#with only milliseconds to spare and with so much apology and so much guilt. tk would let go | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

parameddic · 9 months

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here is the post that combines all my little drabbley/little bit-y things about the 17 year old TK let go of so it's all in one place if you would like to read the things all in one place. it's uh. 4000 6000 words, sorry about that

#controversial:#in the heat of the moment and without time to find any alternatives and rapidly cascading toward the edge and#with only milliseconds to spare and with so much apology and so much guilt. tk would let go

"How are you feeling?"

TK did not look up from his hands, sitting there at the table. He was oddly still, which was his least favourite way to be, no... bouncing leg, no rubbing at the palm of his hand with his opposite thumb, not even a racing mind, just. Still. He closed his eyes, pressed his teeth together in a curt swallow and working jaw, searched hard for an answer to this question. Cap wouldn't be asking if she didn't want an answer. His insides crawled around, twisting and guilty, and he did not quite answer her. He thought again about the kid, 17, brown eyes, wild curls, afraid.

The gasp as their hands had come apart and the kid went tumbling.

"TK." Captain Vega put her hand on his wrist, a physical point of contact. Nothing more, nothing less. TK did not want to look at her. She waited, until TK's eyes slid up in her direction, still unmoving, still silent. It did not look like she hated him. It did not look like she thought he was a disgrace to the profession, like she should have his badge, like he had done a terrible thing and made a selfish decision and ruined some mother's life because of what he did.

Captain Vega had kids of her own. Two little girls. Beautiful kids. What if it had been one of them? Would she have been looking at him the same way?

He breathed out, a horrible but controlled breath, and looked back down. Watery, anxious, like he was going to be sick: "I let him go, Cap." Did she not understand what had happened? Did she not know?

She said, "Good."

He had been braced for something completely different, shoulders hunched, walls waiting, and then it was just. Something else entirely. It was just something else entirely. He looked up again, surprised out of it, still guarded, his heart wobbling (god, what would his mum have thought, too? What would anyone who loved him think about what he had done?).

"TK, there was nothing you could have done."

"He slipped." He wasn't saying he'd shoved him. "But I could have - I could have caught him, Cap, if I'd just held on--"

"Then you would both have fallen, and you would both have died." Said plainly. Just like that, cut and dry, although with some immense amount of patience and love that he thought must only come from being a mum to someone 'cause he had never known anyone who had that in them, this incredible capacity for caring about people who just fucked up and fucked up badly. "TK, you did nothing today that I wouldn't have directly ordered you to do, if I'd had the opportunity."

She would have let him go, too, she was saying.

She would have made that same decision, she would have done it, and that - couldn't be right because he could not understand that concept, about his Captain, and he clarified again like she was not getting the severity of it, "I let him die, Cap." He'd -- "His face, when I let him go," that horrible flash of understanding, the terrible knowledge of what decision TK had just made. Brown eyes, wild curly hair, the gasp. The gasp.

"You did your job, TK."

"I didn't save him."

"You couldn't." Utmost belief. "There wasn't time, TK. The rope just wasn't strong enough and he slipped. You did everything you could to give him time until we could get there. And you had to let go." Everything had not been enough. "What happened to that boy wasn't your fault."

Wasn't his fault.

That was the sort of thing that happened sometimes. In the field. People died, it happened, it was outside of their control, it was a tragedy every time and they packed up and they kept going. She - Captain Vega - tried so hard to pull it into that category, into out of our hands, into something that did not sit open in him like a wound.

What would his mum have said?

Dad hadn't spoken to him once since it happened. Busy doing paperwork to clean up TK's mess.

He didn't want to be here. The 126, the people he loved who knew how he had screwed up (again), the people who were in a unique position to be able to judge what happened in an emergency, who thought they had wanted him, once. It was the only safe place for him to be right now. He still did not want to be here.

"I could have saved him, Cap." If he had just --

"No. You could have gotten yourself killed." Firm. "You couldn't have saved him."

