Lieutenant Madeleine Johnson was exhausted, and properly so.
She had earned the right to be fatigued. Sixteen hours she had been here with her team today, most of those hours spent outside on the nondescript lawn in front of the Public Safety Training Facility's low-slung classroom building. Outside, in the piercing penetrating damp cold of the Seattle winter, the sort of cold that seeps into a person’s bones and removes all memory of warmth.
Twelve hours she had spent gently correcting the class, all the while never hesitating to kneel in the wet grass, to whisper instructions to volunteers made up to look like disaster victims. Twelve hours pacing the pitted concrete of the lot of the Public Safety Training Facility, watching, always watching, taking physical and mental notes on everything and everyone.
Twelve hours spent cloaked in the persisting damp, twelve hours issuing commands to men roughened by the worst humanity had to offer, men certainly not used to taking commands from a woman in a short navy pleated button-down shirt dress, long bestockinged legs a siren call of a far different sort than that to which they were accustomed.
Perhaps most importantly now, sixteen hours she had been here today, teaching and evaluating shoulder to shoulder with her co-instructor of three years, Lieutenant Jeff Blakely.
Mads Johnson never hesitated to counter Jeff’s guidance of the students, and he occasionally returned the favour; this was part of what made the two of them, together, a perfect teaching team.
Jeff had once laughingly said that Madeleine whispered and firefighters worldwide crept closer to hear her... but her voice was never a whisper. It was simply of the sort of soft, even timbre that made one’s head snap up, made men used to receiving frantic, shouted orders realise that shutting up and paying attention to this woman was probably their best immediate course of action.
The debrief wrapped up with merciful haste; the sky outside was the same dense and foggy dark as it had been this morning, as if day had never come. Everyone - well, almost everyone - was now eager to be home and warm with their families. Maddie and Jeff assisted in the loading of gear into trucks, gave the requisite hugs and handshakes, exchanged well wishes, and watched, each with a burning new impatience, as the parking lot emptied.
The last tail lights disappeared up the drive, and then there was nothing and everything all at once. The constant cold rain was coming down and hard, but as Maddie fell into Jeff’s chest, she felt nothing but a warm -no, hot - glow inside of herself.
“Inside.”
Madeleine looked up to see Jeff smiling down at her. Kissing the top of her head, his voice came thick with want and unanswered need.
“Lieutenant Johnson? You appear to require assistance.”
She laughed at his use of her official title in this most unofficial of circumstances, then stopped laughing and started struggling, to no avail, as strong arms scooped her up and slung her quite without ceremony over stronger shoulders.
“The fuck, Jeff?”
Jeff ignored her protestations, carrying her to the same door she had come through this morning. Pausing, cocking his head to avoid Maddie's slowing efforts to free herself, he swiped his badge and waited for the telltale 'click' of the door unlocking. Slamming himself into the crash bar, he pushed through the door and carried her down the corridor outside the conference room, coming to a stop by the entrance to the women’s locker room.
Madeleine slid down his body, out of the fireman’s haul. Looking up at him, studying every line and scar on his face, her green eyes locking with blue as she slid her jacket and sweater off, leaving both to fall without care to the floor.
Now it was again her turn to issue the commands.
“Lieutenant Blakely? Shower. Now.”
And without any further instruction, she turned towards the locker room, unbuttoning her dress as she walked, unfastening her bra as she reached the locker room door, leaving a momentarily stunned and still unbelieving Jeff to follow in her wake.
