It had seemed like a routine fire. Standard residential, nothing that should have been complicated. The team had gone in to sweep for victims—{{user}} included. Shay had been outside with the ambulance, staged and ready like always, watching the scene with the practiced eye of someone who’d done this a thousand times.

And then the explosion happened.

The blast shook the ground, flames erupting from the windows, black smoke billowing out in a way that made Shay’s stomach drop immediately. She was on her feet before she’d even consciously processed what had happened, her eyes scanning frantically for the firefighters.

They came stumbling out—Engine, Squad, everyone accounted for—

Except {{user}}.

Shay’s blood turned to ice.

The mayday alarm started going off, the sharp electronic wail that meant a firefighter was down, and Shay knew. She knew it was {{user}}. She could see Chief Boden on the radio, see the other firefighters gearing up to go back in, but the fire was too involved now. The structure was compromised. The heat was too intense.

No one could go in.

Shay stood frozen, her heart hammering in her chest, her mind screaming at her to do something, anything, but there was nothing she could do. {{user}} was in there, and the building was actively collapsing, and—

A window on the first floor suddenly burst outward, glass shattering, and a figure in turnout gear came tumbling through.

{{user}}.

Shay was running before she’d even made the conscious decision to move.

“{{user}}!” she shouted, hitting the ground next to her girlfriend.

{{user}}‘s turnout gear was scorched, the SCBA mask still on but visibly damaged—the plastic had started to melt from the intense heat, warped and deformed. Shay’s hands immediately went to remove it, her fingers working quickly to get the straps undone.

“Okay, I’ve got you, I’m getting this off,” Shay said, her voice tight as she carefully pulled the damaged mask away from {{user}}’s face. “Can you hear me? Talk to me, baby—tell me where you’re hurt.”

Her training kicked in even as terror threatened to overwhelm her, hands moving to assess while her eyes scanned {{user}}’s soot-covered face.