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When Eli told Beckett that the team got into some weird situations.
There’d been calls of a peacock attacking pets in a neighborhood, kids that got their cat stuck in a tree- after tying balloons to it so the feline could float above the sidewalk. They’ve been called to car accidents and beach rescues and wildfires and so many other things that he wasn’t sure how his fiancé or the team kept them straight.
He honestly thought some of the stories were an exaggeration.
Until he showed up to the firehouse.
It was just supposed to be an easy lunch, get the team used to him if they had the time. Layla had helped him, calling him inept in the kitchen the whole time, but they’d made a meal big enough to feed an army- which is what he knew he needed after realizing Eli’s appetite alone. Layla had even kicked him out of the house while it was still hot, determined to clean the mess on her own, he knew he’d need to raise her allowance even though she was really just that kind hearted even at fifteen.
But even as he carried the first load of food up to the firehouse loft, he knew something was off. The third trip, with the last of the dishes they’d made, Shreya gave him a look of apology before she was spinning around, “Eli, look who’s here!” She ducked down to his ear, “I’m so sorry. I need the back up.”
“Beck!” His fiancé’s voice rang, cheerful and happy and blissful, “Oh, you smell like love!”
Beckett felt the flush creeping up his neck, raising an eyebrow at the medic at his side. She sighed heavily, “I can’t be entirely sure- scratch that, yes I can. I went on a diet, and that teacher friend of yours brought a batch of brownies in. Everyone else had some and… well, you see the results.”
Beckett looked at each of them in turn- from Eli, who’s eyes were so unfocused on his face, Beckett was sure he wasn’t actually seeing him, to Zeph’s amazement that the food he carried in had appeared out of nowhere, Griffin poking at a lamp like it was a marvelous thing, and Atlas staring into space with a ghost of a smile.
“This looks… bad.” He settled on, agreeing without words to take the twins while Shreya took her partner and captain. She had managed to get dispatch to take them offline without a formal request from their captain, and the two of them settled in for a very long day.
But Beckett would’ve taken a thousand more like it if it could’ve prevented what came around the corner.
In the back of his head, Eli wondered if the call they had been responding to was even real. Dispatch had said it was urgent, multiple injuries, but now that he looks back they hadn’t gotten any actual information from the caller about the incident. It hadn’t been unusual, most callers were too in shock or scared to answer the questions well.
But now that felt deliberate.
They had been driving, Eli had taken the front seat of the ladder truck while his brother, their fill in Captain after the dosing had left Griffin under investigation, rode in the engine.
Dispatch had come over the radio one minute, saying Griffin was on the line, and the next Eli felt weightless, before he found himself laying face first on the asphalt with a metric ton crushing his leg.
When Beckett realized he was alone for the evening, Layla out with her friends and Eli on shift, he was going to read.
But then he prepped dinner for when his family returned home.
Followed by washing the dishes from said dinner prep.
Then he moved on to laundry.
Then he graded papers and tests for his classes.
Until he suddenly remembered Eli and Layla talking about a movie getting released, one they were equally excited to see, and he had yet to watch the earlier segments of the series.
According to his phone it was streaming on one of the many services the two of them had insisted they needed, so this would be a good surprise.
But when he actually turned on the tv, meaning to bring up the service right away, the news alert made his heart stop.
A boy, probably only two or three years older than his niece, was marching in the street next to an overturned fire truck.
And the truck was emblazoned with a station number that Beckett knew by heart.
The 145.
Eli’s firehouse.
When his knees gave out, he found himself dropping to sit on the edge of the coffee table, a mix of horror and fear making his heart lodge in his throat and his stomach turn to a block of ice. He recognized the area they were in, could see inconsistent members of Eli’s shift trying to pick themselves up from the pavement.
And as the smoke cleared from what the news was reporting as a bomb that had been attached to the truck, there he was.
Eli, lying bloodied and injured right by the teen boy’s feet.
“Where is the captain!?”
Eli groaned as he came to after what felt to him like a few seconds, he couldn’t be sure how long he’d blacked out, but the young man was yelling. He couldn’t be sure why he was so angry- and what did he want with Atlas?
Forcing himself onto his elbows, Eli grit his teeth against the pain, “You won’t get near him.”
A boot connecting with the side of his face forced the older twin back to the pavement, which didn’t seem like a fair tactic. A glance behind him showed he couldn’t stand, let alone fight back, “Quiet! I want the captain!”
Eli spit blood, his ears perking up to the sound of people- innocent, scared people- being held back far enough away by the police that arrived at the scene. He could make out a few of the firefighters he worked with irregularly, but he couldn’t find Atlas or Zeph or Shreya. He coughed some more, forcing a hand up to wipe the drops of blood that spilled onto his lips, “Captain won’t come, my team won’t let him. You can deal with me.”
