Standard "they don't belong to me they just come out to play now and then" disclaimers apply. "Emergency!" and its characters © Mark VII Productions, Inc. and Universal Studios. All rights reserved. No infringement of any copyrights or trademarks is intended or should be inferred. The settings and characters are fictitious, even when a real name may be used. Any similarity to actual persons, living or deceased, or to actual events is purely coincidental and is not intended to suggest that the events described actually occurred.

Holding Patterns

© 2000

by inkling

He promised he would love her

till the blackbirds stopped their singing

the mission bell stopped ringing

and they closed the coal pit down.

~~John Tams

"Chet, will you just shut up!"

Shocked silence followed Mike's outburst, and his face flamed under the unblinking stares of the other five men around the table. Avoiding anyone's gaze, Mike threw his fork down. He shoved his chair back and was up and away from the table before the utensil finished clattering. The stifling silence followed him out into the vehicle bay, only to be broken by Chet's voice.

"You know, I don't care if that accident freaked him out or not. Stoker's been a real pai--"

"Kelly, shu--" Stanley caught himself before he repeated Mike's words, and instead said, "Just drop it."

"But, Cap--"

"Kelly!" The locker room door closed behind Mike, cutting off Cap's stern voice, and he took a deep breath. It really wasn't fair for him to take his stress out on Chet. It wasn't Chet's fault that the third vehicle in the three-car accident they'd just returned from working was a Toyota Corolla--the same make and yellow-bordered-in-rust color as Rayna's. And it sure as heck wasn't Chet's fault that what Mike thought was red hair on the female collapsed against the driver's door was in reality only bloody blonde. Someone else's lover and soulmate had lain battered and broken and very very dead in that car--not his. Mike had felt both guilt and relief as he laid the unfamiliar head gently back against the twisted door and went to help extricate the remaining live victims.

And no one said anything if they noticed he kept his back as much as possible toward the faux-Rayna resting in her look-alike car.

Even now it wasn't as if Chet was being anything different than his usual annoying self, riding Mike and shooting off his mouth and just making a general fool of himself all over the place. No one had really appreciated Marco's blunting effect on Chet's loud mouth until he wasn't there any more. The fire and subsequent building collapse that had cemented Mike's relationship with Rayna had left Marco with a crippled leg, reducing him from firefighter to the bodiless voice coming out of the dispatch speaker on the station wall. But even with Marco's absence, Mike could usually shrug Chet off when he got annoying. He could always go read or polish the engine or subtly direct the Irishman's incessant mouth in Gage's direction.

But ignoring Chet required concentration, and concentration was one thing Mike didn't have these days. He used to, back before he had lead weights filling his gut every time there wasn't a fire to fight or a rescue to occupy his mind. All appearances to the contrary, there was a lot of down time in a firefighter's life, and these days, as much as Mike tried, he couldn't keep his thoughts from wandering toward home and what--who--wasn't there any more.

Opening his locker and staring at the contents for a long moment, Mike swung the door closed. One of the pictures taped to the inside of the door fell off as he did so, and Mike found himself scrabbling under the bolted down bench for the oblong white paper. Turning it over, he caught his breath. Johnny had snapped the picture of Mike and Rayna two months ago, at the Department Softball championships. That night Mike had made the double play from first base that knocked 26s out of the tournament in the ninth inning, leaving 51s set up for the semi-finals--where they promptly lost. Highlighted by the setting sun, Rayna's dark red hair blazed like hot coals as she stood beside him. Mike's arm draped lazily over her shoulders and Rayna's hand was just visible on the other side of his waist, her thumb hooked in his belt loop. She had tilted her head slightly towards him as she looked at the camera. Dressed in identical LA County Fire department t-shirts, with identical, slightly-reserved smiles on their faces, they looked like a matched set.

Mike stood slowly, staring at the picture, before placing it carefully on the shelf in his locker. Two months and one lifetime ago they had been a matched set, he and Rayna. Closing the locker door, Mike leaned his forehead against it, staring down at the floor and fighting the tightening in his throat. For the last year and a half they'd been a matched set, ever since that awful February day when he'd turned up on Rayna's doorstep, wounded and blindly seeking comfort in her embrace.

But the only doorstep left for him to turn up on these days led to his own house, and Rayna wasn't there anymore.

Blinking against the despair that threatened to overwhelm him, Mike turned and headed for the vehicle bay. The engine still had some mud on it from the run out to the zucchini farm this morning. It would give him something to concentrate on besides the fact that he'd been eating and sleeping alone for the last few nights and, from the looks of things, his and Rayna's "matched set" might be broken up for good.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And will you never return to see

your bruised and beaten sons?

