Tolerance Book II

Chapter Thirty-Five: Downtime

Mollys Bar

Three nights later Jay sat at the end of the long, polished counter in Mollys nursing a beer as he appreciated some quiet time.  The rest of the Unit members, surprisingly including Voight, were having a Western movie marathon and he had declined the numerous attempts to get him to attend on the basis he had seen their chosen films quite recently.  Of course that flimsy excuse had not gone down well but in the end his promise to attend the next marathon seemed to appease the men, albeit reluctantly.

"Haven't seen you in a while man," Kelly Severide approached, beer in hand, "you want company or some time to yourself? I won't take it to heart if you prefer to go solo."
"Hi Kelly," Jay eyed the newcomer, "take a seat but no questions about my health okay?"
"Sounds good to me," the Firefighter grinned as he sat down before eyeing their surroundings suspiciously, "so where are your Bodyguards ...... you didn't kill them did you?"
"No ...... but it's still on the table."
"It's always the quiet ones you have to look out for," Kellys' eyes creased in mirth.
"Luckily tonight Ruzek is hosting a Western marathon and .....,"
"What westerns?"
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ....,"
"That's a classic.  Newman and Redford are brilliant in it.  What else?"
"A Few Dollars More and The Outlaw Josey Wales."
'Never was a Clint Eastwood fan," Kelly shrugged, "so you made the right choice coming here instead for some lively company and ......,"
"Where's the 'lively company'?" Jay made a point of slowly looking around the half empty bar.
"Hey I'm sitting right here man!"
"Well you are alive I'll give you that."
"Gee thanks!" the older man took a sip of alcohol as he rolled his eyes in mock disgust.
"So how are things at 51?"
"Busy," the older man shook his head unhappily, "there's a lot of office politics  going on with us as the pawns."
"Damn.  Sorry to hear that," Jay commiserated, "some people just want a job for the control it gives them."
"Which can be good or bad depending on the person.  Problem is when lives are at stake power games can get people killed."
"Yeah," Jay agreed sombrely, "I learnt that pretty quick in the Rangers.  We had one Sergeant and all he obsessed about was following protocol.  You found out pretty damn quick on the ground that protocol doesn't cover everything."
"You lost someone?" Kelly asked.
"Not just one.  Morgan, the Sergeant, ultimately got five guys killed. Probably more I don't know about."
"Hell!" Kelly winced.
"If the manual said so many personnel were required for a task that was what he went by.  Didn't matter what size the target was and .......,"
"But surely things like target size should determine the size of the force sent.  It doesn't make sense."
"Nope it doesn't but some people are in positions they shouldn't be.  Morgan had no battle experience but more importantly he didn't want to take advice from experienced people around him."
"Surely to get to the rank of Sergeant he must have seen some action?" Kelly frowned.
"Nope and it was probably just as well because he'd have killed more people ....," Jay noted grimly.
"That's the flaw with the military.  You're assuming those sending you into harms way are acting in good faith and are ...,"
"Don't think every Soldier is that naive," the ex-Ranger interrupted, shooting down that all encompassing presumption, "you can hope they're doing the right thing though."
"And you don't think about the worst case scenario?" Kelly guessed perceptively.
"Course not, if you did you'd never  leave base.  You must do the same thing though."
"Maybe ... to a degree.  Hell if you considered the 'what ifs' at the beginning of every shift you'd be second guessing everything."
"So you take things as they come," Jay pointed out decisively, "just like in the military."
"Big difference is a fire isn't consciously working to take you out.  Sure it's the enemy but your enemies in the military and police are actively trying to harm you.  Big difference ..... but we do have a lot in common," Kelly held up his half full bottle in a salute, "course CFD will always beat CPD."
"In your dreams," Jay clinked his glass against the bottle with a grin.

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Ruzeks' Apartment

After the final credits of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid played Antonio muted the television and looked around the room.