Reading Time: 116 Minutes

Title: Love Can Heal, Loving Can Mend Your Soul
Author: Bythia
Fandom: 9-1-1: Lone Star
Genre: Contemporary, Pre-Relationship, Romance
Relationship(s): Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Michelle Blake bashing, Discussion of Canon Addiction, Discussion of Canon Schizophrenia
Beta: starlitenite, librarycat9
Word Count: 123,500
Summary: On Iris’s birthday three years after she went missing, Carlos reaches the end of his rope with Michelle’s behavior. Complaining about it to a friend has much more far-reaching consequences than he could have anticipated.
Artist: librarycat9

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Chapter 06

TK groaned a little when he woke up several hours after his conversation with Enzo. His father was still missing in action, and he felt much more rested than he had since coming to Austin. It was just more proof of what he had admitted to even himself earlier for the first time, that sleeping in the same house as Owen was a source of stress. He hadn’t anticipated that when Owen had ordered him to move in here with him, he’d only been annoyed about the presumption and the lack of communication about it until they had already been standing in this house. TK really didn’t know how to deal with any of it.

TK meandered down into the kitchen, staring at his phone with a frown. It was early afternoon and Owen hadn’t texted him since the morning. He wouldn’t have expected that a simple interview with the police would take this long, but who knew what other things had come up during that.

The fridge was void of anything TK felt in the mood for, and he closed the door again with a frustrated sigh. This was another problem living with his father, who didn’t accept anything processed in his kitchen. TK had grown up between his father obsessing over the dangers of processed food and Enzo’s enjoyment of cooking, so he knew how to cook for himself, but sometimes it was pure comfort to take something out of the fridge or the cupboard that he didn’t need to do anything to before he ate it, despite how unhealthy it might be.

TK sat down with a frustrated sigh, but instead of scrolling through apps for local delivery, he opened his texts and scrolled through his contacts. He settled on Paul after a little consideration and sent a quick question asking if he was up for company. TK received an answer right away with an invitation to come over to Paul’s place and cook dinner together later in the day. Getting out of the house was exactly what he needed, especially as it would derail the potential confrontation with his father when he eventually came home. He didn’t feel like facing Owen at all for the moment, not until he had been able to deal with this new understanding of Owen’s role in his recovery.

Nearly an hour later, TK sat beside Paul in front of his TV and was winning at Mario Kart for the third race in a row. Paul had taken one look at him and decided he needed a distraction. His first suggestion had been to go out and explore the city, but TK had just shaken his head at that. He didn’t feel like being around strangers.

“You’re cheating!” Paul complained.

“I warned you,” TK said grinning, chin raised high. “I know all of these tracks in my sleep. This game got me through rehab, mostly because it was full of good childhood memories. You’ll have to put a lot of work into beating me, or get really, really lucky.”

Paul huffed.

“Another round?”

“I’m not giving up this easily!”

TK laughed.

“I’m glad you told me,” Paul said quietly after a moment. “And I’m thankful for your trust. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”

TK sighed and shrugged.

“I would like to ask a question, or a couple of questions, maybe,” Paul said, cursing lightly when he was hit by a red shell and fell behind again. “Only if you want to talk about it, though.”

TK stared at the screen for a little while, undecided about how to react to that. He didn’t know if he was in the mood to talk about anything, on the other hand, Paul had proven to respect his boundaries when TK put a stop to any topic. “What kind of questions?”

“You said something about building a support system carefully. And I wondered whenever we had a break yesterday what you meant by that. And what you need in a support system. What I could provide for it.”

“You are actually already doing a lot,” TK murmured. “Your and Marjan’s easy acceptance means a lot. Someone on shift knowing made yesterday a lot easier. Because I knew you’d have my back, both of you.”

Paul sighed. “Cap knows.”

“Yeah, but Cap is really bad at dealing with my addiction, and at being supportive about how I deal with it.” TK sighed and shook his head. He paused the game and put the controller carefully on the table before he could give in to the urge to throw it. “I don’t know how he could be any worse at dealing with it!”

Paul turned to TK and eyed him with a worried frown. “Did something happen this morning?”

TK rubbed his hands over his face. “No, sorry. I’m just … I had two conversations this morning that were a little difficult. Concerning the way Dad has taken over my life without considering my opinion about it.”

“In more ways than dragging you here?”

TK shrugged. “He insisted on choosing my therapist here in Austin, he didn’t leave me any choice other than to move in with him, and you’ve seen how he reacts when I tell him a bar isn’t a good place for me. I didn’t even know how much all of that bothered me until I was talking about it earlier.”

Paul hummed. “Sometimes we are so caught up in a rut that we don’t notice that something is wrong at all until we get an outside perspective. Especially when we are struggling to deal with too many things at once.”

“Yeah, I know,” TK muttered. “Not even the first time it’s happened to me. I’m just … I don’t know how to deal with any of it, and everyone I usually talk to is back in New York.”

“I’m here,” Paul said. “And I’m happy to listen and to offer advice if I can.”

TK swallowed and bit his lip. It was always difficult to open up to someone new—it had taken him years to reach that point with some of his friends in New York. But calling any of them wasn’t an option because he already knew he wouldn’t talk to them over the phone the same way he would in person. It was easier to hide over the phone, easier to deflect.

“It’s difficult,” TK said after a while.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s worth it to push through this fight, right?”

TK chuckled and sucked in a breath, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “Of course it is. Life sucked when I was … I was really unhappy, but I didn’t know how to get out. I couldn’t even go to anyone and tell them I had a problem. Not because there wasn’t anyone who would have listened and helped, but because I was physically unable to get the words out of my mouth.”

“But you managed in the end,” Paul said.

TK shook his head. “No. I didn’t manage anything. Mom dragged me all the way to California and put me in rehab at one of the best clinics in the country. One of those with a months-long waitlist. She had to have put my name on that list at least four months before she dragged me out of a drug den and forced me onto the plane. And then she didn’t even leave the airport with me. She said she couldn’t take me any further, that the rest I had to do on my own.”

“And you did.”

TK nodded and fisted his hand when he noticed he was scratching at his arm again. He hadn’t known he had those tells, and now he seemed to be hyper-aware of them. “I argued with her most of the way, most of the flight. I was convinced I had it under control. But … everyone thinks that. Anyway, at one point she said she didn’t want to bury me. That she had to at least try to save me. And that stuck in my head. The whole month I spent in California those words kept circling through my head. And they still haunt me.”

“No parent wants to bury their child,” Paul said quietly. “My mom said something very similar to me once, though for very different reasons, of course. I think part of her will always expect a call from the police someday, telling her I’ve fallen victim to a hate crime. She’s always been very supportive, but I think she would have preferred if I’d chosen to live a lie for my whole life to make myself less of a target. And I know she doesn’t mean it in a hurtful way, but it’s still something that stands between us.”

TK bit his lip and smiled self-consciously. “You get along well with her, though, right?”

“Pretty well,” Paul agreed. “I know that I’m very lucky to have her as my mom. She fought at my side for everything despite her own worry and the disconnect between her support and what she feels sometimes. But we weren’t talking about me, were we?”

TK rubbed a hand over his neck. “I’m good at deflecting.”

Paul sighed. “I suspected as much. Your support system. You said it was already a relief that Marj and I know, but I can’t imagine that’s all. I mean, you had a plan with Carlos about how to handle the bar if it became too much, right? I figured you’d have plans for other situations as well. What’s the plan in this situation right now?”

“Not being alone,” TK said. “Being distracted by playing stupid games or planning what we’ll cook later. And maybe eventually talk about the can of worms I opened earlier without even noticing.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Honestly, most of the time that’s enough, having someone I know I can talk to and who won’t … try to dictate what I have to do, who’ll accept if I reject a suggestion, even if that rejection might not be in my best interest ultimately.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

TK grinned. “Yeah, I already noticed that. It’s part of the reason I followed Carlos’ advice the other day to trust you and Marjan. And why I asked if I could come over today.”

Paul nodded. “Do you want to talk about the problems you recognized this morning, or do you want to continue our game?”

TK closed his eyes and blew out a breath through clenched teeth. “I guess I need to talk that situation out, if I want to or not.”

Paul watched him with raised brows for a moment before he put his own controller on the table as well. “Then let’s talk about it. I’m not sure I could follow what you were talking about earlier. Has your dad really controlled every little step you took since you came to Austin?”

TK bit his lip and shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“And with the way you talked about it, it’s not working.”

“It’s really not,” TK murmured. “And I noticed but also not, you know? I’ve known I couldn’t successfully work with the therapist he chose for me since my second appointment with him. And I noticed today that living with my dad does not help me relax at all. But I don’t know how to change it, because…”

Paul sighed when TK trailed off. “Because it means going against your dad, and that’s difficult.”

“I don’t know how he’ll react,” TK muttered, turning away from Paul. He was dreading the confrontation he would ultimately need to have with his father. And the worst part was that he wouldn’t have a place to where he could be by himself afterward, because Owen wouldn’t accept his closed door, he never did. “I didn’t feel like I had any choice when he said we’d move here. For some reason, it was stuck in my head that I either did what he said or I was out of a job.”

“What?” Paul asked incredulously.

TK shrugged silently.

“Did he really say that?”

“More or less,” TK murmured. “Not in those exact words, but…”

Paul sighed.

TK frowned and looked at him again. “What?”

Paul shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s a side of Cap I haven’t seen yet, and I’m pretty disappointed. Though, that’s a me problem and doesn’t have anything to do with our topic.”

“He is a good captain, most of the time even a great one!” TK said defensively. The last thing he wanted to do was make Paul resent their captain for any reason. “But he isn’t a good dad. That’s not exactly news for me in this situation. I became a firefighter to connect with him. Because I barely had a relationship with him before. And I might have been a little jealous of his team growing up. I thought if I followed him into his work, we’d have something to talk about. But I didn’t expect to end up in his house. He requested me, though, and that was more important to the NYFD than my very explicit wish to not work with him directly.”

“Hence your anger at Judd’s assumptions.”

TK huffed. “One day I’ll tell him exactly how being the captain’s kid hasn’t helped on the job at all.”

Paul chuckled. “I’m not sure you can change his mind, but I want to be there when you try! Are you happy being a firefighter?”

“Of course,” TK said without pause.

Paul raised his brows. “Have you ever really thought about it? Thought about other jobs you could do? Or would like to do?”

“I’m not giving up being a firefighter!” TK hissed, suddenly angry.

Paul raised his hands. “Okay. I’m glad, honestly. I like working with you. And I believe it’s not as easy for Cap to kick you out as you believe. So, don’t worry yet about how he’ll react when you take your recovery back into your own hands. That’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it.”

TK deflated and slumped back. “Sorry.”

Paul laughed. “No reason to apologize. If you didn’t notice I provoked you very deliberately. Because whichever way you reacted, the solution is pretty clear. If you want to stay a firefighter, then you will. If Cap kicks you off the team and the AFD actually allows that, there are plenty of other houses in this city and even more in the whole country. If you’d had a sudden epiphany, there wouldn’t have been any reason to worry about your job because we would have made a plan for what you could do instead.”

TK huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“It sums up to a new therapist and an apartment for yourself, right?” Paul said.

TK sighed, feeling miserable. Paul made it sound like a small easy thing, but for TK both felt like an overwhelming task. “Yeah. I promised Enzo a list of possible therapists by tomorrow evening.”

“Enzo?” Paul asked confused.

“My stepdad. More or less. Dad hates it when I call him that.” It was the reason why he only ever called Enzo Papa when they were alone. Not even his mother had ever heard him call Enzo by that title. “Mom and Enzo won’t ever marry, I think, but he’s been my third parent for a very long time. We talked this morning and decided a new therapist would be easier to handle first.”

Paul hummed. “I’m glad you have another parental figure who you can depend on a little more than Owen. If you want, we can look at therapists together. Maybe even top your promise to Enzo and already present him with an appointment or two.”

TK chuckled. “Maybe in a little while. I don’t think I’m in the right mood to do that right now.”

“It will hold,” Paul said. “But I’ll come back to it. I won’t let you leave without at least having started on that list.”

TK smiled. “Thanks.”

***

“This is a horrible idea!” Carlos complained as Tony stopped the car in front of Theresa Blake’s house. “The most horrible idea you’ve ever had. This will blow up in your face!”

Tony sighed. “I know that you can’t stand her and that the feeling is mutual. But I think it’s important to talk to her, and we can’t wait until tomorrow. I don’t believe there will be any chance that she’d still talk to us then.”

Carlos frowned. “Why?”

“Because by then she’ll know her daughter won’t be getting out of trouble easily this time around,” Tony said.

Carlos watched Tony skeptically. “What kind of trouble?”

“The kind of trouble you get into when you send a new friend to threaten the guy who has a restraining order against you,” Tony said. “Captain Strand was only too happy to take on that role after a couple of shots of Tequila. And don’t worry, I had breakfast earlier with TK, and warned him about the situation with his father so he wouldn’t be blindsided.”

Carlos huffed. “And again, why?”

Tony looked at him with raised brows. “I’m able to recognize the signs of addiction, Carlos. I believe your new friend is struggling a lot at the moment, and I didn’t want this kind of surprise to be a stumbling block for him. He said you knew.”

“He told me,” Carlos agreed. “I don’t know what to think about you invading his life that way, though. How did he react?”

Tony shrugged. “He’s surely had better days. But I don’t believe he was in any danger when we parted. So, let’s tackle the conversation with your mother-in-law. We should portray a professional relationship. Make her believe you managed to call in a favor from an FBI agent you know through a case.”

“Why?” Carlos said, feeling like a broken record.

Tony grinned cockily but thankfully didn’t say anything about it. “I assume it will make her more likely to cooperate. She has left her daughter to take the lead on the harassment of anyone involved and hasn’t been very involved in the investigation. If a federal agency shows interest in her daughter’s case now, she might change her mind about that involvement.”

Carlos sighed deeply. “Let’s get this over with.”

Tony patted his shoulder with a laugh then they got out of the car and approached the door without another word. Carlos rang the bell and straightened his back. He couldn’t remember when he had seen Theresa last, but it had to have been around the time he cleaned out Iris’ condo. Theresa had been as upset as Michelle about it, and at one point she had even threatened to sue him. It hadn’t happened, and Carlos had never asked Michelle what had held her mother back.

Theresa Blake opened the door and her face froze as she saw Carlos. “What are you doing here?”

“Mrs. Blake?” Tony said, whose presence she had completely ignored. “I’m Agent Anthony DiNozzo, FBI. Officer Reyes was nice enough to accompany me for this visit during his free time. I’m here to talk with you about your daughter Iris.”

Theresa’s eyes grew wide, and she paled. “Have you…”

“No,” Carlos hurried to say. “We don’t have any news, good or bad. I … met Agent DiNozzo during a case, and he is doing me a favor by looking into Iris’ disappearance. Getting an outside perspective might bring new insights. He wants to talk with everyone, so here we are.”

Theresa raised her chin and glared at Carlos for a moment before she nodded. “Let’s sit down. Can I offer you a coffee or something else, Agent DiNozzo?”

Tony glanced at Carlos for a moment as Theresa turned around, clearly expecting them to follow her. ‘Told you’, Carlos mouthed and rolled his eyes. He waved for Tony to follow Theresa and closed the door behind them. He trailed along a little more slowly, inspecting what he could see of the house looking for changes, not that he expected any. According to Iris, nothing had changed inside the house since her father died, her mother clinging to every single bit that held even the slightest memory of him.

“I don’t need anything, thank you, Mrs. Blake. We also don’t want to take up much of your time.”

Theresa nodded and pointed at the dining table, only sitting down after both Carlos and Tony had done so, choosing the place farthest away from Carlos. “What kind of favor is this then?”

Tony smiled brightly. “We got to talking during a break while we were working together and Officer Reyes mentioned your missing daughter, and how little progress has been made in three years. It’s a no strings attached favor, really. It’s more that I’ve had luck with this kind of case before simply because I was an outsider. Sometimes a different perspective can do a lot, you know?”

Theresa nodded slowly. “I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help. Iris had not been living here for several years when she went missing, and she was very busy with her schooling. The last time I saw her was on her father’s birthday and … she was very rude.”

“Her father’s birthday? When was that exactly?” Tony asked as if he hadn’t already gotten that kind of information from Carlos.