Oh I would, I would if welcome I were

but they loathe me, every one.

~~Traditional English Folk song

"Mike? You about ready, pal?"

Mike turned from where he was buttoning up his flannel shirt. Their shift over even as Mike had been transported to the hospital, Captain Stanley had taken the time to replace his uniform with a red knit shirt and a pair of jeans before bringing Mike's things to Rampart. Now he stood half in and half out of the treatment room doorway, holding the door open with his body. Seeing Mike was pretty well dressed, he came on into the room. Mike reached for his wallet lying on the counter, and groaned when that simple action caused the ache in his sore ribs and shoulders to flare up.

"Mike?" came Cap's concerned query, and Mike bit his lip and shook his head. Tucking his shirt in, he offered a wan smile, knowing the dark bruises surrounding the butterfly bandages on the right side of his face didn't help matters any.

"Just bruises, no stitches, nothing broken--except maybe my pride. Not even a concussion. Doc says I'm okay, just take it easy for the next couple of days."

"And no more body bowling," Cap admonished, chuckling. "Though I have to admit, the sight of you trying to keep your balance sliding through all those suds was pretty funny--right up to where you went down and took all those baskets with you." He shuddered.

Mike chuckled and then hissed ruefully and put a hand on his sore ribs. He kept the hand there as he bent over to pick up his tennis shoes from the floor.

"Just reminds me of all the reasons why I bought a place with a laundry room," he said. Glancing around, he appropriated the same rolling stool that Doctor Morton had used while bandaging up his face. He sat and shoved his feet into his shoes. It only took a moment to do up the laces on one. He reached for the other, glancing up at Cap when he didn't hear a response from his superior. Hands braced on his hips, Cap was staring at him chewing on one lip thoughtfully, but when he caught Mike's gaze, he smiled.

"Yeah, I never did see the appeal of doing laundry in a Laundromat. Then again, unlike Gage, I never did have much luck picking up dates over dirty underwear."

Mike grinned. Yeah, Johnny had a knack of picking up girls in the strangest places. Keeping them was another matter entirely. Mike had never had as many dates as the dark-haired paramedic, but he'd managed to hold on to them far longer--until it came to the one he wanted to hold on to forever. Refusing to follow that train of thought any further, Mike stood.

"How's the victim?"

Cap snorted. "Hyperventilation Syndrome. Gave her a paper bag to breathe into, rinsed the suds away with the reel line and she was fine. Didn't even have to transport her. If they hadn't had to ride in with you Johnny and Roy could have been back at the station before we were."

Mike kicked at the pile of wet, shredded shirts on the floor by his feet. "Well, I think I'm gonna make those two pay me for the new uniform. They didn't have to cut mine off," he grumbled.

"Sure they did, pal, sure they did," Cap said, grinning as Mike scowled. "They're equal opportunity paramedics. They treated you just like they would any other victim with potentially fractured ribs."

Mike ducked his head to hide his deepening scowl. He wasn't any other victim; he was a crewmate. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion the two had done it on purpose, in return for his sullen mood over the last two shifts. Squatting, he pulled his badge and name tag off the remains of his shirt. It was an easy decision to leave the sodden scraps for the hospital orderly to clean up. He pocketed the items as he stood and followed Cap out into the hall.

"Mike, why don't--"

"Mike, just a minute!" Mike and Cap turned around, avoiding traffic in the crowded hall. Dixie hurried up, holding a clip-board out to Mike. "Now, you know you can't get out of here that easily, don't you, Mr. Stoker?" she teased as Mike groaned. Taking the clipboard, he quickly scrawled his name in all the places she indicated, then shoved the clipboard back at her. "Ah ah ah!" she said, as he half-turned to leave. Arms at his side, trying not to tap one foot impatiently on the floor, Mike waited as she tore carbons and copies apart, then handed him three separate sheets of paper. "Now you're free to go. And," she paused, smiling brightly, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope we don't see you anytime soon."

Cap laughed and clapped Mike on the back. Mike hoped his smile covered the wince he couldn't help at the contact with his sore shoulder. Following Stanley down the hall, he snuck a look over his shoulder and, seeing Dixie's attention captured by another nurse, he quietly dropped the papers she had given him in nearby garbage can. Turning, he nearly ran into Cap.

"How d'you expect to make Captain, Michael, when you have such a disrespectful attitude towards paperwork?" Stanley shook his head as he reached in the garbage and separated out the forms Mike had discarded, holding them up and letting someone's leftover coffee drip off them while he stared at Mike. "Unless you want to pay for this little visit out of your own pocket?" It was Mike's turn to shake his head, and Stanley grinned. "I thought not. I need these forms to turn in with my incident report. Though what Chief McConnike will say about the incident itself..." Cap shook the last few drops of coffee off the papers, then carefully folded them and stuck them into his back pocket. Catching Mike's elbow, he waved towards the interior of the hospital.

