Chapter Text
Eddie awoke on a middling plane; the sun filtering in through the blinds, only momentarily highlighting the dust particles in the air before he forced his eyes shut again, back into the darkness. The warmth on his cheek reminiscent of too many familiar fires. The events of the night before slowly resurfacing, hazy in the middle, as he regained consciousness. Eddie often found that, as he awoke, he’d need to sift through the events racing to the forefront of his mind, to determine his current truth.
They never occurred in order, but rather concurrent. The helicopter. The cruise ship. Sharon dying. The tsunami. The sniper. Sharon leaving. No, those memories were interrupted, broken. He had to find the most recent truth.
The warehouse.
Yes, that was right. The warehouse fire. Started like any other call - dreadful. Nothing was ever simple, so Eddie had become used to expecting the worst. He couldn’t piece it all together - not with his sleep-addled mind, yet fragmented or not, there were scraps, and that was all he could ask for.
The roof had come down - the roof always comes down - but this time he couldn’t help. This time, he was the one in need of it. The roof had come down, and the floor had given way, and the tar-ish smoke engulfed him as he fell and suddenly his skin was on fire. No, not on fire. In shock. In pain. The disembodied metal had ripped through his side, though he wasn’t sure he could stay conscious long enough for - long enough for it to - long enough -
Eddie wakes up more fully, and the memory leaves him, but there's something there, some morsel of his current truth, and it’s enough to work with. It’s enough.
The first thing he notices is that he’s not in his bedroom. Meaning he’s probably still in hospital, which is slightly concerning. Maybe he pierced an organ. Something critical. Medically induced coma, perhaps. But he woke up on his own. Real coma? More concerning.
There are no tubes sticking out of him. No soft beep of machinery. And, unless his insurance was way better than he’d anticipated, the room was far too fancy to be a hospital. Too clean. Too homely. And that’s when it really begins to dawn on him.
It’s a bedroom. A bedroom of someone he knows, at least. There’s nothing familiar in it’s bones - no furnishings he recognises, besides the set of drawers opposite where he lies but then again flat pack furniture copy and pasted into multiple houses isn’t such a coincidence. The walls are an off-navy. Desaturated, with an air of maturity to them. As though the colour had been thought out by someone with time and money - not the kind of colour you’d paint a rental. A colour for someone putting down roots.
And then there was the spirit of the place. The clothes draped over the chair in the corner appeared suspiciously Eddie-esque, and the photos framed on the wall - Chris’ first day at highschool. Chris holding up his science fair certificate. Chris grinning to the mark, sandwiched between Eddie’s parents. Beside it, a nail in the wall, and the faint dustline of a recently removed picture. There was a gradually dying plant aching for water on the sill. There was a work-issued duffel hanging loosely from the back of the door.
Maybe Eddie had forgotten something crucial whilst sifting through his memories. Odd.
He rolled over to look at the other side of the bed, something in the back of his mind suggesting he ought to find something there - but the space was empty. Sheets unmarked and tucked in with military precision. The bedside table lay bare too, just the ghosted outline of a coffee mark to prove a sign of life.
The table on the other side made more sense. Water glass. Watch. Glasses. Eddie didn’t recognise them, but it seemed as though they made sense in this reality. His phone lay face down, charging, and he lifts it warily.
The lock screen is, of course, a photo of Chris - but this time, it’s not one he recognises. He’s taller, too tall, and sticking his tongue out, leaning in between Buck and Eddie, and Buck is adjusting a mortar board atop his head. Behind him, helium balloons. 2. 9. Something was very wrong.
Eddie unlocks the phone with face ID, and heads straight to the camera to uncover a folder with more photos of that day, and the day before that, and the day before that. Parties and outings and screenshots of memories long forgotten, four years of lost time. Swiping the other direction only hurts more - and checking the date of the most recent capture, a blurry photo of an unopened letter addressed to Evan Buckley at an unknown address, twists a knife inside of him. March 4th, 2035.
Eddie had forgotten the last ten years of his life.
