Chapter Text
Jack Zimmermann stepped out of the Samwell Emergency Medical Corps supervisor vehicle and walked over to where the rest of his crew was huddled around their patient. Shitty Knight, the primary crewmember, was gingerly touching the patient's fingertips and asking her to wiggle them, which she did. The secondary member, Ollie Carlisle, stood behind Shitty, filling out the run report and occasionally asking the patient for demographic information. The newest member, whose name Jack couldn't remember, sat on the patient's uninjured side, stethoscope in his ears, intent on taking a blood pressure.
"I'm not a doctor, but I'm comfortable saying that's broken," Shitty said as Jack approached, and Jack nodded as soon as he saw the angle the patient's forearm made. "I already called for the ambulance."
"BP is one-thirty-two over seventy-eight," the tertiary said, unwrapping the cuff from the patient's arm. Ollie jotted down the vital signs on the chart.
"Do you want to immobilize the arm, Bitty?" Shitty offered. Bitty--Eric Bittle--that was the kid's name. Jack hadn't been at new member orientation so he'd only met Bittle earlier that day at shift change, and as a result, had no idea what his skill level was. As the tertiary crewmember, Bittle's job was to take vitals and get comfortable being with actual patients, and in a couple months, he'd be able to apply for secondary, where his role was a little more flexible. Jack had joined SEMCo with a few years of experience under his belt, but most members came in fresh from their EMT programs, and that meant things moved slower than they needed to.
Bittle scooted over next to Shitty and opened his bag, finding a few cloth bandages and unwrapping them. He unfolded one and positioned it over the patient’s arm, then paused and repositioned it. A siren yelped nearby, and Eric jumped. Jack turned to see Capital Ambulance pulling into the quad.
“Either tie the sling or let someone in who can,” Jack said to Eric.
Shitty had already turned to give a report to the other EMTs, but he stopped, gently nudging Jack toward Eric and the patient. “Help him out, Jack,” he muttered before calling out to the Capital crew, who were unloading their stretcher and bringing it closer to the scene. Jack knelt beside Eric and took over putting on the sling, tying the knot behind the patient’s neck as the crew came up beside them.
“Jack Zimmermann?”
Standing, Jack eyed the middle-aged EMT who had called his name. He had a passing familiarity with most of the Capital crews, but he’d never met this guy before. “I thought it was you—my kid’s a big hockey fan.” He turned to his partner and explained, “You shoulda seen this kid play—best freshman forward Samwell’s had in years.”
“Thanks.” Jack nodded once, lips in a tight line. It wasn’t often, but every now and then, a local would recognize him, some devout college hockey follower.
“What the hell happened to you, kid?” the EMT asked, holding the stretcher in place while Shitty helped the patient sit down, “Everyone said you were on track to get drafted.”
“Got in an accident my sophomore year and had to take some time off,” Jack said. He’d rehearsed the line before. “Never made it back on the ice, but I’m back here finishing up my degree.”
The EMT shook his head. “Tough break.”
“Yeah.” Jack was grateful that the conversation dropped off there; the crew wheeling the stretcher to their truck. He turned back to his crewmates, who were zipping up their bags. “I’ll meet you guys back in the office, unless someone wants to come with me.”
“Nah, Jack,” Shitty said, starting toward the primary vehicle, “I’ve got them.”
Jack wasn’t one to protest some solitude on his drive to the campus police station, where SEMCo’s office was. He parked his vehicle beside Shitty’s SUV in the lot, leaving his bag on the front seat. Swiping his card in the front door, he waved to the officer in dispatch before heading to the office.
The office was a small room, barely big enough for a four-person crew to sit, let alone two crews at change of shift in the afternoons. Most of their equipment was in storage, but a few necessities like extra gloves and bandaging equipment were on a shelf by the computer. A futon, donated by a senior many years ago, provided the only other seating beyond the two desk chairs. The rest of the room was taken up with locked filing cabinets containing old run reports and member files. Every now and then, Jack and the other executive board members would find gems from previous years crammed into various files, including a sign insisting that those who wanted to have sex in the office were required to use a condom (“It’s important that the Corps follow the tenets of public health in EVERY situation.”)
