Corporal Brandon Davis
For all of the lives that you saved and continue to save
through those you trained, I hope you have found rest in the light.
You deserve it.
Just Another Day At The Office
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing!?!”
Summers winced, and turned up her volume. She’d regret that later, but whatever Giles’ trainee was up to, he shouldn’t be yelling like that. It would make people think he was saying something they needed to hear.
Like what Tara was saying two desks away.
“Rollover!”
And damn, there went the board. Lit up like a Christmas tree, because everyone who owned a cell phone thought they were the only one who owned a cell phone.
“9-1-1 what is the exact location of the emergency.”
“Um, Sunnydale?” Male. Young. Verging on panicked, but not there yet.
“Yes, sir. This is Sunnydale 9-1-1. What is the exact location of the emergency.”
“On the highway. A semi, man, it just…”
“Sir, is this about the semi truck that rolled over into the median on Hwy 19?”
“No! Will you listen to me? A tractor trailor just flipped over next to the Double
Meat Palace.”
“Is this the Double Meat on highway 19 sir?” Her voice was calm, but Summers couldn’t stop herself from gritting her teeth. Idiots.
“It just flipped over! The Double Meat Palace. Like I said. Jesus, how stupid are you? I just told you where.”
“Sir, there are two restaurants by that name in Sunnydale. Police and an
ambulance are on the way to the accident on highway nineteen. I need to make sure that there aren’t two accidents. Are you on highway nineteen?”
“Listen, bitch, just get help out here. I don’t have time for you to play twenty
Questions!”
Click.
She swallowed, checked her display hoping she was actually calling him and not the cell tower his call last bounced off of, and dialed back. Voicemail. ‘Great. Thank you. I didn’t actually need to know if we’ve got two tractor trailer accidents out there. Hey! Maybe I’ll just use my astounding psychic abilities!’ Same voice, though, calmer, so at least the number was right. She took a deep breath, tried to ignore the blinking light to her left that told her that 22 people were on hold while she tried to confirm that this was a duplicate report, and hit redial.
As she listened to the opening of some rap song she didn‘t recognize instead a nice informative voicemail message, someone behind her broke through the clamor of voices.
“Listen to me!”
Ouch. Rosenburg was yelling. Rosenburg never yelled. She half listened until it became clear her co-worker was trying to get someone to confirm the same address she was confirming. The tones on the board notifying them of unacceptable wait times on emergency lines went up another decibel.
Okay, three was the limit. Mr Curse The Person Trying to Help Me wasn’t going to pick up his phone.
Terrific. She checked pending and active calls, saw there was nothing there at the address of the Double Meat Palace that wasn’t on highway nineteen, and dialed their number from memory.
They were one of only two places in town that would deliver if the order was large enough. Everyone knew their number. Hated the greasy crap food, but ate it anyway because after all you had to eat something and it wasn’t like they could leave.
They practically lived here. Some of them had families once. Very few did right now, though. She thought. It was hard to keep up with who wasn’t divorced yet. Or who was for that matter. Hard to keep such things, when you lived here.
The kid on the other end of the line told her in no uncertain terms that there wasn’t a wreck that he could see from the window. Did she want to place an order?
“Thank you for your help, sir. We appreciate it.” She answered, disconnected, and…
“9-1-1, what is the exact location of your emergency.”
“You people need to do something about the traffic on highway nineteen.” grrrrr…
“Ma’am, are you in any danger right now?” ‘Because I’ve always thought the proper response to a traffic jam was to call 9-1-1. ’ she couldn’t keep from rolling her eyes.
“Did you hear me? The traffic is backed up out here at least half a mile.”
“Yes, ma’am, are you involved in an accident?”
“Don’t get smart with me! You need to send a cop out here to direct traffic. What do we pay you people for?”
“Ma’am, there’s been an injury accident. Police and ambulance are on the way. Do you need help?”
“I just told you you’ve got a major traffic jam on the main highway! Oh, never mind. Bunch of useless…”
Click.
She needed coffee. And a cigarette. Except she didn’t smoke. And chocolate. Ooooh….someone should really invent a chocolate cigarette. She might pick up smoking if someone invented a chocolate cigarette.
