LONG STORY SHORT
let go / vulnerable positions!

"We came in at the wrong angle. Buck, Donahue, I need you two to head up there while we readjust the truck," Captain Bobby Nash instructed the two youngest members of his team. His eyes, along with countless onlookers, were trained on the rollercoaster car that was now at a standstill at the top of one of the loops with a man dangling from a safety bar that came loose. "Donnie, you're going to secure the other passengers, check their guard rails. Buck, you need to harness him in and hang tight. Think you two can handle that?"

"Hell yeah. This daredevil hero stuff is what I signed up for, Bobby," Buck answered with a grin as he finished gearing up to start climbing the ladder.

Elliot chuckled lightly at his response before looking at her captain. "Why do you keep sending me to high places where people can and have fallen to their deaths?" she questioned jokingly, tightening her own harness. "Keep hoping that one of these days, it'll be me?"

Bobby's expression hardened slightly. "No, and don't even joke about that kind of stuff." His admonishment was met with another small laugh from Elliot, who would definitely continue to make jokes like that. "I know you can handle a crisis. If anything freaks the kid out or goes wrong, I need someone up there to help him through it."

"You do know that I'm younger than him, right?"

"You're an old soul, El. Have been since the day I met you."

She couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes at the comment, but still, she sent a faux salute to Bobby and made her way up the ladder after Buck. Only an old soul because I never had a chance to be young, she thought bitterly for a split second before focusing on the task at hand.

Elliot had never been on a rollercoaster before. She'd never had the opportunity to ride one with friends or family, let alone go to an amusement park just for the hell of it. Besides, this job just gave her a list of things she'd never do in her free time because she didn't want to be on the other end of a 911 call. Which now includes rollercoasters.

Once she reached the top of the ladder, Elliot attached her harness's carabiner to the rollercoaster's safety railing and radioed the all-clear to Bobby. She watched momentarily as the truck started to move away from the rollercoaster, leaving her and Buck stranded 30 feet above the ground.

God, she just loved her job.

The man dangling from the rollercoaster captured her attention with a pained grunt. He was using a lot of energy to hold onto the lap bar that had failed him and his riding partner. Buck was moving as carefully and as fast as he could to get up to him before his energy gave out.

"Hey, what's your name, man?" Buck asked him, trying to distract him from the pain he was surely experiencing in his arms.

"Devon," the man answered quickly.

"Devon," Buck repeated, glancing back to make sure Elliot was still following behind him, only to be shocked to see how much she'd gained on him even with his headstart. "I'm Buck, and that's Elliot coming up behind me. We need you to hang on, okay? We're gonna be there as soon as we can?"

"How's everyone doing?" Elliot asked the rest of the group. Her eyes scanned the four other individuals, all of whom were hanging upside down, with eyes screwed shut, and clutching onto the lap bar that had failed the two other passengers. "Anyone hurt?"

Grunts and words filled with fearful reassurance were the responses she got. They were hanging in there, literally. No one was hurt, just freaked the fuck out, and rightly so.

"Where's Chad?" Devon cried out. "What happened to Chad?"

Elliot looked down to where Hen and Chimney were standing over the boy who fell, checking for vitals that wouldn't be there. At the speed the coaster was going and the height from which he fell, there was no way that Chad had survived.

But Devon was panicking and telling him that his friend had died while he was still the only thing keeping himself from falling wasn't a choice. They couldn't add to his terror or give him any reason to want to let go. They had to place this carefully.

"Chad is gonna be just fine," she assured him, even as she listened to Buck and the rest of the team discuss what she already knew through the radio. Chad was gone. He was gone before they even got there. "Our teammates are gonna take good care of him."

Once they reached the loop, Buck helped Elliot latch onto the tracks that would help them climb up before he started to move. With an outstretched hand, Elliot took Buck's carabiner, secured it near hers, and nodded for him to join her. Before he could start climbing with her, Devon asked about Chad's condition again, having seemingly missed Elliot's reassurance.

Hen and Chimney were acting out a scene that was all too familiar to Elliot; pretending a patient was alive so the ones that actually were would accept their help. "He's gonna be fine," Buck told Devon. "And I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, all right?"

Elliot had made her way to the top of the loop and positioned herself on the side so she could see the faces of the two women who were directly behind Devon. "Hi ladies," she said with a calm smile, watching as they turned their heads toward the sound of her voice and relaxed slightly. She heard the sounds of Buck and Devon talking but tuned them out for now. He was doing his job and she was doing hers. "How are you two feeling? Any pain anywhere?"

