Written by: Kaz, Gemma, Naomi
Set during: Series 12
Characters: Dan Barratt, Joe Walker, Sally Fields, Geoff Pearce, John Coleman, Recall, Hyper, George Green, Sicknote Hi-Ho and Chris Hammond.
Summary: Chris Hammond has a new job in Fire Safety, but he misses being operational...

Kaz:

39 days ago he had been in charge of Blue Watch at Blackwall. Right on the front line, in the middle of the action, giving the orders and maintaining the discipline.

Now all he had to boss around were paper clips, printer cartridges, boxes of paper and a spaghetti junction of computer wires. Occassionaly he got to play with the staple gun, but nothing could beat the adreline surge of facing one of the most powerful natural forces - fire.

He missed it dearly.

But fire safety was still an important job, it had to be done. And the more fires that could be prevented, the more lives that could be saved. But not everyone was willing to listen to what he had to say.

"What d'ya mean I need to put batteries in it?" an elderly man was complaining about his smoke alarm.

Chris Hammond sighed to himself, he had attempted several times to explain to Mr Johns how the smoke alarm was suppose to work. The pensioner, however, didn't even seem to know what day of the week it was.

"It goes off when I 'ave me mornin' smoke," Mr Johns continued.

"Perhaps you should consider smoking outside?" Chris ventured. "Or, at least, somewhere away from the smoke alarm!"

Mr Johns looked down at the round, white, plastic object in the palm of his hand. "Seventy two years I've managed without one of these fancy gagets," he moaned. "I ain't never 'ad no fires!"

"You can't be too careful, sir," Chris was quickly beginning to get tired. "Can I leave that with you?"

He had offered to fit the smoke alarm, but Mr Johns was having none of it and even refused to let Chris into the house without making him present every single peice of ID he carried!

Mr Johns wrinkled his nose. "I tell ya, I ain't 'ad no fires in seventy years!"

Chris just nodded and turned to leave the pensioner's front lounge. A strong smell of stale cigar smoke lingered in the air.

"Bloody do-gooders," Johns muttered to himself as Chris left the house. "Don't need no fancy gagets to tell me if there's a fire in me own 'ouse!"

Chris made his way back to the Brigade van he had been given to make his fire safety related journeys.

The familiar sound of sirens echoed around the streets. Soon, a big red fire appliance swung into Dinsdale Road, it's blue lights flashing wildley on the roof.

Chris watched it pass. He knew he was more use on operational duties than handing out free smoke alarms to people who didn't seem to care if they lived or died.

He decided in that moment that he was going to do something about it.

Lunch at Blackwall was a lively affair, as usual, especially since Hi-Ho had been seconded from Shadbrook. He seemed to exist just to wind Joe up about one thing or another. And here they were once more, scrapping like two schoolboys.

Sally watched them carefully. She was still considering Joe's marriage proposal. He had been all grown up and sincere then, but now here he was acting like a 5 year old.

She wondered if that was what she really wanted.

The bells went down.

"Typical!" Sicknote was the first, and loudest, to moan as Blue Watch scrabbled for the pencils and scribbled their initials on their plates before jumping up from the table and rushing down to the appliance bay.

"Flooded flat, pump only!" Recall grinned handing the print out to Coleman.

The pump crew were displeased as the others celebrated the fact that they were going to get a hot meal.

Joe opened the back door of the pump. Sally, although not on the crew, was behind him.

"Joe..."

He turned.

"I... I can't marry you..."

"What you talkin about Sal..."

She could see the words hadn't sunk in. But there was no time to reflect.

"Come on Joe!" Hyper urged.

Joe had no choice, he climbed into the cab and the appliance pulled out of the station. Sally watched them go.

Gemma:

The pump crew consisted of Geoff Pearce being in charge, George driving and Joe, Hyper and Sicknote.

On arrival to the flooded flat, the pump crew were greeted by the occupant who stood outside dripping from head to toe. "The pipe broke!" he groaned, "Water's spraying everywhere in the kitchen and my new hallway carpet is ruined!"

Geoff nodded understandingly, knowing all too well how annoying it is when carpet gets damaged. Time and time again Bruno had zoomed through the house from the garden covered in mud.