“9-1-1, what is the exact location of your emergency.”
She listened just long enough to confirm that, shock of all shocks, there has been a traffic accident on highway nineteen, then let herself go on autopilot, and mostly listened to the other officers.
“Move over!” She almost giggled, which would have been unfortunate since the person on the other end of the line asking for the phone number of somewhere would have thought she was laughing at them. Giles had hit his limit, and was shoving his trainee out of the way so he could take over. Or, more diplomatically, letting his trainee listen for a while so they could try to get the lines cleared in case someone actually needed help that they weren’t already sending help to.
“Sir, the number for information is 4-1-1. 9-1-1 is for life-threatening emergencies.”
“This is an emergency. I’m not stupid. I’m at a pay phone and I don‘t have any change. Get me the number, then I want to make a collect call to that number.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“You’re an operator. Do your damned job.”
Click.
She hung up on him. There was a brief flicker of fear that he would call and complain and cause her all sorts of grief, but it faded quickly. If he did, he would probably call the phone company and complain about the operator.
She stared at the switch that put her back in queue for another call. Should hit it. Really. The board was flashing at her, the tones telling her they were deeply swamped with calls wailed at her, but she mostly just wanted the pounding in her head to stop. Harris was yelling something from the police radio console about being completely aware of the accident and please don’t send another fucking call on it to him. She sighed. Trainees.
Her break was supposed to start in seventy five seconds.
She couldn’t do it. She wanted to. The last thing in this world that she wanted was to hit that button and take another call right now. But it was more than a minute until break. Damn.
“9-1-1 what is the exact location of your emergency.”
Silence. Her brows furrowed, and she glanced at the phone display. Hardline call. Name and address. “Anyone got 1426 Fireside Court?”
Several voices yelled ‘negative’ back at her. Great. Probably just a glitch in the system.
Wait. What was that? A scratching sound.
Her heart started to pound.
“Are you at 1426 Fireside Court.” Just in case the system was wrong. It happened. Occasionally. You could never be completely sure.
“Help.” Someone said help. She upped the priority on the police call, then sent a call to the med side for an ambulance just in case.
“Police and an ambulance are going to come to you. What’s the problem, tell me exactly what happened.”
Everything faded. Just - went away. Her fingers flew over her keyboard, her eyes went from the map to the call to staring straight in front of her. She didn’t need her eyes, not really. Not for this. She closed them, so she could hear better.
Her ears she needed.
She spoke slowly, enunciated clearly, strained to hear everything she could possibly hear, and a picture formed.
She could see it. The more she heard, the more he whispered to her, the clearer the picture became.
She muted her mic, yelled ‘Home Invasion’ without bothering to see if anyone responded because she knew that they would, then switched the mic back on and concentrated on her victim.
His name was Darren. He’d given her a last name. She’d typed it, but it was gone already. Forgotten. Just needed it for the record, not for what was important.
She was talking to Darren. The protocols were there if she needed them, but she’d done this for over five years now and knew them without even glancing. She asked the questions, updated the units, and worked her way through in a routine that was finally and blessedly automatic, allowing her to concentrate on what was happening on the other end of the line without losing track of any of the things happening on her end.
“Darren, I know that you’re hurting, but I’m going to help you, okay? I want you to get a clean dry cloth and place it directly on the wound.”
Listened.
“That’s okay. Anything you have will do.”
Damn.
“Can you get your shirt off? We need to put pressure on the wound to try to stop the bleeding.”
She pushed the volume of her headset to the maximum.
“Okay, apply firm constant pressure and don’t lift it up to look. Darren, this is very important, okay? Is the person who shot you still inside the house?” She’d already asked this, but wanted to be absolutely certain.
He didn’t know. She bit her lip.
“That’s okay. Just keep the pressure on that wound, okay? What did he look like?”
Description. Race, sex, clothing. Exactly what happened. The direction the suspect was moving in when he left Darren’s sight. Anything the man on the other end could remember, interspersed with reminders of the medical instructions she’d already given him. No one else in the house, he lived alone.
“My name’s Elizabeth.” They always seemed to ask. “You’re doing a really good job okay.”
And then he said it. She heard it in her sleep, in a hundred voices that went with names she’d forgotten and names she would always remember. And she felt herself die a little more.
