Chapter Text
Disclaimer: The E! characters do not belong to me. They have been borrowed strictly for fun and not for fortune.
"An Apple a Day"
By Ross
Chapter One
Firefighter/paramedic, John Gage, passed his partner in the doorway, on his way out of Station 51's locker room. The exiting, uniformed fireman immediately reentered the room and followed his squinting, street-clothed associate over to his locker.
Roy DeSoto sneezed into his shirt's un-tucked tails and then glanced up at Gage. "Wha-at?" he inquired, upon noting his friend's foreboding frown.
"You look absolutely awful! And you sound just as miserable. You shouldn't be working when you're this sick!"
Roy blinked his red, watery eyes and then sneezed, twice more, into his un-tucked shirttails. "They can't find anybody to replace me," he defensively stated, in a hoarse, nasally sounding voice.
"You should a' stayed home anyway," his still scowling chum chastised. "You just ain't gonna be satisfied, until you give me your cold." That said, John turned back toward the door and quickly took his leave of both the locker room-and his highly contagious partner.
Following roll call, 51's Captain, Hank Stanley, had dispensed Fire Station duties and then disappeared into his air-conditioned office.
His five-man crew dispersed and wordlessly went about their mundane chores.
DeSoto, who had been assigned to 'hold down the covers on his bunk until a call came in', finally got sick of just staring up at the dorm's ceiling and went off in search of his peeved partner.
"Cap? You seen Johnny around?" Roy asked, as he met up with his boss in the parking bay.
Stanley took a satisfied sip of his freshly-fetched coffee and nodded.
"Where?"
The Captain replied with a quick question of his own. "What is today?"
Roy stared back at the fire officer in confusion. "Saturday."
Hank smiled, as a look of dawning understanding slowly filled his senior paramedic's slightly flushed face.
"Bugs Bunny," Roy realized, aloud.
The Captain's grin broadened. "Bulls-eye!" he bemusedly exclaimed and disappeared back into his office.
Roy strolled into the Rec' room.
Sure enough!
Johnny was sitting in front of the Station's television, staring glumly up at its 19" screen.
Both firemen watched Wile E. Coyote fall down a ridiculously deep canyon and then land with a splat and a poof of dust face-first on canyon's floor.
Gage grimaced and exhaled a weary sigh. "Just once, I'd like to see that coyote get to wring that roadrunner's scrawny little neck."
DeSoto couldn't help but smile. "Wanna go over the supplies?"
"Already did," his friend informed him, his eyes never leaving the TV's screen. "I didn't hear an alarm. Shouldn't you be holding the covers down on your bunk?"
"Got sick a' just layin' there," Roy confessed.
"You were already sick," his unhappy partner promptly pointed out. "That's why you were just layin' there."
The Station's tones sounded just then and saved Roy from having to comment further.
"Squad 51..."
Squad 51's paramedics trotted out into the garage and piled into their rescue truck.
Gage placed an open box of Kleenex tissues down on the seat between them and reluctantly closed his passenger door. The frowning fireman then proceeded to slide, just as far as he possibly could, away from the vehicle's coughing driver. "Don't talk to me. I don't want you to even breathe in my direction," John informed the 'sicky'. Then he turned his frowning face toward his open window and inhaled deeply.
Roy saw the lengths his germ-a-phobic friend was going to, to avoid close contact with him, and rolled his red, watering eyes.
"...Man down," the dispatcher continued. "Possible O.D....1220 East Langley...Cross streets Farbach and Chilton...One-two-two-zero East Langley...Ambulance is responding...Time out: 09:27."
Their Captain finished recording the call. "Squad 51. KMG-365," he acknowledged, just prior to passing his paramedics their copy of the address.
Roy held the little slip of paper out to his navigator, who reluctantly accepted it.
"Hang a left," Gage advised.
DeSoto did, and Squad 51 went wailing off down the street with its warning lights flashing.
A mere seven minutes later, the rescuers reached 1220 East Langley.
DeSoto pulled up and parked behind a Deputy Sheriff's car.
The pair piled out, pulled the Squad's passenger side compartments open and grabbed their gear.
"The boy's inside," the Deputy informed them and began escorting them over to the single-storied home's open front door. "His name's Patrick Finley and he just turned sixteen. His mother says he swallowed some of these, about fifteen minutes ago," he explained and held an empty prescription bottle up over his shoulder.
"Secobarbitol," John read aloud. "How many did he take?"
"The mother claims the bottle was a quarter full."
Gage exchanged a somber glance with his partner.
Ten extremely tense, hectic minutes later...
Roy and his partner exchanged relieved glances, as sirens suddenly sounded in the near distance. "Rampart," he spoke into their Bio-phone's hand-held receiver, "this is Squad 51. Ambulance is just arriving. Transporting immediately. ETA fifteen minutes...Ah-ah-ah-choo-oo!"
"Affirmative, 51," Joe Early acknowledged. "Keep us posted and...bless you."
