Chicago Fire: City of Heroes

Chapter Nineteen:

"Gabriela Dawson, Sylvie Brett. This is..." Wallace trails off, striding into the common room with a young paramedic on his heels.

The trainee waves his greeting, "Harris Thornton."

"Your trainee for the day," Wallace finishes, stopping in front of the round table, where Sylvie, Gabby, and Alex are sitting.

"Great to have you with us, Harris," Sylvie grins.

"We'll take good care of him, Chief," Gabby declares with a mischievous grin.

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Wallace retorts, turning toward Harris. "So, you are to observe only. That means you don't touch anyone; you don't hand out medical advice. You just stand to the side. You let these very capable ladies tell you what to do."

Harris nods, "Thank you, Chief Boden."

Gabby gestures for Harris to take a seat, and the trainee complies.

"So, where are you from?" Gabby questions, taking a sip of her coffee.

"From a little town outside of Cincinnati."

While seemingly interested in her newspaper, Alex peers up to the common room's entrance, finding Kelly leading an older man inside. With bruises covering his face, the brunette concludes that the man must have been in a recent fight, yet she doesn't recognize him, unlike Wallace, who sighs at the sight of his old colleague.

"Benny. What's the occasion?" Wallace asks.

"Just a harmless Chicago weekend," Benny Severide replies, shrugging off his injuries.

"Yeah. Good to see you, Benny."

Wallace retreats back to his office, excusing himself from Kelly and Benny.

"Morning, fellas," Benny welcomes, earning more greetings from the members of Truck and Squad.

"Just picked him up from jail," Kelly adds.

"I was defending the honor of a very, very nice young woman."

Joe raises an eyebrow, "I thought you were married."

"Was," Kelly corrects.

"Yeah, what he said. I hope you guys don't mind if I hang out at 51 for a little while," Benny discloses, collapsing onto the couch. "I just want to catch a couple of Zs."

Kelly glances at Alex, only to be met with a cold shoulder. He takes a step closer to her, but the bells stop him.

"Truck 81, Squad 3, Ambulance 61. Person trapped. 67 South Hoyne."

Alex brushes past the lieutenant and quickly trudges to the apparatus floor. As a result of their lights and sirens, the requested companies reach the scene in a matter of minutes, where they bump into the manager.

"Vonn, the cleaning guy... He comes in before we open and gets everything situated, but he didn't answer when I called out to him today." The manager describes, leading the firefighters and paramedics to a back room, "The hinges on this thing are always swinging the door shut. You're supposed to be able to open it from the inside, but the latch has been acting up."

The manager gestures to the back wall of the room, where a commercial freezer door is located; four purple fingers are stuck between the door and the jam.

"How long has he been in there?" Matt inquires.

"Not sure. Couple of hours."

Matt takes hold of his radio, "Herrmann, Otis, get the Jaws."

"Tony, Capp, go behind the building, check the compressor or the condenser, see if we can get quicker access," Kelly orders.

"Hey, Vonn. Can you hear us?" Matt queries, "Make a noise or wiggle your fingers if you can."