Chapter Text
“Wait, you wore an eyepatch for a whole year as a kid? Why haven’t I seen any photos of this monumental look?”
“There’s not a ton floating around.” His mom reaches across the table and tops off his coffee with creamer. “My parents didn’t have a strong interest in cataloging my life, and cameras weren’t as readily available back then.” Richie flashes back to his childhood and the rolls of film his parents captured of him: snaps of him running through the sprinklers, the first time he brought home a report card with all A’s. Shots depicting birthday parties and driving lessons in the family Chevy stuck behind the plastic pages of photo albums. He feels a rush of gratitude for how he was raised and who he was raised by.
“The only one of my friends who had a camera of their own was Will. God, he was practically sleeping with it around his neck by the time we hit high school. Most of the photos he took were lost in the fire, but I bet if I go digging I can find one or two of Captain Marge.”
“How pirate-core were you?” Richie asks.
His mother sips her own coffee. “Extremely. The patch was real leather, old, had some designs carved into it.”
“Where the hell did you get it?” Richie says.
“Rich gave it to me,” she tells him. “It was a family heirloom. I know I should have given it back to his parents, but it was the only thing I had left of him. So I let myself be selfish.”
Richie can understand that; he has nothing but recollections and horrible dreams to keep him tethered to Eddie. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to reach out to his widow and ask for some of his belongings; as much as he craves some tangible connection, it might wreck him to have that conversation.
“Lily asked if I would come out for a visit,” his mom says. Her old friend had responded to her email, confirming that her memories had started to come back with the death of It. As soon as things started to mentally re-materialize she’d tried to look up his mom, but since she’d changed both her first and last names Lily had found it impossible. In the past week they’ve fallen into a warm and close correspondence; apparently Lily settled in the Pacific Northwest, spending many years in the forestry service before retiring.
“You gonna go?” Richie asks.
“As soon as I make sure your father is set up with some activity that keeps him distracted enough to not burn down the house in my absence,” his mother says. “And if the trip goes well, I’ll invite her out here.”
“Would love to meet her and bond over clown trauma,” Richie says. “Since we’re all members of a pretty exclusive club.”
“She’ll get a kick out of you for sure,” his mom says. She glances down at her watch. “I better check on your dad; he was groaning about his back when I got up, and you know he can be such a baby when he wakes up in less than perfect condition.”
“Doesn’t he know that’s the trade off for getting old?” Richie says.
“He somehow thinks his years of exemplary dental care means he shouldn’t be subjected to any of the pangs that can befall an aging body.” Maggie scoops up a mug of tea from the counter and heads out of the kitchen.
Richie sips his still warm coffee. His plan today, like all the previous days, involves nothing more strenuous than going for a walk with a slight enough incline to make sweat bead at his temples. He’d finally gotten his manager to stop calling him and leaving increasingly irate voicemails by texting him “best friend died (this is not a joke i straight up witnessed his death) im taking bereavement leave” and Steve has left him alone for the past several days. It’s a reprieve that won’t last forever, but Steve’s not enough of a ghoul to make him deal with the floundering mess of his career while he’s already in the trenches of emotional despair.
His phone begins to buzz. He glances at the screen and sees Mike’s name lighting it up. He’s pleasantly surprised; Mike has been too busy packing away his life in boxes to call regularly. He swipes to answer.
“Micylce,” he says.
“Rich, I need you not to freak out,” Mike says.
Richie sits up straighter. “That’s a hell of a way to start a phone call,” he says. “Kinda indicates to me I should be prepared to freak out.”
“Gimme the phone,” he hears in the background, and he freezes. He knows that voice, would know it anywhere. But he thought he was going to go the rest of his life without hearing it again.
“I don’t know if-” Mike says, and then there’s some faint scuffling sounds. Richie still can’t move, even the muscles of his face laying in complete stillness.
“Hey Rich,” the voice says again, Eddie’s voice, and Richie feels his heart seize in his chest.
“What the fuck,” he croaks out.
“I told you this would be too much,” Mike says in the background. “I was gonna ease him into it.”
“This isn’t real,” Richie says. “Eddie’s dead, I saw his body, we left him down there, this isn’t fucking real. What the fuck is happening.”
“You’re right, I was dead, I really was, but I didn’t let it stick,” Eddie says.
