The entire crew is sound a sleep in the dorm room. Suddenly Johnny awakens. He sits up, drenched in sweat. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. Quietly slipping his turnouts on, he walks into the bathroom and runs some cold water. He splashes the cool water on his face. Then he walks to the kitchen and starts the coffee maker. Once the coffee is made, he pours himself a cup and walks over to the table. He sets the coffee cup down in front of him and sits down. He looks at the hot, steaming liquid, lost in thought of a long time ago.

Roy comes into the kitchen, dressed in his turnouts, glad to find Johnny. He notices that Johnny seems lost in thought. He walks closer to him and calls his name.

"Johnny?" When he gets no response, he speaks louder. "Johnny? Are you okay?"

Johnny looks up at Roy

"Oh. Hi, Roy. I didn’t hear you. What did you say?"

"I said ‘are you okay’?"

"I thought I was but now I’m not sure," he replied vaguely.

"Can you be any more cryptic?" Roy asked in a teasing tone but he sees Johnny isn’t smiling. Roy sits down. "What’s wrong, junior? This mood you’re in does it have anything to do with what happened today with Vince?"

Johnny nods his head slowly. "Yeah. I guess it does." He stares into his coffee cup for a long moment than back at Roy. "We’ve had guns pulled on us before during some of our rescues," he points out and Roy nods in an agreement. "And you know I’m not a big fan of guns in any size."

"I know that. But you have never really said why they bother you so much. When you got Vince’s gun away from him, you tossed it up onto the squad like it was a snake. You couldn’t wait to get out of your hands fast enough."

Johnny laughed ruefully. "A gun is like a snake. If it bites you, it can kill you. When I turned around and saw Vince pointing his gun at me, I was sacred to death that he would pull the trigger."

"I would have been scared if he had pulled a gun me," Roy concurred, pointing a finger at himself. He tried to ease Johnny’s mind. "Vince knows you weren’t trying to help that guy escape After all, he did have a head injury."

"I know that! But after we transported him to Rampart, I started having flashbacks of what happened!" Johnny explained, twirling his cup in his hands. Roy nodded, feeling he had a better handle on what was bothering his friend.

"Well that’s was a traumatizing event today, having Vince pull a gun on you. I’m not surprised you’d have flash backs on what happened."

Johnny stared hard at the older paramedic. "The flashbacks weren’t from what happened with Vince. They were from eight years ago," he explained.

"Eight years ago? What happened eight years ago?" This information surprises Roy and he waits for Johnny to explain further.

Johnny studies his coffee cup again as he begins his story. "Well, I had just moved from Montana to San Diego. I was intent on finding my dream, only I wasn’t sure what that was. About three months later, I was still looking when I met a great girl. Her name was Payton Marsten. She was so beautiful with honey blond hair, sea green eyes, and the body of a model." Johnny closes his eyes and pictures her smiling at him.

"I don’t think you ever mentioned her before," Roy comments. Johnny opens his eyes and looks at Roy. He shakes his head.

"I never did ‘til now. Anyway, it was a Saturday. June 16th to be exact. We had decided to go to Disneyland for the day and just forget about being adults." Johnny chuckles as he remembers the day. "We decided to get some donuts and milk to take with us, to eat on the way. So we stopped at Merle and Edna’s, a mom and pop grocery store. It wasn’t a really big place but you get what you needed in a hurry. And Merle and Edna really loved it."

"Were they friends of yours?" Roy prodded.

"You could say that. When I first moved to San Diego, I got an apartment about a block away from the store. I would stop there every day get a paper and coffee while I was looking for a job. After a while Edna stopped charging me for the coffee and the paper. She said I should save my money and not worry about paying for them. They started treating me like family."

"Did you ask her for a job?"

"I was a day from asking her and Merle when I got a call to come in for an interview for a construction job. They were really happy for me when I got the job. Edna told me to come every morning before I went to work and get a couple sandwiches and some coffee. I told them I could pay but Merle said not to worry about it." Johnny grins at the memory of the conversation he had with them.

"Sounds like they really cared about you."

"Yeah they did. They were really sweet. Just like grandparents."

After Johnny hesitates, Roy decides to press him for more of the story. "So, what happened that June day?"

"A robbery," Johnny explains as he recalls the events of that morning...

Johnny and Payton walk into the store. Johnny notices that Merle and Edna aren’t anywhere around up front. "That’s strange. Merle and Edna aren’t around."

"Maybe they are out back bringing in a delivery?" Payton suggested, looking around.

"They shouldn’t be carrying anything heavy! That’s why they hired Billy. Merle is 77 years old and Edna is 74," he explained to his girlfriend. Payton shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, maybe Billy isn’t here yet and they had to get whatever it off the dock before it went bad?"

"We better go back to the dock and see if I can help," he decides. They walk to the office in the back of the store. They have to go through the office to get to the loading dock. Being the gentleman he is, Johnny opens the office door for Payton to walk through first. As she steps through the doorway, Payton is hit hard on the side of the head by the but of a gun. She falls to the floor and blood starts to trickle from the side of her head. Before Johnny can even react, he’s grabbed by his shoulders and shoved roughly up against the wall. The thug raises the gun to Johnny’s throat. He can feel the cold steel of the gun. The thug is sweating profusely and his eyes are dilated. Johnny can tell he’s high on something. He hears Payton moan but he can’t get to her.

