WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

by ardavenport

- - - Part 5

Captain Stanley, dressed in uniform, was waiting for him as soon Roy parked in the back of the station on his first shift back after getting out of the hospital. He had come in early. With new shoes and uniform and hopefully the department wouldn't take too long reimbursing him for the expense. But Stanley had come in even earlier.

"Hey, how you doing there, Roy?" They shook hands as Roy got out of his car.

"Oh, uh, pretty good. Uh, were you waiting for me, Cap?"

"Oh, waiting? Oh, no, no. I was just out here. In the fresh air. Beautiful morning, isn't it?" It was a warm sunny morning, clear blue sky over a plain gray concrete, enclosed parking lot. And Captain Stanley was transparently bad at lying about anything. Roy could understand. He wasn't that great with lying himself. But Stanley was worse.

"Oh, yeah." Roy picked up his bag of things from the passenger seat. "Well, I'm just going to go in and change. Cap." He backed away toward the open rear bay door.

Stanley waved him off. "Oh, you go on." Roy headed for the locker room, but when he looked back, the tall thin man was still out there by himself, bouncing on his heels and obviously waiting for Gage.

Roy was just tying the laces on his new boots when Johnny came in with his own bag of things. They had spent the previous morning waiting in a long line together at the DMV to get temporary replacements for their driver's licenses and apply for new ones and then shopping for new shoes and clothes. And finally Joanne drove them to the station to pick up their cars. Thankfully, C-shift had been out, so they hadn't had to talk to anyone.

"Cap wants to talk to us." Johnny opened his locker.

"Yeah, three guesses what it's about."

Johnny shrugged. "You think they told him anything?"

"Just to tell us not to talk about it."

Roy waited for Johnny to finish dressing and they went to the Captain's office together. Stanley asked them to close the door.

"Ah well." Stanley lowered himself into his chair. Roy sat before him. Johnny stood. "I, uh, just wanted to say, uh, how glad we all are that you're fine and . . . glad to have you back. And uh . . . . I've been asked to, uh, remind you, maybe, about some things that might need to be kept confidential with what happened back there. Whatever might have happened. . . ."

Roy couldn't stand watching him stumble around for words any more. "We know the party line, Cap."

"Yeah." Johnny kept his comments tight-lipped and terse.

Stanley looked nervously relieved. "Oh, well. Good. I just wish I did."

"It's probably better that you don't, Cap."

"Yeah."

Stanley's eyes turned up to Johnny and then down to Roy. "Oh, well. I guess. Now that we understand . . . what happened."

Roy clasped his hands before him. "Headquarters told you to remind us not to talk about it, I guess."

"Actually, it was Chief Houts. Called at four in the morning. Wanted me to come into headquarters after our shift. For a friendly chat." His strained smile looked nervous and bewildered at the same time.

Roy kept his tone even, low and reassuring. "Well, we got the message loud and clear back at the hospital, Cap. You, Chief Houts, and anyone else up the chain of command, don't have to worry about us saying anything."

"Yeah."

Stanley nodded back to Roy and then up at Johnny. "Okay." He obviously had no idea what they had been talking about. And he did want to know. But his sense of duty won out. "Okay." His tone firmed up." "Okay." More definitive, more decisive.

"Well," he slapped his knees. "That's all I wanted to say."

Roy smiled back. More reassurance for his Captain. "Well, thanks for welcoming us back. You don't need us for anything else, do you?"

"Oh, no. Nothing for now." He waved them off. Roy got up and followed Johnny out, but he heard a big sigh behind him from Stanley as they left.

They went through morning line-up and equipment checks with no comment about Squad Fifty-One's last run . . . . until they were in the dayroom with the engine crew while Captain Stanley was in his office.

Apparently Joanne had found out that Roy was injured when she called the station about something else. Captain Stanley had answered the call.

Lopez shuddered. "That was some thousand-yard stare on the Captain's face when he realized it was your wife on the phone, Roy."

