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A voice from far away jolted Johnny into startled wakefulness. It sounded like Chet, or maybe Marco--“Come on, wake up! You’re gonna be late!”
He opened his eyes to see the clock, which said 5:11 a.m. He remembered noticing the clock hit 5 a.m. He must have fallen into some state like sleep for those eleven minutes, he thought groggily.
Everyone else in the dorm was sound asleep, and the panic from that voice jostled along every nerve in his aching body. He knew that if only it had been real—had been the tones going off for a run—he’d be fine, be able to push the heaviness in his chest down and away, use the adrenaline to focus on the map, the lights, the task ahead—
—but this quiet nothingness unnerved him. It was misery, and boredom, and deep exhaustion all at once.
He thought about getting up to watch the cars on the highway out in the back, or sort the med box, or putter in the kitchen, or sit on the couch and have something different to stare at, but he’d tried all that already, and the heaviness made him not want to move, even as the anxious thrumming kept him awake and kept any kind of soothing, calming thoughts far from his head. Nope, only the shaky thoughts and memories seemed possible to entertain—
—the look in that one MVA victim’s eyes as she’d turned from side to side in frantic restlessness, trying to escape the agony inside her—
—the explosion three seconds after they’d stumbled out the building, that had pushed them roughly to the concrete, the jumpiness in his partner after that, Roy’s wide-eyes and scattered glances and the cut on his forehead—it had turned out to be only a mild injury, he tried to remind himself—that had made Johnny’s heart jump and something in him go “no!” and want to pull Roy far away from any danger right then and tend to him. He’d done just that, and only that could have given him any calm then—
Funny thing was, all those memories were there, available, and at the same time nothing felt real. It was like he’d gone into some other world, maybe from one of those awful movies Chet liked, or the stories he’d gotten started reading when he was a teenager.
Maybe since he couldn’t sleep his dreams were finding him anyway. Maybe he was losing his mind.
Could he even hold onto sanity if this kept on? Uncontrollable catnaps that lasted only a few minutes long were not enough. Far underneath the surface shakiness was a deep fear that sleep would stay elusive and rare, that he’d never not feel like this, that he’d be incapacitated, unable to come back to work, exiled from this place and these people.
The dread of that was knotting the muscles in his neck and giving him a sick feeling in his gut. He looked around at the darkened dorm room, at everyone slumbering, seeking solace in the sight, but the sensations remained, intensified.
If he’d had hope that after his shift he could sleep at his apartment, he might feel better, but he knew another hell awaited him there, that the worries and unrealities would find him and there’d be no hope of the tones saving him from it all, of taking refuge in talking with Roy or Chet or Cap or any of them, or even the aching peace of seeing them protected in sleep.
He looked at the clock again, watched as the doom of the end of shift approached. Contrasting sharply with the darkness in the dorm, brightly colored stringy swirly lights danced around and inside the clock, and he rubbed his eyes, which made it worse.
He stared at the clock, not seeing it, and knew with a devastating certainty it had gotten too bad, he’d gone past a threshold with this, an unreturnable point, and he couldn’t function anymore, couldn’t be of any use anymore to anyone.
The floor was sinking, a relentless weight, pulling him down, and he feared for a moment he wouldn’t be able to get up and do what he needed to do.
*
Hank often woke before the morning tones, and when he did he was glad of it. It gave him a chance to check his people and adjust fully to the day before the comforting chaos of morning groans and races for the showers. Often, he didn’t even get out of bed, just lay there listening to even breathing and soft snores.
This time, though, he noticed someone standing nearby, waiting, and opened bleary eyes to see John. He stood tense and wired, and also hesitant and reluctant, as though trying to be careful not to wake him or anyone, and—he didn’t look good. Those sharp shoulders were bent, and it looked like John didn’t know what to do with his hands as they nervously fiddled with the suspenders of his bunker pants.
“John?” Hank muttered, still waking up.
“Cap, uh, I wanted to tell you somethin’—” John whispered, and sounded about as bad as he looked.
Hank didn’t like the sound of this. “Is it urgent?” He meant, did he need to jump up right this second and stop some catastrophe. He didn’t have to explain this—they all knew how to understand each other after having to communicate under duress and rapidly on the job.
“Um, not exactly—but I think it’d be good to take the squad out of service.”
Uh oh. “OK then. You call that in. Lemme get dressed and we’ll talk in my office.”
John nodded and retreated.
*
“It’s bad again,” Hank said to John who sat across from him, jittery with a desperate look in his shadowed eyes.
“Yeah, it is. I didn’t—couldn’t—sleep, and it wasn’t much different last shift.”
“What about in between, when you were home?”
