A/N This is a Chicago Fire episode that I am including cause how could I not? 😂
Anyway, as always, please relax and enjoy the read!
~Princess <3
*Firehouse 51: Chief's Office*
"Grissom transfered Sev to OFI. . . without his say-so." Ana summarized, unable to believe what she was hearing.
"Yep, but he said he'll be back once they have their feet under them again." The older man nodded.
"Yeah, well, it seems like Grissom wants to get on bad side even if he doesn't realize it yet." The brunette muttered.
"Which is exactly why I want you stay out of it. For me." Chief added the last two words in when she opened her mouth to argue. "Besides, you and I both know they can't keep Kelly from this place for long."
Ana conceded with a sigh and leant back in the chair she was seated on which prompted the man across from her to do the same.
"So, I couldn't help but overhear you in the Hallway when I was passing by earlier." The brunette smiled. "You signed Stella up to be an instructor at the academy?"
The older man couldn't help but grin at the reminder.
"Well, I couldn't help but notice the natural leader within her so I brought up the idea of her advancing her career and she seemed all for it." He explained.
"It's about damn time!" Ana laughed.
"Shut up." Chief shot back but his grin never faded.
Engine 51, smoke investigation.
"Uh oh, something's telling me I better go with them this time." The brunette sighed.
"Yeah, you do that." The older man smirked as she stood up out of her seat. "Be careful out there."
"No promises." Ana replied as she rushed out of the small room.
The Captain quickly made her way towards the Apparatus Floor, taking a short detour to the Turnout Room and grabbing her gear before racing out again.
"Hey, Chris!" She called, spotting him and Darren getting into their truck. "Wait up!"
"Aw, yeah." Herrmann grinned. "Buckle up boys! You're about to experience your first ride with Ana."
Said brunette just rolled her eyes, fondly, and stepped inside the big red vehicle.
*Fire Scene*
They pulled up in front of a smoking house and Herrmann instantly had something to say about it.
"Eh. Looks like burnt popcorn, guys." He remarked, hopping out of the rig and putting his helmet on.
Ana rolled her eyes again but followed after every step he took
"Incense burner, Captain." Darren suddenly called out.
"Well, that is just great." The brunette muttered under her breath.
"Grab the silver bullet." Herrmann ordered. "Let's lift a leg on this."
He let Ana go in front of him before following her up to the door. She let out a small cough and knocked on the door.
"Fire Department, we need to check on-"
The Captain was cut off when flames suddenly erupted inside the house.
"Help me! God, please help me!" A woman inside screamed.
"Chris, take it down!" Ana commanded while slipping her mask on.
Herrmann did as he was told and they peered in to see the fire engulfing everything it could touch.
"Ritter, grab me a hose line!" The Lieutenant yelled and copied what the woman next to him had done a few seconds ago.
"Knock it down as much as you can and on your signal, I'll grab the girl." The brunette instructed.
"Copy that." Herrmann nodded just as Darren appeared and handed him the requested water source. "Dougherty, charge the line!"
Ana ducked behind the Lieutenant once he started spraying water and waited for her cue.
"NOW!" He shouted over the roaring flames.
The brunette ran in, keeping low, and made her way over to the woman. She hooked her arms under hers and dragged her towards the entrance all the while trying to keep her calm. They eventually made it out just as the Engine guys appeared with two more hoses and helped Herrmann put out the rest of the flames.
Ana guided the woman over to the awaiting ambulance and they were just about to load her in when she started rambling about what happened. The Captain thought it was just nonsense, at first, but things started to get a lot more interesting as the victim kept talking.
"I lit a candle and went to take a bath. I do it all the time, never once-"
"Don't try to talk, ma'am." The paramedic warned but was ultimately ignored.
"I smelled smoke. And when I poked my head into the living room, it was just a little char on the arm of the couch. You know, like a couple of embers had gotten in there. And I didn't panic." She explained, voice shaking a bit as they rolled her into the vehcile. "I just thought I'll grab the extinguisher under the sink, no big deal. When I turned around again, it erupted."
Ana glanced at the floor in thought and didn't bother looking back up until she felt someone standing next to her.
"Chris, we're gonna stick around and help with the overhaul." The Captain murmured.
"All right." He nodded, growing a bit concerned. "Everything okay?"
She just walked back towards the house in response.
"All clear here!" One of the Engine guys called out as they entered the building.