Stoker agreed. "Yeah, we'd already heard that you were Code I on that run, but when the Cap radioed to dispatch to say we were available to help they just told us that Rampart said 'toxic chemical exposure'."

"Yeah, and that's all he could tell Joanne." Kelly pressed his lips together under his sagging mustache. "But come on, guys. What really happened to you?"

Johnny shrugged, arm resting on the kitchen table. "Nothing much. Just somebody stored a bunch of bad chemicals illegally and we stupidly walked into it."

Roy had to admit, that was nearly the truth. Nearly. But Chet wasn't satisfied. "Oh come on. There's more to it than that."

Johnny looked peeved. "Well, what do you think happened, Chet?"

"Well," he leaned forward over the table and lowered his voice, "I talked to Patterson at Eighty-Five and he talked to someone at headquarters and she said that the dispatcher who took the call on that run you were on swears that the lady who called it in had a Russian accent."

Chet seemed pleased to reveal with this bit of gossip. Marco and Mike leaned over the table as well. But Roy was unimpressed. Johnny even less so. "Oh, come on. You can't be serious."

"I am serious! She told him - - "

"We aren't talking about what we all agreed what we wouldn't be talking about, are we Kelly?" Holding a clipboard, Captain Stanley came through the door from the apparatus bay. Chet sat back at attention. Marco and Mike sat back away from him.

"Oh, no, Sir. Nothing of the kind."

"Uh, huh." Stanley looked up from the clipboard. "It's your turn for latrine duty today, isn't it, Chet?"

"Oh, no, Sir. It's Marco's - - "

"No, I distinctly remember that it's your turn today. Kelly."

Kelly's expression wilted. That was an order. He lowered his eyes. "Uh, yes Sir, Cap."

"So, maybe you should get right to it." Stanley raised his brows.

"Uh, right away, Cap." Chet got up and left. Lopez and Stoker did their best to look like they were minding their own business. Roy decided to remove the temptation for them. He tapped Johnny's arm to get his attention.

"Come on, Johnny. Let's go look over that new biophone again."

"Hm? Oh, okay." They left the table. That was all that was said about that run at Station Fifty-One. . . .

. . . . until two months later . . . .

Roy flipped through the second half of a draft of a revised paramedic manual, spread out on the station's kitchen table. Johnny yawned over the first half next to him. As senior paramedics, they had been asked to comment on the changes. They each had a red pencil.

Roy skimmed down a list of chemical hazards. His eyes stopped at one paragraph. He sat up, his chair scraping on the floor. He read it again.

"Johnny." Roy laid the page in front of him.

"Hmm?" Johnny looked down at it and scratched his ear.

"Right here. Fifth paragraph." Roy pointed.

Johnny dropped his hand. "What?" He ran his finger under the words that Roy had just read.

///// Chemical Weapons /////

///// While they are extremely unlikely to be encountered, they may be present in military or military contractor laboratories. These toxins would include nerve gasses such as Tabun, Sarin, Soman, VX . . . . . /////

"I don't believe it." Johnny snarled over the text. The following paragraphs talked about toxicity, symptoms and antidotes.

"I guess somebody thought that somebody should know something about it." Roy kept his voice down, but Kelly, over by the stove stirring a pot of soup, heard something.

"Finding anything juicy in those manuals, guys?"

Johnny snapped back at him over his shoulder. "Yeah a lot of hot dating tips, Chet. You could use the advice."

"Not me, pal. But that does explain a lot if you're getting your pick-up lines from paramedic manuals, Gage." Kelly didn't look up as he sprinkled pepper into the soup.

Johnny grimaced but didn't answer back again. They sat with their shoulders together, reading. The information seemed to be fairly complete. And accurate. Based on their experience.

Roy picked up his red pencil and marked 'OK' in the margin next to it.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.

Note: This story was beta-read by kellymutt.