! Oh, God, he’s dead, isn’t he? Is Harry dead? Where is he?! I killed him! Oh, Lord...I was driving and I killed him!!”

 

ah no.jpgJohnny froze, the world around him seeming to come to a stand-still. He could see Roy empty a syringe into the woman’s IV port...his crewmates and Vince Howard gathered around them, ready and willing to help in any way they could, but everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion...the only thing he could hear was the harsh sound of his own breathing and the echo of Janice’s screams, “He was my husband... Harry...! It’s all my fault...! He was my best friend... I was driving and I killed him...!”

 

The woman’s body convulsed in pain, the suddenness of the movement shocking the world around him back to normal speed.

 

“Johnny, grab the defibrillator!” Roy shouted at him, and then the paramedic in him took over.

 

They worked on her continuously throughout the entire ambulance ride to the hospital, reduced to maintaining CPR after four hits with the defibrillator and countless medications failed to bring her back. The ambulance pulled up to Emergency Receiving and the gurney was brought into Treatment Room #4. Johnny was still straddling the woman doing chest compressions, the sweat dripping off his face and on to her bare skin.

 

But in the end, all their efforts to keep her alive made no difference.

 

“Time of death: 08:12...” Doctor Early’s quiet voice pronounced.

 

Johnny turned and walked out of the treatment room without a word.

 

***

He sat on the guardrail at the edge of the cliff, staring down into the canyon below, not really seeing the dried brush gently swaying with the breeze. Nor did he hear the birds softly chirping off in the distance. His hands came up to grip his head as he bent forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. The only thing he could hear were words from the past, repeating themselves over and over in a haunting refrain...

 

He was my best friend... I was driving and I killed him...!

He’s dead, isn’t he...

Captain Stanley gave the eulogy...

It’s all my fault...I was driving and I killed him...!”

It’s all my fault, Cap...

I was driving and I killed him...!

Roy DeSoto is dead, John...

It’s all my fault, Cap...

I was driving and I killed him...!

Roy DeSoto is dead, John...

It’s all my fault, Cap...

Roy...is dead, John...

Roy...is dead...

 

“Johnny...”

 

He didn’t move. He didn’t react. But as he heard the familiar footsteps behind him start to draw nearer he said, “Don’t come any closer…”

 

“Talk to me, Johnny. Tell me what’s going on...?”

 

He forced himself to straighten, dropping his hands from his hair and allowing them to fall limply into his lap. “Have you ever wondered what Hell was like, Roy?”

 

He heard his partner swallow hard before answering, “Sometimes...”

 

“We use all sorts of expressions for what we think it is... ‘War is hell,’ ‘Hell on earth,’ ‘the fires of Hell,’ ‘Hell and damnation,’ ‘the absence of God’... But I don’t think Hell is any of those things...”

 

Roy remained silent.

 

He sighed before continuing. “I think Hell is the absence of truth. It doesn’t matter where you are, or what’s going on around you... If you don’t know what the truth is...then everything else is meaningless... No matter what else you think you know, it’s all smoke and mirrors... You reach out for it, hoping to hold on to it...but there’s nothing there...”

 

“Johnny...”

 

“That’s what life’s been like for me...since the accident. I’ve tried so hard to find the truth...to reach out for it like a lifeline...but every time I thought I had it firmly in my hands, it faded away... And like any rope that frays...eventually it’ll break. I’ve been in a free-fall...reaching out for that lifeline...but every time tried to grab it, it was just outta reach... But it turns out not even that was the truth... There’s nothing there at all, Roy... Nothing—not even a bottom in the pit of Hell...”

 

“Johnny, please...” Another step.

 

“Don’t!” he gasped.

 

Stillness. Silence.

 

“I knew what they both felt, today...”

 

“Who?”

 

“Jerry... Janice... They both found out that Hell was bottomless, too...”

 

“But Jerry tried to come back...”

 

“And the rope frayed...” His eyes never left the bottom of the canyon. “God, I’m so tired...and I don’t want to do this anymore, Roy.”

 

“Johnny, please,” Roy’s voice cracked with emotion. “Please don’t do this. Let me help you...”

 

“I can’t...” he responded, his voice barely audible. “Don’t you see...? The lifeline I’ve been reaching for is you...and every time I thought I had it...every time I thought I knew the truth... it was gone again, like a wisp of smoke...”

 

“But I’m right here, Johnny... I have always been here...” The words ended in a sob.

 

Johnny shook his head sadly. “I think the only place you’ve really been the past eight weeks has been in my heart, Roy...and I think it got shattered to pieces that morning eight weeks ago, too...and that I’ve only been reaching for shadows...”