"How about I buy you breakfast?" Letting go of his arm, Cap watched while Mike hesitated. "That is, unless you have a reason to hurry home?"

Mike flinched, and refused to meet Cap's gaze. No, he didn't have any reason to hurry home. Not any more. Recognizing the request as more than half command, he realized he'd been expecting this anyway.

"Sure," he said, and followed the other man down the hall.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Hangman, oh hangman, hold your rope awhile.

I think I see my lover, over yonder stile.

Lover did you bring me gold, and have you brought any fee

For to save my body from the cold clay ground

And my neck from the gallows tree?

~~Traditional English Folk Song

The rattle and clatter of the cafeteria swelled and filled the silence that rested between the two men. Mike twiddled his fork in the inedible, gluey mass masquerading as hash browns on his plate. He'd managed to down at least half of the bacon and eggs breakfast before his own masquerade got to be more than he could pull off. He dropped the fork and pushed the tray to one side, reaching out to pick up his coffee cup as Stanley happily polished off his second stack of pancakes. Mike sipped the dregs of his coffee and tried to ignore the unwelcome pattering of all the lives going on normally around him.

Finally, Cap sighed heavily and pushed his plate aside. Leaning back in his chair, he sipped his coffee and distastefully eyed the twisted, fatty bacon congealing into the yellow yolk on Mike's plate.

"You know, in places like this I find it's usually safer to go with the pancakes. There's just not a lot you can do to mess up pancakes." Still eyeing Mike's plate, he shivered and took a sip of his coffee. Mike smiled faintly and played with his own, empty coffee cup. He knew where Cap was going next; he just didn't know if he'd be able to come up with any satisfactory answers.

"So, you got everything you need to prepare for the Captain's exam?"

Stanley's cup hit the table as he watched Mike. The noise of the cafeteria lapped around their table while Cap waited, and Mike wished his need to gather his thoughts and hop on over to this tangent wasn't so obvious.

After a second, he nodded.

"Yeah. Picked it all up at Dispatch before we..." His voice faded and he swallowed hard. "Before we left."

Cap nodded, twirling his cup around before him. Mike sighed and shoved his own coffee cup aside. He'd given Cap the opening he needed; inadvertently, perhaps, but he'd provided it.

"So, how did that go? That was a big trip you two had scheduled, meeting the families and all."

Mike hesitated, but he knew from experience that Cap's patience was immense. The small table between them was littered with anonymous scratches and scars, scattered like strange grey runes across the white Formica, and Mike rubbed absently at one with a thumb. Too bad he couldn't read the darn things; maybe he'd find some answers for his current dilemma. He supposed he should be grateful that Cap was dealing with things this way, a friendly breakfast in neutral territory, instead of a dressing down in his office. Mike knew he'd been hard to get along with lately; he'd been sullen and surly and all the other negative adjectives that no one ever used to describe him before...before.

"It was okay." Fine. If Cap wanted more information, let him dig for it.

"Rayna's dad didn't have a shotgun waiting for you when you got there?" Cap asked, his eyes crinkling just a bit to take the sting out of the comment. He knew as well as Mike that it wasn't his idea that he and Rayna weren't married, a year after she had moved in with him.

"Rayna's dad is dead. He died when she was four," Mike said, and hated himself for the fleeting feeling of satisfaction provided by the look of consternation on Cap's face.

"Oh," Cap said, and Mike straightened in his chair. His conscience needling him, he volunteered a little more information.

"Her mom owns an antique store; her step-dad works at Boeing." Cap nodded encouragingly, and Mike shrugged. "We got along fine."

"And...what's her name, Trini?" Cap probed some more. Mike responded reluctantly.

"Yeah." He knew Cap was waiting, so he smiled slightly, and said, "Rayna on speed."

Cap's eyebrows drew together and he frowned. Mike hurried to clarify.

"She's very...eighteen."

Cap's expression cleared and he nodded sagely, his eyes twinkling.

"Yeah. I hear that. Makes you wonder where it all goes, and if there wasn't some way you could make them slow down and save some of it for when they're old and grey, like me."

Mike smiled in reply. Rayna's daughter hadn't inherited the statuesque build Rayna and her own mother shared, but she had received the family's fiery looks--along with the fiery temperament typically associated with them. Just back from a year-long student exchange in Europe, Trini was definitely more vivacious and outgoing than her mother. She had embarrassed Mike thoroughly as she oohed and aahed over "Mom's fireman" and begged him endlessly to introduce her to some of his firemen friends. In spite of Mike's constant discombobulation around Trini, the time he and Rayna had spent in Seattle had flown by, full of laughter and fun.

