WIP Amnesty
So all the way back in 2024 after I binged all of 911, I started writing a time traveler's wife au because I love weird magical bullshit and tbh I hated that book but liked the general idea. I wrote 11k, got stuck, wrote a bunch of other stuff, and then s8 and s9 happened and now the way I characterized this version of Tommy and the 118 is so outdated that there is no way it is ever getting finished. That's not to say I won't ever write this au--I actually think there's even more narrative and thematic meat to it now then back when we just had s7--but it will never be this version of it. So I am releasing it into the wild as an interesting artifact of another time.
i. Evan, 33
When they met for technically the second time, Tommy was in the middle of stealing a helicopter based solely on Howie’s hunch.
“Not my hunch,” Howie said. “Hen’s hunch. You doubting her hunches now, Kinard?”
“I doubt you need to say the word hunch this much,” Tommy said, tucked into a corner of the hangar, running mental inventory of which aircraft was fueled and ready to go. “You know I’m always going to back Hen’s play.”
“Oh good, because full disclosure, if you tried to weasel out of this I was going to remind you that you owe me a life debt.”
“You’ve already called in that debt like eight times now,” Tommy pointed out.
“You saved his life?” someone shouted loud enough that Tommy had to pull the phone away from his ear.
“I’ve told you this story,” Howie said.
“Uh, you definitely have not.”
“Eyes on the road, Buck!” the third person in Howie’s conspiracy snapped.
“We’ll be there in twenty if Buck doesn’t get us killed,” Howie said, and the call cut out on presumably Buck’s offended hey!
A guy saved your life once and you paid and paid and paid.
By the time Howie and his fellow miscreants skulked through the hangar in full turnouts—Jesus Christ, they were definitely getting arrested—he had everything ready to go. All they were missing was Hen and her good as confirmed hunch.
“Tommy!” Howie said, hand held out, which Tommy used to pull him into a hug, folding over to compensate for the difference in height.
“Did you somehow get shorter?” he asked with one last solid pat to Howie’s back.
“That any way to talk to the man who granted you the sweet gift of life?” Howie retorted.
“Don’t say it like that. It makes you sound like you’re my father.”
Howie grinned. “You wish.”
Two weeks after Howie dragged his unconscious ass out of a methane filled mall, they went out and got heroically and unwisely drunk, and the list was amended to Love, Actually, monster trucks, craft beer, and shitty fathers.
Tommy offered his hand to Howie’s tagalongs. “Tommy Kinard.”
“Eddie Diaz.” Diaz’s grip was strong and firm, and he gave the traditional two pumps. “Thanks for helping us out, man.”
“I’m still making interest payments on that life debt,” he said dryly, attention turning to the last co-conspirator. The kid was tall, easily his height and comprised of about eighty percent leg, eyes wide and blue. A punctuation of a birthmark was stamped along his left brow like god’s most perfectly placed semi-colon.
“Hey,” the kid said, beaming so hard that Tommy ran the risk of sun blindness if he stared at that grin head on, “it’s you.”
Tommy raised his eyebrows, which only made the kid grin wider.
“Wait,” Howie said, glancing between them, “Tommy is—”
“Evan Buckley,” the kid said quickly and loudly. “Everyone calls me Buck, but it-it’s Evan.”
“Evan,” Tommy said, his offered hand shaken enthusiastically for a beat too long before he could gracefully extricate himself.
“It’s so good to finally meet you,” Evan added, the shape of the words sharp with relief, as if Evan had been counting down the minutes.
“I wasn’t aware I was keeping you waiting,” he said.
In his peripherals, Diaz’s eyes went wide and a bit crazy. “Chim is always talking about you, so it feels like we know you already.”
“Really,” he said flatly with a matching flat stare for Howie. “And here I thought you only remembered I existed when you needed a favor.”
“You think I keep that Maurice story to myself?” Chim said, breezy tone undercut by how squirrely he looked.
Across from him, Evan’s brow furrowed as he mouthed Maurice to himself.
“You’re clearly lying.” Tommy jabbed an accusatory finger at Howie, who flinched. Despite being able to talk down panicked civilians, Howie had a terrible poker face. “But since we’re about to do something monumentally stupid that will only get us fired if we’re lucky, I’m choosing to ignore whatever this is.”
Howie rolled his eyes. “Gee, you’re a real swell guy.”
“Just remember that when I’m calling in this favor. Let’s go.”
He herded everyone into the helicopter—a tight fit for three men in turnouts and Evan’s giraffe legs certainly didn’t help—and outfitted them with headsets pilfered from a grounded Bell 260, feeling like an overgrown nanny. A feeling that was not helped by the way Howie and Diaz were jostling for the seat next to Evan. Howie won through the expedient method of kicking Diaz’s shin and climbing in while Diaz swore.
“You’re popular, kid,” he said to Evan, who ducked his head with a pleased grin.
Howie snorted. “I’m here to stop their one shared brain cell from bouncing between them like the world’s dumbest screensaver. You have no idea how much these idiots enable each other.”
“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea of what two idiots can get up to,” Tommy said, grinning at the disgruntled look Chim shot him.
“What does he mean?” Evan asked, glancing at Howie before his attention snapped back to Tommy. Christ, that stare was intense. “What do you mean?”
“Ask me about Howie and Hen’s probie years some time. Speaking of, you sure this is her plan?”
“It’s Hen,” Howie said irritably even as he elbowed Evan repeatedly in the ribs until Evan finally broke that stare. “What do you think she’s planning?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her to commandeer the entire Coast Guard.” Tommy straightened, and sure enough there was Hen, striding into the hangar with a lot less confidence than she needed to make this work. “Excuse me, gentleman. I have a felony to be complicit in.”
He thumped a fist against the helicopter and crossed the hangar, moving quick with purpose. That was the only useful thing his old man taught him: act confident and like you belonged and people would let you get away with murder. It was how he kept Gerrard from clocking him and how he ended up hating himself for a solid two decades.
It was easy enough to steamroll Melton, who had a preexisting paranoid suspicion everyone was secretly laughing at him that Tommy was not above abusing when needed, and he needed to if only because Hen, despite coming into the 118 and upending his life, was really bad at lying. Which was probably, he reflected as he led her away, why she was so good at upending his life.
“What are you doing?” Hen asked quietly.
“Helping out an old friend. Thought you’d be a little more grateful.” He cut her a look, but Hen remained unimpressed as ever. “I’m disappointed that you went for Donato over me. She’s not certified for solo flights yet. That’s sloppy work, Wilson.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.” There was a defensive note to her voice.
“Karen okay”
“What? No, she’s fine.” Hen softened, just a touch. “We’re fine.”
“Glad to hear it.” He hadn’t spent much time with Karen, who hadn’t been welcome at the firehouse for obvious reasons, but he’d been at their wedding and danced with the brides.
Hen sighed. “Tommy, why are you doing this?”
He spent literal years wanting to be honest with Hen, and so he said, “You asked.”
She softened further before her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “But I didn’t ask.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said, and gestured to the helicopter and the three grown men inside.
“You weren’t answering your phone,” Diaz said, as if that was a valid reason for them stealing a helicopter for an unauthorized rescue mission.
Hen was unimpressed, judging by the flex of her jaw, but before she could even draw breath for a sharp retort, Howie obnoxiously snapped his gum and said, “Hey, Hen, it’s Tommy.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” she said.
“No,” Howie continued, heavy with meaning, “it’s Tommy.”
Hen’s head whipped towards him and then, bafflingly, to Evan, who shrugged, bashful and apologetic.
“Tommy,” she repeated.
“Apparently,” Howie said darkly, and snapped his gum again.
Tommy didn’t bother waiting for them to start making sense; they had maybe ten minutes before Melton started to pull paperwork that didn’t exist. “You’ve gotten weirder since I’ve been gone,” he said, handing Hen the last headset and bullying her into the copter before climbing in himself.
“You have no idea,” Howie said.
“I’m about to fly us into a hurricane based solely on Hen’s hunch,” Tommy said dryly. “I’ve got some idea.”
“Hey, you said hunch,” Evan said with genuine delight.
“Yes, I did,” Tommy said, and took them up and out.
--
They were an hour into the flight, the rain and wind kicking up, and the tension was loud enough to sing.
“So,” Tommy said in the aftermath of Hen and Howie angrily agreeing with each other, “I see you two still fight by pretending you’re not fighting. That’s a healthy way to approach conflict.”
