Season 4 One Shots

First Day Back

"You can't look at me," Andy said quickly in response to his question.

"I can't look at you?" Robert asked, a bit bewildered by her request. "We're going to end up on the same call at some point. How can we fight a fire or assist a victim if I can't look at you?"

"No, I mean you can't look at me like that," Andy attempted to clarify, waving her hand in the direction of his face.

"Like what?" Robert asked.

"Like you've seen me naked," Andy clarified.

"But I have," Robert replied in the low, deep voice that always managed to get her stomach churning. "And I quite liked it."

"That's the problem," Andy scolded playfully. "So no."

With that, Andy turned on her heel and went to find something to keep herself busy until they were sent out on a call.

A bit later that day, Andy was grabbing something from the locker room, chatting with Travis and Vic who were attending to the laundry. As she did, her husband emerged from the shower wrapped in a towel that covered the lower half of his body, but nothing else. He greeted the group with a quick, "Hey" and proceeded to his locker to get his uniform.

As he did, Andy's eyes visibly followed him, and Travis and Vic shared a knowing glance and small smile, before resuming their chore, pretending like the sight of their former battalion chief walking around in nothing but a towel was a common occurrence. Andy, distracted for just a moment, quickly returned her focus to her conversation with her friends.

The laundry completed, Vic and Travis left the locker room, and Andy retrieved her belongings before heading toward the door. She was stopped, however, by the sound of her husband's voice.

"Hey Andy," he called from his locker, his tone light and playful.

Andy turned and met her husband's gaze.

"If I'm not allowed to look, neither are you," he teased.

Andy, realizing he had noticed her moment of distraction, felt the heat rising to her cheeks before shaking her head with a chuckle and heading out the door.

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With the city still almost completely locked down due to COVID restrictions, the firefighters found themselves spending more time at the station during their shifts. There were fewer car accidents, and most of the fire calls they had were of the small home kitchen variety, usually caused by people who hadn't used their oven or stove in years trying to occupy themselves in quarantine by learning to cook. The aid car, however, was quite busy. They attended to many COVID patients, but also numerous heart attacks, strokes, and other ailments, the patients' conditions made worse by the fact that people were too afraid of catching COVID to go to the doctor or hospital. Often, by the time they called 911, there was little the first responders could do.

The aid car was so busy that Maya divided the day into three 8-hour shifts. Whoever was on aid car from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. was assigned to the ladder truck or engine for the rest of the shift, in an attempt to spread out the workload. This late afternoon, Travis and Ben were on aid car, having relieved Jack and Dean who had covered the earlier portion of the day. Andy and Vic were preparing dinner, and the rest of the crew was relaxing or napping, waiting for dinner, or a call, whichever came first.

On a typical afternoon, the break room television would usually be broadcasting a game of whichever sport was currently in season. With COVID-19 shutting down all sports, however, this afternoon was anything but typical, and Ben, Travis, Jack, and Robert found themselves watching a replay of an old Seattle Mariners baseball game. There was no suspense; anyone with a phone could easily find out the outcome of the game, but it allowed them to pretend, at least for a little while, that things were normal.