powerless

✧

"I can't believe you grew up here."

Eddie crossed his arms against his chest as he peered up at the large house at the end of the cul-de-sac. He knew his girlfriend came from some type of wealth, Buck mentioned it to him once but seeing her childhood home with his own eyes was its own experience.

His girlfriend disregarded his curious gaze and punched in a few numbers on the alarm keypad as they stepped into the foyer. "Elisa should be in her room packing. Follow me."

Olivia felt a chill run down her spine as she walked through her childhood home and various memories flashed through her mind. There were so many memories that occurred in the house; good, and bad, some were horrifically bad, and then there were the handful that she cherished and stored somewhere deep in her brain.

Eddie was in his own trance as he curiously glanced around the house. When they made it up the stairs, he could see the faint engraving of Olivia's name slapped on the outside of one of the bedrooms, and right next to it was Elisa's.

"Hey."

Elisa whirled around and sheepishly smiled at her sister. "Hey. I have a lot more stuff than I realized."

"You did not have this much stuff when you moved out."

"Well, that's what happens when you have an overcompensating mother with a black card."

"Yeah. She might not be generous with her love but she sure is generous with her money," Olivia snorted. Turning around, she grinned at her boyfriend. "Can you start putting some stuff in your truck, please?"

Eddie pressed a kiss to her cheek and maneuvered his way through the mess to grab a few boxes. "Sure thing."

"Alright, what do you need me to do?" Olivia asked her sister.

"There's a pile of clothes in my closet, it'd be helpful if you could fold them and put them into the box that says donations. There's a few boxes that I'm leaving here. It's mainly garbage and stuff I don't want to bring home."

"Okay."

Olivia and Elisa were discussing remodeling the teenager's bedroom as they descended the stairs when the front door flew open and high heels began to click against the marble floors.

The eldest snapped her head toward her sister, wincing. "Elisa..."

"I promise this was not me."

"Olivia. Elisa." Victoria Calloway flashed a sickeningly sweet smile at her two children as if this were a normal occurrence. "What a surprise! What brings you girls by?"

"We just stopped by for my stuff, Mom," Elisa stepped in, noticing the sudden quietness on her sister's end. "I told you about this, remember?"

"Right," Victoria nodded. "You said she apologized for kicking you out all because you wanted a relationship with me. Apparently, she can do no wrong in your eyes, Elisa."

Olivia walked ahead, trying her best to ignore the woman but as she walked away, her mother's voice captured her attention.

"I see you've moved on from Tyler. Nice job."

Olivia and Elisa could hear the smirk and condescending tone in their mother's voice.

Elisa gently grabbed her sister's arm, shaking her head. "Ignore her, Liv. Let's just go."

✶❤︎✶❤︎

"Ma'am, LAFD. Stay where you are. Don't move."

The 118 rode up to a residential neighborhood after an alert from dispatch. Apparently, a woman living in the neighborhood had gone rogue and hijacked a vehicle and kidnapped the worker who owned said vehicle.

However, as she rode off with the vehicle, the worker got caught in a power line and flipped over it, landing on top of a delivery truck. The entire incident sounded insane but truthfully, it was just another day at work for them.

"Guys, these lines are still hot," Bobby noted as sparks erupted from the power lines on top of the truck. "I want you to grab dry chem and CO2 from the truck." He pressed the button on his radio. "Dispatch, this is Captain 118, I am at the intersection of La France and Maple. I need DWP to shut down the power here."

"Copy that, 118. DWP estimate is ten minutes." Josh's voice sounded through the radio.

"Vehicle is under downed power lines. See if you can shave some time off that."

After dealing with dispatch, Bobby walked over to the delivery vehicle where the tree trimmer was currently stationed due to his injury to check in on his status. Chimney and Hen were dealing with his injuries.

While those two dealt with the tree trimmer, Olivia, Buck, and Eddie were handling the power lines on the car with the fire extinguishers.

"I thought these truck cabs are supposed to be grounded," Buck pointed at the woman's hair. "Why does her hair look like that?"

"High-voltage events can emit an awful lot of static electricity."

Seeing a group of police officers exit their vehicle, the civilian smiled, still dazed from her recent collision, and called out. "You came for the tree murderers!"

"Yeah, I don't think that's who they're here for," Buck mused.

"She's got subdermal tissue damage from the strike," Eddie observed from a distance as he and their Fire Captain communicated. "Any update on when DWP's gonna get the power off?"

Right as he spoke, the power box sparked.

"There's your answer. Let's get her out. Carefully." Bobby clicked on his radio to talk to dispatch again. "Thanks for the quick work on the power, Dispatch."

"I'd say you're welcome but our updates show they're still four minutes out."

"If you didn't shut the power off, who did?"

In sync, their heads snapped to the side where two cars collided and the street lights were noticeably shut off.

Buck sprinted into action since the other two were focused on cautiously pulling the woman out of the truck. "I'm on it, Cap!"

"This is going to be a long day."