The girls shook their heads quickly before one managed to speak. "Aside from the need to throw up, I think I'm good."

"Why is the truck going away?" The other one asked her.

"It's just moving to a better position," Elliot explained kindly as she prepared herself to lean down to check their lap guard. "The angle they came in at initially wasn't right to help get everyone down so they just need to readjust."

Her answer satisfied them and she began to talk them through her next moves, ensuring they understood that nothing she was about to do would risk their safety, even if it was scary. The men in the car behind them also listened, watching so they knew what would happen when she came to check on them next.

Once the girls were secured, Elliot swung back around so she was sitting up again. "Alright, girls, you're going to be just fine. Take deep breaths for me and keep your eyes closed if you need to. We're going to get you down as soon as we can."

"What about him?" One of them asked, her head nodding toward Devon, who was still hanging on as Buck tried to talk him through getting his arm through the strap.

"My partner is going to do everything he can for him, I promise."

But as she made her way toward the pair of guys in the next car, the rollercoaster shifted with a loss of weight and she scrambled to hold onto the track, though she was fastened to it already. The sound of screams from both the crowd on the ground and the girls she had just secured echoed in her ears as she looked to find the cause. It didn't take her long to follow Buck's eyes downward. Devon had either let go or slipped, causing him to fall off the rollercoaster and land between the lower tracks of the loop.

A harsh sigh escaped Elliot's lips as she looked away quickly. She wasn't one to linger. She wanted to get down just as much as the passengers did. So, with barely audible assurances to the two men, she secured their lap guard.

Once they were fastened in, she made her way back over to Buck. He was still hanging on the side of the track as if he were waiting for time to reverse and for Devon to slip his arm through the strap and put his hand in his. But that wouldn't happen and they still had a job to do, even if it wasn't going to be completely successful. She pulled him back up so he was sitting on the rail instead of leaning over it, the abrupt motion enough to snap him out of whatever trance he was in.

"You with me?" she asked him, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment before she radioed down to Bobby.

"Why didn't he —"

"We can talk about all of that later," Elliot interrupted his question, refusing to let him get it all the way out while they were still on the top of a rollercoaster. "I need your head here, now. Not down there with him."

Buck nodded, though it was slow and Elliot accepted that enough to radio the all-clear to Bobby. "The rest of the passengers are secure, Cap. Let us know how you want to proceed."

After another twenty minutes, everyone was back on the ground. Cameras, both professional and phone, were pointed at her and Buck from every angle and Elliot hated it. Not just for the lack of privacy that they offered, but because they refused to give her or Buck a goddamn minute to recuperate before approaching.

"They're gonna want to talk to you," she spoke quietly to Buck, who looked down at her with furrowed brows, not understanding why he would be the man of the hour after losing Devon. "You're still a hero to them. They'll want to know every little thing that went through your head."

"Won't they want to talk to you?" he asked, looking back up at the cameras that were quickly approaching. She was the one who saved the four other passengers, not him.

She shrugged, having successfully gotten out of each attempt the news had made to talk to her before. "Maybe," she acquiesced, "but I'm not the one who hung off the side of a rollercoaster to convince a man to choose life."

Buck stood there for a moment. He didn't want to talk to these people right now. Had he actually saved Devon, it might've been a different story, but right now he has no interest in this. But there's no good way out. If he has to talk to them, he really doesn't want to do it alone.

"Come with me?" Buck asked her.

His voice was pleading in a way she hadn't expected, especially not for the overly confident Evan Buckley. Turning her head to look at him, she saw eyes that matched his soliciting tone. If she had been up there on her own, or if he had gone up on his own, she would've refused. She would've quite literally told him he was on his own and walked away. But they had been side by side the whole night, she wouldn't want him to abandon her right at the end, so she wasn't going to do that to him.

It was against her better judgment to agree to talk to the news reporters. She didn't do her job for fame or praise. She didn't do it to be in the public spotlight or have people talk about her 'heroics.' She didn't give two shits about any of it. She had her own fears and paranoia surrounding getting in front of a camera, and she was ignoring them for Buck, to make sure he didn't feel as alone as she did after her first loss on the job.

It was the right decision until it wasn't.

✧✦✧

"Does it ever get any easier?"

The question had escaped Evan Buckley's mouth with ease, but the answer was anything but. The dining table of the firehouse was being set up for lunch as he sat there, trying to make sense of the call that had gone wrong not eighteen hours ago.

