black butterflies

another day another time

"oh my god, earthquake!" one of the bystanders yells out, causing a mass panic from the crowd. 

there was nothing the team could do for buck and eddie at the time, so for now they needed to focus on the crowd outside, while also keeping themselves safe.

"EVERYBODY NEEDS TO GET TO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AWAY FROM THE TREES AND POWER-LINES NOW!" bobby yells out. 

he takes a quick glance back at the collapsed house behind him and runs to help the people in-front of him. cool and collective on the outside, its what he was taught all his life, but he was fearing for those of his crew inside. 

inside most of the fire was out, so the only issue was getting outside. they were trapped, two victims who were unconscious and didn't look too well either. this isn't how buck wanted to come back to work. he saved lives, he helped people, he didn't sit twiddling his thumbs hopelessly. even worse, he didn't get his own crew-mate trapped, he only puts himself in dangerous spots. 

"buck im out of air..." 

"here i only have a few minutes on my tank left but we can switch back and forth"

after a few minutes the tank let out a noise to signal to two that the last remaining bit of air was now gone. buck gets up and checks on the two victims and sees the deep burns the chest of one of them, it was too late for her. she needed medical attention 30 minutes ago, and maybe then she might not of even made it. buck and eddie both give each other the same upset and angry look. eddie throws his helmet at the wall causing a large hole to form. 

"FUUUCK" he rips his gloves off and just throws his back against this wall and begins to compose himself again. 

buck just sat and watched until he felt like it was a good time to walk over. he had never seen eddie get like that because of a call, let alone on a call. 

"eds are you okay?" 

"yeah yeah all good," he shakes his head and gets up slowly

"you know you can tell me if somethings wrong right, this job is hard enough as is you don't need to keep things to yourself. i learned that really early on in this job, especially with this crew, we're a family we tell each other everything and help each other through it all." 

"its just-

the noise of debris being moved and knocked around from above startles the two as there is a peak of light from over eddies head. 

"eddie! buck!" chim yells out at the sight of them.

"chim!" they both yell in a sigh of relief 

"hey we have two victims down here, ones a DOA and the other needs immediate medical attention," eddie yells up.

"got it," chim replies and sends down the basket. 

once the two victims are out chim and hen throw down ropes so that they can pull up buck and eddie. eddie grabs and first rope and ties it around is waist and legs as buck does the same. eddie goes up first, then buck gets pulled up last. as they walk outside bobby leads them over to the other ambulance on scene and has them examined for any injuries. 

the two were cleared and the team heads back to the firehouse in silence. no one wants to speak about what happened, not because they were tired but because they had nothing to say. they were in shock. no one knew what was going to happen in that moment. nobody knew how many people were going to be riding back in this fire truck just a few minutes ago. buck and eddie had no idea what was going to happen to them, and they didn't even want to think about what happened to that girl. all of these discussions are for another day at another time.