PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Fire Losers

The driver's door of the shop slams close and Lucy Chen feels herself sheepishly follow her training officer out and towards the scene of which they had arrived on. Her hair had been braided tightly against her head that morning and she was unsure whether the tight hairstyle was causing the headache of which was creeping up on her. Or whether it was listening to the rant her training officer had been on during the entire duration of their journey after being assigned to this case. Her training officer Tim Bradford had stormed ahead towards the scene. She allowed herself to trail behind him for a moment taking in the sight around her. The street of which they had arrived on was fairly busy with a section having been clearly taped off due to the ongoing event. People boarded the street filling it much more than it usually was and Lucy took a moment to take in their faces. Faces of shock, horror and hope were the common ones. She supposed this was to be expected considering what they had pulled up to. 

"Hurry up boot!" Officer Bradford shouted and Lucy was quick to catch up with his much larger strides than her own. 

"Now Boot, be prepared unfortunately this scene belongs to LAFD and they tend to not have a single functioning braincell between the lot of them." Officer Bradford continued to rant, a continuation of the one of which he had started the moment he had made her assign them to this case. Leaving the question to Lucy as to why he would even want to respond to this call if this was the way he was going to react. But then again this could be another Tim Test and she did not want to fail another one of his tests. But before she could even react her eye caught sight of the ladder of which was parked at the scene. The large white numbers immediately informed her that this was not going to be a horrible call. As the number '118' shone out to her Lucy felt some of the tension her TO caused to vanish. 

"Boot. I won't tell you again, keep up." Bradford had turned around to see what had caught Lucy's attention letting out a loud scoff when he noted what she had been caught on. "Great we've got the idiots." Lucy quickly moved her attention on and headed towards where her TO was stood. Before the pair of them made their way towards who seemed to be in control of the situation. 

The bold letters of 'CAPTAIN NASH' were painted on his jacket and Lucy could feel with each step she took closer to the scene that her anxiety continued to diminish. Sure this was possibly her first ever call like this but she knew she was around the only team that would probably make her feel this calm in a situation like this. Captain Robert 'Bobby' Nash turned to the newcomers to the scene his eyes lighting up at the sight of Lucy trailing behind her senior officer. For he knew the two dumbasses he had inside would be over the moon to see the rookie officer actually out at work. 

"Officer Chen, welcome." Captain Nash greeted and Lucy watched as her TO looked on at her in confusion, there was no way his boot had met the captain of the 118. And no way the captain liked his boot in such a way to gather a nice greeting. 

"Captain Nash." Lucy greeted back with as much joy.

"What have we got Captain?" Bradford took over remaining as the senior officer, choosing to ignore the strange familiarity between his rookie and the fire captain. 

"House fire." Captain Nash spoke pausing on purpose to annoy the senior officer. Just for fun. When he got a muffled 'clearly' in response Bobby was able to continue. "Multi-generational household so there was 12 inside, we've got out 9 just three more remaining. Two children and a great grandmother." But before anyone else could speak there was a loud bang of an explosion as the upstairs windows blew out. The height of the fire pouring out and towards the sky. 

"Oh shit." Lucy announced with a grimace on her face before she began to look around the scene. Trying her hardest to spot one individual in specific. 

"I've got three guys inside. Chim's on the hose trying to control some of the flames."

"Do you guys have a hint of what caused it?"

"Not sure at the moment officer. Once we've got the flames under control it's all yours." Captain Nash soon turned his attention away from the two police officers and back to his scene. Deciding it would be best to make himself useful. 

"Can we do anything?" Lucy offered getting the same tight yet kind smile from the fire captain she was used to seeing whenever she went to the fire station. 

"No thanks Lucy." Bobby replied before taking to his radio 'This is Captain Nash for the 118, point check."

"Firefighter Buckley calling in, I've got one of the kids on my way down."

"Firefighter Wilson, I've got the grandmother on the ground floor I'm gonna need some help getting her out."

But there was a pause after the two initial responses, and Lucy's eyes quickly flickered once again around the crowd of people, searching the jackets of all personnel around them. Man would she be having words with the third firefighter inside the building when they got home. 

"Firefighter Booth, I'm on the second floor I've got the little boy but he's unconscious. Sorry dropped my radio." Lucy felt the breath she was unaware she was holding slip out. She thought their radios were supposed to be taped on, perhaps there needed to be something stronger holding it together. 

It would be much later that Lucy would finally get to see the three firefighters who were inside of the blazing building. She ignored the looks her TO was giving her, taking the opportunity to approach the trio the minute she felt it was appropriate to do so. Or at least the moment when the last to have left the building, none other than Firefighter Booth had successfully handed over the small child she had rescued. 

"I thought your radios were supposed to be secured?" Lucy announced herself waiting as the small group of firefighters turned to look at her. The firefighter whose hairstyle matched her own was the first to notice the newcomer. 

"Oh my gosh Lucy!" Her excited voice was quick as she moved to embrace the police officer. "Look at you in your sexy uniform!" The woman spoke lifting the officer up and giving her a little spin. "That's my girl." The firefighter placed her back onto the ground shortly after with the brightest smile upon her face. The two woman quickly slipping into an easy conversation. 

A cough would break the pair apart and Lucy looked up with a shy smile as she took in the unimpressed look of her TO. The man looked over all the firefighters which remained standing as if they were challenging the senior officer to attempt to say something unkind. 

"Officer Bradford this is my roommate and best friend Sophia Booth, Soph this is my TO Tim Bradford." Lucy introduced the two and Sophia went to give her roommate a small little slap on her clothed arm. 