Green eyes drew up again, to settle on Tommy Vega, how certain she was. How absolutely sure. She did not hate him. She did not think he had hurt this kid. She did not think he had done something terribly, horribly wrong.

His heart ached. He respected Tommy Vega's opinion much more than he respected his own, actually, especially in the field.

"Come and eat something, sweetheart," she said, with some promise in her voice (he was wanted; he would be welcome at the kitchen table; the 126 would not turn him out). She touched his arm, rubbing at it like she might rub life back into him, "You need something in you."

He didn't want to eat anything. It would taste like ash, and a dead 17-year-old. He swallowed, hard, and nodded just barely. OK, he'd come and eat something.

"You want me to text someone?" did he want her to text his dinner date, she meant. He didn't know. He didn't have any energy, none at all, not even the sliveriest sliver of energy, to think about having to make decisions about that sort of thing right now.

"Um," like he was only just rousing out of some sleep-like state, re-orienting to the world, just a little: "What did Marjan make?" What was the food he was coming to eat?

Cap was happy enough to be redirected. The team, all of them, all of the 126 (bar his Dad), were happy to see him, when he stepped into the firehouse's kitchen. Not hated at all.

Not even... not hated at all.

"IS THAT HIM?"

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

TK came onto the scene late, which in retrospect was probably a good thing. The woman who had arrived at their hangar doors was short but angry (she slapped Tommy's hand away, "Get your hand out of my face," uninterested in being stayed), and when she rounded on him Tommy stepped immediately between them. Protective. Something rock solid dropped into his stomach. He reached, very absently, to hook his fingers over the railing that lined the staircase, suddenly regretting that he'd left the bunks in search of food. Maybe he should just have starved.

"Hey!" She was speaking to him directly, now.

"Sarah," Tommy tried. Sarah ignored her.

"You're it, right?" 'It'? TK was not currently playing tag. (The false confusion was protective, but oh, it felt fake. The guilt of trying to 'get out' of it somehow, even mentally, of trying to sidestep the question.)

"TK, go back to the-"

"TK!" Sarah latched on, it was TK, and she feinted left only to loop around Captain Vega's right side, not without some commotion from the others there (leaping to his defense), and the spirit with which the 126 scrambled to defend him only served to confirm it. TK knew who this woman was.

He descended several steps, 'cause hiding from this conversation was actually, tangibly, not something he physically had in him, much less when the conversation showed up on his doorstep.

"That's me. I'm TK." Yeah. Hi.

For a very sharp moment, one that felt very much like the slice of a dagger for everyone involved, Sarah horribly, deeply did not know what to say. This almost-30-year-old man who had let her some die, when his one job, his one job --

"Do you know his name?" Did TK know anything about him?

TK was properly descending the staircase, now. The third or fourth step up, almost within reach of her (his family was letting him have this; they, he and Sarah, both needed it). TK said, "Kyle."

It was not like he could do his homework on this kid and somehow make up for what had happened. It just wasn't, that now how TK was saying it, it did not matter he knew Kyle played for his school's basketball team, it did not matter he had heard him talk about the way he missed his Dad and thought, yeah, this was not some excuse he was offering. He just said it because yes, he knew who he was mourning. And he was mourning him, too.

"On the paperwork," Sarah said, deflating a little. On the paperwork, his name was Kyle. Her next breath was watery. "We called him Yusef."

It was not fair to her at all that this gave him some sensation of having a rug pulled out from under him. A drop. A fall. He landed on the bottom step, now only feet between them, with a jostling he had not intended, tripping on the name a little. He was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of things with this kid. What if he was wrong about--? (He cut the thought short, forceful and deliberate: what if did not make things better.)

"Yusef," he repeated.

This was his fault. This lady being here, eyes rimmed with red, the description of grief. Of angry. She watched him. Took a deep breath, a tight little sigh that edged on furious, but also on tears, and maybe frustration, and all TK could do was stand there and lick his lips and search for something he could say that would make it marginally less horrible that they knew each other at all. That they'd ever even met.

