Chapter Text
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Pov: Maya Bishop
Fifteen years.
They say that all the cells in the human body renew themselves every seven years. Technically, I am a completely different person from that Lieutenant who crossed the limits of the city of Seattle in a car loaded with ambition and resentment. But as I drove across the I-5 bridge, watching the needle of the Space Needle pierce the oppressive gray of the sky, I felt that every one of my new cells still carried the same DNA of stubbornness.
Fifteen years ago, I was “the Flame.” I was the woman who never looked back. When I received that offer in Chicago, I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t apologize for stepping over Andy Herrera to get a promotion, nor did I look Jack Gibson in the eye when I decided that our story was dead weight. I simply left. I wanted the top. And I got there.
What I didn’t plan was the baggage life handed me along the way. Baggage that stood five foot three, wearing a hoodie three sizes too big and holding a skateboard like it was a shield.
“This place smells like fish and depression.”
Jordan’s voice broke the tense silence inside the SUV. She was slouched in the passenger seat, her headphones hanging around her neck, her eyes fixed on the window with a kind of disdain she had definitely inherited from me.
“It’s just rain, Jordan. That’s called a temperate climate,” I replied, keeping my hands firm at ten and two on the wheel.
“It’s garbage. I hate it here. Why couldn’t we stay in San Diego? At least there I had sun and the park crew.”
“Because I received an offer as Battalion Chief here. And because your school in San Diego suggested that a ‘change of scenery’ would be beneficial before they had to formally expel you.”
Jordan let out a dry, humorless laugh.
“You mean you ran again. That’s what you do, right, Bishop? When things get tight, you change states.”
I gripped the wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.
“Don’t call me Bishop. I’m your mother.”
“You’re the Battalion Chief now. Act like one,” she shot back, putting her headphones back on.
I had no response. The worst part of having a daughter who is your spitting image is that she knows exactly where to strike to make it hurt the most.
The parking lot of Station 19 hadn’t changed much. The same worn concrete, the same ghosts. But the energy was different. I wasn’t walking in there to pick up a shift. I was walking in to be the law.
Jordan got out of the car before I could even open my mouth. She dropped the skateboard to the ground and stepped onto it with a sharp crack that echoed through the yard.
“Jordan, you’re staying in my office. No wandering around, no talking to the firefighters, and, for the love of God, no tricks inside the garage.”
“Yes, ma’am, captain, chief, whatever,” she said, gliding toward the double doors without even looking at me.
I took a deep breath, adjusted the collar of my immaculate uniform and the insignia of Battalion Chief. I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to fix that district.
When I stepped into the garage, time seemed to stop. The truck was being polished. Vic Hughes was laughing at something Travis Montgomery was saying. Andy Herrera stood in the center, hands on her hips, talking to Jack Gibson.
The sound of Jordan’s skateboard cutting across the smooth garage floor drew every eye.
“Hey, kid! You can’t skate in here!” Jack shouted, stepping forward.
Jordan didn’t even slow down. She popped an ollie over a coiled hose and stopped sharply near the tool table, kicking the back of the board so it jumped into her hand.
“Who is she?” Vic asked, frowning.
“She’s my responsibility,” I said, stepping out from the shadows of the entrance.
The silence that followed was absolute. The kind of silence that comes right before a backdraft explosion.
Andy took a step forward, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. She looked at me, then at Jordan, then back at me. The contempt I had thrown at her fifteen years ago still seemed to hang between us like smoke.
“Maya?” Andy’s voice came out in a whisper.
“It’s Chief Bishop to you, Herrera,” I replied, my voice as cold as the steel of an axe. “And to all of you.”
Travis let out a muffled exclamation. Jack Gibson looked like he had seen a ghost he had tried to forget for more than a decade.
“You… you’re the new Battalion Chief?” Jack asked, incredulous. “They sent a message saying the new Chief was coming from outside, but… you left this place hating it, Maya.”
“I left to grow. Something it seems some of you still haven’t done,” I said, my gaze dropping briefly to Jack’s uniform, still bearing the same insignia from years ago. “Herrera, in my office in five minutes for the briefing. The rest of you, back to work. Equipment inspection starts in half an hour, and I accept nothing less than perfection.”
“And her?” Vic pointed at Jordan, who was sitting on a metal bench, spinning the skateboard wheels with an expression of deep boredom. “Who’s the miniature version of Maya Bishop?”
Jordan looked at Vic with icy eyes.
“I have a name. It’s Jordan. And if you call me miniature again, I’ll hide your keys where the sun doesn’t shine.”
Vic blinked, surprised. Travis let out a nervous chuckle.
“Yeah. Definitely yours, Maya.”
“Jordan, to the office. Now,” I ordered.
Jordan got up slowly, dragging her feet on purpose just to annoy me. She walked past Andy and Jack without the slightest acknowledgment that those people had once been what I called family. But to me, they were just subordinates now.
The Chief’s office smelled like old coffee and paper. Jordan dropped into the leather chair in the corner and put her feet up on a file box.
“Feet on the floor,” I said, sitting in the main chair.
“No one’s watching, Bishop. Relax your ovaries.”
Before I could give her a reprimand that would keep her quiet for a week, there was a knock on the door. Andy Herrera walked in. She didn’t wait to be told to sit. She closed the door and crossed her arms.
“You come back after fifteen years, no phone call, no warning, and now you’re my superior? And with a daughter of… how old is she?”
“I’m fourteen. And I can count, so don’t talk about me like I’m a fire hydrant,” Jordan shot from the corner.
Andy looked at her with a mix of shock and curiosity, but turned her focus back to me.