Ana made her way towards the couch, Herrmann following her every move, and her gaze landed on the extremely burnt portion of it.
"This is where the fire started just like the woman said." The brunette recalled. "She saw some embers, turned to grab an extinguisher, next thing she knew this entire place was surrounded in flames."
"See all this this char? It's darker than the rest." Herrmann pointed out to Darren, having caught him watching them in intrest.
"Uh-huh. You know, in the time that it took you to move from the sidewalk to the front door, this thing went up like a Roman candle." He pointed out.
"Something doesn't feel right." Ana muttered, eyeing every single part of the couch and then doing it again for good measure.
"I don't know, maybe some accelerant was involved." Herrmann shrugged.
"Or maybe she dropped a hairspray bottle under the couch, forgot about it." Darren suggested.
"Yeah, maybe." The Captain sighed before crouching down and hooking her left arm underneath the couch. "One. Two. Three."
She flipped it over just as the two men kneeled beside her. Ana's gaze darkened completely when she noticed the tag on the bottom of it and locked eyes with Herrmann, who held pretty much the same expression as her just nowhere near as close in intensity.
*Back in Chief's Office: A Little While Later*
The owner was leaning back against his desk while Matt stood off to the right. Ana and Herrmann were in front of them and the latter had a bag of some sort clenched tightly in his fist.
". . .so it's like somebody dumped gasoline all over the place." The Lieutenant explained.
"And I'm thinking that it can't be a candle like this young woman said because it would've taken at least 30 minutes for it to burn up like that." The brunette recalled while crossing her arms and leaning back on the closed door. "According to her, she was only out of the room for 30 seconds and it was basically an oven in there."
"It turns out that the couch is made outta polyurethane." Herrmann revealed.
"Basically gasoline in solid form." Matt muttered.
"Exactly." Ana nodded. "And the whole house is filled with this type of furniture."
"Like the kind that you see in one of those rent-to-own places." Herrmann added.
"Affordable." Chief supplied.
"Yep and there's more." Ana sighed as the Lieutenant placed the bag he was holding down on the coffee table in front of him.
Inside of it, was the tag that had been on the bottom of the burnt couch. Matt furrowed his brows at first and went to pick it up, but his jaw practically dropped to the floor after reading what was on it. He glanced back at Herrmann and Ana but they just swallowed, thickly, and nodded in confirmation.
"Arnow Furniture?" The male Captain asked in disbelief, looking over at Chief.
"The same company that made her couch. . ." Herrmann began in a low growl.
"Made the mattresses that killed Otis." Ana hissed out, aiming a firey glare at the tag in Matt's hand.
*Common Room*
After explaining the situation to the rest of the house, Joe had immediately decided to do some research and grabbed his laptop before taking a seat at the round table. Everyone minus Chief and, of course, Kelly, crowded around him while Mouch looked on from his spot on the couch.
"The way they make these things is ridiculous. There's polyurethane everywhere." Joe frowned in disgust.
"Where is the oversight, huh? They'll give me a ticket for parking in the yellow zone but no one is regulating what my furniture is made of?" Herrmann scoffed.
"Well, these big companies have the-" Mouch paused and rubbed his fingers in the money guesture before continuing. "To make sure the government lowers the safety standards."
"We should cancel them." 81's newest candidate, Blake Gallo, suggested.
He had already been warned ahead of time about Ana so he quickly put two and two together and chose to not acknowledge her presence all together.
"What?" Herrmann inquired.
"You go on Insta and you shame the Hell out of 'em." He explained.
"I'm in." Foster shrugged.
"This kind of company couldn't care less about social media." Matt pointed out.
"He's right." Ana greed. "The aftermath of the factory fire proved just as much."
"I just can't believe after what happened they still put out these kind of products." Sylvie sighed.
"All right. They're an old school corporation. We're gonna have to take an old school approach." Herrmann decided, walking out of the room with a determined expression.
Everyone watched him go in confusion while Ana stood there in thought. A smirk slowly made it's way onto her face when she realized what his plan was. There are certain moments were Christopher Herrmann is not to be trifled with and this, this was one of them.
*Arnow Furniture Company: Main Building*
Herrmann walked in with both Matt and Ana at his side. The three made their way towards the receptionist, who instantly looked up upon their arrival.
"Hello." She greeted.
"Hi. We'd like to speak with your CEO, Mr. Carrington." Matt requested.
"And who should I tell him is here?" The receptionist inquired.
