“Your brother is on line one!” Grace called through the open doorway.

Aaron sighed and turned to face her, not wanting to talk to any brother who was going to mess with him getting off shift on time. He had ten minutes to go, and then freedom. Not that he hated his job. That wasn't an issue. He'd been an EMT here for six years now, and the slower pace suited his goals for the rest of his life. Peace. Quiet. Family. It’s what he’d promised himself when he’d left the Army, and so far everything was on track.

Until his brother’s wife got pregnant. She was due in three weeks, and Eddie was freaking the hell out. Which was stupid, given he’d already been through the new baby thing twice with Milly and Jake.

“Which brother?”

Please let it just be Saul organizing a dinner, or Jason wanting to meet up for a beer, or Ryan wanting to catch up about last week’s EMT crossover with his team at the sheriff’s station. As long as it's not Eddie. Please, not Eddie, with his awkward questions about things no brothers should discuss over Sunday dinner.

“I’m not your answering service,” Grace snapped before vanishing into their bus which they were cleaning down from the last run.

Great. A brother and a pissy Grace. He went to the phone, pressed the flashing button, and forced himself not to sound at all irritated. It didn’t work.

"I have ten minutes to the end of my shift," he warned whichever brother this was. "And I’m due at Hepburn House.”

Ordinarily, that would be enough to get his brothers to back off. Hepburn House was a private place just outside of town, for veterans like him who'd seen too much and needed some space to readjust to civilian life. They respected his need to be involved in something so supportive, and never asked a single question about his time overseas.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t listen to him on a bad day, but mostly they left his past where he needed it to stay.

“No worries,” Saul replied, and Aaron heaved a sigh of relief. Saul, he could handle. “I was making sure you're going to be here Sunday. Jordan and his brother are here, and I’m just ticking the boxes.”

“Of course.” He could have added that he was always there. Every Sunday he’d made it to dinner. Sometimes, if he was on shift, there was only enough time to pick up a bag of food from whatever was left, but he always tried.

All his brothers attended, because Saul was the head of the family and had spent his entire life keeping them together, and every one of the remaining four brothers respected that.

“Good. Stay safe.”

Saul ended every phone call with those words, always the worrier. That was why they loved him so much, given he’d been both Mom and Dad to them all since he was eighteen.

“Always.”

Glancing at his watch, he saw he had only five minutes left, so he went to help Grace with finishing the bus duties.

Which is when he found her up on a stool as it wobbled and nearly deposited her on the floor.

“What the hell?” he demanded, setting her carefully on the ground, then dropping the new supplies next to her. “Grace Mya Davies, I told you to call me,” he added, and she winced up at him.

“I’m not useless,” she snapped, and tears collected in her eyes.

Oh god, no. Not emotion. He could handle blood, gore, amputations, war, even his brother’s kids after they’d had soda laced with colorants, but when Grace cried, it was game over. He pulled her in for a hug, holding her carefully. Pregnant women surrounded him. Or at least two, his sister-in-law and his partner.

“Not useless,” he murmured. “Just four months pregnant and very short. Which is why you let me reach the top shelves, and you don’t climb on the stool to get to things.”

She nodded against his shirt, which felt damp. “I’m not that short.”

He wasn't unusually tall, a solid six foot, but at five one she was and always would be shorter than him by a mile.

“Leslie says I should stop working,” she murmured.

“She would say that. She’s your sister, and she’s worried about you.”

“Stupid crying.” Her tone changed to one of self-recrimination, and he squeezed her tight and then let her go. Grace Davies was a spitfire as well as being a focused serious professional, and being pregnant was messing with her head.

“I could go for a coffee after shift,” he suggested. “I’ve got some time if you want in with a hot chocolate?”

She pulled away from him and shook her head, not even meeting his gaze. She’d done this a lot recently, and he put it down to hormones because he really couldn't think of another reason. They were friends, and he could only guess that it was something to do with his stupid question four weeks back about who the father of her baby was. Things hadn’t gotten back to normal yet.

Me and my big mouth.

The emergency announcement was loud, startling him and Grace, even though they were used to it; RTA at the Ester Gas Station on Pine Ridge Road. It didn’t matter that they were only one minute from the end of the shift. A call was a call, and they were both ready to go.