The young man stalked toward from where his pacing had taken him several feet away, “I bet the captain will come if it means he can save your life.”
“Don’t you listen, Kid? I said he won’t-“
“I’m the captain.” Eli’s head snapped over, Atlas approached from behind the ambulance with his hands raised, even though he could see the medics yelling at him to come back, “You want me, you have me. Let them get my brother and the others out of here.”
“No!” The man yelled, and for the first time Eli realized there was a bomb strapped to his chest, “I want the captain that is responsible for this!”
“I am the captain!” Atlas argued again, “You can have m-“
“Captain Langley!” The young man kicked Eli again, “I want Captain Langley!”
Eli’s world went dark again, and even though it was useless, he hoped his friends, his team- he hoped his family would be okay.
Griffin watched in horror as Eli was bleeding out, as Atlas stepped up and faced down a boy only a few years younger than them.
This had been his fault. A normal fire call that had led to a destroyed family, because he hadn’t managed to save the father in time.
It wasn’t abnormal for the surviving family members to cast blame, though he couldn’t have imagined it would go this far. As much as he kept his emotions in check, calls like that never truly left his mind, even though this family had been years ago.
As soon as the police in front of him moved to make sure the civilians around him stayed put, he darted out into the open, “I’m Langley!” Any other time he’d be concerned about the look Atlas was shooting his way, maybe even back down because either of the twins were an absolute force of nature to reckon with, but right now his team needed him. “I’m Langley. If you want to make me pay for what happened to your dad- man, I get it. But him? He was barely even in the academy when I answered that call, let alone a firefighter. He has a fiancé- he has a daughter!”
The man seemed to glance at the fallen firefighter, before repeating words Griffin had said to him those years ago, “An unavoidable loss.”
The briefest of jolts went through Atlas at the words, like his instinct to fight for his brother rivaled with the knowledge he couldn’t intervene just yet. Griffin inched forward, his hands out like he was approaching a wild animal, “If you want to take me out, I’m all yours. But you know this is wrong, you know he had nothing to do with it.”
“But you did!” The boy stepped up to Griffin, toe to toe like they were going to brawl right there on the street, “You could’ve done something and instead you left him in there!”
“Your father was already dead when we got on the scene, Malcolm! I had to choose between getting him out, or getting your mother out, and she was still alive.” Griffin’s hand shot forward as the boy went to swing, clutching the detonator in the boy’s hand even as the free hand connected with his jaw.
He saw Eli’s head sag against the pavement one more time as the bomb squad ran forward.
Layla had just gone out with friends.
She needed a new dress for homecoming, wanted some time with her friends before her weekly game night with her uncle and Eli’s fireteam the next day.
But suddenly the ground was shaking.
There was loud bang like a string of fireworks had all gone off at once.
She saw the fire from through the store window, dropping the hangers in her hands in favor of rushing out the door, and she saw everything as she pressed against the barricade.
She saw Uncle Atlas trying to appease the boy, she saw Uncle Griffin wrestle the device out of his hand.
She saw Uncle Eli stuck on the asphalt as they tried to lift a truck that she knew was too heavy.
She heard Griffin’s voice, “We need more people!”
And she was shoving the barricade aside.
“Layla,” her friend caught her hand, “What are you doing?”
“I’m having his back like he’s had mine since he met me.” She tugged her arm loose, looking at the crowd, “They need more hands, and I happen to have two perfectly good ones! Who’s with me?”
She ignored the burn of tears as people rushed forward to help her, finding herself next to Griffin who looked like he felt a mix of emotions that she’d witnessed the whole thing- but as he reached out, bumping his fist against her shoulder, she knew he was just glad she wanted to be there for Eli.
She put everything she had into lifting, letting Zeph and Atlas worry about pulling him out, and the moment he was in the gurney she was throwing her arms around him as her friends encouraged her to ride with him and said they’d grab her purse she’d thrown off at the store.
She knew there was a news chopper overhead, knew her Uncle Beckett’s tendency to leave the news running if he was home alone, but her phone was in her purse and Eli’s was crushed in his pocket- so she snatched Zeph’s before he could argue, even though she doubted he would in that moment. “Uncle Beck?”
“Layla! Are you alright?”
“I- I’m not okay,” She sniffled. She was determined to be strong for Eli, but she was only sixteen and seeing someone she loved unconscious and bleeding and fractured, “I’m not hurt.” She answered after a moment.
Beckett sighed a breath of relief through the line, and without saying it she knew he saw the news report, “Shreya already texted me the hospital. I’ll be there soon. Just keep an eye on our guy for me, okay, sunshine?”
“Won’t let him out of my sight if I can help it,” she promised, squeezing his limp hand as Shreya sped through the streets with the ambulance.
Uncle Eli was alive, and he’d be okay. He had to be. She couldn’t lose someone else, and she knew her dad couldn’t either.