My Soulmate- A Fireman Sam Elvis x Penny Story

Chapter 2

Everyone knew that when kids in Pontypandy turned 10 they were allowed to go out on their own to places that the little kids couldn't. Sarah and James, being only 6, and Mandy, who was 8, and Lily, being 3, were too little for this law to apply to them. However, Hannah, who was 11, was applied to this rule. And last month Norman's cousin Derek had turned 10, although he lived in another town. With Norman Price turning 10 tomorrow, who knows what kind of trouble he could get himself into?!

Sam was thinking all of this as they drove back to the fire station in Jupiter. Right beside him was Elvis, and at the end was Penny. Ellie and Arnold were in Venus. As for Steele, he had decided to walk home 'for the ol' ticker.' Or, at least Penny had urged him too.

"Are you alright, Sam?" Elvis asked.

"Yeah, just worried about Norman Price turning 10 years old, that's all," Sam sighed, "I can't believe it. Seems like just yesterday Dilys and her husband Fidelis were swerving through the forest trying to get to the hospital on time."

"Aye, it really does!" Elvis laughed, "but even from the start he was a little troublemaker. Remember when he pretended to be a 'Bug-Eyed Boy from Venus,' Penn?"

"Yeah," Penny smiled, "that was, what? Four, five years ago?"

"He was so little," Sam sighed, "he reminds me so much of his father..."

Fidelis Price had left the family when Norman was hardly a year old. Norman, who only had a small fragment of a memory left of his father, had some daddy issues, so he looked up to Sam as a fatherly figure. Sam smiled suddenly as he remembered the time a couple of years back when Tom Thomas was new, and had devised a conspiracy with his best friend Moose to prove that Sam was Norman's father. A silly little misunderstanding that had caused a few laughs from the others, even Dilys, though she was clearly trying to hide the pain.

Then the three firefighters fell back into dead silence.

Elvis looked at his hands. There was that strange feeling again that he always had around Penny.

He knew what it was. He knew perfectly well.

He was in love with Penny, and quite deeply.

It had been an attraction from the start. Glancing at her, wishing things that could be. However, he could never muster up the courage to tell her. She was so pretty, so brave, and basically demanded people to be fit. She was perfect!

It had been 8 years. 8 long years of prolonged glances and blushing awkwardly. 

But she probably liked Sam. They were always paired together for missions and were constantly complimenting each other. It made Elvis sad to see Penny always seem friendly and happy around Sam. Although he had known the latter since childhood, and was quite good friends with him, Elvis couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of Sam. He got all the ladies.

But there had been one time when Penny seemed to like him back. When she had given him a kiss on the cheek when he thought that one of them was going to be cut, but Station Officer Steele was just talking about a photo. Elvis had spent the whole day acting like an utter idiot, all for the sake of the woman he loved. She had appreciated it, quite a lot. 

But that had also been the same year that Ben had arrived...

Ben.

Ben was almost as much of a heartthrob as Sam, and Penny seemed to admire him greatly. The way she had stared at him when they had first met 4 years ago had made Elvis feel as though he was a worthless little piece of dirt that was inferior to everything else. Ben knew how to do EVERYTHING, while Elvis was just the clumsy dude that always screwed up.

"Elvis, are you alright?" Sam asked his college, "you've been staring off into space for like 10 minutes."

"Huh?" Elvis appeared a bit dazed, "oh, I'm alright. Are we almost there, I have to use the bathroom, I'm desperate for a wee."

"Elvis, we've been waiting for you to get your butt out of freaking Jupiter for 6 minutes now," Penny said, clearly frustrated. Elvis's heart always sank whenever she was upset at him, which wasn't really that often, but he did do stupid things...

"Sorry," Elvis told the others as he slid out of Jupiter, "just lost in cloud cuckoo land."

Penny and Ellie couldn't help but smile a little bit, the former blushing a bit.

"Finally," Arnold muttered under his breath.

Sam unlocked the door to the fire station and they all went inside. 

"Want me to put on some tea?" Ellie asked.

"Sure," Sam said before muttering to Penny, "better than Elvis's, eh?"

Penny blushed, "Visie tries his hardest." Visie was the affectionate nickname that she would call her clumsy friend Elvis. He already had a nickname by his close friends, which was Vis, but Penny thought it would be cute if he had an even more endearing nickname.

"Oh Penny, I do love it when you call me that," Elvis muttered to himself as he got off his turnout gear and sauntered towards the bathroom, "it's so adorable, just like you."

Meanwhile...

"Almost done!" Joe Sparkes muttered to himself, his greasy and grimy hands using a wrench, "oh, won't Lizzie be surprised!" Sam and Arnold had left an hour ago, as they had to return to the fire station before 5 PM. They hadn't made much progress, just a couple of minor explosions and a burn on Arnold's left thumb. Nothing special.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Hannah Sparkes, an 11 year old girl in a wheelchair, who was Joe and Lizzie Sparkes's only child, asked as she wheeled up behind her father.

"Oh, Hannah, I didn't see you there!" Joe said, sounding a bit surprised, "just, er, nothin'."

"I overheard Ben telling Tom that Arnold said that you, him, and Sam were all inventin' something!"

"Oh, don't believe what Arnold says," Joe replied, "he's quite an inexperienced chap."

"He's in his 20s and is literally, like, one of the smartest people I've ever known, if not the smartest," Hannah replied. It was a well-known fact all around Pontypandy that Hannah Sparkes was embarrassed of her crazy inventing dad. She would always cringe at his crazy ideas, while the other kids would all 'ooh' and 'aah.' She would often ask Sarah and James, "don't you ever feel embarrassed by your Uncle Sam's, um, abnormal, hobby?" To which Sarah and James would reply, "no. It's cool! Uncle Sam always invents the best of things!" And Hannah would roll her eyes and shake her head, clearly not seeing just how cool inventing things was. In time, she would often tell herself, they'll be embarrassed. I know they will; I never used to be embarrassed by Dad's inventions when I was little, but here I am, embarrassed.

"Oh, c'mon, I know you love my weird and wacky inventions!" Joe teased his pre-teen daughter, "I know you do!"

"I don't," Hannah grumbled, "I just wanna know what you're doing when Mum said it's nearly dinner time!"

"Oh, that time already?" Joe said, putting down his tools, "tell her I'll be up in a second."

"Alright," Hannah muttered, clearly disappointed that she couldn't find out what the 'new invention' was.

Perhaps tomorrow, she thought, she would tell the other kids about it, and they could investigate...

Perhaps.