Behind him, Evan swallowed a laugh. He couldn’t see the kid but he sure as hell felt the stare that been directed his way ever since they took off. It was enough to give him a complex about his piloting.
“We’re not fighting,” Hen insisted.
“Nope,” Howie agreed. “We’re good.”
Another gust hit, and Tommy breathed slow and even to keep from clenching up on the throttle as the old girl rode it out. He ignored the concerned look Hen threw his way. Flying into a hurricane wasn’t the best life decision he’d ever made, but at least this one didn’t come with being actively shot at.
“Just like how you were good back in—what was it? The Great Snit of ’13?” he asked, grinning at the twin offended noises Hen and Howie made.
“The Great Snit?” Diaz asked.
“First of all, no one called it that,” Howie said.
“Everyone called it that,” Tommy said.
“And second of all,” Howie continued at a much louder volume, “it was a minor disagreement, and we were perfectly professional. Weren’t we, Hen?”
Hen, as honest as she was, made a face.
“Is that what we’re calling being passive-aggressive about where you store the pressure bandages?” he asked. “Because that’s—hold on.”
The wind slammed into them, and Tommy gritted his teeth and clenched his jaw and did not think about turning them back towards land before he got them all killed. Hen asked him to go find Bobby and Athena, and that was what he was going to do.
“We good?” Hen asked quietly once they whole bird stopped shuddering.
“For now,” he said because he didn’t believe in false assurances when everyone was knee deep in the shit.
The tension ratcheted back up, although at least this time it wasn’t helped along by Hen and Howie pretending they weren’t pissed with another.
“Hey,” Evan said, “when exactly in ’13 were they fighting?”
“Why would you need to know that, Buck?” Diaz asked, so pointed Evan was in real danger of being stabbed.
“Just curious,” Evan answered.
“Curious,” Howie repeated.
“Yeah, about your and Hen’s probie years.”
Tommy could hear the kid’s shit eating grin.
“Don’t you dare,” Howie said. “That’s not even how it works.”
“Like you know how it works,” Evan shot back, a surprising edge to his voice.
“I’m pretty sure Hen knows how it works,” Diaz said before Howie could transition from arguing because he was tense and bored to arguing because he was genuinely irritated.
“Do not drag me into this,” Hen said, and then, because she just couldn’t help herself: “I’ve got some theories.”
“What theories?” Evan said, flat and—not offended, not exactly. Tommy recognized that tone, had used it for a good chunk of his life whenever someone came prodding at all his tender, hateful parts. It was the tone he’d used for Howie and for Hen and for himself in those lean, starving years following his discharge. It was the tone of someone who didn’t want to be looked at. It made him ache, even now.
“While I’m enjoying this little radio drama,” Tommy said, ignoring Evan’s baffled radio drama, “you wanna let the pilot see the script?” He could only see Hen and the way her expression set, still and carefully neutral. This was a shared secret and he was on the outside. “Or maybe not.”
“Hey, wait, it’s not like that,” Evan said so earnestly, like he was actually worried they’d inadvertently hurt this feelings, that Tommy seriously considered taking the risk of them crashing into the ocean just to turn around and meet Evan’s stare head on.
So it was, all things considered, a welcome distraction when dispatch came on the radio and said, “LAFD Copter 1701, do you read? Firefighter Kinard, come in please.”
He barely kept from wincing. “Go for Kinard.”
“Call from Chief Simpson.”
Fuck.
“Firefighter Kinard,” Chief Simpson said, and even through the wind and the storm fucking with the connection, Simpson’s heavy disappointment seeped through. Tommy’s stomach clenched, an old, tired reaction to his name being said that way. “I know you’re not doing what I think you’re doing, and Captain Wilson and the 118 better not be with you.”
There was no answer that would not incriminate them. Might as well take the tried and true route of outright insubordination and make his old sergeant proud.
“Chief Simpson,” he said, hissing air through his teeth, “trouble reading—sshh—can’t hear—sh-sh-shk—” and he threw in one more guttural stop for good measure before flicking off the radio.
In the ensuing and, frankly, insulting silence that followed, Evan cleared his throat. “Did-did you just make fake mouth static at the fire chief?” There was that delight again, like Evan was charmed by the shit he just pulled.
“Think he bought it?” Tommy asked.
“God, no,” Howie said immediately. “That was awful.”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, man,” Diaz said. “It was not good.”
“Mm,” Hen agreed. “If we weren’t getting fired before we definitely are now.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said as they rode out another gust. “We’re flying into a hurricane. We’re probably gonna die anyway.”
“We’re not going to die,” Evan said, and Tommy felt his eyebrows jump to his hairline. Evan didn’t say it like a first responder with practiced assurance or with a soldier’s black irony. Evan said it with the casual certainty of someone who had skipped to the end of the book to find the happily-ever-after waiting for him.
“How do you know?” Tommy asked, and if he sounded curious it was better than pleading.
“Yeah, Buck,” Howie said, his usual sarcasm drowned by that strange loaded meaning everyone kept aiming at Evan, “how do you know that?”
“Uh, statistics?” Evan said.
“Buckaroo,” Hen said, eyes closed as if begging some higher power for patience, “what does math have to do with this?”
Buckaroo Tommy mouthed to himself, unfairly charmed.
“Statistically speaking, none of us should be alive,” Evan said. “I mean, how many close calls have we had? A ladder truck crushed my leg and I got struck by lightening.”
“Don’t forget the tsunami,” Diaz added.
“Right, the tsunami,” Evan continued blithely, as if the words coming out of his mouth weren’t objectively insane. “Chim, you had rebar go through your brain, you’ve been stabbed, and Jonah the serial killer stopped your heart twice.”
“What the fuck,” Tommy said with feeling, and was promptly ignored.
Evan didn’t even pause. “Eddie, you had a forty foot well collapse on you and you were shot. Twice.”
Diaz made a noise. “Are we counting that time when I was in the Army? It was before I knew you.
“We’re counting that,” Evan said firmly. “And Hen, you’ve…”
“I’ve what?” Hen asked.
“Wait, have you almost died?” Evan asked.
“No, because unlike the rest of you,” Hen said, much too smug for a woman Tommy had personally witnessed get tangled in the hose line she was supposed to be winding, “I have good sense.”
He and Howie barked out a laugh at the same time.
“I see we’re conveniently forgetting that factory fire,” Howie said.
“The worst I got was a scar,” Hen said flatly.
“Mm, so Sal didn’t have to lead you out when you got turned around by the smoke?” Tommy said, grinning at the disgruntled look Hen shot him.
“Who’s Sal?” Evan asked.
“Tommy’s Eddie,” Howie answered. “Don’t make that face. Bobby fired him when Sal shot his mouth off.” He sighed. “Don’t make that face.”
Tommy really wished he could see what faces Evan was making, especially since Hen was now directing an apologetic look his way. There was a rhythm to their banter, a familiar dance they had long since memorized the steps too. Tommy may have been invited to cut in, but he was just off the beat enough that it made his gums itch.
He cleared his throat. “What about me?”
There it was again, Evan’s attention snagged and caught on him, and Tommy was self-aware enough to admit he liked it. “Chim saved your life,” Evan said.
“Carried him like a princess out of an exploding mall,” Howie added.
Tommy rolled his eyes.
“So like I said,” Evan continued, “we should all be dead by now. The odds are on our side that we’ll make it through this. It’s just statistics.”
“That’s not how math works,” Diaz said.
Evan made an offended noise in the back of his throat. “Which of us had math superpowers from being struck by lightening?”
Tommy had no choice but to laugh at the sweet absurdity of it. If he knew what the 118 had turned into he might have made an effort to call Howie up more often. “That is some baseline you’ve got there, kid.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Howie muttered.
“You don’t believe me?” Evan asked with that same astounding earnestness, as if Tommy’s answer actually mattered to him.
“Your insane math is very persuasive,” he said dryly, and insanely felt Evan’s beaming grin warm the back of his neck.
--
Back when Tommy had been a gangly limbed, wet behind the ears kid with unearned confidence, his flight instructor had taken him aside after a particularly hard landing and said, “You’re a cocky shit, Kinard, and might have some talent buried under your bullshit, but the only way you’re ever going to be a decent pilot is if you learn you’re going to die one day.”
“You think I got talent?” Tommy had said, snapping a cocky grin that got his weekend pass revoked.
