Jane had been quiet for the past week or so. She didn't want to tell anyone about the frightening voicemail. She couldn't expect her friends to take on all of her problems. She had spent years coping on her own, and she could continue to do so. That was how she found herself sitting at her computer, looking up self defense classes while Bobby tapped away on his own laptop doing something at her side.
"Whoa, whoa whoa." Chimney said, coming up the stairs with Hen. The second that Bobby saw them coming, he immediately closed his laptop, which honestly made Jane curious too. "What was that all about?" He pointed to the laptop that had been pushed to the side.
Bobby nonchalantly took a sip of the tea that Jane had made for both of them, and looked up at the two paramedics innocently. "What?"
"You closed your laptop as soon as we walked in here like you were hiding something."
"No, I didn't. I just took a sip of tea." They were unmoved, and Buck had come upstairs, and was now looking at his friends amused that they were cornering Bobby instead of him for a change.
Jane used this time of distraction to slowly close her own laptop, because frankly she wasn't ready to tell people about the class she was considering. That might lead them to ask questions about why she was taking it. Which was something she really didn't want to talk about.
"I can't be hiding something. Jane is right there," Bobby tried again, pointing to the young woman. "If I were hiding something, I wouldn't be doing it with Jane here."
"No," Hen smiled down at him. "You still could be. Jane is the least pushy of us. She wouldn't even think about peeking at your screen."
Chimney seemed to agree with Hen as he grabbed the laptop. When he opened it, despite Bobby's protests and obvious embarrassment, his eyebrows went up.
"RomancingTheUniform.com?! That's my dating site! That's where I met Tatiana!" Buck and Hen came up behind Chimney, all of them getting Cheshire grins at the sight of the dating website. Jane shook her head lovingly at their juvenile behavior.
"Holy crap," Chim's voice was lower, more thoughtful. "Are you actually getting back out there? Putting yourself on the scene?"
"My sponsor said that maybe it's time. I spend too much time in my work, in my head, and that dating, having a girlfriend, would help me get out into the world."
"I think it's great, you are taking the leap. It's brave." Hen leaned over the table to look at Bobby. Her voice was sincere but laced with frustration and pain and no small amount of self-inflicted anger. "While at the moment, I think dating or sleeping with someone is not worth the trouble, but I'm happy for you."
Jane gave Hen a soft look. Hen had finally come clean to her about her own full moon experience and its unexpected ramifications for her family. While internally, Jane had been upset for the two of them, and even a little mad at Hen for stepping out on Karen, Jane let nothing show. Nothing good would come of those feelings. Besides, she could see her friend's genuine devastation at what had happened. She believed that Hen was truly sorry and that it was a one-time event. It wasn't her place to judge anyone. All she could do was to be there for both Hen and Karen during this time.
Hen had actually asked Jane if she would call and check on Karen. She'd moved into her parents with Denny and wasn't taking Hen's calls. Jane did so, and Karen was surprisingly grateful. She didn't feel comfortable calling Jane since Jane obviously worked with Hen and she hadn't wanted to put her in the awkward position of taking sides. Jane simply told the woman that she understood and asked if she needed anything. They'd talked for an hour, and afterwards Jane was convinced that after some time apart, her friends' marriage would make it.
She'd been so distracted, that she'd missed parts of the conversation. Her attention was caught again by the crew teasing Bobby about the content of his profile.
"Yeah, this is terrible and this picture looks like you're trying to sell real estate from a bus bench. And you know what? I will not be buying. You cannot describe yourself as, 'I'm a life saver, not a heartbreaker.'" Jane had to bite her lip to keep her laughter in at that. Chimney had no such qualms and was in fits.
"What? Come on, that's sweet," Bobby defended himself.
Jane looked over at him. Poor man had probably spent a lot of time on that line. Maybe she should have looked up from her search and asked what he was doing. She could have offered help.
"No, it is cheese," Buck said. "Sweet, sweet cheese!" Then he threw his head back laughing at himself so hard that his chair swung back a few inches. Chimney had to catch him with one hand.
"You like flan?" Chimney looked at him, ready for another joke.
"Good flan is the bomb!" Bobby defended.
"It is, and it's very tricky to make!" Jane agreed once she'd properly schooled her facial expression. Then she gave the man a reassuring pat on the arm, showing her support. He might not go through with it if they kept this up and this was a big thing for Bobby.
"You have an AOL email address? It is literally like you were frozen in ember in 1995."
"Its amber not ember you idiot," Bobby was getting a bit snappy now. Defensive.
"I don't care," Buck shook his head at the Captain. "You can never show this to a girl."
"Why not?"
"Okay, this is a joke profile for a guy no one ever wants to go out with."
"Harsh Buck!" Jane scolded. "That is just rude."
"You know what, maybe you are not the right person he should be taking dating advice from Buckaroo," Chimney interjected, removing the laptop from Buck's hands and coming back around to sit to Jane on the other side of the table.
"Yes," Jane agreed. "I can help. As a single woman in L.A. I'm sure I can offer plenty of constructive and non-insulting advice."