Looking up, Mike caught Cap's gaze on him and flushed, feeling suddenly vulnerable as the flow of memories brought the emotions he'd fought all week dangerously close to the surface. To cover his confusion, he tried to distract his superior officer.

"Trini kept begging us to find her a fireman."

Cap laughed out loud at that.

"Some things never change," he said, then nodded to Doctors Brackett and Early as they passed by on their way out of the room. By the time his attention returned to Mike, Mike hoped his feelings were safely tucked away, out of sight. The silence stretched between them, grew, and threatened to overwhelm the fragile cease-fire Mike had obtained with his emotions.

"So," Cap finally said, pushing his coffee cup away. "You got along fine with her family."

His throat dry, Mike nodded and stared off into the distance, through the huge windows that let in the light and a great view of the other wing of the hospital. Above the asphalt and concrete and glass, a teeny slice of sky was visible. But there weren't any answers written there for him either. Maybe the space just wasn't big enough to cover everything he'd screwed up at this point. Besides, Rayna was the one who saw things in that light, and she wasn't around to ask these days.

"Yeah, they're great," he finally said. They were great, if more than slightly batty and a bit bossy and definitely coming from somewhere more than a few degrees off center--and he might never see them again. He pushed that thought away, looking up to find Cap's eyes on him, sympathy making them even darker than normal.

"So, how'd it go with your family then?"

Ouch. The question hung there, between them, and Mike sighed. He stared down at his hand, deeply scored by a wire from a particularly vicious laundry basket, then let his eyes wander along a crack in the side of the flaming orange chair he sat on. Someone somewhere dropped a pan; the sharp clang of metal on the floor temporarily stilling the swirling conversations about them. Mike waited until things picked up again before he answered.

"Things were fine," he said, swallowing and clearing his throat to get his voice down into its normal register. Cap frowned, and Mike shrugged briefly, wincing as the movement reminded him of his sore muscles. Still staring at his hand, he went on. Might as well get it over with. "Mom got along fine with Rayna. Leonard...well, he doesn't approve of us not being married. But Mom, at least, was glad I'm settling down."

Cap's lips twisted in a wry grin, and Mike decided to keep to himself the private conversation he'd had with his mom before he began the long, lonely drive home. She'd told him that his dad, his real dad, who'd died when Mike was eleven, would have liked Rayna. It hadn't helped what had happened, but it meant a lot to Mike. Cap waited an infinite moment longer, then asked softly, "So what happened?"

Mike hunched his shoulders, reaching out to play with the salt shaker before answering. He hadn't talked to anyone except his mom about any of this since he'd dropped a silent and hostile Rayna off at the train station in Eugene last week. Maybe it was time. And at least Cap would be sympathetic, even if he didn't understand.

"Well, first my step-dad's mom threw a fit when she arrived and found out Rayna and I were sharing a bedroom."

"Wha--" Cap started to ask, but Mike cut him off. He couldn't stop now, he had to get it out. Then maybe, just maybe, he could try to pull some sense out of the ashes his life had become.

"We're 'living in sin'," he said, and told himself he couldn't help the sarcastic tone to his voice. "She couldn't believe they were encouraging us by letting us sleep together under their roof. Made such a fuss that Leonard insisted we not share a bedroom while she was there."

"What business was it of hers? Or his, for that matter?" Cap demanded. "You're both adults, for crying out loud. You're capable of making your own decisions as to how you want to live your life."

Mike snorted.

"You're talking like you live in Los Angeles, Cap. Home of the all the fruits and flakes and nuts in America; where everything sinful and impure and unrighteous in America gets its start. My family, you're talking small-town, apple-pie, old-fashioned, self-righteous America. Besides, you know how it is with family, Cap. You never grow up, you're always just a snot-nosed kid." Or, in Mike's case, a rebellious teen-ager who didn't appreciate all that he'd been given.

Cap shook his head, a look of disbelief on his face, and Mike sighed. He hadn't even gotten to the really good stuff yet. They both watched the salt shaker he set spinning until it slowed and stopped without falling off its base. Darn thing was better than the Weebles he'd sent to his youngest niece and nephew last Christmas.

"A couple of days later my sister Laura and her family came into town. I haven't seen them in years. Frank, my brother-in-law...he's...well...he's pretty...religious." Mike paused, remembering. Frank hadn't been there for more than a few hours before he'd started in on Mike and Rayna. First it was why didn't they "legitimize" their relationship. It had made Mike's skin crawl to hear some of the same arguments he'd used coming out this man's mouth. But the second day they were there, Frank and Laura hit upon a new subject, one that had Mike wishing they'd go back to just needling him about his "illicit" relationship. The new subject? Rayna's own spiritual beliefs.