“A month before she went missing,” Theresa said, sighing deeply. “We always celebrated his birthday together since he passed away much too young. We would sit down here at this table, eat his favorite cake and talk about everything that had happened during the year and that we wished he hadn’t missed.”

“And how was Iris on that day?”

Theresa rolled her eyes and shook her head. “She started to laugh, and she had been very disrespectful since she arrived, pulling her feet up on the chair, coming here with dirty unkempt hair. I tried to ignore it, of course. My husband’s birthday is no time for family drama, but Michelle couldn’t stand it. The girls fought, and Iris left in a fit of anger. She didn’t even call to apologize later.”

She closed her eyes and paused. She folded her hands on the table, which effectively drew attention to them and did nothing to hide their shaking. “I was waiting for her to apologize for her behavior, and now I regret it every day that I didn’t talk to her again, that I didn’t call her myself.”

“No one ever expects a tragedy like this,” Tony said quietly. “We live our life expecting it to follow the same boring trot it has been following for years. You could hardly have expected Iris to vanish. And as you said, she was preparing for her last exams at school, wasn’t she? Do you think her behavior was caused by the stress of that?”

Theresa shook her head and shot Carlos a dark look. “No. I think that had more to do with the men in her life. I’m sure you already know that the police failed to investigate Dustin Shepard properly, and I assume with this one here they didn’t even try.”

“Officer Reyes has an ironclad alibi, Mrs. Blake. I did look that up as well. The spouse is always the first person you look at during this kind of investigation.” Tony raised his brows when Theresa scoffed at that. “There are two detectives, three other officers, and security footage that all attest to Officer Reyes’ whereabouts throughout that night.”

“He could have easily arranged that,” Theresa said. “Or contracted someone to do his dirty work for him. Are you aware that my daughter has money this man has had unfettered access to ever since she vanished? Who knows how much of that is still there now.”

“Officer Reyes’ phone was in his personal locker, and he didn’t go anywhere near it after he was pulled in for a second shift,” Tony continued calmly. “And he also didn’t use his work phone or any of the computers he was working on to send private messages. All of that was looked into as well, I assure you.”

Theresa huffed and shook her head.

“I can understand your mistrust in the local police considering the ineptitude they have shown regarding your daughter Michelle’s behavior.” Tony smiled and Carlos bit his tongue. Theresa might not see it, but Carlos barely refrained from shivering when he saw the coldness in Tony’s eyes.

Theresa frowned, looking put out, and asked, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Your daughter has been arrested repeatedly for violating a restraining order against her, but there have never been any consequences for it,” Tony said with raised brows, still smiling. “Clearly there is something suspect going on here. I have made sure someone is looking into these irregularities as well.”

Theresa turned to Carlos. “Was this your plan all along by involving the FBI? Do you want to discredit Michelle now as well after you’ve already taken Iris away from me?”

Carlos sighed. “I didn’t take Iris away from you.”

“If you hadn’t made her move out of my house, none of this would have ever happened! You ruined my daughter’s life with your selfishness! Someday I’ll find out what you used to blackmail her into this shame of a marriage! And I’ll make sure your life is ruined for it!”

“Wasn’t Iris 20 when she moved out?” Tony asked in feigned surprise. “That is not an unusual age to move out of their parents’ home, is it?”

Theresa huffed. “It was not what was best for Iris. But she didn’t listen to me because this … man somehow held her thoughts hostage! He poisoned her mind against me from the very first moment they met!”

“Or maybe you poisoned your relationship with Iris all on your own,” Carlos muttered.

Theresa slapped her hand on the table. “I don’t have to listen to that kind of criticism in my own home!”

“Of course not,” Tony said softly and put a hand on Carlos’ arm. “I know that Iris tried to call both Michelle and Officer Reyes the night of her disappearance. She reached neither of them, obviously. Did she call you as well? Or do you remember if there was a call from an unknown number?”

Theresa shook her head. “There were no missed calls on my phone in the morning. How do you expect to find any new traces if you only repeat questions that have already been asked a dozen times?”

“As I said, I’m bringing a new perspective and sometimes people suddenly remember new things after having to answer the same question for the tenth time,” Tony said. “One of Mr. Shepard’s neighbors, for example, remembered just recently that he saw Iris leaving Mr. Shepard’s house on the night of her disappearance and getting into a pickup truck. Probably a blue one. Do you know anyone who had a blue pickup truck three years ago and was acquainted with your daughter?”

Theresa blinked, clearly startled by the question. “I don’t think so. I didn’t know any of Iris’ friends anymore. She didn’t share those things with me after she moved out. It was very difficult to connect with her while she lived with him.” She nodded in Carlos’ direction without even looking at him. “And I’m not good at remembering facts like car types anyway.”

“Do you by any chance have pictures that Iris sent you or shared with you? Maybe we could find something there.”

Theresa shook her head. “No. I have pictures of course, but I won’t touch my daughters’ things. I don’t see how that could be of any help. I’m not at all sure it’s a good idea that he has bothered you with all this, Agent DiNozzo. And I honestly believe it might just be another attempt to distract from his own guilt. I would not be surprised at all to someday learn that he and Dustin Shepard worked together because my daughter had become a burden to them both.”

Tony hummed and pursed his lips. After a moment he turned to Carlos. “Maybe it would be better if you waited in the car for me.”

Carlos rolled his eyes and got up. “Sure. I’ll let myself out, no reason to get up, Theresa. Have a nice day.”

He left the house and leaned against the car, watching the street which hadn’t changed much since his teenage years either. This was the perfect place for Theresa Blake, who clung so desperately to the past to live. When he had left the house Carlos had noticed a pair of shoes and a jacket by the door he knew had belonged to Iris’ dad. They had looked clean, well-cared for, and as if they could have just been in use the other day. It was probably no wonder Michelle and Theresa weren’t able to even attempt moving on.

Carlos had to wait for half an hour before Tony came out of the house. They were quiet until they were back in the car and Tony was driving down the street.

“You were right,” Tony said darkly. “Has she always been this hostile to you?”

“From the very first day,” Carlos said. “Though, she couldn’t stand any of Iris’ friends. I always felt she was clinging to Iris too hard and would have liked to be the only important person in Iris’ life. It went so far that she pitted Michelle and Iris against each other, and Michelle fell for it more often than not. Iris just saw through what she was doing, though. Which is one reason why she came up with the whole idea that we should marry and build a life together.”

“One reason?” Tony asked. “What was her other reason? Or reasons?”

Carlos sighed and stared out the window with a frown. He didn’t like talking about Iris in this way, sharing things he was pretty sure she had never shared with anyone else. It was no one’s business.

“Every single bit of information could be helpful, you know?” Tony said. “Even if you think it’s unimportant, it might not be.”

“Dustin was a huge surprise for her,” Carlos said quietly. “Falling in love with him, I mean. Even being attracted to him. When we married, she was convinced she just did not have any sexual interest in anyone. She’d take care of her own business, but she had no interest in sharing that with another person, until Dustin. But she still wanted a family. A partner to depend on, and children eventually. We thought we could build that together. A family based on friendship instead of romantic love because neither of us could see ourselves ever finding a partner. After I came out to my parents, for a long time I didn’t even … Whatever. I was convinced building a life with my best friend was the best I could do.”

“You planned to have children?” Tony asked surprised.

Carlos shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Even after we each moved into our own place and agreed that staying married long term wasn’t the best choice for either of us. Before she met Dustin, we had planned to eventually use IVF to have two or three kids together. Iris had the timeline all planned out. She knew exactly how long she wanted to work after school before the first kid. After she met Dustin and fell head over heels in love with him, she was so distraught about destroying those plans for me. That was a very weird evening when we talked about it. I think she was so stuck in her plans for the future and so overwhelmed by the things Dustin made her feel, that she wasn’t really able to understand for a long time that my happiness wasn’t dependent on that plan.”

“You’d have gone along with it for her,” Tony said.

“I’d have loved to help her fulfill those dreams, but I also wasn’t sad to let Dustin be the father of her future kids. I’d probably be a better uncle than father anyway.”

Tony laughed. “I thought so, too, for the longest time. Then Will and JJ came along. But you and Iris figured it out?”

“Of course,” Carlos murmured. “From my perspective, there wasn’t ever any problem. I was happy for her when she found Dustin.”

“Theresa Blake is completely convinced you and Dustin murdered Iris,” Tony said after a moment of silence. “She isn’t very set on the motive and will probably grab for any explanation there, but she is convinced Iris is dead and that the two of you worked together to cover up any evidence.”

“I could have told you that without you having to sit through half an hour of her rants,” Carlos said.

Tony laughed. “Probably. It was a long shot, but I hoped to get some information out of her about who her friends are who are protecting Michelle. She was very stubbornly not answering any questions about that, though. I think she’s aware that she is misusing that friendship, but she doesn’t care. She probably hopes Michelle will eventually break one of you, and she doesn’t seem bothered by the possibility that it might just ruin Michelle’s life.”

“Michelle was a big disappointment for Theresa Blake,” Carlos said. “Michelle doesn’t see that, though. Iris tried to make Michelle see that their mother is not good for either of them, but she’s blind to it. She never saw a problem with the way Theresa isn’t handling her grief over her husband.”

“It looked as if there is a man living in the house with Theresa.”

Carlos laughed humorlessly. “No. That’s just his ghost, the memory she is clinging to. It’s been thirteen years, and he is still that present in the house. Can you imagine how it was for Iris when she was fifteen and lost her dad, but came home from school every day and it felt for a moment as if he was still there? There was no place for her grief in that house or in Theresa’s life. She couldn’t handle it. Michelle on the other hand is very similar to Theresa in dealing with grief, so for her, it was a comfort and she chastised Iris regularly for complaining about it.”

“I can see why Iris wanted to get out of there as soon as she could. Why didn’t she move into a dorm?”

“Because Theresa guilt-tripped her into staying. I would even go so far as to say she was gaslighting Iris.”

“You should prepare yourself for some backlash from the things I set in motion yesterday,” Tony said. “If I had known the scope of Mrs. Blake’s hatred for you, I’d have talked to you before I did anything. I’ve made sure Dustin has the right legal support now to sue the whole city if necessary.”

Carlos laughed. “How?”

“Called a frat brother to ask about a local lawyer and got called by a law firm here in the city who is happy to take on Dustin’s case pro bono,” Tony said grinning. “It pays to cultivate the right friendships. I think that’s the only thing my father ever taught me that’s worth anything. Anyway, someone will take care of Dustin’s trouble. You’ll be questioned, too, though. Because you’ve always been the one to arrest Michelle and then let her go.”

“I was careful to document every single order I got from dispatch concerning it. I very stubbornly filed the right forms every time and that should have led to a follow-up investigation about Michelle breaking the restraining order. I did cover my ass as well as I could. Don’t worry about me, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“There are other police departments who’d take you without a second thought,” Tony said. “You aren’t stuck here. And if you do need help finding a job elsewhere, I’ll pull some strings. It’s bullshit what’s been happening here, and your career shouldn’t suffer for it.”

“I’ll wait and see how things turn out first,” Carlos said. “I’m very grateful for what you have done.”

Tony grinned. “I’m not done yet. I have one more week to maybe get a lead on Iris.”

Carlos laughed. “Didn’t you say you aren’t here for her?”

Tony shrugged. “I have a week left. And as I predicted, there isn’t much I can do for the cases I am officially here for. This way at least my time is used in a productive way.”

 

Chapter 07

TK poked at his porridge with his spoon while he stubbornly waited for Owen to finally tell him what had happened the day before. He had come home late from Paul’s and had found his father sitting in the yard staring up into the sky. TK had already asked yesterday evening what had happened, but had only been met by silence.

“You seem sad,” Owen said.

TK huffed and looked at him incredulously. “Really? Who’d have thought you’d notice something like that? You were MIA the whole day yesterday and then agitated about whatever happened once you got back in the evening. I think sad is not the right word, I’m worried. What’s going on, Dad?”

He wished he could tell him he already knew what was going on, but he felt that could be bad for Dustin’s case in the end. Neither Tony nor Carlos had said much about it, but he could fill in the blanks just fine on his own. Between his girlfriend going missing, being one of the main suspects in that case, and constantly being harassed by his girlfriend’s sister, the man had probably had the three worst years of his life. TK wouldn’t risk Tony’s efforts to put that situation to rights by blurting out information he wasn’t supposed to have.

Owen sighed deeply and sat down on the other side of the kitchen island. “I had a very difficult conversation with some people from the APD and AFD yesterday. I had a little confrontation with someone the other evening after the bar, and like a coward, he reported me for assault. It’s ridiculous and nothing will come of it, I assure you, so you don’t need to be worried about it.”

“You assaulted someone?” TK asked, hoping to sound properly surprised and aghast.

Owen rolled his eyes. “I had an argument with someone, and we ended up exchanging a couple of punches. I also might have had a few too many tequila shots.”

“Did this happen at the bar?” TK asked.

“No.” Owen shook his head and waved one hand around. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not the real issue here. The union put me into contact with a lawyer and he’ll clear it up.”

TK lowered his gaze back to his breakfast. “What is the issue then?”

Owen put both hands flat on the counter between them and exhaled slowly. “They insisted I agree to a blood test. It was way too late to still determine how drunk I really was, but they wouldn’t relent. And that meant I had to tell them some things I’ve been keeping to myself so far. That I haven’t shared with you either.”

“Things they would see in a blood test?” TK asked aghast. He frowned and tried to make sense of it while Owen nodded and cleared his throat. TK sucked in a breath. “The cough! Dad, what … It’s more than just an infection you can’t shake, isn’t it?”

Owen swallowed and lowered his gaze. “It’s lung cancer.”

TK felt cold and the spoon slipped out of his hand, falling to the floor with a loud clatter. It felt like an old nightmare raising its ugly head, and for a moment his breath was struck in his throat. When cases of first responders on 9/11 becoming sick had first become known, TK had absorbed every scrap of information he could find about it, always worried his father would be caught by it, too. With the years going by and Owen never missing a medical checkup and always coming out of it with a clean bill of health, the worry had slowly faded into the background. But now TK thought he should have asked about it the first time he had heard his father cough.

“How long have you known?” TK asked quietly.

Owen sighed. “Since shortly before we left New York. But it’s not that bad! It was caught very early on, and I’ve been in therapy for a while already. A very promising therapy. If everything goes as we expect it to go, this won’t kill me.”

“It’s lung cancer, Dad!” TK hissed, shoving back from the kitchen island and his stool falling with a loud bang as he stood. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me right away?”

Owen shook his head. “I don’t know. I wanted to deal with it on my own. And at first, I didn’t want to believe it.”

“And because you think I’m too weak to bear it, right?” TK spat. “You think I’ll fall right back into drugs now that I know you might be dying.”

“I’m not dying!” Owen said forcefully. “And I don’t think you’re weak! If anyone is weak, it’s me! I didn’t want to see worry in your eyes, didn’t want to face the reality of it by having to face your questions!”

“Yeah, right. That’s so believable!” TK grabbed the edge of the counter and leaned forward. “So you decided to hide it from me until you weren’t able to hide it anymore? Have they put you on medical leave?”

Owen frowned for a moment, then he shook his head. “No. Judd has known all along and I … insinuated that you knew as well, and that both of you were keeping an eye on me to make sure no problems would arise. I’ve had to deal with some side effects from the treatment, but nothing that affects my ability to do the job.”

“You lied to them about me,” TK said tonelessly.

“I knew you’d have my back, son,” Owen said, smiling proudly. “And as I said, Judd knew. I told him while we talked about his PTSD right at the beginning. He’s been keeping an eye on me.”

“Great, you told Judd, a complete stranger who is still a little bit unhinged from losing his team, but not your own son,” TK muttered darkly. “I’m not lying for you, Dad. You can’t ask that of me.”

Owen frowned. “It’s just a little bit of a…”

“No,” TK interrupted him. “You decided not to tell me about your cancer, and you clearly wouldn’t have told me for a long time to come if you hadn’t been forced now. I’m not helping you cover your ass with the AFD. You should have disclosed it to them the moment they asked you to build A shift for the 126 again! You should have told every single firefighter you lured here from out of state!”

Owen rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “I need you to have my back here, TK.”

TK closed his eyes. “Why did you tell me now?”

“Deputy Chief Redford expects me to tell the whole crew tomorrow first thing in the morning. I’ve already notified everyone that I need to see them half an hour early.”

“I didn’t get such a message,” TK said dryly.

