The New Recruit

Chapter Four: The One with The Hard Truths and Long Talks

A/N: Double update today - so make sure you check out chapter three!!

Chapter 4

The shift had been awful. It had been the worst one they had had in a long time, and it wasn't even over yet. They were hour 18 into their 30 hour shift when the call came in for a house fire. It had been a routine call, nothing that had seemed out of the ordinary, until they arrived at the scene.

The fire was at a much more progressive stage than what they thought it would have reached, so they'd had to act quick. Maya had sent Andy and Miller inside to search and evacuate the victims, it had been reported that there were a family of 4 trapped inside, the flames having blocked off all their access points, with a penetrating injury to a young child, from the stair bannister, a piece of the wood had exploded and lodged itself in the boy's chest.

Andy and Miller had managed to evacuate the two boys, immediately passing them off to Carina and Warren so they could try and save the boy who was now profusely bleeding from his abdomen.

When, Andy and Miller had been preparing to go back into the house to retrieve the parents, the roof had suddenly collapsed inwards causing the whole house to rumble in flames. A ball of fire had erupted through the wreckage and had lit up the sky in reds and oranges as Gibson, Hughes and Montgomery continued trying to put the flames out.

No one survived. Both parents had died in the collapse. The young boy with the wound had suffered too much blood loss for Carina or Ben to do anything with; his insides had been too badly damaged and they couldn't save him, no matter what they'd done. The other boy had died from severe smoke inhalation, he had had asthma and his lungs hadn't been able do deal with the added stress. They tried to recucitate him on the scene but hadn't been able to bring him back.

The ride back to the station had been silent. Not a word was spoken among anyone. Maya hadn't even had the energy to try and talk to her team once they'd returned, she'd just headed straight to her office, where she finally let her tears fall.

They hadn't had a loss like that in a very long time, and the emotion and guilt that she carried was weighing down on her. She kept running through the 'what ifs?' The what if she'd done that? The what if she'd sent more of the team in - would they have gotten everyone out? The what if they'd got there sooner? She knew it wouldn't help but she couldn't stop it, so she decided to go and shower.

She needed something to take her mind off of what had happened and the smell of smoke coating her body and clothes wasn't doing her any favours. Plus, she knew she'd have to still to the report and that was never and easy task when they hadn't had a successful outcome. Having to relive every moment of the tragedy only made it worse; having to detail it such a formal, non-emotional manner was cruel and insensitive, but it had to be done.

2 hours later, she heard a knock at her door, she wanted to just shut the whole world out right now but she couldn't ignore her team.

"Come in," She called, though her voice was tired and strained.

Andy poked her head in and gave Maya a sad smile, knowing how much this was taking a toll on her Captain and her friend. She knew she was blaming herself, and was taking it just as hard as everyone if not worse.

"Hey," she said, walking into the room and closing the door behind her.

"How is everyone?" Maya asked.

Andy gave a shrug, "As well as they can to be honest, no one has really aid anything. It's been pretty quiet. Everything has been restocked and cleaned," Andy trailed off, knowing neither of them were really interested in what the other was saying, it was just mindless background chatter.