“Maya, what happened to you? You disappeared. You treated everyone like we were steps on a ladder you wanted to climb. And now you come back and expect what? Loyalty?”
“I expect professionalism, Herrera. I’m not here to relive ‘the glory days’ or have drinks at Joe’s. Seattle is a district that needs firm command, and I am the best person for it. If you have any problem with my record, the door is open. But while you’re under my command, you will call me Chief.”
Andy shook her head, laughing in disbelief.
“You’re still the same. Only now with a younger and more irritated version of yourself to deal with. Good luck with that.”
She walked out, slamming the door behind her.
The silence returned, broken only by the sound of Jordan’s stomach growling.
“I’m hungry. And I hate that woman.”
“You hate everyone, Jordan.”
“Yeah. I take after you.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t have a ready answer because, deep down, Jordan’s brutal honesty was the only thing keeping me anchored to reality. She stood up, grabbed her skateboard, and walked out of the office before I could authorize it.
“Jordan!” I called, but the door had already slammed shut.
The rest of the day was a test of endurance that not even Olympic training had prepared me to face. I tried to focus on budget reports, the truck maintenance schedule, and the guidelines I planned to implement to turn the 19 into the most efficient district in Seattle. But every ten minutes, I heard the rhythmic clack of Jordan’s skateboard wheels crossing the yard below.
I went down to the garage for the first official inspection. The atmosphere was heavy, saturated with unasked questions. Andy avoided me with surgical precision, limiting herself to one-word answers. Jack seemed to be in a trance, alternating between looking at me and staring into nothing, as if trying to reconcile the Maya he loved with the ice-cold woman now giving orders.
In the middle of the chaos, Jordan was the element of entropy.
“Hey, kid, if you roll over that hose one more time, I’m confiscating that thing,” I heard Vic’s voice echo.
“Try me, ‘Vicky,’” Jordan replied without even looking back. “And it’s not a toy, it’s a Canadian maple deck with bearings worth more than your haircut.”
Vic’s mouth fell open, shocked by the audacity, while Travis Montgomery, who was cleaning the lockers nearby, let out a genuine laugh.
“She got you, Vic. 1–0 for mini-Bishop.”
Jordan stopped the skateboard with a sharp motion and looked at Travis. It was the first time that day I saw her expression soften.
“You’re the guy who takes care of the flowers out front?” she asked, pointing to the small pots near the entrance.
“That’s me. I’m Travis. And you must be the reason your mom’s had that vein popping in her forehead since eight this morning.”
Jordan gave a half-smile. A real smile. Something I hadn’t seen in months.
“I like the flowers. They’re the only thing that isn’t gray in this shitty city.”
“Watch your mouth, Jordan!” I shouted from the top of the garage stairs.
She rolled her eyes and went back to gliding, but stayed near Travis for the rest of the afternoon. He was the only one she didn’t treat like an enemy. Maybe it was his calm energy, or maybe Jordan instinctively knew who was least likely to give her orders.
Meanwhile, the whispers continued. I saw them gathered around the kitchen table at lunch, which I made a point of eating alone in the office. They wanted to know. Where had I been? How had a woman who said she would never have children, who saw motherhood as an anchor to ambition, ended up with a fourteen-year-old who called her by her last name?
They wanted the story of my fall or my rise. But I would give them nothing. My private life was a fortress.
At nineteen hundred hours, the shift ended. I was exhausted in a way physical labor had never caused. It was the mental fatigue of maintaining a mask of authority while trying to keep an eye on a rebellious daughter.
“Let’s go, Jordan. Day’s over.”
“Finally. I thought you were going to propose to this building,” she muttered, tossing the skateboard into the back seat of the SUV.
The drive to the apartment I had rented in a rush, based on photos online, was done in sepulchral silence. When I parked in front of the old building in Queen Anne, reality hit me like a punch.
Opening the door to that apartment felt like stepping into a disaster zone. There were moving boxes stacked to the ceiling, half of them still taped from San Diego. There were no curtains, just the reflection of streetlights hitting the rain-streaked glass.
“Home sweet home,” Jordan said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she kicked a box of books. “Where do I sleep? Between the dish boxes or on top of your spare uniform?”
“Your room is the one on the left. I set up the mattress last night.”
“Big deal. There’s no Wi-Fi, no food in the fridge, and I still don’t know where the hell the school you said I’m going to is.”
A flicker of panic hit me. The school. With the rush of the transfer and the pressure of taking command of the Battalion, I still hadn’t finalized enrollment at the district’s public school. I had the forms, but not the time.
“I’ll take care of that tomorrow, Jordan.”
“Tomorrow. Always tomorrow,” she threw her backpack on the floor and sat on a cardboard box, her eyes filled with a rage that hid a deep loneliness. “Why did you bring me here, Bishop? To lock me in a station or an empty apartment while you play being the boss of Seattle?”
“I brought you here because I’m your mother and this is my job!” My voice rose, echoing off the empty walls.
“You’re my legal guardian. There’s a difference,” she stood up, her eyes blazing. “I’m going to sleep. If I starve to death overnight, write a report about it. It’s probably the only thing you know how to do well.”
She slammed the bedroom door, leaving me alone in the dark living room. I looked at my reflection in the window glass. I looked like the Battalion Chief I had always wanted to be, but around me, everything I had built was a mess of unopened boxes and a fractured relationship.
I was back in Seattle. I had the power, the rank, and the insignia. But that night, sitting on a moving box in the dark, I realized I had no idea how to be the mother of the girl who was crying softly on the other side of the wall.
Tomorrow would be another day of fires to put out. And I still didn’t have enough water for all of them.
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