Priorities || 9-1-1

11. Change

Eddie and Hen went back to work the next day. They forced a smiled to everyone on arrival though behind their smiles they were torn inside.

Somehow the news had spread that Steph had been taken away and Eddie realised this because Bobby and the others all came to him in turn and gave him a pat on the back and a comforting smile.

The shift was slow. They only had one call which was from an old man who said someone had crashed a car into his house.
It was a toy car, a remote control one about the size of an A4 piece of paper. Some ten year old boys had been driving it along the sidewalk and crashed it into the old man's front yard.
When the team arrived the man was shouting at the boys who were clutching the car to themselves, staring petrified at the enraged man.
Bobby had a chat with the man explaining that he shouldn't be getting the fire service out for things like this, agreed to pay for his flower pot that was broken, and sent the boys home.

Then they were back at the station.
Back to the awkward silence.
Except from the sound of Buck noisily devouring a bag of chips.

A few hours later, Bobby finished cooking his signature lasagna and everyone ate before the next team arrived for their shift and the 118 headed home.

A few weeks went by without news of Steph and Eddie resigned himself to the fact that she had probably found a loving family. A normal family.

The word normal that Arthur McGuire had used on his visit. It was engraved in Eddie's head. Was any family normal?
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Stephanie

Meanwhile, Steph was taken to a group home over 400miles away in Nevada. It was a nice place. A big grey house full of kids toys and paintings. There were lots of rooms, too many to count, each with two sets of bunkbeds, one each side of the room. There were 29 children at the home including Steph. She shared a room with 3 other children.

Eric was a little hispanic boy who never spoke a word. He was about 4, just a bit older than Steph but he was always distant. He never made eye contact with the adults or the children and kept to himself.

Then there was Ellis who was 10, she slept on the bunk above Steph. She had a bubbly personality and had a big smile plastered on her face all the time. Steph thought Ellis must be the happiest girl in the world except when she heard her sniffle in bed each night, trying her best to not let anyone know she was crying.

August was 8 and had a thick Texan accent. He was shorter than Ellis and had round cheeks and bright beady eyes. He slept on the bunk above Eric and was always asleep as soon as the lights went off, snoring loudly which kept the others awake and muted the sounds of Ellis's sobs.

Steph was comfortable there but not happy. She became good friends with her roommates in the first week she was there and they often sat in the middle of their little room and made up handshakes or told stories. Though Eric would just sit and observe, Steph thought he was just happy to have company.

There were 5 adults who ran the facility. 2 couples in their 40's and an older lady called Mrs Cole who was about 70. They had a dog too, a basset hound called Roscoe who slept all day.
They were nice people but functional. After all, they had almost 30 children to keep in check, feed and clean up after and it wasn't easy.

Mrs Cole made breakfast in the mornings and blasted her favourite heavy metal music to wake up the kids, whilst the other adults did the register and gathered up all the laundry. The children were then sent to tidy their rooms before lunch, come down and eat lunch, then retreat back to their rooms to play in the afternoons before dinner and then bed. There were not bedtime stories. No cookies and milk. No kisses on the foreheads and 'sleep tights' before bed. The adults walked the hallway at curfew and shut all the doors before leaving to go to their own rooms.

Every day was the same.
Breakfast. Tidy. Lunch. Play. Dinner. Bed.

Steph wanted to go home. To Eddie.
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Author's note:
I am sooo sorry this has taken so long and this chapter is soooo boring but I've been rly busy because this year is my final exams before college so i dont have heaps of time but i rly hope u are enjoying this story and im gonna try and get to the good stuff asap.
I'm always open to suggestions :)
Thank you for all the reads ❤️