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"I think I'm dying."
It was said softly, lightly enough that Johnny didn't take it seriously at first. He was standing beside the open compartment of the squad, double checking the equipment after returning from a run. Roy was sitting sideways on the passenger side of the bench seat with one foot on the floor and the other still inside, distractedly picking at a strip of adhesive left on the knee of his pants.
Johnny snorted, "Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have eaten two of Chet's chili dogs."
Roy didn't answer. Johnny closed up one of the boxes he was done checking and shoved it back into the compartment before looking over. Then he actually saw Roy.
The adhesive strip he'd picked at now hung forgotten on one finger, and Roy's shoulders were slumped against the back of the seat. Like he'd just gotten tired… except that his skin color was off, drained from his lips until freckles stood out across his nose, leftover from the time spent outside during a brushfire the previous week.
"Roy?" Johnny asked with a slightly concerned frown.
Roy turned his head to look at him. His eyes didn't quite focus on him.
Every alarm in Johnny's body went off at once and he slammed the compartment door, almost tripping over his own feet to reach for Roy.
"Hey," Johnny grabbed Roy's jaw gently and turned his face into the light. "What's going on?"
Roy blinked. His pupils looked equal, maybe a little large, but his eyes kept drifting away from Johnny's face, like it was just too much energy to keep them there.
"I don't know."
The words were breathy, slurred at the edges, and Johnny jammed two fingers up against Roy's carotid. Fast and thin.
"How long have you felt bad?"
Roy's brow furrowed.
"Bad?"
"Sick, like you're dying, Roy. How long?"
"I don't—" Roy swallowed. "Just since we got back."
Johnny reached across him and grabbed the radio from the dash. "Dispatch, this is squad 51. I need you to respond an ambulance to Station 51."
The dispatcher answered immediately, but Johnny barely heard as he slammed the radio back onto the handle and grabbed Roy's wrist, fumbling for another pulse point. It fluttered weakly and disappeared when he pressed too hard.
"Roy, lay down."
Roy made a faint noise of protest, his head already tipped over the back of the seat.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
Johnny slid an arm behind Roy's shoulders and another beneath his knees, trying to scoot him to lie across the flat seat. Roy folded forward, instead, with a sharp gasp. His hand clamped over his upper abdomen.
Johnny froze.
"Where?"
Roy couldn't answer. His forehead had dropped against Johnny's shoulder, breath coming in short, shallow pants.
Johnny eased him back again, just far enough back to get a look. Roy's hand was pressed between the lower edge of his ribs. His fingers were digging into the fabric of his shirt.
Johnny clenched his jaw. A fallen guide rail from a jammed rolling door that had slammed Roy in his side while they were getting a patient out from an old abandoned warehouse. He'd asked Roy if he was okay.
And Roy hadn't said he was hurt. He also hadn't said he was okay. Just that he got caught on the side. But he'd stayed on his feet and he'd finished the job, even went in the ambulance with the patient. Hell, he could have been seen while he was at Rampart if he'd thought he wasn't fine.
And here they were, nothing being done until the adrenaline leaked out and faded away.
"Roy," Johnny pulled at Roy's wrist. "Move your hand for me."
Roy shook his head.
"I need to see it, Roy."
"Hurts," Roy hissed quietly.
"I know."
Johnny worked Roy's fingers loose, prying them from the shirt fabric and pulled the hem up. The bruise was spreading. It ran from the bottom of Roy's left ribs toward the side, deep red and purple already. The tissue looked swollen and it was rigid when Johnny touched it.
Roy jerked and grabbed at Johnny's arm. "Don't."
"Okay, okay." Johnny pulled his hand away.
He could hear a siren now, several streets away and getting closer. Did he even have time to call Rampart before they got there? Or would he just grab the box and call when they were in the ambulance?
"Can you lie back?" he asked, turning his attention back to the most important thing. Roy's grip on Johnny loosened as his eyes slid closed.
"Roy."
They opened again, just halfway.
"Roy, you gotta stay with me. Keep your eyes open."
"Tired."
