Things have been getting better at home, I've now got a soft cast for my leg and arm which gives me an awful lot more freedom... which means I can shower with my wife again. There's still some awkwardness between the two of us but I'm hoping its residual and will solve itself as the days go by. I've been to a scan of our baby and cried the whole way through, no one warned me how emotional you can get. I haven't talked to the station about returning for two reasons. The first reason is because with the rift between us, I shouldn't entertain them and the second being; I'm questioning if I want to continue being a firefighter. With little Isabella on the way, do I want to risk potentially dying? Do I want to give myself the opportunity to miss out on her life and not have the ability to see her grow? I know Carina is hesitant about me returning to work, she tenses anytime I bring up work.
"What if I didn't go back to work?" I asked out of the blue, the questions in my brain have began to feel like a rope tightening around my throat as the seconds go by.
"Did the fire scare you?" Carina questions carefully.
"W-well n-no" I stutter.
"Okay, so why are you questioning going back? Is it because of the team?" the conversation continues.
"It's not the team and it's not the fire. It's the dreams, the dreams of watching you raise our daughter without me being there. Being a captain lowers the risk but doesn't stop it. I don't know what to do" I can feel myself get worked up, fleeting moments from the first dream I'd had starts to fill my brain.
"Okay, so you're questioning if you should work in a safe way but around fire?" her voice turns high-pitched as she questions what exactly I'd said. She'd probably interpreted it as a riddle.
"Yes" I say with a lot more confidence.
"Are there jobs that do exactly that?" she asks me, giving me her full attention instead of the laptop she'd been using.
"There are a few but they're a step higher than what I currently do. I'd need to become a chief, the only one going would only upset the team more. If I went for it, I could become the chief that looks after 19, I'd become even more of a boss to them. We both know how they'd react" I tried to reason. If I got the job, would I care more about my future family or a team that had turn their backs on me? We both know the answer, it would be family first; something that was an alien concept as a child.
"Why don't you talk to Diane about it?" Carina asks, it's a mostly rhetorical question.
"Because I know what she'll say" I heavily sigh, I don't know what's happening to me. I love fire... I used to love fire...
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Death Is Futile
FanfictionWhen Maya finally reaches the clouds, she learns that maybe the clouds weren't as comforting as they'd always seemed. Instead she finds herself being guided by some now dead but important people, as they show her how her death would have affected ev...
