#let carlos reyes have a pet to you know pet please i am begging | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nancygillianmvp · 1 year

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strays

6,110 words. rated g. summary: Five times Nancy talks TK out of bringing home strays from calls, and one time she doesn't.

one

It’s been a weird shift, which isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. Ever since the strands came and rebuilt the 126, their calls have gotten progressively weirder. And so, little surprises Nancy these days. But a man with a literal frog—that fell from the sky —in his throat was a surprise. Hail the size of basketballs was more of a surprise again. On the other hand, her partner’s response to the frog rain was far from surprising.

After they dropped their first patient off at the hospital, they returned to the scene to help the other stations with triage, but they were already finishing up. Just as Nancy is getting ready to return to the station, TK appears, asking, “Can you hand me a container?”

“Really, dude?” Asks Nancy. Of course. It is so like TK to be trying to bring a frog home from their call. Of course . She couldn’t just have a normal partner who leaves the injured frogs alone and lets animal control do their job; no, that would be far too peaceful. Instead, she has TK. And, of course, TK can’t walk past anyone who needs help, animal or human, and while she loves it for him, it gets exhausting at times because as much as he’d like to, he can’t help everyone—and also because sometimes he tries to bring potentially dangerous or just downright creepy animals onto the rig.

“I don’t see what your problem is?” TK feigns ignorance as he steps onto the back of the rig with a slimy green frog in the palm of his blue nitrile glove.

“The problem is you’ll be divorced before you’re married if I let you take that frog home to Carlos,” Nancy replies, rolling her eyes. “I barely survived your last breakup. You can’t put me through that again, dude. I won’t allow it.”

“ You barely survived? I barely survived, Nancy.” TK exclaims as if she might have forgotten his most dramatic near-death experience so far. As if she wasn’t the one holding him when his heart stopped. As if she could ever forget that day.

“So you agree then? That it’s not worth the risk to your relationship—and my sanity.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t not say that either, though…”

“What’s going on back there?” Captain Vega asks from the front of the rig.

“Nothing.” TK and Nancy respond in unison.

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“Well, when you two finish with whatever nothing is,” Captain Vega starts putting a heavy emphasis on the word nothing, “I’d like to get back to the firehouse, do you have any idea how much more paperwork is involved with giant hail and frog rain?”

“A lotta paperwork, Cap?” Nancy asks, shooting a glare at the frog in TK’s palm.

“A whole lotta paperwork, so let’s go. What’s the hold-up?”

“Are you in, or are you walking back to the station?” Nancy asks, holding the door and tapping her foot impatiently.

TK sighs, relenting and gently placing the frog down with the dozens of others littering the fairground around the rig. “I’m in.”

As the rig reverses into the station, Nancy spots Carlos waiting between the fire engines.

“Did you tell Carlos about the frog?” TK asks her.

“No, but if you try that again, I will.”

“S’pose that’s fair.” Says TK, as he puts the ambulance into park and steps out of the ambulance smiling ear to ear, ready to greet his fiancé. “Hi, baby, you here for lunch?”

“Please just don’t say frog legs,” Nancy interjects on her way past. She’s never been one to let an opportunity for banter be wasted.

two

“But Nancy, I can’t just leave him.” TK pleads, approaching the cracked door of the ambulance with an injured snake in his hands, she’s not really sure how you can tell a snake is injured, but TK is insisting it is. And after the day they’ve had, Nancy is in no mood for this.

It’s been a day of back-to-back calls to tipsy partygoers at a festival under the hot Texas sun, and she’s been puked on repeatedly—twice on this call alone. All she can think about is finally getting back to the station, taking the world’s longest shower and then burning her uniform—the smell of puke is never coming out.

“If you don’t want Carlos to leave you , put the snake down, Strand,” Nancy says, shaking her head. If there’s one person less fond than her of TK’s animal rescue antics, it would be his incredibly patient husband. But even a man as patient as Carlos has limits, and Nancy is more than willing to bet a snake is enough to push even him well past his limit, given what she’s heard of the Lou situation, or as she likes to call it, Lizardgate.

“It’s Reyes-Strand, thank you very much,” TK replies, and Nancy supposes its a fair point, he’s beyond proud to be married to Carlos, but at the same time, a Reyes would never try to bring a snake—or a frog, or an alligator lizard for that matter—into the back of an ambulance.