“Oh my god I’m having a break with reality,” Richie says. “I thought I was coping okay but I must have cracked. I’m having auditory hallucinations like I’m fucking twenty years old and took a tab I couldn't handle.”
“Richie, please don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to have fucked around with acid, don’t you know how bad that shit can mess up your brain?” Eddie berates him.
“Fuck, that sounds exactly something Eddie would say,” Richie says.
“Eddie, give me the goddamn phone,” he hears Mike say from a distance. The librarian’s voice comes closer. “Richie, I know it seems crazy, but this is really happening. He showed up at the library this morning. I thought for a second It wasn’t dead and this was some horrible trick, but it’s definitely Eddie. See, look.”
Richie doesn’t hear anything through the line for a moment, then his phone buzzes. Mike has sent him a picture. Richie opens up the thread and lets out a choked gasp. It’s Eddie, hair a little damp and curling. He’s wearing a flannel shirt that looks too big on him. The cut on his face, instead of a gaping wound, is a faint silvery scar. He’s scowling at the camera, an expression that’s so deeply Eddie that Richie wants to weep.
“Motherfucker,” he says, and really does begin to cry.
“Give me back to him,” Eddie says. “I know it’s crazy, it feels crazy to me too,” he says, his voice much clearer. “I will tell you all about it, everything that’s happened to me, but I need you to believe this is real.”
“I want to, so fucking badly, but I don’t know if I can unless I see you,” Richie says. He doesn’t add that he needs to touch him too, to wrap his arms around him and feel the rise and fall of his breath move through his unmangled chest.
“Where are you?” Eddie asks. “I’ll come there.”
“I’m in Chicago at my parents’,” Richie says. “But don’t you have to go home first?”
“Home?” Eddie says, somehow sounding confused.
“New York?” Richie says. “Your wife?”
“Oh shit,” Eddie says. “Fuck, okay, hold on for a minute.” The line goes dead. Richie can’t do anything but stare at the screen in his hand, looking at the photo of Eddie. He wants to believe that this is real so bad he aches, but he thought he’d run through whatever miracles had been granted to him.
It’s only a couple of minutes until the phone buzzes again; Richie answers before it can even get through the first ring. “Hello?” he says, terrified that it will just be Mike on the other end, telling Richie that whatever vision of Eddie they both shared has dissipated into mist.
“That’s done,” Eddie says, and Richie feels his chest unclench.
“What’s done?” he asks.
“I called Myra, told her I’m alive but I’m not coming back to New York, and that I’m going to initiate divorce proceedings.”
“Eddie, what the fuck,” Richie says.
“I died with way too many fucking regrets, I’m not going to live with them too,” Eddie says. “I didn’t come back from the dead just to stay married to someone I don’t love.”
“Holy shit,” Richie says.
“Now I’m going to call the rest of our friends, I’m going to eat something that’s deeply unhealthy, and then I’m going to impose on Mike’s kindness to give me a ride to the airport. Are your parents closer to Midway or O’Hare?”
“Midway,” Richie says.
“Great,” Eddie says. “I'll text you my flight details when I have them.”
“Okay,” Richie says. He swallows past the lump of emotion in his throat. “I’m . . . I’m so fucking glad you’re not dead.” Please don’t be dead, he adds in his head. I will lose my grip on the world if this turns out to not be real.
“Me too,” Eddie says. “I’ll see you soon.” He hangs up the phone.
Richie feels like he’s entered another state of reality. This new world, the one where Eddie is alive, is far better than the one he was in just fifteen minutes ago, but its existence feels tenuous. He’s worried that an errant slant of light coming in from the kitchen window will shift him back into the old world, that he’ll hear a bird cry and when he looks at his phone he won’t see the calls from Mike, won’t see the photo of Eddie alive. So he sits stock still, doing everything in his power to not disturb the universe.
“I think I’m going to book a massage for your dad,” he hears his mother say as she walks into the room. “Get somebody to walk up and down his spine and really crack it out because this is beyond my skill level.” She catches sight of his face. “Richie, what happened?” she asks. “You look . . . I have no idea what your very expressive face is trying to express.”
“Mike called me,” he says. “And with him . . . with him was Eddie.”
His mother’s face shifts to a look of concern. She sits next to him at the table and places her hand over his. “Richie,” she says cautiously. “I know what it’s like to feel like someone’s still with you after they’re gone. But Eddie’s dead.”