"No offense Jane," Buck said, "But you are far from the average single woman. You are basically a Mom who always has baked goods and who constantly fusses over people."
"What's that's supposed to mean?" She crossed her arms in front of her, and raised her eyebrows at the man who was barely a year younger than her.
"Nothing bad," he shrugged obliviously. "It's just hard to imagine you as an intimate partner."
"Whoah!" Chimney raised his hands catching Jane's hurt and furious expression, "Too far Buck and really, given your track record, you shouldn't be talking."
As if catching what he'd just said, Buck looked over at Jane guiltily. "I didn't mean it in a bad way, Janie. You're just...you're too nice for the modern dating world!"
"Sure," she clenched her jaw, digging her nails into her palms. "Sure that's what you meant. No offense taken at all, Evan."
"And why wouldn't I give him advice?" Buck turned back to Chim. "Last I checked I'm in a stable, monogamous, relationship with an amazing woman. Hell, I'm the healthiest dater at this table."
Bobby, Chimney and Jane all looked at each other. Jane, remembering that last date she was on involved a man who kept scratching at the strange fungal infection on the back of his neck, gave an involuntary shiver. Then she tried to ignore the beginning of Buck's rant.
Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe I'm not the kind of girl that really good guys go for. Maybe I'm too nice...or just too weird.
"Oh my God, he's right!" Chimney exclaimed in obvious disappointment.
"The world is turned upside down," Hen marveled with him.
"You're telling me. My last date would have made for a great episode of Untold Mysteries of the E.R," Jane shook her head.
She hated speaking so poorly of a man who had seemed very nice. She'd met him at the pet store when she was picking up special food for Felix. He owned the store, and he'd seemed harmless enough when he'd asked her to dinner. But... they'd gone to eat and there was puss. It was disturbing and not a color that she'd ever seen before but dark enough for her to know that it'd likely been infected, and he would get blood poisoning if it was left alone much longer. She personally drove him to the hospital and called his mother to come pick him up.
"The fungus guy?" Hen asked.
"Yep."
"Wasn't that like...."
"A month after my other date bailed on me and then also ended up in the E.R.? Yes."
"And last I checked, Abby had no questionable diseases and I've been seeing her steadily for weeks now! I am proof that real change is possible!" Buck proclaimed, banging his hand on the table as if he were declaring victory.
And that is when shit hit the fan.
"What the hell Evan Buckley?" A woman none of them had ever seen before was marching towards them all, angry eyes trained on Buck.
She was a young pretty brunette with shoulder length hair and she was wearing skinny jeans, boots, a gray cardigan, and a short, pink scarf around her neck. She was walking quickly, not quite running but almost. She was going for Buck, and she wasn't about to be deterred.
"Can we help you?" Bobby asked patiently, but she ignored him, eyes trained on her target.
"You lead me on for six weeks? The sexiest, deepest, most romantic, most intimate relationship I've ever had with a man. I told you everything. You told me everything and I'm not an easy nut to crack. Is this your sick game? Make a girl reveal every fear and turn-on and then you just disappear? Is ghosting girls your thing?" She was shaking and upset.
Jane instinctively stood up, to comfort her or to comfort Buck, who looked lost at the words she was saying. Seeing his reaction, Jane knew that there had to be a misunderstanding. Despite the situation, Jane didn't believe that Buck had talked to that girl.
"I'm sorry, are you sure you have the right Evan Buckley?" Bobby asked. Apparently, he didn't want to think Buck was still like that either.
"You mean the Evan Buckley who's a firefighter? Who works here and was on the news and climbing a rollercoaster and looks exactly like you?" Her voice got high at the end, as she looked at Buck as if he'd kicked her puppy.
"Listen, yeah, sure, that- that is definitely me. But the me that I am, and the him that you are describing that is not the same person." Buck looked confused and weary and genuinely upset.
Jane was a few feet behind them, when the strange woman just slapped him right across the face.
"Hey, woah, woah," Bobby stood up, trying to cool the tension, but Jane was already there.
"Excuse me," Her voice was low and hard. It was her on call and she was in charge voice. "No matter what happened, you have no right to hit someone. It's illegal. Now please, leave the firehouse now or we will call the police on you for battery."
The woman's face was weary and still upset, but she nodded. She almost looked sorry as she turned around and stomped her way out.
"I swear, I have never seen her before," Buck told the crew. All of them except for Jane looked doubtful. Likely as a reaction to the fact that Buck had just talked about how healthy of a dater he was. Right after he insulted all of them.
"If you say so," was Bobby's only response.
"No," He raised his hand, pointing his finger at the Captain. "I do say so. Okay, I swear, I don't know who that was. I have- I have found real intimacy. Right? You know this!"
Bobby and Chimney averted their eyes and sat back down at the table. Hen just looked at him like, 'You really expect us to believe that.' Jane stood behind them all, looking at Buck in sympathy. He really had changed. He'd been so good over the past few weeks helping Abby bury her Mom. Jane had seen it herself when she visited to drop off cookies and a healthy casserole. Buck was doing dishes, helping to clean and reorganize the house. He was holding her hand and supporting her. Jane truly believed he wouldn't risk Abby to ghost a girl.