 

“Please, Johnny. I’m still alive, I swear to you... Have I ever lied to you before?” Roy’s desperation rang though loud and clear.

 

“Never...and that part of you—the best part of you—will always live on in my soul...”

 

He turned his head and looked at his best friend...his brother...one last time. Roy stood only a few feet away, tears streaming down his face. “And even if I’m wrong, Roy...even if you really are still alive, my soul will carry you with me always...”

 

“Johnny...”

 

He smiled warmly at his friend then, his first truly heart-felt smile since the accident, and committed the moment to his soul as his final memory.

 

Then, in one swift motion, he braced his hands on the guardrail and launched himself forward into the open air before him.

 

The sound of Roy’s voice screaming his name was the last sound he ever heard.

 

~~**~~

 

“One...two...three...four...Clear!”

*Thud*

“Asystole!”

Hit him again!

“Come on, Johnny... Come on!”

“One...two...three...four...Clear!”

*Thud*

“We got him back! Get that mask back on him...”

 

~~**~~

 

Sound…. Mere wisps of sound causing the barest of ripples in the unrelenting darkness.

 

...

 

The blackness soon gave way to deep gray, the sounds forming barely discernible shadows all around him. He wanted to reach out for them, but he didn’t have the energy... He felt them drawing him along, and he could almost make out the different patterns that moved across the lightening gray mist that surrounded him.

 

...

 

Words. The sounds were words. Near now, and almost understandable. The shadows were strong against the dissipating mist.

 

“Johnny…?”

 

Someone was calling him. The mist was all but gone now—the shadows almost tangible.

 

“Come on, Johnny... It’s time to come back to us now.”

 

He put all his strength, feeble though it was, into pushing the gray mist away…and was rewarded by the feeling of someone’s hand grasping his.

 

“That’s it, Johnny. Now open your eyes.”

 

It was nearly beyond him to obey…nearly. One moment it was dark, the next blurry images of color made their presence known. He blinked a few times, but was unable to get things to come into focus.

 

“Welcome back, tiger...”

 

He blinked up at her, vision finally coming into focus. Dix... The word never made it from his thoughts to his mouth, and so he tried again. “...Back...?”

 

“You decided to take a little snooze on us, but now that you’re finally awake, let’s see if we can manage to get some work done around here,” Dixie replied with a smile.

 

She stepped aside and made room for Doctors Brackett and Early. “Hey, Johnny,” Joe Early said as he began his examination. “It’s good to see you awake. How do you feel?”

 

It took him a moment to process the question. “Strange...”

 

“Strange how?”

 

“...Disconnected...” It was growing harder to find the energy to keep his eyes open. “...tired...”

 

“Well, you’ve earned a bit of a rest, I suppose. Let me just ask you a few questions and then you can get back to sleep. What’s your name?”

 

“......John Gage......”

 

“Can you tell me what day it is?”

 

Day? He felt he should know the answer to that one and yet... He felt off-kilter, as if time had been skewed somehow. But why? “......No......”

 

“That’s alright,” the doctor’s voice seemed to be coming from very far away. “You just get some rest now and I’ll check in on you later.”

 

But the question continued to tumble through the back of his mind.

 

What day was it?

 

~~**~~

 

When the world drifted into focus for him again, that disconnected feeling was still with him. He lay there, blinking up at the ceiling, but didn’t feel much like bothering to try and figure things out.

 

“John?”

 

He turned his head slightly and saw Hank Stanly get up from a chair beside the bed and move to stand next to him. He had a sudden flash of memory.

 

“He’s dead, isn’t he...”

 

Johnny suddenly felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The dizziness hit  him almost immediately, and somewhere far away an alarm started going off.

 

“John, are you okay? What’s the matter?!”

 

Oh, no... Oh my God... Please, not again...

 

Suddenly there was a kaleidoscope  of sound and movement around him, but none of it made any sense. He was floating away and couldn’t seem to stop it.

 

“...going on?...”

 

“...don’t know...”

 

“Johnny...tell me...can you...”

 

Brackett. That last voice belonged to Brackett, and he latched onto it like a lifeline. “No...Doc... I thought...it was over...”

 

“...Diazepam... What...over, Johnny...”

 

But he couldn’t hold on. “Not again... He’s dead... Why is this happening again...?”

 

As the blackness claimed him he could hear the sound of a man’s voice saying over and over, “Roy DeSoto is dead, John...”