They were leaving the hospital within a few seconds and reached Pine Ridge in less than five minutes. Firefighters were already on the scene, the scarlet engines blocking the road and only allowing a small space for the EMTs to get through. Aaron spotted his brother Jason immediately but bypassed him and quickly crossed to the crushed metal of what remained of an SUV, pinned to a gas pump by a semi.

“Stay back,” Jason shouted, reached for him, and yanked at his arm, stopping him from getting closer. “We have a fire near the main fuel tanks.” Jason was his brother, but he was also controlling the scene, and Aaron knew it was Jason who would have answers.

“Talk to me,” Aaron demanded.

He could see enough; a semi had lost control coming down this side of the mountain, crashing into a car waiting to turn onto the main road, pushing it into the gas pumps. They were lucky they weren't attending a conflagration where everyone was dead already.

Where there is life, it’s my job to bring hope.

“Semi driver out, not a scratch, family in the compact trapped. A further civilian in the car who won’t get the hell out.”

Aaron scanned the area, checking for ingress. The driver of the semi was standing by his truck, pale and shaky, covered in blood, but walking. They were the first EMTs on the scene. He assessed the situation and pressed a hand to Grace's shoulder. There was no way into the twisted, mangled metal except for climbing, and he was taking point on this.

“I'm going to look." He motioned for Grace to move back and away. At first, she stubbornly stood there, and he waited until it hit her she had the baby to think about and didn’t need to get involved yet.

“Aaron, stay back,” Jason ordered, right up in his face and gripping his arm. “Suppressing this fire is going to take time.”

Aaron shrugged him off. “I’m not watching people burn to death.” The words “little brother, try to stop me” remained unspoken.

Shouting cut through their seconds-long standoff, ordering to get closer and kill the fire. Then Jason finally released his hold.

“Don’t you fucking die.”

He was away before his brother had a chance to stop him, scrambling over the back of the car, peering through the sunroof, and assessing what he could see.

A woman lay awkwardly on the back seat, pinned by the seatbelt, blood from a wound on the side of her head matting her dark curly hair. Her eyes were open, and he reached through and checked her pulse. Visually she looked like she’d walk away from this, but only tests would tell what had happened inside her. For a moment she was confused, and then she gasped.

“Lewis, Alana.”

Two names. Two more souls inside the car.

Jason crawled in behind him, and between him and another firefighter the woman was removed, and that just left the other two, designated in his head as Driver and Passenger Two.

He couldn’t see a way into the front; there was no gap big enough for him to get through, and what was there was crushed and mingled with the semi.

“Paramedics!” A man called, forceful and demanding. Evidently, the civilian who had taken it upon himself to climb into this death trap. “Bleeding out.”

Aaron peered through the only space he had, saw one hell of a lot of blood and not much more.

“Paramedic. I can’t get to you.”

“Wait,” the voice said, and then the seat on the right moved, and in a scramble of limbs, a terrified teenager pushed through or was shoved through. At first glance, she seemed fine, untouched, and Aaron had seen that before in crashes like this where, by some miracle, a passenger was entirely unharmed.

“Mom,” the girl cried, crawling past him and stumbling to where her mom was on a gurney being pushed away.

“Quick,” the man called, and a hand came through and gripped Aaron’s shirt, blood slick on his fingers.

Aaron slid through the space vacated by the daughter and assessed the scene with speed and the necessary dispassion.

A driver, bleeding, neck wound, and a man crouching awkwardly over him like the specter of death, his fingers pressed to a gash in the driver's neck. Aaron couldn't see the man’s face, but he heard him well enough.

“Penetrating neck injury. Conscious and alert on arrival. Continuous blood loss,” the man reported, staccato and clear. “We need to get this bleeding stopped.”

Aaron glanced behind him. There was immediate asphyxia and hemorrhagic risk, and they had to move fast. “We’re pinned in." He wriggled again to get closer; his bag stuck awkwardly until he managed to yank it through. The roar of blades cutting metal filled the cramped space. Jason and his fellow firefighters were attempting to get them free.

“Tell me you have a hemostatic dressing in there.” The man shifted a little to give Aaron another chance of getting even closer. He had a neat beard, dark hair, and a steady, focused precision to his movements.

