HIS WORLD WAS EMPTY

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The quiet consumed him. He gazed into the flickering light and thought about the last time he'd heard her voice. It had been almost a week now, the days passing in mindless succession. Roy usually enjoyed the first few days of quiet time whenever Joanne and the kids went to her mother's for an extended stay but inevitably picked up extra shifts before the silence became an enemy instead of an ally. The extra money he made usually went to a good cause – like a romantic weekend getaway with Jo.

That this extra shift, however, might have converted the temporary absence of his wife's voice into a permanent one was a possibility he didn't want to consider.

Roy jumped as a gloved hand touched his shoulder, his back meeting the rear panel of the squad forcefully. Craig Brice's impassive-as-usual face appeared, his full lips forming carefully exaggerated words, his neatly-kept hands miming the message as well, and, after a moment, Roy nodded. He stood and walked unsteadily toward the ambulance, head throbbing again in time with his pulse. Garish light – from the flames still consuming the building, from the emergency apparatus positioned around the scene, from the fluctuating street lamps as power lines smoldered – dribbled over the ground, increasing Roy's disorientation with shadows that were too frantic and uncertain to stay still. He lurched to a stop beside the ambulance then silently climbed into the back after Brice, settling himself at the other patient's feet.

The door closed, shutting out the visual cacophony. On impulse, Roy reached out and pressed his hand against it. He barely caught the vibration of someone's firm double-tap on the door. The ambulance jolted into motion, causing him to lose contact with the door and grip the bench reflexively.

But, despite the blaring chaos of the active fire scene they were leaving, despite the sirens he knew were wailing brashly to clear the way before them, despite the medical beeps and uncertain breath sounds coming from the gurney, Firefighter/Paramedic Roy DeSoto could hear nothing.

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The patient (the other patient) had gone into full arrest on the way to the hospital. Wrapped up in the cocoon of his own silent heart beats, a sudden spasm of motion from the other paramedic had been Roy's only clue something was amiss. He turned to assist, surprised when Brice abruptly pushed his hands aside. No, DeSoto, stay back, Craig mouthed emphatically then turned away. He watched as the ambulance attendant responded to Craig's verbal commands, Fred's dark eyes darting apologetically toward Roy.

At the hospital, Roy jumped out of the ambulance quickly then watched helplessly as Brice continued chest compressions on the 48-year-old male, riding the gurney into Exam 1, sweat staining his perfectly pressed shirt, no-nonsense glasses sliding down his nose, obsessively neat brown hair falling out of place with each futile thrust against the man's sternum.

A moment later, Dixie McCall's elegant features intruded on his line of sight, a worried frown on her face. Come with me, Roy, she said, guiding him into an exam room. When he stumbled slightly, he felt her fingers tighten on his still-jacketed arm. Dixie patted the exam table and Roy obediently situated himself on the sheet-covered surface. He could see Dixie's lips moving and imagined the nurse's dulcet voice speaking words of comfort and reassurance but they didn't matter. She helped him off with his turnout coat, the sweet musk of her perfume battling with the fire gear's smoky odors, and laid it over a chair in the corner. Kel will be right in, she said. Try to relax. Roy nodded and settled back on the table, closing his eyes.

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Roy stared at the note Dr. Brackett had handed him, squinting to make out what the doctor had written. They'd been using a mixture of lip-reading, pantomime, and notes to communicate during the past few hours; it was an imperfect system at best.

"I can't read this, Doc," Roy said quietly. At least, he thought it was quietly, hoped it was quietly. He didn't ever want to be that guy, the one who was loud because he couldn't hear his own voice.

Dixie slipped the note out of Roy's fingers, glanced at it, shot Kel a look that spoke volumes, slid a pen out of her pocket, printed two words on the scrap of paper, and handed it back to the paramedic.

Dixie's clear, feminine capital letters let him know the results of Brackett's examination: NO RUPTURE.

"That's good," Roy said. "What about – ," he began then paused, mentally shifting gears. "When will I be able to hear again?" The paramedic knew the textbook answer but kept his eyes on Brackett's, watching for some sign the doctor was holding something back. His concentration was broken when he realized he'd failed to watch the man's lips. "Could you, uh, could you say that again?" he asked.

It's hard to say, Roy, Brackett repeated, shaping the expected words carefully. Maybe a few hours, maybe a day or more, maybe –.

"Maybe never. Right, doc?"

Pressing his lips together and shaking his head, Brackett agreed reluctantly: That's a possibility, Roy. But I don't want you to worry –. The paramedic closed his eyes, shutting out the physician's empty words.

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His aches and bruises had been dulled by pain medications, encouraging him to sleep, but now in the middle of the night, Roy was awake again. The dim light in the hospital room he had to himself matched his mood, and he was grateful no friend or relative was camped out in an uncomfortable chair situated next to his hospital bed. He'd asked Dixie not to call anyone, not until morning, not until there was something to know. Normally, the report of his injury would have made its way to his captain by now, resulting in Hank's presence bedside whether he asked for it or not, but Roy knew the Stanley clan had made a quick trip up north to visit the in-laws. They'd even joked about how best to handle visits to and from in-laws.

So his world was empty right now. And the fear that nestled in the soft red marrow of his bones, slipping out blood cell by blood cell and steadily tracing through miles of blood vessels, had begun to nourish a panic in his heart.

To regain control of himself, Roy tried to recreate the fire scene in his mind, to slow it down and play it back, to slice it into bite-sized pieces and compartmentalize each bit properly. But the unheard sounds he'd always taken for granted were beginning to pile up in a back corner of his mind, threatening to spill over the quick dam he had erected when he realized the explosion at the fire – the explosion that had knocked both him and the unconscious victim he was carrying to the asphalt – had robbed him of his hearing. Brice's triage had appropriately slotted him in a lower priority than the gravely injured civilian Roy had brought out, leaving him parked on the squad's back bumper until the patient (the other patient) was ready for transport. The realization had dawned in those few moments of isolation.

And he'd thought first of Joanne: the luxurious cadences of her voice in every season and emotion, the funny voices she used when reading to the children, the full-bodied singing of disco tunes she did when she thought no one was around to hear her, the soft giggles late at night under the blankets, the promises whispered into his ear as he left for his shift in the morning. Since then, he'd catalogued other muzzled auditory stimuli – a patient's sudden inhale when a tender spot was touched, the whoosh of blood through a vein while getting a BP, the sproing of one of Chet's water bombs, the thrum of Big Red's engine in pump gear, the clatter of canine toenails on concrete, the laughter of the crew from 51 – but he kept coming back to his family, his children and his wife.

He licked his lips hesitantly and swallowed hard. Then he spoke her name, the same way he'd done at the scene, testing the external auditory canal and the tympanic membrane, the ossicles and Eustachian tubes, the semicircular canals and cochlea, hoping to hear – .

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I do this for fun, not profit; the characters are not mine but the mistakes (without exception) are.