"Ma'am," Tommy said, not quite inserting herself into the space between them.

"'S'okay, Cap." It was OK. TK was quick to disagree. No, let her have this. This was just penance. It was something that came with having let go, and having let go on purpose. "It's, um. It's Sarah, right?"

She would deeply have preferred to have remained strangers. To have never had a reason to meet this man at all. Sarah nodded, fractionally, still undecided on what to do with all this feeling, what direction to let it flow in, what to feel it as. "You killed my son," she said. Plainly.

TK blinked just the once, to let the full weight of it land. He took a breath in, slow and controlled. He ignored the freight train of grief and self-blame and grappling with emotions and the edgy-crawling-clawing feeling of wanting to just not feel it anymore, a constant undercurrent but a lot louder today than it had been this time last week. TK opened his mouth. He came up short, again. Always just too short of good enough for this family.

Captain Vega intervened, again. "Our team," team, "did everything we could for your son, Sarah. I am sorry that you lost him. But TK is an experienced, and passionate--"

"You LET HIM GO!"

(How did she know that? That he was involved, sure - that he had tried to save him - but specifically that he'd let him go? It was not just TK who had this thought; his eyes flashed to his family, Judd and Marjan and Mateo all exchanging glances, checking they had not missed anything, what was--?)

Anyway: the momentary lapse in attention was long enough for Sarah to shoulder her way past Tommy. Anger, she had decided, with fists raised. This was anger, which shoved him back on the staircase (TK was glad to be holding the railing), as the team moved and Tommy was elbowed in the face trying to hold her back and Judd stood from where he had been keeping watch and Sarah continued, "You let him fall, my son--"

and TK thought only once, only passingly, that the whole rest of the 126 was downstairs, but he didn't know where his Dad was.

"Doesn't look like anything's broken."

The antiseptic stung, but it was meant to. TK and Tommy sat at the kitchen table, little first-aid kit out 'cause really they didn't need to ruin the perfect-stock count of the ambulance just for this. He wouldn't need stitches. Neither would Tommy, although now she had something of a black eye where she'd been elbowed in the face, trying to intervene. She kept her eyes on TK's damage, now, touching lightly at the grazes, feeling out for a spongey skull (classic sign of a break), particularly around the eye. Nothing.

No breaks to speak of, which really just meant he didn't even have something solid to point to to say, this is how I paid for it. Not even a manifestation he could feel, beyond a light stinging and the ache of bruising. It was stupid Cap had to look after him like this. Nancy sat across from them, watching, anxious to help but aware she would get in the way. TK's tiny little family unit. He wondered how he would feel if someone had let one of these guys fall to their death.

"Sorry, Cap." For being here, in this situation.

"You shouldn't be," she corrected him, leaning back to check her handiwork before she went looking for the medical tape, "you didn't invite her here. A parent grieving is a parent grieving. That was out of your control."

"It wasn't your fault, dude." Nancy had not yet had the opportunity to tell him this directly, to express it out loud when TK was not still reeling (reeling reeling reeling) from having made the decision, so she inserted it here. Whole-hearted. "Any of it. The rope breaking, the kid, the mum showing up here. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just sucks."

... Yeah. Well. The corner of TK's mouth pulled, more grimace than anything, to acknowledge the sentiment. "Thanks, Nance." Unconvinced, but she was not the first person to tell him that today, and not the first person whose opinion he deeply respected to tell him that, either. Tommy started taping up the gash on his eyebrow (not to mention the busted lip, the bruising to his shoulders where he'd fallen on a staircase, the definitely-sprained shoulder), and TK looked up briefly, to meet her eye, misreading she wanted his attention. She worked, intent.