Of course, Aaron had a hemostatic dressing. Even if he’d had to fund it himself, he’d have the lifesaving bandages in his kit. One-handed, he grabbed the packet and shimmied back, pressed hard against the stranger holding his hand over the driver's neck. He ripped open the package, using a combination of his only free hand and his teeth and winced as it spilled out.

“On three,” Aaron ordered. “One, two, three.”

The man moved his hand, and Aaron applied the bandage to the gash, holding it firm, watching as blood spilled out of the side of it and then slowly stopped. With the immediate danger of bleeding out from the neck wound averted, Aaron carried out as many checks as he could.

“Get out now,” he ordered the other man. This was a dangerous situation. There was fire, and the smell of gas was all around them. This car could go up in flames at any moment, and the last thing he needed was an extra civilian on his watch.

The man was conflicted. Aaron could see it in his expression and the way he glanced over his shoulder and then back at Aaron. But the conflict died immediately, and he was completely focused.

“Staying.”

“Don’t be stupid. Get out now.”

The man shook his head. “I’m holding him still.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Not moving until we get someone in here backing you up.”

“I don’t need you here,” Aaron snapped, but the man wasn’t shifting at all.

“Noted,” was the stranger's reply.

He had that same stubbornness in his expression he’d seen so many times in the war. No man is left to die alone.

“Stubborn fucker,” Aaron announced, narrowing his focus when the man winked at him.

Winked at him. Arrogant asshole.

“Always,” he murmured.

Aaron had seen his share of idiot heroics, and the expression on this imbecile’s face was one he recognized. It was unshakeable belief that he was indestructible, that nothing could hurt him. That was how people died. This man was forces-trained the same as he was.

Like recognized like.

So Aaron went for an order instead of a request. “Get the fuck out of the car, soldier.” Something snapped and crackled above their head, and the car heaved to the left.

“Sailor, and no.”

The car moved again, the space getting smaller, and Mr. Navy shifted his position, using his back to push up on the crushed metal, holding it steady. Goddamned idiot. Probably some freaking Navy SEAL, just waiting to get himself killed.

“Last time someone insisted on staying with me against orders, a bullet tore an artery, and he bled out in seconds."

“That’s life.”

“I’m ordering you to get the hell out.”

“I probably outrank you.”

“Fuck you, Navy,” Aaron snapped, aware this was not a fight he was going to win.

“Fuck you right back, Army.”

They stared at each other. The chaos of noise as the jaws of life wrenched at metal stole any more chances of talking, and the space over their heads increased a little. Navy had dark green eyes and the focused determination of someone who'd seen war and learned not to show fear. There was a fire in their depths, and yeah, between them, they were supporting the driver’s head and neck. With both of them, there was a chance this guy could get out of this alive.

So they stared and waited, and it seemed like a lifetime of memories passed between them.

I’ve seen things. I’ve known war. I’ve held a man as he died.

The car roof shifted again, no longer pressing against Navy, and Aaron saw the relief in Navy’s eyes the moment the pressure lifted.

Then Jason was giving orders, dictating to his men how to maneuver the patient out of the wreckage.

“Get out of here,” Jason told Navy. “We’ve got this.”

Only when Jason and another firefighter had the guy onto the backboard did Navy leave, with a final nod as if he was clearing the situation.

Aaron used his feet to push back, and Jason helped him out, moving immediately into the space Aaron had just vacated. Here was where the firefighters took over to get the driver and backboard out and then onto the nearest emergency room, which was in Helena. He clambered up and out, but there was no sign of Navy.

“You okay?” Grace asked, patting him and checking for injury.

“The blood isn’t mine,” Aaron murmured.

They didn’t talk about the chances of the driver making it out alive. They just got him into the bus and headed from the scene in the direction of Helena. He drove, and Grace was in the back monitoring vitals, the wife, and daughter of the driver with her. As they left, he looked at the wreckage. The tangled semi was half in the road, and just beyond it, the fire trucks and an SUV, with Navy next to it watching them leave.

Aaron raised a hand in acknowledgment as they passed, and Navy nodded.

I wonder what your story is.