Shitty showed up a few minutes later with the other two, one arm around Bitty as he came through the door. “Anyway, congrats on your first call,” he was saying, “It’ll start feeling easier now that you know how things go.”
Ollie handed the clipboard with the run report to Bitty and took a seat on the futon. “Shitty’s gonna dictate the report to you, and you’ll just write down what he says.”
“Let me know if you need to catch up,” Shitty said, glancing down at his copy of the template and starting, “Chief complaint: eighteen year old female with an injury to the right wrist.”
Bitty did a decent job of keeping up. After the report was done, they passed the clipboard around and everyone signed the bottom. The document went into the lockbox atop one of the filing cabinets. From there, it would go to the health center, and a copy would go in the student’s record there, and then it would come back to the SEMCo office to be locked away in one of the cabinets. Only the director and operations officer had access to that information, primarily for quality control and anonymous call reviews. Confidentiality was important, not to mention particularly tricky, on such a small campus.
Standing up, Shitty asked Ollie and Bitty if they needed rides anywhere. Both declined—shift change was only an hour away, and they were going to wait in the office instead of lugging their jump kits back across campus at five. Jack spent enough time in the office as it was, and he fully planned on going back to the apartment to get some work done. He stood and muttered a “See you at shift change” to the crew before leaving the office.
He was almost to the supervisor vehicle when he heard Shitty call his name. The primary jogged up to him, his hair a mess, as always. Shitty smoothed over his moustache and leaned on the bumper of the car. "Dude. I didn't want to say anything in the office, but like, what was up with you and Bitty?"
"What do you mean?"
"You were kind of an asshole to him on scene, Jack."
Jack shrugged. "Capital was there and the patient wasn't ready to go."
"So, go in and help him," Shitty said with a sigh. "I know you've got a lot going on, but you're better than that." He reached out and squeezed Jack’s arm. Shitty was big into physical contact as a form of punctuation, be it tousling Jack’s hair or pulling him into a hug. “We were all new once—you were just new somewhere else.”
The Corps was packed into one of the medium-size lecture halls in Ellerby, the psychology building. New and returning members filled the seats while Jack stood with the rest of the executive board at the front of the room. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the meeting—the first general meeting of the year always took longer than the others, plus, this year they had actual business to discuss.
"Hi, everyone! Let’s get the show on the road so we can continue with our Thursday nights.” Everyone quieted while Johnson introduced himself, not bothering to step out of the shadowy corner of the room. “My name's Johnson. I’m a senior, I'm here to get this exposition on the road and to break the fourth wall just a little.” The newer members looked at each other—it was easy to spot which members weren’t familiar with Johnson. “I mean, I’m one of the clinical supervisors and I’m the operations officer. I take care of all the actual medical stuff, like protocol updates and call reviews and keeping an eye on our training officer.”
He tugged the brim of his hat lower down over his face while Ransom stood up and smiled. “I met all the new folks at new member orientation, but in case you forgot, I’m Justin. I’m junior, and I’m in charge of training, so, setting up continuing education and CPR classes.” He sat down.
"Larissa Duan, junior, administrative officer," Lardo said—even after two years of working together, it was still weird for Jack to hear her real name, since he only ever saw it used it on paper. "I handle two things: paperwork and parties, so if you get an email from me, there's either a form you need to fill out or we're planning a kegster. I'm in charge of Holster and Shitty."
The new members looked even more confused than before.
"I'm Shitty," Shitty said, tucking his hair behind one ear. "I’m the treasurer. I argue with the financial board every year to make sure they allocate enough for us to keep our Epi-pens in stock and our trucks maintained. Like Johnson, this is my last year with you all—so let’s make it a good one.” He leaned back against the chalkboard and his hair fell back into his face as his turned to look at Holster.