 

~~**~~

 

The beeping sound was back, its steady rhythm drawing him out of the darkness and into the light of the world around him. He moaned softly as he fought the disturbance, seeking to remain in quiet oblivion, but the touch of a soft hand on his forehead was working hard to scatter the darkness.

 

“Come on, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up now.”

 

He knew that voice and felt the comfort of its warm familiarity drawing him closer to the light. He opened his eyes and blinked the world around him into focus.

 

“I knew you could do it, Johnny.”

His eyes widened when he saw who it was who was standing over him, her hand once again gently brushing the hair off his forehead. “Joanne...”

 

“Are you feeling any better now? Doctor Early said you gave them quite a time earlier.”

 

Johnny could feel the waves of guilt and confusion began to overtake him, but the lingering effects of the drugs in his system kept him from outright panic once more. “I... I don’t... Joanne, what are you doing here? I’m sorry... I’m so sorry... it was all my fault...”

 

“Shhh, shhh. It’s alright. Everything’s going to be alright, sweetheart.” The soothing touch of her hand and tone of her voice were working to ease the worst of his emotions, just as it would for one of her children after they’d suffered a nightmare.

 

But his confusion would not allow him to rest. “I don’t understand... Why are you here, Jo...? What day is it? When did you get back from your folks’?”

 

A puzzled frown marred her pretty features. “My parents? I haven’t been to my parents’ house since this past summer, Johnny.”

 

“But...” he stopped and shook his head, letting out a loud groan as the room spun around him at a dizzying speed and he felt bile rising up the back of his throat.

 

Hands turned him as the world exploded in a cacophony of sound and color and pain, and when he was finally able to open his eyes again he was surrounded by doctors and nurses...and Joanne was nowhere to be seen.

 

Kelly Brackett looked down at him. “Are you back with us, Johnny?”

 

“Doc...” he rasped in a voice barely audible. “What’s happening...? What day is it...?”

 

“You’ve got a pretty serious concussion, Johnny, but you’re going to be just fine. I’ve given you something for the nausea and pain. It’ll also help you sleep.”

 

He felt as though he were lost at sea, adrift amid turbulent waters. But he had to know... “Doc... Roy...?”

 

“Don’t worry about Roy. You just concentrate on getting better and we’ll deal with everything else later,” Brackett replied.

 

But he wanted to know. He wanted to see Joanne again... He wanted to know what day it was... He wanted to run away and hide away from the rest of the world forever...He thought he’d found a way to do just that once and for all, but...

 

But all he could manage to do was allow the darkness to claim him once more.

 

~~**~~

 

He was floating calmly on a sea of darkness, with not even the familiar glint of stars overhead, but he wasn’t afraid. Thoughts lapped through his mind like gentle waves—randomly passing by and moving onward.

 

Had he somehow survived? It made no sense... That fall should have killed me. How long have I been here? What day was it?

 

Why had he lived when Roy had died?

 

Nothing made any sense anymore. Maybe he finally had gone insane. If so, he really didn’t care anymore. Maybe he’d just stay adrift in this calm darkness forever... That would be okay with him.

 

It took him several moments before he noticed a warmth surrounding his left hand. No, not just any warmth, but the touch of a hand...a very familiar hand. He knew that touch, and his heart plummeted.

 

Roy...

 

The calm seas about him began to turn turbulent and it wasn’t long before he wondered if he were going to drown in the sudden storm. He went under one particularly strong wave of guilt and as he fought his way to the surface he realized that he could now see the ceiling of his ICU cubicle above his head.

 

“Johnny?”

 

He couldn’t bring himself to look at his best friend... His partner, whom he had killed in his recklessness... His friend, who had witnessed his failed suicide attempt...

 

“Johnny, can you hear me?”

 

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe he had died on that cliff and this was, indeed, Hell...

 

“Look at me, partner... I know you can hear me.”

 

He sounds tired... Johnny caught himself thinking before he squeezed his eyes shut in shame. Roy’s dead, he can’t possibly be feeling tired...

 

“What’s going on in that head of yours, Junior? You’ve got everybody around here very worried about you...”

 

Don’t be worried about me, Roy...just lock me in a padded cell and throw away the key... It’s more than I deserve, anyway...

 

Suddenly Roy squeezed his hand so hard that it actually hurt, and his head swung over involuntarily to look at him in shock. The room spun around him for a moment, but he ignored the sickening sensation as he got his first good look at his friend.

 

Roy sat in a wheelchair, his right arm braced and bound to his chest. His right leg was casted and elevated by the foot rest. He sat listing slightly to the right as well, as if nursing some sore ribs. He had a square bandage on his forehead over his right eyebrow and numerous cuts and scrapes on his face.

