Love, Dad | Joe Cruz

Chapter 19: A Cruz-Allen Wedding

"I'm gonna help him!" Tatiana tells him with her mouth full.

"Don't talk with your mouth full please," Cruz says quietly while Gallo keeps explaining.

"Look, tons of houses have them now, and they post everything from fire safety tips to recipes," Gallo explains scrolling through a page on a tablet. "They're great community outreach, and people love seeing the day-to-day of a firehouse." He finishes as Chief walks in behind him.

"You sure you don't want me to call in a floater?" Chief asks leaning on the counter with his coffee mud.

"But I won't get to hang out here if you do," Tatia says giving him a pouting face.

"No. A shift is just what I need to keep the wedding nerves at bay. Besides Tatiana wants to get everyone to sign her cast and I don't want her doing that at the wedding." He jokes looking over at her.

"Exactly!" She agrees turning around on the couch.

"You missed out last night."

"Ah, well. The boss needs to maintain a certain plausible deniability with these things." Chief says moving from the counter. "It does look like everyone was having a good time."

"Oh, yeah." Gallo agrees.

"Oh, but not too good. Chloe was worried I'd look puffy in the wedding photos, so I drank a lot of water." He says.

"Ah, smart woman. Donna... she set ours up right in the front entry. First thing you see when you walk through the door. You'll be looking at those photos for many, many years."

"Rest of your life," Herrmann says.

"Mouch wanna sign my cast?" Tati takes the sling on and lays her arm on her lap.

"Yeah, sure." He takes the green marker and writes on it quickly.

"Thanks. Herrmie! Wanna sign my cast?" She looks at him grinning

"Never call me that again Tatiana." He says sitting on the couch next to her.

"Why what are you going to do?"

"I'll stop letting you hang out with Annabelle." He teases as he grabs the purple marker, the color he knows is her favorite. He puts his name on it just as the bells are called. Every walks to the doors and she can see from the couch them struggling to leave.

She quickly puts her sling on and stands up to see what's going on she doesn't go over though not wanting to get in the way. She hears Foster yell about the back door before watching them run towards it. She goes over to the main doors to see what was going on. She watches as men lock others to the rigs 51 yelling at them. Maybe she should've gone to school today. She steps back as everyone goes to the doors to cut the chains off.

–––Later–––

Tatiana looks around as a crowd of people enter the common room where she sat on the couch. She's surrounded in barely time. She zones out missing everything the crowd and 51 say. She doesn't like strangers, or crowds all that much now she's on the couch with random people.

"Get away." She glares at a guy trying to take the remote once he realized she was watching a kids' show. She didn't know what to do as she looks at Severide who was talking to one of the protesters. He smacks the phone out of one of their hands as Chief walks in. "I should've gone to school." She mumbles as the lieutenants and captain leave.

"Tots." Cruz hurries in and over to the couch.

"Hey." One of the protestors looks at him with a look of offense.