Save Me (An Eddie Diaz 911 Fanfiction)

The Christmas Spirit

It was all Buck's fault. That's all there was to it. It was entirely, completely, 100% Buck's fault that Jane was left to sooth a group of angry parents and crying, disillusioned children. It was all Buck's fault and for just one moment, Jane wanted to kill him. The woman didn't have a homicidal bone in her body (most of the time) so it had to have been one heck of an exacerbating factor that sparked the murderous rage that overcame her for just that split second.

"I promise he's just a bit silly," Jane was telling a beautiful little girl named Janelle with umber skin and two curly pigtails on her head. The small child, who could have been no older than six, was shaking with how hard she was crying. Her belief in magic shattered. "Don't pay him any mind. None of us do."

The child's mother, a woman who was fueled with righteous anger, was not going to allow herself to be soothed either. Looking at her red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes, signs from her previous encounter with another manic holiday shopping mother who had pepper sprayed at least five other parents and a department store Santa Clause in front of a half dozen children. Admittedly, the woman had every right to be furious, Jane would be if she were in the woman's shoes. Still, she gave her most cherubic smile and did her best to sooth.

And she would have soothed them. If Buck hadn't opened his mouth. A second time.

But Buck had talked, and Jane was trying not to get herself killed by the mob of Christmas parents. At the same time, she was trying not to think up ways to kill her best friend. But Evan Buckley. Just. Kept. Talking.

See, it all started over a duck. According to the brief they received from dispatch, a mother had gone to this strip mall after the most sought-after Christmas toy of the season, a dancing duck. Apparently, a fight broke out over the last duck, and in the chaos, a mother had pulled out pepper spray. Santa got hit with the most concentrated stuff when he'd approached to get her to put the stuff down. Yeah. Things got ugly and before they'd even gotten there, Bobby had told Jane to work parent and kid control as they worked to give them all first aid.

Jane had agreed and that was that. Santa, unfortunately, had to be loaded onto a stretcher though, but it could have been worse. He'd be back at it in time for Christmas, even if his eyes would be irritated for days.

The chaos of the call was something else though. Jane worked to cheer the kids up, all of them distressed at their parents being hurt, passing out candy canes, complimenting t-shirts, and asking what they wanted for Christmas. She was playing elf, as she did during their toy drives, thriving off of the positive energy she gained from making children smile. She was doing a decent job at distracting them from the injury of the most mythical figure in their young lives being taken to the hospital.

Behind her, a beat cop was carrying out the toy of the hour and putting it in a plastic bag, while Athena had a redheaded mom with glasses and a pink sweater in handcuffs. She didn't look like a Santa attacker, but you never could tell these days, Jane supposed. The holiday season had the power to take it out of the most rational of people.

"Thank you," the woman who was on her way to prison gushed to Athena, her voice embarrassed and desperate, but relieved. She seemed to be under the impression that at the conclusion of it all, she'd still nabbed that gizmo. "Thank you so much for saving that. I mean at least if I have to go to jail, I'm leaving with what I came for."

"Sorry," Athena broke the news, not sounding sorry in the least as she began to push her towards her car, "but that toy is going into evidence."

"What?" Her hysterical voice broke, and then muffled as the door to the police car was shut firmly in her face.

Near the entrance, Bobby, Hen, and Buck were working on Santa Clause, wheeling him into an ambulance just to be sure as he'd been hit the worst. Jane and the kids were just a bit removed from them. Most of the parents had been treated and were now just waiting to finish giving statements to the other police officers on the scene.