“This right here? This is pure Strand behaviour, dude.” She tells him, rolling her eyes because this is typical, it’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation, and knowing her luck, and her partner, it will by no means be the last.

“You take that back!” TK protests, feigning offence.

“After you take that back—to the wild, where it belongs .”

“Naaaaancy.” Pouts TK. The snake slithers further up his arm as he stands there, but Nancy holds steady.

“Dude. No. I love you, but no . Absolutely not. Not happening. No .” Letting him into the ambulance with a lizard was one thing; it was at least in a sealed bag. Even the frog he wanted to bring into the rig would have been okay if it had come to that, but snakes are non-negotiable. Even just walking past the creatures in the reptile house at the zoo gives Nancy the heeby jeebies, let alone being trapped in a metal box with a loose, unpredictable, injured wild snake.

“What’s going on back there?” Captain Vega asks with a sigh, and they respond at the same time.

“Nancy won’t let me in the ambulance.”

“Strand is trying to bring a snake into the rig.”

Captain Vega raises an eyebrow, “You know, I come to work to get a break from my bickering children and having to use my mom voice. Can you two not work this out amongst yourselves?”

“Okay, there are three possible outcomes here. One, you put the snake down, and I let you in the ambulance. Two, we leave you here to fend for yourself, or three, we stand here arguing until Captain Vega comes back here and writes us both up, after which I will be forced to tell Carlos about this as revenge for the blemish on my record.”

“Write us up? Don’t you think that’s a bit dramatic, Nancy?”

“I think you’re missing the point here. There is no situation in which that thing is coming into this ambulance. I don’t care if we have to stay here all night. It’s not happening. I am not above calling Carlos right now if it comes to it.” She takes her phone from her pocket to show it’s not an empty promise.

“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll call animal control.” TK takes out his radio as he puts the snake down at the foot of a nearby tree.

“You’re exhausting, you know.” Nancy greets him as he steps into the ambulance.

“Look who’s talking.”

three

The rig comes screeching to a halt about five minutes out from their latest call, and Nancy sighs; it’s been one of those days—there’s been bumper-to-bumper traffic and a string of back-to-back calls with patients ranging from uncooperative to violent, suffice to say they’ve been run off their feet and haven’t had a chance to eat all shift, the rig breaking down is just the cherry-on-top.

“Why are we stopping?” Captain Vega asks from the back.

“Rig’s broken down, Cap,” Nancy calls back.

“We’re walking then. Get the jump bag, TK.”

“Ugh, this day can’t get any worse,” TK mutters under his breath, and she wants to scream.

“Dude, why are you tempting fate like that?”

“I’m not tempting fate, Nancy.”

“Saying things can’t get worse is like saying the Q word; things get crazy.” She says, before correcting herself, “Actually, given today, crazier might be a better way to put it.”

“It’s a domestic, and APD is already on scene. How bad could it be?” Nancy winces. How bad could it be? It’s like he wants to jinx them.

They make their way down the winding dirt road to the ranch house, to a scene none of them could have expected. There’s an APD officer passed out on the porch, and Nancy could swear she just saw a tiger walk past the window inside with their victim. A tiger in Texas. Not unheard of, but definitely not what any of them were expecting. Dispatch definitely didn’t mention a tiger. She wants to say, “See, TK. Crazier . I told you so,” but she doesn’t; there’s work to be done.

“Was that?” Nancy asks, doing a double take and glancing back toward the front window, and TK nods.

“Tell me I did not just see a tiger behind that window,” says Captain Vega. “Strand, radio dispatch, and get animal control out here. Nancy, see if you can get a better look at what’s going on in there—carefully, don’t get too close to the windows. I’ll check out the officer here.”

The caller had told dispatch, “Carol tried to kill me,” Over the phone before passing out, so APD had been dispatched first to secure the scene, but unfortunately for the responding officer, he’d failed to mention that Carol is a 300-pound fully grown tiger and not a human woman. Because, of course. This day just keeps on giving.

“Only in Texas,” TK mumbles as he reaches for his radio. “Dispatch, we’ve got a problem…”

“Strand? What’s happening?” Grace’s voice crackles to life through the radio.

“Hi, Grace. We need animal control here, like, five minutes ago. And we’ll need two additional units and a mechanic, our rig is broken down, and there’s an officer down.”