"Lucy you didn't tell me he was so attractive." Sophia whispered more than aware that everyone around them could hear her. Her face held no shame. 

"Soph, no." Lucy sighed as she gave her TO a look of apology she should have known that Sophia would respond in this way. Whether it was from actual attraction or just to embarrass Lucy it wouldn't have mattered considering the pair had been best friends since college this was something she was used to having occur around her. Tim could only give an awkward grimace at the words of the firefighter before him. He was used to forwardness from some of the people he helped but never from those he worked alongside. Or well not immediately. 

"No need to be so embarrassed cutie. It's a compliment." Sophia continued on, her words continuing to cause embarrassment to both police officers. 

"This is why I can't introduce you to anyone." Lucy complained.

"Come on boot, we need to get going." Tim coughed out before turning on his feet and walking back in the direction of their shop, having handed over to the detectives when Lucy had been initially catching up with the firefighters. Lucy held back for just a minute. 

"Hot damn, I'mma steal your TO Lucy." Sophia spoke before the junior officer moved away. 

"He's married Soph."

"Shit." 

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Initially upon pulling away from the scene, Lucy remained looking out the window of the shop focusing on the 'fire idiots' as Tim had called them, watching as they continued to goof around now that things had calmed down significantly. It wouldn't be until they were no longer in sight that she could feel the eyes of her training officer upon her. 

"You embarrassed me out there boot." Lucy raised an eyebrow at her TO unsure at exactly what point she had done so, knowing there had been a couple of opportunities. 

"You let me complain despite living with one of them. You're living with the enemy." Tim grumbled and Lucy just shrugged at him in response.

"Nice try, no way I'm moving out. Soph pays for nearly everything. I am not giving that up." Lucy crossed her arms waiting for a response.

"Is firefighter Booth your girlfriend?" Tim was clearly trying to not sound judgemental as he spoke and Lucy kept her face straight. This was not a new suspicion actually the two had been getting this kind of response since they had been roommates in their first year of college. After all what kind of college room mates were still living together a decade later unless they were more than just roommates...

"What if she was?"

"Um well..." Tim paused as he thought of what he was going to say next. Lucy could no longer keep her face straight at this letting out a bubble of laughter. 

"You should see your face!" She exclaimed before allowing herself to calm down. "No Firefighter Booth is not my girlfriend. Despite what many others think. She's just my best friend. A very generous best friend. But she doesn't have any need for her pay check so." Lucy shrugged. She looked back over at her TO, to only see a look of well she wasn't sure exactly what kind of face the man was pulling at her. But she knew that she had left him with more questions than answers. The silence which settled over them remained a little bit on the uncomfortable sign and Lucy could not have been more content to arrive at the usual meeting spot for lunch that the rest of her fellow rookies and their training officers met. 

She was quick to exit the shop making her way over to where the other two rookies were currently sat. She slammed herself onto the chair at the table beside them. Only to meet the confused face of Jackson West as he took in her appearance. 

"Man what did you do to Bradford now?"

"Nothing, why would I have to be the one to do something?" Lucy fired back and waited for John Nolan the third member to their rookie trio to interrupt as he usually did to prevent the two from bickering like school children as they tended to do so at these lunches. 

"Hey you two." John Nolan interrupted just like Lucy predicted he would. 

"Anyways it wasn't me, Tim just met Soph." Lucy shrugged and she watched as a look of understanding passed onto Jackson's face. Before the taller man laughed in realisation. 

"Please tell me she called him Daddy Cop?" Jackson asked, his question causing Lucy to start laughing in response. 

"Don't give her any ideas." Lucy laughed as the three of them continued to talk about their mornings, discussing some of the things they had seen. 

Tim Bradford however, remained moody as he took the seat on the table where the two female training officers were currently sat. He wished more than anything to just restart the day, where he would completely refuse to take the morning call, like he should have done and had wanted to do the moment it was called over the radio. But he had wanted to show something to his rookie, let her know just what she had signed up for the moment she had joined the ranks. In the exact same manner that his training officer had done so for him. Proved that the LAFD were a bunch of idiots and shouldn't be trusted to run a scene or really do much of everything. He had been even more excited to do so the moment he figured out which team they were meeting. 

Ladder 118 had a reputation. A reputation of which was mixed in a manner. Mixed in the way that yes they got things done, and usually they got it done in a manner which could be argued to follow all of the protocols. But they were also the most stereotypical group of idiot firefighters to exist. One of them was named Chimney. That should have been enough evidence. But he happened to get the one rookie to ever have a roommate who was a firefighter and belonged to the fire idiot group. 

"What's crawled up your ass and died?" Angela snarked as she took a singular look at Tim the moment he sat down.

"Had to deal with LAFD this morning." Tim grumbled back unimpressed still with the ongoings. 

"You keeping grudges again Bradford?" Talia commented laughing when he shot her a look of disbelief.

"It's a fair grudge, it was the 118." He shrugged looking on as a small look of understanding at least took over Talia, but the same could not be said for Angela. The Latina only smiled brighter. 

"Did you get hit on again?" Angela laughed it was well known in the small group that every time Tim had an encounter with the 118 that a certain female firefighter would have a few comments to make towards him. In the most hilarious way, or well funny to everyone but Tim. 

"She's Chen's roommate." Tim gave a pointed look to the table of rookies this time only to meet two lots of laughter. 

"Oh Tim, you're about to be the one tested."