17Chapter Two: Learning the Truth about Dad
Ten Years Later
"Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Abbie. Happy Birthday to you!" Out of tune voices, all male, finished singing, and one off key voice sang out "Happy Birthday to you, you live in a zoo. You look like a monkey and you smell like one too!" the owner of the voice was roughly 5'10" and had brown curly hair, and a thick handlebar mustache. The rest of the out of tune voices cried out "Chet!"
One voice belonging to Captain Stanley, asked "Can't you ever behave yourself Kelly?"
"Yeah Uncle Chet! Can't you ever behave? I mean you pull pranks on the guys on a daily basis, but can't you be nice on my birthday for once?" an eleven year old Abbie asked.
Chet looked at his 'niece' "Nope sweetie, I can't ever be a good boy. I'm only good right before Christmas."
"Chet, can you stop trying to make my daughter mad? Cap probably doesn't want another cake fight this year." Johnny Gage put his arm around his 'daughter' and looked at his co-worker.
"But Daaaaaddy! We have a cake fight every year!" Abbie twisted her head so that she was looking straight up into her father's face.
Johnny squatted down to his daughter's level "Sweetheart that only happens because Chet gets you mad, and you scoop up some cake and throw it at him."
Abbie giggled and scooped up some frosting off of the cake. She shoved it into her father's face and laughed even harder. "THAT was our official cake fight this year!" Abbie laughed so hard she fell off of the stool she had been sitting on.
Johnny looked at his daughter as though she had grown another head, and had turned blue. He shook his head and said "Chet put you up to this didn't he?"
Roy DeSoto, Johnny's partner, spoke up in Chet's defense. "No I did."
Johnny turned his head and looked at Roy. "You! You did this! Why would you do that Roy?"
Roy shook his head and moved away from the wall "Because, Junior I knew you'd blame Chet for it. And blame Chet you did. I got my entertainment for the day, and I managed to keep my uniform clean."
Johnny shook his head "Oh yeah. Well take this Mr. Clean Uniform!" Johnny scooped up a piece of cake and threw it at Roy. Soon everyone was participating in the Eighth Annual Station 51 Cake Fight. Everyone except for two people.
Abbie and Chet had snuck out during the confusion, and met in Captain Stanley's office. Abbie was laughing hard, and she had to breathe slowly just to speak. "That was priceless Chet! We should have thought of it years ago! Dad would have thought Uncle Roy really had put me up to it!"
Chet smiled and replied "Ehh. It was no problem kid. I just wanted to throw your dad off this year. It's gonna take him awhile to realize that I put Roy up to saying he had put you up to it."
Abbie looked at Chet confused for a minute. "I have no idea as to what you are saying, but it sounded like Dad's never gonna figure this out unless me, you, or Uncle Roy tells him what really happened."
"ABBIE! Phone call for you from Rampart!" Cap. Stanley's voice cried out over the confusion in the kitchen.
Abbie jumped up off of Cap's desk and booked it into the kitchen. She grabbed the phone from Marco and said "Hello."
"Abbie!"
"Hey Happy Birthday Kiddo!"
"She's 11 already! Get me into a retirement home STAT!"
Three voices rang out at once, and even though it was confusing to understand the three adults on the line Abbie knew who it was. "Dr. Early, Dr. Brackett, Nurse McCall! It's good to hear from you." Abbie pointed at a barstool on the other side of the room, and motioned for somebody to bring it over to her. When Mike brought it over she sat down before continuing. "Dad and Roy will be around later to restock. Cap won't let them leave until they clean up this year's cake fight."
Dixie laughed "You guys had a cake fight again this year?"
Abbie looked over her shoulder before continuing. "Yeah, I'll tell how it started when I get to work." It was another two years later, and the cake fight was caused the same way as it had been on Abbie's 11th birthday. "Dad still hasn't figured out how we pulled this one."
On the other end of the line Dixie nodded and replied, "It's gonna take a while for your father to figure it out. Johnny can take his time when it comes to figuring out what you and Chet do."
"Kay. I gotta go. Dad's ready to drive me over now." Abbie hung up the phone, and made her way out to the bay. She climbed into the passenger's side of the squad, and closed the door. "Hey Dad?"
Johnny opened the door to the squad. "Yeah kiddo?"
"Um, I know that I'm adopted, but um... Do you know what happened to my birth parents?"
Johnny was about to answer when Cap walked out of his office and called "Gage!"