“’beth? Where ‘re they?”
“They’re coming.”
Eggie was yelling from the med radio console. “Staging for PD!”
“See ‘em. Ou’side. Where?”
“They’ll be there soon.” ‘The paramedics are there. And I know you can see the lights of the ambulance from where you are, but you don’t know if the man who broke down your door and shot you for a television set is still in the back of the house. So they won’t come in. Can’t come in. Not until the police get there and go through the house to make there’s no one there who will shoot the paramedics. I’m sorry Darren. They’ll get to you as soon as they can. I promise.’ Of course couldn't say any of that. Not to him.
She muted the mic, screamed like a banshee, “Harris, where in the fucking hell is patrol!?!” One quick, deep breath, to be sure all the frustration was out of her voice then went back to Darren.
“Darren? Are you keeping pressure on the wound?” ‘With his shirt. A sixty eight year old man is shot in the stomach with a shotgun and you’re telling him to hold his shirt on it.’ She ignored the sarcastic voice in her head.
“Call my li’l girl?”
“I can have someone call her and tell her to meet you at the hospital.” Rosenburg kept talking to whoever was on the line with her, but stood and pointed to herself while mouthing “number”. Volunteering to call the daughter.
“What’s your daughter’s phone number, Darren?”
Nothing.
“Darren?”
Barely there. But she heard it. It was garbled, almost completely unintelligible. But she knew what he said.
“Come on, Darren. Stay with me. I can’t do that. You’ll have to do that yourself.”
Maybe she was cruel. But just maybe if she didn’t promise to tell his daughter that he loved her, he’d fight a little longer.
Where the hell were those officers? Doughnut shop, probably. Lazy, useless, good for nothing assholes probably stopped on the way to write a traffic ticket.
“Did you hear me Darren?” The sound of his breathing was getting softer. But it was there. Just really slow. Very slow.
“’ere ‘re ‘ey ‘beth?”
“They’re coming.”
'Are they driving from freaking outer mongolia? Where are they?'
“Darren”
Nothing.
Even the breathing was gone. She kept listening, eyes closed, trying to pick up on anything that would tell her something, saying his name over and over again in a calm loud voice.
She heard the unmistakable sounds of police clearing the house before someone hung up the phone.
It took them twenty-seven minutes to get there, and then they didn’t even bother to actually speak into the phone and tell her if he was still alive.
She didn’t want to know anyway. She glanced at the clock. Damn, she’d worked through her break. And it was three hours before she was scheduled for lunch.
For a minute, she just stared at the map. She'd never been to Fireside Court. It was a new subdivision, far from the center of town. Then a hand fell on her shoulder, startling her, and she looked up into blue eyes. Giles shrugged, gave her shoulder a squeeze, and followed his trainee out for their break. Damn, she must look rattled if Spike did anything outside his job description.
And no, she did not just imagine the strength in that grip getting the kinks out of shoulders. Or in any way think of those hands and the word 'kink' in the same paragraph. Absoluely not. Just stress.
She logged out just long enough to tell Sarge she’d worked through her break and was just taking a very quick jaunt to the restroom. There, she splashed some water on her face and bent over to grab her ankles, trying to relieve some of the pressure at the small of her back and between her shoulder blades. Then she dashed back to her station before she pushed the patience of the people who were taking up the slack while she was gone.
Once there, she couldn’t resist pulling up the last call to see if any of the officers had made a note in it from their laptop. Hey, it happened sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.
And Darren was dead. She tried hard not to think that it was because he’d been on hold while she’d been trying to call back Mr. Curse The Person Trying To Help Me and taking too long to hang up on want a phone number man.
She tried harder not to wish it was that little prick who’d wasted so much of her time who had gotten to bleed out with only a stranger to be there with him. And refuse to tell his daughter that he loved her. Which she’d never be able to do, because she had no idea who the daughter was. She should have asked for the daughter’s name instead of the phone number. She could at least try if she’d gotten a name.
Fuck, she was stupid. Incompetent. Should have washed out with the rest of the ones in her class who couldn’t do the job right.
She shook her head. No second guessing. Just keep moving.
“9-1-1 what is the exact location of the emergency.”