"C'mon. I haven't even flirted with anyone else!"
"Sure," Hen agreed sarcastically. "You are proof that real change is possible." Then the alarm went off.
"I believe you Buck," Jane told him softly. Then, with the others, she rushed down the pole, ready to be called to someone else's emergency.
..........
Because every LA firefighter had to receive a certain amount of EMT training, it was common for them to do rotations with the regular ambulance team to keep their skills from getting rusty. That's why, a few days later, on this particular call, for better or for worse, Jane was riding with Hen and Chimney.
"So what's new with you?" Chimney asked Jane as Hen took off driving the ambulance. He was in the passenger seat and Jane was holding on in the back.
Jane looked up startled and guilty. On some level...the peace that she'd slowly found, had been rattled. All because of one stupid hearing and one threatening phone call. She had to stop dwelling on it.
"I'm doing a thing!" She decided to tell her friends about the class. She didn't like secrets and they might ask questions about where she was during her days off. She didn't want to lie about something so small. Many people took self-defense classes for many reasons. It was no big deal. Right?
"What kind of thing?" Hen hollered into the back of the cab.
"I signed up for a self-defense class. First class is later this week. I'm excited."
"Really," Chimney asked, interested. "What brought this on?"
"Well," Jane began, she was right earlier, her friends were too nosy. She should have kept her mouth shut. "Farrah is busy with her new husband, volunteering is still great, but I can't be in the hospital all the time, and Felix has started glaring at me for being in his space for too long. I need to get out and do something. I thought that a self-defense class sounded both practical and fun."
Hen exchanged a knowing glance with Chimney through the rearview mirror.
"Great," Chim smiled at her. "That's great Jane. You're still coming to the game next week at my place, right?"
"Yes Chimney. I'm still coming."
Then the conversation turned to Hen and how she was trying to work on her relationship with Karen. While they were still talking, the ambulance arrived at their destination and they pulled on the side of a residential street, across the street from where you could see a few cop cars.
"Hen, Karen'll come around. I mean she has to know it wasn't you that night. You were possessed. You were someone else. It was a full moon." Chimney was trying to be reassuring as the trio got out and took their bags out of the ambulance.
"She just needs time," Jane assured softly.
"Was it? I don't know. We are what we do right? How can I claim to be a family woman, a faithful woman, when I did that? What if I've just been pretending with Karen?"
"What, so you don't want to get back together with her?" Chimney asked, shocked. Jane's eyes widened at the thought. They had to get back together!
"Of course, I do. I love her." Hen responded, closing the doors to the ambulance. They walked across the street, towards the house. It was white with pastel pink trim and while it was kind of cute in a Barbie type of way, Jane also found it to be a distractible. It said a lot about the person who occupied it. She was probably a fun spirit.
"I'm just dealing with an existential crisis. Like what if that's not who I am? Can we be together now that I've exposed this truth about myself? What if I'm a completely different person?"
"You're still a lesbian right?" Chim joked in Hen's time of crisis. Jane shot him a look, which he ignored before he opened his mouth again. "Well, looks like we came to the right place to get you some answers." He pointed at the sign that read 'Psychic Readings'. Jane wondered how she had missed it earlier; likely she'd been too distracted by the trim.
"You've got to be joking?" Jane asked the universe. Obviously, there was no reply.
They opened the door to reveal a home just as pink on the inside as it was on the outside. Pink carpets with pink walls and more pink trim. Despite its attempts however, this pink could not detract from the dead body on the floor. It appeared like they were too late as a coroner already had the man mostly zipped up in a body bag.
The dead man looked like he'd been a young read head with a shortly trimmed beard. His bright blue shirt peaked out from the black bag, a stark contrast from the walls and carpets in the home. The coroner was bending over the body, his blue gloved hand gently on his throat.
"The time of death: 3:30 p.m." he spoke into his voice recorder, taking notes for the death certificate.
Chimney, ever the one to point out the obvious, went forward to bend over the dead man before anyone could stop him. "Guess we're a little late."
Jane thought about laughing, but she couldn't bring herself too. It was too morbid.
"Yours is in there," the coroner pointed towards an entry into what appeared to be a kitchen. "The stiff is ours."
Jane shook her head, following Chimney with Hen right behind her. The kitchen was as pink as the rest of the house, and sitting at the table, breathing into a paper bag, was a woman that Jane assumed was the owner of such a pink establishment. She was an older lady, appearing to be in her mid-fifties with long dark brown hair. She was wearing a flowy blue top with a long of dangling jewelry. She looked exactly like Jane had imagined a 'psychic' would look.
"I don't know what happened," she was reporting to a female police officer who was taking her report. "He just keeled over." She used one of her hands to demonstrate, presumably the dead man, falling down.
"He fell like a stone. I'd just finished reading his palm. This man's lifeline was really long." Her voice sounded as if she couldn't have believed she was wrong and she looked up at Chimney. That was a bit of a mistake.
Chimney had set his bag down on the table and opened it.
"Well, it's not an exact science now, is it?" He replied sarcastically, but gently down at her. He nodded towards Jane who stepped up.