Meanwhile, Chris Hammond had arrived back to Fire Safety headquarters after handing out numerous fire alarms to old people who he knew wouldn't use them anyway.

"Tough morning Chris?" a colleague asked, passing Chris with a smirk on his face.

"You could say that," Chris muttered as he made his way over to his desk, dropping his mobile phone and car keys down. "Bloody boring morning," Chris muttered to himself as he phone began to ring and he answered it, "Chris Hammond..."

Naomi:

Geoff started to bark out orders, "Hyper, Joe, go and see where the leak is coming from and cut it off. George, Sicknote, let's start pumping the water out."

George finished getting his firefighting gear on and started to help Sicknote unload equipment from the appliance.

Joe, who was finding it difficult to concentrate on the job after Sally's shock announcement, and Hyper ran into the flat. Wading through the water, they went straight through to the kitchen.

Gemma:

"Oh brilliant!" Joe muttered loudly with a roll of the eyes as he and Hyper made their way through the water-filled flat and through to the kitchen.

The pipe had somehow bent and split causing sprays of water to spit out anywhere possible, covering absolutely everything in it's path.

"BA control from Blackwall Pump 2..." Hyper went over the radio to BA control.

"Go ahead Hyper," Sicknote prompted as Geoff and George gathered around him.

"The main water pipe's split... looks like the water to this whole block will have to be turned off Sicknote..."

"Received..."

With no hesitation, Geoff ordered George to turn of the water supply, which they had located on a map a couple of minutes previous whilst Joe and Hyper were venturing inside the flat.

----------

"What do you mean you want something a little challenging? Is Fire Investigation not exciting enough for you Chris?"

"Well... no... no... I just don't see why I have to occupy a couple of days of my time with going door-to-door with fire alarms when half of the people I visit will just throw it away or toss it into a drawer," Chris replied honestly.

"Well if you want something a little more challenging," Chris' boss carried on, "Why don't you look elsewhere?!"

Chris though about retorting 'Maybe I will!' but decided against it at the risk of being sacked. He just sighed softly to himself and made his way back over to his mountain of paperwork at hi desk.

Meanwhile, the pump crew had finished attending to the flooded flat and arrived back at Blackwall to view the smug faces of the other Watch members who hadn't received a call all afternoon.

"Sal... can we talk?" Joe asked at a whisper, after approaching Sally who was standing in the doorway of the gym.

"I..." Sally murmured, "I can't Joe," she replied in a hushed tone. "I... not now."

Joe remained still as Sally wandered away into the small grouping that had merged around the appliances.

Naomi:

Joe sighed, he felt utterly deflated by Sally's answer to his mariage proposal. Despite her needing time to think about her answer, he had been sure she'd say "yes". He thought they loved each other. "How wrong could I be?" he thought, shaking his head. Needing to be alone, he headed up onto the roof garden.

Sally walked away fron Joe, trying to hold herself together. She knew Joe would leave her alone if she was with the others. He wouldn't want to damage his pride by letting on he'd been turned down.

-------------

"Yeah, we've been here all afternoon. We had a nice dinner and a cup of tea," Recall started, rubbing it in. " All warm....and dry" he added, noticing Hyper looking soaked from the waist down.

"Alright, no need to keep going on," Hyper replied cheerfully.

"You're cheerful for someone who's drowned," Hi-Ho commented. "There's not a guy on the scene is there?" he asked, with a cheeky smile.

Gemma:

"Ah there might be!" Hyper grinned, replying Hi-Ho's question as he made his way away from the group to get changed out of his soaking wet clothes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You alright Joe?" Hyper asked, glancing in Joe's direction as they finished changing into dry clothes after the not-so-dry shout.

"I'm fine," Joe muttered quietly, his thoughts were still pre-occupied on Sally.

"You sure?" Hyper continued, "Hi-Ho hasn't been annoying you again has he?" he asked, "...Because if he has, you don't have to worry for much longer, he'll be back at Shadbrook soon."

"It isn't Hi-Ho!" Joe yelled, glaring in Hyper's direction, before dropping his gaze to the floor and he sighed. "It's Sally..." he murmured, "I uh... proposed and she... Well she..."