“I’ve dispatched animal control to your location. Is there an unrestrained dog on the premises?”

“Not quite. There seems to be a tiger in the house with the victim.”

“Did you just say, tiger?”

“I did.”

“Well, you don’t see that every day. Animal control is ten minutes out, and I’m sure I don’t really need to say this but don’t go inside until they’ve secured the scene.”

“Uh, Cap, you might wanna come and take a look at this,” Nancy calls as she makes her way around the side of the house. “It’s like an episode of Tiger King back here. There’s gotta be at least 10 tigers here, maybe more. How is this legal?”

“ Is it legal?” TK asks.

“That’s a question for our friend Officer Jones here.” Captain Vega says, holding a smelling salt under the officer’s nose. The young cop—who seems fairly new to the job—doesn’t take long to come to, and despite some initial confusion and a possibly sprained ankle from falling down the stairs, seems to be okay.

After a tense wait, a second EMT crew comes to transport the officer to the hospital, animal control tranquilises the tiger, and they’re able to go in and stabilise the patient. Nancy is surprised to see his wounds are mostly superficial, and his loss of consciousness was likely a simple vasovagal response to the blood loss and not hypovolemia as they’d first feared. As the third ambulance arrives and the paramedics load him into the ambulance, he calls out. “Wait, I can’t leave. Who’s going to feed the baby?”

“There’s a baby on the premises. Let’s start checking rooms—carefully, who knows what’s waiting behind those doors.” Captain Vega instructs, and they split up.

“I don’t think he meant a human baby, Cap,” Nancy calls out when she hears movement behind the laundry room door and opens it to reveal a tiger cub—already the size of a small dog—wandering across the tiles towards her and pawing at her boot laces. “I think he meant a cub.”

Captain Vega heads outside to talk to animal control, and TK appears behind her, letting out an “aww” when he sees the cub.

“Carlos has been talking about maybe getting a cat…” TK muses. Here we go again , Nancy thinks.

There’s no mistaking the look on her partner’s face; she’s seen it more times than she can count—he wants to take this wild animal home. She knows his heart is in the right place, but the sooner Carlos relents and lets him get a cat—or a fish, or a hamster even, any kind of pet—the better as far as she’s concerned because talking him out of bringing home new ‘pets’ every week gets exhausting.

“Dude, stop, don’t even say it.”

“You can’t possibly know what I was going to say.”

“I know you, TK. You were going to suggest that murder mittens over there might be a good cat for you and Carlos to adopt, but the answer is no.”

“Murder mittens? Look at him, Nancy—he’s just a little baby.” TK says, gazing longingly across the room at the tiger cub.

“TK, I can’t believe we even need to have this conversation. You can’t raise a tiger in a downtown apartment. Tigers aren’t pets, or did you forget why we ended up here in the first place?

“Oh, but look at him. He’s only a baby. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“This week, he’s a baby, sure. But do you know what babies do, TK? They grow up, and then you will be the one calling 911 because your 200-pound murder kitty went for the jugular, and when that happens, I’m not coming to save your ass, dude.”

“I know I can’t keep him forever, that wouldn’t be fair to him, but maybe we could foster him? Just until a rescue can take him, we can’t just leave him here to fend for himself. He doesn’t belong here, Nance.”

“Oh yes, of course, how silly of me. He doesn’t belong here on a ranch—your loft is much closer to their natural habitat. The jungle bares such a striking resemblance to the concrete jungle of downtown Austin.” She says, voice dripping in sarcasm and eyes rolling.

“Okay, okay. I get it.”

“Strand, you’d better not be planning on taking that tiger on the rig. The lizard was one thing, but I’m certain city insurance doesn’t cover tigers.” Captain Vega says, interrupting their argument.

“Am I really that predictable?” TK asks.

“Yes.” Nancy and Captain Vega respond in unison.

“Still, we can’t just leave him here.” TK continues, looking over the bottles and supplies on the countertop by the washer.

“Well, we can’t take him with us. We’re not leaving him. Animal control is here, working out what to do with the other 12 they found on the property.”

“Exactly, they’re busy, and he needs to be fed. He’s tiny. Where are they going to take him anyway? It’s not like you can take tigers to the humane society shelter.”

“You have until the rig is fixed to find a rescue or a zoo to help, Strand.” Captain Vega tells him before going back to get more details from the animal control officer for the report that will probably take the rest of the shift to write

“Can you make some calls too, please, Nancy?”

