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1 - “I’m doing my paramedic recert.”
Rush doesn’t look up from the to-scale replica of the Fire House he’s making out of Model Magic and pipe cleaners. “Good for you, man.”
The itch under Declan’s skin is back, like scratching his fingernails over an inflated balloon. His fingers still shake when he focuses on them, but whenever adrenaline courses through his veins like Chicago Herself shoved an IV into his femoral vein and pushed enough epinephrine to give an elephant the jitters they settle again, go still and confident and steady.
He misses blaseball. But he’s not ready for that yet.
2 - Declan was never the one who made a point of knowing everything about everybody. That had been Lou, with her bubblegum-blue personality and memory sharp like the point of a diamond tack. Declan just doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth to do that kind of shit. The best he can do is a calendar reminder for birthdays, and even then half the time he forgets.
At Station Seven, that person is Rush.
“You still going for that recert?” Rush asks, during their next shift.
“Yep.”
“Heard one of your old buddies is doing it too.”
“Yeah? Who?”
Rush smirks. “Triumphant.”
Figures.
3 - The last time Declan saw Baby Triumphant, she had been a person possessed, smoke billowing black-sooty out of xir mouth like the dragons they had slain in ver California-dappled youth, marigolds and gardenias blooming blood-spotted along wings made of sanguine sinew and wretched feathers of glass, two extra arms clutching fire axes forged in the bowels of Hell, rescuing Declan from a problem of his own making.
“Never make me do that again,” Baby had growled in Chicago’s voices, blazing eyes focused straight ahead.
Declan had responded by passing out.
And then they didn’t talk for, like, a decade. So.
4 - Back when they were all young and stupid, Baby’d been more jaded than the rest of them, a thundercloud crown heavy on zir brow. Rivers was angry, Joshua already tired, but Baby had been the bitter one. Unlike Declan, who’d always worn his heart on his sleeve, Baby held it in her mouth, tightly, unforgivingly.
“You’re like the rest of us,” Declan’d said.
“I’m nobody’s puppet,” Baby’d snapped.
And yet it had been Baby, wearing Chicago’s crown, shrugging on Her skin like a second bunker coat. And yet it had been Baby, pulling Declan out of trouble, with four hands.
5 - Not that Declan knows shit-all besides the city of concrete that breathes like living things do, but he can imagine California’s coast, gold-brown in the late summer, and Baby Triumphant, burning rubber up Interstate 1, sword in hand.
Not that Declan had seen Baby hold a sword much. Ze’d stopped giving him lessons after the first time Declan swallowed a peanut and went into anaphylaxis so bad it made Lou cry. But an axe in Declan’s hand looked like a sword in Baby’s: a tool all the same, but a weapon meant to wound instead of one that saved lives.
6 - Which is why he double-checks.
“You’re sure they’re doing the recert too?” he asks Rush, who has moved on from scale replicas made of Model Magic to massive, elaborate Faberge eggs with stained glass mosaics like the ones in Station Fourteen, blue and red and orange and yellow, the same colors Declan sees in his dreams. “Like, that’s not a joke or some shit?”
“Nope,” Rush says, cutting a shape from fragile glass. “Poole did it already, something about having a lot of time to study while they were elsewhere, and I guess Triumphant wanted in too.”
“Huh,” Declan says.
7 - One AM and Declan is sitting on the roof of Station Seven, watching the bright lights of his city. Chicago hasn’t spoken to him in years, not since he retired from active play, but sitting here he can imagine Her voice in his head, confident and a little dry, and a tight little knot in his chest aches with the emptiness.
His phone rings. Baby’s Caller ID.
Declan hits accept. Waits.
“Heard you were gonna recert,” Baby says. “Why?”
Straight to the point, as always. “Because I’m good at it,” Declan says. “If I can’t do anything else—might as well.”
8 - On the other side of the line Baby is utterly silent.
“And you?” Declan says, looking up. He can’t see the stars—it’s too cloudy—although once, a long time ago, Baby taught him the stories they told. “Why are you doing it?”
A ragged inhale. “Because I never feel like I’m doing enough.”
Which: Fair enough. Declan, of all people, understands that.
“You’re the full-time Firefighter,” Declan points out. “You’re not, like, lying down on the job.”
Baby makes a frustratingly vague noise. “Something’s happening. Changing. I can feel it. And when She speaks to me, what She says is terrifying.”
9 - Baby Triumphant, terrified.
It is, at the very least, a reminder that no matter what blaseball has done to her, Baby Triumphant is still thoroughly, unequivocally human, and if even Baby Triumphant can hold on to xir humanity then there has to be hope for the rest of them all.
Maybe Declan should be afraid too. But it’s grounding, in a way. Declan doesn’t talk to Chicago anymore but if She’s talking to Baby…
“We could study together,” Declan says. “For the recert.”
Another shockingly long silence. The clouds roll inland, slowly.
“Sure,” Baby says, faintly amused. “That’d be cool.”
10 - Baby is a busy person, and Declan has his own responsibilities, so they quiz each other over the phone, sniping back and forth.
“Normal respiratory rate for an adult.”
“12 to 30. And a newborn?”
“30 to 60. What exactly does She tell you?”
“Nothing good,” Baby murmurs.
Declan thinks about the last time he’d seen Baby Triumphant grim and embattled, with their bloody wings and knuckles gone white from holding her axes. This time, Declan thinks: this time, I’ll fight alongside, instead of dragging xem down.
“We’ll be ready.”
“Yeah?”
Declan splays his fingers. Feels them ache, wanting. “Yeah.”
11 - Every single Firefighter meets for the Election in the Fire House, drawn there like moths to a light.
The ground under Declan’s feet heaves with the Election results, with die cast by gods who are not his: with a fire alarm that rings out in the silence, that old, familiar crescendo carrying a voice Declan hasn’t heard since Baby saved his life.
ALL FIREFIGHTERS ON DECK, Chicago Calls, and Declan feels the tension under his skin release like a tsunami cresting, a heady thrill that settles at the base of his spine and steadies the faint tremble in his hands.
12 - “Good to hear you again, Chicago,” Declan whispers: grins when he hears Her talk back, a brilliant clarion echoing in his lungs. His eyes go blurry with tears from the relief—from the breathing in again. “I missed you so bad.”
WE MISSED YOU TOO, DECLAN SUZANNE, says Chicago in Her hundreds-thousands voice. ARE YOU READY?
Declan looks across the room where Baby is already coordinating with Dispatch and thinks: I missed you as well, Baby Triumphant. “For you? Always.”
Baby doesn’t look up. But xir mouth tilts up into something like a smile, which, Declan thinks, is enough for him.