"Left hand please," she asked the woman. The woman complied and Jane got to work. She picked up her hand and listened to the woman's pulse at her wrist. Then she pulled out the inflatable cuff to check her blood pressure.
"Relax and breathe. Deep breaths," Hen told her calmly.
Chimney, content to watch over Jane doing this, proceeded to bug Hen about their conversation.
"Look, Hen, I'm just saying, making on crazy mistake, doesn't make you a completely different human being. It just makes you a human."
"Except it wasn't a mistake, it was a choice Chim. And I got to ask myself, why? Why would I make that choice? Risk everything?"
"Do you want a quick reading from me?" The psychic looked up at Hen hopefully, picking up on the tension of their conversation.
"I'd like you to keep breathing into the bag and mind your own business," was Hen's snappy retort.
"I knew she was going to say that!" The woman piped up, pleased with herself.
Jane had just begun to take her blood pressure next to Chimney, when the woman grabbed her hand. Her grip was surprisingly firm. She tried to pull away, but the "psychic" held on tight.
"Caleb is so proud of you." She told Jane in a dreamy sound of voice.
"What?" Jane looked at the woman as if she'd just murdered someone.
"Caleb. He wants you to know that he's proud of you and he's safe with your best friend. They are sending you someone soon."
"Why would you say something like that?" Jane asked in a horrified voice. She pried the woman's hand from her arm and started to back away. Hell, now she felt like she couldn't breathe.
"I'm sorry. It's just that-" She started to explain herself, but it was all too much. Jane practically ran out and she could hear Hen being harsh to the woman.
"Breath in the bag and keep your mouth shut!"
Jane ignored everything until Hen and Chimney came back out of the house.
"You alright?" Chimney asked softly. They were both there, Hen and Chim, and they both knew exactly why those words had triggered Jane is such a way.
"I'm fine," she said softly. "I'm getting really tired of not being able to make it through one call without a trauma though. It's getting ridiculous."
"Don't worry," Hen said softly. "I'm right here with you."
"And you can't forget me! I mean, you were all literally called to rescue me from my trauma," He pointed at his rebar scar. "We are all a bit messed up, but as long as we do our jobs correctly, we can just do what we do best. Ignore it and focus on the messes other people make of their lives."
"Here, here!" Hen agreed. With that, they all walked back to the ambulance.
...........
To say that no one was prepared for the call to the coroner's office a few hours later would have been an understatement. They walked into the room, a call had come in that a man had fainted and accidentally cut his leg. An initial look around didn't reveal anyone, but then a man popped up from behind the steel table.
"Over here! Come on!" They were so focused on their job, that they didn't initially register that the man speaking to them was the same redhead they'd seen put into a body bag earlier. Nor did they take the time to see that he was completely naked, except for a pair of blue striped boxers.
"W-w-wait," Chimney stuttered and pointed to him in disbelief.
"You- I- you're..." Hen was equally as incoherent.
Jane was too shocked for words as she took in a man who had been dead who was now alive. He was smiling at them.
"The psychic's house," Chimney was still trying to figure out what his eyes were telling him. "You were..."
"He was dead!"
"I was dead, right?" he clarified cheerfully, unbothered. "Oh, you might want to, um...I had to improvise." He gestured to the coroner who was bleeding on the floor. Since he'd seen a dead man come to life, Jane thought it was a rather appropriate reaction. Unfortunately, it looks like he'd been holding a blade when it happened.
"Oh. Right," Chimney went to work on him while Jane and Hen took another beat to stare at the dead man.
"Wound is pretty deep," Jane murmured, inspecting it as Hen watched her. "No signs of a severed artery though, so that's promising."
"Pulse is good," said Chimney. "I'm gonna hit him with some nitrite."
"Okay," Hen agreed. "Jane hold his leg still. He might kick when he wakes up."
Hen was right, once Chimney used the smelling salts the coroner came to, and began to yell in pain and tried to kick his leg.
"It's alright," Jane reassured him.
"We got you," Hen agreed. "We got you."
Seeing that they had the situation handled, Chimney stood up to approach the dead guy. Jane assumed he had another name, but she didn't know it and the fact that he'd been dead...well.
"I'm just going to check you out?" Chim told him. "You okay? You alright? I'm just going to check you vitals because you seem surprisingly calm for a dead guy."
"I have narcolepsy with cataplexy," he explained cheerfully.
"No way! He wasn't dead! He fell into a paralytic sleep," Chimney exclaimed. Shocked and just a little bit excited sounding.
"And your vitals were imperceptible," Hen realized.
"You must've like, freaked out when you woke up on this table."
"Well, yeah. I mean, I did the first time it happened," the redhead agreed.
"The first time?" Jane looked at him incredulously. "This has happened before?"
"Yeah. I-I've been pronounced dead, by accident, three times," he counted out on his fingers.
"That's insane!" Chimney's voice was high with incredulity.
"You think maybe you want to wear a bracelet so you can tell people you have this disorder?" Hen recommended. Jane could tell that she was baffled that he didn't wear a bracelet after the first time. Jane agreed. It was insane.