“Fine.”

After a few calls, Nancy finds a big cat rescue group willing to send someone to pick up the cub and care for it, by which point TK has already given it a bottle and started shining his penlight around the room for it to chase like a house cat with a laser pointer, and even Nancy has to admit she doesn’t want to leave the little cub, but after a while a volunteer from the big cat rescue shows up to take the cub.

four

When dispatch tells them their next call is from a woman with a squirrel stuck in her hair, Nancy feels like she must have heard wrong. “Can you repeat that dispatch? Did you just say squirrel?”

“I did.” Dispatch confirms. “That’s all the detail I got. There was a lot of panicked screaming. Animal control will meet you on scene.”

“How does someone get a squirrel stuck in their hair?” TK asks.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” She says with a shrug.

“Glove up, turnout coats on and eye protection too. The last thing any of us need is a squirrel bite.” Captain Vega instructs when they arrive on the scene.

“I thought squirrels didn’t carry rabies, Cap?” Nancy asks, confused. She’s been well warned—and many a time been the one to remind TK—about the rabies risk when there are foxes, skunks and raccoons around, but she’s never heard of a rabid squirrel.

“They don’t usually, but they have been known to carry tularemia, typhus and, on occasion, the plague.” Captain Vega explains in a way that feels much too calm for a mention of the plague as they step out of the ambulance in front of a suburban house.

“The plague? Like the plague , plague, Cap? Like the old-timey black death plague?”

“Yes, the bubonic plauge, Nancy.”

“It’s not just squirrels, though, Cap? It’s chipmunks, prairie dogs, mice and rabbits too?”

“Yes, TK. Most of the rodents in the state are potential plague carriers. It’s one of the many good reasons people shouldn’t be feeding the wildlife.”

Nancy grimaces; this was something she could have happily gone her whole life not knowing. “Kinda wishing I hadn’t asked. At least there’s a vaccine for rabies. Nobody’s ever offered me a plague vaccine.”

“What’s a little plague after everything the 126 has faced?” TK asks with a dry laugh.

“Ma’am? What’s your name? Can you tell us what happened?” Captain Vega asks as they approach the patient—having followed the sound of screams to the patient’s backyard and found her standing in a bathing suit and an open robe by the back door with a squirrel clearly visible tangled in her dark curly hair.

“My name is Sofia. I was doing a peanut butter hair mask.” The patient starts to explain, TK raises an eyebrow, but she continues, “It’s just peanut butter. It’s supposed to be hydrating or whatever, and I came outside to sunbathe while it soaks in, and next thing I know, this squirrel is all up in my hair, and I tried to get it off, but it’s slippery, and it’s tangled in there pretty good, and then it bit me, and that's when I panicked and called 911.”

“You were right to call us, Sofia. We’re going to do what we can to get this squirrel out, okay? But I can’t promise you won’t end up with a pretty weird haircut.”

“I don’t care if you have to shave my head. Just get it off me!”

After a half hour of delicate detangling and strategic—and nerve-wracking, given the moving squirrel—cuts from the trauma shears, the squirrel is removed from the patient’s head and handed to TK.

With Captain Vega’s help, Nancy starts flushing the scrapes on Sofia’s scalp with saline and antiseptic solution to protect against infection. She watches as TK attempts to disentangle the squirrel from its hairy predicament.

“TK, animal control will be here any minute.”

“The least I can do is try and untangle him and find something to put him in. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Unless you get bitten first and die of the plague.” She mutters, intending for their patient not to hear.

A mild look of terror comes across the patient’s face, “I could get the plague ? Like the plague that all those people died from in the middle ages? From a squirrel? Oh my god, am I going to die ?!”

Captain Vega glowers at Nancy and then at TK.

“There’s no need to worry, Ma’am. Squirrels are plague carriers, but infection in humans is rare, and there’s treatment available. We’ll get you to the hospital in just a moment, and they can run tests to make sure everything is just fine.” Captain Vega consoles her with a comforting smile, and then she shoots a look at Nancy, “Why don’t you go help TK bring the gurney around?”

“Do you think Carlos woul—” TK begins.

Nancy cuts him off, “Do not finish that sentence. I know how deeply you care, but you can’t bring home every stray you see. You live in a loft, not a squirrel sanctuary. And I don’t know that Carlos’ nerves could take it.”