But that advice hadn’t been wrong. It was a hard lesson to learn, and it took a rescue op going to hell with a gut shot man dying in the back of his bird to drive the point home. The soldier, barely older than him, had bled out before they reached the base.
If Tommy brought the copter down onto The Uno’s hull in a landing that would have made his old instructor suck air through her teeth, he at least brought them down.
We are not going to die, Tommy thought, and the words were in Evan’s voice.
“I think that knocked my teeth loose,” Howie complained.
“If you think you can do better than you can fly us into the next hurricane,” Tommy said. Behind him Evan snorted a laugh, and Tommy felt that old cockiness stir; the kid thought he was funny. “We’re on a tight schedule. One good wave is going to wash us and our ride out to sea.”
“Right,” said Hen. “Chim, you’re with me. Buck and Eddie, let’s get a line started so we can get down there. Coast Guard is on their way but I don’t want to wait, especially since we probably have injuries.”
He’d always seen something in Hen ever since as a probie she declared she was bringing in the tide. Howie would say it was righteousness, and that wasn’t wrong, but Tommy always thought of it as solidity, like Hen was a fixed point they could anchor themselves to.
“Look at you now,” he said quietly.
“Look at you,” Hen shot back, that same jut to her chin, a challenge to meet her where she stood.
“You know, I’ve actually missed you,” he said, and met her grin with one of his own.
There was a rhythm to working rescues, ingrained muscle memory that kept him upright when he was so exhausted that the edges of his world went sharp and brittle. It kept him moving now, helping to anchor the line and follow them down into the ship where they began triage.
Howie and Hen moved together, never missing a beat. It was a shame that Eli left before Hen arrived, ostensibly because his wife wanted to be closer to family but mostly because Eli’s patience had finally been wrung dry and he was about a week away from punching Gerrard in his hateful face. Eli would have liked Hen, and he would have liked Hen even more with Howie.
“Athena,” Evan said, folding her into what objectively looked like a really good hug. Comforting. “Where’s Bobby?”
“There was a lost kid,” Athena answered, looking back to the capsized corridors. “He went to get him.”
Evan and Diaz shared a single and look, and then Diaz shouted, “Hen, we’re going after Bobby!”
“Copy,” Hen said, her attention trained on the gunshot victim. Howie lifted one hand in acknowledgment.
“Wait,” Tommy said, and Evan came up so short and abrupt that Tommy nearly winced in sympathy for the kid’s leg muscles. Diaz went ahead. “Do you know where they are?”
“Don’t worry,” Evan said with the same easy confidence of we’re not going to die, “we’ll find them.”
“Buck,” Diaz said, and then Evan was loping after him on his ridiculous giraffe legs.
There was a pricking helplessness to watching Evan and Diaz disappear down the gaping dark corridor while he tried to do the math of how quickly water was flooding in, how long before the entire ship would be dragged down.
“Buck’s gonna Buck,” Athena said, hand wrapped around his forearm. “Good to see you again, Kinard.”
Tommy matched her ironic tone. “And you, Sergeant Grant. You should let Hen check you out.”
Tommy had enough run-ins with Athena during his tenure at the 118 to know she could out stubborn even Gerrard, and so the fact she barely protested betrayed how exhausted she was. She didn’t sit so much as fold, Hen guiding her down.
“How did you know to come find us?” Athena asked.
“Hen had a hunch,” Tommy offered.
Athena laughed, thin and high, so close to the edge of exhausted hysteria that the only keeping her from tipping over was probably Hen’s fingers on her pulse. “Thank god for your hunches,” she said.
“And thank god for pilots who still owe Chimney a life debt,” Hen returned, her gaze cutting to him, an invitation to join in.
“A guy saves your life and you pay and pay,” Tommy said, and went to radio the Coast Guard for an ETA.
--
Evan and Diaz still hadn’t returned when the rescue evac arrived and took over. Tommy knew better than to insert himself into a situation that didn’t need him, and took up a post by his bird, which hadn’t been swept into the Pacific. The hurricane had blown past, and clear skies were creeping back in. With any luck there might even be some sun later to dry out his flight suit that was bunching in tender places.
Howie was shepherding their patients onto the medevacs. A Coast Guard ship was designated for triage and transport, and the sooner they got there, the better. Their gunshot victim and the injured mother would need blood transfusions, and everyone else was exhausted and dehydrated and on the verge of hypothermia. They needed to get moving, which would have been made easier if Athena Grant hadn’t planted herself on the hull and said, “I am not leaving without my husband.”
“Athena,” Hen said, her hands cupped under Athena’s elbows, “Buck and Eddie will get them, but the best thing we can do right now is to get to safety.”
Athena set her jaw. “And who’s going to get them to safety?”
That was his cue, and Tommy didn’t need Hen’s pointed look to carefully cross the slick hull to towards them. “That would be me. I’m their ride.” He hooked a thumb towards his helicopter.
Athena’s eyebrows rose in a lean, unimpressed arch. “And you’ll wait?”
In any other situation, Tommy would be inclined to offense, but Athena was clinging to sanity by sheer will. Tommy truly couldn’t say he’d be this calm in her place if his husband was in the belly of a ship subsumed under an entire ocean.
“As long as it takes.”
Athena’s eyebrows didn’t drop.
Hen leaned in and whispered, just on the edge of hearing, “It’s Tommy.”
Athena’s eyebrows lowered and her jaw softened. “You’ll wait.”
“I’ll wait,” he promised, though god only knew what he was promising.
Athena nodded once, and when Hen tugged her to the medevac she didn’t resist. “Bobby’s gonna love this.”
Sure would be nice if any of the 118 clique could be bothered to loop him in on where he fit in their strange dance, but he’d settled for getting everyone off this doomed cruise ship. The Coast Guard copters took off, and Tommy was left to wait.
It didn’t take long; LA hadn’t managed to beat the Midwestern politeness out of Bobby Nash, who abhorred tardiness. No sooner had the sun risen then the stragglers climbed out of the ship. Evan carried the lost kid on his back, skinny arms wrapped around his neck and Evan’s big, gentle hands looped under the kid’s knobby knees. Bobby was leaning on Diaz, and Tommy couldn’t tell if he was injured or if it was sheer exhaustion pulling Bobby down.
“Need a lift?” Tommy shouted.
Evan’s head jerked up, smile breaking like the day, and in his head Tommy heard, on repeat, Hey, it’s you.
--
Setting down on the Coast Guard ship’s helipad was a hell of a lot easier than a cruise ship’s hull, but he was pretty sure there was at least one sigh of relief from the back. Evan, who had taken the seat upfront like it was reserved just for him, said, “Not to backseat pilot, but this was a much smoother landing.”
“I can always leave you on the next sinking ship,” he said, cutting the engine and the rotors.
Evan snorted as they didn’t climb out of the copter so much as fall onto their feet in their haste to get free. Tommy didn’t take offense; he loved flying but even he was happy to get his feet on the ground. For the first time since Howie called, he felt his shoulders unknot and his back muscles unlock. God, he was going to sleep for the next fourteen hours.
They barely cleared the pad before Bobby, exhaustion melting from him like Minnesotan snow, ran down the stairs and onto the deck, his entire focus on Athena, who was running just as fast towards him. They collided, Bobby lifting Athena off her feet. They were smiling so hard that it took two tries for them to kiss properly.
Tommy had a reputation for being a cynical bastard, but he was also a sucker for romance, and he didn’t even try to stop his grin, basking in the relief and joy radiating from Bobby and Athena. It was a sweet reminder than happy endings still happened, even for men like him and Bobby Nash.
Evan’s hand on his shoulder nearly startled him. Gone was Evan’s bright smile, replaced with a quiet solemnity that sent a shiver down his spine.
“I told you that we weren’t going to die,” Evan said, a twitch at the corner of his mouth ruining the gravity of the statement.
Tommy laughed so hard he snorted, and Evan’s surprised delight just made him lean into Evan’s grip.
“I,” he said, once he caught his breath, “will never doubt your crazy lightening math again.”
“It’s just statistics,” Evan said, and squeezed his shoulder under the bright, hot sun of a new day.
ii. Evan, 6 maybe 7
The first time Tommy met Evan went like this: he was six months at Harbor and the constant knot at the base of his skull was slowly unraveling, bit by bit.