It was not a private space, really. There were people standing around, mild activity in the direction of making food or being present. Judd was standing, arms crossed, like he might fight anyone who came in and threatened to cause problems. Paul was stress-cooking, around Owen, who - weirdly quiet - had been fiddling with the espresso machine more or less since they'd gotten back from the call. Marjan sat at the other end of the table, feet up on the chair across from her, scrolling through her phone with eyebrows drawn, caught up in something. There were people here, a room full of people TK loved and cared about, who loved and cared about him.

"How do you think she knew?" Mateo asked the quiet room. Something twisted in TK's stomach but he did look around, first to Mateo and then to the rest of the room. Not a single one of these guys would have spoken to the kid's mother about what exactly went down. None of them would have said a word to anyone about it. They had all seen. They all knew. (They all knew, he thought so easily, casually, and the thought was something he held onto with both hands, grabbed onto because it was the first time he had thought about it in any framing that did not make it his fault.)

"Um," Marjan ventured, still on her phone. They all turned. "I might. Have an answer." The tone of her voice said, I really wish I didn't. When she did not provide further information:

"Well, what's the answer?" Dad asked, drawn from his machine and from his weird ultra-quiet.

Marjan didn't seem to want to answer. She hesitated, with a glance to TK that meant he steeled himself a little for whatever this was going to be, whatever next, whatever now, and she said, "You know his friends who were up there?"

The ones who had not come close, but who had been there, who had been the three of four who survived, the people they'd managed to get to safety. Yes. TK knew them. "Yeah?" it felt brave to even confirm he knew what she was talking about.

... Marjan was sorry to tell him (so much apology in her voice), "I think they filmed it." She turned her phone around, to show them her screen, the video clip she had been watching. "And uploaded it. It's viral on TikTok right now."

He, um.

His mouth was dry. The footage played, and the rope snapped, and Marjan turned the volume all the way down so there was no way to hear the yelling or the alarm or the desperate gasp and the, Wait-! as he released Yusef's hand. The video cut short just after Yusef was lost over the edge, TK scrambling after him, but still having let go. This little 12-second clip of a terrible moment of many people's lives.

"We saved their lives!" Mateo protested -

"And not their friend's," Marj clicked the screen off, and turned the phone away again. "I guess they don't see it that way."

"Well, they should," Paul disagreed. "They're the ones who went up there in the first place, we --"

"It's not their fault they're teenage kids," TK disagreed, shell-shocked and once again unmoored, not that he had felt particularly moored at any point, "It should be safe to - explore, and..."

"There is no excuse for uploading anything that happened today to social media." Tommy did not care about 'fault'. There was no excuse.

"How many people have seen it?" TK asked, suddenly, like this was some vital question and like the answer was not going to hurt him to hear. He knew what 'viral' meant.

"A hundred and sixty thousand. So far." It hadn't been even a day.

What was that gonna do? What would that do to the 126's reputation, in Austin, but also the fire department more generally, was he going to lose his job? Was he going to be able to do it, would people trust him? Would his team? If they had the chance to watch it again, to look closer, better detail, would they change their minds somehow, would it be -- would they still want him?

Could they get the footage taken down? Nancy was asking, which was a good question to ask, but Marjan was answering in a negative-ish sort of tone and TK was not actually listening to any of this at all he was reeling, mouth still that horrible dry, and he said, "They sent it to his mum." The alternative was she found it on her own. They had to have sent it to her, direct.

"Well," Owen said, delicately, as he removed the coffee grounds from the machine (the room, collectively, turned in his direction, now). He lifted his hands in a sort of shrugging motion, "you let him die. She does have a right to know."

That's what he thought? That was why he had been quiet this whole time. That was why he had been silent, it was because he thought TK had done something wrong. He wished it would stop feeling like he'd made some terrible mistake. He wished he could go just five minutes, just five minutes, without it stabbing at him like this, so hard it took his breath away. He inhaled, half a nod - just the up motion (surprise), not the down - and swallowed hard. How was he going to... how...