“But Nancy,”

“No buts, if nothing else, think of the curls. Protect those perfect curls on your husband's head. You don’t want to have to give Carlos a trauma-shear haircut to extract a squirrel, do you?”

“There’s no reason to assume it would get caught up in his hair,” TK counters as he slides the gurney out of the ambulance.

“Is that really a risk you’re willing to take?”

“Carlos is more than his hair, Nancy.”

“But he has such perfect hair, TK.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right. Now, please tell me I won’t have to body block you to prevent you from bringing a squirrel into the rig?”

“You won’t.”

five

Nancy lets out a sigh when they pull up to their latest call—for which dispatch only had vague details about a twenty-something male injured, trapped and requiring extrication—to find a familiar face waiting outside the house; Brianna. It’s far from the first interaction they’ve had with her.

Aside from a call they heard about from Grace that was resolved over the phone to dispatch, the 126 has treated Brianna and her boyfriend Caleb—mostly Caleb—twice. The first time was an incident with ‘aliens’, and the second incident involved a flying portapotty, so whatever they’re about to walk into is likely to be, well, weird .

“Does she look familiar to you?” TK asks Nancy, who nods.

“Remember that guy who was trapped in the portapotty? And the call with the aliens? She’s his girlfriend,” Nancy prompts.

“Hi, Brianna, I wish I could say it was nice to see you again. What’s that boyfriend of yours done this time?” Captain Vega asks.

“Have you seen the raccoon drive-through on TikTok? Caleb, my idiot of a fiancé, thought it would be a great idea to make one of his own, apparently. So I’m in the shower, and I hear glass breaking downstairs and Caleb screaming his head off. So I rush down here to find three raccoons in the kitchen and him climbing into the cupboard under the sink, and well, you can see how that worked out. We are done, Caleb. I mean it this time, done . D O N E.” Brianna explains to the paramedics while they wait for the rest of the 126 to arrive and assist with the extrication.

“I’ll radio dispatch to send out animal control,” TK says with a sigh as he heads back to the ambulance.

“What on earth is a raccoon drive-through?” Captain Vega asks Nancy quietly.

“It’s this woman who feeds local raccoons through her kitchen window, a bit like a drive-through but with leftovers and raccoons instead of fast food and people,” Nancy explains.

“Every week, it’s a different call where some grown adult has gotten hurt doing something stupid they saw on TikTok. When will people learn?” Captain Vega responds with a frustrated sigh before turning back to Brianna, “Are there still raccoons in your kitchen? Or can we go in and take a look at the situation?”

“They might have left? The window is open.”

“I can take a look, Cap?” TK offers, and she gives him the go-ahead. He doesn’t take long to report back via radio.

“There’s still one raccoon in the kitchen, it looks pretty small, and it’s hurt, I don’t think it can move, so if we don’t bother it, we should be okay. Bring all the gauze you can carry there’s a lot of bleeding, I’m not sure yet if it’s from the broken glass, something under the sink here or a raccoon.”

“They turned on me, man. One minute they were eating chicken nuggets, and the next, they were out for blood.” Caleb says, still wedged tightly in the cabinet under the sink.

It doesn’t take long for the remainder of the 126 to arrive and get to work assessing the situation and making a plan for how to get Caleb out of his latest predicament. Nancy sees the look of longing in TK’s eyes as he glances over at the injured raccoon that animal control has locked in a cat carrier while they seek out the remainder. “No.”

“I didn’t even say—” He starts, but she interrupts.

“You don’t have to say anything for me to know you want to take home the injured raccoon, nurse it back to health and keep it as a pet. But it’s not happening on my watch, I value my friendship with Carlos.”

“What’s wrong with a pet raccoon?” He asks as if they’re the most normal pet in the world.

“Everything, TK. Everything is wrong with a pet raccoon. They are wild animals, not pets.”

“They can be pets. There are people with pet raccoons.”

“Dogs are pets, and cats are pets, fish are pets, even maybe a lizard, but raccoons aren’t pets. If you take that raccoon home, I can guarantee you won’t have a husband for much longer, but the good news is our friend Caleb here is newly single and also loves raccoons. With all that in common, maybe you’ll hit it off.” Nancy teases TK, earning an eye roll and a sigh.

“Very funny,” He retorts.

