Sudden Response (EMS 1)

"The next time you ignore a call I'm writing you up," Eric drawled lazily as he continued to fill in their information.

Greg didn't say anything and she wasn't exactly surprised. Eric might appear to be calm and relaxed, but she knew that he was truly pissed and Greg must have picked up on that as well. This call might have been called in as a non-emergency medical transport, but they'd learned a long time ago that that status could quickly change so they didn't drag their feet doing the call. It also didn't hurt that they'd probably get their asses chewed out by a nurse or a family member if they took their sweet time getting to the call.

Ten minutes later she pulled the ambulance up and around the circle drive to the front door and parked behind a chair car, a van decked out to transport people in wheelchair and sometimes those who could walk but needed an extra hand. The only thing a chair car driver needed was a license and a valid CPR card, other than that it was basically a cab.

She called them on scene, turned off the ambulance and pocketed the keys. By the time she made it to the back of the ambulance Eric was already pulling their stretcher out and gesturing for Greg to move his ass.

"Can I drive?" Greg asked as he hopped out of the ambulance.

"No," she said with absolutely no hesitation.

"Driving is part of the job. How can I do my job if you won't let me drive?" he pointed out with irritation.

"Because you haven't learned to do the most important part of the job yet," Eric explained.

"What's that?" Greg said, moving to walk past the stretcher.

Eric pushed the stretcher in his direction, cutting him off. When Greg only frowned, Eric gestured to the stretcher. With a glare, Greg grabbed the front metal handle and gave it a pull in the direction of the double doors.

"You need to learn how to deal with patients and run a call. If you can't do that then there's no point in learning how to drive an ambulance because you won't be working here," Eric explained as he took the rear position of the stretcher, leaving her with nothing to do but shut the doors and follow after them.

"I know how to handle a call," Greg argued. "I've been doing it for several weeks now."

"No, you haven't. The only thing you've managed to do is ride along and puke," Eric pointed out as he pressed the call button by the front door to be buzzed in.

"I was sick," Greg argued, lying and further irritating the hell out of her. He'd get so much further if he just admitted he was nervous and ask for help, but he was too damn worried about his pride and that was going to be his downfall.

"I don't really care what the problem was. Just do your goddamn job so that we can do ours," Eric said as they were buzzed in. Greg's face turned red, but he didn't say anything else as they walked inside.

Since Eric was the tech for the call she let him do all the talking.

"Good morning, ladies. Who do you have for me today?" he asked charmingly as he set his clipboard on the nurse's station counter. She noted that several of the nurses blushed and she had to bite back a smile. Eric really had no idea how devastating that bad boy charm of his was or he would have used it on her last night to get her to give him that half hour back massage that he demanded for making her dinner. In the end she'd slapped some scented oil in his hand and he'd given her a body massage to die for, all while grumbling and bitching of course.

"Beverly needs to go the emergency room to have her central line replaced," Margaret, a nurse, said as she placed Beverly's inch think medical file on the counter for Eric.

With a murmured "thank you" he opened the file and began to fill in their run sheet with Beverly's medical and insurance information. She was about to suggest that he have Greg do it when she spotted the man in question lounging lazily in a chair by the nurses' station.

Great. Just what they needed, another Teddy to deal with, she thought dryly as she grabbed the stretcher by the safety bar and headed for Beverly's room. She didn't need to ask where it was. After five years of picking Beverly up for this and that she knew exactly where the woman's room was.

She was a favorite patient of theirs and every time they had to return a patient here they stopped by to check on her. Beverly was black, barely five foot nothing, and was one of the sweetest women Joe had ever met. If Joe could, she'd adopt the woman as her grandmother.

"Joe!" Beverly said, grinning hugely when she spotted her. Joe smiled in return, pushing the stretcher to the side in the small room before she walked over to help Beverly gather the things on her lap and move them to the nightstand.

"Are you here for me?" the older woman asked, smiling sweetly up at Joe.

"I'm here for you, darling. Joe's just tagging along," Eric announced as he walked into the room. He tossed the clipboard on the straight basket beneath the head of the stretcher and walked over to Beverly. He took both the old woman's frail hands into his. "Are you ready to run away with me yet, sweetheart? Just say the word and we can be in Vegas in hours making our love legal."

With a soft laugh Beverly playfully swatted Eric's hands away.

"Is this your way of denying our love once again?" Eric asked, pouting.

"I'm afraid so," Beverly said matter-of-factly as she grabbed her reading glasses and a paperback novel and hugged them to her chest.

"What if I beg?" Eric asked, lowering the bed's side rails.

"You already have," Beverly pointed out with a smile.

Eric sighed heavily. "It's because you want a younger man, isn't it? I've grown past my prime and now you're done with me."

Beverly nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid that's it."

"I don't think I'll ever recover," Eric said, sighing as he leaned over and scooped Beverly up into his arms. Normally they would have placed the stretcher against the bed and worked together to shift Beverly onto the stretcher, but she barely weighed a hundred pounds. Plus, they both knew she got a kick out of being swept off her feet by a handsome man.

"Probably not," Beverly agreed as Eric gently placed her on the stretcher and began strapping her in.

"Where's Greg?" Joe asked when the other man didn't walk into the room by the time Beverly was all loaded up and ready to go.

Eric's lips twitched as he said, "He went for a walk."

Chapter 27

"Are you going to tell me where Greg is yet?" Joe asked as she perused the vending machine selection in the EMS room of Shamrock Hospital's ER. It was a place set up for EMTs to fill out their paperwork as well as swap out equipment. Some hospitals didn't have any designated areas for EMTs so they knew they were fortunate that the hospital gave them a room to work out of.