Hyper sighed himself, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

"No," Joe cut his sentence short, "No... You would have found out sooner or later..."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Night Chris!"

Chris looked up from his desk, a pile of paperwork still sat high on his desk. It was late afternoon and his colleagues were leaving for the evening. "Night..." he murmured in response, his mood apparent in his voice.

"You still here Chris?" his boss asked, appearing out of his office.

Chris felt like answering some sort of sarcastic comment, but remained silent, just offering him a small smile.

"Why don't you leave that for the morning?" he suggested, "Staring at paperwork for hours, it's not good for the eyes and the brain."

Chris knew that the mountain of paperwork would still be there by morning, he also knew that it would probably be even bigger. His job was crap, he hated it. Finishing operational duties was the worst decision he ever made. He watched his boss walk away and he pushed his chair out from the desk, then made his way towards the door...

Naomi:

Members of Redwatch started arriving for their shift at Blackwall just as the rest of Bluewatch joined Hyper and Joe in the locker room.

Hyper was deep in thought. What Joe had told him was playing on his mind. He was struggling to understand why Sally had turned Joe down. It was like a game of tennis was playing in his head as he debated whether to talk to her about it.

Joe was thinking along the same lines as Hyper. He needed to know why Sally had said "no" but was unsure whether he could handle what she'd say. Confusion filled his head.

Recall had noticed Joe and Hyper were not involved in the chatter of the others. Seeing the look of thunder on Joe's face compared to the concentration on Hyper's, Recall approached Hyper.

"You two ladies fallen out?" he asked jokingly.

Blinking, Hyper looked at Recall stood next to him. "What?" he asked, not having heard the question.

Recall nodded towards Joe who had their back to them, "You and him. Everything alright?"

Glancing at Joe then back at Recall, Hyper put on a false smile, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about a guy....which you do not want to hear about."

"Oh, right. Well, something is definately up with him" Recall continued watching Joe. "He's never usually this quiet."

Hyper shrugged, trying to convince Recall he had no idea what was going on. "Everyone can have an off-day," he stated.

"Yeah," Recall mumbled before walking away to his own locker.

Looking back at Joe, Hyper wondered if he should talk to him rather than Sally.

--------------

Sally was in the mess. She didn't want to face Joe yet so she'd decided to hang back until he'd gone before she got changed. Drinking a cup of coffee, to avoid looking out of place, she picked up today's paper that had been left on the table. She was reading the headline story yet her mind was blank, taking nothing in.

---------------

"Who's coming to the pub?" George asked loudly.

"I'm in," Hi-Ho replied, as he slung a bag over his back.

"Yeah, I'll be over in a minute," Recall said, tying his shoes.

"Hyper?" George called over, "You coming?"

Sitting on the bench in front of his locker, Hyper was ready to go but still hadn't decided where he was going. Joe or Sally. Or maybe he should just leave them to it and go to the pub.

"Nah, he's got his love life to sort out," Recall answered for him, glancing at Hyper with a smile on his face.

"Yeah, not tonight," Hyper agreed. The pub was out of the question.

Gemma:

Sally left the station before the others Watch members did, after deciding to leave with as little as possible, so she didn't have to enter the locker room. She knew fully well that if she did enter, she would bump into Joe and she really didn't want to face him at that moment in time.

The evening sun shone low in the sky, as Sally sighed softly. Why did she say decline? She couldn't ask that question, earlier on she might have, but at that precise moment in time she couldn't give a reasonable explanation as to why she said 'no'.

"Sally..." a distinctive Irish voice from behind her called out loudly.

Sally sighed softly, "I want to be left alone, Rob," she told him sternly, as Hyper jogged alongside her.

"Joe told me," Hyper informed Sally softly, as she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Oh," she uttered simply, as her gaze fell to the floor.

"He can't understand why you said 'no' and frankly, neither can I." Hyper stood ahead of Sally, hoping that she would heighten her gaze... Maybe say something...

"I..." Sally began, but paused, before carrying on again, "I... just... I just can't marry him..." she stammered, as she began to walk on again.