"Yeah, or a get a tattoo across your chest that says 'do not use bone saw, I'm not dead' with like ten exclamation points?" Chimney was on a roll today.
"No, I don't want people to know."
"I'm sure he would have appreciated it." Chimney gestured down to the coroner who was looking at the redhead in annoyed horror. Jane almost chuckled.
"Damn straight!" the coroner hollered from the floor, writhing in pain. Jane calmed him down, trying to help Hen work on him as she listened to the formerly dead guy's words.
"No, I'm serious. Each time that I die, I wake up a completely different person. Each time I am reminded about just how precious life is. It's a gift. And you know I'm terrified about the day that I don't wake up in time and they actually bury me alive." He laughed a bit awkwardly, but his next words were sincere. "But until then...death becomes me."
..............
Later that week was Jane's first self-defense class. She was a bit nervous, but she'd called ahead and had actually gotten the owner answering the phones. He was an older man who frequently trained MMA fighters in his gym. He was a retired Marine Veteran and fighter himself, and now, to quote him, he was the proud father of five daughters. It was his daughters who inspired him to offer self-defense classes which were taught by his favorite student. His son.
The old man's voice was gruff but kind, and somehow it put Jane at ease, and she'd signed up for the class right then over the phone, without calling any of the other places she'd intended to.
The building was located in a small shopping square that consisted of a pizza place, a Wedding boutique, a pet store, a dry-cleaners, and what appeared to be a UPS office. It was a well-lit parking lot with plenty of traffic, which reassured her as she got out of the car with the setting sun. The Gym itself had a big sign with wide black letters. It was a typical gym, she supposed, the front completely exposed, as it was all windows. From her car she could see a young woman with dark hair behind a reception desk and she could see in a group of little boys kicking at a trainer in the front gym. The sight of children reassured her that she wasn't going in to get killed.
She walked into Edward John's MMA Gym with a healthy amount of trepidation, but also the teeniest bit of excitement. She greeted the woman at the reception desk with a smile and was pleased when the expression was returned.
"I'm Jane Thomas, I'm here for the self-defense class."
"Great," the woman beamed at her, pulling out a clipboard and forms. She was around Jane's age, in her mid-twenties with wild curly black hair. Instead of wearing the casual clothing of a gym though, she was in a pale gray skirt-suit that complimented her tanned skin and matched her eyes. "I'm Lauren Prewett. Here, if you could just read this and sign the form. I take half of the class fee now and the other half at the end of the course in six weeks."
Jane signed where the woman indicated and handed over her debit card to be swiped.
"Thank you. Now, if you go straight back, they are in the second gym," she pointed down a narrow hallway. "We are waiting on two more students to start."
"Thanks," Jane replied and she followed the woman's directions, passed the kids, and into the back gym.
Jane was wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a fitted green t-shirt. Her hair was in a tight twist that she frequently put it in for work. She had triple checked that her outfit fell in line with the recommended clothing on the man's website. Looking around at the other women, and a few men, who'd shown up to the class, she was glad to see that she didn't stick out too much. She was interceded by an old man when she reached the open door to the back gym.
This man was gray and short and wrinkly, but he was stocky, and his gate was sure and hearty. He was broad, and Jane doubted if he even had a speck of fat on him. His gray eyes reminded her of the woman at the reception desk, and Jane guessed she'd just encountered one of the five daughters, because this was definitely Edward John.
"You're Jane Thomas?" He asked her expectantly, looking her up and down assessing her. "Seem strong enough."
Jane had to cough to hide a laugh. "Thank you."
He broke into a toothy smile, catching her amusement.
"My boy over there, Edward John Jr.," he pointed to a shorter, dark young man, in his late thirties, "Is the official teacher of this class, but these other fellas are my students who will be assisting in the instruction."
She nodded at the old man. "Sounds reasonable."
"Alright girly," he told her, "go sit over there on the mats with the others. Once the last two arrive, my boy is going to give a safety lecture then we have the physical instruction. I'm telling you this because some of the women who come in here have issues with the physical instruction. I just want to give you fair warning and an opportunity to tell me now if you need me to inconspicuously escort you out. Ain't no shame if you'd need to practice that stuff alone."
Jane felt a large surge of affection for the older man, especially since the speech was so well rehearsed that she knew instinctively, he did it with every student who came in here.
"Thank you, but I'll be alright. Any aversion to touch that I have is mostly gone by necessity." The old man didn't seem to like her answer, but he nodded and gave her another kind smile.
In the end, there appeared to be about ten who were taking the class: five women her age or younger, but two older and two pencil thin young guys who she imagined were here to avoid the bullies who might have given them the black eye one of them was currently sporting. Despite the small class size, there were four men beside Edward John Jr. standing in front of where they were sitting on the mat. Given the number of instructors, Jane realized that this would be a personal class to teach them all that they could. It was...nice.
One of the instructors, a handsome African American man who was joking around with a shorter blonde, caught her eye immediately. He was, quite possibly, the biggest man that Jane had ever seen, in both height and broadness of his chest and shoulders. Like the other men and Edward John, she couldn't see any place for fat on him, just pure muscle. His pearly white teeth gleamed as he threw his head back and gave a full body laugh at something that his companion said. The sound was deep and rich and brought another smile to the young woman's face.