✶❤︎✶❤︎

With the power outage, the 118 had been dealing with a string of calls all relating to the outages and whatnot. The team was currently wrapping up a call when they heard Maddie's voice flood over their radios.

"All units, police, and fire RA, clear channel two. Switch to Tac channel fifty. Officer on open mic in distress. Needs assistance. 727-L-30 at Studio Self Storage."

"Bobby! That's Athena's call number."

"Take him to the hospital and everyone else, in the engine now, let's go."

The ride to the storage building was incredibly painful to bear. The cabin was silent as they listened to Athena struggle on the other line and watched as their Captain struggled to contain his emotions.

Everyone looked concerned, not just for Athena but for Bobby as well. But then when a gunshot went off, their faces went through about fifty other different emotions, none of them good.

The rest of the drive didn't take too long, most of the traffic was clear given the fact that there were a bunch of other first responders speeding in front of them to reach the storage facility.

When they reached the building, Bobby was the first to jump out of the fire engine and he immediately reached for an axe.

An officer approached him. "Sir, the building's not clear."

No one even stopped to listen to the police officer. Instead, Bobby and the rest of the 118 walked inside the storage facility where they saw the perp down on the floor, handcuffed to a pole, and clearly battered and bruised.

"Captain Nash, she's here!"

A weight felt like it had been lifted off their shoulders the minute they saw Athena. She was alive. She had lacerations littering her face and body, along with some blood pouring out the wounds, but she was alive.

✶❤︎✶❤︎

Olivia sighed as the car pulled up to a stop in front of the expansive home. She and Eddie had just come back from the hospital after visiting Athena to how she was doing after last night's incident.

She spared one last look at her boyfriend before opening the passenger door and hopping out. Olivia dug out her keys from her purse and strode up to the door, unlocking it before taking a deep breath and taking in the environment.

Her footsteps were as quiet as could be as she wandered through the halls and stumbled upon the one room her mother seemed to always be locked in. Her hand hovered over the doorknob before twisting it open and entering the room.

"Olivia. Two visits in one week. Should I be concerned?"

Olivia rolled her eyes and took a seat across from her mother who was sitting at her desk, typing away on her laptop. "Pigs would have to fly for you to be concerned about me mother."

"Don't be so dramatic, Olivia." Victoria pushed her glasses up higher on the bridge of her nose as she peered over at her eldest daughter. "What's with the surprise visit?"

"I thought it was about time we talked," she crossed her legs and folded her hands together on her lap. "Actually, I thought I would talk and you would listen."

"Now, wait a minute—"

"I'm talking." Olivia's stern tone of voice caused the older woman to flinch and purse her lips. "Now that Elisa wants nothing to do with you, I think it's the perfect time to have this conversation."

Staring at her manicured fingernails, Victoria Calloway quirked her eyebrow. "And that conversation would be?"

"We want you out of our lives. For good. In less than a year, I'll be sending her off to college and she'll be an adult who has the freedom to do whatever the hell she wants with her life. But for now, she's my responsibility and I won't have her life disrupted once again. Which means you're not allowed to come around, to contact her, or—"

Victoria surged forward, centimeters from her daughter as she raised her voice, malice evident in her tone. "Where the hell do you get off on telling me what I can or can't do regarding my child? Stay in your own damn place, Olivia."

"Where do I get off?" A humorless laugh left Olivia's mouth. She was now standing up and matching her mother's energy as they faced off. "Do I need to remind you about the fifty million responsibilities I held throughout my childhood while you abandoned us? Or should I just keep it sweet and simple by telling you to go to hell?"

Victoria blinked rapidly, clearly at a loss for words before she decided to toss her arms up in the air and scoff. "Fine. If that's all you have to say then you can leave. Goodbye, Olivia."

With her head held high, Olivia grabbed her belongings and shuffled out of the office space with a smile on her face. For the first time in years, she felt like the burden of being her mother's daughter had been lifted off of her shoulders, and she could peacefully live her life.

As she walked out to the driveway, Eddie's truck was still parked and he was patiently waiting behind the wheel. Olivia hurriedly walked over to the passenger side, alerting his attention and causing him to stare curiously at her.

"Everything went fine," she assured.

"Fine?" Eddie couldn't help but chuckle. "You just told your Mom you wanted her out of your life for good. Are you sure it went 'fine'?"

"It went as good as it could have gone," Olivia corrected. "Now can we go, please?"

"Sure thing."

While Eddie started up the car, she couldn't help but reach for his free hand and tangle her fingers with his earning a small grin from the man.

"You know, I really appreciate you for driving me out here and waiting. You didn't have to do that."

Eddie spared a look at Olivia out of the corner of his eyes and shook his head. "Of course, I did. We're in a relationship, it's my job to be here for you whenever you need me to."

Not bothering to say another word, Olivia merely sunk into the passenger seat and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, a shy smile on her lips.

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author's note

-just realized that i haven't written an actual scene depicting a date between eddie and olivia😅 i'm definitely going to be writing a few of those in when the fourth season starts up since there's only about a chapter or two left of season three to go!

-olivia and elisa's mother is out of their lives (hopefully)👀