"No," Bobby and Elliot answered at the same time. It didn't matter if it came with the territory of being a first responder, losing a patient would never get easier. Even with the terrible people they've occasionally been tasked to save, it doesn't feel good losing a life.

"Look, people die, and that's part of the gig, right?" Chimney started as he sat in front of Buck. "See, your problem is you're looking at every job like it's a long-term relationship. They're one-night stands, man. In that moment, they mean everything to you, but once the morning comes... it's onto the next one."

Elliot's brow furrowed in disgust. "That's awful, Chim." Her disagreement was audible in her tone as she took the grilled cheese that Bobby had made from her and took it to the table. "Everyone processes loss differently and there is no shame in taking time to work it out or having a hard time moving on, especially in our line of work."

Bobby hummed in agreement as Buck allowed her words to sink in. Since he lost Devon, she's been the only one whose words have made any sense.

"You're one to talk, El. You were up there with him and you just moved on after it happened," Chimney argued, causing her to narrow her eyes at him.

"That's because there were still people who needed help," she countered, not liking that her coping mechanisms were under siege. "Panicking or freezing at that moment wouldn't have done anyone any good. Just because I don't let it affect me in the field, doesn't mean I don't feel it."

He was about to retort, probably start bickering with her just because he could, but before Chimney could get another word in, Hen's voice broke through the air as she approached.

"Hey. Hope you guys don't mind. I brought some company to family dinner," Hen said and Elliot looked over to see Sergeant Athena Grant following closely behind the paramedic. Elliot felt her posture relax slightly at the sight of the officer. There was something fiercely calming about Athena's presence for her and it was always appreciated. "Athena's going through some, uh, some stuff at home, so she could use some TLC."

"Well, we don't usually allow cops at secret firehouse meetings, but I'll make an exception," Bobby joked as he and Chimney approached to exchange hugs with Athena.

The woman hummed. "All right. I appreciate that." Once she had separated from Chimney, she moved to Elliot, the look in her eyes asking for permission before getting within the young woman's personal space.

Taking what she hoped was a subtle yet deep breath, Elliot nodded and opened her arms to allow Athena to hug her. She appreciated the concern — the need to make sure that Elliot was okay with being touched even after years of knowing each other. In the firehouse, casual touches were kind of everywhere and consent was often an afterthought or not considered at all. It was never with malicious intent... they just had other things to worry about. Athena's presence and priority of her comfort were refreshing in ways that Elliot never really knew until she met the sergeant.

"Hey, Donnie," she greeted the young paramedic, pulling away from the hug to ruffle her hair. Athena had coined the nickname, and to be honest, Elliot wasn't sure she'd heard the woman call her anything else unless it was serious.

Elliot snorted lightly, playfully extricating herself from the woman and dodging her hand on her head. "Welcome to the clubhouse, Thena."

Athena followed Elliot to the table and set her eyes on Buck. "You know, I ain't sold on you yet, but... I think keeping me from getting shot deserves a second chance."

"You're the reason he's got one here, so, I guess it's only fair," Elliot playfully added. She watched as Athena held out her hand for Buck to shake. He hesitated, of course, his eyes darting between Elliot, whose expression was almost always unreadable, and Athena, who seemed to be just as much of a closed book to him. But there was a flicker in Elliot's eyes, it was brief and hardly noticeable in the dark shade of brown they were, but it gleamed reassurance. And that was enough for him to take Athena's hand and shake it.

"Hey, there won't be a third though," she warned playfully as she sat down. Elliot moved to get Athena a plate from the kitchen as Bobby finished bringing lunch to the table.

"Buck here is having a little trouble moving on from a call that didn't go his way," the captain explained to the sergeant.

Athena hummed. "You know why they make us wear these uniforms, right? Cops, firefighters, paramedics."

"Sex appeal?" Chimney guessed, causing Elliot to smack him on the back of his head as she passed.

"So people can easily identify us," Buck genuinely surmised.

"Both true, but it's also for our own good," Athena told the group. "Because when we take off the uniform at the end of the day, it symbolizes letting go of all the sad, crazy, inhumane things we've seen that day."

"I see his face every time I close my eyes. That happen to you guys?" Buck asked.

No one had a response right away, but Bobby and Elliot's eyes met briefly. It was unintentional, but it happened all the same. Elliot wondered who Bobby saw when he closed his eyes and he wondered the same of her. The difference between their answers was a matter of how much they wanted to see those people again. For Bobby, he would do anything, give anything to see and be with them again. For Elliot, she wished they would just leave her thoughts alone. Let her have some form of peace when she went to rest at night.