Not wishing to offend or start a fight, Rayna had been as vague as she could be about her own beliefs, and so had Mike. But Frank had somehow ferreted out that the bookstore she managed dealt with "alternative spirituality" and after that it was open season on Rayna. Mike had run interference as much as he could, and his mom had done her best to smooth things over and make the visit pleasant. But Frank's refusal to drop the subject began to turn the house into a war zone, Rayna and Mike on one side, his sister and her husband and his step-father on the other, with Mike's mom stuck in between them all. Mike's youngest brother and sister, nineteen-year-old Brandon and seventeen-year-old Rachel, had hovered wide-eyed on the edges of the conflict, trying to stay out of everyone's way.

And, after a day or two, Rayna's annoyance with Frank and Laura's constant snide commentary about things she held dear had begun to spill over towards Mike.

The second night after Laura's arrival, Mike had gone with Leonard to pick up pizza for everyone. They'd come home to find the house in an uproar and Frank and Rayna nearly at each other's throats. Things had deteriorated rapidly from there.

Mike closed his eyes. There really wasn't any way to explain it all to Cap, there just wasn't. Finally, he said lamely, "Frank and Rayna got into an argument." And what an argument. Mike rubbed at another scratch on the table as he tried to explain how his world had begun to disintegrate. "Frank...he said she was a witch and claimed she was 'destroying' me with her 'dark arts.' Then he called her 'Jezebel' and a slut." Mouth open, Cap stared at Mike in shock. But Mike wasn't done yet. "So Rayna got right back in his face and told him he was a narrow-minded, fundamentalist, bigoted, misogynistic pig."

Which, she'd later told Mike, he should have told Frank long before and saved her the trouble.

Cap closed his mouth and swallowed, still staring at Mike. Mike smiled ruefully and tipped the salt shaker over. He stared at the salt slowly pooling on the table, and waited as the other man groped for something to say. Finally, Cap found his voice.

"My god."

"No, Frank and Leonard's god," Mike said bitterly, and shrugged away the other man's questioning glance.

Cap sighed heavily. Around them the noise of daily life and daily tragedies ebbed and flowed. But Mike sat in the middle of his own tragedy, one of comedic proportions, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. There didn't seem to be a damn thing he could do to make things turn out any differently than they had--or stop them from following through to what he increasingly feared was their logical conclusion.

"What'd you do?" Cap asked, and instead of answering right away, Mike picked up the salt shaker and set it upright. He hunched his shoulders and stared at the small pile of salt on the table.

"Frank and Laura threatened to take the kids away and never bring them back if Leonard let Rayna stay in the house another night. Their kids are the only grandkids Mom and Leonard have. So Leonard asked us to leave."

"Why in the world did they react that way to her?" Cap asked, incredulously. "I'll admit, Rayna's unique, but that...that's unreal."

Unreal. Yeah, the entire incident had been unreal, all right. Mike still could hardly believe his nice, quiet, slightly stuffy family had erupted into such a frothing pack of religious zealots, with Rayna as the heretic du jour. Cast as the bewildered knight in not-so-shining armor, Mike hadn't been much use at all in the joust between his love and his family. He smiled grimly at Cap.

"My niece, Danielle, she's four. She was sleeping on the floor in Rayna's room, got into Rayna's suitcase and found her tarot cards. Frank found her playing with them, and went ballistic. Had his kids so scared they ran and hid when Rayna walked into the room."

"Rayna tells fortunes?" Cap asked incredulously, and Mike sighed. This, too, had been part of the conversation with his mother in the short hours before he'd left Leonard's house--for possibly the last time in his life. Mike didn't think he'd ever forget the sadness in her eyes as she apologized for her husband, explaining that as a widow with two children, in a small town and with no real job skills, she really hadn't had a lot of choices all those years ago. And now she had two more children, nearly grown, but who still needed both her and Leonard. Pushing away the memory of his mother's aging face, Mike ran a finger through the small pile of salt.

"No, she teaches classes at the store and the community college. Self-Actualization through Tarot. Incorporates Jungian psychology and meditation and stuff into it. It's not the same as a fortune teller, though it has some of the same elements. Rayna has a Bachelors in Psychology," Mike added, hating how defensive he sounded for Rayna's sake, and hating himself because he knew it was more, much more than just pop psychology to Rayna. But it was the easiest way he'd come up with to explain her eclectic spiritual beliefs and practices, even to himself.