“Hey, Kinard,” York called, head hanging over the back of the couch and his feet up on the coffee table. “How’d the date go?”
“Who said I had a date?” Tommy said, downing the last of his coffee before it grew colder. “Put your feet down. Who raised you?”
“Wolves,” Shore said, grinning at the finger York gave her. “And we know you had a date because you wore a shirt that wasn’t black.”
“Or gray,” York helpfully added.
“You must have liked them.” Shore collapsed on the couch, kicking her feet up next to York’s. “The blue brought out your eyes.”
Tommy bit down on the reflexive denial. This wasn’t the 118 and Captain Santiago wasn’t Gerrard; she regularly talked about how her son was dating his way through his entire college campus. His latest boyfriend was from his statistics class but before that he briefly dated a girl from his Gothic Lit seminar.
“He was fine,” Tommy said. The knot unwound a little more. “Not really my type. Too brooding.”
“Add it to the list,” York said. “Kinard likes ’em cheerful.”
Tommy eyed their boots and considered knocking their feet to the floor. Better to let Santiago catch them and assign cleaning duty. “You got a list going?”
“We’ve all worked together long enough that I unfortunately know everyone’s tastes.” York gestured out beyond the lounge towards the hangar and the crew within. “Mitchell likes ’em tall, Wu likes ’em short, and Nancy here likes ’em stacked.”
“I am a connoisseur of men’s tits,” Shore said. “I will not apologize for that.”
Tommy snorted; of the very few things Shore felt compelled to apologize for, sex didn’t make the list.. “And what do you like?” he asked York.
“Me?” York’s grin was lazy. “I’m easy. I like everything.”
“Christ,” Tommy said, on a laugh. “I should introduce you to Howie.”
York eyed him curiously, the same he did every time Tommy doled out another crumb about the 118—Hen’s insane organizational method or Howie’s constant gum snapping or Sal’s habit of keeping all his tools on his left—like York couldn’t figure him out.
“You’re hard to read,” Shore said, slouching down further. “Hence the list.”
“I don’t know if I should be touched or file a HR complaint,” Tommy said.
“Personally, I’d go with the complaint,” Santiago said. York and Shore swung their feet to the floor with guilty speed. “I’m positive there’s something you should be doing.”
“We’re going, Cap,” Shore said, heaving herself upright and then tugging York after her.
Santiago waited until they had gone before saying, “Are they bothering you?”
Tommy again caught his reflexive denial—he’d dealt with far worse hazing—and instead considered the question carefully and seriously. If he wanted his life to be different than he had to be different.
“They’re only giving me a little shit, Cap, and it’s coming from a good place,” he finally said, satisfied with his answer.
“Glad to hear it, although you let me know if that changes.” She bumped her knuckles to his shoulder. “Those radios aren’t going to test themselves.”
Tommy took the hint and headed to the hangar. He wasn’t a probie, not with the all the years under his belt, but he was still new to Harbor and got assigned some of the scut work, albeit not the worst of it.
He finished running through Copter 1701’s frequencies when static scratched across the line, quick and loud enough that he almost missed the pop of displaced air. Tommy shook his head and wriggled his little finger in his left ear. Please let that not be a sign of an ear infection. He got them all the time as a kid, but he’d thought he outgrew them once he hit puberty and shot up two feet in eleven months.
He hopped out, and said, “Hey, Mitchell, are we expecting any incoming—”
There was a kid staring up at the copter used for medevacs, head tipped back and mouth open. He was six, maybe seven. Tommy was shit at estimating small children’s ages; all he could say for certain was that the kid was somewhere in that nebulous zone between toddlerhood and puberty.
A quick glance around didn’t reveal anyone resembling a parent or a guardian. Hell, none of the other crew in the hangar had noticed the kid at all. The kid darted forward to touch the copter’s strut.
“Hey,” Tommy said, and the kid snatched his hand back, expression equal parts guilty and mulish. He adjusted his tone as he closed the distance. “You like helicopters?”
The kid nodded, sending his mop of blond hair bobbing. There was a birthmark stamped along the edge of his left brow, and his chin bore the telltale scrap of asphalt rash and his eyes the telltale redness of a recent crying jag. “They’re cool.”
“They are very cool,” Tommy agreed, hesitating a moment before crouching to put himself closer to the kid’s level. His left knee, which never worked right after Afghanistan, cracked. “This is the one we use when we need to take someone to the hospital if they’re hurt. And that one”—he pointed towards another medium duty copter—“we use for rescues when trucks can’t reach them.”
The kid’s eyes widened further. “Do you know how to fly?”
“I do. Do you want to know which one is my favorite?” At the kid’s furious nod, he pointed to the Bell 206. “It’s small but fast.”
“Cool,” the kid said, and took off towards it, moving far faster than anyone with those short legs should be able to.
Tommy stood with a wince, absently rubbing his knee before catching up in a dozen steps. “Easy there. We don’t want you getting hurt.”
The kid’s shoulders inched up and his lower lip wobbled. “Sorry,” he said in a small voice.
Oh no. No parental figure appeared to save him; Tommy was on his own with a child on the verge of tears.
“Hey, you’re not in trouble.” He crouched again and caught the kid’s gaze. “I’m Tommy. What’s your name?”
“Evan.” The kid blinked his tears away in a practiced move.
“It’s nice to meet you, Evan.” He offered his hand, and Evan took it with narrow eyed suspicion, like he thought Tommy was making fun of him. Tommy solemnly shook his hand, so small in his own. “Did you come here with anyone?”
There wasn’t a school tour scheduled because he hadn’t been drafted to lead it; it was a station wide joke that he talked to kids like they were all retirees, but he remembered being that young and hating how adults spoke over and around him. He wasn’t going to make another kid feel forgotten.
So if it wasn’t a school trip then Evan was probably a firefighter’s son. Shore and York didn’t have kids, Mitchell only had nieces, and they threw Singh a baby shower last month. He was still slowly and carefully learning everyone’s lives, but Evan had to belong to someone.
“My sister,” Evan said, wobble returning. “I can’t find my sister.”
“What does she look like?” The question earned him a blank stare. “What’s her name?”
“Maddie.”
There was no Maddie among the pilots, but there was a Matilda on ground crew for B shift. Maddie could be a nickname. She seemed too old to have a brother this young, but Evan could be a half-brother. Their father wouldn’t be the first to suffer a midlife crisis and get his new girlfriend pregnant.
“We’ll find her,” Tommy said firmly, and pushed himself to his feet—he was going to have to ice his knee when he got off shift—and held out his hand to Evan, who took it after another suspicious stare, leading him from the hangar to the station house.
They barely made it through the door when Wu stuck her head out of the kitchen, and said, eyebrows practically in her hairline, “What do you got there, Kinard?”
“This is Evan,” Tommy said. Evan peeked out from behind him. “Evan, this is Emily. We work together.”
“I think that’s the first time you ever used my first name.” Her wary stare was perfectly matched by Evan. “What’s up with the kid?”
“Evan,” he corrected. “We’re looking for his sister.”
“Maddie,” Evan said helpfully.
Wu’s eyebrows which had inched down, furrowed. “Do we have a Maddie?”
“You would know better than me.”
Evan’s eyes went large and tragic.
“Oh no,” Wu said, physically recoiling, and Tommy made a mental note that she was not the go-to for any calls with children. “Cap has the roster. She’ll know Maddie.”
“Thank you for your help,” he said dryly, and Wu stopped panicking long enough to glare.
“Cap’s in her office,” Wu said, and then made herself scarce, probably worried that Tommy might take leave of his senses and leave Evan in her care.
“C’mon, kid,” he said, turning towards he admin wing. “We got a new lead to follow.”
Evan made a confused face, and Tommy had to accept that a six year old was not the audience for his jokes.
“Are you a fireman?” Evan asked, short legs working overtime to keep up; Tommy guiltily shortened his steps and slowed down.
“I am,” he said.
Evan furrowed his brow, birthmark adorably scrunching up. “But you fly helicopters.”
“You can be a firefighter and still fly helicopters.”
“Huh,” Evan said, like this never occurred to him. He idly scratched his chin, and a scab peeled away. Blood seeped out.
“New plan.” Tommy veered towards the locker room. “Let’s get that taken care of before it turns gangrenous.”
“You’re weird,” Evan said with all the world-weariness of a fifty year old noir detective.
Tommy cracked up, laughing so hard he snorted, and Evan gave a little pleased smiled.
