Chapter Text
Johnny sat in the waiting room, flipping through an old magazine. This had already become a familiar routine. Appointments twice a week with the psychiatrist, evaluations every month, and drugs. All kinds of drugs, and not the fun kind.
He was starting to feel like a lab experiment. It seemed like no one really knew what to do about him, everyone was making their best guess. It was enough to make Johnny want to throw all the drugs away and just go back to the way things had been before this.
But that hadn’t worked out so well for him, and so he was stuck doing this until the department thought he was fit to work. He really wanted to argue with them, to point out that he’d been doing his job just fine before.
If he were being honest, he had really only been going through the motions for a while now. The constant buzz in his brain had made it difficult to concentrate, and the intrusion of the voices had made it even worse.
That last call had been his breaking point, Johnny knew that now. Not just losing his grip on that guy, but ultimately his grip on reality.
There was one bright spot in all of this. Lisa and Jerry had become regular visitors, and thanks to them, Johnny had finally figured out that he’d somehow gotten his wires crossed. He still didn’t fully understand how he had imagined a rescue out of whole cloth, but the brain was a funny thing, Johnny supposed. Nobody really seemed to understand how it worked, and his brain seemed to be wired more oddly than most.
“John?” Doctor Martin called Johnny into her office.
He took a deep breath and entered, closing the door behind him and sitting in the chair. Maybe today would be the day he was finally cleared, and he could get back to doing what he was born to do.
Doctor Martin was going over his case file, adding her own notes. “You’ve been on the new medication for a month now. How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I think.” Johnny told her.
Doctor Martin smiled a little. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Johnny huffed irritably. “Everything’s kind of…muted. And I mean everything. I’m supposed to be able to think on the fly when I’m out in the field, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do that and keep taking the drugs.”
Doctor Martin merely nodded. “We can change the dosage. These things are a bit of an experiment, and it’s not easy to get it right.”
“Well, I’m pretty damn tired of being someone’s lab rat.”
“I know.” Doctor Martin answered. “We’ve come a long way with treatments, but we have a long way to go too. Now, why don’t we start the evaluation?”
This routine had become familiar, too, and tiresome. How could anyone tell if he was passing or failing? It all felt so ridiculous and unnecessary.
But Doctor Martin seemed almost pleased with today’s results, as far as Johnny could tell. Maybe today was the day he would finally get released for duty.
“Everything looks good, John.” She told him as she signed the release form and handed it to Johnny. “We’ll keep adjusting your medication levels as needed, and I want you to keep up with your appointments here. We can go down to once a week.”
Johnny felt as if a great weight had been lifted. Life would finally start to resemble something close to normal. “Thanks, Doc. Appreciate it.”
“You did all the work.” Doctor Martin told him. “You keep up your end, and you should be able to function normally.”
Johnny took the signed release and made an immediate beeline to the station. He took a deep breath before climbing out of the Rover and entering, heading directly to Cap’s office.
“Johnny, good to see you.” Cap greeted him with a slight smile.
Johnny handed him the release form. “I’ve been deemed fit for duty.”
Cap studied the form, nodding firmly and extending a hand. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then. Bright and early.”
“Bright and early, Cap.”
Johnny started to head out of the station when he heard someone calling out to him, and he paused to stick his head into the day room. The rest of the crew was around the table, shooting the breeze and having a cup of coffee.
“You must have missed us pretty badly to come visit.” Mike commented first.
“As a matter of fact, I’ve been released for duty.” Johnny told him. “So enjoy your last day without me.”
“Oh, we will.” Chet answered, and Marco immediately nudged him. “Just kidding. Can’t wait to see you.”
The rest of them murmured agreement, and if Johnny had felt any apprehension about returning, it was mostly gone now. Tomorrow might be a different story once Johnny started pulling out all those prescription bottles, but that was a problem for another day.
He turned to leave, feeling somewhat better about returning, when Roy caught up to him. “Hold on, Johnny.”
“Yeah, Roy?”
Roy stuck his hands in his pockets. “Are you really okay?”
Johnny nodded. “Okay enough.”
Roy looked thoughtful. “You’ll let me know if…you know, anything changes, right?”
“I will.” Johnny answered, holding up his fingers in a Scouts salute. “Scouts’ honor.”