“You got it now,” Owen said. “And I really need you to support me tomorrow. Redford will be there as well to put some rules in place about the circumstances that would put me on medical leave if they arise. He’ll announce Judd as interim captain in that case. Though, I don’t see that happening.”

TK opened his mouth to protest, but then he hesitated. Maybe he should use this situation as leverage instead of outright rejecting his father’s request. Lying to his new team about having known about this didn’t sit right with him, but maybe he needed to choose his battles wisely. With a little bit of luck, he also wouldn’t need to do any outright lying. Owen and Redford could do the talking and if eventually it came out that he had only learned about it after the AFD, he could point out that he hadn’t been asked.

“I’ll go along with this under one condition.”

Owen frowned. “What kind of condition?”

TK inhaled deeply and backed up against the counter behind him to put a little more space between them. “I’ve let you dictate a lot of things since we came here. But some of the things you have decided for me aren’t working out. They are more harmful than anything else. I can’t work with the therapist you chose for me. And I think he agrees with me, though he hasn’t outright said it. I’ll go along with your little charade if you accept, without protest, that I’m looking for a new therapist, and that you won’t have any input in that process.”

“We had a deal, TK,” Owen said lowly.

“Yeah. But I’m very sure that you lying to me about having lung cancer wasn’t part of the deal. And neither was you using me to cover your own ass after being caught lying to the AFD about it as well.”

Owen sighed deeply. “TK.”

“You have no clue about my recovery process,” TK said. “You never cared before. And that’s okay. But you taking over my life has not helped. You dragging me away from every single person who ever supported me staying sober was more of a detriment than anything else. I let you do that because I felt too numb to fight for anything. Even when it made me feel even more miserable.”

Owen flinched and whispered brokenly, “Son…”

“You didn’t care for my input,” TK continued. “And I didn’t care enough about anything to fight you about it, or to try to make you listen to me for the really important things at least.”

He had spent half the night going through all these arguments, repeating them over and over again. Some of them he had already talked through with Paul, others had only come to him while he had been lying in bed early in the morning, too riled up to go back to sleep while he had been preparing for this situation. At first, he had been convinced he would look for a new therapist first and only talk about it with Owen once the change in therapists was already arranged. That had still been the plan when he had left Paul’s place. But at one point during the night, he had started to worry that not telling Owen right away would only lead to more conflict between them, and that was the last thing TK wanted.

“We can look for someone new together,” Owen said.

TK shook his head. “No. We have very different priorities concerning therapists. They don’t fit. And I’m frankly not comfortable with including you in that process, involving you in my therapy at all. That you chose him might be half the reason I’m unable to open up to him.”

“You nearly died,” Owen said.

“Yeah, and it wasn’t the first time,” TK said. “I … I’m so fucking sorry I put you in that situation, Dad. I hate that I let Alex’s rejection push me back into drugs, that I wasn’t more careful with my heart. I know you don’t believe me, but I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“You overdosed, TK.”

TK shrugged. “Yeah. Because I was so caught up in my pain, I didn’t think when I took the same amount as I remembered taking the last time, before I went into rehab. It was an accident.”

Owen stared at him for a long time before he slowly nodded. “Okay.”

TK didn’t believe for a moment that his father really accepted his words and believed him, but there was no point in arguing about it. “I learned a long time ago what kind of things are helpful, and what only makes me feel more miserable. And aside from being cut off from the support system I had built for myself, what’s making my life miserable the most is seeing that guy you chose.”

“I said okay. Go and look for a new therapist. But I don’t want you to stop seeing this one until you’ve found someone new. And when you have found someone new, I want to know who it is. I won’t intrude on your therapy. I just want … to know who you are seeing, alright?”

TK bit his lip, suddenly feeling deflated. “Thank you.”

Owen just nodded.

“I want to know about your therapy and the prognosis, and the side-effects you’ve been dealing with.” TK pushed away from the counter, grabbed his stool, put it upright again, and sat down. “And you aren’t forgiven for not telling me much earlier!”

***

Carlos was woken up, from the involuntary nap he had fallen into on his couch, by banging on his front door and Michelle angrily shouting his name. He groaned as he rolled off the couch and wondered if this was how Dustin had felt every time she had shown up at his house. Suddenly he regretted even more that he had never properly arrested her.

Carlos opened his door with a scowl. “I assure you, if I call dispatch to have you escorted from my property, it won’t be so easily swept under the rug, Michelle!”

Michelle completely ignored his words, bracing her hands on both sides of the doorframe. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Carlos sighed. “With me? Really? I’m not the one making a scene. What do you want, Michelle? I got home from a shift half an hour ago and I should be on my way to bed.”

“I spent most of the day yesterday being interrogated by some of your colleagues!” Michelle spat. “They treated me as if I’m the criminal here because Dustin reported Owen for assault and told them I had something to do with it!”

“Did you or did you not tell Captain Strand all about your sister’s oh-so-bad boyfriend who has gotten away with her murder for three years?”

“So, you agree Dustin murdered her?”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “No. I’m just parroting what you’ve been saying for three years. Without there being any proof for it, or even just a trace pointing in that direction. Learning that someone saw Iris leave his house and get in a stranger’s car should have made you pause and reconsider, shouldn’t it?”

“It could have been a car Dustin got from somewhere just for that night!” Michelle said. “Mom told me you were at her house yesterday with an FBI agent.”

Carlos nodded. “I was. What about it?”

“You didn’t tell me the FBI was looking into Iris’ case!”

“Because the FBI isn’t looking into Iris’ case,” Carlos said tiredly. “A friend of mine is looking into it. But more importantly, he has been looking into your behavior. Which you probably already know, otherwise you wouldn’t be here trying to punch a hole through my door.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“You have violated a restraining order more than a dozen times over the last year,” Carlos said bitterly. “And now you have incited Captain Strand to threaten Dustin with violence. I’m pretty sure you’ve known Captain Strand long enough to know what kind of man he is and how you would need to choose your words while complaining about Dustin to make him react accordingly.”

Michelle reared back. “I’d never do such a thing!”

Carlos shook his head. “Yes, you would. I guess it’s something you learned at your mother’s knee. Dustin thinks one of her friends has been protecting you. You’ve been behaving horribly, Michelle. And you’ve been escalating.”

“I need to find Iris!”

Carlos sighed. “Are you here to talk about anything productive at all? Because if not, I’m just gonna close this door and I will call 9-1-1 if you continue to make a scene.”

“What are you trying to accomplish with this?” Michelle asked. “If you have such good contacts with the FBI, why aren’t you using it to help me find Iris? Wherever she is, we need to bring her home! She needs to come home so that we all can return to the life we had!”

Carlos frowned and for a moment contemplated inviting her into his house but decided against it. “You mean, bring her home alive? You really can’t decide if Dustin killed her or if she’s alive, can you?”

“I want her to be alive,” Michelle hissed.

“Me, too,” Carlos agreed. “I wish very much that Iris is still alive. But you sound crazy going from talking about bringing her home to Dustin killing her and back. You have been harassing Dustin for three years, you have convinced half my precinct he is a murderer. You’ll have to deal with the consequences of those actions now.”

“You need to call your friend back!” Michelle said.

“I need to, really?” Carlos asked with raised brows. “I don’t think I need to do anything, Michelle.”

Michelle shook his head. “I haven’t done anything wrong. This whole investigation will only take away from the time I have to look for Iris. The AFD has threatened to suspend me!”

“Sounds like you’ll have a lot of time on your hands, then.”

“Carlos!” Michelle cried out and it looked like she had barely refrained from stomping her foot on the ground like a toddler. “You don’t understand. I can’t afford to be suspended! They’d cut off my paycheck!”

“You should have thought about all of that before repeatedly breaking the law.”

“You’ll be in just as much trouble as me if you don’t stop this whole insanity!” Michelle said. “You are the one who always came to arrest me and never really did!”

“Are you threatening me to implicate me in your behavior in any way?” Carlos asked with raised brows.

He had followed upon Tony’s warning by going to the union before his night shift to get legal counsel right away. He wasn’t overly concerned about the consequences for himself, feeling rather numb about the situation at all. His union rep had assured him the most he would probably face was desk duty during the investigation, but that they would prepare legal counsel for him just in case something else came up.

“If I have to so you’ll see reason!” Michelle hissed. “Why isn’t your FBI friend looking into Iris’ disappearance instead of protecting Dustin?”

“Because he thinks protecting Dustin is more important,” Carlos said. “And I agree with him. You have trampled all over Dustin’s rights for three years, and at least this is something that can be changed. We have no idea what happened to Iris or where she is, and we still have no trace, so we can’t help her in any way even if she is still alive.”

“No one needs to help Dustin!” Michelle growled, moving half a step forward without taking her hands from the doorframe. “And we know about the blue truck now!”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “How often do I have to tell you that a blue pickup truck is no clue at all in this town? We don’t even have a partial license plate, there is no chance to find that car!”

“Maybe if I can convince Mom to go through Iris’ things,” Michelle said desperately. “And you have the things from her apartment. Have you looked at those already?”

“What do you think?” Carlos snapped. “I didn’t just put it all in boxes without looking at it! That wouldn’t have taken me three fucking months! I searched through every single item trying to find any trace of the friends Dustin talked about, or about anything that might have troubled her. There was nothing!”

If anything, it had only proven to him that she hadn’t left of her own free will. He had found notes about plans for the rest of the year, trips she wanted to take to relax after her exams, a whole stack of papers with information about places in and around Austin where she could do her residency. She had been planning her life after medical school, she clearly hadn’t planned to leave.

“Then you didn’t look carefully enough!” Michelle took another step forward, letting go of the doorframe this time, but Carlos didn’t step back and instead raised his hand to stop her. “We need to look at those things! The sooner we start…”

“No,” Carlos interrupted her. “I don’t want you in my house. Not today, and probably not any time soon.”

Michelle’s face fell. “What?”

“I know that I didn’t miss anything,” Carlos said. She didn’t need to know that he’d gone back recently to look through the photos Iris had saved on her laptop and the external hard drive, just to make sure he hadn’t missed a blue truck anywhere. “I’m not enabling your behavior anymore. I thought I already made that clear the last time we spoke. You know, the time you stormed out of here after accusing me of killing Iris. Something your mother kept repeating when I was there yesterday.”

“You can’t hold things against me I’ve said in…”

“Stop right there,” Carlos said. “I will hold those kinds of words against you. Especially as I know you only said it to hurt me. You wanted to manipulate me with it. You hoped I’d be so shocked and hurt by the accusation that I’d change my mind and get you that list of trucks.”

Michelle turned her head to the side, which Carlos took as agreement.

“I need you to leave now,” Carlos said quietly. “And when you come back next time, it better be with a sincere apology, otherwise I don’t know what we have left to talk about.”

“But…”

“No. Go. You aren’t welcome here right now. And maybe you should look for a therapist and get help before you go off the rails completely. Nothing I have done in the last couple of weeks has been to hurt you. In the end, it’s all been about protecting you before you do something you aren’t able to come back from.”

Michelle looked at him with a storm of emotions in her eyes that Carlos couldn’t read. Eventually, she gave a short nod and turned on her heels, leaving without another word. Carlos closed the door as soon as he could and leaned his head against the cool wood with a deep sigh. Maybe her silent retreat meant he had finally gotten through to her. Or maybe it meant he should expect a big explosion in retaliation soon.

***

Carlos squeezed his eyes shut tightly and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. After Michelle had tried to storm into his house, he hadn’t been able to find any sleep and eventually he had given up on it and decided to get through the day without another nap so that he would be able to sleep that night. It wouldn’t do to go to work tired the next day, especially if he had to expect the first fall out from Dustin and Tony stirring the pot.

He had texted TK in the late morning, worried about his friend because of Captain Strand’s actions. Carlos wished he knew what kind of situation TK’s father and therefore TK had to deal with, but he refrained from reaching out to anyone who would be able to give him inside information, opting instead to send TK an open invitation. He was glad when TK answered just short of two hours later, telling him he would come over after a stop at the grocery store. Carlos laughed and shook his head at TK mentioning he had promised to cook for him at some point, after all.

Another hour went by while Carlos prepared his kitchen for someone else to cook in before his doorbell rang. When he opened the door, he found TK with a bright but fake smile, his eyes red-rimmed and his face pale. Carlos sucked in a deep breath. Taking the bag out of TK’s hand he set it aside and turned back to cradle TK’s face carefully with his hands.

“What happened?”

TK closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I’m here to cook and distract myself, not to talk.”

Carlos wet his lip. “Okay. I’ll be satisfied with a very, very short answer. I know your dad is facing an investigation right now, but while that’s a very unfortunate situation, it should turn out alright. Probably a fee and a reprimand, nothing more.”

TK bit his lip and shook his head lightly, not enough to break Carlos’ hold. “Yeah, I’m really disappointed about that, but also not very surprised.” He huffed. “I know more about that situation from Tony, though. Dad glossed over the most important part of it and outright lied about some of the details. Something else came up when he was asked for a blood test.”

Carlos rubbed his thumbs softly over TK’s cheek. “What is it?”

“Lung cancer,” TK whispered, still with his eyes closed. “Dad has lung cancer. Not really surprising for a first responder on 9/11. He has known since before we left New York and told neither me nor the AFD. He did tell Judd, though, apparently in some kind of bonding experience. I don’t know.”

Carlos swallowed. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

TK shrugged. “His doctors seem to think the prognosis is good. That he’ll die as an old man with lung cancer instead of soonish because of the lung cancer.”

Carlos shook his head and pulled TK into a tight hug. It hardly mattered what the doctors said at this moment. That kind of diagnosis was still a shock, and even the best prognosis could be wrong.

“He had to tell the AFD yesterday because he expected the medication to show up in a blood test and wanted to get ahead of any questions arising out of that. And the AFD requires him to tell the whole team tomorrow if he wants to stay on the job for the time being. He’ll be closely monitored for any health issues and tomorrow Deputy Chief Redford is going to establish the chain of command with our team in case Dad has to step down, even in the middle of a call. Judd will take over in that case.”

Carlos bit his lip to prevent himself from saying anything. There was a lot he would love to say about that kind of solution, but half of it TK had probably already thought of himself, and he had clearly said he didn’t want to talk about it.

TK sighed and rubbed his cheek against Carlos’ shoulder. “And to make all of it worse he expects me to pretend that I knew all along. So I can’t even bitch with the rest about not knowing way earlier.”

Carlos frowned. “And you are going along with that?”

TK shrugged. “I made a deal with him about it. I pretend I knew all along, like he told the AFD, and he’ll accept that I’m looking for a new therapist without his input.”

Carlos sighed and bit his tongue to hold his very pointed opinion back. He clearly needed to change the topic before this could turn into an argument TK had said he didn’t want to have.

“So, what do you plan to cook for me?” Carlos asked instead.

TK chuckled, leaning against him a little more heavily. “Rigatoni al Forno. I’ve gone with premade pasta, but I promise to do it from scratch next time. I’m not in the right mood for that today.”

Carlos laughed surprised. “Italian? And you can do pasta from scratch?”

“My parents divorced when I was seven,” TK said. He took a step away, rubbed his hands over his eyes, and then carefully straightened his hoody. “My mom fell in love again three years later. And about a year after that Enzo became part of my life. He likes to cook, mostly the traditional things he learned from his grandmother. He taught me a lot of it as well. And every time I … Rigatoni al Forno is the comfort food he provided every time my dad … broke a promise or forgot some event I had invited him to.”

Carlos smiled sadly. “Then it’s definitely a Rigatoni al Forno day.” He took a step back and made a wide gesture with his arm in the direction of his kitchen. “My kitchen is yours.”

TK cleared his throat. “I’ll go clean myself up first. Maybe you can sort through what I brought. There is a list of spices in there that I expect you already have yourself, but I admit I bought most of that myself as well. Just so we wouldn’t be missing anything.”

Carlos grinned. “Good idea. I’m not sure I’m equipped for Italian.”

TK nodded and then turned to the small bathroom downstairs. Carlos watched him until he closed the door behind him and then took the bag to spread out the ingredients TK had brought on his kitchen counter.

Owen Strand suffering from lung cancer was not the kind of news Carlos had expected. TK had said his father had taken the job here only because of his relapse, because for Owen it had been a way to get TK out of the city he had clearly perceived as a threat to his son. That still didn’t seem like a rational decision to Carlos, and he understood it even less now. Moving his whole life with that kind of diagnosis didn’t seem like the best choice at all.