The locker room was empty this far into the shift, and he swung Evan up to sit on the counter.
Evan gave an indignant squawk and kicked his feet, barely missing Tommy’s hip. “Sorry,” Tommy said, leaning out of range. “I’ll ask next time.”
There was that stare again, more confused than wary, like Evan didn’t understand why an adult was apologizing to him. It was terrifyingly familiar, and Tommy ignored the sour clench of his stomach. He was an adult now, not that small, scared kid, and he got to choose who he wanted in his life.
He cleared his throat and dug out the first aid kit from the cabinet. “All right, Evan, let’s get you cleaned up. Don’t want your sister thinking we’re not taking care of you.”
“Okay,” Evan said in that small voice, and offered his small palms.
Christ, the kid was breaking his heart.
Tommy took out the alcohol pads, ripping open a packet with his teeth. “This is going to sting.”
Evan tipped up his chin and firmed his jaw. “I’m ready,” he said, and then winced when Tommy, cradling Evan’s hand in his own, gently drew the pad along the scrape.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, trying to be as quick as possible. “How’d you get these?”
“Fell,” Evan said.
That would explain the cuts on his palms from where he tried to catch himself. Kids got banged up all the time. Tommy had spent damn near his entire adolescent perpetually bruised and bloody, but there was something about the way Evan said it, so matter-of-fact for someone so young, that drove him to ask, “Where are your parents?”
“Work.”
Finished with his left hand, Evan obligingly offered his right palm as Tommy tore open a new packet. “Do you know where they work?”
Evan shrugged. “Maddie takes care of me.”
Palms done, Tommy turned his attention to Evan’s chin. “You know,” he said, as Evan made a small noise and jerked away, “if you’re ever in trouble, you can go to any fireman for help. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Okay,” Evan said with a look that clearly said Tommy was being weird again but Evan was willing to look past that.
Tommy sighed, knowing better than to push, especially when he didn’t have anything to go on but old, tired fears from his own childhood. This was a conversation to have with Maddie and not Evan.
“Done,” he said, resisting the urge to tell Evan he’d been brave only because he didn’t think he could stop from laughing at the sheer offense Evan was sure to take. He rifled through the kit until he unearthed the box of, huh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bandaids. Mitchell must have stocked it last; his nieces were going through a phase. “Pick your poison, kid.”
“Donatello,” Evan said promptly. Tommy would have guessed Raphael or Michelangelo, but maybe Evan just liked the color purple. “These look weird.”
Tommy squinted at the bandaids. “I think it’s one of the new shows.” It was a safe guess. It felt like every other year there was a new version of the turtles out. Tommy had been obsessed with the live action movies from the 90s. Had watched the first one so many times he wore out their VHS copy, and his dad refused to buy another one.
Evan made a face but he sat still as Tommy carefully placed a bandaid on each palm and then over his chin. “All patched up,” he said, and gave in to the urge to ruffle the kid’s mop. “Can I lift you down?”
Evan gave the question serious consideration before nodding, arms held up so that Tommy could swing him back to the ground.
“Can we find Maddie now?” Evan asked, a droop to the words. Tommy gave it ten minutes before Evan had an exhausted meltdown.
“We’re back on the case,” he said, and earned himself another look that clearly said Evan thought he was the weirdest person on the planet.
They left the locker room but only made it one hall over when Mitchell popped in from the back and said, “And here I thought Wu was pulling my leg, but you have a kid. Who gave you a kid?” He leaned just enough on you to have Evan glaring up at him. Mitchell was a tall bastard, taller than even him, and so thin that it was a real concern that’d blow away when the Santa Ana winds came through.
“This is Evan,” Tommy said, surprised when Evan reached for his hand. “We’re looking for Maddie.”
“So I heard.” Mitchell hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Matilda is covering for Singh. She’s out checking the tanks.”
Evan’s head swung around, a bloodhound catching the scent, and then he was ripping his small hand free and racing back towards the locker room and the side exit.
“Thanks for that,” Tommy said, and Mitchell held up his hands in apology.
He lightly jogged after Evan, picking up pace as Evan careened around the corner, nearly bouncing off the walls as his sneakers skidded along the freshly mopped floor. The new probie was putting in the extra effort.
“Maddie!” Evan shouted, out of sight.
Tommy rounded the corner, ears popping. No Evan. He ducked into the locker room, but it was empty. The exit door was closed. The hallway was empty.
“Kid?” Tommy called, backtracking the way they came in. “Evan?”
Shore met him at the kitchen, scrapping her hair up and away from her face. “You missing something?”
“You see a kid go through here?” He held out a hand at hip height. “This tall. Blond hair. Birthmark on his left eye.”
“Sorry, no.” She finished tying her hair back. “I was not aware you have a highly specific kid.”
“Not mine.”
“See, now that just raises more questions,” she said just as the bell went off.
It was a medevac, a spinal by the sound of it, and he was the pilot on call. “Can you look for him? I gotta—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. What’s his name?”
“Evan,” he said already turned towards the hangar. “His sister is Matilda. Maddie. We think.”
“You think? Did you just pick this kid up off the street?”
“Hangar, not street.” Santaigo called for him. “Fuck, I gotta—you got him?”
“I’ll find him,” Shore said, flapping a hand dismissively at him. “Go before Cap writes you up.”
He hauled ass and only received Santiago’s mildly disapproving eyebrow. It was a smooth flight and a smoother rescue—couple overestimated their hiking abilities and had a nasty fall down a steep slope—which was good because the worry dogged him, teeth gnawing at his stomach.
“You find him?” he asked Shore when they finally made it back to Harbor.
“Not me,” she said, glaring at errant hair that was whipped up by the wind. “Mitchell said he thinks he saw the kid get picked up by his sister. Not Matilda, by the way.”
“Thinks he saw or actually saw?” Tommy said.
Shore was unimpressed. “It was on the far side of the lot, but he saw.”
Relief pried the teeth loose. “Okay, that’s good. Evan was getting scared.”
Her head cocked to the side. “So you like kids.”
He jabbed a finger at her chest. “Do not put that on the list.”
“Too late. It’s already on there. You like cheerful men and want kids. You’re secretly a big softie, Kinard.”
It was just Shore giving him affectionate shit, but she wasn’t wrong. He spent too long trying to be the kind of man his father and, later, Gerrard would like and hating himself for it. Maybe he liked that he had a soft spot for lonely kids.
“Like a marshmallow,” he said.
Shore grinned. “Yeah, you can stick around.”
“As long as I have your permission,” he said dryly.
She punched him in the arm, the edge of her knuckles digging in enough to bruise. “Probie just made some coffee. I saved you a cup.”
He followed her inside, and the knot unwound just a little more.
--
iii. Evan, 33
His fourteen hours of sleep was going to have to wait until after Santiago pulled him into her office to rip him a new one.
“Care to explain why I had to learn from Chief Simpson about your little stunt, Kinard?” Santiago asked, mouth a hard line.
Tommy folded his hands behind his back and settled into parade rest, his gaze directed to the left of her ear. Gerrard had loved it when he did that. Got a real power trip out of it.
“Cut that out. I’m not your drill sergeant.”
“Sorry, Cap.” It took conscious effort to relax his muscles and soften the line of his spine. “Old habits.”
“They do die hard.” She leaned back against her desk, careful not to dislodge the multiple, haphazard stacks. She claimed to have an organizational system, but Tommy only saw the mess and it made his palms sweat. “I’m still waiting on that explanation.”
He felt his face settle into careful neutral blankness, another old habit he couldn’t shake. Gerrard had only ingrained it further; Tommy couldn’t afford to show weakness with him, and to Gerrard emotions were the biggest weakness.
“I should have informed you, sir, but we had no proof at the time that The Uno was in distress.” Despite his best effort, his gaze slipped to left of Santiago’s ear. “And even if we did have confirmation, it was outside of LAFD jurisdiction.”
“Well outside,” Santiago agreed, and when he chanced a glance, the corner of her mouth was hooked up, a line of load bearing amusement girding the reprimand. “Unauthorized doesn’t even begin to cover your joyride. If The Uno had not been in distress you would be looking at suspension right now if not outright termination or worse.”
“We got lucky,” he said, that old cockiness bleeding back in.
Santiago’s gaze went sharp, and he forced his expression back to placid stillness.