Cap's eyebrows were up somewhere near his hairline, but he didn't say anything. He just waited and watched as Mike swept the salt he'd spilled into his hand and dumped it into the remains of his breakfast.

"While we were in Seattle, Barbara, Rayna's mom, had given her a couple of antique Tarot decks she'd picked up, and Rayna had them in her suitcase." Not quite the end of the story, but it might be the end of the best relationship Mike had ever had.

"So what happened after that?" Cap asked.

Mike sighed and swallowed, hard. "That night at the hotel she...she accused me of taking up with her just to spite my family." There. It was out. And he still didn't know if it made him mad or just hurt that she would accuse him of such a thing, that she would even think that's why he wanted to be with her. "And then she insisted I take her to the train station the next morning. She caught the Express up to Seattle, and I haven't seen or heard from her since. It's been almost a week."

Silence reigned at the table, while Mike contemplated turning the pepper shaker on its side. It wasn't like he and Rayna hadn't ever fought before this. Like any couple, they had their disagreements, some more vocal than others. But this had gone beyond anything he'd ever seen. He hadn't known how to defend himself against Rayna's accusations anymore than he'd been able to shut Frank up that night. About all he'd been able to do with his brother-in-law was physically wrestle Rayna's cards from the man when he'd tried to throw them into the fireplace. Somehow he didn't think physically preventing Rayna from boarding the train would have gone over well. So instead, Mike drove away from the train station in Eugene, angry and frustrated--and alone.

"You must have been pretty upset." Cap said, softly, and Mike nodded. He took a deep breath, then dumped the last of the sad tale out for his Captain.

"I...I tried to tell her there was a reason my family's in Oregon and I'm in California, but...she wouldn't listen. She said they're still my family, and not only did she not have the right to come between us, she refused to be used as a tool in my 'passive-aggressive plans for revenge'." His throat was dry, and he picked his coffee cup up and stared blankly at the empty interior for a minute before he set it down and stared off into the distance again. "She thinks I'm mad at my mom for marrying Leonard and she's my way of getting back at both of them."

Cap's gaze was on him again, more sympathy that Mike wasn't sure he wanted.

"Mike, I'm sure once she's had some time to think..." he started, and Mike looked away, shaking his head.

"I...I've been pushing her about getting married. Kept asking her if it was just a piece of paper, why's she so scared of it? The fire department won't acknowledge her as my legal next of kin unless we're married, and I can't put her on our insurance if she quits her job. She'll have to quit, if she goes back to school, like we've been talking about if I make Captain."

And he wanted to keep Rayna by his side, forever. She always said she'd stay, but Mike couldn't completely rid himself of the fear she wouldn't decide she valued her freedom more than her life with him. But he couldn't tell Cap that. Mike leaned forward and picked up the pepper shaker, passing it back and forth between his hands. He'd come this far, might as well finish it.

"First Rayna thought getting married meant I was trying to control her life. I managed to convince her that wasn't what it was about, at all. And now she thinks I was just trying to get back at my stuffy WASP family by taking up with a weird witch woman from LA. And all I really want--" Mike's hands lost control of the pepper shaker and it clattered across the table, leaving a trail of tiny black dots across the white Formica with its inscrutable runes. Cap caught the clear glass container before it fell to the floor, and set it carefully upright as Mike clenched his fists, shivering, blinking away the misery threatening to spill from his eyes. "I just want to know when...if she's ever going to come home."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

No, I will never cut the cloth

Nor drink the light to be.

But I will swear a year to the one who lies

Asleep alongside of me.

~~Traditional English Folk song

Two days later, the bruises on Mike's face and torso had begun their slow fade from spectacular to merely incredible. The ache in his muscles had faded to where a constant dose of aspirin took care of it. There wasn't anything he could do about the ache in his heart. So Mike showed up for work, grimly determined to keep his personal problems out of the way--and out of the station's gossip grinder. He tried for polite with the other guys and came off morose instead. Cap must have said something to the rest of the crew, though, because they seemed to accept that as what he could give. Everyone cut him a wider berth than normal, and even Chet forbore to needle him about anything. As long as it wasn't pity they were handing out, Mike was okay. Pity he'd had before, and he didn't like it now any better than he had then.

The biggest reaction he got from the guys was their shocked looks when Cap assigned him the latrine and the dorms for cleaning, but Mike was grateful for the solitary chores. He'd rather sulk by himself, thank you very much. And maybe, just maybe, he could manage to forget about the silence from Seattle for a minute or two at a time. In a half-desperate plea for her return, he'd lit Rayna's candles when he got home last week, relighting them every time he came home. This morning he couldn't bring himself to blow them out like he always did before he left the house for the day, like he always insisted she did, over her protests. Somehow, blowing them out felt like putting too much distance between himself and Rayna, distance he didn't want or need right now.