Roy regarded him skeptically. “Were you ever a Boy Scout?”
Johnny clapped Roy on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
Roy smiled. “Can’t wait.”
# # #
Johnny, per usual, managed to get to the station just in time to change into his uniform, sliding into the day room just before roll call. Cap had given him a slightly exasperated look, but otherwise had let it pass.
They had no sooner gotten through roll call than the klaxons went off, and Johnny quickly fell into the rhythm as if no time had passed at all. It was a busy day, with a wide range of calls, and they were in and out of Rampart. Even Brackett seemed happy to see him, and Dixie had given him a quick hug in between runs.
The klaxons went off in the middle of the night, and everyone rolled out of bed to answer the call. Someone had gotten themselves stuck up on a power crossarm, and Johnny scribbled a few notes before the squad headed out to the call.
“Why the hell would someone be up there in the middle of the night?” Roy wondered.
Johnny had his own thoughts but kept them to himself.
They soon arrived at the location, and were accompanied by one of the light trucks. “Power company called it in.” The other captain told Johnny and Roy. “Guess someone thought it would be a fun stunt to pull in the middle of the night.”
“Are you okay climbing up there?” Roy asked Johnny.
“Sure.” Johnny answered casually, already putting on the belt and gathering rope. “I do this stuff for fun, remember?”
In reality, Johnny hadn’t been out climbing since that last trip, and wasn’t sure he was prepared to do it again. But this wasn’t a rock face, this was a power tower, and someone up there was in trouble.
Johnny started up the tower, following the light until he reached the person who was sitting on one of the crossarms, looking scared to death. He could hardly blame him. It was awfully high up, and there was generally only one reason someone would come up here under cover of darkness.
“Hey, are you hurt?” Johnny asked.
“Go away!” The man shouted at him.
“Now, just calm down.” Johnny took a slightly different tack. “I’m from the fire department. Mind if I just come talk to you for a minute?”
“As long as you’re not a cop.” The man answered. “I can’t stand cops.”
“I’m not a cop.” Johnny told him. “Just a paramedic. I’ll just come sit with you for a bit. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” The man sounded miserable.
Johnny carefully made his way over and eased himself onto the crossarm. One advantage of these drugs muting his emotions was that he didn’t feel much fear, either. And he should have felt a little bit of fear, being so far up.
“Okay, I’m just going to put this belt around you.” Johnny told him.
The man looked at the belt as though it would burn him if it touched him. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m not gonna touch you.” Johnny assured him. “Just going to put the belt on you. You’re making me a little nervous.”
That wasn’t strictly true, but he would say whatever it took to get the belt on the guy. He wasn’t about to lose another one, not if he could help it.
Finally, the guy nodded, and Johnny carefully wrapped the belt around him without touching him, clipping the belt to his own. “There, that’s better. Now then, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
The man glanced at Johnny. “Why do you think I’m up here? I was planning to jump.”
“Something stop you?”
“I got scared.” He told Johnny. “Chickened out.”
Johnny paused for a moment. “Maybe because you didn’t really want to die.”
“How the hell would you know?”
Johnny took in a deep breath and let it out before answering. “Kind of went through something like this not too long ago.”
“And they still let you do this?”
“First day back after being out for a while.” Johnny replied. “Had to prove I was just crazy enough to do the job.”
“Explains a lot.”
A brief silence fell between them until Johnny broke it. “So, what about you?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Okay, you don’t have to.” Johnny answered. “We can just sit up here for a while, and when you’re ready, we’ll head back down.”
Johnny heard the crackle of the handy-talkie. “Johnny, are you okay up there?”
“Doing fine, Cap.” Johnny told him. “We’re just talking. We’ll be down in a while. I’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
There was a brief silence until the handy-talkie crackled again. “Be careful up there.”
“He sounds kind of worried about you.” The man observed.
“Yeah, they all are.” Johnny answered casually. “With good reason.”
“I wish I had that.” The man sounded mournful. “I don’t really have anyone.”
Johnny knew how lonely one could feel, even when surrounded by friends and those he considered family. Keeping his mental state to himself had been isolating. “I didn’t tell anyone what was going on with me. Made me feel alone.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” Johnny just wanted to keep this guy talking, long enough to get him down to the ground. “I know that. But I’m here. You’re not alone here.”