"Captain Strand," Tommy said, firmly, "if you have an issue with my employee --"

"My son, you mean."

"My paramedic." Curt correction.

"I don't have any issues with your paramedic. I just think it's hard to believe someone who signed up to rescue people--"

"Dad." No, OK, he felt bad enough already, this was somewhere where TK could draw a line and he drew it. Maybe yeah it was his fault, maybe yeah this was gonna cost him his career, and he was a terrible person, and he deserved to be miserable for the rest of his life or whatever, but this was a step too far.

"TK," like he was being unreasonable, "I'm not trying to bully you. I just don't understand. You had a kid in your hand, an actual child," seventeen years old, "and you let him go?"

"Cap," Marjan said at the same time Mateo voiced, "That's not cool, Cap," and Judd uncrossed his arms to lean both hands against the counter behind him, "Come on, Cap, you know that ain't what happened."

"Really?" he pressed, gesturing vaguely at Marjan's phone, "'Cause if I watch that video, and I don't have the context--" (Nancy reached across, now, to put her hand on TK's forearm, quiet support).

"But you have the context!"

"I have what I saw from the ground. And that's another five, six feet where TK coulda done something and he didn't even try."

Five or six feet.

He, um. No, he really did just. He wasn't going to stick around for this, to be bullied, sometimes his Dad just - sometimes he - TK loved him but sometimes... no, he stood up, "I gotta go."

"TK." Owen wasn't intending to bully him, said the tone of voice, still. Be reasonable.

"You're right, Dad, I - I shoulda done more." Sure. It sounded right. He needed to go, he could not stay here, he needed to go. Cap had finished patching him up, mostly, anyway. He could do the rest. (Tommy and Nancy watched him stand, but neither one of them stopped him, mouths open but not quite landing on the words) --

"TK," Owen tried again.

"You want me to come?" Nancy offered, standing -

"No." No, he didn't. "No, look after Cap, she's - I'm sorry I got you elbowed, Cap."

"You didn't." She dismissed it out of hand. "Sweetheart--"

Something in his chest ached painfully, at the word. Several leaps too far into something that he wasn't, that he didn't have, a relationship that had vanished from the world over a year ago now (over a year! Over a year!), he missed his mum. God, he missed his mum. The grief slammed into him harder than watching a child die slammed him, and he wondered if he was a psychopath or if he was broken, somehow, like he just swallowed everything good that ever came near him and never gave any of it back.

He couldn't be here. He could not be here, in this room, with these people, like this.

"Tyler!" Owen called.

He had to get out. He had to get out. Something was gonna burst out of his chest. He was gonna climb out of his skin. He was gonna -

TK left. He did not look back.

(and then a little bonus link: TK's gonna get pulled from field duty while the fire dept does an entire "investigation" based on public demand) (this will not stop him from doing what he needs to do when needed and saving his dad's life in the process, it will all blow over fine before the end of the episode) (pretend this is an episode. that's the thought)

First shift back.

Look, it wasn't the sort of thing TK really could just 'shake off', but as bummed as he was he just... wanted to get back out there. He was good at his job, and it was not gonna get better or change or have a different outcome if he was bummed enough about it, and he... you know, Cap was right. He could have died. He could not have saved that kid. That was what he was repeating to himself on the regular, and the longer he went repeating it the more it sounded sort of true, and it wasn't like he had come up with a solution that could have somehow changed something in the three days it had been since it happened. He had had seconds.

He'd done nothing that Tommy Vega would not have directly ordered him to do, herself, if she had had the opportunity. He wondered if she would have carried it differently, being the one to have made the decision. If she had had the opportunity. He was glad she hadn't. This wasn't the sort of thing he would want anyone walking around with, and definitely not Cap. She didn't deserve that.