The two men just smirked when the sound of metal hitting the counter reached their ears.
"Chicago PD." Ana replied, uncovering her badge and watching the other woman stare at it with wide eyes.
"A- And what is this pertaining to?" She wondered.
"Product safety." Herrmann answered instead.
The receptionist let out a sigh and began typing on her computer.
"Let me see if I can get Miriam Ghorbani for you." She offered.
"And, uh, who's that?" Matt asked.
"Our VP of public relations. One moment, please." She smiled, standing up and heading into a back room.
Ana just returned her badge to it's original spot on her hip and moved a few feet away from the desk.
"Get ready for some doublespeak." Herrmann grumbled as he followed her every step.
"Tell me about it." Matt muttered, stopping just as another lady rushed over.
"Hello, gentlemen, ma'am. How can I help you?" She inquired, sweetly.
"Sergeant Ana Voight, CPD. These men are firefighters with the CFD and one of them actually responded to house fire yesterday which involved your furniture." The brunette explained, getting right to the point.
"Involved?" Miriam asked in question.
"There was a candle right next to the couch and it went up like kindling." Herrmann elaborated.
"An open flame." She smiled in understanding.
"That's right." He nodded.
"Well, I can assure you we have warning labels on all of our furniture expressly stating that smoking or an open flame such as a candle on or around our materials is a hazard." Miriam promised.
"Do those warning labels also happen to contain enough information to let the consumer know that the furniture they bought or are about to buy is made out of solid gasoline?" Ana retorted in a dangerous tone.
The two men could see the flash of fear in the woman's eyes, clear as day, but she just quickly hid it and kept trying to talk her way out of this.
"Our furniture is composed of materials that fall well within state, federal, and international code." Miriam assured.
"Who cares about code when people are dying?" Herrmann snapped.
"Ma'am, your furniture is dangerous." Matt spoke up, quickly taking over before things got too out of hand. "We lost a firefighter responding to your mattress factory last May."
"Personally and professionally, I'm sorry for your loss. We also lost workers that day. It was a real tragedy and we have made positive changes to the way we store our materials in the aftermath." Miriam informed. "But I can assure you, we follow industry standards in all aspects of our manufacturing. And we've begun to design warning labels that are larger than required under law because trust me, consumer safety is a priority at Arnow."
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure it is." Ana smirked, darkly. "I might even come by again with a few friends, just to make sure you're not lying about that."
The woman visibly gulped in response.
"You know what people call this? The run around." Herrmann hissed.
"If you have additional concerns, I'll make sure Kim gets your outside counsel's information." Miriam offered.
"Trust me, we have additional concerns and you're gonna be seeing more of us real soon." The Lieutenant promised.
He began marching towards the exit and Matt glared at the lady before following after him. Ana just waited until they were gone before taking a few steps closer to the other woman.
"Miriam, was it? If I do have to come back here again, it'll either be to arrest your CEO or keep this company from selling it's highly flammable furniture." She warned, before giving her a sickly sweet smile and heading out to join her fellow firefighters.
Miriam just let out a shaky breath and practically ran back to the dark room she had come from.
*A Little While Later*
Herrmann and Ana were each sitting in a foldable chair which they had set up in a large, open, area near the Arnow Furniture Building's Parking Lot.
"Hey, Chris?" The brunette called.
"Yeah?" He inquired, looking at her over his newspaper.
"I know you're gonna go through with this and that nothing can stop you at this point, but just know that my offer of getting Intelligence involved still stands." She reminded him, gently.
Herrmann just smiled, warmly, and nodded.
"Hey." Darren greeted as he, Blake, and Mouch all walked up and began setting their own chairs up on either side of Herrmann. "How long you been here, Lieutenant?"
Matt and Joe appeared and did the same for Ana except they left a space on her left for someone who had yet to arrive.
"Oh hour number four." The Engine Lieutenant replied.
"I've only been here for two of them, though." The brunette added.
"Yeah, well, I'm grateful for every second." Herrmann retorted, his smile from before having yet to fade.
"Any activity?" Matt wondered.
"Not much." Ana smirked. "They think they can outlast Chris."
"Well, then they definitely don't know who they're dealing with." Mouch rolled his eyes.
Or maybe he didn't. It was hard for Ana to tell given that the man was wearing sunglasses even thought the building's large shadow was blocking off the harsh light.
"So we just sit here?" Darren asked, awkwardly.