 

Johnny blurted out the first thought that entered his mind. “My God, Roy—did you jump over after me?!”

 

Confusion vied with concern on his partner’s face. “Jump? More like I was thrown, partner. That’s why I came out of this in better shape than you.”

 

Huh? Now it was Johnny’s turn to look confused, but he remained silent as Roy continued speaking.

 

“Welcome back, Junior. You had me worried there for a while, with that head injury and all, but Brackett says you’ll make a full recovery. I’m told the same can’t be said for the squad...”

 

What? The squad? What does the squad have to do with anything? We were off-duty when I jumped off that cliff... Johnny was getting more and more confused. Why was Roy injured? What was Joanne doing back in LA?

 

Why was he still alive?

 

A look of concern was once again gaining dominance on Roy’s face, coming back even stronger than before. “Johnny, what’s wrong?”

 

“What day is it?” The question felt as though it were being torn from the depths of his soul.

 

“It’s Tuesday,” Roy supplied, looking puzzled at the seeming non-sequitur.

 

Tuesday? No it’s not! It was Wednesday morning when we got off duty and I...

 

Apparently reading the confusion on his face, Roy clarified his statement. “Johnny,  it’s Tuesday, November 11th, 1975.”

 

What?! November 11th?? How can that be right?! It’s January 7, 1976!! Johnny began feeling dizzy and sick to his stomach. Was he dreaming again? But, before, Roy had recovered from his injuries from the accident, and was whole and healthy! He felt like he was going to throw up—could this be yet another reality?!

 

Another hard squeeze to his hand brought his thought back to the present. “Johnny! Johnny, breathe!

Apparently he’d been holding his breath and hadn’t even been aware of it. He drew in a deep breath and felt pain sear through his chest, and a groan of pain was torn from him before he had a chance to stop it.

“I’m gonna get some help,” Roy said as he pulled his hand from Johnny’s and reached for the call button.

 

“No...” he gasped, trying to steady his breathing and reassure Roy he was alright, wincing at the sound of his own unsteady voice. “I’m okay... Just tell me what happened...!”

 

Roy hesitated. “Johnny, I don’t think...”

 

“Roy, please...” he begged, needing to know just what the hell was going on here.

 

“Okay... Okay, but only if you calm down. You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

 

You don’t know how right you are, partner... Johnny closed his eyes and concentrated hard on getting himself back under control. A few minutes later he opened them again, once more meeting his friend’s gaze. “Okay... I’m alright now... Just tell me.”

 

“Well, there’s not really all that much to tell. We were out on our first call of the day yesterday morning, up on Old Ridge Road, remember?” Yesterday?! he wondered, but nodded anyway. “The weather wasn’t the greatest—it had just started to rain again and the roads were slick. A deer shot out in front of the squad and we went into a skid, going through the guardrail and over the edge. I got thrown from the squad and wound up with a dislocated shoulder, broken tibia, bruised ribs, a mild concussion and a whole lot of bumps and bruises. Unfortunately, you rode it half-way down the canyon, where it was finally stopped by some trees, and your injuries were a bit more extensive...”

 

Roy paused in his explanation, but Johnny wasn’t in the mood to be coddled. “What else?”

 

“When I came to, Bellingham from Squad 36 was working on me while his partner, Adam Thompson, and some of the guys from 51s were working on you. You were trapped in the squad...and it took a little work to get you out. They, uh, they called in a Life Flight, so we made it to Rampart in good time after that...”

 

Life Flight?  Roy said he wasn’t hurt that bad. So if he wasn’t... Johnny felt himself beginning to fade, but he fought it tooth and nail. He wanted it all...now. “How bad was I?”

 

Roy sighed, and Johnny knew that his partner really didn’t want to tell him the rest. “Roy?”

 

“Johnny... You went into cardiac arrest at the scene. They had to shock you twice to bring you back. You’d hit the left side of your chest on the steering wheel pretty hard and, even though your ribs weren’t broken, you suffered a cardiac contusion. After the arrest they were pretty concerned about cardiac tamponade, so a Life Flight was called in. Your right leg had a compound fracture and was pinned beneath the dash, that’s why it took so long getting you out, and by the time they did, well... They had to operate on you after you got here, and put a couple of traction pins in. And you’d hit your head pretty hard on the dash, but thanks to that hard head of yours—along with the fact that you were wearing your helmet—you only ended up with a moderate concussion. It’s gonna take a while, but both of us’ll be back in the squad again before we know it. Or rather, back in a brand new squad...”