“Maybe I wasn’t joking,” Nancy says back with a wink.

“Just hear me out, Nance,” TK starts, despite her eye rolls, “Raccoons love to eat, and Carlos is incapable of cooking without ending up with leftovers.”

“How about you hear me out, TK.” Nancy responds, “ You could eat the leftovers yourself. Instead of getting takeout for lunch at work all the time. Call me crazy, but I just don’t think too many leftovers are a good reason to get a pet raccoon.”

“But Nancy,” TK pleads, “Look at that little face. How can you say no to that face?”

“Easily. All I have to do is think about the fact that face is a carrier of rabies which, in case you’ve forgotten, is incurable and fata,l and would you look at that, I have zero desire to take home a wild raccoon.”

“Okay, when you put it like that, it sounds like a bad idea…”

“Because it is a bad idea, dude.” She says, “When are you just going to admit I know everything so we can stop having this argument every time there’s an animal on a call?”

The sound of power saws from the kitchen finally ceases, and Captain Vega interrupts, “Our patient is ready to be transported if you two are ready.”

They follow her into the kitchen and load Caleb onto the gurney, ready to transport him to the hospital for treatment of his wounds and rabies testing, given the raccoon bites he sustained.

“Strand, you won’t need me to remind you that taking a wild animal in the back of the ambulance with a patient violates almost every rule and city code I can think of, will you?” Captain Vega says as they wheel Caleb to the ambulance, and TK looks back toward the caged racoon being carried to the animal control van.

“Oh, I don’t mind if he brings a raccoon—” Caleb starts to say, but one glare from Brianna is enough to stop him mid-sentence.

“Oh, TK would never dream of bringing a raccoon into the ambulance, Cap. That doesn’t sound like him at all.” Nancy says sarcastically as she loads the stretcher into the back of the rig.

“No reminders needed, Cap. I’ll drive,” TK says, stepping around to the front of the ambulance.

plus one

It feels like she’s only just gotten to sleep when the alarm for the safe surrender box blaring through the station startles Nancy awake. She’s on her feet and halfway to the box before she even has a chance to check the time, but she suspects it’s not much past three AM. Somehow TK has beaten her there and is opening the hatch as she stops to catch her breath, having just sprinted down a staircase.

“Okay, that is so not what safe surrender means,” Nancy says as the hatch opens to reveal a litter of fluffy doodle puppies and not the human baby she’d been expecting. “But also too cute for words.”

“Well, yeah, technically, not.” TK says, “But at least they didn’t leave them out in the snow outside the humane society, I guess?” Nancy hates to admit it, but he makes a good point. Of the possible options for getting rid of an unwanted litter of puppies this late at night during a snowstorm, this is definitely one of the kinder ones, and at least the surrenderer left a bag with puppy food and supplies.

The rest of the station starts to filter into the room in various states of alertness in the following minute, including acting Captain Ryder. “Now I know I’m half asleep, but that ain’t a baby.” Says Judd, putting a hand to his temple. “I gotta go read the manual and see if I need to report this, can y’all handle this?”

“We got it, Cap,” Says Nancy,

“I keep telling y’all you ain’t gotta call me Cap, I’m only the acting captain, and it makes me feel old.”

“Are you calling Captain Strand old?” Marjan asks, raising an eyebrow tauntingly.

“That’s not what I said, Marjan,” Judd says with a sigh.

“You implied it, though,” Nancy says, winking at Marjan.

“Oh, definitely implied, strongly implied.” Marjan agrees.

“Don’t listen to them, Judd.” Captain Vega comes to his defence against the teasing.

Judd sighs again as he walks out, “I need coffee. Y’all are exhausting.”

“What are you waiting for, get them out of there and give me a puppy to cuddle,” Marjan says impatiently, approaching TK, who starts lifting the six puppies one at a time out of the safe haven box.

He hands the first puppy, a particularly curly red one, to Nancy, and it licks at her face enthusiastically when she takes it in her arms. Then he hands off a red and white one to Marjan, who wastes no time taking selfies with the puppy—looking flawlessly put together despite the hour—and a black and white one with a wavy, shaggy coat to Mateo who remarks it looks a bit like Buttercup. Paul reaches out to take a puppy with a tan coat and a very waggly tail, leaving two puppies in the box and only TK and Captain Vega without puppies in their arms

“Do you want to hold one, Cap?” Nancy asks Captain Vega, who shakes her head.

