Broken Glass
Hank was usually terrible at small talk, but John seemed more than capable of filling the silence without any help. In the short ride up to the sixth floor, and down the long, eerily quiet hall, Hank learned all about the particular personality quirks of half the hospital staff (though he'd be hard pressed to recall any names that went with any of these idiosyncrasies), about how instrumental Rampart in general, and the Emergency Room director specifically, had been in getting the paramedic bill passed, about how many runs the squad averaged, and about how bad the cafeteria coffee really was.
He'd thought the kid to be an effervescent chatterbox on the walk from the elevator to the room, but John positively blossomed when they went inside. "Hey, partner! You're all pink again! Lookin good, Roy, you're lookin real good!"
Hank stared at the poor guy in disbelief. A contraption bolted to the ceiling held the patient half suspended out of bed by three limbs. His 'pink' skin was more of a sickly bluish white, in vivid contrast to the shock of bright red ostrich feathers that was supposed to be the man's hair. His face and free arm were patched over with bandages small and large. He had a nasal cannula taped to his face, and a bundle of other wires protruded from underneath his hospital gown. If this was looking good, what in hell had happened to this poor guy?
"I still feel like a burning ceiling fell on me, but thanks, Johnny."
Well, that answered that question.
Roy turned cool blue eyes to Hank. "I see you brought somebody else along. What'd he do to deserve you?"
"Ha, ha," John said. "Remember the other night, when you were asking about Cap?"
Color suddenly rushed to Roy's face in uneven splotches. "Yeah," he bit off. "Yeah, I remember, and you took of without a word! Dix won't tell me anything, and I know she know some-"
"Okay, okay, hold it Roy!" John laughed nervously, and snuck a glance at Hank. "I'm gonna explain it all right now, if you just gimme a chance." He told Roy about Captain Hammer's promotion, his choice to leave the fireline behind, and Hank's unannounced appearance at the station. "Now believe me, Roy, this is a surprise to all of us. I didn't wanna say anything until I had more information. Heck, even he didn't know!" John gestured wildly in Hank's direction.
"Is that so," Roy said blandly. "Do you ever plan on telling me who he is?"
"Would you relax?"
"Well you bring a stranger in here-"
"I'm getting to it! I'm getting-"
"John," Hank said feeling his own hackles rising. "I'm pretty sure the doctors don't want you getting into a screaming match with their patients. How about you take that seat over there in the corner and cool off, while I talk to your partner here, huh?"
"Oh. Yeah, good idea, Cap."
The full force of Roy's impatience shifted entirely to Hank, and suddenly he wished he'd just waited for John to blunder his way through an intro. There was nothing for it, though. Besides, the fire captain was expected to take charge of possibly large groups of strange men in the middle of the kind of chaos that only fire could bring - if he couldn't get control of two of the guys he'd be sleeping with every other day, what hope did he have of directing a firefight? He drew himself up to his full height, and felt a hint of satisfaction as Roy's eyebrows went up a touch. "My name is Hank Stanley. I was an engineer out at 21s, but as of our next shift, I'll be taking over the A shift at Station 51."
Roy smiled, which changed his haggard, tired face into the spitting image of Opie Taylor. "Roy DeSoto," he said simply. He looked at his tractioned right arm, and shrugged as best he could. "I'd shake, but I'm a little tied up at the moment."
Hank grinned and held out his left hand. "Sometimes, you gotta throw tradition out the window." Roy raised an eyebrow, but he lifted his free hand and gripped Hank's with surprising strength.
The moment Roy released his hand, Hank stepped back and leaned against the wall. He hated this part of introductions. Names had been exchanged, mutual acquaintances had withdrawn to facilitate the introduction of new people, and now Hank was left standing with the massive question of 'what next' looming over his head. He'd eventually found that by physically removing himself from the circle of new faces, that he could just go ahead and fade into the background, and let somebody else go back to chipping at the ice.
Sure enough, Roy turned his attention back to John. "It's too bad though, in a way. I was kinda hoping to talk to Captain Hammer when I got out of here."
Hank's mouth was open before he had a chance to weigh the wisdom of speaking. "I can always get a message to him to contact you." No, no, no! He had no idea how the hell to go about doing that, or if it was even going to be a possibility, what with all his time spent training in training and acclimating himself to a whole new crew. Why in the hell would he make an offer like that?
"What do you wanna talk to Hammer for?" John asked incredulously. "What, you wanna be sure you broke half your body for a good cause? Obviously you did - he's out of our hair now!" Hank winced, and he caught Roy's flinch out of the corner of his eye, too. "Oh, calm down, I'm glad he's alright, but lets not get carried away here. He's still the SledgeHammer - just because you saved his life doesn't mean he's any easier to work under."
"He's our captain, he's not supposed to be easy, he's supposed to be our leader!"
"Was our leader, Roy, was! And don't you forget it - I don't wanna get started on the wrong foot with this guy."
"Don't worry, I had a couple of hard-nosed captains too," Hank said quietly.
"There, now you can relax, he's going to be a sympathetic captain, Johnny - and I bet he's still gonna ride you like prized thoroughbred at Santa Anita once you get started!"
