Ferryman

This particular Christmas month was a new one for Fumihiro. He wasn't spending it alone, he wasn't spending it working and he wasn't spending it on a military base with a group of buddies just getting wasted and trying to live it up. It felt odd doing none of those things, yet he was still unsure of how he felt. Sure, more recently there were Christmases spent with his son before. However, this time, he didn't have the added bonus of people he knew helping him to celebrate.

His Australian and American buddies tried to spend Christmas with their families, and many of them had tried including those who were alone for the holidays. As a single father, a night he didn't have to cook was always a good night in his book. Plus, it did his heart good to see his son slowly acclimate to the other kids. It was pretty rough going at first, couldn't even get Benjiro out of his room. Of course, kicking back with a fellow father who enjoyed a cold one while the kids tired themselves out wasn't a half bad way to spend an evening.

After asking Benjiro, he got the phone number for Mine's parents. They had hammered out a few details for the upcoming holidays. They'd be cutting it close, but every parent involved knew how much Benjiro and Mine cared for each other. Fumihiro had seen it time and again, how his son would just brighten up at the slightest mention of his best friend. And when those letters arrived, everybody needed to watch out.

"I thought you were trying to quit for your kid."

His fellow paramedic, Sasaki. Always the joker, but definitely the guy you wanted around when things went wrong. He was taking a bite from a sandwich while they had a spare moment.

"You should talk", the burly man replied, "I don't see you chewing that nicotine gum you had last month."

"Heh, you caught me", Sasaki said with a surrendering pose, "I'm trying but if I go more than a day, I start to get the jitters."

"That's what happens when you work a job where you see more fresh varieties of hell than a warzone medic."

Sasaki donned a grim smile, "Yay for variety. Can I bum a light?"

Fumihiro handed him a lighter.

Taking a drag from his cigarette, Fumihiro was trying to banish the headache he was feeling. He heard that people considered the holidays to be pretty stressful, and he was beginning to see why. He was sitting on top of a hospital roof in between helicopter runs. The rough flavor of the smoke ran across his tongue and throat as he inhaled.

"You ever thought about getting married, Sasaki?"

The baggy eyed man squinted in thought, "Eh, not really. My parents always ask me when I'll bring a girl home, but unless people stop dying so much anytime soon that ain't happening for a good while."

Blowing smoke was already a cheap amusement for him, but learning how to blow smoke rings was also pretty fun. The cool breeze carried away the carcinogenic cloud. He knew how much his son despised the cold, but Fumihiro had long since outgrown his discomfort. Another guy on his team snapped him back to reality.

"Oy Nojiri, we just got another call. Head on collision about forty miles away."

Groaning as he stood up and stretched his lower back, "Hot d**n, another one? Considering how much funding goes into warnings texting and drinking, you'd think people would get it through their thick skulls."

Wolfing down his sandwich as they walked, "I'm probably going to regret eating that in a moment, but dammit, I haven't even eaten breakfast today."

Loading themselves into the back of the chopper with their gurney, "You've been at this job for a year now, right? Take every chance you can get."

Conversation stopped completely once everyone was loaded inside. Whether that silence was due to the deafening whir of the helicopter's blades or the shifting from casual to businesslike demeanor, it was anyone's guess. The flight took them almost twenty minutes to get them to the crash site. From the air, the team could see the highway below them, already crowded from mid-day rush hour, now completely choked from the crash.

Static sounded over the headsets as everyone prepped for a quick landing, "Alright everyone, it's just like you were told previously. We've got a two-car, head on collision. The one car only has one passenger that had their airbag deploy. The other has a family of three. Kid in the back seems alright, but the parents received the brunt of it."

As the wheels touched down and the doors on the side opened, that familiar mixture of dreadful excitement flooded through Fumihiro's veins. One of the fire crews that arrived had done them the courtesy of ripping the already damaged car doors off their hinges. Rolling the gurney up to the one car, he didn't react, but inside his stomach took a minor tumble at what he saw. The unconscious man in the driver side had a broken nose, and undoubtedly any number of fractures and lacerations across his face, arms and upper body.

The woman wasn't in any better shape. She was conscious, but listening to her groans Fumihiro was sure she wished she weren't. What with glass embedded in her face, her arms definitely broken from trying to shield her face from the airbag and by extension, a broken collarbone and most likely a sprained neck. The crew made quick, efficient work of freeing the woman from her seatbelt and gently transferring and strapping her to the gurney, taking special care not to move her neck.

"Where are you taking my mommy", a small but loud voice asked.

The crew kept right on stabilizing the woman, but unknowingly cursed simultaneously. Their job was already hair-raising enough, and hysterical family members always had a way of complicating things. That went doubly so for young children seeing their parents in such a broken state. Fumihiro stepped away from the wreck to get on eye level with the young girl who looked close to hysterical.

"Your mommy's been hurt real bad, your daddy too. We're taking them somewhere to get healed up. And for right now, you'll be coming with us."

The girl didn't look any happier about the answer she got, but at the very least, she wasn't screaming her head off. Taking the little girl by the hand, Fumihiro got her firmly strapped into a seat and told her to stay put while they worked. He also reminded her that, right now, the best thing she could do was pray. Without needing to be told twice the little girl clapped her hands together and squeezed her eyes tight. Satisfied that she was preoccupied, Fumihiro got back to work,

"I gotta say, Fumi, you sure seem to know how to deal with kids", Sasaki said while snipping the woman's shirt open. He slightly winced at the lacerations on her torso.

"Nah, I'm not that good", Fumihiro replied while dabbing wetted cotton balls on the various wounds, "We're just lucky we got a kid that feels like listening."

The crew worked furiously to stabilize the obviously concussed woman. Occasionally, Fumihiro would call up to the girl and make sure she was still praying, if for no other reason than he didn't want her to see her mother all bloody and beaten. When the helicopter touched down on the big "H" at the hospital, the crew began running the gurney to the door when they got on solid ground. One of the orderlies had to stop the little girl from following along too far as the crew continued rolling the woman to the operating room.

"W-Where's my family", a faint voice slurred.

A small bubble of relief was felt among the crew.

"Your husband is being treated right now and your daughter is fine."

"Can I-I see them?"

"The only thing you should be doing right now is focusing on how you're going to make yourself better. A good parent doesn't let their kid worry about things for too long. Just keep repeating that in your head."

A minute later, the surgical team met them and took over. Their job temporarily done for a moment, Fumihiro's crew began to make their way back to whatever duty they had. Restocking supplies, cleaning the back of the chopper, or in his case filling out that God awful paperwork that always came when the immediate danger was over. Writing his report and giving his signature, Fumihiro thought back to what he told that woman.

'Parents don't let their kid worry about things for too long, hug', he thought, 'Now who exactly was I trying to say that to?'

Stopping to check his phone, he brought up a picture of him and Benjiro that was taken a few months after they started living together again. It was the first picture he had gotten where his son was actually smiling after so long. Maybe their house was too small, but that was nothing a hotel couldn't solve.