"It'll pass," Athena broke the silence.

How long is that going to take?

Before anyone could say anything else, the alarm rang and the firefighters all groaned, unable to eat much of anything. Elliot got out of her seat immediately, pushing it in and squeezing Athena's shoulder as she passed her to get to the pole.

Elliot really needed it to pass.

✦✧✦

Elliot's hands froze in the air, one halfway to the punching bag. She couldn't believe what she just heard, she knew Buck was dumb and a little sex crazy, but this was a new low, even for him. Not only that, why the hell would he ever tell her this? What part of Evan Buckley believed that Elliot Donahue cared even a little bit about his sex life?

"You did what?!" Her voice was louder than it'd ever been with him, a fury coating her words that quickly wiped all the pride off of his face. Her eyes blazed with anger and it wasn't just towards him. While Buck was stupid, he wasn't at fault here.

She quickly unwrapped her hands, stalking past Buck to make her way toward Bobby's office. She knew Buck was following her but she couldn't bring herself to care about his attempts to stop her. His casual sex life was one thing, but doing it with his therapist was coercion on her part. God, Elliot could kill someone right now.

"W-wait, Ellie! Wait. I initiated it," Buck grabbed her arm to stop her from getting any further, using the momentum to get in front of her, attempting to block her path. But the longer he stood in front of her, the fiercer the fire in her eyes grew. He had never seen Elliot this angry before, had never given a reason to be truly pissed off with him. It was quickly decided that if he could help it, he would never be the reason she was angry again. He never realized how terrifying she was. Intimidating, yes. Terrifying? That one was new.

She scoffed. "It doesn't matter if you initiated it, Buck! You were in a vulnerable position. You went to her for help, not for her to take advantage of you." She pulled her arm out of his grip and pushed past him, continuing to speak. "By the time you ever need to see a trauma counselor again, I'm going to make sure that you hear me screaming the word 'think' permanently echoing in your head."

He moved in front of her again. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get her fired," she stated bluntly, watching his eyes widen. "Don't even think about talking me out of it. It won't work."

"I feel better now, so she did her job, right?" The question was asked lightly, but Elliot just wanted to scream again. "Look, I just didn't want to talk about it anymore. I couldn't keep going in circles. I needed to do something."

"Then punch a wall!" Elliot exclaimed. "Take a drive, or sure, have sex, just not with your fucking therapist!"

"Would you rather I have sex with you?" The words flew out of Buck's mouth before he realized what he was saying, and he watched in slow motion as Elliot's eyes almost popped out of her head.

He was dead.

The rage that she was barely containing found a new target in Buck as she took her hand wraps and smacked his arm with them repeatedly. Not hard enough to do damage, but hopefully hard enough to get her point across. "Believe it or not, Evan Buckley, but not every woman in this city wants to sleep with you!"

Buck grabbed the wraps from her hands to make her stop. "Then why do you care so much?" He demanded.

Her chest heaved as she met his gaze, though no part of her wanted to be honest with him, she owed him even part of the truth. She gave herself a moment of pause, gathering both her breath and her thoughts. "Because you should be allowed to process your trauma without someone trying to take advantage of you for it. It doesn't matter if you went there willingly or you initiated it. You were her client and she used you. End of story."

Buck stared at her for a moment, unaware that he was now the only member of the team with even a sliver of her story. "You sound like speak from experience."

Elliot looked down at her feet, her voice softening briefly. "There are things that have happened in my life that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. My trauma or naivety has been used against me more times than I can count and I've ended up in worse situations than you did today. I don't want the worst case to be the one you end up in. So please, just think before you do something stupid. Or at least don't tell me about it. I'm way too young to have an aneurysm."

His expression dropped as he listened to her. He was starting to understand Elliot to an extent. She was protective for a reason, she'd seen things he hadn't. "You're still going to get her fired, aren't you?"

Elliot was already moving past him, her path to Bobby's office unchanged. "Of course, I am. Who do you take me for, someone who backs down?"

✧✦✧

Five-hour shifts don't seem like a lot. And in the grand scheme of things, they aren't. But for Elliot Donahue, five hours of sparring with guys 120 pounds heavier than her and teaching them how to overpower her better is exhausting. Especially when in just three short hours, she has to clock in at the fire station for an 18-hour shift.