"Roger that, Rampart...Will update vitals en route," the senior paramedic promised, between a cough and another sneeze. Roy set the phone aside and started closing equipment cases.
His wincing partner promptly ripped open an alcohol wipe and then used it to sanitize their Bio-phone's mouthpiece. "Try to remember to cover your mouth, will yah," he strongly urged. "On top of everything else, Patrick doesn't need your cold."
DeSoto gave his bossy buddy an annoyed glare, along with another eye roll.
Twenty frantic, extremely busy minutes later...
The ambulance carrying Roy and the sixteen-year-old boy arrived at Rampart's Emergency Receiving.
Its back doors were yanked open.
Patrick's stretcher was quickly unlocked and unloaded.
DeSoto stepped down with their young victim's half-drained IV bag in his upraised left hand.
"Treatment Three!" RN Dixie McCall told the emergency vehicle's two attendants.
The guys in the white coats and slacks nodded and the boy's gurney was guided into the building.
Gage backed their Squad into the parking slot beside the ambulance and jumped out.
"How's he doin'?" the dark-haired paramedic inquired, as he caught back up with his partner, just inside the ER's main entrance.
"He seems to be holdin' his own," Roy solemnly replied. "I sure am glad you were right behind us."
"Five minutes into the ride, the kid went into full respiratory and cardiac arrest," John explained to a confused looking Miss McCall.
They reached Exam Three.
DeSoto suddenly experienced a coughing jag.
Gage grimaced and backed away.
Dixie snatched the IV from her sick fireman friend. "I hope you don't feel as terrible as you look," she sympathetically said and disappeared behind the door to Treatment Three.
Roy's shoulders sagged. "Actually...I think I feel a whole lot worse."
John latched onto his pitiful sounding partner's right arm and began pulling him off down the hall. "C'mon! Let's take your temperature."
The dark-haired paramedic towed his prisoner over to the ER's Nurses' Station. He kept his left hand locked onto his partner's arm and used his right hand to search for a thermometer. He found one in a drawer and held it up.
"Wrong end," Roy announced, upon noting that it was a rectal thermometer, and not an oral one.
John suppressed a grin. "Isn't this kind s'posed to be more accurate?" he innocently inquired.
Roy gave his helpful buddy-and his thermometer-an icy, un-amused glare.
John set the rectal thermometer down on the counter and resumed his search.
"What are you looking for?" Dixie wondered, as she came stepping up behind the pair.
"An oral thermometer," John replied. "I'm pretty sure my partner, here, is running a fever."
Dixie pulled an oral thermometer out of her smock's right pocket. "Open up!" she ordered.
Roy obligingly opened his mouth.
The nurse stuck her thermometer under his tongue and then glanced at her watch.
Dr. Early exited Exam Three and stepped up to the Nurses' Station.
"How's he doin', Doc?" DeSoto mumbled around the medical instrument in his mouth.
Dixie's blue eyes iced over. "Shhhhh!"
"How's the kid?" Gage re-inquired.
Early glanced up from the kid's medical chart and flashed the firemen a warm smile. "Thanks to the two of you, I think he's going to make it."
The 'two of them' traded grins.
"But it was close," Early solemnly continued. "Very, very close." The ER physician eyed the two paramedics approvingly. "When every second counted, you two made damn sure they did."
The two firemen's broad grins transformed into bashful smiles.
"We were just following your orders, Doc," John Gage humbly announced.
"No, John," Joe Early quickly corrected. "I can't take credit for this one. I have a feeling I was just a legal formality."
"Time!" Dixie determined, following another quick glance at her wrist. The RN snatched the thermometer from Roy's mouth and read it. "101.8...You should be home-in bed!"
"See?" Gage gloated. "Now you have a second opinion."
"Fourth," DeSoto glumly confessed, with a cough and a sniffle. "You told me that last shift. Joanne tried telling me that last night, and I've been telling myself the same thing-all morning."
Dixie seemed somewhat confused again. "Then why aren't you home-in bed?"
"They can't find anybody to replace me," the sick paramedic explained, sounding more than a little flustered-and pitiful. He sneezed again and then turned to Early. "Doc', I don't suppose you could give me something for this..."
Joe pulled a prescription pad from his right front coat pocket and scribbled something down. The ER doc' passed the piece of paper on to the sniffling, sneezing paramedic and then quickly took his leave.
"Thanks, Doc!" DeSoto called after the fleeing physician. The feverish fireman glanced down at the piece of paper in his hand and sighed.
His partner snatched the prescription from him and read it-aloud. "Complete bed rest. Plenty of liquids and aspirin to reduce fever and alleviate aches and pains." He folded the paper up and stashed it into his frowning friend's front shirt pocket. "Well, partner, that makes it unanimous. C'mon. I'll drive you back to the Station. Then you can get in your car...and go home...and go to bed."
DeSoto's frown deepened. He gave Dixie a half-hearted wave goodbye. Then he sneezed twice, sniffled once, and followed his smug, bossy, disappearing partner off down the crowded hospital corridor.
TBC