"Yeah, I know. Keep them open anyway."
Johnny backed up from the cab of the squad for a moment to grab the drug box. He just wanted to get the blood pressure cuff. The box was set haphazardly on the floor next to his feet and he wrapped the cuff around Roy's arm where he sat, awkward and half curled up in the passenger doorway. It wasn't how Johnny wanted him. He wanted Roy flat with his legs up. He wanted another pair of hands already on the biophone with the hospital relaying vitals and giving him permission to set up an IV.
He pumped the cuff as Roy's arm lay limp across his own lap. His fingers curled slightly when the pressure tightened. Then Johnny pressed the stethoscope against the inside of Roy's elbow and listened as he deflated. He could only get the first beat.
"Alright," he muttered. "Alright."
Johnny glanced up at Roy's half-open eyes again before grabbing the orange box and opening it up with the antenna. "Rampart, this is squad 51."
The siren cut off directly outside the station. The bay doors were still open and Johnny waved them over when he saw them.
"This is Rampart, Go ahead 51." Brackett's voice.
"Rampart, I have Fireman Roy DeSoto with a blunt trauma to the left upper abdominal area about forty-five minutes ago. He was ambulatory and did not display symptoms of an injury until after returning to quarters." Johnny relayed information as he tried to untangle the oxygen tubing and fit the mask over Roy's face with one hand. Roy barely stirred, his eyes closed again.
"Patient is—Roy, open your eyes again. Roy! C'mon, yeah—uh, patient is pale, diaphoretic, lethargic and confused. Pulse is 140 and thready. Respirations 28 and shallow. Blood pressure is 82 by palpation. Pupils equal and reactive, but slightly dilated. Abdomen is rigid with significant bruising and swelling."
There was a brief silence. Then Brackett said, "51, did you say the patient is Roy?"
Johnny looked over. "Yeah."
The attendants waited patiently for Johnny to direct them. He held up a finger for them to wait.
"Get him on oxygen and establish two large-bore IVs of normal saline and run them wide open. Transport immediately."
"10-4, Rampart." He set the receiver down and motioned to the ambulance attendants, who stood close with the stretcher right where he needed it. Johnny leaned into the cab, close to roy.
"We're going to move you, okay?"
Roy opened his eyes and breathed shallowly beneath the oxygen mask.
"Where?"
"Ambulance, Pally. We're going to Rampart."
Roy furrowed his brow in confusion and looked down at himself, seeing his own stomach.
"Oh. That's not good," he moaned as his head fell back again.
"Exactly. Okay, let us do the work." Then Johnny got the two men over. "Okay, we need to move him without jostling. Let's get him out this way slowly and then support his hips as he—yeah, like that."
Working together, Johnny and the attendants got Roy flat on the stretcher, and Johnny got to work setting up IVs before they could move him again. He searched for a vein, wrapped a tourniquet around Roy's arm, and tried again.
He gave up on the arm and grabbed Roy's hand, palpating the back of it. There. He cleaned the skin and slid the needle in. The flash came slowly and then he secured the catheter and got the drop going, open wide. He didn't bother with the other arm, going straight for the hand again.
Then he checked Roy's pressure again. 76/40. Roy's eyes were closed.
"Roy."
Nothing. Johnny pressed two knuckles against Roy's sternum and pressed hard. Roy's face gave a light flinch and his head turned away slightly.
"Come on, open your eyes."
"Don't feel good." Roy breathed.
"No kidding." Then Johnny looked up. "Okay, get him in and let's go."
Johnny barely noticed the engine pulling in as it passed by the ambulance in the driveway. He was gathering the biophone while Roy was being loaded. Cap had jumped off the truck before Mike had stopped it moving.
"What happened?"
"He got hurt during the last run. Didn't know until we were here."
"Bad?"
Johnny didn't answer that. Which was its own answer. "Uh… he won't be coming back today. So once you find a replacement, send the squad out to get me."
He didn't give Cap much chance to respond before he climbed in the ambulance. They'd waited long enough to even figure out something was wrong.
Roy couldn't afford to wait any longer.