“You’re such a shit, Kinard.” She pursed her lips, tongue tucked up against her teeth the way it did when she was considering someone. “Explain your thought process to me.”
He hesitated, and hated that he did so. Santiago didn’t set traps for him to fall into. She meant what she said or she wouldn’t have said it.
He exhaled. “I worked with firefighters Han and Wilson for years, and I trust their instincts, especially Wilson. She’s one of our finest.”
“She’s been noticed,” Santiago said, and Tommy felt the faintest prick of pride. There was going to come a day where he got say he knew Hen when.
“Wilson said that something had gone wrong, and I believed her.”
“You should have come to me,” Santiago said.
“I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”
She snorted. “Much better for Simpson to think I have no idea what’s happening in my own house.”
He flinched.
Santiago sighed and pushed off the desk. “Damnit, kid, I can’t have your back if you don’t let me in. I’m not Gerrard. I will never toss you to the wolves.”
Tommy swallowed; she never said what she didn’t mean. “I know.”
“Do you?” Santiago didn’t soften—she was not the kind of woman whose kindness came as comfort—but she caught his eye and said, “There are people I would fly into a hurricane for without hesitation.”
“I owe them,” he said, the words small in his mouth.
“We’ve all heard the shit the 118 gets into. I like Nash. He doesn’t have the usual ego.” That meant that Bobby hadn’t been an asshole to her, still a rarity with the upper brass, who remained skeptical of anyone neither white nor a man. “It anyone deserves the benefit of incredible stupidity and doubt, it’s them.”
Tommy considered that, and Santiago patiently waited for him to finish turning it over. That was one of the things he appreciated most about her, her willingness to give him space to carefully think things through.
“You wouldn’t have officially signed off on it,” he finally said.
“Christ, no. You didn’t have a single shred of actionable intel.” She smiled at his unimpressed look. “But given this was a Cat-5 and we’re still cleaning up after the tsunami, I might have assigned some pilots to patrol along the coast so we could act quickly in the event of any flooding.”
“Oh,” he said.
There was that amusement again, and Santiago reached up and gripped his shoulder. “I told you, I got your back, kid.”
“I know, Cap, but old habits—”
“Die hard.” She gave him a shake. “I don’t want to see you for the next three days. Don’t argue with me. You’re out of flight hours and the coming adrenaline crash is going to lay you out. You good to drive?”
“I live close. I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Get out of here.” She lightly shoved him, waiting until he was at the door before adding, “That was a hell of a flight you pulled off. You’re a good pilot.”
“Thank you, sir.” He let slip nineteen year old Tommy’s grin. “The trick is knowing you’re gonna die.”
Santiago barked out a sharp laugh. “Get the fuck out of my station, Kinard.”
Tommy lifted two fingers in a salute because he was still a cocky shit at heart and got the fuck out of her station.
--
Tommy didn’t even bother pulling his truck into the garage, just parked in the driveway and stumbled to the door, avoiding the one rickety porch step he meant to fix but still hadn’t gotten around to yet. He let himself inside, reflexively sticking his left leg out to prevent Whitlam from making a jailbreak. Whitlam yowled his disapproval and immediately tried to scale his shin. Tommy scooped him up before the claws could come out. Whitlam squirmed and wriggled until Tommy gave in and draped him over his shoulders like a furry, drooling shawl.
“I’m not going to feed you,” he warned Whitlam, who only upped his diesel purr until he was half-deaf in his right ear.
He detoured to the kitchen long enough to drink some water and eat a handful of olives straight from the jar because he was too tired to even pour a bowl of cereal, all with Whitlam studiously grooming his ear and the hair at his temple.
“Time for bed, bud,” Tommy muttered, staggering towards the bedroom where he shed his pants and socks, Whitlam amiably rocking with the motion like an old sailor at sea. There was no getting around the shirt, and so he gently removed Whitlam, who registered his complaint by going boneless and pooling from Tommy’s hands onto his pillow.
“I’m not going to fight you on this one,” he said, falling face first onto the bed. He was out before he even pulled up the covers.
His slept the sleep of the exhausted—dark, dreamless, unmoving—and was shocked awake thirteen hours later by Whitlam lodging his complaint about his late breakfast by lying directly on his face.
“I think you might be kind of dumb,” Tommy said once he lifted Whitlam free. “There is no way you’re getting fed faster if you smother me to death.”
Whitlam, resting place reassigned from Tommy’s face to his chest, settled in for a session of purring and drooling as Tommy gently rubbed fingers along the hollows of his skull, paying particular attention to the spots behind his ears and along his jaw.
By the time Whitlam had decided they procrastinated enough, his phone had just about vibrated itself off his bedside table. He fished it free of the usual detritus of life—the odd gas receipt, lip balm, small bottle of sunscreen—and took one look at the notifications piled up on the lockscreen before tossing it onto the bed.
“We need food and coffee before we tackle that.” He scooped Whitlam into the crook of his arm like a particularly hairy and dumb baby. “What do you say to some breakfast?”
Whitlam scrambled free, leaping to the floor and sprinting so fast towards the kitchen than that he drifted around the corners, claws scrabbling along the hardwood floors Tommy had discovered after a truly terrible weekend pulling up the old carpet.
He followed at a more sedate pace, shoving a hand through his hair and idly scratching his stomach. He really should just give in and get an automatic feeder, but he liked the chore of portioning out Whitlam’s food while Whitlam wove between his feet and did his best to trip him. And it was good for Whitlam to get the social interaction when the girl across the street came to feed and play with him during his longer shifts.
“All right, all right,” he muttered, dancing around where Whitlam went up on his back legs to try to claw the bowl out of his hands. “You act like you’ve never been fed once in your entire life.”
Whitlam was too busy shoving his entire face into the bowl to dignify that with a response. Tommy ran a hand along Whitlam’s spine, clicked on the coffee maker, and went to take a shower.
It wasn’t until he was showered, dressed, fed, and on his second cup of coffee that he braved his phone. Every group text he was in had blown up—no one gossiped like a bored firefighter during a q-word shift—including the one with his old army buddies, who had heard it from a friend of a friend in the Coast Guard. Those were easily dealt with by sending a pic of Whitlam, draped over his shoulders in his post-breakfast daze and grooming his ear, as proof of life.
There were several texts from Donato complaining about how she missed all the fun even though she was the one who insisted on visiting her family. Despite years of therapy, he was constantly baffled by people who actually liked and voluntarily spent time with their family outside of nagging obligation.
More surprising than Donato was a text from Lena Bosco, who had a kick like a mule and blushed every time a woman expressed admiration for her arms. Be careful with the 118. They get attached.
Even through text, her withering tone was clear.
118 was my old house before I transferred, he sent.
During the six minutes it took for Bosco to reply, Tommy finished his coffee and successfully diverted Whitlam’s attention from his ear with a few well placed chin scritches.
That explains a lot about you.
“Ouch,” he said, and then, with more feeling, “Ouch.” Whitlam, displeased his chin scritches had stopped, dug his claws in a little more. “You’re about to lose privileges if you keep that up.”
Whitlam purred and kneaded his shoulder.
“I see you’ve called my bluff. Touché.”
Whitlam purred louder. Shore was right; he was a soft touch.
Well, he put it off long enough. Taking a fortifying breath, he opened the thread he had with York and Shore. He didn’t bother scrolling back, not when the latest was from Shore, in all caps with an inadvisable amount of skull emojis: KINARD YOU ASSHOLE.
Hello to you, too, he sent back. I'm fine, if you were wondering.
We weren’t, York replied.
Tommy barely had enough time to read it before his phone rang. He sighed, and said, “I’m not going to apologize.”
“You absolute asshole,” Shore said, an echo to her words. She was in the hangar.
“So Nancy’s upset,” York said, and then made a pained noise when Shore punched him the shoulder.
“Am I on speaker?” Tommy asked.
“It’s just us,” York said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “We know you’re a wallflower.”
That made him smile for no good reason, even as Shore said, “I cannot believe you didn’t give us a call.”
“It was my old house,” Tommy said instead of it didn’t involve you because that would have ensured Shore physically crawling through the phone to punch his face in. Whitlam grumbled a protest as his resting perch tensed, and Tommy made the conscious effort to relax his shoulders.
“And we’re your current house,” she snapped.
York sighed. “What Nancy means—”
“Oh, I know you’re not about to go putting words in my mouth, Wesley.”