John stabbed a skinny finger at the air. "Look, you just concentrate on knitting together again, and don't worry about me and the Cap. You get better and out of that bed. I can't take much more of Daniels and his bedside manner."
Roy rolled his eyes and settled his gaze on Hank once more. "You know, I'd appreciate you passing a message along if you can, Cap, thanks. I'd also appreciate Johnny's concern, but clearly it's not so much for me as it is for himself."
"Well now, hang on, DeSoto," Hank said. "When I went down to 51s, this guy damn near tore my head off, because he thought I was nosing around for your position. And he seemed to get along well enough with Daniels for the time I was there - as well as he got along with everyone else there, including the captain on duty, who's an old friend of mine. If Gage's primary concern about your health is for himself, well, I think it's because you happen to be his favorite person."
John and Roy stared at Hank. The silence stretched out into seconds, and minutes, and days, and centuries, and they stared at him, hard. Maybe... maybe he shouldn't have said all that. People were always telling him he was too sensitive - maybe he'd misread John's behavior. It wasn't like he'd been in the man's company for more than a couple hours, including this impromptu visit. He was probably projecting his own tenderheartedness onto Gage, and weaving a huge fairytale out of a friendship that was really only professional happenstance.
"That's amazing," John said.
"What's amazing?"
"What you just did! Did you see that, Roy, what he did?"
"I sure did, Junior."
"Absolutely amazing!"
Hank frowned. "What's amazing? What'd I do?"
"You saw through all his bullshit," Roy said. At John's scoff, Roy smiled and waved his plastered fingertips. "I mean, we have a... special relationship, I guess you'd call it, since we're paramedics. But no one else has just gone to the heart of our friendship like that - certainly not so fast."
"You're really good at reading people, aren't you," John asked.
That was the craziest thing Hank had ever heard. "No... I'm terrible at it."
"Well you sure seem good at it to me," John muttered.
"Maybe it's because you're usually trying to read people in direct relationship to yourself," Roy said. Hank's confusion must have been all over his face, because Roy laughed a little and went on. "You see, you weren't really talking about how either of us relates to you. You just reported what you observed from watching Johnny."
Hank shrugged. "It was just a wild guess, really."
"No it wasn't," Roy insisted. "There's nothing wild about the statement that Johnny likes Charlie fine, and that he didn't want a new partner. That's pretty specific." Roy looked thoughtful. "Were you ever a rescue man?"
"Uh, yeah, before I drove the engine, sure." Where in the world was he going with this?
"You were good at it, weren't you?"
"Sure, we all were. Aren't you?"
"Come on, Cap," John said. "Not everybody in the service has what it takes to do rescue, just like not everybody can pull a three point turn in those giant trucks on a one-way, one-lane alley. You know what I bet? I bet you were one of those guys who could grab a man that's dangling off the side of a freeway overpass, and calm his wife down at the same time. That is not an easy feat, I know it's not, because that's my job, even without the paramedic certification. And that's probably exactly what you did every single day until you mastered that truck. Am I right?"
"Uh..." The example was a little more extreme than anything Hank had ever experienced, but he supposed the concept was true enough. Still, what was the point of agreeing that he'd been good on the squad? "I guess so?"
"You're good with people," Roy said firmly. Then, because the matter was clearly closed, he announced, "I want a hamburger. Preferably not from the cafeteria."
John jumped from his seat like it was hot. "Well I dunno how you're gonna get that - unless you call your wife and have her sneak one in here. I'm sure not coming back to this madhouse with a burger." He went to the door, still complaining. "I mean I'll get you one from downstairs, that's not a problem, but don't expect-" The door swung shut and cut off the rest of his complaint.
Roy sighed heavily and looked at the closed door. "See what I gotta deal with?"
"You know, he told the paramedics from 14 not to scare me, but he's doing a better job of scaring me off this job than they ever could!" They shared a laugh, but when Roy's laughter ended in a huge yawn, Hank knew he needed to make himself scarce. "Hey, great finally meeting you, Roy. Hope to see you back with us soon."
"Thanks for stopping by - and listen, don't go to any trouble with Captain Hammer. He knows where I am." Roy sunk down into his pillows as best he could with his arm and legs suspended overhead, and tried to hide a pout.
"Well, I'll still try to get a message along just the same. I'm sure he wouldn't want to leave you with the feeling that he didn't care." Roy looked dubious, but he didn't argue. He just let his eyes flutter close and gave a half smile in parting.
Hank left the room, and looked up and down the hall for John, but he was nowhere to be seen. Vaguely disappointed, Hank went on to the elevator and headed for the ground floor.
The elevator deposited him in the middle of a three ring circus. In the center of the kerfluffle, a great knight held court at the small inset desk - John, of course. The handsome blonde woman was back at her post, as was a bespectacled young black man who could have been an orderly or a nurse or a doctor, with his nondescript white scrubs. On the public side of the desk, next to John, stood a potbellied man with a shaggy bowl of steel and platinum hair and a stethoscope hanging from his neck. There were also a couple of younger nurses hanging about, though they looked as if they were stealing minutes they didn't have to spare to listen to John's yarn.