When TK returned from the bathroom, he looked a little better, less pale and his smile had turned into something that looked at least somewhat honest. “You look as if your day hasn’t been much better than mine.”

Carlos huffed. “You’ve probably beat me, but it’s been far from pleasant. I’m not sure I know what to do with any of this.” He gestured at the ingredients spread out before him.

“You aren’t doing anything with it anyway!” TK grabbed his shoulders and pushed him to the table and onto a chair. “I’m usually not very good at sharing kitchen space while I cook, so you’ll just have to sit here and look pretty.”

Carlos grinned. “I can do that.”

“What made your day horrible?” TK asked. “If you want to talk about it.”

“Michelle, what else.” Carlos sighed and stretched out his legs, trying to get comfortable while watching TK take over his kitchen. He wouldn’t complain about watching a gorgeous man working his magic with a dish he clearly enjoyed making. “You said your dad brushed over most of the facts?”

TK rolled his eyes. “He didn’t mention at all about how he had driven over to Dustin’s place instead of meeting the guy randomly on the street. Or that Captain Blake had urged him to do it. She got in trouble for it?”

Carlos hummed. “She at least saw the writing on the wall that she will get into trouble for it. Though, I’m not sure how much of that was about Owen assaulting Dustin, and how much was about Tony and I talking with her mother yesterday. Though, mostly Tony talked to her. She tried for half an hour to convince him Dustin and I had killed Iris together.”

TK looked at him wide-eyed. “What?”

Carlos shrugged. “She hates me. She hated me before I married Iris, and the marriage only made it worse. She believes I ruined Iris’ life by supporting her efforts to get out of her mother’s grasp. That woman would have suffocated Iris if she could, molding her into something she wanted to have as a daughter. Or maybe more as a doll than a daughter.”

“Does Captain Blake think the same?” TK asked with a frown.

Carlos shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think Michelle is fully convinced Dustin is at fault for everything. But that hasn’t stopped her from picking up her mother’s opinion to throw it in my face when I didn’t do what she wanted me to do. So, I am expecting official questions about that to come up again any time now. She threatened to throw me under the bus if anyone tries to make her face the consequences for violating Dustin’s restraining order.”

TK bit his lip as he separated the different vegetables out and started to clean them. “Throw you under the bus how?”

“It’s always been me dispatch sent to arrest her when Dustin called,” Carlos said. “So, it’s also always been me who let her go. Don’t worry, I covered my own ass as much as I could by creating a very thorough paper trail. The investigation won’t be pretty for me, but I believe I’ll get out of it mostly unscathed.”

“This is bullshit,” TK muttered darkly. “Her behavior, but also that you could get in trouble over it as well.”

Carlos chuckled. “I’m not worried, really. I’m glad it’ll finally be taken care of. I just wish I had found a way to make someone in the APD take this whole situation seriously long ago instead of looking the other way.”

“What changed now?” TK said. “I mean, this has been going on for a long time, right? Why is there suddenly an investigation now?”

“Tony,” Carlos said with a shrug. “He hasn’t actually told me much about what he has done, though. I know he made sure Dustin has a lawyer now who is prepared to sue not only the APD but also the city. At no cost to Dustin. Some contact through one of his frat brothers. Sometimes I think I missed out on something by not joining a fraternity, and sometimes I’m convinced I dodged a bullet. When Tony talks about his own time at college and his connections, it’s always a strange mixture of both.”

TK laughed. “I have no idea about that. I didn’t go to college. I mean, I’ve been slowly working my way to a bachelor’s in Fire Science through online classes, but that’s hardly the same experience. I applied to the academy in New York before I even had my high school diploma.”

“Yeah?” Carlos tilted his head to the side with a smile. “Those classes going well?”

“Good enough that I sometimes regret not going to college first,” TK admitted quietly without looking up from the work his hands were doing. “I enjoy the classes immensely. But I don’t think I’d have appreciated the experience right out of high school.”

Carlos nodded. “I had some classmates who clearly would have been better off getting some real-life experience first. Some went to college just because their parents expected it, without any plan for what they wanted to do with their life.”

“Mom and Dad were both furious at first when I told them I wasn’t going to college and had already been accepted at the fire academy. Enzo was a lot more understanding.” TK sighed. “But that’s par for the curse. I think neither of my parents was really suited to be parents, so Enzo was a real blessing for both me and them.”

“Tell me more about Enzo,” Carlos said softly, very curious about the man who clearly had the role of second father in TK’s life.

 

Chapter 08

Paul stood in front of the gathered group and rocked back on his heels excitedly. TK let his gaze wander over the others. Marjan was staring at the start of the hiking trail Paul had brought them to skeptically, Mateo looked uncertain of everything, and Nancy and Tim looked a little bit uncomfortable. The only one other than Paul who seemed to be excited for the hike ahead of them was Carlos. TK himself couldn’t remember whether he had ever been hiking before and wasn’t sure if he was looking forward to it or not.

“What exactly are we doing here?” Mateo asked.

“Team bonding,” Paul said. “And for TK, Marjan, and me, it’s also about getting to see a little more of the area around Austin. I haven’t managed to see much of anything yet when we haven’t already been sent there on a call.”

“Where is everyone else?” TK asked.

“Captain Blake said she had no interest. Owen said he wasn’t interested in hiking but would join us the next time if we came up with something else. And Judd had a previous engagement with Grace and his father, I think. He also didn’t seem very excited about the prospect of hiking.”

“Wait, I could have said no?” Nancy asked hopefully.

Paul raised his hands and shook his head. “Too late, you are already here! I looked it up, the hike isn’t too long and it’s a well-maintained trail. It’s five and a half miles all in all. It’s early, we have the whole day, and we can easily take several long breaks along the way for those of us who aren’t used to hiking. There should be several areas with benches and the like, and everyone brought food and water like I told them, right?”

Everyone nodded and Paul grinned widely. “Perfect!”

“I’ve never hiked before,” Marjan said skeptically.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Paul said. “We get to enjoy a little bit of nature and have a lot of time to get to know each other.”

“Any kind of physical exercise has always been the bane of my existence,” Nancy muttered. “Gym class was the worst at school.”

Tim patted her should. “In the end, it’s just walking. You’ll be fine, and I’m sure we’ll have fun. Thank you for including us, Paul.”

Paul nodded. “Of course. You are on shift with us more often than not, so you are part of our team. And TK very rightfully pointed out a little while ago that only going to a bar to hang out there together won’t do much for team bonding.”

“I’d have opted to meet for some board games instead,” Nancy said with a sigh. “I’d have been all on board for that.”

Marjan turned to her with a grin. “That’s a great idea! Do you play Catan?”

Nancy’s whole face lit up. “Yes! That’s…”

“Okay,” Paul interrupted them with a little frown. “I’m not against meeting for some games. But we are already here. So, if you all would appreciate the research I did to find a trail for us in an area I’m completely unfamiliar with!”

“I appreciate your research very much,” Carlos said grinning. “And I’ve been looking forward to this since you invited me along.”

Paul grinned and threw a meaningful look in TK’s direction. “I mean, you’re practically part of the team as well.”

“I’ve never been hiking before, either,” Mateo said, moving nervously from one foot to the other. “But I guess it might be fun. And we are getting out of town for a while, right?”

“That’s the spirit, Probie!” Paul agreed. “Everyone has their backpacks? Nothing left behind in the cars?”

Nancy laughed and shook her head. “You’ve already checked that twice.”

Paul clapped his hands together. “Great. Then let’s start. As far as I’ve read, the trail is very clearly marked. But all of you have a map. Though, let’s agree none of us will get lost, alright?”

“Yeah, that would be awkward,” Carlos said grinning.

Paul nodded and turned around, leading their little group onto the path. TK waited and fell into step beside Carlos, the two of them forming the end of their group. While he had never been hiking, at least Enzo and his mom had made sure he saw places outside of New York City regularly.

“This was really the worst plan if you wanted to include Dad as well,” TK said loud enough so that Paul could hear him at the front of the line. “I don’t think in all of my life that Dad ever left New York City for any reason until we moved here.”

The whole group laughed and Marjan said, “That seems a little unrealistic, TK. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it never happened.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it really never happened.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing neither of the captains is with us, though,” Tim said.

“Yeah?” Carlos asked, though TK knew that Carlos wouldn’t have joined them if Captain Blake had been here as well. That was at least half the reason TK had been overjoyed to learn she wouldn’t be here.

TK was glad neither his father nor Captain Blake was here as well. He had been struggling with Owen ever since the revelation about the cancer, and because everyone thought he had known all along the only people he could complain about it and vent his anger and fear to were Carlos and Enzo. He knew that spending some time with most of his team without Owen there would be much more productive for him than if Owen had joined them.

“They are our bosses, that’s always a little awkward, right?” Tim said.

“Cap’s a good captain, though,” Mateo said quietly. “The best I ever worked with really. And the only one willing to still give me a chance.”

“He is a good captain,” Paul agreed. “And I fully agree with you, the best captain I ever worked with. I know our whole crew is this flagship of diversity for the AFD, which is a bit ridiculous. There still is barely any diversity anywhere else in the department, but it’s at least a start. And I think Captain Strand is showing the whole damn city exactly what acceptance and inclusivity should look like.”

“Is it really such a big problem?” TK asked. He knew his perspective was skewed because he had never worked closely with any other captain and the way Owen had accepted his firefighters no matter what all of TK’s life had done a lot to help TK feel comfortable with his own sexuality.

“It’s a horrible problem,” Nancy said. “I mean, it has gotten better because people like Deputy Chief Redford have worked on it really hard, but there is still a long way to go.”

“I’m worried about the cancer,” Mateo nearly whispered. “I don’t want Cap to die. And I especially don’t want to work with any other captain besides Cap.”

Everyone was quiet for a while and in the end, it was TK who broke that silence, “Me, too, Mateo. It’s fucking terrifying. But also … he does have a good prognosis. He didn’t lie about that. The doctor said at this stage it’s more of a head game than the physical danger of the cancer. It’s about the patients will to fight. And Dad wouldn’t have taken on rebuilding our shift of the 126 if he wasn’t completely convinced that he’ll have years to dedicate to that task. He won’t ever give up.”

Mateo turned to him with a shaky smile. “Thanks. It has to be doubly hard for you.”

TK blew out a breath and chuckled mirthlessly. “You have no idea.”

“So, you think he’ll be okay, yeah?” Mateo asked.

Marjan smiled softly. “Of course Cap will be okay, Probie. He is a fighter. I’m not happy that he didn’t tell us much, much earlier, but all in all, I think I’d still have come here to join his team if I’d known about it when he hired me.”

“Same,” Paul said. “I think he offered something no one has offered before. And I don’t mean the raise I got out of it!”

Mateo sighed.

“What are you so worried about?” Nancy asked.

Mateo shrugged.

“It’s your last chance, right?” TK said. “You’re worried about someone else taking over and ruining that chance for you?”

Mateo huffed. “Deputy Redford only kept me as his driver out of pity. I know not even he understands why Cap wants me for his team. If I ruin this chance again, it’s all over. And Cap has been the only one to see anything more in me than a failure.”

“No one here sees you as a failure!” Marjan protested and wrapped an arm around Mateo’s shoulders.

Mateo shrugged.

“What went wrong in the exams you took in the past?” Tim asked.

Mateo didn’t answer, but he faltered a little in his steps.

“May I take a guess?” TK asked. “I know your file, so I think I have a pretty good idea.”

Mateo sighed deeply and shook his head. “I’m dyslexic. The written exam is just … I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to get through that! Cap said … he would make sure I’d have someone with me to read the questions. He said they had to offer me that option. No one else ever mentioned something like that before!”

Nancy huffed outraged. “I can just see how no one would bother to tell you. That’s what I meant when I said a lot still needs to be done! I’m glad Captain Strand is helping you sort that out.”

“Now I still need to learn all that stuff. And I don’t have that much time left!”

“The problem is reading the material?” Marjan asked.

Mateo nodded silently.

“We’ll come up with something,” Marjan promised. “Right guys? We’ll all work together, and get our Probie through this!”

TK grinned. “Yeah, of course. Be prepared to be quizzed relentlessly each shift until your exam.”

Mateo chuckled weakly. “Really?”

“We’re a team,” Paul said. “That’s part of being a team!”

Mateo sighed deeply. “I don’t know … I … Thank you.”

“We are happy to help as well,” Tim said. “Though, we probably only know half of the things you have to learn, if at all.”

“I’ll provide a sanctuary and distraction if you need a break from studying,” Carlos offered amused. “Taking a break now and then is important, too.”

Mateo turned to look at him with a grin. “I’ll come take you up on that. There isn’t a moment of quiet at home at any given moment. That doesn’t help with learning or getting a break.”

“Your family or a room share?” Marjan asked amused.

“Room share.” Mateo sighed deeply. “Probably the worst room share known to mankind, but finding a new place isn’t in the cards right now.”

Marjan patted his shoulder. “We’ll find a solution for that as well, eventually. But let’s get you through your exam first.”

Mateo laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess Cap was also really good at finding the perfect team, huh? Thanks, guys, really. This is … so much more than anyone’s ever offered before.”

***

They took a first break a little more than an hour after they had started when Nancy complained about the number of steps they had to climb. TK silently agreed, but he wasn’t about to start complaining. All of them were in good shape because their job required it, but that didn’t mean they were prepared for a hike like this.

“Didn’t you say this would be easy?” Mateo asked as he sat down on the ground beside the bench which could only hold three of them comfortably.

Paul shrugged. “I didn’t say that. Hiking shouldn’t be easy. If it’s easy, it’s called a walk or taking a stroll.”

Carlos laughed whole-heartedly, leaning back until his head rested on TK’s knee where he was sitting behind him on a fallen tree trunk opposite the bench. Paul sat beside him on the trunk, while Nancy, Marjan, and Tim had raced for the bench as soon as they had seen it. There was enough space for either Mateo or Carlos to also join them on the trunk, but for some reason, both had opted for the ground. TK wouldn’t complain about Carlos sitting right in front of him and leaning against his legs.

“You go hiking often?” Carlos asked.

“I used to go two or three times a month back home,” Paul said. “Had a couple of friends who’d join me. They all threatened to come visit me and that I needed to know the good hiking trails around here by then.”

“You remember how we all told you none of us had been hiking before?” Nancy muttered.

“I didn’t say that!” Tim protested. “I’ve enjoyed the occasional hike. And I think this is a great trail!”

“It is a great trail,” Carlos agreed. “But if I had known hiking is something not all of you do at least semi-regularly, I’d have suggested a couple of other ones. You are all holding up well, though. And Paul chose to start with the hike up. Going back down is always easier, right?”

“You’ve been here before?” Mateo asked while pulling a wrap from his backpack.

“A couple of times,” Carlos said. “We’re almost to the other end of the path. I think you’ll enjoy the way back a little more. You’ll recognize parts of it from the way up, and like I said, it’s mostly downhill.”

Paul huffed and muttered, “Next time you’ll choose the trail! I looked at the length and general description and thought it would be a good hike to do in the morning and be back in time to enjoy lunch together somewhere. Then we all have the evening to relax before our shift tomorrow.”

“Lunch might be a little late, but most of that plan still seems valid,” Marjan said. “Any plans for a place to eat lunch yet?”

“I hoped for recommendations from the local people!” Paul grinned.

“I know a barbeque place not too far from where we started,” Tim said.

Marjan made a face. “How are their vegan options?”

“I saw a Chinese place on our way out of town,” TK suggested and earned a groan from most of them. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

Mateo chuckled. “There is a great Mexican place not too far away. I already showed it to you, Marjan, and you were happy with it last time.”

“Mexican sounds good,” Nancy said, and everyone else agreed with a nod as well. “And I have to say, I’m really glad Tim and I have the night shift tomorrow. Gives me twelve hours more to rest from this ordeal!”

Paul frowned. “It’s not that bad!”

Nancy glared at him. “You aren’t the one who stumbled three times over a stone or root already and fell twice against the wall of the canyon. I told you, every kind of physical exercise is the bane of my existence!” She huffed. “Which doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself. Has to be the company, and not the activity, though.”

Marjan bumped her shoulder against Nancy’s and laughed. “Definitely the company!”