 

Cardiac arrest? He’d gone into cardiac arrest and died at the scene…?

 

The pull of sleep began winning the fight, in spite of the disturbing news he’d just heard. But before he allowed it to pull him under he had one more thing to tell his partner.

 

“Roy…” His voice was slurred from exhaustion.

 

He felt his partner take his hand again. “Yeah, Junior?”

 

“I’m sorry…for everything…”

 

He was asleep before he heard Roy’s reply.

 

~~**~~

 

The next time he woke up he was alone. In a way he felt relieved. Being alone gave him the opportunity to think.

 

I died at the scene… And they brought me back. Could that explain what had happened to him? That, in the moments when he’d hovered between life and death, he’d been shown what could have happened? The paths his life could have taken?

 

Or maybe what he’d said to Roy that morning at the cliff had been true... Hell really did exist, and he’d actually caught a glimpse of it? He shuddered at the thought.

 

He felt at loose ends right now. He’d lived the equivalent of eight weeks—twice over—in the blink of an eye, and now he’d been given that time to live all over again. Somehow the idea of it left him feeling very uneasy.

 

Unfortunately, he was going to have quite a while to think about everything that had happened to him. He figured, from what Roy had told him earlier, that the cardiac contusion he’d received in the accident would leave him on forced bed-rest for several weeks at least, not to mention the time it would take for his leg to heal. A few weeks of physiotherapy on top of that, and he was looking at well into January before he’d be allowed to return to work.

 

Johnny let out a sigh. Maybe by that time he’d start to feel more normal again…at least he hoped he would.

 

But somewhere deep inside, Johnny wondered if he’d ever feel like his old self again.

 

~~**~~

 

He was moved upstairs to a semi-private room five days later. Roy had already been discharged by then.  Joanne brought him to the hospital to visit daily, even while he’d remained in CICU, the restrictions of normal visiting hours being waived by Doctor Brackett. His heart functions were still being closely monitored, although he was no longer hooked up to the cardiac monitors. But now that he was in a regular room, visiting hours were less restricted, and his crewmates dropped in to visit fairly frequently. He’d heard through the ‘grapevine,’ aka Roy, that Captain Stanley had ordered Chet to be on his best behavior, which was a welcome relief considering how lethargic the pain meds left him. Chet could have sprung a water bomb from under the lid of his lunch entrée and it probably would have taken him several moments to even notice, let alone react.

He’d also heard that Chet had been sorely disappointed by the order. Some things never changed.

 

For the most part Johnny welcomed their presence, as well as visits with his brother firemen that stopped by to wish him well on the road to recovery, and yet he still felt an odd sense of detachment from everything. It was as if he were watching somebody else’s home movies—seeing what was going on but not really feeling as though he were a part of it.

 

Two weeks after he’d been brought in to the ER, unconscious and intubated, he was finally released from the hospital. Of course, he couldn’t go back home to his apartment, since he lived alone, and so he found himself once again staying with the DeSoto family, firmly ensconced in what was affectionately becoming known as ‘Uncle Johnny’s Room.’

 

Roy’s kids had been ecstatic that their Uncle Johnny would be staying with them for an extended period of time, but had been quite put out by their parents’ insistence that school—and homework—had to come before playtime with their favorite uncle. However, Roy and Joanne had laid down the law, and it was followed...reluctantly...by the children as well as by Johnny.

 

And so life fell into a semi-regular routine.

 

Everyone noticed the change in him, but no one was willing to push him for the reasons behind it. Even Roy kept silent, knowing that Johnny would talk to him when he was ready. Only Johnny didn’t feel ready...not yet, anyway...to describe to his friend the eight-week Hell he had experienced between the span of one heartbeat and the next. Roy didn’t bring up the subject of the accident and, except when it was in regard to their injuries and their treatment, neither did Johnny.

Thanksgiving had been a fairly quiet affair, with Joanne’s sister, Eileen, along with her husband, Pete, and their two children spending the day with them. Johnny, who was still under enforced bed rest, joined the family at the table for dinner, and when his turn came to share with the family what he was thankful for that year, he unhesitatingly answered, “I’m thankful for second chances...and for this wonderful family which has made me one of their own.”

 

Both Roy and Pete helped him to the recliner in the living room after dinner—Roy having been freed from the sling that supported his dislocated shoulder only two days before—and, while he was glad to be there, surrounded by four walls other than the ones in his bedroom at the DeSoto house, he found he had little interest in the football games on TV. He watched them, making the appropriate comments when required of him but, still feeling somewhat detached from the world around him, mostly dozed on and off throughout the afternoon.