“He said he was but he came back,” Richie says, knowing he sounds crazy.
Her expression doesn’t waver. “Okay,” she says. “Why don’t you go back to bed for a little bit because-”
“Look!” he says wildly and holds up his phone screen, still showing Eddie’s picture. “Mike just sent me this! It’s him!”
She studies it. “His face really didn’t change,” she says. “But that must be an old photo. I don’t know why Mike would do such a thing but-”
“See that scar?” he says, gesturing at Eddie’s two-dimensional cheek. “Henry Bowers stabbed him in the face while we were in Derry. When we went down into the cistern it was still an open wound. But it’s there and it’s healed and so this has to be from now.”
His mom sits back. “Richie, this is . . . this is hard to wrap my head around.”
“Mine too,” he says. “But we’ve both seen things that are unbelievable.”
His mom bites at the corner of her thumb. “God, for your sake, I hope this is real. I really, really do.”
“Well, we’re all going to find out by the end of the day.” His mother gives him a questioning look. “He’s coming here,” Richie tells her. “He said he’s buying a plane ticket and he’s coming here.”
“For you?” Richie nods. “Before anyone else?” Richie nods again. “Well, that’s certainly-”
Before his mother can elaborate, Went strolls into the kitchen. “God save us all from getting older,” he says, placing his mug on the counter. He takes in the scene in front of him and pauses. “This looks way more intense than Thursday mornings usually get in this house.”
“Honey,” Maggie says, “we might have another guest coming.”
“Oh?” Went says. “Another wayward son of ours whose existence has slipped my mind?”
“Sort of,” Maggie hedges. “Richie’s friend Eddie.”
Went’s eyebrows furrow. “Eddie who’s dead?”
Richie laughs wildly. “It didn’t stick,” he says, parroting Eddie’s words, before bursting into a gale of relieved tears. He hunches over his knees as he tries to get a hold of himself.
His mother reaches out to rub his back. “Sweetheart?” she says tentatively.
“Sorry,” Richie sniffles. “I just . . . I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy and so scared at the same time. Because if this turns out not to be true . . . I don’t know how I’ll pick myself back up.”
“Whatever happens, will be here for you,” his mom promises. “Always.”
Richie’s phone buzzes; he’s got a text from an unknown number. He sits up, swiping at his eyes, and opens the screen.
It’s Eddie
I got a flight
His phone buzzes again, this time with a screenshot of a flight confirmation.
Richie’s hands are shaking but he goes to text back.
Do you need me to get you from the airport?
Not if it’s in your midlife crisis on wheels, Eddie replies, and Richie lets out a snort.
Nah, had to give the mustang back to her corporate overlords, I’d borrow Went’s boring subaru
I can just take an uber, Eddie responds. What’s your parents address?
Richie sends it over.
Got it, Eddie says. Be there soon
Have a safe flight, Richie texts back, because what else do you say to your childhood best friend that just came back from the dead?
God, it would be so annoying to have gone through all that just to die in a plane crash. But statistically, air travel is actually extremely safe. I’m more likely to die on the ride to your place
I’m placing a moratorium on any talk about your death for the next 50 years. Or just on you dying, there’s no way I’m outliving you a second time
With your diet and lack of an exercise regimen, I feel that’s a given. But we’ll work on turning that around
Richie looks to his parents. “He has a flight. Fuck, what the hell am I supposed to do for the next eight hours until he gets here?”
“Well, the gutters could use a solid clean out,” his dad volunteers. “If you wanted to distract yourself with some healthy manual labor.”
“Let’s go on a walk,” his mom volunteers. “Went, you should draw yourself a nice warm bath and soak for a bit, it’ll help your back.”
“Mom, we can’t walk for the rest of the day, I’ll pass out around mile ten.”
“We can walk until you get your nerves in order, and then you won’t explode midway through whatever we do afterwards. Now go put some real clothes on.”
Richie gets dressed in a blur; he doesn’t even know if his socks match (granted, his socks often don’t match even on days he’s not been thrown for the biggest emotional loop of his life). He meets his mother down by the front door, outfitted in her stretchiest jeans and her sneakers.
They set off together, moving through the path now familiar to Richie from his previous excursions. They don’t talk for the first couple of minutes until Richie says “What if it’s not true? What if he doesn’t show up?”
“Well, you’ll be in exactly the same place you were yesterday,” his mom says.