Tim cleared his throat. “Speaking of our shift tomorrow. I feel I should … eh, warn you is probably the wrong term. But anyway, Captain Blake won’t be on shift for a couple of weeks, maybe up to several months. So, starting tomorrow I’m acting Captain of our paramedic team and we’ll have a floater joining us. I’ll only learn tomorrow who that will be for the first week.”

Paul leaned forward slightly. “Did something happen to Captain Blake?”

Tim shrugged, avoiding everyone’s gaze, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. “I wasn’t informed of the details. There seems to be an investigation. I assume it’s got something to do with her sister, but I honestly don’t know. I was only told that I should expect to keep that role for a while.”

“Her sister?” Mateo asked with a confused frown.

Tim and Nancy shrugged and exchanged uncomfortable looks. TK thought they both probably didn’t know how much to tell without betraying whatever kind of trust their captain had offered them.

“Iris,” Carlos said quietly, and TK settled a hand on his shoulder in silent support. “Iris Blake, my best friend, has been missing for three years. And Michelle has done some questionable things while looking for her. That’s catching up to her now. I didn’t know the AFD was also investigating her, but it might just be a reaction to the police investigation.”

Nancy looked surprised, but Tim sent Carlos a thankful smile before he shrugged. “I think it’s a little more than that. I…” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I shouldn’t badmouth my boss, I’m sorry.”

“I mean, you can’t really tell us much we haven’t already seen for ourselves, right?” TK said darkly. “Captain Blake is clearly a very difficult boss. I don’t think anyone here will fault you for sharing your grief.”

“TK!” Marjan said with a frown.

TK raised his brows. “Am I wrong?”

“I’ve been glad a couple of times she’s not my boss,” Paul said with a shrug. “And I was glad she declined my invitation. I only invited her out of obligation because it would have been weird to invite Tim and Nancy but not her, right?”

Marjan sighed. “You are not wrong, but if Tim doesn’t want to talk about it, we should respect that.”

“I think I missed something,” Mateo said with a frown. “What did she do that you all don’t like her? I have barely even spoken with her when she is on shift with us.”

For TK, that exactly was part of the problem. Michelle Blake hadn’t even bothered to introduce herself to most of the new members of A shift. He didn’t expect everyone to be a social person and spend all their on-shift free time together, but having the courtesy to at least greet each other would go a long way toward making her appear less abrupt and distant to everyone else.

“Her sister’s disappearance hit her really hard,” Tim said quietly. “She changed afterward. She was a good captain before, and I liked working with her. But I can’t say I’m not happy to get a little break. Though, I already told the department I won’t take the place as a captain forever.”

“So, you’ll get a new captain if the department sees itself forced to let Michelle go?” Carlos asked.

Tim looked at him wide-eyed. “You think that will happen?”

Carlos shrugged with a deep sigh. “Honestly, I think she might end up in front of a judge, and maybe even face jail time for a while. Or maybe not, I don’t know. There are a lot of things going on I’m not privy to, either. And I’m not comfortable talking about it in such a big group, honestly.”

Mateo still looked confused and for a moment TK thought he would ask some more questions about it, but in the end, he returned to eating his wrap silently, turning his frown to the ground.

“I’m sorry you went through such an experience, Carlos,” Marjan said quietly. “It has to be difficult for you, too.”

Carlos sighed again. “It is. And we still have no trace of Iris. I’m not sure we will ever find one. I try to hold onto my hope that she just decided she didn’t want the life she had here anymore and went somewhere where she could be happy on her own terms. I really don’t want to talk about anything else concerning Iris or Michelle.”

“I propose a game night as our next team bonding activity!” Nancy said, maybe a little bit too enthusiastic. “Who other than Marjan knows Catan?”

Paul, Mateo, and Carlos raised their hands while Tim just shrugged and TK frowned.

“I never had anyone who was interested in playing board games with me,” TK said. “My friends had other interests, and I remember Mom giving me a whole lecture about what a waste of time boring board games are.”

“Really?” Marjan and Nancy both looked appalled before they shared a grin about their shared outrage. Marjan shook her head. “When I was little, my whole family would spend every other Sunday or so gathered together to play board games. Grandparents, aunties, uncles, all the cousins. We’d make whole months-long tournaments out of it!”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea to play any kind of board game with you, then,” Paul said skeptically.

Marjan rolled her eyes and then grinned. “Nancy and I will give everyone a grace period before we get serious about it, right?”

Nancy made a thoughtful face. “I don’t know. Board games are always a serious business!”

TK laughed. “Maybe we should make a list of board games neither of you know or at least don’t know very well. Catan apparently is already off that list.”

Nancy turned to him with a deep frown. “Catan is holy! If we do a game night, Cartan better be included!”

“We’ll get Tim and you all caught up on Catan, don’t worry.” Carlos patted TK’s knee. “We could do a couple of rounds where Nancy and Marjan each pair up with one of you for the start.”

“I like that idea!” Marjan agreed. “When we have lunch later, we should compare our schedules and find out when we are all off shift.”

“Maybe Judd and Cap will join us this time,” Mateo said excitedly.

“Should probably invite Judd’s wife as well,” Paul said. “Which is another shift schedule we need to account for.”

Carlos laughed. “I’m sure we’ll manage.”

***

TK laughed when Nancy collapsed against the back of her chair, folding her hands over her belly and groaning exaggeratedly. “I ate too much, why didn’t you stop me from eating too much?”

“We all ate too much,” Paul muttered, mirroring her position. “We ordered too much, as well! Who had this grand idea again?”

Mateo shrugged. “I’m happy to take home everything that’s left. The less I have to worry about cooking something for myself, the better.”

“You have been good about helping cook on shift,” Marjan said. “Wouldn’t have thought you don’t like to cook. One of my teammates in Florida detested cooking, and another one was a fire hazard in the kitchen. They were both perpetually on clean-up duty.”

“I don’t hate cooking,” Mateo muttered darkly. “I love learning about what all of you cook. But cooking at home is just not possible. I didn’t joke about my room share being horrible. Some of those people I live with, I don’t even know how they survive on a good day.”

“You said looking for a new place wasn’t an option at the moment,” TK said. “What’s stopping you?”

Mateo bit his lip and let his gaze wander over their group. In the end, he looked down and trailed his fingers along the edge of the table. “It’s really complicated.”

Marjan frowned. “Anything we can help with?”

Mateo shrugged.

“What would you look for in an apartment?” Paul asked. “If you don’t like room shares at all, you should make enough with the AFD salary for your own apartment, even as a probie. Or if you want a room share, we can look for better people than the ones you are sharing with now.”

Mateo shook his head. “I’m not thinking about that until after my exam.”

“It could be something to look forward to, right? A new apartment of your own right after? We could start looking for that reward now.”

“No!” Mateo shook his head and slapped his hand on the table. “It won’t … Look, guys, if I don’t pass the exam, an apartment here won’t matter at all. And I don’t want to look at places I might never be able to live in!”

“First of all, we’ll get you through the exam,” Marjan said confidently. “I already have ideas. And even if you are overcome by some weird urge to change your mind and decide firefighting isn’t for you, there’ll be other jobs to pay for an apartment.”

“Yeah, but not here,” Mateo muttered.

TK frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mateo closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m a Dreamer, guys. If I fail the exam again, my DACA status won’t be renewed. This is my last chance to stay here. I don’t know any other life than the one here in Austin, I don’t want to leave. I don’t know what I’d do if they kicked me out.”

Their group fell silent, and TK felt sad and outraged for his friend at the same time. They had already promised to give Mateo all the help he needed, and he saw the resolve for that amplify. Mateo was one of them, they wouldn’t just give up on him.

“Not going to happen, man,” Paul said decidedly. “You’ll ace that test, and your DACA status will be renewed.”

Mateo took a deep breath.

“And then we will find a new place for you to live!” Nancy agreed. “You need a place where you feel at home and can relax!”

“I’ll start looking for a place of my own soon as well,” TK said.

“Already fed-up living with your dad?” Mateo asked. “The house seemed great, though, when Cap invited us over.”

“It was never really supposed to be a long-term solution,” TK said. “It was easier to look for just one place. But I haven’t lived with my dad since I was seven or eight, and now I’m very grateful for that, really. I don’t know how I’d have survived my teenage years if I’d had to live with Dad.”

Everyone laughed and Marjan said, “I can’t be that bad.”

“You do know Dad’s skin care regimen, right?” TK asked with raised brows. “And you know how he is about food at the station, he’s even more militant at home. It was nice to be with him for a little while, especially while we were both still finding our place here. But it’s quickly starting to become too much!”

“Cap is trying to pull us all into his skincare!” Mateo said snickering. “I can’t imagine having that at home as well!”

“We can look together,” TK suggested. “I mean, not as roommates. I think we’ve already learned that we wouldn’t be a good fit for that!”

Mateo laughed. “Yeah, I agree. That would be horrible!”

Getting to know a new team that spent 24 hours at a time together also meant finding a way to arrange themselves so that all the little mannerisms wouldn’t clash. Mateo and TK had learned very quickly that they should avoid each other in the shower and dressing room whenever possible. That was enough to know that they shouldn’t ever be looking to share an apartment.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t look at places together,” TK said. “I think that might make apartment hunting much less annoying. I remember how it was in New York.”

Paul snorted. “I think Austin will be a little less difficult than New York.”

“Probably,” TK agreed grinning. “Doesn’t mean that apartment hunting is ever fun.”

“Oh, that sounds like another challenge!” Marjan said.

Tim chuckled. “You lot are a strange group.”

Nancy slapped his shoulder. “You are part of that group, dude.”

“Definitely!” Paul agreed. “No getting out of it anymore.” He leaned forward and pointed at Carlos. “You as well!”

Carlos chuckled and raised his hands defensively. “I didn’t protest, did I?”

“This was a brilliant idea,” Nancy said. “I mean, the hike was definitely more than I was comfortable with, but hanging out with all of you was great. And I wouldn’t mind another hike if it’s with fewer stairs next time! And maybe a little shorter.”

Paul laughed. “So, you really mean a walk instead of a hike, right?”

Nancy stuck out her tongue. “Call it what you want, it will still be a hike for the rest of us.”

“I vote for Carlos choosing the next hike,” Tim murmured. “He clearly knows the trails around here. And I trust him more than Paul to choose a trail all of us will have fun hiking.”

“I can do that,” Carlos agreed amused. “I can also point you in the direction of trails you’ll consider a real hike, Paul. Maybe something for just the two of us.”

“I’ll take you up on that!” Paul said grinning. “I’ll also check back with you about it when my friends come to visit!” He leaned back. “But I’m glad you liked it after all. Even if it might have been a little too much in some places.”

“But next time we’ll meet for a game night, right?” Marjan said. “I assure you that will be just as much fun. If not more.”

“You’ll be responsible for finding a date that fits with all our schedules!” Paul said, pointing at Marjan.

“I’ll help!” Nancy volunteered. “I also offer up my place. I have Catan at home, and a couple of other games.” She turned to TK. “And every game you put on your list, you’ll need to organize yourself.”

TK grinned. “No problem. That’s a project for the next couple of shifts, so be prepared to be quizzed about all the games you know!”

The conversation turned to different board games for a while and TK tried to keep track of everything mentioned even without taking notes. The afternoon was already half over when they eventually got the rest of their food packed away and said goodbye, Nancy loudly reminding everyone that she needed as much time as possible to relax and was looking forward to a hot bath, while Paul was trying to argue it couldn’t have been as bad as she was complaining about.

“Honestly, I agree with Nancy,” TK said, though softly enough that Paul wouldn’t hear him. Paul was clearly very invested in hiking, especially the trek he had chosen for them, and TK thought half of Nancy’s complaints were more about riling Paul up than anything else.

TK laughed when Carlos grabbed his hand and pulled him to the side before he could follow the rest out of the restaurant.

“Want to come home with me?” Carlos asked, his mouth pressed against TK’s ear. “I promise you I’ll find a way to help you relax.”

TK felt a hot shiver run down his back and he bit his lip with a grin, leaning into Carlos. “Yeah?” He turned his head, pulling back just far enough so that their gazes met. “I’m pretty exhausted, though.”

Carlos’ eyes shone with mirth and lust. “You won’t need to do anything but lean back and enjoy.”

TK sucked in a breath and wished they didn’t have more than half an hour’s drive between now and those promises. “What are we waiting for? Take me home.”

Carlos grinned and pressed a short kiss against TK’s lips before he pulled him out of the restaurant and to his car.

 

Chapter 09

“Officer Reyes! I need a moment of your time!”

Carlos froze and then turned on his heels to face Detective Washington. Dread pooled heavily in his gut even before he saw her stern face. Their paths crossed regularly, of course, as they were working at the same police station, but usually, they barely exchanged nods in greeting. He had always thought she was judging him harshly for his association with Michelle and kept her distance professionally as much as possible. If they talked, it was about Iris, and in this moment Carlos knew how Theresa had felt when he and Tony had stood in front of her door unannounced.

Carlos sucked in a breath. “Ma’am.”

Washington smiled sadly. “It’s not bad news, Officer.”

Carlos ran his tongue over his lips. “But also not good news.”

She shrugged. “You know an Agent DiNozzo, FBI?”

“He’s a friend,” Carlos admitted hesitantly. “He’s in town consulting on a couple of cases.”

“Consulting on my case without my knowledge, you mean?” Washington asked with raised brows.

Carlos cleared his throat and straightened his back. “No, Ma’am.”

She eyed him critically for a moment before she shrugged. “Follow me.”

Carlos swallowed and followed her silently into a small conference room. Tony was sitting at the table, a file and a laptop in front of him. When they entered the room, he looked up and nodded at Carlos in greeting, his face unreadable.

“No bad news, huh?” Carlos muttered uncomfortably as he sat down.

Tony sighed. “You know how it works. What’s just a couple of new puzzle pieces for Detective Washington and I might very well be bad news for you. We haven’t found her. We might have a new lead, but how helpful that will be is still questionable.”

“Would you just get to the point, please?”

“We have two new pieces of information,” Washington said. “Agent DiNozzo came to me two days ago because of a possible connection between a Wade Caldwell and Iris Blake. A connection made by a blue pickup truck I knew nothing about, and the fact that Mr. Caldwell was last seen on the same day as Iris.”

Carlos winced. “The blue pickup truck is information Michelle got from one of Dustin’s neighbors. I told her she needed to talk to you about it.”

“Which she didn’t,” Washington said darkly. “And you talked instead to Agent DiNozzo about it.”

Carlos ran a hand through his hair as he shook his head. “Not exactly. I complained to my friend that my sister-in-law was trying to push me to give her a list of all the registered blue pickup trucks in the area at the time Iris went missing, and that she didn’t seem to understand why I could and would not do it.”

Washington raised her brows and turned to Tony. “It’s your doing that Mr. Shepard’s complaints weren’t dismissed out of hand for a change?”

Tony shrugged with a smirk and a gleam in his eyes. “I don’t know what you are talking about. I heard he has a new lawyer, though, and that someone in your department has been asking a couple of uncomfortable but very obvious questions. Something like that can do wonders sometimes, don’t you think?”

“I’ve already been unofficially confined to the station for this shift and will be put on a desk starting with my next shift because of an ongoing internal investigation,” Carlos said. “Whoever is asking those questions is very thorough, I think.”

“You mean it takes the right person to ask uncomfortable questions,” Washington muttered under her breath and Carlos could practically hear her eyeroll, even though her head was still turned away from him.

“Did you discover a tangible connection between this Wade Caldwell and Iris?” Carlos asked. He didn’t have much interest in discussing whatever horrible politics had protected Michelle over the last three years.

Washington turned back around to him. “Mr. Caldwell was last seen in a bar. There was a 9-1-1 call about a bar fight involving him, but when the officers arrived, he had already left. Agent DiNozzo and I went to the bar and talked with the owner. He didn’t remember Mr. Caldwell, but he did remember Iris when we showed him a picture of her.”

Carlos swallowed. “This was after she left Dustin’s house?”

“According to our call log and Mr. Shepard’s recount of the evening, it was roughly three hours after she left his house,” Washington said. “The bartender said that during the fight he called in, Iris was the aggressor and Mr. Caldwell was trying to calm her down. In the end, Iris, Caldwell, and a third person with them left.”

Carlos frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Iris.”