 

The following day found Johnny and Roy alone in the house, Joanne having taken the kids and gone out to brave the “Black Friday” crowds in the department stores in an effort to save some extra money this year.

 

Johnny sat out on the deck, protected from the November chill in the air by his jacket, nursing a cup of coffee. He liked being outdoors, even if it was only in the ‘wilds’ of Roy’s back yard, and after having been cooped up indoors for the past three weeks—first at the hospital and then at Roy’s house—he was glad for the change of scenery.

 

Roy joined him on the deck, sitting down at the table beside him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

 

Johnny snorted. “They’re not worth that much...”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, Johnny. I think they might be worth a whole lot more...”

He sat silently for a few moments. He still hadn’t shared anything with Roy about what had happened to him after the accident, and he’d been grateful that Roy hadn’t pushed him to talk. But maybe... Maybe the right moment had finally come.

 

“I’m not sure exactly what to call it, Roy...” he began quietly. “A nightmare? A look at what could have been? A near-death experience?” He hesitated before adding, “A glimpse into Hell...? I don’t know...but what I do know is that, in those few moments after they’d pulled me out of the squad in full arrest, I lived a full eight weeks of my life... Twice...”

 

Roy looked at him—his expression an equal mix of incredulity and concern—but remained silent, allowing him to take this at his own pace. Johnny went on to explain to him in detail the things that had happened to him during his near-death experience. He tried to remain detached from it all, but he found himself unable to keep the fear and despair...and the guilt...from being revealed through both his voice and his posture, knowing his best friend could read it all as clearly as if he’d held Johnny’s written and signed confession in his hands.

 

His voice had grown hoarse by the time he had finished, and both of their coffees had long since grown cold.

 

Silence reigned for several minutes before it was broken by Roy’s quiet whisper. “You jumped?”

 

“I...I had to, Roy. I couldn’t see any other way for it to end... And I needed it to end. I...I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

 

“But what if you had been wrong, Johnny? I did survive—maybe not in the realities you were experiencing—but I...I was alive.”

 

Johnny thought about that briefly. “At that point it didn’t matter. I couldn’t live with the uncertainty any longer. If I’d known for sure you had died, I could have gone on...although I don’t think I ever would have been the same again. If I’d known for sure that you’d lived, we could have patched things up and moved on. But without knowing which one was true and which one wasn’t...” He sighed. “If I’d been wrong, well, it’s like I told you that day on the cliff—without the truth, everything else was meaningless.”

 

“But what about me, John? How do you think I would have felt, watching my best friend commit suicide right in front of me, and having to live the rest of my life with that...and without you?”

 

“Roy, you know I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you, but I felt like I was going crazy... I mean, really insane... And I think maybe I would have if I hadn’t put an end to it that morning... I just couldn’t think beyond the pain... I’m sorry.”

 

They sat again in silence for a while, letting the intensity of the moment pass.

 

“Johnny?”

 

Johnny looked up from his contemplation of his half-empty coffee cup. “Yeah?”

 

“You said something a little while ago that I don’t think I understand. You said that, if you’d known for sure that I had survived the accident we would have ‘patched things up and moved on.’ What did you mean by that? Patched what up?”

 

Johnny let out a deep sigh. I guess I can’t put this part off any longer either. “The accident. It was my fault. You were seriously injured...killed...injured...in whichever reality we’re talking about. I was driving the squad and I lost control... It was all my fault.”

 

“You know, Johnny, I’ve thought a lot about the accident since it happened, and I don’t think I could have done anything differently than you did that day. So I don’t think it really mattered which one of us was driving, I don’t think the accident could have been prevented either way.”

 

The corner of his mouth quirked upward. “That’s pretty much what you said in that other reality, too.”

 

Roy smiled back at him. “Well, it sounds to me like we both know what we’re talking about, then. So then why don’t you try listening to us—for a change.”

 

Maybe Roy was right. Maybe it was time to finally let it all go. He’d been waiting, these past few weeks—waiting for the dreams to start again. Afraid, deep down inside, that this life he was living was only a dream, too, and that he’d wake up one morning and find himself back in a world where Roy was dead, and he was alone again.

 

But the dreams never returned—not even after all the drugs they’d pumped him full of when his pain had been at its worst had finally cleared his system. He’d been afraid to fall asleep at night at first—and still was, to some degree—fearing that he’d wake up...somewhere else.

 

But they had never come back.

 

Maybe Roy is right. Maybe it really is finally safe enough for me to let it go.