She's not entirely sure why she does this to herself. She doesn't need to work 25 hours a week at the gym when she already has a full-time job as a paramedic. But she likes the people there and it was a home to her way before the station ever was. Nic gave her a place, trained her himself when she first got to LA, and has coached her in every single one of her matches since they met. She really shouldn't have trusted him so quickly after meeting him — every physical aspect of him was intimidating and should've scared her. But perhaps after everything she's been through, she's more scared of people who appear nonthreatening at first. Besides, Nic has never given her a reason not to trust him. He's been straightforward, honest, and helpful when it came to getting back on her feet. Elliot had to rebuild everything on her own. She wouldn't have known where to start if it wasn't for Nic.

Entering the small townhouse from the front door, Elliot was immediately greeted with the sounds of clanking coming from the kitchen. She barely had time to put down her gym bag before a border collie tackled her, reaching up to lick her face as he stood on his hind legs.

She laughed lightly, a genuine smile breaking out on her face as her hands came up to support the dog and also push him away from her face gently. "Hey, Tof," she greeted him softly. "Were you helping Macie in the kitchen?"

"No, he was not!" Macie Caper called back, appearing in the kitchen's archway. "Asked him to read me the directions and he just sat there staring at me. God, it's like he knows nothing."

"He's good for a lot of things, Mace. Reading is not one of them," Elliot playfully reminded her friend as Tofu put all four of his legs on the ground again, still staying close to her. "What are you making?"

"I found a new pasta recipe that I think you would like. Not a lot of ingredients and the textures aren't overwhelming or anything. I should have a batch done before I need to head to work," she explained as Elliot followed her into the kitchen. "When's your shift start?"

"I have to be there at 9," the brunette told her, watching as Macie scrunched up her nose in disgust. "You have a night shift, too, I don't know why you react like that when I have them if you sign up for them just as much as I do."

"I didn't take this one willingly," Macie retorted quickly, going back to the pot on the stove and checking to see if it needed to be stirred. "Adamson's kid broke her leg and she needs someone to cover her overnight shifts until her wife gets back into town. Cap just picked the person who was standing in front of him at the time."

Elliot nodded, pushing herself away from the island to head to her room. Tofu's paws clacked on the wood as he followed her every move. "Well, I smell like sweat and the crushed egos of wannabe boxers so, I'm going to go take care of that. Let me know when you're heading out, okay? And don't forget your badge this time."

Macie flipped her off as the brunette walked away. Things were always like this; teasing, light, and a little codependent in a way that neither of them would ever admit to.

Forty-five minutes later, Elliot was showered, dressed in a t-shirt and baggy jeans, and sat on top of the kitchen counter. She was letting her long brown hair air dry as she ate a small bowl of the pasta that Macie made. She didn't want to admit it, but it was good and she was glad that Macie wasn't hear to watch her eat it. Trying new foods in front of people, no matter how much she trusted them, was always a struggle. At least if she did it privately, the only reaction she had to worry about was her own.

Just as Tofu started to whine at the sliding glass door to be let out, a knock came from the front. She was grateful Tofu didn't care too much about visitors, only reacting to the front door when he heard her approaching the house. She never had to worry about him trying to run out or bother delivery drivers. Hopping off the counter, she unlocked the back door to let the border collie go run around in the backyard. It wasn't fenced, but he was smart, smarter than most people gave him credit for.

Part of her wanted to ignore the knock that came from the front door. She truly had no interest in interacting with people until her shift started. There, she'd have to deal with Buck's incessant need to socialize and Chimney's need to pick through each of her choices. For now, she had quiet and she wanted to keep it.

There was silence after the first knock for a few moments and she hoped that it was a delivery or a salesman who picked the worst hour to stand on her porch. But of course, it wasn't, and a second knock echoed against the wood of her door. She groaned loudly as she walked the short distance to respond. She truly didn't want to deal with this. For all she knew, it could be her neighbor who wouldn't leave Macie alone, or it could be a truly persistent salesman, it didn't matter. There were very few people who could be on the other side of that door that she'd want to see right now.

The person knocked for a third time just as she was rounding the corner and her irritation grew. Jesus Christ, the lack of patience in some people.

"Holy shit, I'm coming, god damn," she called out, not afraid to let her annoyance show as she unlocked the door. "Have you ever heard of wa—"

But her words were torn from her throat as she swung the door open and saw the person in front of her. Maybe her heart stopped and she was dying because there was no way this was real. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

"Asher."

"Hey, Ellie."

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