Tony and Capp appeared behind Joe and began setting up their seats just as Matt sat down in his.
"Oh, this is nothing. You should've seen Hermann when we had this graffiti artist that was tagging 51-"
"Hup, here we go." The Engine Lieutenant suddenly cut Mouch off as a security guard came marching out of the building.
"I said you gotta go and instead you bring friends. Are you trying to get me fired?!" He sassed.
"We're not going anywhere until your CEO comes out here and talks to me." Herrmann retorted.
"You can't sit here. It's private property." The guard shot back.
"If you really wanna waste everyone's time with that, then I'd be happy to make a call and get a search warrant in less than two seconds." Ana chimed in, lazily.
51's occupants, including Blake who was really starting to like this woman, just smirked in response.
"What's your name, pal?" Herrmann inquired.
"Marvin." The guard sighed.
"All right, listen. I know that you're just trying to do your job, Marvin, and you seem like a great guy. I would be happy to buy you a beer some day when you're off duty, but let me be clear, all right?" Herrmann reasoned as he stood up with a determined look on his face. "We're all firefighters here and we are well-practiced at sitting around. So we are not leaving until we get to talk to your CEO."
Marvin just rolled his eyes and turned around, walking back towards the building. Matt watched Herrmann sit back down and suddenly looked up when a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Hey, got your message." Kelly smiled.
"Hey, thanks for coming." The male Captain greeted.
"Sure." The Squad Lieutenant nodded and placed his chair in the empty space on Ana's left.
The brunette reached over and immediately pulled her Godson into a hug.
"Looks like someone missed me." Kelly laughed.
"Yeah, well, when I finally decided to pick up another shift I didn't expect to not see you there cause Grissom moved your ass to OFI." Ana retorted as she she pulled back.
"Speaking of which." He grinned just as another woman with short dark hair set up a chair on Matt's right.
"Is this what you guys do on your days off?" She chuckled.
"Yeah, pretty much. Um, everyone this is Wendy Seager. Seager, this is 51." Kelly introduced as the woman sat down.
"So you're the one who stole my best Lieutenant." Matt joked.
"Hey!" Herrmann cried in offense.
"Squad Lieutenant." The male Captain corrected.
"All right, guilty as charged. But, hey, maybe you'll get him back someday." Seager retorted, earning groans of protest from the other members of Squad 3. "Or maybe not with that attitude."
"Hey, you got any water in that cooler?" Foster wondered as she and Sylvie came up behind Blake and Darren.
"Yeah." Joe tossed her one.
"Thanks." She nodded and took a seat.
Herrmann suddenly sat up straight and began looking around for something.
"Where's Stella?" He furrowed his brows.
"Somebody say my name?" She smiled, appearing next to Kelly. "My legs are about to fall off."
"Oh, that's a shame. I was hoping that you could demonstrate some mountain climbers for us." Joe snickered.
"Don't even joke." Stella groaned.
Herrmann's favorite security guard chose that moment to walk back out of the building again.
"Marvin." The Engine Lieutenant greeted, standing back up.
"Look, I'm just telling you that you're wasting your time, all right? Mr. Carrington is in Toledo on a business trip." The guard explained and gazed off to the side before lowering his voice a bit. "But look here, and I did not tell you this. . .he's back next Wednesday."
"I really appreciate that. Next time though, no lawn chairs, all right?" Herrmann assured. "I just gotta figure out a way to go bigger."
"Don't do anything crazy." Marvin warned before returning to the building.
"Yeah. Okay, guys. Let's pack it up. We're moving on to Plan B." The Engine Lieutenant decided, turning to face everyone else.
"Whoa, what's Plan B?" Blake wondered.
"Uh, do some brainstorming over at Molly's. 15% off all tap beers, okay? Oh, and that discount applies to you too, Marvin." Herrmann smiled.
The guard shook his head with a small smile. Ana just rolled her eyes, fondly, and started gathering her stuff.
*Arnow Furniture Building: Wednesday Morning*
The company's CEO later took a visit to Firehouse 51 and was seen standing in front of Otis' monument with his two children. He had spoken to his board, convinced them to transition to different materials. . . much safer ones and wanted Herrmann to know that.
Ana just watched the whole thing from the Apparatus Floor with a soft smile on her face.
A/N I hope this ending wasn't too crappy and that you all enjoyed! I will see you on Monday!
~Princess <3