 

A small but genuine smile finally dawned on his face. “I’m workin’ on it, Roy... I’m workin’ on it.”

 

~~**~~

 

The month of December started off slowly as Johnny was finally allowed out of bed for longer periods of time and yet, because of his injuries, was still restricted in his activities. Oddly enough, the days when he was able to get out of the house for his scheduled check-ups at Rampart were the highlight of his week, as he, Roy and Joanne usually stopped off someplace afterward to buy him a little extra time outdoors. Thankfully, none of the possible complications from the cardiac contusion he’d suffered surfaced, a fact for which everyone, including Kelly Brackett, was incredibly relieved.

 

By the week before Christmas, he had managed to convince Roy and Joanne to take him Christmas shopping—his ribs having healed enough that he’d been cleared to be up on crutches the week before. While Roy had understood his need to shop for gifts that would speak of his love and gratitude for this family which had taken him in and made him a part of them, it had been Joanne that had shown the greatest resistance to the idea.

 

“Johnny, do you know what the stores are like this time of year? You’ll get trampled! Give me a list of the gifts you want and I’ll go out and pick them up for you.”

 

But he’d only smiled a crooked smile at her and shaken his head. “Nope. This is something I wanna do for myself, Jo...”

 

A sigh was her only indication of surrender.

 

 It was with an odd feeling of déjà vu that Johnny did his shopping that day. Joanne had split off from them to do some of her own last-minute shopping, leaving the two crutch-bearing men to brave the crowds together. Checking name after name off his mental list, in only a short span of time Johnny managed to pick up the same gifts he had purchased for his family and friends that he had in his dream and place them in his shopping cart.

 

“Wow, Johnny,” Roy had commented with a disbelieving shake of his head, “that was quick. Maybe I should get you to do my Christmas shopping for me—that way we’d get done faster.”

 

“No way, Pally—it’s every man for himself out here.”

 

Christmas Day had arrived with a bit of trepidation on Johnny’s part, considering the last two Christmas he’d lived through recently. Roy had gotten his cast off two days earlier and had been happily romping around on the floor with his children. Johnny, who would be stuck in his cast for at least another week to ten days, sat in the recliner, leaning forward in not-quite-feigned anticipation of watching the kids open their gifts.

 

Chris and Jennifer tore into their piles of gifts with joyful abandon, their excitement overflowing at Santa’s fulfillment of their wish lists that year. Jennifer had come over to him as soon as she was finished and ‘helped’ him open his own gifts, too. And that was okay with Johnny. He was happy to see that she was happy this time around, his memories of her sorrowful sobbing still tugging guiltily at his heart.

 

But when she had handed him his last gift to open, he froze. The small package was eerily familiar. He swallowed hard and turned to look at his partner. “Roy?”

 

Roy paused in his collection of torn wrapping paper and discarded packaging and looked up. “What is it, Johnny?”

 

“Do you know where this gift came from?” He indicated the gift in his hand.

 

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Dixie asked me to put that under the tree for you, since she’d be out of town for the holidays and wouldn’t see you again until after New Year’s. She said to wish you a very Merry Christmas and to tell you ‘you’re worth it,’ whatever that means.”

 

He looked down at the present, hesitating to open it. Jennifer, curious to know what was inside, asked, “Aren’t you gonna open it, Uncle Johnny?”

 

“Not right now, honey,” he decided, not wanting to open this gift in front of an audience in case it was what he thought it was. Her shoulders sagged in disappointment, and Johnny glanced around him, looking for something to distract her with. “Hey, pumpkin, why don’t you show me all the new toys Santa brought you—I didn’t get a chance to see them all...”

 

And in an instant her sadness had vanished.

 

And now here he was, one month later, sitting on the guardrail on Old Ridge Road, staring down at the gold compass in his hand, wondering at the peculiarities of life.

 

I guess it’s not that weird that Dixie gave me this compass… I mean, I bought the same gifts for the same people in two different lives, why couldn’t Dix have thought to buy me the same Christmas gift in two other different lives?

 

The same gift, maybe. But with the same inscription?

 

He was scheduled to return to work tomorrow, his body having finally recovered from the events that had happened just thirty yards back down the road from where he sat right now. He glanced down at the compass, flipping open its cover and reading the inscription inside once more. But as for his emotional recovery...

 

“Johnny...?”

 

That feeling of déjà vu was back again. His gaze moved from the compass in his hand to the deep canyon before him for a moment, then he turned his head to find his best friend standing only a few feet away, a look of concern on his face.

