Save Me (An Eddie Diaz 911 Fanfiction)

Careful What You Wish For

"Will do." And they stood there for a minute, not saying anything, tentatively smiling at each other.

"I was wondering-" Eddie began before Chris rolled down the window and began his protests. "If you wanted to-"

"Dad! Buck is calling your phone! We have to leave."

Jane laughed, "Sounds like you have to leave. Can't keep the kids waiting."

"Yeah," Eddie chuckled and took a few steps backwards, towards the tail end of his car, "Can't do that. I should go, and let you go. You said you were late."

"Yeah," Jane nodded, tightening her grip on her doorhandle. "I am late."

"So..." he took another few steps back, "Bye. Jane."

"Bye Eddie." She forced herself to get in the car, forgetting her wings and nearly bouncing back out in her flustered state. She heard Eddie and Chris chuckle behind her, but she waved them away, took off the wings, shoved them in the passenger seat, gathered the poufy skirt, and got in the car. As she started the car, and turned on the air conditioning, she ignored the flush that overwhelmed her cheeks or the butterflies that had started in her stomach when she thought that Eddie was going to...to say what he was going to say. She didn't dare give it a name.

...........

The pediatrics wing of the hospital was full of chatter and laughter when Jane arrived in her fairy princess outfit. She'd earned a lot of strange looks as she strode through the hospital doors, some snickers, but if that had bothered her, those feelings went away when she stepped into a room full of children and their eyes lit up and sparkled as they all gasped.

"Are you really a fairy princess?" one little girl asked, with wide brown eyes and an endearing lisp. She had a rainbow scarf on her head and bruises under her eyes, indicating months of chemo treatments, which caused Jane's heart to hurt. She didn't appear to be older than five or six.

But, as a first responder, Jane had a lot of practice at keeping her feelings under wraps and keeping a calming smile on her face. Besides, the genuine joy and wonder in these children's eyes as they took her in, made it all worth it. Jane smiled widely and twirled, making her dress swoosh dramatically in a pink arc and allowing the glitter on her wings to catch in the florescent lights to create a lovely effect.

"Really, really," Jane smiled, pulling the girl in for a hug. At her pronouncement all of the other little girls in the room, and a few of the boys, rushed to give her hugs as well. Jane made sure to give each one of them a big hug and a smile, learning names and laughing when one or two would make a joke.

The girl, Emma, and one of her friends Valerie latched themselves on each of Jane's arms as she lead them through the other entertainment. There was a clown there, who Jane recognized as Halle's husband Alec, a man she'd met at Farrah's wedding. The cafeteria had set up a treat table. One of the side rooms had a showing of Toy Story and Jane had been directed to another side room where she'd play get-to-know-you games for the kids who rarely got to come out of their rooms and have an interactive story time.

She sat on a chair that was very uncomfortable, and surprisingly, Jane found herself thankful for the cushioning layers of floof she was wearing. The children gathered in a circle below her on top of little blue cushioned mats they'd pulled from the corner for an occasion such as this.

Jane was a natural storyteller; she knew all of the classic fairytales and she loved adding twists and modern ridiculousness into them to inspire giggles. For instance, in her first story, Rumpelstiltskin, instead of saying that the king would kill the princess if she didn't spin the straw into gold, she said that the girl would be cursed for eternity with a stuffy nose, and then later, that her first guess at the magical being's name happened to be Abner. The name Abner inspired so much laughter that Jane had to stop the story for nearly five whole minutes and their giggles triggered her giggles.