Danger Zone (File One of The First Responders Files)

Chapter Thirty

So it turns out that when you start writing the funniest episode you've ever seen from a drama, you really want to finish it . . . and while the episode isn't completely finished, I stopped at about 11.8K words. Hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Sylvie plays Secret Keeper and arrives in Los Angeles, Eddie doesn't believe in jinxes, Hen and Chimney try to convince him otherwise, and Bobby can't believe Sylvie is enjoying this. Athena and Lena are just along for the ride.

Enjoy "Jinx!"

***

Tommy should have been the odd officer out at the 126, but upon closer examination, Owen realized it was technically Sylvie. Owen was the commanding officer of the 126 as a whole, and he was the captain of Squad 9. Tommy was the officer of EMS 126, but she was not the chief paramedic of the house. Sylvie, while the chief paramedic of the 126 and a paramedic captain, was the only officer in the house that had not gotten an official rig of her own, as she was the riding paramedic of Squad 9.

I'm glad that'll no longer be the case, Owen thought as he finished signing one of the reports from earlier in the shift. Tommy had been informed immediately of Sylvie's news, and she had greeted the blonde next shift with a bear hug of excitement. Nancy, the last paramedic at the house, had been told when she had walked into the locker room where Sylvie bounced excitedly. The resulting squeal from Nancy had made Buttercup freeze where he was getting love from Marjan out on the apparatus floor. Owen knew Sylvie was planning on telling Buck and TK after their current shift, then they would tell the rest of the house the following shift.

The repetitive click of Sylvie's pen finally resonated in Owen's mind, and he looked up to see Sylvie slowly spinning around in her chair, completely focused on the files of Austin paramedics. He watched her do eight rotations and click her pen far more times before he finally cleared his throat. When that didn't catch her attention, he coughed loudly. She jumped, startled, and Owen smiled sheepishly. "At least your pen works."

"Oh, God," Sylvie dropped it like it was a hot potato. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even realize – "

"Geez, don't apologize," Owen shook his head. "I know the toll it takes to put together a crew."

"Yeah, and look at how well you did," Sylvie gestured out the window towards the apparatus floor. "Back in New York, too."

"You're not putting together an entire firehouse, though," Owen pointed out. "It's just one rig."

"One rig with paramedics I need to trust to know how to save a life when it could come down to a second," Sylvie countered.

Owen paused. "You are really working yourself up over this."

"Mackey was perfect back in Chicago," Sylvie sighed, rubbing her forehead. "It helped that I had Cruz's recommendation. I just . . . " She made a frustrated noise. "None of these Austin paramedics are what I'm looking for in a partner, let alone a three-person crew!"

"Chief Radford said it didn't need to be a three-person crew," Owen reminded her. "He said it could be a two-person team, just like you had in Chicago."

"That helps," Sylvie admitted, putting the files down and slumping back in her chair. "I just . . . I usually had my partner assigned to me, or they were already at the house. Dawson wanted to be a firefighter and Mills had an injury that led him to being PIC, then he left and Chili was assigned to 61, then Jimmy had to be assigned to 61, then Dawson came back, then Foster was assigned to me . . . Mackey was really the first paramedic I had any input on." She looked up at Owen. "When you formed Squad, how stressful was it?"