 

He’d always known, due to the nature of his job, that life could change in an instant. Hell, he’d known that since the day the local sheriff’s deputy showed up at the door of his best friend’s house one morning when he was fourteen years old and told Johnny that his parents had died during the night in a fire. But when he thought about everything that he’d been through during the past few months...

 

“You know, Roy,” he began speaking softly, as if his partner had been privy to the thoughts running through his mind during the past several minutes. “I really loved my parents, and when they died, I thought I knew what pain—real pain—was.” He caught a glimpse of the accident scene out of the corner of his eye, and shook his head sadly. “But when I remember how I felt the last time I was here... I think that maybe even some of the worst pain may be easier to deal with than others...no matter how bad it feels at the time.”

 

Roy took a hesitant step forward, and then another when Johnny made no move to stop him. Finally, he sat down on the guardrail beside him, watching him closely. “I don’t know what to say to you, Johnny. I hope I never experience the kind of pain you have the past few months. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you...”

 

And I hope you never have to find out, Roy...

 

Silence enveloped them as they sat, each lost in their own thoughts, for a few minutes.

 

“Hey,” Roy asked quietly, indicating the compass in his hand. “What have you got there?”

 

“Dixie’s present... I never did show it to you, did I?” He snapped the lid closed and showed it to his partner, whose eyes widened in shocked comprehension as he saw what it was. Johnny extended his hand out to Roy, and the older man picked it up carefully. “Even the inscription’s the same.”

 

Roy popped open the lid and read it aloud. “Pointing the way back to those who love you... She got it right, you know.”

 

Johnny sat quietly, waiting for his friend to continue.

 

“There are a lot of people who love you, Johnny—who would be there for you if you let them. Promise me you’ll never forget that...if the pain ever gets that bad again.”

 

Their eyes met, blue eyes locking with brown, and Johnny realized that, even if the unthinkable ever did happen, Roy would never really be gone... That he truly did carry the best part of the man who had become his best friend, his brother, with him in his soul. And he also realized that Roy felt exactly the same way.

 

A warm smile slowly dawned on his face, as the truth he had searched for so desperately during those difficult weeks he’d lived in the moments between life and death revealed itself to him in the open emotion reflected in bright blue eyes.

 

“I promise, Roy... I promise.”

 

An answering smile broke out on Roy’s face. “Good deal.”

 

Johnny laughed as he reveled in a freedom he had not experience in months—maybe even years. “Hey, that’s my line!”

 

Roy snorted in amusement, handing Johnny back his compass. “Here. Come on, Junior. Joanne’s fixin’ lasagna tonight in celebration of your return to duty tomorrow. Let’s go home and celebrate.”

 

Home. Home with Roy and his family. He liked the sound of that. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away, Pally.”

 

They swung their legs back over the guardrail and began walking back down their cars, Roy’s hand coming to rest companionably on his shoulder with a pat. A passage from the bible suddenly came to Johnny’s mind. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

 

Thanks for being my truth, Roy...

 

 

 

 

The End

 

 

* The Los Angeles Rams lost to the San Francisco 49ers 24-23 on November 9, 1975. For the season, the Rams had 12 wins and 2 losses, and the 49ers had 5 wins and 9 losses.

 

**From my story “Realizations”

 

 

Author’s Note: This story was born in the space of one hour’s time on March 1, 2012, when, while reading E! fanfic in the same room as my sister as she was watching the premier of the new NBC show “Awake,” my mind caught enough of the gist of the show during a 20-minute period for my Muse to present to me the following three plot points by the time I went to bed that night: 1) While Johnny was driving the squad on a call they’re involved in an accident, and thus he experiences 2 realities—one where Roy died in the accident and the other where he survived; 2) the conflict which I immediately dubbed ‘dueling psychologists’; and finally 3) Johnny’s suicide scene at the cliff. What followed over the next ten weeks was both Johnny’s struggle and my own—his as he tried to figure out what was real and what was not, and mine because, in order to get from #1 to #3, Johnny had to go through some really dark places, and so I, as the author, had to get him there. There were days when I literally dreaded the idea of sitting down to write the next scene of the story, and put it off as long as possible. But again, like Johnny, I was being driven by something larger and deeper than myself. I’d like to thank Mypiot for helping me figure out how to resolve an important plot point in the story, Mustela for her advice and encouragement, and my Beta-reader, for catching my boo-boos! Also, I do not work in the medical field, and although I did do some research for this story on the internet, I’m by no means an expert—or even a boot!—so all medical tweaks and/or mistakes are my own.

 

Posted to Site 05/20/12  

Links to Part 1. 2.

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