𝐈 𝐁𝐞𝐭 𝐎𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐨𝐠𝐬 - 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐠𝐨 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐧𝐞

The fire truck sirens screamed as they raced down the road, Katrina (or Kat as everybody she knew called her), sat in the back with the rest of her co-workers, the blonde woman sat next to her older brother, Andy Darden. The older man jokingly put his oxygen mask over the top of his head sideways with that same big, dorky ass grin he always carried on his face and Kat couldn't help but smile at her sibling. They were close, they had both been through a lot together.

"Guys, how do I look?," Andy joked.

"As usual. Like the class clown," Casey said as he looked over at him, making the squad laugh as Kat playfully punched her big brother's shoulder which caused him to mess up her hair. Andy had always had a habit of messing up his little sister's hair every chance he got, he also did the same thing to Kat's 10-year-old son, Ash.

However the happiness was short lasting as they pulled up to the scene of the fire, Kat immediately got out of the truck and went over to the crowd of people, trying to get them to back up so that she and her fellow firefighters could do their jobs. Once the crowd had backed up Kat immediately got to work in helping get the hose ready, her heart raced as she plugged the house into a nearby fire hydrant. To her, this call was just a normal house fire and it would end like it normally did, with the fire put out and everyone was safe. Little did she know that she was in fact wrong about this assumption.

Once the hose was ready for use, Kat watched as Andy climbed up the ladder towards the attic to rescue the house owner's brother, or anyone else who was still trapped in the house. The blonde woman watched anxiously as she stood by her chief, Boden. However, before Kat could process anything else, the fire in the house flared, a massive wave of flames flew out of the broken window, causing Casey to duck on the ladder in order to avoid getting flamed.

And that was when Katrina understood.

Andy Darden was gone.

Her big brother was dead.

↡↡↡↡

It had been a month since Kat had lost her brother, and for the past 4 weeks she's felt like she has been going through the motions. She refused to take time off of work, she didn't know why, but she refused to do so. And not only was she grieving, but her son was grieving as well.

The kid just really missed his uncle.

Ash never coped well with change, Kat didn't either. This loss was hard for the both of them, and they were going to have to learn how to cope with this loss together. But how exactly do you cope with losing someone you were this close to? Kat felt like she had lost a piece of herself the day that she lost Andy, her brother was one of the very few positive older male figures in her life and it completely broke her the day he had died.

He was also the male role model for Ash, since Ash's bio father wants nothing to do with him and Kat. So Andy was all Ash really had as well. Needless to say, neither of the Darden's were doing okay at the moment.

Kat sighed as she watched her son walk into the school doors with a worried expression, she loved this kid so much and it killed her to see him like that. But she knew that she had to stay strong for him. Once Ash was safely inside his school she started her car engine and went off to the station for the start of her shift.

Katrina entered the station quietly, going over to the locker room and opening her locker, putting her bag and other stuff away before she closed it, turning around only to be met by Matthew Casey, her childhood best friend. And he looked just as somber as she did. Casey handed her a photograph, it was a photo of her, Andy and himself at a bar. Katrina smiled a bit at the memory, gently taking the photograph from her best friend's hands to get a closer look.