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In spite of his physical presence in the hospital, staring at Johnny’s impossibly still body, watching his chest rise and fall only the smallest amounts as shallow breaths seeped in and out, Roy’s mind remained back at their most recent rescue. His feet were planted firmly on the hospital’s clean tile floors, but he could feel the wind on top of the tall building he’d just been at, could hear the cars whizzing by so very far below him.
He remembered rushing his partner along: “C’mon, Johnny, let’s go.” He remembered asking a question about the ropes: “You wanna take this line over to him?”
It should have stuck out to him that Johnny’s answer (“Uh… no, send it down,”) was slow, uncertain, but it didn’t. Roy knew that at one point he’d felt that something was off, had finally asked Johnny if he was okay, and although he’d been sluggish and sweating, Johnny had said yeah, had confirmed that he was okay.
It was the next moment that was stuck on a loop, repeating over and over in Roy’s mind: Johnny’s body, suddenly limp, offering no resistance as he slid off the side of the uneven scaffolding, his helmet plummeting to the ground while his body hung in the air, tethered to the roof by what Roy now worried was a rather flimsy rope.
Cap hadn’t wasted any time calling for help, and the engine crew had been prompt in tying off Johnny's rope and preparing one for Roy. But still Roy wondered if they’d done enough to help his partner. And how had Roy himself not noticed that something was wrong? How had he not told Johnny, who’d openly admitted to playing with that damn monkey of Jenny Hollister’s, that the younger man couldn’t possibly be the one to go down the side of the building and tend to the patient? Alright, so he’d gone down when Johnny was hanging helplessly in midair, had probably saved his life, but still, why had he waited until Johnny was unconscious?
Roy was jolted out of his memories and back into Johnny’s hospital room when the telephone next to him rang, causing him to jump. Dr. Early, who stood over Johnny’s slowly failing body, nodded at Roy to answer the phone. “Uh, Fireman Roy DeSoto,” Roy said into the receiver. The voice on the other end rang in his ears as he struggled to comprehend their words. “Yeah. I’ll pass that on,” he said, hollow. He hung up the phone slowly, dragging the moment out, because the moment he said the news out loud, everything would feel worse. The others in the room turned to him expectantly. His mask and gown were suddenly stifling, impossibly itchy.
“Tim Duntley just died.”
Dr. Early and the nurses didn’t acknowledge this news except by working faster. Johnny still stared at the ceiling and tried to swallow around the thermometer tucked in the side of his mouth; Roy wasn’t sure if he’d heard the news or not, and if he had heard it, Roy wasn’t sure he was in a state of mind to process it. He didn’t have much time to consider it as Dr. Early tasked him with finding Dr. Morton for him, but truth be told, Roy was relieved to get out of this horribly ill room.
He found the doctor in the waiting room, speaking softly to Tim's wife. Roy felt bad pulling Dr. Morton away from Mattie, but he realized quickly that she didn’t mind as much as he did.
Once the doctor was gone, Roy took a tentative step toward Mattie and tried to convey how sorry he was. That word didn't capture the enormity of what he was feeling, but it was as close as he could get. He wondered for a moment if he should call home and ask his wife, Joanne, to come to the hospital and spend some time with Mattie. He hated seeing her like this, but more than that, Roy hated that Johnny didn’t have anyone to be as crushed by his death as Mattie was by Tim’s. Maybe that was horrible of him, to wish that kind of pain on some hypothetical woman, but it was also horrible that a life so full and young and positive as Johnny’s wouldn’t be mourned so deeply as Tim’s.
Roy stepped away, telling himself to stop thinking like that. Johnny wouldn't die. He couldn't. There would be no need for anyone to mourn.
Roy fell into a chair in the waiting room. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, how many familiar faces he’d exchanged meaningless pleasantries with, when Dixie appeared. “Is he okay? Johnny?” He asked; Roy wasn’t particularly religious, but he was praying for good news all the same.
“Fading,” Dixie answered hesitantly. “Brackett, too.” So caught up was he with Johnny’s condition, Roy had nearly forgotten that Brackett was also bedridden, fighting a fever at least as high as Johnny’s. Despite her close friendship with Brackett, Dixie didn’t seem as preoccupied and unable to focus as Roy was. She turned to Jenny’s father, who was seated just a few chairs down from Roy. “Only your daughter seems to be showing any signs of recovery.” He had the grace not to look too relieved, knowing that both Dixie and Roy were facing great losses themselves in Dr. Brackett and Johnny. Dixie looked back at Roy. “Your partner’s waiting for you in the squad.”
The efficiency of the L.A. County Fire Department , he thought, standing. How quickly they’d found a replacement for Johnny and had him ready and waiting at the very hospital where Johnny lay, fever rising by the minute. “My temporary partner,” Roy said to no one. Because John Gage had been his partner, his only partner, since Station 51 had been in service and since even before paramedics had been allowed to administer treatments in the field. And dammit, he would be his partner as long as Roy continued being a paramedic.
Roy’s feet carried him down the hall and outside of the hospital. He’d been out this door a thousand times in the past two years he’d been a paramedic, and every one of those times, he’d gotten into Squad 51 next to Johnny. He approached the squad cautiously, unsure who would be waiting for him.