“We don’t know what kind of situation she was in,” Tony reminded him. “The bartender was very clear in his recollection, and I’m not inclined to doubt him. It’s probably not something that happens every day in that kind of bar, having the woman be the aggressor, so I’m not surprised he would remember it even three years later.”

“And is there any connection between Caldwell and Dustin?”

Washington shook her head. “No.”

Carlos sighed and his shoulders sagged down, feeling strangely relieved on Dustin’s behalf. “So, finally some concrete proof that he is innocent.”

Washington nodded, lips pressed together into a thin line. “It should not have been necessary to prove his innocence, but this will go a long way toward helping him.”

Carlos agreed, but that hadn’t been the case for Dustin since the very beginning. The initial investigators, before the case had gone to Detective Washington when Iris had been declared a missing person without any sign of a violent crime, had been as convinced as Michelle of Dustin’s guilt. They had searched for evidence against Dustin without considering any other possible explanations, and that assumption of guilt had been hanging over Dustin’s head ever since.

“Is there any trace of Iris or Caldwell after the bar?”

“Nothing that we have found yet, at least not about their whereabouts,” Tony said softly. He reached for the laptop. “We need you to listen to something and tell us if you recognize the person’s voice.”

Carlos closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “Of course.”

As much as he didn’t want to hear whatever Tony had found, he also needed to know what it was. It was a strange feeling to be torn between wanting to jump up to flee the room and the anticipation of possibly finding another clue about the day Iris had disappeared. The news about Caldwell and the bartender who had seen Iris after she had left Dustin didn’t seem like much, but it was still the most they had found in three years.

There was a moment of silence before Tony said, “Ready?”

Carlos nodded and waved one hand to signal Tony to go on.

The recording started with a beep, and Carlos knew without doubt that it was a recording from the dispatch center even before he heard the voice of the operator. Every call there was recorded, but he knew there hadn’t been a call from Iris’ phone during the night she had disappeared or on any other day before or after that. And still, it was Iris’ voice that answered after the operator’s “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I’m in danger, I can’t talk very long.”

Carlos shivered and pressed a hand against his mouth. Hearing her voice after all this time brought up all of the grief and longing he had been trying to ignore for going on two years now.

“Ma’am, can you give me your location?”

“I can see him two cars behind me,” Iris whispered urgently. “I’m driving west on Adams, just past Guadalupe Street. He was waiting in front of my apartment this morning, but I thought I had lost him. I don’t know what he wants!”

Carlos clasped his hands together and braced his elbows on the table. Iris’ voice was full of panic and fear, and he wished he could just gather her in his arms and promise he’d protect her, that everything would turn out alright. He didn’t know what had been going on in her life those last couple of days before she had vanished, and he wished more than ever before that he hadn’t let the distance grow between them as much as he had.

“Ma’am, there is a police station a quarter a mile from where you are—”

“No police,” Iris interrupted her impatiently. “They’ll kill her. Or they’d find him…”

The harsh sound of the disconnection made Carlos flinch. He shuddered and tried to hold back his tears. “That’s Iris. I’ve no doubt.” She had sounded so terrified and confused, not at all how he’d ever heard her before. “Was this … the night she disappeared? How did you find this call?”

“I got the number of the unknown call from Dustin,” Tony said softly. “We already knew she hadn’t called 9-1-1 from the phone registered to her name. I put a request in for any unidentified calls in that time period, and the first thing I did was to look for the number I got from Dustin.”

Carlos blew out a breath and bit his lip. “She sounds … Do we have any idea who was following her? Or whose phone she called from? Can we trace the phone? Is it even still active?”

When he was only met by silence, Carlos finally opened his eyes again and found Tony and Washington both watching him with the same kind of sadness.

“We don’t believe anyone was following her,” Tony said after a moment.

He turned the laptop and Carlos could see part of a very long list of calls to 9-1-1, many of them lasting less than a minute, and at least a dozen of them every day. Carlos sucked in a breath and shook his head. The picture was forming in his head, but he didn’t want to accept it.

“Dustin said Iris had changed in the weeks before she disappeared,” Tony said slowly. “Her mother said she was disrespectful and abrupt the last time she saw her. The owner of the bar said that it was Iris who caused the fight and that Caldwell and a third person with them weren’t able to console her at all.”

“You are saying it was in her head,” Carlos whispered, pressing his forehead against his folded hands.

“There are certain illnesses that don’t show until the twenties or early thirties,” Washington said. “And the symptoms can show slowly in the beginning, making it difficult to recognize them, especially during a highly stressful period for the person concerned.”

“Like schizophrenia,” Carlos said.

“Among others,” Washington said. “We can hardly do more than speculate about that at the moment.”

Carlos shook his head. “No, there is a family history of it. Theresa and Michelle would deny it if you asked them, but Iris was pretty blunt about it while she was taking a class that covered schizophrenia among other things. Her paternal grandmother showed many of the symptoms, but she was denied medical care by her husband and her family. She died when Iris’ dad was twelve or thirteen, but he talked a lot about her with both Iris and Michelle.”

“So, Iris thought her grandmother suffered from schizophrenia?” Tony asked.

“Her father thought it,” Carlos said. “At least as far as Iris told me. She tried to talk about it with Michelle and Theresa while she was learning about it in school, and was very frustrated that her thoughts and worries were dismissed by both of them. It’s … That whole situation was the reason that along with the divorce papers, we had also filled out all the paperwork necessary so that I would still have her POA and medical proxy after the divorce. She didn’t want that responsibility to end up in her mother’s hands, and she didn’t trust Michelle not to cave to their mother’s demands.”

Washington leaned back with a frown. “Everyone I talked to, including you, always said how much Iris idealized her sister.”

Carlos huffed. “Oh, she did for a very long time. And she still clung to that image, but she had also learned to see Michelle’s faults. I think she blamed their mother for many of them.”

“The suspicion of schizophrenia might put a new spin on this case,” Tony said when Washington just kept watching Carlos thoughtfully. “Because it means she might be a danger to herself.”

Carlos flinched. “Does that really make a difference after three years?”

“Probably not as much as you would like.” Tony sighed.

“You are looking for Caldwell and Iris together now?” Carlos asked, staring at the table with a frown.

“I’ll make sure the cases are linked,” Washington said. “Caldwell is a very questionable character, not someone I would have expected to be part of Iris’ life from everything I knew about her.”

“But we can’t trust that anymore,” Carlos whispered. “Because we have reason to believe she was suffering under the onset of schizophrenia or another psychosis.” He looked up to glare at Tony. “You were right, I think this is bad news and not just a new piece of the puzzle!”

Tony smiled sadly. “I’m really sorry. I wish I could have found something that could give you hope.”

Carlos rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, I know I’m unreasonable.”

“You are a family member of the missing person in this case, not a police officer. You are allowed to be unreasonable,” Washington said. “I’m also sorry that we couldn’t provide better news. I’d appreciate it if next time you bring a friend around to poke their nose into my case, you introduce them to me personally.”

Carlos made a face. “I’m sorry. I just really didn’t expect Tony to do this at all.”

“I won’t hold a grudge against you,” Washington said. “This time around.”

Carlos chuckled. “I appreciate it. I appreciate everything you have done to find Iris.”

Washington nodded and sent him a sad smile before she bid her goodbyes, leaving Tony and Carlos alone in the conference room. They sat there in uncomfortable silence until Carlos sighed.

“You know, you could have told me you needed to make contact with Detective Washington and I would have introduced you. I’m not looking forward to having her angry at me!”

Tony shook his head, laughing quietly. “She was riling you up. I made it very clear to her from the very beginning that you hadn’t asked me for any favors at all and that I’ve been acting of my own volition. Do you want to grab a coffee? Or maybe something to eat?”

“I’ve got an hour left on my shift.”

Tony shook his head. “Detective Washington cleared it with your captain to let you go early. Otherwise, we would have waited until the end of your shift. I’d like to spend the rest of the day with you as I’m leaving tomorrow. And I doubt you are in any shape to keep working.”

Carlos fisted his hands. “I don’t know how we could all miss what was going on with Iris.”

Tony sighed deeply and closed the file and the laptop, putting them away in his bag before he left his place to sit down beside Carlos, turning his chair so that he was facing him. “Whatever happened to Iris, neither you nor Dustin nor her sister or mother are at fault for it. Most mental illnesses surface slowly and are sometimes missed for months or even years.”

“Maybe I could have noticed if I had spent more time with her,” Carlos whispered. “Do you think this Caldwell guy did something to her?”

Tony sighed. “I have no idea. And speculating about it won’t be of any use. I think it’s suspicious that they both haven’t been seen since that day. I know Detective Washington will try to find out who the third person with them was. She also has the license plate of the blue truck now, so she’ll try to find out if it ever showed up somewhere. But in the end, the information I found doesn’t change anything. Iris could still have decided to just leave, and that possibility would fit better now than previously. Or there could have been an accident, or she was a victim of some crime. That was all on the table before, and it’s all still possible.”

Carlos buried his hands in his face. “I just want to know. Not knowing is the worst part of this whole fucked-up situation.”

“I know.” Tony rubbed a hand over his back. “Let’s go find something to eat, okay? I’m happy to answer all the questions you have or find a way to distract you. Whatever you feel you need more right now.”

***

“I have come up with a plan for our Probie!” Marjan said as she came into the common area where Judd and Tim were reading, while TK watched Paul, Nancy, and Caroline—their paramedic floater of the week—fight each other in Mario Kart. Paul had forbidden him from joining in, and TK had just laughed and accused him of being a sore loser.

“Help with what?” Judd asked, confused.

“Studying for his exam,” TK said and added before Judd could follow his frown with a protest, “He’s dyslexic, so working through the material is pretty difficult for him.”

“Oh.” Judd put his book to the side. “So, how do we help him?”

“Each of us will record a chapter of the manual for him, reading it out loud. I hope that with all of us we’ll have the manual as an audiobook for Mateo by the time we start our next shift,” Marjan explained and started to distribute the manuals she was carrying. Each had a different page marked.

“How long until Probie’s exam?” Judd asked.

“Just under seven weeks.” Marjan sat down on a free spot. “Probie isn’t dumb, and he has learned most of these things already, but it’s difficult for him to repeat them. He tried it with different text-to-voice programs in the past, but most of the voices were not very good. And I also hope hearing it in our voices, people he trusts, will make it easier for him to remember it during the test. His anxiety about the test is probably his biggest foe at this point.”

“No wonder,” Tim said. “His whole life is hanging on this test, I’d be super anxious as well.”

“He’ll wash out if he fails?” Caroline asked.

Nancy nodded. “Yeah.”

Everyone who had been on the hike exchanged looks, and TK was glad no one volunteered more information, in silent agreement that it would be Mateo’s decision who he told what else was hanging on this test. TK hoped he’d eventually trust Judd with the information as well.

“Cap is already done with his chapter, he was my trial run to see if Mateo could work with it,” Marjan said.

“Anything left that needs reading?” Caroline asked. “I’d love to help. It’s a great idea.”

Marjan grinned. “Sure. Let’s get another copy for you. There are a couple of small things I’d have read myself, but I’m happy to share that load with you.”

Caroline nodded and jumped up, following Marjan into the kitchen and then up the stairs. “Have you thought of offering these recordings to the AFD for general use? There might be other people it could be useful for.”

TK couldn’t hear Marjan’s answer to that question anymore, but Judd huffed. “I’m not sure the quality of my reading is something just anyone should be subjected to.”

“I don’t know, Caroline could be on to something,” Tim said. “Mateo can’t be the only one who has a hard time reading the material. A friend of mine was out with an injury to his eye for a while. He felt fine other than his sight was impaired, and he thought about taking some courses, but reading with just one eye was much too strenuous for him. He’d have loved it if there had been an audio recording of the material. As it was, he had to give up his plans to take those courses.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t change that he’d probably run away from my reading skills,” Judd muttered. “Let’s see if our probie runs away from it as well.” He opened his copy of the manual to the marked page and groaned. “Fire science, really?”

Paul laughed. “What would you have preferred to read? No one says we can’t switch around who reads what.”

Judd rolled his eyes. “Nah, I’d have been just as happy with any of it. I learned all of this twenty years ago and was glad to be done with it.”

“A refresher will do you good then,” TK said. “And who knows, maybe we’ll stumble over something else that should be included. Just you wait, we’ll be known to the brass as the house overhauling the entire manual with complaints about missing information. Did you see the notification about the additions to the handbook for firefighters joining us from out of state with calls that might not be common throughout the country?”

Judd huffed. “Billy, a friend of mine, has complained about that every time I see him for the last couple of weeks. He was promoted to Captain not too long ago, and all the captains in town were tasked with making a list of those common calls. He was not happy when he learned I’m part of the reason he had to brainstorm about that.”

“But it shows that someone in the upper echelons is serious about taking on issues around here,” Paul said. “Which is refreshing. It was honestly my biggest concern while deciding if I would move my whole life or not. Cap is a new face in town himself, he doesn’t have the connections to move much here. And I have encountered some very shitty people in my career, sadly most of them in positions of power.”

“I didn’t know Probie had dyslexia, when did this come up?” Judd asked.

“When we were hiking.” Paul glared at Judd with raised brows. “I did invite you and Grace both. You could have come along.”

Judd laughed. “Give a guy a little more warning next time and I’ll come. Gracie probably not. But she is looking forward to game night. She’s bored silly with the poker a couple of friends and I play. She is looking forward to meeting y’all outside the bar.”

“It’s a nice place,” Nancy said. “But not really made to spend quality time with each other.”

“Shouldn’t leave it to Cap to choose the places for team bonding as long as he doesn’t know the area a lot better,” Judd said. “Hey, speaking off. You know how to ride a horse?” He made an all-encompassing gesture with his hand throughout the room. “We could go out to the ranch and go on a little tour.”

“The ranch?” Tim asked.

“My family’s ranch. We have enough horses, and many of them are trained to work with people who don’t have much experience in horseback riding. Taking tourists on a tour is a good way to make money. I’d not charge any of you, of course.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” Paul said excited.

“Why is it always a sport?” Nancy muttered miserably. “I tell you, your horses won’t let me come anywhere near them.”

Judd chuckled. “We could also teach y’all horseback riding. You can’t live in Texas and not know how to ride!”

Nancy glared at him. “You can try, but every horse will run away as soon as they see me! They’ll know I’m only a danger to them!”

“You ain’t a danger,” Judd said. “You just need to learn how to behave with them. They might smell your fear in the beginning, but you’ll lose that soon enough.”

Nancy huffed and shook her head.

“I know how to ride,” Tim said. “I’m not very good at it, though. I’d need more practice.”

“Mom and Enzo took me to a ranch on a vacation in high school,” TK said. “I haven’t been near a horse since. And I’m sure Cap doesn’t know how to ride.”

Judd huffed. “He did a pretty good job when I took him out with me.”

TK frowned. “What? When?”

Judd shrugged and laughed. “A week or so before the silo incident? I was still trying to convince him he needed to tell you about…” Judd waved his hand in front of his chest. “You know.”

“Dad can ride a horse?” TK asked skeptically.

“And he was pretty good at it.”

Paul laughed whole-heartedly. “Our TK here believes his dad’s never left New York.”

Judd snorted. “Really?”

“He never did!” TK said petulantly, crossing his arms over his chest. “He never talked about it, never went on a vacation with us. And Mom always said he was glued to New York.”

Everyone laughed and TK huffed, glaring at all four of them in turn. After a moment he grabbed his copy of the manual and stood. “Marjan gave us work to do, I think we should all start doing it.”

***

Carlos watched Mateo with a bemused smile. Mateo had called him half an hour ago sounding very desperate when he had asked if Carlos’ offer of refuge was still standing. Carlos had invited him over with a laugh and Mateo had shown up not ten minutes later, falling face down on Carlos’ couch, and hadn’t moved since.

“They can’t be that bad,” Carlos said and put a cup of coffee on the table beside the couch.

“Marjan is the worst,” Mateo muttered into the couch. “I don’t know why I agreed to this! She has everyone drilling me all shift long. I don’t know how I’ll survive the next six weeks!”

Carlos chuckled. “All shift long?”

Mateo huffed. “We’ll be on a call and whoever I’m paired with will just come up with some random question. They woke me in the middle of the night for some random questions, and then I was just going back to sleep and we had a call and they’d take turns asking questions the whole way to the scene and back. And Cap, the traitor, joined them.”

