five.
A lot had happened in her first week at the 118, but Ollie could feel the pressure only fueling her. She had been pulling her weight on calls, she had gotten nothing but positive reinforcement... well, other than the fact that Nash had brought up a few times that she wasn't bonding with the team well, other than Eddie. Despite that, she didn't see any familial bonding happen soon.
The whole station was really nice. Hen had a motherly appeal to her, Chimney was funny and spunky, Nash had a sense of humor despite his high rank. In a perfect world, she would love to be completely incorporated into their team, become friends and go out for drinks, call them when she got stressed.
But this world wasn't perfect. She had lost enough people to know not to gain anymore. Her mother and father had both been taken from her in a robbery gone wrong when she was younger, left to bleed to death on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania while a guy who still hadn't been caught ran off with their wallet and wedding rings. She could still hear the sound of the sirens outside, the knocks on the door, the feeling of her sister holding her close as she was made aware that she was now the legal guardian of her sibling. It had been too much to bear then, too much to bear overall, and she couldn't handle it again.
Until she did.
Ollie didn't have time to think about anything else when she was brought out of her trance by Eddie's voice, snapping her back to reality. She nodded in response to the question she hadn't heard, looking around. They were walking closer to Christopher's school, Eddie's son walking in-between them. Eddie had offered to give Ollie a ride to work after realizing that she walked everyday, and she didn't have the heart to tell him no, even despite the fear that gripped her every time she stepped into the passenger seat. The only thing that he was wanting from her was to go with him to drop off Christopher first.
Which is why they were both dressed in their thin firefighter t-shirts, walking along the sidewalk outside the school. The sun bore into their skin from where it perched in the sky, baking them slightly underneath the UV rays, but she didn't mind it. It felt nice.
"Hey, Dad, do you think dogs know they're dogs?" Christopher asked.
She held back a soft laugh, watching as Eddie's hand moved behind his son to keep him steady on his feet. "It's a good question." She admitted, raising her eyebrows as she looked up at the man.
Eddie gave her a look before sighing softly. "What do you mean?"
Christopher smiled at the question, but continued anyway. "You-you know, like I'm a person, and a dog is a dog." Eddie leaned down to listen to him better, with Ollie continuing to stand along the side. "But do dogs just think we're bigger, less harrier, smarter dogs that walk funny?"
She chuckled softly at the question, raising a brow in thought, before simply watching as Eddie said goodbye to Chris. She had always admired his care for his son, the soft look that graced his eyes when he looked at him. Despite everything Eddie had told her when they had become friends in El Paso, she never doubted his love for his son. He looked at Christopher the same way that her parents used to look at her.
"Your kid's really smart." Ollie noted once the boy had disappeared into the school building, turning around to start the walk back to the car. She couldn't bring herself to look up from the sidewalk, watching as her and Eddie's footsteps started to match up once she sped up a little bit.
He rumbled a laugh from beside her, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "He wants to know the answer to every question, from how the first person learned how to walk to that question right there – if dogs know they're dogs. His curiosity is never-ending, thank God."
"It's very sweet." She smiled, moving to slightly nudge him in the ribs, letting out a soft laugh when he bumped her back.
–-
Ollie's shift started normal enough. A gourmet-like breakfast cooked by Nash, listening in on conversations between the other firefighters, a quick workout. Now, she lay on a couch, baking in the sun while she read a random book she had plucked off of her bookshelf at home. She had swapped positions quite a few times since she had lay down to adjust with the sun, and by now, pain was blooming in her back. With a sigh, she pulled herself into a sitting position, balancing her book on her lap.
Standing up, she abandoned her book on the couch, interlocking her fingers and stretching out her arms to try and get the blood flowing through her again. Letting out a long, bored sigh, she made her way downstairs. With the absence of calls, she was tempted to be a jerk – call out how quiet the station was, but she decided better, eyes scanning over the station house.