The shift kept them busy, accidents and small fires and heart attacks, all the staples of a firefighter's day. Mike welcomed the work, threw himself into it, and tried not to think about tomorrow, about going home again to his empty house. Rayna'd have to come back sometime, to get her things and claim Bardolph, at least. Mike couldn't imagine her abandoning the big dog. He spent the time cleaning the latrine and the dorm the same way he'd found himself spending his time at home: composing and over-composing apologies to Rayna. For his family, for himself, for life in general. He'd picked up the phone to call her at least a dozen times over the last two days, but in the end he always stopped, afraid that what he was going to hear was a request to pack her stuff up for her. Last night he'd almost called Marjorie, her assistant manager at the store, to see if she knew when Rayna planned to return, but he wasn't quite desperate enough to humiliate himself that far--yet.

The station was toned out on a three-alarm fire in a tire retread plant at three a.m., making it a long, hot night for the crew. They pulled into the station half an hour before shift change, and wearily slid down from both vehicles. Todd Murphy, B-shift's captain, came out of the day room, followed by half his crew. Giving the soot blackened and weary firefighters a nod, he said, "You guys go ahead, we'll clean this mess up for you."

There was a chorus of grateful thanks from the other members of A-shift, and Mike plodded after them into the locker room. He had his turnout coat off before the white paper taped to his locker registered. Still holding his coat in both hands, he stared at the square blankly for a moment, then blinked and tilted his head to one side as he tried to make out the scribbled words.

"Hey, Mikey, that's English. We read it right side up and from left to right," Chet said from beside him. Mike didn't spare him a glance, just stared at the words again, trying to ignore the knot drawing his gut tight. He put one hand out, and fingered the note, wondering about the one important piece of information it left out.

"Mike?" Roy's voice came from beside him, and Mike glanced over to find Chet and Roy staring at him, frowning in concern. In the background Johnny hovered. Cutler, whom they all still thought of as Marco's replacement, stood by his locker against the far wall and just watched.

He didn't say anything to them, just dropped his turnout coat on the bench before he pulled the note off his locker and, boots clumping, went in search of the information he needed. The locker room door closing didn't quite cut off Chet's confused comment.

"It just said 'Your woman called, wants you to call her back.'"

Your woman. Mike hated that, hated the way the guys on the other shifts made his relationship sound so sordid, the way they pretended they didn't know what to call Rayna, who was more than a girlfriend, but less than a wife. "Lover" fit the bill, but that seemed to make everyone, Mike included, nervous. His crewmates on A-shift called her by her name, Rayna. He didn't know why the other guys couldn't do that. Someone pushed the locker room door open, and Mike heard feet behind him, but he didn't stop, just headed across the vehicle bay. Hernandez already had the engine out back, hosing it down. Manetti was inventorying the squad's supplies. Mike waved the note at him. The paramedic looked cross-eyed at it before shaking his head.

"Hamilton took the message, Mike; if you've got any questions, talk to him."

Mike kept his sigh to himself. Great, just great. If he could have handpicked the one person on any of the other shifts he did not want to deal with concerning Rayna, it would have been Ron Hamilton. The man was a Godzilla-sized version of Chet, with none of Chet's redeeming qualities--whatever those might be. Dropping his hand to his side, Mike nodded his thanks to Manetti and headed for the day room, where Hamilton's coarse laughter echoed. Captains Stanley and Murphy stood discussing the tire factory fire just inside their office door. As Mike rounded the squad, his shadow caught up with him, solidifying into Roy, Chet at his heels. Mike ignored them, stopping on the other side of the squad as Hamilton came out of the day room. The large firefighter was looking backward over his shoulder, still laughing as he continued his conversation with someone.

"What else was I supposed to put? Hey, Stoker, that slut you're shacked up with called?"

There was dead silence in the bay for the two seconds it took for Hamilton to turn and meet Mike's fist head on. Scott Medford caught him as the man was slammed around and down by the impact, and his crewmates grabbed Mike before he could do any more damage to Hamilton's face and his own career.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Oh, the prickly bush

it pricks my heart full-sore

And if ever I'm out of the prickly bush

I'll never get in it anymore.

~~Traditional English Folk Song

Half an hour later, Mike sat in Captain Stanley's office, one hand resting on the phone. In the fuss and bustle following his decking Hamilton, he never had found out what he'd set out to ask in the first place: whether or not Rayna had said anything about where she was calling from. Hamilton was little damaged beyond a fat lip and a bruised ego; Mike's knuckles were just a bit swollen. The fallout job-wise was a bit more severe. In addition to now being on mandatory Administrative Leave while there was an investigation into his "attack" on his fellow firefighter, Mike was facing suspension, mandatory detail to another station, and he just might have permanently damaged his chances to make Captain.

