Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Where's Bobby?" Buck helped Hen put together lunch as the others worked on chores.
"He had a meeting with one of the chiefs. Said he should be back before the end of the shift. Until then, I'm going to be in charge of scenes."
Buck just nodded. It made sense since Hen was someone that everyone respected in the field. Buck didn't ask any more questions as he finished helping get lunch on the table.
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Bobby showed up about halfway through their shift and quickly called everyone together.
"I will fill you all in on my meeting with the chiefs in a few hours. It will impact our entire shift in some way, so I want each of you to be prepared for it. Before I discuss with the entire shift, there are parts that I need to discuss privately with Buck, Hen, and Chimney. So, I will be meeting with them in that order. Hen, if you get called out while I am with Buck, I want you to handle the scene. In the meantime, you all have chores that need to be finished."
Buck exchanged a glance with Hen before following Bobby to his office.
Once they had both entered, Bobby closed the door and sat down.
"Before I get too far into things, I owe you an apology. The situation with the baby in the pipe was handled badly by everyone. But, I shouldn't have allowed Athena to talk to you like she did."
"Is that what your meeting was about?"
"Yes. Someone at the hospital complained about Athena's treatment of you in the parking lot."
Buck thought about that moment and felt a curl of shame in his chest. "I didn't react well to that whole thing with the mom."
"No, you didn't." Bobby sighed. "But you weren't wrong either. We have policies in place for transporting multiple individuals. And we are never supposed to transport a victim with their attacker together. So, you should have addressed it differently. But, that's all that you did wrong. And that is something that you will learn as you do the job."
Bobby leaned on his desk.
"The chiefs discussed the situation at length with me. And there is some punishment being handed out. But not to you. You and I need to spend some working on how to handle various situations where you are going against another first responder. So, we will start that on our downtime. And whenever you have an opportunity, read over the policies that we have in place. That will help a lot with whatever situations come up. When you leave this office, I'm going to ask that you don't discuss this with anyone yet. I want everyone to get the full facts from me as I failed to act appropriately in that situation."
Buck nodded in agreement. They spent a few more minutes discussing the specific policies that would have applied in that situation and how Buck could have used them to make his point. Once he left, he found Hen and told her that Bobby was waiting for her.
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Bobby studied Hen for a minute before speaking.
"I was called into the meeting today because someone placed a complaint about Athena's behavior at the hospital during the situation with the baby in the pipe."
Hen looked startled. "Is Buck in trouble? That seems a little extreme given the nature of the situation and how new he is."
"Buck is one of the only ones who isn't in trouble. You are right that he is very new still. That makes it my responsibility to teach him how to handle those types of situations. But Athena, Chim, you, and I are all going to take a hit on it. Buck was right that we should not have transported that girl with the baby. She tried to murder that infant and we had no way of knowing if she would attempt it again given the opportunity."
Hen let out a deep breath. That had never occurred to her. It should have given how serious the safe haven laws are. They existed for a very good reason.
"I can't believe that it never occurred to me that that situation was still dangerous."
Bobby nodded in agreement. "It didn't occur to me either."
He took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. "Your punishment is going to be very mild as you had a very minimal role in the situation. You are going to get a verbal warning that will be added to your file. You will also need to take a refresher course on policies relating to the ambulance. This will count toward your continuing education towards being a paramedic. Once that is complete, your part of this will be done."
Hen quickly agreed. Nothing that was going to happen to her was unfair and it would not impact her ability to support her wife and son.
"I will understand if you can't tell me, but what is going to happen with Athena?"
"I won't tell you the details. But she is going to take the biggest hit. She had no business yelling at Buck like she did. And she did it in public. That's also why my punishment will be more severe than you or Chimney. I should have stopped her."
Hen nodded and agreed to send Chimney in next.

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Bobby started off his meeting with Chimney much as he had with Hen. He explained the complaint and why the department was so concerned.
"I get that it wasn't procedure, Bobby, but Buck is such a brat sometimes. He is going to get someone hurt or killed. Athena was right to get onto him."
Bobby shook his head, not surprised at Chim's ugly views.
"She was not right. She has no right to discipline anyone on my team. If she had concerns, she should have come to me to address them. And we never handle discipline like that in public. You have been in this house longer than anyone else on this team. And we have had many discussions about how you were treated when you joined. It surprises me that you are in support of treating someone else like you were treated."
Chim's mouth dropped open. "I'm not like any of those racists!"
"You sound just like them when you talk about Buck deserving the abuse he took from Athena over a situation that he was right about."
Bobby held his hand up to stop Chim. "I'm disappointed in you but we will deal with that at another time. You will be getting a written warning as you are the senior paramedic in this house. You know better than to transport a victim with the person who harmed them. It doesn't matter how old they are. You will also be taking some refresher courses. The department only had one they required but I am going to add another because your attitude about Buck is not okay. We do not talk about our co-workers like that. And we do not encourage abusive situations."
Bobby stood up and made his way to the door. He paused before he opened it.
"If you give Buck any grief, you and I will be back in here. This has to stop."

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"Even if you were not present, you have all heard about the call involving the baby in the pipe."
Bobby glanced around at everyone to make sure they were paying attention.
"What you may not be aware of is that there was a situation where policy was inappropriately ignored. The infant and her teenage mother were transported together to the hospital. This should not have happened as the mother is the one that tried to kill the baby."
Bobby let the talking that started die down before continuing.
"To my embarrassment, I allowed Buck to be publicly reprimanded by someone from the LAPD when he was the only one who protested transporting them together. For that, I am deeply sorry. I should never have allowed anyone to publicly discipline any of you. This situation is even worse since Buck was right in his concern about putting the mother with the baby. He and I will work on ways for him to better get his concerns across going forward."
"Other than Buck, everyone involved has been punished in some way. For this house, I will take the biggest backlash. I am considered on probation for the next six months. That simply means that my actions here will be scrutinized very closely. I cannot allow this sort of situation to happen again."
Bobby dismissed everyone to get back to work and waited to see if anyone wanted to talk to him.
He vowed to himself to do a better job of leading this house. They all deserved the best that he could give them and he would provide that going forward.

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Hen listened quietly as Athena complained about her suspension. She looked across the bay at Buck who was working on restocking the ladder truck.
"Athena."
Once the woman was silent, Hen continued.
"We were wrong. That girl could have easily hurt that baby again. And we allowed that. Buck didn't file the complaint but he would have had every right if he had."
Athena went on to deny that but Hen cut her off.
"You didn't have any right to say what you did to Buck. Just because you have been on the job longer doesn't mean you know anything about how we handle transporting patients in the ambulance. Buck was the only one really thinking about the baby that day."
She told Athena that she had to get back to work and then hung up. She quietly moved to help Buck and smiled when he seemed happy to see her. She was just glad that their friendship hadn't seemed to take any damage.