There was something comforting at first, a wave of appreciation that he hadn’t rolled over to find a stranger asleep next to him, that there wasn’t another layer of confusion to the whole ordeal, but it didn’t last long. There was no way this could be possible. Yesterday he had been with the 118 and Buck, in the industrial district. Chris had been complaining about the workload his new High School was putting on him. There was quite possibly no explanation that he could forget ten years of his life, but remember a maths equation Chris had read out as he cooked the stir fry recipe Buck had given him on shift.
Eddie got up, padded around the hardwood in unfamiliar socks, opening closet doors until he found a bathroom, and could finally face his reflection.
And there he was. Still Eddie Diaz - and he didn’t look older. Wiser. He looked exactly as he did the day before. Eddie didn’t know what to expect, but maybe it wasn’t this. Maybe he’d hoped he could seamlessly slip back into a life he couldn’t remember, past all the heartache and confusion. He’d hoped there would have been some tell, something that might register who he was, something to allude to the fact that he’d come clean somewhere along the way. Opened up. But no. Here he was; normal Eddie Diaz alive and breathing in a future he didn’t understand, having no clue what those closest to him knew.
Because the warehouse was becoming more clear. The way Buck had gotten to him first. Screamed his name. The overwhelming affection he’d felt as he was carried to safety by the one person he could never be truly honest with - the one person he wanted, more than anything, to open up to.
Because there was one part of himself that he’d become responsive to - one part that he’d been told to lean in to. Joy. And as soon as he had, one thing had become fiercely clear; Eddie Diaz was in love with Buck and, as far as he could discern, always had been.
In his timeline, the past six months had been a battle within himself - starting the day Buck had shown up at his door heartbroken, through weeks of settling into a new routine in a state that never truly felt like home - because he hadn’t known what home was supposed to feel like until he met the 118. Chris had convinced him they should move back to Los Angeles, sure, but that only meant he got a front row seat to Buck’s exploration phase as he left shift to go to therapy, and left therapy to go home and cry about being in love with his best friend.
It hadn’t been the easiest.
He turns the water on in the shower and begins to undress and, like his face, there are no tells of future Eddie on his body, but a forceful proof that he was his true self. There, just above his hip, the fresh wound of the metal cutting through his skin. Uncovered yet stitched, as though he’d been removed from the situation right before they’d got the bandages out. Eddie was Eddie, it was just the rest of the world that was different.
And that put the cogs in his brain whirring into motion; this wasn’t real. None of this was real. It seemed almost ridiculous to believe otherwise - the facts were all there. Buck had gone on for hours about the intricacy of the dream he’d had when his heart stopped; the way it truly felt as though he was walking around in an alternate life. Eddie’s heart must have stopped. His heart must have stopped, and his brain was running him through an imaginary reality. Eddie must still be dreaming - he’d just managed to work it out quicker than most.
In Buck’s fantasyland, he had gone to Chim; the 118’s resident movie buff because, for a reason that hurt too much if he looked too closely, Eddie hadn’t existed in Buck’s head. But Eddie already knew Buck was here, and what’s more, he had an address to follow.
He needed to start his day, in order to end it.
Again, there was relief as he showered, washing off the confusion of his morning, Eddie found no feminine presence in the foreign products he used, no floral scents, no female touches. As far as he was concerned, Eddie Diaz, 43, lived alone in a nice house in a part of town he didn’t recognise. And that was enough.
*
When Buck opens the door to the apartment, it’s nothing like Eddie would imagine. Another tell that this dream wasn’t quite right at the edges. Buck’s loft hadn’t been homey, but that was because it had never been decorated by him - it had always been straight-from-catalogue; if said catalog was something like Bachelors Monthly . But this was sad in a different way. Empty. Eddie didn’t have to pry open the kitchen cupboards, to know he’d find nothing inside.
Not a trace of life lay about - bar one lone photostrip - the one of Buck and Chris at the pier, clinging onto the fridge for its life by a small magnetic man. Funny. He must have stolen that from Eddie’s place, at some point.
Buck looked older. Tireder. He’d kept his muscle mass, his posture, but there was something less forgiving about his eyes. The slightest hint of grey peeking through his curls which were, as it turns out, almost unruly. He hadn’t shaved, but the scruff was still regulated.
“Why are you here, Eddie?” He asks, and his tone takes Eddie aback.
“I’m going to sound crazy,” he says.
