Sam woke up suddenly and looked around Penny's bedroom in confusion. The daylight only shone in faintly and yet everything here smelled of her. He turned to the side and wrapped his arms around her and immediately she snuggled closer to him.

"Is it time yet?" she sighed quietly and he gave her a kiss on the forehead before looking at the clock.

"We still have 3 hours. You can sleep some more," he replied, absently stroking her arm.

"Sam, what's wrong?" she asked him after a few minutes when she sensed his restlessness and looked up at him. "Something's going through your head and don't say that everything's okay."

"I don't know, I have a strange feeling. Like something is happening that I should know about."

"Do you have something like that often?"

"No, not really. Never, to be exact."

"Then maybe we should look into it, or you'll just get cold feet," she replied with a smile as she tried to sneak out of bed, but Sam quickly pulled her back to him and wrapped her in his arms to kiss her.

"You must never believe that, my heart. I will go with you to the end of the world, past the altar and carry you on my hands until the end of my life. I want nothing more and nothing less."

"Is that a proposal?" she asked, smiling skeptically.

"I'll wrap it up a little more romantically," he replied with a smile and kissed the tip of her nose before covering her lips with his. But suddenly Penny stopped and he looked at her in surprise.

"Sam, it smells like smoke." Sam froze instantly and they jumped out of bed at the same time. Penny reached for her jogging suit and Sam jumped into his pants and pulled his shirt on.

Penny carefully tested the door handle for heat and opened the door, only to slam it shut again.

"The hallway is completely on fire, Sam. We're locked in."

"The window, Penny," Sam called, walking over, but he couldn't open it. "Do you have your phone in here?"

"No, it's downstairs," she replied and threw him a sweater that she had previously moistened with water from a bottle next to her bed before doing the same with a second one and putting it in front of her face like Sam did press it to his mouth and nose. Thick smoke was now pushing through all the cracks in the door and they knew that the fire had now reached the door.

Sam pulled at the window with all his might, but nothing moved and finally he saw what was blocking it: long nails had been driven into the sash and frame from outside.

Max. Only he could have done that. But how could they not have noticed?

He beckoned Penny over and put an arm around her as they lay on the ground to avoid the smoke that was gathering thicker and thicker above them. Everything happened so quickly that they barely had time to think about what to do next.

Sam only knew one thing: they had to get out of here. He wrapped Penny's shirt around his hand and stood up, pulling Penny with him and standing in front of her as he lunged. Before Penny could stop him, he broke the window and ran along the edge of the window with the shirt-protected arm to break off any shards before motioning for Penny to climb out. But she hadn't yet set foot on the roof of the shed at the house when she felt Sam swaying from the loss of oxygen in the room as the fire greedily consumed everything.

She immediately put her arm around his waist and let herself fall, pulling Sam with her with all the strength she could muster in her desperation, and the next moment they were thrown from the canopy by the igniting smoke, as soon as they had climbed onto the tin roof.

Penny was panting, desperately trying to catch her breath, as she landed on her back in the grass of her yard. Her whole body resisted moving, but her only thought was Sam. She needed to know if he was okay. She stood up heavily, looked around and found him just a few meters away from her. She crawled over to him and turned him onto his back. He was unconscious and bleeding from a gash on his forehead and a cut on his cheek. Desperately, she reached for his wrist and, to her relief, found his pulse. She quickly stood up and laboriously pulled him back to the wall, to a safe distance from the fire, before she thought about what she should do next. She had to call Steele. She lived so far away from Pontypandy that only someone passing by could have noticed the fire, which wasn't often the case. But her house was ablaze and so were her phones.

Her personal climbing equipment was in the shed. She also always kept a few beacons and a walkie-talkie there. She had to get one.

She looked again at Sam, who was still unconscious, before getting up and running to the shed. She opened the door and even though the rafters on the roof crackled and the shed was full of smoke, it wasn't yet burning.

She held her arm in front of her face and ran to the shelf. With a quick grab she grabbed her backpack and the bundle containing the beacon and turned back to the door when she froze.

"Hello, little mouse. Let's see if your team really won't let you down. Your big hero seems to prefer to sleep off."

"You're totally crazy Max."

"I'm just a sore loser, especially when you give someone else what's rightfully mine," he growled as he grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground. She gasped in pain and suspected that she had bruised one or more ribs in the fall. How could she counter him under the circumstances? But she wouldn't just give up either."Nobody will miss you until you don't show up for your duty and it looks like your home will be completely burned out by then, I got what I wanted and you'll die in this shed because you weren't a good girl." He crouched over her, yanking at the zipper of her sweats as she brought her knee up and hit him right in the middle of his groin. She grabbed him by the collar and threw him over her into the back corner of the shed. She pulled herself together, grabbed her backpack and bundle and ran out the door. She turned around and slammed it shut, threw the latch and the next moment she felt Max throwing himself against it from the inside.

She wouldn't lock him up for long. Even if he deserved it, she wouldn't risk his life, even if it meant her own life was in danger. But if she would do, then she would have missed the job.

She fired a flare, grabbed the walkie talki and called for help. It seemed like an eternity before she heard Tom's voice. He was the closest person to them on the mountain rescue station. No wonder she got to him first. She quickly informed him what had happened.

"I'll let Steele know and come over to you straight away, over and out."

She slumped her shoulders in relief and looked over at Sam, who now opened his eyes. She was about to go to him when Max pulled her around and punched her in the stomach so that her knees buckled. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back so that she had to look at him.

"You give me a lecture about back then and lock me up in this shed yourself? You're just like me, Penny. Self-rescue before other-rescue," he replied with a grin and playfully clicked his tongue in disapproval.

"I never wanted to save myself, only the person I love," she replied sternly.

"Just like I do," they heard a voice behind Penny and when Max looked up, he wasn't quick enough to block the blow from Sam's fist, which hit him square in the face and sent him unconscious to the ground. Sam immediately grabbed a rope from Penny's backpack and tied his hands and feet before sitting down next to Penny and pulling her close. She put an arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder as they sat and watched the house burn more and more.

"I think I have to give you back your photo," he objected after a while and Penny laughed quietly.

"Keep it. I was hoping we'd make lots more new ones," she replied, smiling and looking into his eyes.

"Infinitely many. More than you'll ever be able to hang, but for now it looks like you'll have to move in with me."

"You really want to take in a burnt-out firefighter who has nothing left except the clothes she wears?" she asked him with a grin.

"More than anything else in the world," he replied with a smile, placing two fingers under her chin and lifting her face to his to kiss her as Mary, Elvis and Steele arrived and Walaby 2 emptied a fire bag over the house, but they took no notice of any of this. Only the two of them were what mattered at that moment.

THE END

I hope you enjoyed this short story 🤗 It's from the time when I started writing stories with Fireman Sam.