As promised, Edward John Jr. began with a basic safety lecture. He talked about general precautions you could take to avoid putting yourself in an unnecessarily dangerous situation. He talked about ways to avoid a fight. Then, to Jane's joy, he also told them that, if they were ever faced in a situation where they had to fight for their life because someone followed them home, or cornered them, or took advantage of them, it was not their fault. After the lecture, which lasted about a full half hour, the instructors demonstrated two ways to get out of someone grabbing you around the middle.
"Alright," Edward John Jr. instructed, "we are going to split you lot into groups of two so that you can practice some of the basic movements we just showed you with an instructor. Then you can work on some general kicks and punches and we'll call it a night."
The way the groups panned out, Jane, the only person who had come alone, was initially going to be paired with one of the younger girls. However, she insisted on being with her friends, so they had one group of three and Jane got an instructor to herself.
Of course, her instructor turned out to be the handsome man.
"Hi," he greeted her with a large, bright smile. "I'm Xavier Peters."
"F-" she started, and then remembered she wasn't in uniform. "I'm Jane Thomas."
"Its nice to meet you," the man told her. "Now, are you ready to learn how to escape a hold."
"Yes," Jane smiled. "Yes I am."
As it turns out, she wasn't ready the first ten times, but Xavier was a patient teacher. He adjusted her hold, and gently walked her through where she needed to apply pressure or what muscles she needed to use so as not to accidentally hurt herself. He was gentle and patient and he was also incredibly funny. At least three of her initial failures were due to the fact that he'd made a joke to get her to relax and she was laughing too much to focus. Nevertheless, he was a great teacher, and she caught on much quicker than many of the other students in the class.
"I think you got it," Xavier looked down at her appreciatively. Jane wasn't so oblivious, that she didn't notice the spark of attraction in his gaze. However, she was surprised that it wasn't entirely unwelcome. He was attractive and kind and funny with no obvious signs of fungus or disease. "You ready to practice some basic kicks and punches?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "I am."
"Great!" he rushed over to get the safety mitts and came right back. "Let's start with punching. You know how to make a fist?"
"Not practically no."
Xavier laughed at her then. "Its alright," he grabbed her hand in his calloused ones and made it into a fist. "Make it like this so you don't break your thumb when you throw the punch."
Before letting her punch, he showed her how to adjust her stance to put power behind the blow. When her stance was properly adjusted, he put the mitts on his hands and stood in front of her.
"Alright, give me everything you got."
Pulling her hand back, Jane let lose using everything she has.
"You got a lot of muscle behind that punch," he commented, impressed.
Jane couldn't resist grinning a little bit at the compliment. "I should, much of my job is spent carrying around heavy equipment." And people.
He raised his eyebrows curiously, and Jane couldn't help but notice how expressive his face was. He didn't hide anything when he was comfortable. It was refreshing. "What do you do?"
"I," Jane responded with another punch, "am a firefighter."
"Hot," he smiled jokingly at her. It startled her so much that she outright stopped in her tracks. What had he just said?
"Sorry," his smile began to drop. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"No," she shook her head. "You didn't. Not many guys are comfortable with my job." It also didn't help that Buck's words from before had bothered her more than she'd even let on, because they were, for the most part, true. She wasn't the woman that men usually came on to.
"How?" His voice was genuinely curious. "You are a badass who saves people."
"I guess the fact that I can dead lift most of them is uncomfortable?"
"Well, if it helps, I think it's amazing. All I do is fight people for a living. I put them in the hospital."
"Thank you. That's very sweet," Jane blushed and pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear. "Now teach me how to kick you."
"Ah," he playfully grabbed at his chest. "She's sassy too."
Jane put her hands on her hips and looked at him, thoroughly amused and the most relaxed she'd been in weeks. "Less talking more kicking."
"Yes, mi'lady!" The rest of the class passed in a similar fashion of jokes and Xavier's lighthearted flirting.
She was on her way out, but Xavier stopped her. Fortunately, the other instructors appeared distracted, or Jane was sure they would have been staring at them.
"So, I don't know about you, but its not often that I find someone I gel with."
"We gel?" Jane asked dumbly. What was gel? Was gel good?
"We do," Xavier nodded. "So, if it makes you uncomfortable, please tell me and I'll leave you alone about it and we can still be fight buddies. Or I could trade with another instructor if it was really weird."
"Uhum..." Jane was confused. "if what was really weird?"
"Oh, right," he rubbed his hands together nervously in front of him. He was just so huge! Jane had no doubt that he was probably lethal as a fighter, but she could see that, as a person, he was the kind and open type. At least, that was the person he'd shown her. "I was wondering if I could have your number?"
"Well, I-I mean sure. You can have my number." She pulled out the sticky notes and pen that she always kept in her purse and wrote on it. "Here. Warning about calling though, I have long shifts so I can't promise to answer."
"Understood," his smile was wide showing off his straight, white teeth. "See you soon Jane."
"Bye Xavier." Jane couldn't help but wear a matching smile on her way out, and she was still smiling when she fell asleep that night.