“I think everyone wants you to ace the test,” Carlos said softly. “We promised you we’d help you to not fail, so that’s what they are doing, right? Having you answer questions under pressure and when you were concentrating on other things is a good way to prepare you for the test. You might just be totally relaxed going into the exam.”

Mateo had shared with them what a burden the test was for him and the reasons why. Carlos knew from conversations with both TK and Paul that the whole team felt it was also their burden to carry so that Mateo could push through and wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

“I tried that before. Having my friends jump me with questions in moments I didn’t expect.” Mateo sighed. “Didn’t help at all during the test. And it wasn’t half as annoying as this time around. My friends don’t know all the material off the top of their heads.”

“But your teammates do,” Carlos said with a grin. “Or at least, they’ll have refreshed their knowledge about everything to be able to surprise you with questions. I think they are trying to help you with your anxiety. Because we all went away from our hiking trip convinced that your anxiety is probably your biggest problem. Are we wrong?”

Mateo shrugged and sat up to take the cup of coffee. “How can I not be anxious? Y’all know what’s gonna happen if I fail again.”

“But that also means your anxiety is what we need to beat the most urgently, right?” Carlos tilted his head to the side, watching Mateo thoughtfully. “I think you probably know most of the material already. I don’t think you’re the type of person who goes into a test that’s important to them without being as prepared as you can be.”

Mateo nodded. “Yeah. It’s … I had friends help me read the material before. Though, we never got the idea to record it so that I could listen to it repeatedly. Marjan made everyone read parts of the manual and I’ve been listening to it whenever I can. It’s … Somehow it’s really calming to hear their voices.”

“Because your team is with you the whole time,” Carlos said softly. “I can imagine that’s a big comfort.”

Mateo nodded slowly, staring into his coffee.

“But you don’t think making you repeat the information in stressful situations will help with the anxiety during the test?”

“No, I really don’t think it will,” Mateo muttered. “To know that I know all of it and … not thinking about what will happen if I fail during the test are two very different things.”

“When I went to college, I had to battle with anxiety with all my exams,” Carlos said. “I learned to envision the exams, to practically walk through all the scenarios for it that I could envision in my head before the exam. In most cases, that helped me be a lot calmer during the exams.”

Mateo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I had a friend who would walk me through different scenarios by asking questions about what could happen during the exam instead of quizzing me about the content,” Carlos said. “She’d make me sit with my eyes closed and ask me to imagine I was sitting in the exam, and then to describe it to her.”

Carlos bit his lip, pushing away the pain that memory brought with it. It had been several days since he had learned about Iris’ new friend Wade Caldwell and about her likely precarious mental state. He hadn’t talked about it with anyone but Tony yet because right now it was too painful to bring Iris up at all. That information cast a dark shadow over all his memories of her, but he couldn’t let himself be distracted by that now. Iris had come up with a way to help him through his anxiety about exams, and maybe he could pay that forward now and use it to help Mateo as well.

Mateo stared at him, still frowning.

Carlos chuckled. “Okay, let’s just try it out. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t help, right? And then we’ll do some research about handling anxiety and try out something else. Close your eyes and imagine the room you had the test in last time.”

Mateo rolled his eyes but followed the instruction. “That’s not hard, it’s always the same room.”

“So, you probably associate failing with the room already?” Carlos said quietly. “You won’t be there with a lot of other people this time, right? Because you’ll have someone there to read you the questions?”

Mateo nodded. “Marjan offered to be that person, and I’m kinda glad I didn’t have to ask anyone. They’re all doing so much for me already. It’s so much more than I ever expected.”

“Captain Strand has gathered a great team,” Carlos said. “And you are part of that great team. So, Marjan and you will be alone in the room?”

Mateo shook his head and blew out a breath. “There’ll be someone overseeing the test. You know, to make sure Marjan and I don’t cheat. I know all of the people in the department who do that. It’s always … no one likes me. They all think I’m a loser and should have given up a long time ago.”

Carlos sighed. “They’re clearly idiots. I’ve seen you on calls, I know you are good at your job. You have things you still need to learn or to get better at, but everyone has been in that place at one time in their life. Let’s go with the best-case scenario first, okay? If you feel this helped at all, we can do the worst-case scenario as well, and then also go through any other scenarios you can imagine.”

Mateo shrugged.

“So, you are sitting in the room, the answer sheet in front of you. Where is Marjan? Who is the person overseeing the test? Who would you wish to oversee it?”

“I guess Marjan will be sitting a couple of places away. Maybe behind me so she can’t give me visual clues, right?” Mateo blew out a breath. “And … they won’t let Cap oversee the test, that would really be my best-case scenario. But maybe Deputy Chief Redford? He didn’t believe much in me, but at least he gave me a chance. A place to stay in the AFD when no captain wanted to take me on anymore.”

Carlos smiled. “And where is he?”

“At the front of the room. Looking all gruff and stern while Marjan is reading the questions. I’ll just have to mark the right answer and call out next when I’m ready for the next question. Marjan will read them in order, so I won’t even mistake the right place to mark the answer.”

Carlos frowned. “Has that been a problem in the past?”

Mateo shrugged. “The last time, I think. Even those letters got jumbled up in my head, and they aren’t printed in order on the answer sheet, but two on the left and two on the right. And I started to confuse the order by the end of the test.”

“Okay, but that’s something you won’t need to worry about this time, as you’ve already said.”

Mateo sighed. “Right. Best case scenario. I know all the answers, of course, and I’m able to just concentrate on the questions without worrying about failing. I’m not sure I’ve ever been to an exam without worrying about failing it. That would be a brand-new experience.”

“I think everyone is a little anxious during an exam,” Carlos said.

Mateo opened his eyes. “I think this was the first time I thought about the exam without starting to panic.”

“That’s the point,” Carlos said. “To lessen the panic by playing through all kinds of scenarios beforehand. I never managed to come up with a scenario exactly like the exam ended up being, but it still gave me a sense of being prepared for whatever might happen. I’d be happy to walk you through a couple more scenarios over the next couple of weeks.”

Mateo’s smile was a little wobbly and he hastily rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

 

Chapter 10

Night turned into morning much too soon while the crew of the 126 was sent from one rescue to the next following the tornados. TK was exhausted and saw it in everyone else as well, but no one complained when they were sent to another rescue half an hour before their shift should have ended. It was one of those days when the end of the shift just didn’t matter. There were still people to be rescued, and going back to the station for the shift change would just delay desperately needed help.

When they jumped out of the engine they found themselves on a street with several destroyed houses and two or three dozen people lingering around. There was a man trying to dig through the ruins of his house with his bare hands. He shouted desperately at them that his children were buried somewhere under the rubble as they pulled him away. All of his exhaustion was pushed away as TK was overtaken by the adrenalin rush of knowing that they were racing against time to save two children and that they might even already be too late.

They had just finished setting up equipment to listen for any signs of life in the remains of the house when the ambulance with Tim, Nancy, and Sasha—their floater of the week, a big burly guy who rarely said much—pulled up right behind the engine. Tim came over to them while Nancy and Sasha went to the people Mateo had lined up beside the engine who had minor or not so minor injuries that needed to be looked at.

“TK, you were certified as a paramedic in New York, right?” Tim asked, eyeing the equipment they were setting up to locate the children critically.

TK nodded without turning to him. “I had a dual position as a firefighter and paramedic. I’d needed another course or two to qualify here as a paramedic, though, and I had to decide for one or the other anyway, so I didn’t take it.”

“But your certification would still be valid in New York,” Tim said. “That’s enough for me. Captain Strand, I’d like to request you lend TK to my team for the moment. I don’t have enough people to assess everyone here and a second ambulance is more than half an hour away.”

Owen turned to TK, his head tilted to the side in a silent question. When TK nodded, he turned to Tim. “He’s all yours, but just for this scene. Don’t go stealing my people, Captain Rosewater.”

Tim grinned. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

Owen raised his hand when Paul declared everything to be set up. “Everyone be quiet!” Owen shouted. “We need everyone to be as silent as possible to have any chance of hearing these children inside the house!”

Everyone gathered turned eerily quiet, even those that had wailed in dismay and desperation or had groaned in pain from their injuries. TK held his breath while the father called out for his children. He stared at the monitor, his heart growing heavy when none of their receivers got anything. But then there was a weak signal at the north side of the ruins, and everyone broke out in a flurry of activity. TK ignored Judd and Owen’s short, quiet argument about Owen ordering Marjan to stay back in favor of going into the ruins himself. It ended with Judd winning the argument and Marjan crawling inside anyway, so TK would deal with Owen’s insane behavior later.

He turned instead to the father, who had declined medical care earlier when they had arrived, too focused on getting to his children. “I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

The father kept staring at the place where Marjan had vanished into the ruins. “Ray.”

“Nice to meet you, Ray. Though, the circumstances could have been better. I’m TK. I’d like to take a look at you and make sure you are alright. You said you were inside the house when it collapsed.”

Ray shook his head, still not looking at TK. “I’m fine. I just need to get my kids out of there.”

TK sighed. “I understand that. But your children are in the best possible hands with Marjan, and if we make sure you are alright now, we’ll have more time to take care of your kids as soon as they come out.”

“I feel fine.”

“The last time my dad told me he was fine while having a coughing fit it turned out he had lung cancer,” TK said lowly.

That finally made Ray turn to him. “What?”

TK shrugged with a wry smile. “He thought he was protecting me, I guess. I understand you are worried about your children and want to protect them as well, but I can only repeat, they are in the best hands with Marjan. The best thing you can do for them now is to make sure that none of the paramedics need to concentrate on you later when your children come out of that ruin and need their attention.”

Ray blinked, but then he nodded slowly. “Okay.”

TK smiled brightly and started to ask a number of questions about what Ray remembered of the house collapsing and how he had gotten out. It wasn’t much of a surprise that he couldn’t answer many of those questions, he had clearly been very single-mindedly focused on his children the whole time. TK frowned as Ray winced when he barely touched his abdomen. The sight when he raised Ray’s shirt made his blood freeze.

“TIM!” TK hollered. “Nancy! Sasha!”

“Oh my god!” Ray stared down at this dark spot taking over most of his abdomen. “What is that?”

“You are bleeding internally,” TK said calmly. “You were probably injured during the collapse or while you got out of there. Adrenalin can make you ignore a lot of pain.”

The next moment, Tim and Nancy were at his side, taking over Ray’s care. TK hovered at their side, lending a helping hand whenever they needed it.

“We need to take you to the hospital,” Tim said.

“Ada and Nico…” Ray started.

“We’ll take good care of your children,” Owen promised. “But they need you alive. I’ll bring them to you at the hospital personally, I promise.”

Ray nodded weakly, but when he opened his mouth not a sound came out of it.

“We need to move,” Tim said grimly. “Captain Strand, I’ll leave Sasha with you for the kids, and take TK to drive the ambulance.” He didn’t wait for an answer from Owen before he ordered Nancy and Sasha to help him load Ray into the ambulance while ordering TK into the driver’s seat.

Driving an ambulance with a patient in the back fighting for his life wasn’t something TK had done often even in New York. He still wasn’t as familiar with Austin as he would have liked and he had to rely on the GPS more than he felt comfortable with, especially considering the destruction left behind by the tornados. When they arrived at the hospital, though, Ray was still alive and that was all they could have hoped for.

Tim drove the ambulance back to the 126, and they were silent the whole time. TK felt the exhaustion of a whole night’s work without a single break crash over him, mixed with the anxiety from worrying about Ray and his children. He had learned many years ago how to detach from the people they tried to rescue, but sometimes he couldn’t brace himself against connections made in high adrenalin moments like this one. He knew he might never learn anything about Ray’s fate, but that wouldn’t stop him from wondering about it for at least a couple of weeks, and probably at times even years from now.

When they arrived back at their station, TK didn’t even ask, he just went into the back of the ambulance with Tim and Nancy and helped them with the clean-up and re-stocking. The next shift was already here to take over, but this kind of work always helped calm TK down, and he got the distinct feeling it was the same for Nancy and Tim. It would feel as if he had only done half his job if he left those tasks to them now, or even to the crew of the next shift.

“That was a great catch, TK, thank you,” Tim said quietly as he closed the door to the ambulance when they were done.

“I didn’t do much,” TK said tiredly.

“I would have focused entirely on the people sitting to the side of your engine,” Tim said. “I didn’t even spare Ray a second glance when we arrived.”

“You also rightfully assumed someone had already assessed everyone there for medical emergencies. And we had. But Ray had declined any care initially, too worried about his kids. You couldn’t have known that.”

“If we had waited until after the kids were out of the ruin of the house, they’d probably have seen their dad die. I’m not sure he’ll make it anyway.”

“He was alive when we gave him over to the hospital,” Nancy said softly and wrapped an arm around Tim’s shoulders, dragging him past the kitchen and to the couches, TK following them slowly. “We did all we could.”

Tim shook his head. “This is just more proof that I’m not made to be captain. I’d have completely missed him.”

“Isn’t being a captain about knowing how to utilize your resources and trusting your people to do their jobs?” TK asked. “You got me to help with assessing the patients, and I did exactly that. I had more information than you did regarding Ray, that’s the only reason I turned to him. If you hadn’t pulled me for that task, I’d have probably gone into the building instead of Marjan, trusting that someone else from my crew who had arrived with me would take care of Ray.”

Tim stared at him with a confused frown.

TK sighed. “You put me on that task, so in the end, it was your decision that saved Ray.”

Tim sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Doesn’t feel like my decision.”

“Please tell me you aren’t comparing yourself to Michelle again,” Nancy said with a sigh and Tim shrugged.

TK frowned. “Do you think Captain Blake would have asked for help from any of us? I’m not sure she even knows I was a firefighter-paramedic in New York. I really don’t think she cares about details like that.”

“The Michelle from before her sister went missing would have,” Tim said with a deep sigh. “I miss the person she was back then. She had her edges, of course, but I liked working with her. I hate how relieved I’ve been the last couple of weeks that she isn’t here.”

“Are you doubting yourself because you are glad you don’t have to work with someone who clearly doesn’t have much consideration for you?” TK asked. “That sounds pretty strange, Tim. From what I have seen on joint calls, you treat the patients with a lot more consideration than Captain Blake.”

Tim shrugged again with a frown.

“I like having you as my captain a lot more than Michelle,” Nancy admitted quietly. “I’m not looking forward to her returning.”

“Maybe she won’t,” TK said. He knew more about this situation than anyone else around here, of course, because Carlos had talked a lot about the things Michelle Blake had done while searching for her sister. From everything he knew, he didn’t believe that the AFD could afford to keep her employed with her clear and repeated breaking of the code of ethics.

Tim shrugged. “Then we’ll have to prepare for a new captain. Because I really don’t want to keep this job. I don’t even understand anymore why I did the certifications for it.”

“We’re all exhausted,” TK said. “You’ll probably look at this very differently once you have gotten a couple hours of sleep. You are off for a couple of days, too, right?”

“Two days off and then we are on day shift, yeah,” Nancy said. “We are back on shift in 45 hours.”

“Same as us then. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow for lunch or something and talk through this again when we’ve all had a chance to relax.”

Tim looked skeptical, but Nancy nodded enthusiastically. “Sounds like a great plan!”

***

When Carlos opened his door, TK nearly fell into his arms. “Hey,” Carlos murmured as he caught TK, wrapping an arm securely around him to keep him standing. He pulled TK inside far enough to close the door. “You’re dead on your feet, huh?”

TK hummed. “‘M sorry. Should’ve gone home. But too tired to talk to Dad. I’ll probably just fall asleep on you.”

Carlos chuckled. “Okay, let’s get you up the stairs then. Please tell me you didn’t drive here on your own.”

“Got an Uber,” TK murmured. “We all got an Uber. I don’t think we had a single break during the whole night.”

“Any of your crew injured?” Carlos asked while he dragged TK up the stairs, nearly carrying him.

TK shook his head.

“Why don’t you want to see Owen?”

TK sighed. “There was a collapsed house with two little kids inside. He started to argue to go inside instead of Marj. It’s bullshit. Cap should stay outside and oversee the scene, right? Not crawl into a collapsed building he’s too big for anyway ‘cause he thinks he’s more expendable than anyone else since he has cancer.”

Carlos sucked in a breath. “You think that was his thought process?”

“He always tries to pull this shit,” TK murmured, leaning more heavily against Carlos, but at least they had reached the top of the stairs now. “Did it in New York all the time, or tried to. Team there was good at reining him in. Judd is too. The rest still need to learn.”

