Work Text:
Breckenridge is not a place that misses people. Footprints fade away into the snow. Echoes fade from the air. It’s the kind of place where you could walk into the woods and never be found. Agan can take the same path every day and every day it’s unchanged, not in the way that the parts of Hawai’i in perpetual Friday are but in the way you don’t notice a tree’s rings growing. Changes and memories are slow and methodical. Seasons ago that was comforting, to have a place and know that the impact they make on it is minimal, that during the regular season they would have to say the entirety of what they wanted from the bakery, that they could slip out of memory without disruption.
That stops being comforting when they meet Amal. They meet at a three day CPR and medic training. Agan introduces themself the first day and Amal introduces himself back and the next day Amal makes a genuine effort to remember their name. On the day after he manages to get that it starts with an A and Agan gives him their number and they get to know each other better.
Agan learns that Amal quilts, that Amal knows the local snowshoe maker and makes sure his little cousins get snowshoes fitted for them. They find that Amal can tell you what species a tree is or tell you if a flower makes good tea. Amal remembers to show up to their first date and then their second and then their third. Amal comes to Jazz Hands games if they’re at the Pocket. Amal comes to the jazz quartet invitationals every year even though he prefers folk music.
They talk together about how to keep Agan in his memory and, when they move in together, end up with a wall covered in post-it notes. Amal keeps a journal and a scrapbook and always surprises Agan by bringing up something they'd mentioned; a movie they wanted to watch or a food they wanted to try making. Amal can always identify Agan by their wedding ring and Agan learns to love the light of recognition in his eyes.
They talk with Amal at the beginning of each season, even going into season 12. As teams go, the Jazz Hands are stable. Three deaths, a few Feedbacks, some trades from elections. They talk about incineration. They update their living will. They’re not a good enough pitcher to be targeted for a trade. They don't think about Feedback.
They're not thinking about Feedback when Combs Estes is pitching and they're in the dugout, when the whine starts and reverberates in the tiny bones in their ears, when the thrum takes over their chest, when they resonate at 480 Hertz like a tuning fork struck against a desk, like a powerline interfering with a radio, like a piece of laminated paper wobbling too fast. They don't process until they hear the crackle static. They aren't paying attention to the game. The details of it fall through their fingers like sand and for the first time they understand what it's like for people to try and remember them.
What they do know is that Mx. Chicago speaks to them. She says through the Dispatch that there's a place for them in Chicago, that Chicago is a city that remembers and takes care of its own. That she will remember them. That the Firefighters will learn, like the Jazz Hands learned. That what they do will matter.
They had thought, in the few times they’d thought about Feedback, that if they were given a choice it would be painful. Breckenridge had been their home for so many years. They’d taught a third of the kids in town how to ski. They helped all the new arrivals pick an instrument. But no one ever recognizes them in the streets and they think maybe it would be nice to be appreciated by people other than their husband.
And they say yes and the static intensifies and their bones rattle and then they are From Chicago, on the mound. The static of the Dispatch loud in the back of their head and through the heart of them and they still feel that tone straight through their body. There's a sense of heat and smoke and an equal sense of fresh air and cool water, feeding and soothing all at once.
They pitch. They do not know what else to do.
Later, after the game, they call Amal to make sure he knows. They talk about moving to Chicago. They talk about them becoming a Firefighter. They talk about them leaving the Jazz Hands and slipping away from the memories of the team they’ve been with since baseball’s return. They get leave from the shifts they’re already scheduled for to go home to Breckenridge. They and Amal make plans that get written out, photocopied, and laminated. They help pack their lives into boxes. They go back to Chicago to find a place to live, to get training that’s different from the Mountain Search and Rescue certification they have, to remind the rest of the Firefighters that they’re on the schedule. They’re still there when Joshua Butt dies.
Agan sticks to the outskirts of the funeral. They write a thank you note to Joshua for making an effort to double check that they were put on the schedule and for steering them towards a good apartment. They very carefully set it ablaze, bury the ashes outside the Firehouse, and hope that if they game too takes them that their teammates will do something similar to cement their memory in their minds.
During the break between seasons they ask Amal how he keeps records and bring that advice to work. When season 13 begins, they make sure the people who are on duty have something nice in their lockers when they come back from their shifts. They switch from active fire fighting to vehicle maintenance, to the invisible work that makes a firehouse function. They sweep floors and hang hoses and check gear for cracks and write up inventory reports. They keep to the same schedule. Four days on, one day off before they pitch, one day pitching. It takes adjustment. Amal forgets what day they’re at home and waits for an hour for them to come home for dinner. Agan forgets to text to make sure Amal knows if they’re staying late. They have several long arguments about Chicago, about the Call, about work life balance, about the game and all the while the Dispatch crackles in the back of their head like a ghost.
Agan sets up a piece of paper on the fridge with five options: Agan is Pitching (Home), Agan is In The City, Agan is Pitching (Away), Agan is On Shift, Agan is Home. They move a magnet before they leave and when they come back to signal where they are. Amal puts a new weekly schedule up with the days Agan is pitching marked and the days they have off. Agan leaves him a letter in the morning if they’re on a late shift and Amal makes sure they know where they’re getting lunch and dinner before they leave.
The schedule is good. The schedule helps the other Firefighters remember who they are.
That’s why they keep to the schedule when Combs Estes dies on Day 98. They take Day 99 to go to the funeral and a red eye back home because even if there aren’t games they still have to work. They write that Combs had a quick wit and a quicker temper, that they hated having to bat, that they loved to give a show, that they fit in with the Jazz Hands better than they ever had with the Steaks. They write that Combs always invited Amal to the season afterparty and wrote their name on their hand until they remembered it. They tear the note in two and bury half outside the Steakhouse and stuff the other half in a crack in the wall of the community theater in Breckenridge and hope that if the game too takes them that their teammates will do something similar to cement their memory in their minds.
But Chicago, true to her promise, remembers them. They can feel it when they take the same train three days in a row and the station feels warmer. They don’t trip on curbs. Sometimes they get on a train late at night and end up at a station that’s been closed for years, still echoing with music, and they always leave some money for buskers long past. They talk to the city when they walk, even if it’s not about anything. They describe their toolbox while they’re at the corner store making sure they have snacks in case someone has a hard shift. They talk about Amal while they’re wandering, trying to learn the city by feel. They take Amal to half forgotten restaurants and overgrown parks. They find a new favorite bakery and the person on shift on their day off begins to recognize their name, if not them. Ike remembers what they get on their pizza nine times out of ten. When they're in Breckenridge for away games see that nothing has withered in their absence and when they return to Chicago they find cookies in a tin in their locker with a note from Lou.
And, when Chicago calls for them, they fight fires.