“I want to. But if I hold one, then I’ll want to take it home, and with the girls, I’m far too busy for a puppy, and I don’t think Buster the cat would be a fan of me bringing home another pet to compete for my attention, let alone a dog.”

“I can take another one, and he matches the one I’m already holding,” Marjan says, reaching out an arm to accept the small squirming red and white puppy.

When TK takes the last puppy from the box, she snuggles into the crook of his elbow as if she’s been there her whole life. She’s smaller than the other puppies, the runt of the litter Nancy supposes with curly chocolate brown fur, green eyes and a tiny little brown button nose.

“Aww, that is too cute for words.” Says Nancy, taking out her phone to snap a photo.

“She kind of looks like you,” Mateo says.

“She’s a dog, Mateo,” Says TK.

“No, I see it too. It’s the green eyes,” Marjan agrees.

“So, now what?” Asks Nancy.

“We find them somewhere to sleep,” Paul says, “I think there’s still a box somewhere from Captain Strand’s giant new coffee machine. It had high sides, so they can’t crawl out and chew anything up.”

It doesn’t take long to settle the puppies in a cardboard box lined with blankets in the bunkroom and towels, and by the time they do, the call bell goes off for fire but not medical and the firefighters file out to the engines.

“I’m heading down to the kitchen to make some tea, do you two want anything?” Captain Vega offers before leaving TK and Nancy alone with the puppies, the smallest of which cries softly until TK reaches in and lifts her into his arms, where she goes to sleep soundly with her head tucked against him.

“She looks so at home there,” Nancy says.

“I know Carlos said I couldn’t bring home a pet from a call, but this isn’t technically a call, right?” TK asks her.

“I don’t know if I’m the right person for you to have this conversation with,” Nancy says.

“You think I should talk to Carlos?” He asks. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d made major life decisions without talking to each other, and it’s not something she’s willing to see them go through again, not when they are the closest thing she’s ever seen to soulmates.

“Your husband? No, I was going to suggest you ask the pizza delivery guy. Yes, of course I mean you should talk to Carlos. Men are exhausting, honestly. The two of you just need to talk to each other and make the decision together. Haven’t you both learned your lesson about making big life decisions without talking it through?”

“You’re right.”

“I know.”

“I’ll call him in the morning.”

EMS doesn’t get called out for the rest of the night, and every time Nancy wakes, she sees TK asleep, sitting up, still holding the sleeping puppy. After breakfast, Nancy sits in the common area with Marjan and the puppies, watching them play in an old puppy pen they bought after Buttercup chewed up the firehouse the first time they left him alone. The first time they set it up, he stepped right over it, but it’s come in handy eventually.

Nancy hears Carlos arrive and greet his husband in the nearby kitchen as she sits with Marjan and the puppies.

“Babe, promise you won’t hate me?” TK says to him.

“TK, what did you do?”

“You’re supposed to tell me you could never hate me,” TK says, kissing Carlos on the cheek as he leads him by the hand to the common area where Nancy and Marjan sit on the floor with the puppies, cooing over them.

“I could never hate you,” Carlos replies, “But what did you do? Did you steal a litter of puppies?”

“The safe haven surrender box got used last night.” TK says, “Someone surrendered a whole litter of doodle puppies to us, and I think this baby wants to come home with us,”

Seeing TK re-enter the room, the chocolate brown puppy runs to sit at his feet, looking up at Carlos with the most irresistible puppy eyes.

Carlos’s face forms a puppy dog eye expression of his own as he reaches down to the tiny puppy, “She has your eyes, babe.”

“And your curls,” TK tells him.

“Almost like she’s meant to be yours,” Marjan tells them.

“I think there’s a longer conversation to be had.” Carlos says,

“We’ll leave you to it then,” Marjan says, and Nancy follows her out.

As they settle into chairs in the kitchen, Nancy says to Marjan, “There’s no way they’re going home after shift without that puppy, right?”

“No way at all.”

A short while later, TK and Carlos pass through the kitchen mid-argument about puppy names.

“Mocha is such a cliche name for a brown dog,” Says TK.

Carlos throws up his hands, “And Sage, for a green-eyed dog, isn’t cliche?”

“I guess they’re adopting then.” Says Nancy to Marjan.

“We are,” TK calls from the next room.

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