He stepped out of his rented car right up to his calves in mud. Tommy Gavin hated this place from the moment his plane landed in Sydney and he hated the Glen even more.

Coming from NYC, to him the Glen was a one horse town with a piddly assed little fire department that might see action once a year when someone's barbie caught fire. The fire demons he carried with him would find plenty of time to haunt him here. There was nothing to scare them away.

"Shit, God damn it!" Tommy complained as he pulled his gear bag from the back of the car. "What the fuck am I doing here anyway?"

After he wrestled the bag over his shoulder he made his way into the little fire house. Dropping the heavy gear pack onto the floor, Tommy took a quick look around.

"Oh my fucking god, I've died and gone to fire-fighters hell." he said "Anyone around or am I in Hades alone?"

Jeff was on his back in the kitchen, his head and shoulders under the sink as he made some final adjustments to the new unit he'd fitted. For once he didn't have the radio blaring as he worked and the fire house was silent, or it was silent. He stopped what he was doing...had he heard a noise?

Wriggling out into the open space of the kitchen, he sat up and cocked his head to one side, listening. He wasn't mistaken, he had heard a noise. Getting up, he wiped his hands on a dirty cloth, wiped the dust off the arse of his jeans, and walked towards the noise. He saw a man  standing next to what looked liked a heavy pack. The man was looking round with a less than happy expression on his face. Jeff walked towards him and stopped.

"G'Day. Can I help you?"

Tommy raised his sunglasses up to his forehead. He wore them for aesthetic reasons only, even when there was no sun.

Looking the man up and down he cocked an brow. "Are you the fucking acting fire chief? Cause that's who I'm looking for. If you're not, the only way you could help me would be to point me to the nearest bar because I need a drink. I got this low alcohol warning light flashing in the corner of my eye and its driving me fucking nuts."

Jeff grinned to himself listening to the wise guy.

"No, mate. I'm the fucking plumber and volunteer fire fighter. I can point you in the right direction for you to fill your tank though. You need to head for Millie's, it's the best, and only, guesthouse in town, and has a bar and restaurant too. You think you can find your way, or do ya need a guide?"

Tommy chuckled and scratched his head.

"Plumber, huh? I'll need to talk to you about hydrants and shit like that then. You are now officially the engineer for the fire department. Ain't nothing like a plumber to run a pumper truck. I don't expect to see any half assed connection or an shit like that."

Tommy bent down to open his gear bag. Rustling around in it he stood up holding a spanner wrench.

"Here you go buddy. It's the official golden spanner wrench of the Glen Fire department."

Handing it over to Jeff, he zipped the bag and stood. "If you tell me where I could stow my gear, I'll take you up on the guide deal. Buy you a drink or two. deal?"

Jeff took the spanner wrench, feeling the weight of it. It was larger than anything he'd worked with before. He stood there thinking about what the blond man had said. He wondered if anyone else had realised they would need hydrants. Most rural towns relied on natural water supplies, from the creeks and lakes. This was going to be interesting.

He led the way to wear the man could store his gear, and then realised they hadn't introduced each other. He turned and smiled at the newcomer.

"Okie dokie then, let's go down to Millie's, but first...my dad always told me not to drink with strangers. My name's Jeff Mitchell," Jeff said, holding out his hand.

"Tommy Gavin." he said, taking the mans hand. "Good thing you're dad didn't know my dad. Mine said to not get too attached. It doesn't pan out in the long run, but then again my dad was an asshole. Explains a lot , doesn't it."

Tommy smirked. "Lead on my good man. I sure hope there's some prime tail in this place. With a name like Millie's it sounds enough like a good old fashioned titty bar."

Jeff wondered what Steve and Millie would think of their place being called a titty bar.

"Well, actually it's a family run guest house. The owners are Steve and Millie Moran, and they have two little kids. If it's excitement you want then you'll have to make the drive into Coffs, but just make sure that you don't drive back drunk. We may be a small country town, but we have a shit hot sheriff's department."

They were soon standing outside Millie's and Jeff led the way inside. He spotted  Tom, Tori and Stevo at the bar and waved. Turning to Tommy he pointed to Tom. "That's Tom Young, our acting fire chief and lead paramedic, his fiance, Tori, and Stevo, our other paramedic and part-time firefighter."

Stevo smiled at Jeff and came over to give him a hug in greeting. "G'Day, Jeffie, how ya going?"

"Good, Stevo, ta. This is Tommy Gavin. He's looking for the acting fire chief, a cold beer and a bit of action...not necessarily in that order," Jeff grinned, hugging Stevo back.

Tommy stood there wondering if he missed something. Maybe this man hug stuff was some kind of local tradition or something. He figured he'd take one for the team just try to fit in so instead of offering his hand to Steve, he wrapped his long arms around the guy and hugged him close. Of course he gave him that hearty man hug with firm back patting added.

"Good to meet you, brother." Tommy said in the way that all union firefighters refer to each other. Tommy waved the barkeep over to order a round for the boys,. Oddly enough he ordered a Coke for himself though.

Stevo was surprised when Tommy hugged him. It wasn't what he expected, especially from a complete stranger. He looked over at Jeff and saw him grinning. When Tommy released him and ordered the drinks, Stevo went over to Jeff. "What was all that about?"

"Dunno, mate. Maybe he just wants to let you know he's friendly," Jeff replied, turning to look for an empty table. Stevo drapped his arm over Jeff's shoulders as they headed towards the chairs.

"Do you think he's worked out we're an item?"

"Don't think so, mate. Maybe he decided that's the way we say G'Day in these parts." Jeff laughed.

Tom, Tori and Tommy joined them at the table, and Tommy was soon being teased by the boys on his choice of drink.

"Go ahead, bust my balls." Tommy scoffed but then he got quiet for a moment. "Listen, I'll be honest. My drink of choice was always Jamison's and I'd love to have one right now but the problem is, I'd never stop at just one. In fact I wouldn't stop until there was no more to drink. I wouldn't stop until I saw things, you know?"

He really didn't want to go into too much detail yet, not in front of people he'd just met so he just blurted the basic truth. "I'm an alcoholic. I'm better of just drinking this sugar filled crap until I'm a raging diabetic. At least I won't get myself in any trouble that way." 

"No worries, mate. None of us are perfect," Jeff said sympathetically. "It took a lot of guts to tell a bunch of strangers that straight out, good onya for trying to get yourself right. We'll try not to drive you back into your old ways while you're with us."

Tommy gave Jeff a grateful smile before he said "That doesn't mean I'm going to fucking like it here."

Tommy's just one of a kind and there's not much gonna ever change him.