“—is that you don’t have to fly into hurricanes alone.” York paused. “That’s not even a metaphor. Jesus.”
Yeah, that was the effect the 118 had on everyone, even him when he’d been there. Jesus.
“I didn’t want put you in a position where your careers were at risk,” he finally said, careful.
Shore made a deeply offended noise.
“Nancy is taking a lap,” York said after an awkward pause. “While she’s doing that you want to replay that sentence and pinpoint the exact moment you come across as an—hey, Nancy, what is he?”
“An asshole!” Shore shouted in the background; Tommy could perfectly picture the angry cadence of her pacing. She did that a lot in the aftermath of the tsunami, when they were out of flight hours and grounded until they got their federally mandated four hours of rest, too exhausted to fly but too wrung out to sleep.
“Is it the part where I made a decision for you?” he said.
“Ding, ding, ding! Jim, tell him what he’s won!” York’s voice dropped back to his usual register. “We’re big boys and girls. We can decide what to risk our careers for.”
Tommy scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d been out from under Gerrard’s thumb for longer than he’d been under it, but old survival instincts died even harder than old habits. “You’re right. I should have trusted you. I just—” He blew out a breath, frustrated in how to explain it. “I owe them.” It was what he tried to explain to Santiago, what Howie and Hen were to him. What he had been to them: a beaten dog snapping and biting, and then, perhaps, a friend.
“Your survivors club,” Shore said, voice closer, like she snatched the phone out of York’s hand.
“My survivors club,” he agreed.
Five months in, York and Shore had taken him to the nearest ladder bar and asked him if he liked Harbor and poured tequila into him until he had said, drunk but sincere, I love it here. You never had Gerrard.
“Next time,” Shore said firmly, “you call us. We’re your house.”
Tommy’s first instinct was to joke and deflect—Of course I’ll call you next time there’s a hurricane we need to almost kill ourselves flying into—but that was the reflex of a scared kid who had made himself small so his sorry excuse of a father could feel big. Tommy had learned to love that kid no one else had ever bothered to, but he’d grown and he changed and those survival tricks now hurt rather than helped.
He breathed in, and on the exhale said, “You’re my house. Next time, Nancy, I call you.”
“Oh, first name,” York half sang, like they were kids on a playground. “That’s how you know he’s serious.”
“Don’t you have a job you should be doing?” he said, which was when the bell went off, loud even through the shitty phone speaker.
“I swear to god if you jinxed us,” Shore said.
“Send Whitlam pics. We got rights,” said York, and hung up.
Tommy sent over a picture of Whitlam with eyes rolled back in sleep, tongue hanging out and drooling on his shoulder. Two hours later Shore texted, all lower case and lacking any punctuation, asshole i mean u not whitlam he’s perfect, and knew he was forgiven.
--
The thing everyone forgot about big, dramatic rescues was that they always came to an end and you were forced back to regular life and all the chores that waited: laundry and dishes and cleaning Whitlam’s litterbox. He was taking the latter out to the garbage bin when his phone once gain buzzed.
Package successfully delivered, he fished his phone from his pocket. For the first time in over a year, Howie had resurrected their survivors club chat. Hey tommy what are u doing tonight? We owe you a beer.
You owe me more than a beer, he replied, avoiding the bad porch step out of habit.
2 beers?
He snorted, ducking down and scooping up Whitlam when he tried to make a run for it. “You’re very predictable. Ever considered switching up your tactics by trying literally anything else?”
Whitlam bit his chin.
“You’re lucky you’re cute.” He released Whitlam to do his customary post-shit laps.
To Howie he texted, You owe me a steak dinner for flying into the hurricane and a weekend in Vegas for landing on a capsized ship.
Why, Mr. Kinard, how forward, Howie responded. But u should know my hand is spoken for.
Before he could respond with an appropriate quote from Pride and Prejudice—the Colin Firth version, of course—Hen texted, Unlike you, we have kids. A beer is all we can afford.
His eyebrows jumped up. Howie, you have a kid?
Her name is Jee-Yun, and she is the light of my life that once didn’t let me sleep for 49 hours.
Who would give you a kid? he sent.
Wouldn’t u like to know, Howie responded with—was that a winky face emoji? Are u in? I’ll even bring Eddie so there’s someone worse at pool than u.
Tommy rolled his eyes. I play a good game.
Howie’s response was a succinct, if insulting, row of laughing-crying emojis, which only served to make him nostalgic for the days before texting when you had to actually call someone to make fun of them. Christ, he was old.
How are you so bad at figuring out angles? Hen said. You have to know math to be a pilot.
I don’t know why you think this is convincing me to go drinking with you, he replied.
U love us, Howie said.
Whatever you need to tell yourself. He hesitated, stomach knotting like he was fourteen again and Michael Giri had just smiled at him in English class. Jesus, Kinard, get it together. So I should expect the entire 118 squad?
It was, he reflected as the chat went silent, more embarrassingly obvious than if he had just outright asked if Evan was going to be there.
It was Hen who broke the silence. Shaw’s. 7p. First round is on Chim.
Only the first round, Howie responded. I’ve got a kid to send to college some day.
We all got kids to send to college, Hen replied.
See you there, he responded.
He got two thumbs up back.
“Well,” he said to Whitlam who had completed his laps and was now snoring in a sunbeam, “I guess I’m going out.”
--
Shaw’s was a popular ladder bar where the staff didn’t blink at two men half undressing to show off their scars. It was far enough from Harbor and his house that it rarely made the drive worth it, and it meant less of a chance to run into Howie and Hen. Not that was particularly likely given they both had kids. He still couldn’t believe Howie had a daughter. Howie had always been good with kids on a call, coaxing out smiles under the most nightmarish of circumstances, but that skillset didn’t always transfer over to children of your own. He should know.
“Yo, Tommy!” Howie called, waving from a corner table.
He crossed to them, avoiding the clumped crowd around the pool tables, catching the chair Hen kicked towards him and eyeing the bottles on the table. “You started without me?”
“You don’t have kids, but trust me when I say you do not take a night out for granted,” Howie said.
“Who said I don’t have a kid?” Tommy said, keeping his expression placid.
“You do not. Wait.” Howie leaned forward, stabbing an accusatory finger at his face. “Please tell me there isn’t a tiny Kinard running around.”
Even Hen, who was always good at clocking his bullshit, furrowed her brow like she couldn’t quite suss him out.
Tommy finally cracked a smile. “I’m the only Kinard around.”
“Thank god,” Howie said, and slid a bottle towards him. “Got you one of your terrible beers.”
“I see you still have the palette of a nineteen year old,” he said dryly, taking a drink. It wasn’t a bad choice. Maybe Howie’s palette was improving.
“I ordered,” Hen said.
Maybe not.
“Where’s Diaz?” Tommy asked.
“Got stuck in traffic after dropping Chris off,” Howie said. “His son.”
Tommy intellectually knew that he was at the age where the majority of his peers were settling down and going about the business of raising the next generation, but it was still shock to look around and seeing most everyone he knew doing exactly that. The Howie he’d known back in their shared 118 days hadn’t been able to keep a girlfriend longer than three months. But then Howie had known a Tommy playing straight from so deep in the closet he had weekly tea date with Mr. Tumnus. But now Howie had a daughter and Tommy had brought his last boyfriend to Harbor’s holiday party. They were so far from who they used to be they might as well be different people on a different planet.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s see ’em.”
Hen and Howie don’t need to be told twice. Hen was faster on the draw, and Tommy’s leaned forward, elbows braced on the table to better see the pictures.
“Jesus, he’s a full on teenager now,” Tommy said. Denny still had at least one more growth spurts before he was done, but already his face was losing its baby softness. Kid was going to have a hell of a jawline when puberty was finished with him.
“I know.” Hen’s express was fond and wistful. “No idea when that happened.”
“I remember when he was small enough to fit in my hand.” It was one of few times Karen had come to the station, Denny in a sling across her chest. Tommy didn’t have strong feelings about babies—unlike Shore, who had responded with a blunt oh, no thank you when offered baby Singh to hold—but he’d been game to take the kid to give Karen and Hen a break; Hen had confessed that she got more sleep during twenty-four hour shifts than she did at home. He’d been surprised at Denny’s tender, dense weight in his arms.
“And I remember how he spit up on Chim,” Hen said with a grin.
“He was a champion spitter upper,” Chim agreed. “Got me right in the face once.”
