two
"first call"

—

—

"SO, LYNN, WHERE YOU FROM?"

Lynn fiddled with the head set and mic she was given at the beginning of the drive for a second before turning her attention to Chimney, who was sitting opposite of her, and had questioned her.

"Well, I was born in Chicago, and moved to Long Beach when I was around ten, now I'm living in Lancaster," Lynn replied, but she felt like she was speaking way too soft where no one could hear her, however, they all seemed to nod their heads as they took in it.

"You got family in LA?" Hen asked, who was sitted next to Lynn by the window.

Lynn was never good at opening up to people, she always had this hard exterior they had to work through before finally being able to get to know the real Evelynn Kennedy, and that alone took plenty of time, so she assumed her coworkers would soon give up on trying to get to know her past.

"Just my older sister," Lynn explained, and she tried her best to keep her voice calm instead of full of emotion, because that was the last thing she wanted her new coworkers to think of her as; too weak to handle the job.

As if God had answered Lynn's prayers, even though she didn't quite believe in him anyway, they had arrived on scene in time for no one else to have questions for her.

Everyone hopped out of the fire truck, grabbing any necessary tools and bags they would possibly need. Just like the rest, Lynn grabbed her own medic bag that was given to her right before they left the station.

"Where we headed?" Chimney asked quickly, and Lynn jiggled her shoulders to relax her body as she started to prepare herself for what she had been training so hard to do, help people.

"The fourth floor," Bobby replied, leading the crew of paramedic and firefighters towards the inside of the building.

"I'll race you!" Buck exclaimed happily, and then started darting up the stairs in order to get ahead of Bobby.

"Ah, race yourself, Rambo," Bobby answered snarkily, and Lynn let out a chuckle at seeing how the two men could easily be viewed as a father and son duo. "I'm fifty years old, I'm taking the elevator."

"Who's Rambo?" Buck questioned, tilting his side to the side as if he was utterly confused, and Lynn would've spoken up about how everyone should know of Rambo but didn't want to seem like a total bitch, yet.

"God, is he always like a puppy?" Lynn asked Hen, who was jogging alongside her, and the comment made her let out a loud laugh.

"Please, when he first got here, I told Bobby he may as well have gotten a dalmatian," Hen teased lightly, and Lynn let out a chuckle as she glanced back up to Buck, who was now skipping up the stairs quickly with a small smile written on his pink lips.

"Well, I can most definitely see that," Lynn shook her head as she was trying her best to hold back her laughter. "More golden retriever, though."

"That's what Chimney said!"

•••

"I don't hear anything."

Lynn adjusted her elbows that were resting on the wall behind her as she stared down the young boy, who was clearly on some type of drugs, as he was relaxing on the couch. He pointed to his bathroom, where he is consistent with saying that there was a baby flushed down a pipe.

The rest of her coworkers seemed just as unamused as she was, all annoyed that this boy seemed to be wasting their valuable time where they could be better off somewhere else.

"Look, I'm telling you," the boy began again, repeating the same words he had muttered a few minutes earlier. "I heard a baby crying. Someone flushed a baby down the toilet."

Lynn glanced over to Hen, who had a red plastic bong in her hands that she was checking out, and the boy must've realized how the situation looked to the rest of them.

"Oh, I'm not high," the boy pointed out, but then his gaze switched over to Lynn, who raised an eyebrow at him since he clearly wasn't hiding anything. "Okay, I-I'm pretty high, but it's a sativa. You know? It makes you happy, it doesn't make you hallucinate."

"It could've been a cat, right?" Chimney shrugged his shoulders, narrowing his eyes at a quite extravagant painting on the wall. "Sometimes rats get stuck in the walls."

"Sh," Bobby indicated, raising his arm up for the rest of the firefighters to be completely quiet, although Lynn had no interest in speaking up at all. "Did you hear that?"

Everyone seemed to stay utterly still for a moment, trying to hear what Bobby could possibly be getting at, but nobody seemed to hear it other than him.

The crowd of confused paramedics followed Bobby as he made his way back into the bathroom, and he pressed his right ear against the yellow wall softly. Then, after a second, he started knocking gently on the wood, as if it would tell a story itself.

"Hey, do you know what, can you give me a stethoscope?" Bobby questioned, and almost immediately, Lynn handed over the one that was nearly tucked into her medic bag. "Thanks."

The man took another few seconds being pressed against the wall, instead this time he was using the stethoscope for enhanced hearing.

"Give me a pen, a sharpie," Bobby stated, handing off the stethoscope back to Lynn, whereas at the same time Chimney offered the captain an available sharpie he had in his own bag. Bobby raised his fist, knocking once again on the wall, and then marking a X where the sound seemed to bounce more.

"Hey!" the boy whom the bathroom belonged to cried out, pointing towards the now stained X that was above his toilet.

"We need to open up this wall," Bobby explained, taking a moment to meet with each of his men, and women, one at a time.

No, no. We're being punked," Chimney spoke up his opinion, and to be honest, Lynn almost seemed to agree with him.

