J.M.J.

Author's note: Thanks for reading! This story is four chapters long plus an epilogue. The main part takes place during about season two of the show, just in case you're wondering. I hope you enjoy! God bless!

For One Life

Chapter 1

"Look at this." John Gage was holding up a sheet of want ads from the paper so that Roy DeSoto could hardly help seeing it. At least, he saw the sheet. It was too close and too abruptly thrust into his field of vision for him to read anything on it.

"Look at what?" Roy asked.

"At this." Johnny gave the paper a small shake, as if there could have been any doubt that it was what he had requested his partner look at. At the same time, he tried to point at one ad in particular with his thumb while holding the paper with both hands. He wasn't very successful, but since the ad in question was circled, Roy didn't have any trouble spotting it now.

Roy took hold of the paper so that he could keep it steady enough to read. "It's an ad for a panel truck. So what?"

"So what?" Johnny repeated in an offended tone. He snatched the paper back. "Do you know what you can do with a panel truck?"

"Haul things in it?" Roy was familiar with these moods of Johnny by now. They had been working together as paramedics at LA County Fire Station 51 for over a year now, and in that time, the younger man had come up with more plans to make his fortune than Roy could count. This was sounding like it was going to be yet another one.

"Of course, you can haul things in a panel truck. You can haul things for other people." Johnny read the ad over again, as if he needed to remind himself of the details. "There's a lot of money to be made in it. Think of all the people who move around this city every day. Most of them have to hire moving trucks. There's a lot of money to be made in that market."

"Uh-huh, and that's a lot of money to spend on one vehicle." Roy pointed to the asking price.

"Well, I know, but we'd make it all back in no time." Johnny spoke quickly to get back to the pros of this proposition as quickly as possible.

"We?" Roy repeated. "What's this 'we'?"

"You and me." Johnny gestured from Roy to himself. "See, we go in on this as partners and on our days off, we can drive the truck. If we get going well enough, we could even hire someone else to drive it on the days that we're both working. That way…"

"No."

Johnny opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. "No? Roy, you're passing up a great opportunity."

Roy started to try to walk away, although he knew it would be useless. At the very least, he managed to get to the kitchen counter in the station so that he could pick up a cup of coffee. "Sorry, but no."

"What's Joanne going to say when she finds out that you missed the opportunity to make so much extra money?" Johnny asked.

Roy could imagine what his wife would say if he attempted a business venture with his junior partner, especially one with such a large upfront investment. "I think she'd understand."

"Roy, don't you want some extra money? You've got to kids to raise, don't forget."

"I could use the extra money," Roy admitted evenly, "but I need to spend time with my kids more. I don't want to spend all my days off driving a moving van."

"Oh." Johnny frowned slightly as he thought about how much this business venture would cut into his free time. That was a drawback, undoubtedly, but then the answer presented itself. "But when we hire another driver, he can drive the days that we both have other things going on."

Roy was about to try to refuse again when the claxon sounded. He breathed a sigh of silent gratitude as he set down the coffee cup and raced to the squad right behind Johnny.

Both the engine and the squad were being called out, so the engine crew was also scrambling to reach their vehicle. The call was about a trapped child and Johnny and Roy recognized the address as being in a rundown part of town with a lot of abandoned buildings.

It took about fifteen minutes to reach it. When they arrived, they found that a police car was already there, along with a news truck. They could see a police officer—Vince Howard, whom the men at 51 knew well from working with him—speaking to a middle-aged woman. A news camera and a reporter were hovering close to them. They were standing in front of what had once been an apartment building, but now all the windows were smashed out and even the building itself was tilting precariously, as if it was ready to fall any minute. A faded "condemned" sign was hanging crooked on the door.

"I hope the kid isn't in there." Johnny nodded toward the building.

"I don't think we're going to be that lucky," Roy replied.

Roy parked the squad, and Mike Stoker, the engineer, parked the engine right behind it. All the men hurried toward Vince and the woman.

"What have we got, Vince?" Captain Stanley asked.

Vince glanced over his shoulder at the rickety building. "This lady here says that there's a baby in that building."

"Yes, there is," the woman said. She glanced awkwardly at the reporter and the camera; clearly they were making her nervous. "I was walking past here—it's a shortcut to my job, but I only take it when I'm running late—and I heard a baby crying in there."

"Did you go in to check on it?" Roy asked.

"I tried, but as soon as I stepped through the door, the floor creaked like it was about to fall in. I mean, just look at that place. It looks like a good, stiff breeze will knock it over."

"Yeah, I see what you mean." Captain Stanley glanced at the building again himself. "Why hasn't this place been torn down?"

"Why hasn't this whole neighborhood been torn down?" The woman gestured at the half-a-dozen buildings in view that were in barely better condition. "We've been trying to get them torn down for years, but the city just doesn't seem to be able to get around to it."

"Are you sure it's a baby?" Captain Stanley asked.

"I heard it, too," Vince told him. "It's a baby, all right, but I didn't go in because I figured you fellows would have a better idea what to do."