The handsome woman noticed Hank first, and though she never lost her smile, there was a slight shift in her air, like she was preparing to deal with an unruly complaint from the public. Hank chuckled - apparently, every department in the County learned that technique of dealing with bizarre taxpayers who wouldn't go the hell away. He waved a little, and sidled up to John. "You make a habit of ditching your superiors, Gage?"
The blonde woman's eyebrows went up, and she looked like she was about to protest, but John just laughed. "I wasn't ditching you, you just move too slow. And you can't call me out on that, because you're not my superior yet. I got a whole day and some-odd hours before that happens."
"Is this Captain Hammer's replacement?" The silver haired doctor didn't seem nearly as guarded as the handsome woman - his gentle amusement rolled easily over Hank, and his eyes twinkled as he looked him up and down. "If so, you should get out while there's still time - Johnny here's fit to make everybody tied."
"It's too late, Dr. Early," John said in mock anger. "He's already been approved by his majesty upstairs."
"Well are you gonna introduce us, or what," the handsome woman asked. She still seemed fairly suspicious of Hank's presence, but she no longer looked like she wanted to bite his head off for daring to speak so to John.
"Dix, you're doing it again," the young orderly/nurse/doctor said gravely.
"What's that?"
"You're asking Gage to make sense," the young man said.
"You know, you can be replaced," John whined.
"By who? For what?"
"By me, for my favorite intern, that's who and what!" Well, that answered Hank's question about the young man's uniform, anyway.
"Oh, what a travesty. Joe, he's gonna replace me."
"Do you want me to introduce him or not?!"
"Dix brought it up, not me! I figure if he comes around often enough I'll find out who he is anyway."
John huffed. "Cap, I told you about all these good folks on our way to see Roy, but so you can put names to faces, this here is Dr. Joe Early, this is Dixie McCall, the ER's head nurse, and that clown is Dr. Michael Morton."
"Why do I have to be a clown?"
"This," John went on, "is Captain Hank Stanley, and yes, Dr. Early, he's going to be replacing Captain Hammer, and you don't have to be a clown, Doc, you just choose to because you like getting them to laugh at me!"
Dr. Morton looked at Nurse McCall. "Doesn't that make him the clown?"
She tried (unsuccessfully) to swallow a snort of laughter, and held her hand out to Hank. "I take it you've had your tour?"
"Of a sorts, Ma'am. But I get the feeling this is probably going to be as good as it gets, so I'll content myself with this little desk here."
"So he didn't show you the coffee down the hall," Dr. Early said, while glowering at John.
"Hey, I told him not to get coffee from the cafeteria."
"But you didn't tell him where to get it instead."
Hank leaned down to Dr. Morton's ear. "Do you know if John does all this squabbling all the time?"
"I think he tones it down when he's on a run, but otherwise... this is good."
"Ho boy..." Hank listened to John take up his place in the center of the circus again, and worried about how in the world he was supposed to control a guy like this, along with four others, and possibly a damned fire. John seemed like the kind of kid who would laugh in the face of a drill sergeant!
"Is there some reason you all are gathered around here like a bunch of vagrants?!"
Everyone jumped and whirled around at the angry, gravelly bark from behind them. Dr. Morton and John immediately drew up in front of Hank, almost as if to protect him from the wrath of the newcomer. "Uh, sorry Dr. Br-"
"Johnny, this is a hospital, not a night club! You wanna hang out with the gang after hours, that's your business, but don't come in here while everyone here is on duty and keep them from their work! You got that?"
The whole world dropped out underneath Hank as he caught sight of the doctor's face - and as the doctor caught sight of him. "What - who - are you a patient?" He turned on Dr. Morton. "Has anyone helped him, or are we all too busy enjoying Johnny's repartee?"
"Kel!" Nurse McCall seemed to be the only person unafraid of the spitting, barking man. "This is Hank Stanley, the new captain at station 51, and John and Roy's new boss." When the doctor didn't say anything to that, Nurse McCall took a deep breath. "This is Dr. Kelly Brackett. He's the head of emergency services here at Rampart, and when your paramedics are on a call, he's their boss."
Hank looked down at Dr. Kelly Brackett. He wanted to run out of the hospital, the way Dr. Kelly Brackett had run out of his hotel room the afternoon before. He wanted to pick the little man up and throw him across the room, and see if it hurt when he landed, the way Hank had been hurt to be tossed from his bliss. He wanted to tell everyone in the room that the little man was a trollop, a hustler, a dirty little faggot whore who liked to hold people down and kick 'em when they were down. But he didn't. He put his hand out, and pretended he'd never met the man before. "Dr. Brackett."
For a humiliating moment, Hank thought he wouldn't shake hands. But then his great big paw of a hand wrapped around Hank's own long fingers, and pumped twice. "Captain," he said brusquely. Then Dr. Brackett looked at the others. "Get back to work," he said quietly, but sharply, and then he stalked down the hall, past the ambulance entrance, and disappeared somewhere just to the left of those awful orange chairs.