She could hardly imagine that any woman could give birth to their own flesh and blood and look at it with so much disgust and hate that they would rather flush it into a pipeline than live with it.

"It's a tape recorder or something. Right, Spicoli?"

"Maybe he's right," Hen chimed in, and Lynn glanced from Chimney about to give the drugged boy a taste of bad medicine towards her as she walked to the toilet. "Maybe a mother gives birth on the toilet and flushes it."

"Okay, first of all, that's awful," Chimney pointed out, shaking his head a bit in disbelief that they could quite possibly believe the high in the clouds kid. "Second, do you not know how a toilet pipe works? There's this piece of serpentine pipe that takes the waste from the toilet to—"

"—Wait, what if it was a premature baby?" Lynn inquired, and once everyone around her seemed to give her a questionable look, she suddenly regretted speaking up in the first place.

"No, no, Lynn's got a point," Bobby nodded beside the girl, and it was like a wave of relief flushed over Lynn's fuming cheeks. "If this is a premature baby, its bones could bend and compress like sponges. We need to go in there."

"Stand back," Buck announced, and Lynn almost flinched in her shoes, forgetting that the boy was standing behind them this entire time. "I got this!"

Within a second Lynn's hand shot up to grab ahold of the metal axe's wooden handle with one hand, while with the other she pressed her palm against Buck's hard chest. She was able to stop the boy in his tracks before he could do serious harm to the baby or potentially himself.

Hen and Chimney let out yelps quickly, Hen ducked underneath where Buck could've smashed right into her and Chimney looked like he was about to bodyslam Buck to the ground himself.

"Seriously!?" Lynn exclaimed in disbelief, one half of her was surprised she could move so fast in that split second while the other half was scolding because Buck could've easily taken off her head.

"Did you even stop to consider that you might hit a baby?" Bobby growled quickly, placing his palm just above where Lynn's hand had previously rested, taking the object out of Bucks grasp quickly. "Yeah, I didn't think so. Go get the saw. And Lynn, take this down there but please keep it out of Bucks hands."

Lynn nodded instantly, taking the wooden axe that was just in Bucks hands to wrap her frail fingers around it. Buck took off out the bathroom quickly, muttering a few words under his breath as his cheeks seemed to get the slightest color of red, like he was embarrassed.

"Yeah, and Lynn, try to help him find some common sense while he's down there!"

Lynn flashed an awkward half smile towards the rest of her coworkers, mainly showing that she would indeed follow Buck down there but she had no intentions of making fun of him, he already seemed so embarrassed and she would rather not comment on it.

So, quickly and swiftly, Lynn jogged down the stairs until she met up with Buck as he was just about to make it to the second floor. He glanced up when he seemed to hear other footsteps than his own, but after seeing Lynn, he moved his gaze back down to focusing on the stairs underneath his feet.

"Hey, Evan!" Lynn yelled, not to be aggressive but more because it looked like he was purposely moving faster to avoid her.

Great, Lynn was on her first shift at the new fire station and someone was already trying their best to ignore her. She mentally facepalmed, knowing she shouldn't be surprised because her personality often did that for her.

Finally, Lynn caught up with Buck just as soon as he swung open the door back outside. She caught the door or otherwise it would've hit her square in the face, due to Buck not holding it open for her even though she was merely a second behind.

"Hey," Lynn spoke up, grabbing Buck's spare hand that was available right by his thigh, and she tugged on him to stop for a moment. "Look, I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of them if I did."

"Oh, no, no, the new girl knows so much more than me so it doesn't matter," Buck responded, his tongue slick full of sarcasm, and Lynn was taken aback by how offensive the man was coming off.

"Relax, Evan, we're on the same team," Lynn snapped back, not necessarily meaning to come off so rude, but frankly she didn't care. Buck was being completely unfair with her, thinking that she was purposely trying to show off so he would seem less optional her. "Don't get your panties all twisted up."

Buck narrowed his blue eyes at the feisty woman in front of him, and he almost looked apologetic for suddenly snapping on the new candidate. But Lynn didn't give him a chance to say anything else, and instead rushed past him towards the truck. She placed that wooden axe back in the area where she first saw Buck pull it out of, but then her mind was jumbled up with the fact she had no idea where the saw was. There wasn't time for a tour of where all the tools were since the bell rang the first minute she was in the building.

"Looking for this?"

Lynn glanced over her shoulder, and she rolled her eyes as she slammed the small compartment closed. There in Buck's hands, was a small, black saw, and she could only assume it was the one that Bobby had asked for.

"Race you," Buck smirked, and Lynn thought to herself of how cocky this boy really seemed to be. He carried himself about like he was the fire captain himself, but he was a young buck, he still had plenty to learn.

Like how Lynn had been on the track team every year of high school, and a good runner at that. That's why Lynn didn't struggle too much when it came to the physical challenges, other than carrying that damn dummy, now that was the real challenge.

In a split second, Lynn darted past Buck and started to heave herself up the stairs quickly. She heard the man let out a loud gasp, probably because he was surprised the woman could take off with such speed.

"Hey, not fair!"