The desolate look in those brown eyes already told him before the stuttered words. “I—uh, see—uh, not really. Maybe an hour or two, spread out at night.” John sat up straight with visible effort and his eyes became determined. “I wanna use some vacation time for the next shift or—or two. I don’t think it’s gonna get better for a while and I don’t think I’ll be in any shape to work by next shift.” He paused. “I just thought I’d let you know so Roy’d be set with another paramedic, so you wouldn’t have to scramble.”
“I appreciate that, John.” Hank took a deep breath, feeling helpless. John’s manner indicated that right now he didn’t anticipate returning to work for a long time, didn’t see any way out of misery he was in. “I’ll make those arrangements.” And we’ll talk later about whether that should be sick leave instead, he thought. In fact, Hank would talk with Dr. Early about that, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up with the exhausted paramedic in front of him. “But John—” he spoke with his Captain voice, and Johnny stared back a little scared, but he had the man’s attention, “I want you back, and soon. I want you to get help with this.”
They’d already had this conversation, after it had all stopped being a topic for station merriment and a jokingly decorated stokes, after they’d had to peel John, caught in some twilight state between awake and asleep, from the back of the engine.
Johnny was dead set against sedatives as a long-term remedy, and he’d been talking with someone Joe Early had recommended, and Joe himself, who agreed, and they’d recommended a number of alternate strategies. But Hank knew the stresses of the job could do this to people, and that Johnny was worn out, at the end of his rope.
“I will, Cap. I’ll make an appointment.”
“Good. But meanwhile—is it a good idea for you to be on your own right now?”
John huffed a grim laugh. “Probably not. I feel—kinda weird. An’ I’m—I’m hearing and seeing things, like I’m trying to dream without actually being asleep.”
Hank nodded. He’d known a few firefighters who’d dealt with insomnia and had heard how bad it could get.
“But I don’t want to burden anybody. I figure if I just stay in my apartment I’ll—I’ll eventually just have to sleep.” John’s voice held a forlorn hope and Hank knew that he didn’t believe what he was saying.
It was officially out of his purview as Captain, but Hank was worried. “John. We look out for each other. We’ll figure something out. You aren’t going to face this alone.”
John looked both ready to protest and stunned with gratitude.
“No arguments, John,” Cap spoke gruffly, using his full Captain authority-voice.
*
John was obviously embarrassed but none of them let that stop them and Hank oversaw the conversation around the day room table.
Roy volunteered first, of course. “Jo and I want you to come stay with us.”
John’s eyes flashed sharp when he objected. “No, Roy! If it’s bad—if I don’t know what’s happening—I can’t do that to you both, can’t be around the kids. One of the symptoms of sleep deprivation is irritability. I don’t want to yell at all of you.”
Chet spoke up. “Come with me. You’ve already got plenty reason to yell at me, so it works out fine.”
John covered his face with his hands as he laughed at that, and Hank thought he was close to crying.
“You don’t have to put up with Chet, you know. You’re welcome with me,” Marco said then.
“Or me,” Mike added.
John looked up with that same stunned gratitude.
“And my wife would love to have an appreciative audience for her casserole experimentation,” Hank added, trying to lighten the mood—Johnny was clearly deeply uncomfortable with this entire conversation centering around him. “And the fact that you’ll eat almost anything is a definite plus.”
*
In the end, John insisted on returning to his apartment for now, but it was decided: they’d take turns staying with him and getting him to Dr. Early and the intern who was specializing in certain consequences of work-related trauma.
The mental math of figuring out how to get both John and his vehicle to his apartment without him driving—even John admitted that wasn’t a good idea in his current state—had been daunting that early in the morning. Ultimately it had involved Chet and Roy both, and oddly it had been John who’d broken through his uneasiness at all the trouble on his behalf and had offered the least complex solution. Hank and Roy had had a few quiet conversations about how confounding John’s mind could be, capable at times of piecing together ingenious and rapid solutions and capable of thoughts that defied any logic they knew of.
Hank had been keeping a keen eye on John ever since their talk in the office, and had seen him go from tentative and apologetic to jumpy to determined to about ready to slink under the dayroom table from the mortification of having his troubles revealed. All through it, it had seemed like Johnny wasn’t entirely with them, like he was slipping away and seeing and hearing what they couldn’t. That might not be far from the truth, Hank thought ruefully, remembering the reading he’d done about what happened to a person who missed as much sleep as John had.
He was glad, then, to note an ease in John’s tension as he headed out, Roy’s hand steady on his back, as Roy bundled him into the passenger seat of John’s own Rover. Hank watched Roy drive out the lot, and Chet follow in Roy’s car, and let out a deep breath. John was safe, and he’d be OK, somehow, eventually.
He wrote himself a note then to ask his wife about making one of those fancy casseroles.