Just Close Enough to Burn (station 19)

Lost and Found

Dear Diary,

After another long week I finally made it to the weekend. I have one shift at the station but otherwise I'm a free woman... ya know except for all the studying I need to do. Since we all had the night off yesterday, Andy, Maya, Vic, and I decided to get all dressed up and go out. We started the night with some flaming shots of I don't even remember what. Maya and Vic decided that they had to play wing women for Andy and me. Of course some guy immediately sent Andy a drink making their job super easy. Once Andy walked over to the other side of the bar to talk to the hot guy that sent her a drink, Vic and Maya turned to me. They started looking around for cute guys to go set me up with. They spotted some ginger across the bar that they said was looking at me. Vic pulled my shirt down a little, so I looked 'less like a nun" and she pushed me off towards him. I took two steps before turning around. Maya and Vic both started to yell at me to go for it and that it was time but I just told them that I was fully capable of choosing someone on my own and sauntered over to this gorgeous brunette with the greenest eyes I've ever seen.

My friends didn't seem to notice that we had been making eye contact all night.

I could overhear Vic asking Maya what the hell I was doing, and that the guy they had picked was perfect, and how I needed to re-learn how to flirt with people after a 6 year relationship, not realizing that flirting was all I planned on doing. Maya just told her to shut up and smiled watching me introduce myself to one of the hottest girls I've ever met.

Andy was too preoccupied with her guy to notice anything and Vic didn't totally understand what was happening, she definitely thought I was just avoiding talking to guys, but on our way home Maya pulled me aside to say she was really proud of me.

The next morning at the station Vic was asking Andy about the guy she met. She told everyone that she gave him her number and... well that was it. It was definitely a little underwhelming haha but it was at least a start. Vic made that point very clear, saying that at least Andy talked to a guy last night while I avoided them. Maya and I shared a knowing look but I just told Vic she was right and said maybe next time I'll talk to a guy.

Shortly after that Sullivan called everyone down for line up and assigned everyone a specialty. Well, expect for me, I'm still just a paramedic. Sullivan gave Andy recruitment and she was so mad about it, especially because Maya was given incident operations. And to make matters worse, when we got called out to a structure fire, Sullivan told Maya that she should pretend to be a lieutenant and make the calls. Not only that but every time Andy, as an established lieutenant, tried to say anything, Sullivan cut her off.

They were about to let the building burn, since we had no water, but then a kid came out and told us that there were five more inside. I got to work checking out the first kid while the rest of the team went in to rescue the kids. Gibson came out with another kid and started to treat him. He was really agitated and didn't want anyone to touch him, but Jack was somehow able to calm him down. Gibson really seemed to connect with that kid, in a way that I never expected.

Listening to the walkies I heard that there was a sprinkler system that could help put the fire out, but when Herrera turned it on, it only made the fire worse. At the same time, Maya was still trying to get water access and Sullivan yelled at her, saying that a leader can't get stuck on one part of the problem. With that he retook control of the scene and went in to make sure the rest of the crew made it out.

I was working on the kids with severe smoke inhalation when everyone made it out. I was so relieved to see them get out safely, especially after hearing all the commotion going on inside. As I was getting the girl who led our team through the building stabilized Andy came over to talk to her. In talking about how brave she was, Andy told her that she would make a great firefighter and it suddenly became obvious to both of us why Sullivan assigned her to recruitment.

When we made it back to the station it was clear that things were weird between Andy and Maya. Listening to them passive aggressively argue made me so excited to go home and be in the middle of it all... not. After shift, all I wanted to do was go to bed but Andy and I got a text from Ryan telling us that his dad was back in town. Andy went over to talk to him about it and see her dad. I told her to let me know how he is and decided I would just check in with him later.

I went home and I immediately climbed into bed. I was only asleep for 10 minutes before Maya flopped onto my bed and started talking about becoming a lieutenant, and how she wanted to impress Sullivan and that didn't really happen, and how Andy was being weird with her about all of it, and finally told me that she sent in her lieutenant's application. I had only been half listening until then and rolled over to face her. Sitting up, I asked when she sent in her application. She said it had been about a week, and she wasn't sure when she'd hear back. I asked if she told Andy and she just went quiet. Maya wasn't really sure how to tell her and didn't know how she would react. I wanted to assure her that we would all be happy for her, but honestly Andy was being weird with all the Sullivan stuff and especially when it came to Maya being put in charge over her. So I just told her that I was really excited for her and that she had to let me know when she heard back. She promised she would as she left my room so I could finally get some sleep.

-Mattie