.................
After the day that she'd had, she had never been so happy to miss a call. Jane had gotten to go out with Chimney to retrieve yet another cat from a tree, and that was followed by a heart attack victim, so as a result, they had missed the motorcycle crash fatality. Captain Nash had been a wreck when he got back to the station. He'd gone straight to the bunks.
Jane and Chimney were on the couches. Jane was finally reading her mystery novel while Chimney was doing something on his laptop. It was perfectly peaceful until they were interrupted with the loud yelling.
"Hey yo Rebar! Come clean! This is you right? Putting girls up to this, you think it's funny?" Buck came running into the rec room towards Jane and Chimney, his anger focused on the later.
"Buck! Come on," Jane interrupted. "You know Chimney would never do something like that! But, just out of curiosity, what do you think Chimney did?"
"He pretended to be me, lead girls on, and then ghosted them! Now, I look like an asswipe!"
"You know what, Buck," Chimney began in a faux calm voice, if the tic in his jaw meant anything, "I really wish it was me."
"Okay! Let's see! You wish, you wish!" Buck slapped his hands together angrily.
"Another girl showed up?" the young woman in the room asked, trying to understand exactly what was going on to make Buck think that such an elaborate joke was being played on him.
"Yes!" Buck ranted. "This time while I was out with Abby!"
Jane winced, "I'm so sorry, dear. I know you didn't step out on her. I bet that was uncomfortable." Chimney scoffed at Buck, still angry at the rebar jibe.
"I bet if you updated your relationship status on your MySpace page, it might clear up all of this confusion." Chimney said matter-of-factly.
"Hey," he startled out of his tantrum, "who even uses MySpace?"
"Evidently, you do!" Chimney handed Buck the computer. Jane stood up to see and was startled to notice a picture of Buck.
He had a MySpace page?
"Wait. That's my Facebook profile picture," Buck stared at the laptop, confused.
"Yet another disappointed lady came into the firehouse today," Chimney delivered this news with what sounded like a fair amount of relish.
Jane sent him a look. They'd been together all day, and she hadn't seen another girl. Her head tilted to the side.
"It was when you took a nap." Chimney answered her unspoken question.
"Oh," she nodded. Chim gave a nod in response and then turned back to Buck.
"After I convinced her to stop shouting and throwing rocks, she showed me this," he gestured to the page. "Don't you get it? Some weirdo saw your B-movie star looks in the news and thought pretending to be you would be a good lure to catfish the women of L.A."
Jane looked at Buck skeptically, just to needle him. "I suppose he's moderately attractive, but I don't believe I see the draw."
"Hey! I'm great! Well...this me isn't. How did he get girls? I'm a Yankees fan who loves Star Wars?
"Uh, Star Wars, prequals," Howie corrected and he and Jane both started to laugh at the look on his face.
"Hey! Not my favorite movies ever but I like those films!"
"You," Chimney raised his eyebrows at her, "just like young Anakin Skywalker."
She smiled with no shame, "He is beautiful, and Obi-Wan Kenobi? Perfection."
The pair both exchanged more smiles and laughter because now they just had to watch those movies on their next movie night.
"Hey, it's not funny! This is really messed up!" Buck sounded devastated.
"Yeah, it is but come on, some dude doing the boring legwork, and having hotties come to your door. I mean, is it really all that bad?"
"Hey," Jane actually smacked Chimney on the back of his head. "Yes, it is awful. This stranger is hurting all of these women by lying to them and getting them emotionally invested. It's cruel."
"And Abby is freaking out!" From the sound of Buck, Abby wasn't the only one. "This cannot keep happening to me!"
Jane shot Chimney an 'I told you so' look and turned to her friend. "I'm sorry Buck."
"Okay," Buck took a deep breath. "Who is he?"
"Okay, your imposter is not that bright," Chimney started back on the computer. "He's already started exchanging emails with Brandy."
"Who's Brandy?" Buck and Jane asked at the same time.
"The angry girl throwing the rocks. Who's actually very smart and very cool, and who may or may not come to my place next week to watch the game with us so please don't come."
"Remind me not to come. I don't like rock throwers," Jane told Chimney pointedly. "Not to mention, you literally have witnessed firsthand how she reacts when she's upset. That's not exactly a reassuring response. Need I continue as to why this is a bad idea?"
"I mean you could, but I'm not exactly in the mood to listen," Chim retorted shortly. "Besides, you have to come! You promised that you were bringing dessert and at least eight of the guys begged me to make sure that your baked goods would be in attendance. Besides, I haven't been on a date since Tatiana and it's getting ridiculous."
Jane shook her head at her friend in mock disappointment.
"Anyways!" Chimney looked back at Buck The point is if you know what you're looking for, you can find the I.P. address in the header of the messages."
"Looks like just a bunch of random numbers," the younger man started at the screen, having no idea what Chim was talking about. Jane really did adore Buck, but sometimes he was a bit dense.
"Yeah, Buck, random numbers that we can trace to his actual address," the paramedic spelled it out for him.
"Looks like we're taking a trip," Both men turned to Jane surprised. "What like I'm going to let you go by yourself?"