The guy looked at Johnny, then suddenly shifted his body forward, taking Johnny with him off the crossarm and into nothing. Johnny could hear his handy-talkie, could hear voices on the ground, and he found himself just waiting for whatever came next.
Johnny closed his eyes and held the guy close to him, fighting the rising bile in his throat as the rope swung wildly. He felt the rope suddenly go taut with a jerk, and he realized that they had stopped falling.
“Johnny, are you okay?” Cap called through the megaphone.
“Hanging in there.” Johnny replied, though he noticed how badly he was shaking, how his heart was beating so fast it was about to burst out of his chest, how fast he was breathing. “Can you maybe let us down?”
“Oh God.” The guy muttered.
“Don’t worry, they’re going to get us down.” Johnny assured him.
Johnny felt something tugging at his waist, and he glanced down to see the guy fumbling around with the large carabiner. He quickly grabbed the guy’s hands. “Hey man, leave that alone!”
“I didn’t ask for your help!” The guy answered angrily, still trying to get to the one connection keeping him from smashing to pieces on the ground. “I told you to leave me alone!”
Johnny refused to let go of the guy’s hands. “Look, I get it. I do. You feel like you’re losing your mind, and you don’t want to tell anyone you think you’re losing your mind, because they’ll definitely think you’re nuts and they’ll want to put you away. Only they don’t. They just want to put you on a bunch of drugs and treat you like a lab animal because they don’t really know what they’re doing either.”
“I hate the drugs.” The guy told him. “Rather live with the weird shit in my brain.”
“It’s tough to live that way, though.” Johnny replied, wondering what the hell was taking so long.
“I just want it to stop, you know?” The guy’s voice was breaking. “Why can’t they make it stop?”
“I don’t know.” Johnny answered quietly. “I don’t know.”
“Johnny?” Cap called through the megaphone. “We’re getting you down. Hang on.”
Slowly, they started moving again, and finally, Johnny’s feet hit solid ground, and he let out a heavy sigh of relief. There was a flurry of activity as he and Roy checked the guy over and called into Rampart, then loaded him into the ambulance.
“I’ll go with him, Roy.”
Roy nodded in understanding and closed the ambulance doors, and soon they were on the road.
It was quiet until the guy spoke up. “Hey man, thanks.”
“All part of the job.” Johnny told him.
“No, I mean it.” The guy insisted. “You didn’t have to stay up there with me. But you did. Thanks.”
Johnny nodded and patted the guy’s shoulder. He knew the guy likely had a long road ahead. There would be steps forward and backwards, but ultimately, Johnny hoped he would find something that would help.
He transferred the guy to the emergency room crew and returned to meet Roy at the base station. “Everything go okay?” Roy asked.
“Yeah, I think so.” Johnny answered. “Hope he’ll be okay eventually.”
They started walking side by side down the hallway in silence until Roy broke it. “And what about you?”
Johnny took a deep breath and exhaled. “I mean, it was pretty scary when he jumped. Thought maybe that was gonna be it.”
“We did, too.” Roy replied quietly. “I’ve never seen Chet move that fast as he did to help stop that rope.”
Johnny couldn’t help laughing at the thought. “You know that guy tried to unclip himself from the belt while we were hanging there?”
Roy’s eyes went wide. “Jesus, Johnny.”
“Yeah.” Johnny nodded. “He was in a pretty bad way.”
“I’m glad you were there.” Roy told him. “Could have ended a lot differently.”
They reached the squad and climbed in, closing the doors. Before Johnny knew it, he found himself with Roy’s arms wrapped around him in what Johnny could only describe as a bear hug.
“Roy?” Johnny tentatively spoke. “I can’t breathe.”
Roy pulled back quickly. “Sorry. It’s just…you were there for that guy, and you almost weren’t, you know? I’m just…I’m just glad you’re still here. That’s all.”
“Yeah, me too.”
As the squad drove through the night, Johnny couldn’t help thinking about how the rescue had gone. He had nearly lost the guy, had come close to falling himself.
But he hadn’t. He was okay. Because he had a whole crew behind him that was going to catch him if he did fall. And because of that, he knew he really had nothing to fear now.
He was going to be okay, or at least okay enough, and that was good enough for him.