Roy almost choked. There, in the passenger seat where Johnny should have been, was Tom Wheeler. He was a nice enough guy, Roy knew, and good at the job. But every time Roy heard Tom’s name, all he thought of was how agitated Johnny had been a few months back when Tom’s face was plastered all over every newspaper in the city. Of course, a few weeks later, Johnny had a gleeful smile back on his lips when Tom very nearly fell out of a tree at a rescue they’d all been at together, but Roy remembered the publicity debacle better than the narrowly avoided plummet from an unsteady branch.
Finally registering Roy’s presence outside the squad, Tom looked up from the paper in his hands. Johnny would have been just thrilled to know that this particular paper didn’t include a single picture of Tom, nor any descriptions of his trivial rescues.
“Roy,” Tom said, setting the paper aside. “I’m sorry about Johnny. How are you?”
Roy felt suddenly defensive. “I never touched that monkey.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized Tom hadn’t been asking about the virus, but about Roy’s mental state. Roy sighed inwardly. He’d answered Tom’s question, in a way; clearly, he was not doing well at all. “I’m… fine. Worried about Johnny, is all.”
Tom nodded knowingly. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Roy. There are too many beautiful nurses in that hospital he hasn’t made a pass at; he wouldn’t let that virus take him out before he gets a date with Marilyn Tate in pediatrics.”
Under normal circumstances, Roy would’ve made a similar joke. Not today, though. Not with Tim Duntley in the morgue and Johnny not so far behind. Roy forced a smile anyway, to let Tom know there would be no awkwardness between the temporary partners.
Tom shifted in his seat. “I think you usually drive- I can, if you’re not feeling up to it, but I thought you might prefer to keep things as normal as they can be right now.”
That was more thoughtful than Roy expected from Tom. Maybe all those rescues of his that the newspaper had reported to the masses hadn’t been as performative as Johnny believed, or maybe the near death experience in the tree had transformed him. Maybe Tom was just that nice of a guy. Roy vaguely remembered an instance at the hospital a couple months ago between Johnny and Tom; Tom had insisted that his recognition was a result of his charisma, which Johnny, Tom had asserted, must have lacked. Maybe this was more of Tom’s self-proclaimed charisma. “I can drive,” Roy mumbled.
The ride back to the station was quieter than usual. There was no Johnny nattering on about some girl who wouldn’t go on a date with him, or needling Roy about whatever popped into Johnny’s mind at that particular moment in time. There was just Roy and Tom, quiet and uncomfortable.
When they arrived back at the station, Roy was unsurprised to see Chet waiting for him, his eyebrows knit together in concern. Roy was barely out of the squad before Chet was asking about Johnny’s condition.
“He’s… The virus is one-of-a-kind, Chet; we can’t predict what might happen.” That answer didn’t satisfy, Roy could tell. “Dixie said he was fading. But they’ve got doctors and scientists from here to Atlanta trying to find a treatment. Johnny might be fine.”
Chet frowned, still unconvinced. “We heard about Tim Duntley.”
Tom stepped forward. “Duntley was in the house longer than Gage was, and he probably got closer to the monkey, too. Besides, in cases like these, every passing moment makes a difference. Atlanta is that much closer to finding a cure now than they were when Duntley died.”
Roy hated that Tom was better able to soothe Chet than he was. He felt a stab of jealousy. Chet was Roy’s friend, not Tom’s, after all. The discomfort at this interaction disappeared as suddenly as it had come one. Roy was stressed about Johnny, not about Tom and Chet. There was no reason to dwell on this moment. Roy wasn’t entirely in his right mind, and Tom was.
Chet meandered off to the locker room while the paramedics went to the kitchen in search of some coffee. No sooner had they passed through the doorway than Cap, Mike, and Marco had risen from their chairs around the table.
“How’s Gage?” Cap asked on behalf of the three of them.
Tom spared Roy from answering. “Worse. But everything that can be done for him is being done. I really don’t think we ought to worry yet.”
Mike must have seen the fatigue settling into Roy’s eyes, because he quickly and wordlessly poured a cup of coffee and offered it to the paramedic, who sat down and took it gratefully. “Thanks, Mike.”
Cap nodded at Mike and Marco, who left the room without question, leaving Captain Stanley and the two paramedics. Tom poured himself a cup of coffee and sat next to Roy.
“Roy...” the captain started, uncertain. “I know how you worried you must be about Gage-”
“I’m fine, Cap. There’s nothing I can do for him now, so I’m better off getting back to work.” Roy sounded far more confident than he felt, but he must have convinced Captain Stanley as he just nodded and wandered away to his office.
Tom looked over his cup of coffee at the anguish written all over Roy’s face. “There's no need to be a hero,” he said quietly. “I’ll cover for you as much as you need me to.”
“Thanks, Tom.” It wasn’t a particularly profound expression of gratitude, but Roy meant it with everything in him. Even though Johnny would have hated it, maybe Tom would be Roy’s saving grace for the rest of this shift.
Roy sipped his coffee slowly. He had been disgusted by the thought of finishing the shift without Johnny by his side, but now that Tom was here, Roy didn’t feel quite so lost. Besides, he decided, if Dixie could carry on nursing with Brackett weak and feverish in an isolated hospital room, then surely Roy could function with Tom there to make up for Johnny’s absence.