“But it’s so much worse, to believe and hope and then have it taken away.”
“Your dad and I will still be here for you. Your other friends, they’ll be here too. It would be hard and cruel and unfair of the universe if this turns out to be some kind of trick. But maybe you’ve been given a gift. A miracle, even.”
He glances over at her. He’s able to shake off his own swirl of emotions for the first time since he heard Eddie’s voice and takes in her expression. There’s a tinge of sadness around the corners of her mouth.
“If it is true, it’s still not fair that only Eddie gets to come back,” he tells her.
“I wished so hard for just this kind of miracle when I was a kid,” she says. “I know we all did. We lost so many people, so many friends. I would’ve done anything to have Rich back. It will never be right, or fair, that he died. But I can’t begrudge you getting Eddie back. Having children, you want them to have all the things that you couldn’t; I just never could have imagined that this might be one of them.”
They walk under the leaves together, the bright light of the late morning sun filtering through the greenery.
“He’s really coming straight here from Maine?” his mom asks.
“Yeah,” Richie says. “He said he let his wife know that he’s not coming back to New York, and that he’s asking for a divorce. Actually, he hung up on me, called his wife to drop that bomb on her, and then called me back to tell me he’s flying here.”
“Not back in the land of the living for a full day and already causing a commotion,” his mom says. “That’s the Eddie Kaspbrak I remember. So he’s leaving his wife, and he’s coming to you.”
“Mom, can we deal with one earth-shatteringly enormous event at a time?” Richie says. “I’m still adjusting to the fact he’s in the world again, I don’t have space right now to think about the implications of the rest.”
“I think we’ve gone a little beyond implication; the man quite literally just left his wife for you. Perhaps it would be the gentlemanly thing for you to do to offer him a place to stay while he’s getting divorced. The mattress in your guest bedroom is extremely comfortable, I can vouch for it to him.”
“You think he’d want that?”
“Richie, he came back from the dead and headed straight to you, I think he’d be willing to camp out to Los Angeles for a bit.”
“What if he came back . . . wrong?” Richie asks.
“What do you mean, wrong? Like zombie wrong? This isn’t Pet Semetary. I think if you get him in front of you, you can trust it’s really Eddie. Besides, he’s told you barely nothing about what happened to him; even if the explanation is out of this world, I’m sure it still exists.”
“I might puke,” he tells her. “God, I feel so fucking insane.”
“Well, if you do, just make sure you brush your teeth very, very thoroughly afterwards; if Eddie’s personality has changed as little as his face, he’ll have strong objections to getting too close to your mouth in that state.”
“Mom!” he says. Hesitatingly, he asks “You think he’d . . . want that? With me?”
His mom snorts. “I spent a huge chunk of your childhood watching you two doing the weirdest courtship ritual imaginable. When you weren’t busy causing a ruckus to get his attention, he was doing the same to you. You orbited around each other for years. If it’s still like that for you, I bet it’s still like that for him.”
Richie stops in the middle of his walk, and his mom makes it a few steps before turning to face him. “I have something important to say,” he confesses. He doesn’t know why he’s so nervous; he’s through the worst of it. But he’s never said this out loud before, never let the words slip to another human being.
“Yes, honey?” she says.
“I’m gay,” he tells her. “I am enormously fucking gay.”
She breaks out into a smile. “Hi, enormously fucking gay,” she says, sticking her hand out. “I’m Maggie.”
“I cannot believe you,” he says, reaching out to grasp her hand. “Now I’m gonna have to break dad’s heart when I tell him you got to that joke first.”
She clasps his hand tight and pulls him into her arms. He towers over her, but he feels safer with her head tucked against his chest than he has in a long, long time.
“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” he says. There’s tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, but they’re happy. They’re the relieved tears of a man who has begun to shed all of the masks that made him miserable.
They stand there for another moment, holding on to each other as the world comes alive around them. Then he pulls away, wiping at his eyes. “Okay, I’m no longer in danger of vibrating out of my own skin. Let’s go home.”
They begin to loop back towards the house. “We should deep clean,” Richie says. “Make the house sparkle.”
“The true way to Eddie Kaspbrak’s heart: the rigorous application of cleaning products.”
“Some things never change.”
“And the things that do change for the better.” His mom reaches out and takes his hand in hers. He gives it a squeeze. Whatever happens next, at least he’s here with her.