Adjusting his glasses, the other man waved. “And I’m Holster, the secretary, also a junior. You’ll get a lot of emails from me, mostly reminding you to come to general meetings. Oh, and because no one else decided to say so—Ransom, Shitty, Lardo and I are all primaries—primary crewmembers--or crew chiefs, whatever you want to call us. Anyways, you’ll always be with one of us on a call.”
Jack had been waiting uncomfortably at the end of the line for everyone to finish introducing themselves, and when Holster finished talking, Jack swallowed hard to quell the fluttering in his chest. "Hi, everyone," he said, clearing his throat. "I'm Jack--I'm the director, so I oversee, well, everything. I'm, uh, clearly a little older than most of you--I took a few years off after my freshman year and worked for a fire department ambulance--but I'm graduating next fall, so technically, I'm a second-semester junior, I guess."
"Since you brought up the topic of experience, and I have a captive audience," Shitty picked up where Jack trailed off, and Jack was grateful to be done talking, "There's clearly a wide range of experience on the Corps. Some folks were professional EMTs for years, and some of us work on the weekends or over the summers, and a lot of you have never touched a real patient in your life. No matter how new you are, you're always going to have someone with experience working with you, and we're here to help you learn. If you're ever confused or unsure about something, just remember--we've got your back."
Jack looked away from the Corps and away from Shitty when he talked. He hadn’t really seen Bittle since their first call together, and that had been two weeks ago. He’d tried to be more patient with new members since then, but it still felt like Shitty’s interjection was directed at him. Fortunately, with all the ‘first meeting’ orders of business, there wasn’t time to dwell on that, and Ransom started in on the agenda.
"Our first con ed class is two weeks from today, and it’s gonna be taught by an alum of ours--those of you who've taken shifts already have probably seen his plaque in the office.” Ransom hadn’t talked about this in their board meeting at the start of the year, but Jack knew what was coming. “Kent Parson graduated a few years back; won the student speaker award at the North American Collegiate EMS Organization conference for his talk about working with psychiatric patients, and he comes every year to present for us, even though he's busy killing it in med school. Anyways. Two weeks from today. This room. Be there."
Jack tried to keep a neutral face as Ransom talked about Kent. In the four years since Jack’s first stint at Samwell ended, Kent had called and texted Jack at least a hundred times. In the beginning, Jack was too sick to respond, to think about anything but getting through the day. After a few months, when he was finally able to piece everything that happened together, he just felt guilty. He’d deliberately tried not to hurt Kent, but he had anyway, and the last thing he wanted to go was go and make things worse. It was better for Kent if they didn’t talk, he decided. Kent, to his credit, kept trying. He let Jack know when he decided to graduate early, when he got into medical school, asked to get coffee when he was in town visiting. He never missed Jack's birthday.
The meeting needed to end. Jack was starting to feel jittery, that closed-in sensation, like he was going to be stuck in that room forever. He stopped paying attention during the reminder about conduct—members could only wear their uniform t-shirts while on duty, and drinking was not allowed while wearing anything with the SEMCo logo on it—and Holster’s announcement about Corps movie night at his and Ransom’s apartment, and tuned back in when Lardo brought up the last big topic for the night.
“One more thing before we wrap up,” she said, “I know it’s a long way off, but at the end of the school year, after finals but before graduation, we’re having the thirtieth anniversary SEMCo Gala. It’s a big fancy thing, alumni fly in for it. Bad Bob—I mean—Dr. Robert Alice, the founding member of SEMCo, always comes. Plus, you’re actually gonna get to hear Jack speak, for once.” She glanced over at him, smirking.
Jack attempted a smile in return. He’d given speeches in the past—mainly when he was running for the director position, but that had been easy. All he’d needed to do was talk about his experience as an EMT and his goals for the Corps. But the Gala was a big deal—at least he had the better part of a year to figure out what he was going to say that would be worth listening to.