Everyone was doing their own thing. Stocking the bus, making certain repairs to the rig or cleaning it until it shined. It was like a well-oiled machine, the 118. Everybody had a role to play, and usually no one needed to be told what to do. While the job itself was crazy, at least the station house had a homely feel to it.
In Ollie's look around, her gaze caught on Buck, who was checking the hose in the rig. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but there was still a strain in his face. She had overheard him talking this morning to Nash during breakfast, about how traffic was bad on the drive from Abby's place. Although she didn't exactly know who that was, she also didn't know the name of the girlfriend that had apparently not broken up with him, so she could easily put those puzzle pieces together.
Before she could even think about what she was doing, she was making her way over to the boy, leaning her shoulder against the rig. "Who's Abby?" She bluntly asked, crossing her legs at the ankles as she narrowed her eyes at him.
Evan turned to look at her, one of his eyebrows raising, before he scoffed, looking away from her to inspect the hose he had already inspected multiple times. "I just wiped down that spot on the rig." He responded coldly.
Rolling her eyes, she straightened up, pulling the sleeve of her uniform over the palm of her hand and using it to rub the spot where her shoulder had sat. "Amazing, it's good as new again. Now, who's Abby?" She repeated.
"Why? You jealous?" He mused, chuckling bitterly beneath his breath as he continued to not look at her.
By now, her blood has started to move in a simmer, her hand reaching out to cover up the hose he was looking intently at as she moved to stand between him and the rig. It wasn't a move she had thought through very well, her chest close enough to his to touch his when they both exhaled. "Okay, Evan, let's get something straight here. You are throwing a fit like a child, and I am sick of it. Maybe this started because I was a bit of a jerk, and I apologize if I was, but we are stuck in this house together, so I suggest you get over whatever pissy mood you're in and talk to me like we're coworkers."
His eyebrows seemed to skyrocket on his forehead, his eyes widening in pure disbelief before he laughed, shaking his head as he took a step back, a hand lifting as if pushing her away. "Coworkers? Coworkers, Olivia?" He spat out. "You left me. I went to your house every single day, I called out for you, I frequented every place you visited, and you were gone. No texts, no calls, nothing. At some point, I considered the fact that you were dead. So, no, I cannot treat you like a coworker."
She guffawed in his face, narrowing her eyebrows. "My sister died, don't you get that? I had nobody. I was stuck in a life where I was afraid to get in a car, afraid to walk alone on the street, afraid to do absolutely anything. I was alone, Evan. You had a family. Your mother, your father, Maddie! I had nobody, so don't you dare act like you were just as down in the mud as I was."
"Nobody?" Buck's voice raised, luckily not enough to catch the attention of anyone else. "You had me, Ollie! If that wasn't enough, you had Maddie! She loved you just as much as I did." He snapped, before his face seemed to immediately fall as he realized what he said.
Ollie's face replicated his own, and she could feel bile rising in her throat at the intensity of the situation. She couldn't find anything to say, no words to pull out of her head, which seemed stupid. She had had a decade to think of what to say if she had ever crossed paths with him, how sorry she had been for shutting him out, but she couldn't come up with any of that right then and there while staring at him.
Before she could even start, the ground beneath her rumbled before her whole body was shaking, throwing her off balance. Her shoulder slammed into the rig as she tried to turn and move, pain shooting up into her collarbone and making her hiss through her teeth. She didn't even have time to grab her arm before she was thrown another way, her body slamming into Buck's, who's arms wrapped around her protectively as the two managed to find their balance, moving to duck into a safe spot despite feeling like they were on a tilt-a-whirl. All around them, glass shattered, smoke billowing from around them, things clashing to the floor and sliding along it.
Evan's arms didn't unfurl from around her until the world had stopped moving, everything slowly going back to normal. She heard him try to come up with something to say, but he was interrupted by the sound of the Klaxon blaring, likely damage or injuries caused by the earthquake. Raising her hands up to silence Evan, she shook her head, turning and moving to gather what they'd need to get to work.
So much for her quiet day.
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