Nothing like losing the second most important thing in his life, when he'd already lost the first.

Oh, he knew Hank Stanley would do his best; would fight tooth and nail not only to keep Mike at 51s, on the A-shift, but for the promotion as well. All that despite the blistering lecture he'd just delivered. But there wasn't much a Captain could do for even his best man when that man sabotaged his own career.

Except give him the Captain's office, alone, to make what might the most difficult phone call of his life.

With a sigh, Mike picked up the hand set, listened to the dialtone for a moment while he stared at the piece of paper beside the phone. Your woman called... Well, if she was his woman, she'd be at his house, right? He had to start somewhere. Mike closed his eyes and dialed his home phone number--quickly, as if that would make it any easier if Rayna had called from somewhere else.

By the fourth ring he was sure he was gonna throw up. Of course, it would help if he could breathe.

"Hello?"

It took Mike a second to find the air he needed to speak.

"Rayna?" he croaked and was rewarded with a repeat of her voice in his ear. For a moment he just listened, closed his eyes and leaned back and let the sound he'd craved for the last week roll in and around inside his ear, soaking it in before he realized he'd need to pay attention to what she was actually saying.

"...but then I realized that even if I didn't have spelt flour I could make orange rolls, and so I don't need you to go by the store after all." She laughed, a breathless gust of nervous static over the phone, and Mike frowned. Orange rolls? Spelt flour? It wasn't like Rayna to babble like this, nor would she call him at work for something so unimportant.

"When'd you get back?" he heard himself ask, and there was a small silence on the phone before she sighed.

"Last night, about one. But don't worry," she said, even as he drew breath to voice his concern. "Marjorie and Art picked me up at the train station. I wasn't out by myself."

Mike nodded, then said, "Okay." There was silence on the line, silence filled with the thousand words Mike had rehearsed and discarded and rehearsed again over the last week, on the long drive back to LA from Oregon, over the lonely hours in the house aching for her presence, as he was scrubbing the latrines and floors around the station. But somehow he couldn't get any of them to come out over the line. As usual, Rayna found her voice first.

"I would have called, but it was late..." There was another silence and the knot drew his gut tight again. Rayna took a deep breath, and then blurted, "Mike, I know over the phone isn't the best way to do this, but..."

Oh no, here it came. He braced himself, then forced his hand to relax the deathgrip he had on the arm of the Captain's desk chair. They wouldn't appreciate having to replace the arm for finger-sized gouges.

"Mike, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."

Her voice was soft and he swallowed, wishing desperately that it hadn't come to this, that he hadn't ever taken her to see his family, that he hadn't pushed her so hard, that he'd been willing to accept her and the relationship as she had wanted it to be.

"Rayna," he started to say, trying to stall her, to delay the inevitable for those final few precious seconds, but she went on, talking over him.

"I should never have said those things to you. I had no right to say them and...I...I didn't mean any of it. I was angry and hurt and scared and...I took it out on you. You have every right to be mad at me. I...I don't know how you can forgive me, but...I'm sorry, honey."

Dead silence on his end this time as Mike tried to find his way back to his shifting reality.

"Wha--" he said, and swallowed, and tried again. "No. No, I'm sorry. I...I should have known they'd react that way, and I've been pushing you about the marriage thing and..." He stopped, swallowed, and the door cracked open, Stanley's apologetic face peering through. Mike nodded, then looked away, absurdly embarrassed in front of his captain. Stanley backed out again as Mike picked up Hamilton's note and crumpled it in his hand. "Rayna, look, I'll...we can talk about this when I get home. I'm off, I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay," she said, and then, softly, "I love you, and I've missed you."

"Yeah," Mike said, around the knot in his throat. "I love you, too. But I think Bardolph's missed you more than I have."

Rayna laughed, then, and Mike closed his eyes and let the sound wash over him like the rain.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Oh yes, I've brought you gold,

and yes I've brought your fee.

For I've not come to see you hung

from the gallows tree.

~~Traditional English Folk Song

Half an hour later he was parking his blue Chevy behind Rayna's Corolla. He got out of the truck and pulled his overly full gym bag after him. Mike hadn't cleaned up at the station, not wanting to hang around B-shift any longer than he absolutely had to. The locker room had been full, anyway. Everyone from A-shift had lingered after the shift change, waiting for him to be done with his phone call. Mike had appreciated the quiet show of support, even as he tried to shrug off their concern. He'd made his bed, he'd have to li