"Where’s the safe, huh?" the thug demanded. Johnny is afraid that the guy will kill him and Payton.

"I don’t know. I don’t even work here. We were just coming back to use the restroom," he tried to explain.

"You’re lying!" the thug screams as he hits Johnny hard in the stomach. Johnny doubles over. The man grabs him by the hair and pulls his head back and places the gun to his head. "I don’t like liars!" he growls.

At that moment, Edna opens the rear door and sees what’s happing and quickly closes it before the gunman notices. She manages to get to the bargain den the store next door and calls the police. Meanwhile, the robber is becoming impatient.

"You don’t want to tell me! Well, then, how about I just blow your girl friend away? Maybe you will tell me then, huh!" He removes the gun from Johnny’s head and points it over to where Payton is laying. He pulls the hammer back and Johnny sees his chance. He hits the thug’s arm and the gun falls to the floor. The two men begin to struggle and they end up on the floor. Being bigger and older, the thug gets the upper hand on Johnny. He straddles the young man’s slender body, places his hands around Johnny’s neck, and starts to strangle him. Johnny tries hard to fight him. He tries to pull the man’s hands away from his neck but the guy has a vicelike grip on his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Johnny sees the gun nearby. He stretches his long fingers until he reaches it. Johnny brings the gun up to the guy’s chest and points it at him. His air supply is almost gone and he fights going unconscious. Finally, Johnny manages to pull the trigger. There is a loud noise as the shot goes off. The gunman falls to the floor. Exhausted, Johnny rubs his neck and tries to catch his breath but darkness suddenly overcomes him as he passes out. Roy can’t believe what he just heard.

"What happened then?" he asks, anxious to hear the rest of Johnny’s story.

"The police arrive thanks to Edna. I found out later that she almost walked in on what was happing. She was the one who ran next door and called the cops."

"And the gunman? What happened to him?"

Johnny sobered considerably, and unconsciously, shrugged his shoulders. "I killed him," he said softly, looking away from Roy and at his coffee cup again.

Roy is stunned by his friend’s revelation. "It was self-defense. You had no choice but to defend yourself. You had to shoot. Or he would have killed you."

"I know that. I just never killed anyone before. It’s not a good feeling knowing that I did."

Roy nodded, sympathetically. "You did what you had to do to survive. He would have killed you and Payton. And if he had found Merle and Edna, he would have killed them, too."

"He did anyway."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Roy asked, feeling confused. Johnny looked up from his cold cup of coffee. Even after all these years, the pain was still there.

"Merle had a heart attack a week later. Edna died two days after his funeral. After that day, I vowed I’d never pick up a gun again. And I hadn’t until today when I had taken Vince’s gun away from him. I felt it in my hand and I had to get rid of it as fast as I could. So, I just tossed it onto the squad hoping I wouldn’t remember what had happened that day long ago."

"But the memories came flooding back."

"Full force," Johnny affirmed.

"Well, that does explain your fear of guns. After all you went through that day."

Johnny shook his head. "A fear that will stay with me the rest of my life."

Roy places a comforting hand on Johnny’s shoulder. But Johnny pulls away, stands and walks over to pour himself a fresh cup of coffee. He walks back over to the table and sits down again.

"Wait a second! What about Payton? She didn’t..." Roy wonders but Johnny cuts him off.

"No. She didn’t die." He runs his hand over his eyes and looks at Roy before he continues "The blow to her head caused her to go blind. Permanently."

"Oh, man! I’m sorry. Did you ever see her again?"

"I tried to after she was released from the hospital," Johnny explained. "But she refused to see me. She wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone. Her mom told me to give her time to get use to the fact that she would never see again. I did and never tried to contact her again."

"That’s terrible she wouldn’t even talk to you," Roy said in disbelief. He couldn’t imagine anyone treating his best friend that way, knowing how compassionate the younger man was.

"It was," Johnny agreed. "She didn’t deserve what happened to her. It was my fault that she was even there. If we had just gone to Disneyland, she wouldn’t have been hurt."

"You don’t know that!" Roy argued. "If you hadn’t been there, the guy could have killed Merle and Edna that day. And he could have gotten away with it! It’s a catch twenty-two, Johnny. Either way you try to change it, something would have happened."

Johnny sips his coffee. "I know that but it doesn’t make me feel any better." Johnny looks at his watch, surprised to see the time. "It’s three o’clock. We better get back to bed."

Johnny stands up and places his rinsed-out cup in the sink. He walks back to the table and looks at his partner. "You coming?"

Roy shakes his head. "You go ahead. I want to finish my coffee. Soon as I’m done, I’ll be there."

"All right. See you in the morning." Yawning, Johnny leaves the kitchen. Roy ponders about what Johnny has told him. It makes him realize that with all Johnny’s been through, his friend will be just that much stronger.

# # # # # # # # # # #

Two days later Johnny is at his apartment. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, looking at his little black book. He picks up the phone and starts dialing a number. A minute later he hears the other end of the phone pick up.

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" At the sound of Payton’s voice, Johnny finds himself unable to speak. Finally he finds the courage to answer.

"Hello. Payton It’s John Gage. Can we talk?

THE END

Thanks to Icecat for the challenge …And Thanks to the Nancy "the Nifty Lady" for typing this for me on so such short notice. And bailing me out again thanks pally