Buck just sighs. And it hurts. Hurts because Eddie knows something is his fault, but has no idea how to prove that it’s not his fault yet ,
“Do you remember when you were struck by lightning?” He asks, and Buck does something to his face. It’s unnerving, the way his features could dance when he wanted them to, or rather, when he didn’t.
He doesn’t respond for a moment, and then; “Which time?” Buck asks, on an inbreath.
Interesting . Eddie thinks. Concerning . He self-corrects. This version of his best friend had been struck more than once. If, in some insane turn of events, this version of the future turned out to be true, he’d need to remember that.
“On the rig.” He says, instead. “You said you had a dream, like, a realistic dream, where the world was all on it’s head.”
“It wasn’t on it’s head.” Buck states, and he still sounds as though Eddie is wasting his time. “It was more like a what could have been . A perfect future for me. Just with bad consequences for others.”
Eddie forgets momentarily that this isn’t his Buck. “Because I wasn’t there, right?” he jokes.
In any real universe, Buck would have laughed. He doesn’t. “Eddie, where are you going with this?”
“It’s going to sound insane.” He says, “Like, real insane.”
“I’m listening, am I not?”
He breathes. He really could have done this better over drinks. “I was in an accident at work yesterday. A rescue gone wrong. And today I wake up and Chris is almost twenty. I have pictures on my phone of his highschool graduation.I live in an area of the city I’ve never even driven through before -”
“What accident?” Buck cuts in, and he sounds as though he cares. Almost. “No one told me about an accident?”
Eddie sighs. “Buck. You were there. I know you think I’m some middle aged guy you’ve hung out with for the past ten years, but I’m not. I’m having the same thing you did, your coma dream - except, instead of going to imaginary Chimney for help, I’m coming to you, because of course I am.”
“You’re right?” Buck states.
“What?”
“You’re right. You do sound insane. Eddie you need to go to the hospital - did you hit your head? Did you drive here? I can drive you -”
“Buck, you’re not listening,” He butts back, “I’m not future Eddie. I’m normal-time Eddie, or, or past Eddie or whatever.” He should have gone to Chimney. He was mad to think this version of Buck would believe him.
“What accident do you think happened yesterday?”
“The warehouse fire.”
“And what year do you think it is?”
“Twenty-twenty-five.”
“This is insane.” BUck shakes his head, and stretches his arms out on the counter behind him, leaning into it. Eddie can’t help but knot his insides as he clocks the wedding band shining bright on Buck’s hand. It seems as though he notices, as as quickly as it appeared, the hand goes back behind Buck’s body
“I can prove it to you,” Eddie says, desperate. “Surely I’ve changed somewhat in the last decade?”
Buck just huffs out a laugh - almost caught in his throat.
“You must have noticed.” He says, and he lifts his shirt to reveal the wound. Surely, if anything, that would tip Buck off to the truth - a wound that happened ten years ago would have healed, yet there it was; red and angry, stitches still overwhelmingly present.
But Buck isn’t looking at the wound. He’s staring in confusion at Eddie’s stomach which, in a way he chooses not to deal with, makes his insides twist. It doesn’t feel good. It feels as though he’s being scrutinised.
“Where are your tattoos?” He asks, slowly.
“What tattoos?”
Buck doens’t answer. Eddie knows this side of Buck - the side that closes in on himself as he begins to piece things together. Work the puzzle out. After what feels like forever, he speaks. “But I’m real.” He says, and it’s quiet. It’s hurt, like some wounded animal.
“Wouldn’t a coma dream version of you think that?” Eddie asks, and it’s clearly the wrong thing to say. He always knew how to put his foot in his mouth. He’d done it with his parents, he’d done it with Shanon, and his commander, and now, after six long years and ten fast ones, he was doing it with Buck.
“No. I’m real.” He states again, and he’s more sure of himself this time. “Because I remember this happening,” his fingers reach out slowly, circling the wound. “But you never told me about any dream. You were always so closed off about it all. You’re really from the past?” He asks.
Eddie just nods slowly.
“So you came to me?”
He nods again. “Of course I did.”
Buck looks as though he might just about break down. “Eddie…we’re not friends anymore. You’re not supposed to be in my life.”
Eddie’s heart shatters. The current truth.