The 126's firehouse was just winding up for the day when he got in, uniform fresh and crisp, hair combed. Well slept. He'd worked out this morning, got a smoothie, made shakshuka (he missed his mum), and he wasn't even shaky. This was a new day. He could tackle a new day, he lived through new days all the time. The vibe of the place felt a little wonky, but that sorta happened after a call like that one, and it would settle soon enough.

"Hey, TK," Paul said conspicuously loudly, upon seeing him (mid-wiping down the engine), and TK slowed a little to... uh, assess what that tone of voice was.

"... Hi, Paul?"

"TK," Nancy popped her head around the corner and then stepped full into view, "Hey, how are you feeling?"

TK lifted a hand, waist-height, 'cause, um. "OK, you guys are being super weird."

"Weird?" Paul.

"I - what do you...?" Nancy was shaking her head, nooooo not weird at all, trying to shrug nonchalantly except she elbowed Paul accidentally with the movement, and Paul did not even flinch, just nodded along calmly like he had not just been jostled. Super weird.

"Oh. Hey, TK."

This was a voice TK could not place the moment he heard it, to such an extent he had to step around Nancy and Paul (makeshift wall) to see who was speaking: "Oh, Pearce."

Pearce was, uh, in uniform. Like, for an Austin firehouse. Maybe he had been hired by someone after the private thing fell through (after it blew up), maybe... "Hi. What are you, um." What was a nice way to ask this question, why are you in my firehouse wearing a uniform. His (TK's) eyes travelled down to the number on the sleeve: 126.

Tommy's door swung open, upstairs. TK knew the sounds of this place without having to look. He knew what Cap's door sounded like, he knew his dad's gait down the stairs, he knew how to tell who was cooking by the smell and sounds coming out of the kitchen, alone. This was his home. The number, 126, on Pearce's sleeve seemed so...

Pearce could see where he was looking, and maybe see the absolute-sinking-of-TK's-heart, 'cause the next thing Pearce said was, "It's only temporary, it's - I mean, you know I don't fit, you couldn't pay me to stay here," (you couldn't pay TK to stay away), "but I. I saw what happened, on the news."

"Pearce reached out," Tommy was on her way down the stairs now, drawn by TK's arrival (maybe? What was going on?), "It was very kind of him."

"I wanted to know if I could help," Pearce agreed. TK swallowed, a little emptily. Um. Was he - was he being fired? Or replaced?

"C-" no, "Cap, you said--"

"Nobody's blaming you, TK." That's not what it felt like.

"I saw what happened," Pearce repeated like this was grounds to have an opinion on (everyone seemed to think it was grounds to have an opinion on), "for what it's worth, TK, it really... it wasn't your fault. I mean, in your position, I would've definitely, definitely done the same thing."

Yeah, no kidding. That was way more biting than TK wanted to be but the way this vote of support settled in his chest, sticky and hot, was not helpful. Woo, TK's practice aligned with this guy's. "Thanks, Pearce." That was the polite thing to say. He wondered where his dad was in all this. He wondered why he had not been told he would have a babysitter earlier.

OK, um.

OK, this was manageable. "So, um. I'm being replaced?"

"By Pearce?" Nancy said too quickly, with too much incredulity in her voice (sure they had invited him here but replacing TK with Pearce?!), and it was not very nice and Pearce shifted uncomfortably and TK felt some pang of sympathy for him.

"Ahh," Tommy intervened, "No, TK. No. You're not being replaced." A measured breath (TK braced himself, because whatever Tommy had to measure her breathing for was gonna hit him like a freight train), "But you are being suspended."

"Suspended?" No way. No, he had misheard her, he - "Cap, you just said--" nobody was blaming him, just said it wasn't his fault, just said that he had made the right call and if she was backpedaling on that then, what, was she trying to spare his feelings up until now, did she think he really had done the wrong thing, did she --

"It wasn't," a little louder than him, voice calm and even, "My. Decision, TK."