Abbie and Johnny both looked at him and simultaneously answered "Yeah Cap?"
Captain Stanly looked at them and shook his head. "Knock it off. You guys have a ride-a-long today." He pointed over his shoulder to Roy and a thin looking man who were talking in the office. "He's a reporter from England, and this is an assignment he has. He's got to compare fire station operations in Europe and in the US. I'm going to tell Kelly and you two this now. NO pranks, no jokes and absolutely NO cake fights after dinner. This guy is going to be here for two shifts, so I want you on your best behavior." Cap walked off to go grill Chet, and Abbie looked at her father.
"I'm not sitting next to him for that long am I?"
Johnny looked from his daughter to the men in the office, and back again. "Don't worry kiddo, it's only until we drop you off. So let's get them, and we'll be on our way." He leaned in through the open driver's door window and honked the horn, before calling out "Roy! Let's go! Abbie's shift starts in twenty minutes, and she's gonna be late on her first day!"
Roy looked at his partner and yelled back, "Take it easy! We're coming!" He and the reporter came out to the garage. Just as Roy reached the squad, the call alarm went off.
"Squad 51. Squad 51. Accident inside Paramount Studious on Sound Stage 21. Accident on Sound Stage 21. See the director. Call time 11:30" The call died out as Cap answered it.
"Squad 51 10-4 KMG 3-6-5."
Abbie slid into the middle seat as Roy, Johnny, and the reporter all climbed in to the cab of the squad. Marco handed the directions to the studio to Roy who handed them to Abbie who passed them to the reporter, who forked them over to a very squished Johnny.
On the way to the studio the guest from London tried to strike up conversation. "So do you always take her with you on calls?" He tilted his head toward Abbie, who shot the man a very dirty look. She also would have shown him a very pretty birdie, but her father was present.
Roy answered him. "No. She just started a volunteer job over at Rampart Emergency. We were going to drop her off, but that call came in. She's going to stay there when we drop off any patients from the sound stage."
"Oh," was all the man had to say. He looked at Abbie and asked "How old are you miss?"
Abbie rolled her eyes, and was elbowed by Roy who shot her a 'be nice young lady' look. "I'm 13."
The curious man nodded and muttered to himself "That's about right. Pad's daughter should be a teenager next week." Out loud he asked her "When was your birthday?
Abbie answered him in a tone that screamed LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! "It's next week, but we celebrate it early. Okay?" She then shot a look at Roy that screamed HELP! Roy just shook his head at her.
"Johnny?" Roy asked
"Yeah Roy?" Johnny replied.
"When do I turn to get to the studios?"
"Next left after these lights."
Abbie kept looking at the men sitting next to her. "I know you from somewhere but I can't remember. It's like I knew you when I was really little, like when I was two." She kept looking at him and was surprised when he replied.
"That's because you did know me when you were two Little Foot." He replied. That did it. Abbie remembered who he was.
"Uncle Remus!" She threw her arms around her uncle and hugged him. She squeezed, and hung on for a while. When she let go, there were tears in her eyes, and she was smiling. She wiped her eyes and was about to talk when Johnny spoke.
"We're here. Sorry folks but your reunion is gonna have to wait." The guard in the guard house waved the squad through, and said that he already had called an ambulance. Roy drove the squad into the lot, and kept going until he saw the sound stage they were looking for. "Roy you grab the drug box. Abbie you grab the bio-phone and you can be the go between. And Mr. uh. Well you can watch but you have to stay out of my way. Okay?" Remus nodded. "Good here we go."
They walked across the lot to the building. The sign on the side of it said "Sound Stage 21 Lot B", and on the door it said "Closed Set. Cast Entrance Only". The call took no time, just a slight concussion on the head of one of the children who had been in the wrong spot when a sandbag fell from the catwalk.
A half-hour later the squad pulled up at Rampart General Hospital and Abbie hopped out of the cab. She was glad that Roy went in the ambulance with the little girl with the concussion. That meant the cab wasn't so squished. But that meant that she would have to spend a couple of hours listening to the new nurses complaining about Dix and her 'you have to earn longer breaks policy'. Abbie didn't have a problem with Dixie. Dixie and her dad had flirted for years and Abbie had taken a shine to Dixie at an early age. As she walked into the hospital she adjusted her brand new Candy-Stripper uniform (with a few tweaks from her fashion conscious baby-sitter) and said "Good Afternoon Ms. McCall" to Dixie as she read over the charts for the afternoon.