Tommy swiped to the next photo. Denny grinning with a small girl half hidden behind him.
“Mara.” Hen’s voice dropped, not quite hushed, but gentler.
“Your daughter?” he asked, although it was obvious.
“Our foster daughter, but yes, we want to adopt. Here.” Hen flipped through until she got to one where Mara was smiling, gaze directed somewhere beyond the camera.
“She’s cute.” What Mara was was happy, and Tommy dropped his voice to match Hen’s. “You and Karen are good parents.”
Hen’s gaze was heavy but not unkind, and for a moment the years slipped away and Tommy was back on the 118’s floor and Hen was demanding their respect. She always saw more than any of them.
“Thank you,” she said, answering all the things he hadn’t said.
He bumped his shoulder into hers.
“Okay, we’ve all seen Denny,” Howie said, earning himself a kick to the ankle judging by his wince. “This is Jee-Yun.”
Jee-Yun was soft cheeked and adorable with bright eyes and a wide grin, and Howie adored her. Howie was the kind of father to carefully cut Jee’s food into small pieces and walked stooped over so he could hold her hand and listen to her babble and peer curiously at whatever caught her attention. He was the kind of dad Tommy never got.
“She takes after you,” Tommy said as Howie flipped through the album.
“She gets the smile from her mother,” Howie said. “This is Maddie.”
Maddie was dark haired and dark eyed, and her cheek was pressed to Jee’s little fat one, the two grinning and squinting against the sun, Jee with her mother’s smile.
“Maddie is Buck’s sister,” Hen said, so casual it had to be deliberate. She tipped the bottle back and drank.
Tommy glanced back at the photo. He would never have guessed Evan and Maddie were related if he hadn’t been told. There weren’t many similarities—hair was different, bone structure, too, even the shape of their noses—but the smile, the shape and the brightness, that was the same in all three: Evan and Maddie and Jee.
“Huh,” he said, and relinquished Howie’s phone back to him.
“You started without me?” Diaz asked, pulling out the last chair and snagging a beer for himself.
“I am not wasting my one night out,” Howie said.
Diaz made a face and then said, “Oh, are we doing pictures? This is Chris.”
Tommy bit back a sigh as another phone was shoved in his face. He liked kids, especially his friends’ kids, but there were only so many pictures he could make the appropriate noises over and comment on how cute the kid was before he lost his mind. Last baby shower—that time for Wendell and their partner—he, Wu, and Shore had ended up in the kitchen for a breather before venturing back out for more baby talk.
But he wasn’t a complete asshole, not anymore at least, and so politely made the right noises as Diaz proudly showed off his kid. It wasn’t like he had to fake enthusiasm; Chris was a cute kid; it was easy to see Diaz in the line of Chris’ jaw and the shape of his eyes.
“Oh, I forgot about this one,” Diaz said.
Tommy blinked back in to a photo of Evan and Chris grinning with a boa snake draped over their shoulders.
“They go to the zoo a lot,” Diaz said in answer to Tommy’s raised eyebrows. “Buck’s got an in with the zookeepers.”
He filed that away. “So do you all use Evan for free babysitting?”
Evan, Howie obnoxiously mouthed to Hen.
“It’s not using if he offers,” Diaz said.
Hen shrugged when he looked to her for confirmation.
“Huh,” Tommy said, and finished his beer. “Where is Evan?”
“It’s a Buckley night,” Howie said, that same breezy tone as he when he made the Maurice crack and still just as fake. “Just Buck, Maddie, and Jee. I’d say they’re watching movies, but given Buck and Maddie’s truly tragic lack of film knowledge, they’re probably playing a game.”
“More likely they’re drinking when Jee’s in bed,” Hen said, adding for his benefit, “You sneak in time around the kids when you can.”
“I cannot wait until Jee starts kindergarthen,” Howie said. “Maybe that will finally tire her out to sleep for a full night.”
“You’re gonna cry like a baby when she does go,” Diaz said in the tone of a man speaking from experience. “You’ll miss the days when she was always underfoot.”
Howie made a face. “She pops up like a monster in a horror movie. A cute monster,” he hastened to add.
“Enough kid talk,” Hen declared. “We’re boring our guest of honor.”
Tommy shrugged and took another swing of beer. “I don’t mind.”
“Everyone minds after awhile,” Diaz said, companionably nudging Tommy’s arm.
“Not everyone.” Howie had that grin that meant he thought he was being clever. Tommy braced himself. “Buck loves kids.”
Diaz tipped his bottle towards Howie. “He really does.”
Tommy squinted suspiciously at them and their suspiciously innocent expressions. The whole thing had the vibe of meeting the boyfriend’s family only without the boyfriend.
“Okay,” he said, shifting his feet apart in case he needed to push up and out for a quick exit. Old habits. He forced himself to lean back. “What is this about?”
“Just buying an old friend a beer,” Hen said in a passable imitation of his voice. “Thought you would be a little more grateful.”
He grinned and, following Diaz’s example, tipped his bottle at her.
“That was impressive flying,” Diaz said, tone generous with the compliment. “Where did you learn?”
“Army, actually,” he said, keeping his expression bland in the face of Hen and Howie’s interest. He’d been so careful and militant in never letting anything personal slip in fear of drawing Gerrard’s attention that he never said anything true at all. Even when Gerrard was gone, the habit was too ingrained for him to do more than dole out the occasional crumb. The closest he came to opening up was with Sal, but even then he was still lying, if only by omission. “Did a couple of tours in Afghanistan.”
“No shit,” said Diaz. “Me too. Did two tours over there.”
“Everyone did a tour there, even the kids who hadn’t been born when this started.” He gave Diaz a speculative look.
“How young do you think I am?” Diaz demanded, laughing a little at Tommy’s raised eyebrows. “I have a kid.”
“You were a child bride,” Howie said.
“I was eighteen.” Diaz’s tone was a touch defensive, and Howie held up his hands, palms turned out. Diaz’s attention turned back to him, and Tommy could see him doing the math in his head: the standard contract for an Army pilot, how long he’d known Hen and Howie, his tenure with the LAFD. “When did you get out?”
Now it was Tommy’s turn to do the math. “Close to fifteen years ago. Medical discharge.”
Diaz whistled. “That during the Taliban resurgence?”
Tommy snorted. “When wasn’t there a resurgence? Caught some flak over Kandahar during an evac. Got us out of there, but I caught a round in the side. Hit my spleen and I needed surgery to remove it and stop the internal bleeding, and then the whole thing got infected.” The resulting scar wasn’t pretty, but it appealed to a certain type of guy. Evan was a firefighter; he probably appreciated a good scar.
“Jesus,” Howie said quietly, and Tommy found himself sharing a look with Diaz, grateful to have someone who understood. “So that got you kicked out?”
“Discharged,” he and Diaz corrected at the same time. He hesitated a moment; old habits died hard but they did die. “I probably could have stayed on, but my captain heard a rumor that command was going to open up a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell investigation. I decided to take the discharge and keep my benefits.”
He watched as Hen and Howie did the calculus—his father, DADT, Gerrard—and solved for x. He was an asshole who snapped at every offered hand, and the fact he bit out of fear didn’t make it better.
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Diaz said. “It was repealed right before I enlisted.”
Tommy finished off his beer; his throat was dry. “Christ, you’re making me feel old.”
“Imagine how we feel,” Howie said lightly. “Hey, child bride, go get the next round.”
Diaz rolled his eyes but made his way to the bar without further complaint.
“You know what’s funny?” he said before Hen could say his name in that fucking awful gentle way of hers. “I did my probie year at the Nine-Nine.”
“I didn’t know that,” Hen said.
“The 118 was down a couple of guys, and I got seconded to fill in. It was supposed to be temporary, but Gerrard liked me.” He kept his tone ironic rather than bitter. “Posting became permanent.”
“And you got stuck there,” Howie said.
“We all got stuck there.” Hen held out her drink. “To us survivors.”
“I’d drink to that,” he said, gamefully tapping his empty bottle to Hen’s and then Howie’s, “but I'm dry.”
Howie tipped his head back. “Hey, child bride, where’s our drinks?”
“This better not be a thing,” Diaz called back, heading their way with a pitcher.
Tommy took in Howie’s smirk. “Sorry, man, but it’s definitely a thing.”
Diaz rolled his eyes, and once he poured them fresh glasses, they toasted properly: to the survivors of the old 118.
