To say Christopher Hermann was bored was an understatement. He had been lying on the couch at the fire station for the past two hours, idly flipping through the channels. Last night, he had been forced to sit though hours of silent films courtesy of his mother in law. Today, the firehouse had been extraordinarily inactive and everyone in it seemed to be to busy to entertain him. Hermann didn't usually hope for a call, no firefighter does, but today he hoped for any kind of action.

Otis walked in the room and flopped onto the couch.

"Have you seen Casey?" Hermann asked, checking the clock. It read 10:32, same as the last time he checked.

"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him all day," Otis said thoughtfully.

"Figures. The one time I remember the money I owe him, he's not around," Hermann moaned as moved into a more upright position.

"What d'you owe him for?" Otis asked. He himself had turned Hermann down when the older man had asked for a loan to fund some new investment opportunity just last month. Otis wondered whether he'd turned to Casey next. He knew Casey wasn't that stupid, but on the other hand, he was that nice.

"I may have borrowed some money with the intent of returning it as soon as made a little more, but things didn't go in my favor," Hermann said.

Otis nodded. "Investment opportunity?"

Hermann turned to Otis. "Pool game," he said.

Chief Boden walked into the room, making his way to the piles of boxes on the other side.

"Hey Chief," called out Otis. "Have you seen Casey today?"

The Chief looked up from the disorganized mess of boxes. "He switched shifts with Hempstead. Said he had to run some kind of errand and it had to be done today." Boden looked back down. "Say, who did I tell to do something about all of this?" he asked, gesturing to the collapsing pile of cardboard boxes.

The two men from the other side of the room called out "Mills."

Lieutenant Matt Casey was walking through the fifth floor of the Schwartz building, looking for Joesph Lynch's office. He was doing some renovations at Joe's house, but small problems had come up and Casey thought it would be best to solve them sooner rather than later. The only problem was he was having a little trouble finding Joe.

He spotted a redheaded woman holding several file folders walking in his direction.

"Excuse me, miss," Casey said. The woman stopped. He continued, "I'm looking for Joseph Lynch's office and I can't seem to find it. Could you point me in his direction?"

"You must be Matt. Joe said he was expecting you. His office is down this hallway and to your left. You'll hear him before you see him, so just follow the sound of his voice," the woman said.

"Thanks," Casey replied and walked away.

"Well, did you?" Gabriela Dawson asked her partner, Leslie Shay.

Shay hesitated before saying, "Well, no, but-" "But nothing, Shay. You were the one that wanted to. This is your problem," Dawson interrupted as she continued to pour ingredients into the large, dented bowl.

"C'mon. All I need is one little favor," Shay goaded, passing her partner a large spoon.

Dawson took the spoon and looked at Shay. "No," she said sternly. "This is not gonna end up some disastrous fiasco involving the entire firehouse like it did last time."

"She's right, Shay. Last time was bad. I'm still not allowed back in the Best Buy on Clark Street," Hermann added, snacking on some chips. Neither of the women had noticed him enter the kitchen. "Whatcha cookin' there, Dawson?" he asked as he eyed the bowl, hungrily.

Dawson moved the bowl away from him.

Casey was on his way to the elevators. As it turned out, most of the issues that had come up were easily resolvable. He was out of Joe's office in no time. He smiled at the redhead, whose name, he had learned, was Melanie, as he walked past her.

All he had to do today was pick up some things at the hardware store and then he had a few easy fixings in Joe's basement before he could enjoy the rest of his day off.

When Casey reached the elevator, there was someone else waiting for it. The woman was obviously very pregnant and she looked very anxious.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. The two of them walked in and Casey pressed the lobby button.

The doors closed and a loud crash was heard along with screams. The elevator dropped several feet quickly and both of them grabbed the rails before it stopped abruptly.

Dawson shut off the oven and took the pot of stew off it. She put it on the counter and walked away, giving Hermann a warning look.

Suddenly, the bell rang and everyone stopped what they were doing. "Building collapse. Engine 51. Truck 81. Squad 3. Medic 61."

Hermann cheered. When Mills gave him a confused look, he responded with, "What? Didn' you hear building collapsed? Get a move on it." And with that he left.

I got the idea for this and when I found out the episode "Two Families" was going to have a similar plot point, I decided to write this before the episode came out. Sorry it's so short. This was meant to be a one shot, but I thought it might end up being to long so I decided to split it up.