Chet Kelly, who was one of the linemen, scratched his head incredulously. "But what would a baby be doing in a place like that? How would it even get in there?"

"It's not that unusual, unfortunately," Vince replied. "We find abandoned kids in these buildings every now and then. The parents decide they don't want them, so they leave them in a place like this and hope nobody finds them."

"What a sick thing to do," the woman said, making a face. "Not wanting or not being able to keep a baby is bad enough, but leaving it to die…That's murder."

"Yes, ma'am, it is," Vince agreed. "Let's hope in this case it will only be child abandonment and endangerment."

"Yeah, so we've got to find a way to get the kids out of there," Johnny said. He was already starting to walk toward the half-open door with the sign on it. "I'm going to see just how bad that floor is."

Roy and Captain Stanley accompanied him. They saw at once that the floorboards were badly rotten. Several were already broken out.

"Maybe it's not so bad at another entrance," Roy suggested.

All the entrances were examined, including all the ground-floor windows, but between rotten floors and interior walls that were sagging ominously, the first one they had looked at actually appeared to be the safest.

"What do you think, Cap?" Roy asked.

Captain Stanley sucked in his breath. "I think our only chance is to send one man in. Any unnecessary weight on that floor, and it's going to go, and probably take some walls with it."

"In that case, I'd better go," Johnny said. With his lithe build, he was lighter than any of the other firemen.

Nevertheless, Roy almost started to object. Captain Stanley, however, agreed with Johnny.

"Gage is right. It makes the most sense for him to go in. I want you to wear full turnout gear and an oxygen tank. I know it's going to add a lot of weight, but if anything does happen, you're going to need it, and I think the benefits outweigh the risks."

Johnny nodded. "Right, Cap."

He trotted back to the squad where he suited up. For the moment, though, he let the oxygen mask dangle around his neck rather than putting it on his face. There was no need for it yet, and hopefully there wouldn't be later. He also had a handy-talky clipped to his belt.

Entering the building was a nerve-wracking affair. Anywhere Johnny might set his feet might give way underneath him, but there was no way to tell which places were safe until he put his weight on them. He stayed away from the spots that were broken, reasoning that these were the most rotten places. Once, however, after he had turned the corner of a hallway and could no longer see the door, one of the boards did give way beneath his feet. He jumped back in time and bumped against the wall. Plaster dust fell from the ceiling as he looked down into the gaping hole that had opened up. Evidently, the building had a basement and the floor underneath Johnny wasn't very thick.

He paused to collect himself after that and to work up his nerves to take another step. In the relative silence that followed, he heard a soft cry. It was unmistakably a baby, but it sounded weak. Even apart from the immediate danger of the building collapsing, Johnny needed to find the child and get it out.

He called softly, hoping that the sound of a human voice would make the baby cry harder. His hope wasn't entirely unfounded. The sound didn't get any louder, but the baby kept up the crying, rather than falling silent again.

Johnny walked as slowly and as carefully as he could toward the sound. There were a lot of doors in this corridor, which made sense considering the building had once been apartments. The problem was that that made it almost impossible to tell where the baby might be. Finding it was going to take awhile.

A little farther on, Johnny came to a staircase. There had once been doors on the top and the bottom, but the top one had been torn completely off its hinges and disappeared. The one at the bottom had pulled loose from one hinge and was hanging haphazardly from the other. Standing at the top of the stairs, the baby's cries seemed louder. Johnny was sure it must be coming from the basement.

He sized up the steps and decided that they looked trustworthy enough. He started down them. Although they creaked and groaned alarmingly and one sagged as he stepped on it, they seemed fairly sturdy until about halfway down. At that point, Johnny stepped on a board that bowed inward like a wet noodle under his weight. He tried to pull his foot back, but the action was too swift and sudden. Instead of reaching safety on the previous step, he tripped himself and found himself falling face first down the steps.

He broke his fall somewhat with his hands, but that didn't stop him from sliding all the way to the bottom of the stairs and into the bottom door, where he painfully picked himself up.

"Ow," he groaned, trying to assess whether he was seriously injured or just bruised.

When the first wave of pain with its self-preserving instincts had passed, Johnny realized that the crying was much louder now. He shone the flashlight that he had on his belt around and spotted a baby lying a few yards away.

As he approached the child, he realized that it was no more than a month old. It also had no clothes on but a diaper and was lying on a dirty blanket.

"Hey, there," Johnny said in an attempt to comfort the child while he bent over to examine it. There were no obvious injuries, although the baby looked undernourished. "What say we get out of here, okay?"

Johnny started to pick the baby up, but he jumped as a loud bang reverberated through the space. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the door to the stairs, aided by his collision with it, had finally let loose its hold on the last hinge and fallen to the floor. Johnny had no sooner seen that than plaster began to fall from the ceiling again and there was an ominous rumble. He threw himself over the baby to shield it with his own body just as the ceiling gave way.