Jane started to get up to put away her book, but then she remembered something and turned back around to smack Buck upside the head.
"Hey!" He shouted, running his hand over where she'd struck him. "What was that for?"
"That Evan Buckley," Jane said calmly, "was for calling me a woman that a man wouldn't ask out AND its for accusing Chimney of cruelly pranking you. We are family here. You can't just go around saying mean things."
Buck looked at her with genuine remorse. "I am sorry Jane. It was really terrible of me to say."
"It was," she huffed out, before turning to both men with a wicked grin, "besides, an MMA fighter asked for my number last night, and I gave it to him."
"WHAT?!"
.............
They located the catfish on their next day off, where he formerly lived in a trailer park. Apparently, he hadn't ghosted the girls, he was just dead. Given their luck, the three friends had discovered his body which was decomposing in the most grotesque of ways. Buck, having some affinity for the dead Buck impersonator, almost picked a fight with a coroner to get the man out of the trailer in what little privacy would be allotted to him, seeing as there were cameras outside. It was a long afternoon that stretched into the evening, and afterwards, Jane desperately needed a change of pace.
Her life had been crazy the last few weeks and she wanted to get the memory of the dead body swarming with bugs out of her mind. She needed to spend the rest of her evening doing something happy. What made her happy, was volunteering at the hospital and so that's how she spent her evening.
She'd cuddled one of her babies for the last time and was able to watch as Kate and Phillip took baby Jordan home. She'd spent hours with Jordan besides that first time, and she'd been overjoyed to watch as she grew stronger and healthier. She said goodbye to the small family before she'd finished her shift, but the small ache stayed there.
Baby Jordan had been given a new lease on life. So, in a strange way, had the man earlier this week who had, for all appearances, died and come back to life. Then, the man in the trailer park, well he'd been so discontent with his own life that he'd stolen Buck's. A new start or a new person.
Jane wasn't a new person, but she was trying to be a better person. She was trying to be a stronger person. She was trying to be a person that would be able to take one of Buck's careless comments and brush it off, knowing how oblivious he could be.
She was trying, and for now, that was enough.
She didn't know when it started, but Jane cried her heart out, in the seat of her car. Her forehead resting on the steering wheel. She had said that she wouldn't cry again. Before the plane crash, she'd gone a full year without crying. She hadn't even cried after Chimney's car accident. It was like that one event had awakened the feelings that she'd tried to repress for months and now she was a blubbering mess every few weeks or so. But these were not the tears that she'd been crying the past few months. These weren't the result of her grief.
Today, she thought to herself, remembering Kate's face as she carried her baby out the hospital doors to go home. Today was a good day.
She closed her eyes, catching her breath and wiping the tears from her face. Then, she looked up at the sky and she smiled.
I love you, Caleb. I wish you were here, but I might be okay.
At that moment, her phone rang. A glance at the caller ID left her surprised, but she answered it anyway.
"Hi," her voice was just a tad too breathless to be casual.
"Hi," the smooth voice answered on the end of the line. "So, has it been long enough yet that my phone call isn't absolutely desperate?"
Jane laughed. "No, you have really good timing actually."
"Good," he breathed out in a nervous chuckle. "So, I was wondering if I could see you. Not tonight and not during a class, but outside of class. I guess I'm asking you out on a date. Again. If you say no, just do it gently and I promise to still be your friend in the class."
"No," Jane said, then she facepalmed. "I mean yes. I mean...I'd love to go out with you, but to be honest, I haven't had the best luck with formal dates the past few months."
"Oh."
She rushed to try to reassure him, "But my friend Chimney is having me and a bunch of work buddies over to his apartment to watch the big game next week. You could come with me? It would be casual, and fun with a lot of food. Of course, I'd understand if you didn't want to come. Its weird asking you to hang out with my friends, right?" She would have gone on, but fortunately Xavier interrupted before she sounded too silly.
"I'd really like that actually," she could almost hear the smile in his voice.
"Great! I'll text you the details."
"So, I'll see you then."
"Yes," Jane smiled in the dark of her car, illuminated by the hospital lights. "See you then."
Author's Note and thanks!
I'll be honest, the newest episodes have wrecked me AND inspired me to write! Weren't they wonderfully wrecking? So, here it is! The FINAL CHAPTER OF SEASON 1!!! I ended up writing this during my insomnia instead of working on the legal history paper that's due in a few weeks. I mean it though, I can make ZERO promises that frequent updates will happen soon as I'm heading into finals. The next thing published won't be an update, but a season break and then I'll come out with Season Two, Episode 1 Under Pressure. (I do feel under pressure to make that update amazing. After all, Eddie is back!)
The above attachment is not only the ending song, "Shake It Out" by Florence + The Machines, but if you scroll to the side, you'll see my face claim for Xavier. The beautiful Martins Imhangbe who you might recognize as Will from Bridgerton! ( I re-watched Bridgerton yesterday/today while doing homework before the new episodes of 9-1-1 and this man also made me highly inspired. I mean, you see how beautiful he is right?)
Thank you all so much! Add to Libraries! Read! Vote! Comment!