“You need a shower?” Carlos asked.

TK shook his head. “Had one at the station.” He sighed deeply and Carlos pushed him onto the bed. “Is this strange?”

Carlos laughed. “Maybe a little, but I don’t mind you coming over here. You are always welcome, okay? I’ll let you sleep for a little while and then we can talk about lunch or something. I’m free today and tomorrow, and since I’m still on desk duty I’m unlikely to be pulled in because of the tornados.”

TK nodded and opened his mouth, but in the next moment his head rolled to the side and he was asleep. Carlos shook his head with a fond smile and pulled TK’s shoes off, not bothering with the rest of his clothes. He had been surprised when TK had texted him earlier, asking if he was at home and if TK could come over, but now he was more worried than anything else. As exhausted as TK was, he should have gone home to crash in his own bed, but he clearly felt more uncomfortable with his living situation than he had let on if that hadn’t been an option.

Carlos closed the door to the bedroom quietly and returned downstairs. He tried to return to his book, but his thoughts kept circling around to TK and all the new friends he had made at the 126. He texted Paul and Mateo, not expecting an answer any time soon. They were probably just as exhausted as TK and were hopefully sleeping themselves, but Carlos kept wondering what kind of calls the 126 had answered during the night.

He had seen the news about the damage left behind, and Carlos had spent most of his early morning volunteering to clean up at a nearby animal shelter that had been partially destroyed. He had only returned home shortly before TK had texted him. He had originally planned to only take a short break before finding out where else help was necessary, but now taking care of TK was more important.

To his great surprise, Paul called back only half an hour later and Carlos learned about the last call out for the 126 that morning and the two children they had saved from the building as well as their father, who was as far as Paul knew still fighting for his life. Paul asked about TK but didn’t want to offer any opinion about Owen’s demeanor at the scene. Carlos didn’t probe too much and, in the end, ordered Paul to go to sleep.

TK’s nap lasted five hours, and most of that time Carlos spent online looking up any news about the damage done by the tornados. People all over town were still wrapped up in trying to rescue those buried under destroyed buildings, but there were also a lot of reports about successful rescues despite the rising number of deaths. Carlos hated these kinds of days.

“I’m so sorry!” TK said miserably as he came down the stairs.

Carlos looked up with a soft smile. “No reason to be. I really don’t mind letting you crash in my bed. Are you feeling better?”

“For the most part. After a shift like that, everything hurts.”

Carlos nodded. “Sit down and relax. It’s past lunchtime and I assume you didn’t have much for breakfast either. I could cook, we could order something, or we could go out.”

“Cooking sounds good,” TK said quietly, slumping down in his chair. “And coffee. I feel like I could still sleep, but I shouldn’t until tonight if I don’t want to mess up my whole sleep schedule. I usually don’t sleep the morning after a shift, even if we have a lot of calls during the night.”

“Usually that’s not one big call caused by a natural disaster, right?” Carlos asked. “Judging by the time you arrived here, your shift ran over quite a lot.”

“Had to help Ray and his kids,” TK said. “Nearly lost Ray. Tim was really rattled by that.”

Carlos raised his brows. “Yeah? Tell me about it.”

He chose to take the easy route and got one of the casseroles his mother had brought over recently out of the freezer and put it in the oven. He listened silently while TK told him about Ray, Ada, and Nico and his worry for Ray whose injuries they had nearly missed. Carlos prepared coffee for both of them, not interrupting TK with questions, even when he fell silent a couple of times.

“You could try to call the hospital and ask to be put through to his room,” Carlos suggested as he gave TK a cup of coffee and sat down on the other side of the table.

TK shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t be … that would be creepy. We have to leave them at the door. And most of the time I’m good at that. But sometimes a situation just creates a false sense of connection, you know? It’s probably better to imagine he made it than to learn the truth. And anyway, I don’t even know his last name to ask about him.”

“You said Tim took it hard?” Carlos asked.

TK sighed deeply and put the cup on the table, both hands wrapped around it. “Super hard. He thinks he missed Ray’s situation. When in reality, Tim pulling me for that task most likely saved Ray’s life. I don’t think the rest would have thought to check Ray over or to tell Tim, Nancy, or Sasha that he still needed to be checked over. And Ray clearly wasn’t aware of his own injuries.”

“Fearing for one’s children is always a difficult situation,” Carlos said quietly. “I’ve seen people do impossible things for their children.”

“Yeah.” TK nodded slowly. “He was intent on digging through the rubble of his house with his bare hands to find them. And he was so distressed that he made it out when they hadn’t. I know he was still alive when Dad left the kids with their mother at the hospital. That’s a good sign at least. For a while, I wasn’t sure we would make it to the hospital in time. I thought the whole time I’d take a wrong turn and end up in some place we wouldn’t get out of again because of traffic and the destruction. Earlier, before we were sent to Ray’s house, we rescued a woman who had been carried away by the tornado in her car. We drove down a street that had been completely destroyed on one side while the other side was completely untouched.”

Carlos chuckled listlessly. “The wonders of tornados. I’d like to say you’ll get used to them, but I haven’t so far and I’ve lived here my whole life.”

TK made a face. “Makes me miss New York a little.”

Carlos bit his lip. “Are you thinking about returning there?”

“No.” TK blew out a breath and shook his head. He looked up and smiled as their gazes met. “I’ve met people here I don’t want to miss having in my life. And I think I learned a lot about who in New York is really a friend by moving here. Do you know that I have only been in regular contact with three of my New York friends since I moved here? With everyone else texts and emails got very rare very quickly. There is a lot wrong about the way Dad dragged me here, but in the end, I have to admit that it brought good changes to my life.”

Carlos tried to ignore the utter relief he felt over that statement. “Don’t give up on your friends in New York yet. Sometimes we grow apart from friends either through distance or because our lives just go in different directions. Doesn’t mean they were any less your friends while they were in your life. But I’m glad about the people your father brought here, too.”

TK laughed. “I’ll make sure to tell him that in an opportune moment when I need to distract him from something. At some point I’ll have to tell him that I plan to move out soon, and he won’t be happy. He’s already not happy that I changed therapists without considering his input at all.”

“Did that work out already?” Carlos asked softly. TK hadn’t brought it up again since they had first talked about it, and Carlos hadn’t felt he should ask.

“It’s worked out great,” TK said. “And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s something else that worked out a lot better than in New York. That’s not something I’ll tell him, though.”

“Do you have any plans to look for your own place yet?” Carlos asked.

TK shook his head. “I’m putting it off a little. I like the idea of looking at places together with Mateo, so I’m waiting until he gets through his test.”

“Are you sure…” Carlos sighed and bit his lip. “I’m a little worried about you because you clearly don’t feel comfortable going home when you’re vulnerable. And please don’t get me wrong, you are welcome here any time, but you should have a place you can call your own where you feel comfortable and safe.”

TK shrugged. “I think it’s alright. Four weeks more or less won’t make a difference, right?”

“It could,” Carlos said softly. “But I guess it’s okay as long as you have other safe places to turn to. I’m glad I can offer you that.”

TK blushed and raised his coffee to hide behind the cup without saying anything.

“Do you have any plans for the next two days? Well, one and a half, I guess.”

“Do you know if they need help anywhere?” TK asked. “I don’t think I’ve got the energy to volunteer anywhere today, but tomorrow it might be good to offer help.”

Carlos shook his head. “The damage has been surprisingly manageable. I texted with a couple of friends from the precinct. There are only two places where they suspect people are still buried, and they don’t need any more help there. Everyone else has been found, one way or another.”

TK flinched but nodded. “I’m meeting Tim and Nancy tomorrow for lunch. I think Tim needs to talk about some things that are bothering him. Maybe you could come as well? It’s … I think there might be some lingering problems with Captain Blake in the background.”

Carlos frowned and leaned forward. “What kind of problems?”

TK shrugged. “I don’t know. Nancy mentioned he keeps comparing himself to her. And he said he misses the person Captain Blake was before Iris went missing. Maybe having someone else at hand who knew her back then could help him?”

“I can join you,” Carlos said, even though he didn’t know how much help he could really be. “But you should ask Tim first, don’t you think?”

TK nodded. “Yeah, of course. But I could hardly offer if I didn’t know if you wanted to come. And maybe we could take a walk around the area today? I’m … I need to memorize more of the streets. Driving the ambulance nearly drove me crazy because I had to trust the GPS. I need to know this city a lot better very soon.”

Carlos grinned. “Sure. I can probably show you some streets most people wouldn’t think to take if they are not really familiar with the area.”

***

TK spent the morning of the next day walking through the streets around his father’s house. He tried not to think too much about the time he’d spent with Carlos. He felt a little bad for going to Carlos’ place after his shift, for finding solace and peace in Carlos’ home when he didn’t find that in Owen’s house. TK felt he might have blurred the line they had both very clearly drawn for their relationship, but thinking about that only caused him a headache.

After they had eaten, TK and Carlos had spent the rest of the day until well after nightfall walking around the area surrounding the 126. TK had thought he’d memorized many of the roads by driving through them with his car, but the trip in the ambulance had shown him how mistaken he was. So instead, he had decided to return to the method he had used as a teenager in New York, when his only alternative for taking public transportation had been to walk.

It had been a very enjoyable afternoon, though in retrospect TK felt he might have shared too much about his childhood while explaining why he wanted to walk through the streets without much direction from Carlos, instead of driving through them. At least Carlos had shared just as much in return, sharing information about Austin TK probably never could have learned from anyone else. TK felt a lot more comfortable with the area right around the 126, as well as at least two direct routes from their station to the hospital, and everything else he would work on during the following weeks.

When TK arrived at Tim’s place for lunch, Nancy and Carlos were already there, though they could have only just arrived because they were all still standing in the hall right behind the door when Tim let him in. TK was the one who brought the food, and Carlos grinned smugly but didn’t say anything when he recognized that TK had gone to the Vietnamese place Carlos had shown him to get them Pho.

“This is a little awkward,” Tim muttered around a mouth fool of noodles. “All of you showing up because I’m struggling with my job, I mean.”

“You’re struggling with your perception of the job, not with the job itself,” Nancy said with raised brows. “You’re good at your job, Tim, and I think you are a good captain. And everyone we’ve had filling in the free place on our team agrees with me. Feel free to call any of them. Or just ask Sasha tomorrow.”

Tim rolled his eyes.

“You said yesterday you miss the Michelle from before her sister went missing,” Nancy said quietly. “Can you explain that? Because I don’t remember a change. But I had barely joined the team when that happened. I think I had been there for two months before she took a leave of absence because of it, right? You were a great captain then, too, by the way.”

Tim shrugged and stared into his food. “I don’t know, maybe it’s all just in my head. I think she was more considerate of the patients, had more compassion for them. When I first met her, she was so passionate about the job, she thrived on helping our patients. I haven’t seen that in her for a long time.”

Nancy frowned. “I don’t remember ever seeing that in her. Sometimes I’ve wondered why she’s a paramedic at all, when more often than not she’s exasperated and impatient with any kind of call. We shouldn’t be that way in front of a patient, even those who are really just dumb as fuck.”

“I think I really only noticed how bad it had gotten since she’s been gone,” Tim said. “Have you also been given an appointment with HR to talk about her?”

Nancy stared at him, her mouth hanging open. “HR? No. What? Why?”

Tim shrugged. “They didn’t say. My appointment was scheduled for yesterday morning, but they rescheduled for our next free day instead of today, so it doesn’t seem super important.”

Carlos sighed deeply and poked at his Pho with the chopsticks without eating anything. “She’s in a heap of trouble because of things I’m not completely at liberty to talk about. But she repeatedly violated the restraining order Dustin has against her. Michelle has been telling everyone for years that Dustin murdered Iris and has been relentlessly harassing him about it. Now it’s come back to bite her in the ass.”

“That shouldn’t be a reason for HR to want to talk to me about her,” Tim muttered darkly. “Those are things that happened outside of the job. Did you notice that kind of change in her, too, or am I really just imagining it?”

Carlos dropped his chopsticks and crossed his arms on the table, turning his head to stare out the window. “I’m really not the right person to ask about that, you know? I barely knew her at all before Iris disappeared. And the friendship I thought we had built since is … nothing more than an illusion.”

TK quietly pressed his leg against Carlos’ in support while Tim and Nancy shared a startled look.

Carlos huffed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. This isn’t about my problems with her.”

“No, it’s perfectly alright,” Nancy said. “I think having someone outside of the job to bitch about Michelle Blake with is exactly what Tim and I need. Having confirmed that she isn’t only this way at work is actually a relief!”

TK cocked his head. “How so?”

“If it’s not just on the job it’s not us, right? Or the job in general. Then it’s her. And … it didn’t always feel like that. Sometimes she’s made me feel…” Nancy trailed off with a shrug.

“Like everything that’s going wrong is our fault, even about things that just aren’t predictable,” Tim finished.

“She’s good at that,” Carlos agreed and returned his attention to his food with a deep sigh. “Whatever HR wants from you, just be honest. I don’t believe you could possibly be in trouble for whatever Michelle has done on the job.”

“Except not reporting some of her behavior.”

“There has never been anything concrete to report, though,” Nancy said with a frown. “Not getting along with your boss is hardly something to report. She has a terrible bedside manner, but in the end, getting the patients to the hospital alive is what matters. She never made a medical mistake as far as I can remember.”

“She treated both of you badly in front of practically everyone,” TK said darkly. “That’s what I first noticed about her. She never helped stock the ambulance, never helped you clean it either. I can’t remember if she ever called either of you by your given name. And I heard her dismiss your input on several occasions only to bring up the exact same thing a little bit later and act as if you were dumb or even negligent not to have pointed it out to her.”

Carlos whipped his head around to look at him and all three stared at TK wide-eyed. TK frowned and shrugged. “What?”

“That’s why you said you couldn’t stand her when we first talked about her?” Carlos asked quietly. “I didn’t know she was…”

“Gaslighting us,” Nancy whispered. “That’s what you’re saying, right, TK?”

TK shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d call it that, but I might not know enough about it. It made me angry on your behalf. And don’t think anyone missed how she tried to tell you that you shouldn’t socialize with us when Paul arranged the hiking day and invited all three of you.”

“She quietly disapproved of us mingling with the firefighter crews before,” Tim said, shaking his head. “It’s … gotten harder to ignore since losing most of A shift. Every time she says shit like that it’s bringing up the pain of that loss again.”

“That’s what happens if you befriend firefighters”, Nancy said in an eerily similar tone to Michelle Blake’s soft, nearly whispery voice. “You should learn from your past mistakes instead of repeating them.”

“That really is something you should report,” TK said, staring at them unhappily. “That’s practically mocking you for your grief. And creating a very hostile work environment. Who the fuck does she think she is?”

“Should I volunteer to talk to HR as well?” Nancy asked.

Tim shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea at this point. What we’ll do is make a list of everything any of the three of us can think of that I should address with HR. It … It hurt the way she brought up the people we lost, but it didn’t … register as something she shouldn’t do. It should have, right? I should have noticed…”

“That’s how gaslighting works,” Carlos said. “She makes you believe you are the problem when that’s far from the truth. I know how easy it is to … just not notice. I needed a friend to come from halfway across the country to make me see the light. He told me I should get therapy.”

“Are you?” Nancy asked.

Carlos nodded slowly. “I’ve just started seeing someone. It’s painful right now, but people keep telling me it will help in the end, so I’ll just keep hoping they’re right.”

“It will help,” TK promised softly. “I hated it in the beginning for various reasons, but it quite literally saved my life.”

“Saved your life?” Tim asked worriedly.

TK inhaled deeply. He had trusted Paul and Marjan with this information already, and maybe he should start including everyone else as well. It didn’t even need to be a big deal, he reminded himself. “I’m an addict. Opioids, to be exact. I’ve been in recovery for years, but had a relapse shortly before Dad and I left New York.” He exhaled slowly and shook his head while Tim and Nancy shared a startled look and this time Carlos pressed his leg against TK’s in silent support. TK rolled his eyes. “We wanted to make a list concerning Captain Blake’s behavior for you to bring up with HR. The sooner we start that unpleasantness, the sooner we will be done, right?”

For a moment it looked as if Nancy wanted to protest the change of topic, but then she nodded and sent him a short reassuring smile before she huffed. “Let’s get it over with.”

 

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