A breath in, shaking his head a little, who else could have decided that? Who else could have made the call he needed to be suspended? He believed her, he just breathed out this huff of air, searching, "Well - if -- i-if..." who? "Was it Dad?" Tommy wouldn't have taken orders from Dad, that was ridiculous? TK threw a look to Nancy, who was watching this exchange with wide eyes, worried eyebrows, who did not do anything to intervene. This was over her head. This was not her decision, either, it wasn't that Nance felt unsafe working with TK, so who--?

"The Deputy Fire Chief called me this morning, TK. A couple of hours before you arrived. We were scrambling to get someone to cover the shift, I thought I would speak to you, in person, when you arrived."

So she'd known. For two whole hours these guys had let him go about his day thinking that he wasn't suspended by the deputy-fire-chief-him-fucking-self, and they -- what? Did they think so little of him that they thought he couldn't handle it?

Did they worry he was going to blow up?

Was he going to?

"That's bullshit. Cap, he - how can he decide it was my fault, he wasn't even fucking there!"

"I know." He hated the way her voice was limiting, was de-escalation in practice, "I know, TK, I know. It wasn't just Billy, TK. The entire board reviewed it, they have the footage, it's a high public-interest case."

His boss's boss's boss's boss had looked at a terrible day and decided he wasn't worth employing. Wow, he - that--

"We all told them they were wrong, dude," Nancy volunteered, with some immense amount of guilt she was carrying that TK was soon to figure out, "even your Dad. They asked for statements, every single one of us said it couldn't be changed."

What? (TK was aware, vaguely, of the loose gathering of his family here. All of a sudden he did not feel supported, he felt surrounded.)

"It's just a temporary suspension," Tommy reminded him. "It's out of an abundance of caution, mostly to placate the public. They want another week to investigate, and then --"

"You knew," TK said.

Silence, at that. They were all fucking silent at that.

"You - the--" vague gesturing in Nancy's direction, "the board asked for statements and nobody told me? You all just wrote them and you sent them and nobody told me?" Not a single one of them?

His entire family and nobody thought to tell him the one thing that was absolutely vital to keeping him alive and safe and sober and loved was in the process of slipping out of his grip because of some idiot teenagers and a TikTok video and cis white straight men in their 40s and 50s who had opinions about what happened on the ground?

Nobody would meet his eye. Not one of them. Paul's arms were crossed, Marjan was quiet, Mateo was a step behind Nancy, and Nancy -- she did meet his eyes. She was horrified at herself. Or maybe at him. No words. Wow. Woooooow.

"I got the call the day of the accident," Tommy told him, voice still that annoying measured thing, "Billy was just telling me they had the footage, and they were examining it. I didn't think anything would come of it. None of us did. They asked for everybody's statements from the incident report, we didn't write anything new."

TK turned back to his Captain. This was suffocating. He was going to - he didn't - "You knew for three days this might happen."

She took another breath, and some part of TK's heart squeezed, hard, sudden anger. "I'm sorry, TK," she said. Fuck that. "I really didn't think it was gonna result in anything, it's clear as day you didn't--"

"Oh, my God." TK stepped back. He couldn't listen to this. OK, it was his fault. OK, he was a terrible person, sure, he oculd be that, fine, like, that was probably the only option left if he couldn't be a paramedic, that was kind of --

"It's just good PR," Pearce offered, awkwardly, with a shrug, "They're in hot water, I mean. I don't think they actually think it's your fault, but the public pressure--"

"I didn't kill this kid!" If he had been paying attention (and he was a little) he might have felt some triumph at the knowledge of it, the truth that he said it with, he did not kill that kid. "I was there when it happened, but the rope broke, Cap." It had been geared up correctly, ropework all above board, the rope was not aging or fraying or showing any signs of wear at the time, it was a freak accident. "I need this job."

"You haven't lost it," she repeated this, "and as long as I am Captain of this team, you won't. It's a suspension. They need more time to look at what happened, I give it a week."

"A week?" Holy -- "Cap, it's been three days, I'm going insane."

