When I First Met Carina

Travis

Travis was exhausted. They had spent the entire day before working and then had been forced to talk to Dr. Lewis. Travis hated talking about his feelings. Growing up, feelings were not really talked about, especially not feelings about big things. For whatever reason, he had decided he needed to talk about him and Emmett which had been cathartic and helpful but also felt draining.

He had also spent all the time that he wasn't talking to Diane cooking food with Emmet while trying not to flirt with him only to have their food be rejected by Rigo's wife because she didn't want to be a widow. Travis understood how she felt and watching her grief even just for those few minutes, had made him feel the loss of Michael all over again. He had told Emmet to go home before taking the food back to the station, knowing that someone would eat it there.

As he walked past the Captain's office, he noticed her door was shut and Dr. Lewis was in with her. Travis felt for her, knowing she was feeling a lot of guilt about Rigo dying.

He wanted to blame her, call her inexperienced like Theo and write her off as someone who should never have been promoted, but he couldn't do that because it wasn't fair to her. She knew what she was doing and she trusted her team when they told her they could work together.

Was he pissed at Rigo and Jack for not being professional, absolutely. Did he think, in retrospect, that their captain should have made a different choice, also yes. But did he think it was Maya's fault that Rigo was an arrogant ass who decided not to listen and that Jack was an idiot who broke the code, no. He knew Jack was trying to make it right, not that that excused anything, but he was at least acting like a professional in the field.

He sighed as he put all the food they had spent so long cooking into the fridge, hoping B shift would enjoy it because honestly, while Rigo had been on A shift when he died, B shift was his shift and they were really his people and they deserved this food almost as much as his wife did.

Travis had already gotten all of his stuff together so he headed back downstairs as soon as the fridge was loaded up with all the food. He walked back downstairs, just wanting to go home and curl up in bed with one of Michael's old sweatshirts and a cup of hot chocolate.

As he walked out the door, he was very in his head, not really paying attention and all of a sudden, he literally ran into someone.

"I'm so sorry," he said, realizing he had caused the cup this woman was holding to spill all over her jacket.

"It's ok," the mystery woman said, looking down at her jacket, "It will wash out."

"Let me help you," Travis said, going back into the station with this woman, "Here, I'll go grab some paper towels."

Travis ran into the bathroom, grabbing some towels, wetting a few before going back out to the lobby.

"Here," he said, handing the towels to the woman, "What did you spill, coffee?"

"No," the woman said, shaking her head, "It was hot chocolate. I was just...never mind. It doesn't mind. Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Travis said, shaking his head, "I should be apologizing. I caused this mess. If you soak it in some dish soap and water, it should take it out."

"It's ok," the woman, who had an accent Travis knew was Italian because him and Michael had spent some time there for their first anniversary, "You seemed distracted. Is everything ok?"

"Yeah," Travis said instinctually, "No...Yes and no. We lost a firefighter a few days ago from this station and it's been hard. But I'll be fine, and I don't need to bother you with that. You probably came here for something. I'm Travis Montgomery. Can I help you?"