"I know." She knew. TK waited for more, for some 'exception' for some 'but I can--' instead of this, of being turned away from his own family in his own home, but she only repeated, "I know."

And that was it. That was, um. That was all. 126 chose Pearce over TK Strand. TK looked around, again. Please, anyone. Please.

"It sucks, dude," Nancy told him.

He couldn't believe this. He couldn't. This was -- and Pearce? No offense, he genuinely did not mean any offense, but Pearce, they chose him, he was a skilled paramedic and TK respected him professionally but they chose--?

His family moved in. Various steps closer, different people saying his name, pleading for his forgiveness, and he thought for a moment, none of these guys have any idea. None of these guys know anything about him, he was just. He was just some guy they could fill in whenever they wanted to fill in, he just --

"Right," he said, screw this, no, these - none of them were -- "well, you know, you can save the board the trouble of making a decision."

"What?" Nancy caught on first, stepped forward first, vital and sharp and no-don't-you're-not-going-to, "TK--"

"I quit."

"TK," Tommy said.

"You'll have my resignation letter by the end of the day. Sorry for the short notice, Cap, but it looks like you already found someone to fill in."

"TK--"

"I'll seeya later." He probably really would have to. He was stepping backwards, towards the doors, ready to escape. Get out. Stop suffocating. Get out. "I'll swing by sometime to pick up my things."

"Man, you don't--" Mateo tried.

TK was already gone.

(TK being bummed, in the in-between, and pouty, and probably talking to a lot of his friends, including different parts of the 126. Filler, filler.)

Maybe he, um. Maybe should… TK lingered on the edge of the 126’s garage, framed by the open door, fingers of one hand curled loosely around the 'frame’ just behind him 'cause he’d quit, and that was on him, and now he needed to....

“TK,” Captain Vega said (happy to see him, and his heart leapt somewhat in his chest, awkward and difficult to get a handle on), “Hi, sweetheart. Come in.”

Come in? Just like that? Did she need him to… sign some paperwork? 'Cause he’d said the words and he’d not meant them at all and he hated them the second they’d come out of his mouth (I quit) and – Captain Vega collected a clipboard and turned it around, facing TK. “I spoke with Billy,” she said, “We can’t put you back in the field, but you’re not suspended anymore. It’s boring work,” she did not envy him it (lifted the clipboard just a little, when TK reached for it, whatever he was thinking he should lower his expectations), “but it will keep you home.”

Home.

… He took the clipboard, feeling very wanted in a way that made him, also, feel kind of small.

“Cap,” he said.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault, TK. They know it, they’re just being precious about it. You will have a job here as long as I am Captain of this team.”

As long as she was captain, and as long as he turned up. And he’d turned up. So here was the next type of work she had to give him.

“Understand?” she checked. Like he had not gone and tried to blow anything up at all, like he was just back again after cooling off, like he was loved and wanted and this was home.

“Hey, TK,” Nancy said on her way past, just like normal, just like always. “Paul’s putting pineapple on pizzas again.” Didn’t even stop, just kept going, leaving TK with this knowledge because TK liked pineapple on pizza a lot, and the fact it was on Paul’s pizza meant there were definitely some leftovers somewhere he could grab. She did not seem surprised to see him. Nobody complained he was wearing his uniform, still.

He belonged in it.

“TK?”

His eyes came back. He swallowed, unsure how to express the overwhelming… the sudden…. a nod: “You got it, Cap.”

“Good.” Good. “Now give that back, it’s actually my shopping list. But we do have paperwork for you. And a lot of standards-reviews for the station. When’s the last time you replaced the lights in the rig?”

Back into it, within minutes of arriving. Home, all the while. Captain Vega stepped away, headed into her office, and TK followed, grateful and soft and glad she was his captain. Home, all the while.

#drabble #hums hums hums hums hums hums huuuuuuuuuuums #; dropping the kid (plots i made up)#plots i made up

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