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Judd doesn’t sleep that night. He pretends to for a while, for Grace’s sake, but when he’s certain she’s asleep again he slips out of bed and moves on silent feet to the patio, making a pit stop in the kitchen for whiskey. His fingers shake as they wrap around the glass and he finds he can’t steady his breathing. It doesn’t help that the air outside is foul, volcanic ash and smoke mingling to clog up his throat, but Judd doesn’t care. He won’t be out here for long, just enough to clear his head before he goes back to bed so Grace won’t find out.
Clearly, though, he’s not as subtle as he thought, because soon enough there are footsteps approaching and hands rubbing gentle circles on his shoulders.
“Come back inside, sweetheart,” Grace says, dropping a kiss on the top of his head.
He shakes his head, swirling his drink. There’s ash in that too, but it doesn’t matter. He wasn’t drinking it anyway.
“Judd.” Grace sits next to him, taking his trembling hands in hers. She’s looking at him so softly, and it breaks Judd in two.
“I can’t,” he chokes out. “I saw it, Grace, I saw him get hit by that rock, and I just -”
He breaks off and looks away from her, scrubbing roughly at his eyes. Grace nods and squeezes his hands, like she knows what he’s thinking. Hell, she’s probably thinking about it too; Grace had been on the line that night.
Judd had never seen his brothers’ bodies, but he’d seen Tim’s - or what was left of it. And now… Now, he can’t help but imagine their faces transposed onto his, fire reflected in their glassy eyes just as it had been in Tim’s tonight. He feels guilty for it, because Tim was Tim , not his old crew, but he’s stuck back in that night again and his hands won’t stop fucking shaking.
“I can’t do this again, Gracie,” he sobs, curling in on himself to try and contain the hurt.
Grace’s arms come around him. “You’re not alone, Judd,” she murmurs. “Not now. Not ever.”
And Judd lets go, leaning into her chest and coming apart in her embrace.
He would have been content to stay out here until the sun came up, but Gwyn eventually insists upon him going back inside. He gives in fairly easily, truth be told; Owen is tired of fighting right now. She doesn’t try to coax him to bed, which he’s grateful for, but she does sit with him, a silent, stoic presence at his side.
“Where’s TK?” she asks after a while. “I didn’t notice him coming in with you.”
“He’s with Carlos, I think.”
“You think ?” There’s a quiet note of panic in Gwyn’s voice, and Owen hates himself for causing it. Hates himself more for understanding it, maybe even sharing it a little. “Owen -”
“He’s fine,” he says. “Or, he’s not… He’s with Carlos. That’s what he said, and I believe him.”
Gwyn nods, lips pursed. “Okay.”
They lapse into silence again, Owen feeling the weariness and heavy, heavy grief settling deeper into his bones with each passing moment. He and Tim hadn’t even been that close, but Owen has a duty of care. Everybody who clocks in, clocks out. It’s one of his rules, a rule he’s broken very few times in his career.
The first time was 9/11, his entire firehouse wiped out save for him.
The second was when TK got shot, and Owen thought his world was imploding all over again.
Today was the third time, which makes it three times too many in Owen’s book. It can’t happen again. It won’t.
“Owen,” Gwyn says, and she’s looking at him with those wide, pleading eyes that Owen knows he can’t refuse. “Remember what I said earlier? Please don’t bottle this up.”
Owen swallows thickly. “I won’t,” he says, and he doesn’t know if it’s a lie.
TK doesn’t know how long they spend on the stairs, curled around one another. Long enough for his legs to start to cramp, and it’s only the thought that Carlos must be just as uncomfortable that finally persuades him to let go.
“You okay?” Carlos asks as he straightens out, the first words either of them have spoken since TK walked in.
TK hesitates, a ‘yes’ halfway to his lips, but the lie is bitter on his tongue and he knows he can’t fake it. Not with Carlos. So he simply shakes his head and looks down at the floor, focusing on nothing in particular.
He hasn’t cried yet; he doesn’t know if he will. It’s usually these kinds of nights when the pull to his addiction is strongest - nights like Alex leaving him and finding out about his dad’s cancer and sudden, pointless heartbreak - but he’s just...numb. He keeps playing the call on repeat in his head, from the initial panic to the shock at seeing Tim, and he doesn’t feel it.
He doesn’t feel a goddamn thing.
Carlos takes his hand and gently pulls him upright, offering himself as support. TK takes it, leaning heavily on Carlos as they shuffle to bed, the silence between them a comfort to him. His fingers fumble as he tries to strip off, and Carlos helps with that too, without TK even trying to ask him.
“Thank you,” he manages, his voice coming out hoarse and weak. In response, Carlos offers him a small smile, though it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are wide and expressive and horribly sad.
They fall asleep together as the sun begins to come up, TK’s head resting on Carlos’s chest and Carlos’s arms secure around him.
It feels safe. It feels like home.
Nancy’s been staring at her phone for the post half hour, her thumb hovering over the call button. She needs to do it, she knows this, if only out of basic human decency. But she’s not sure if she has it in her to say the words, not when she’s still expecting Tim to come walking down the hall and joke about her messing up his stuff.
None of this will be here in a week. Less, even. Captain Vega had promised to give her time, but Nancy doesn’t know if she has the strength to let go. They’d been a team, her and Tim, and Michelle before she left. Now it’s just Nancy, alone in the darkened firehouse, listening to the replacement crew go about their shift as if nothing had happened.
On impulse, and a sudden need to get it over with, Nancy presses call. It rings a few times, Nancy realising that it’s the early hours of the morning and she might not pick up, but then there’s a familiar voice coming down the line.
“Nancy?” Michelle says, her voice heavy with sleep. “Everything okay?”
“Michelle,” Nancy gets out, then stops, the lump in her throat choking her at the prospect of telling Michelle that Tim… That he’s gone.
“Hey, hey, what’s going on?” Michelle sounds more awake now, concern bleeding into her tone. “I saw the volcano on the news; you’re all okay, right?”
Nancy doesn’t respond straight away, and clearly it’s enough to tell Michelle all she needs to know. “Who?” she asks.
“I… It happened so fast. I didn’t even realise at first.” Nancy sobs. “He’s just… He’s gone , Michelle.”
“Who, Nancy?” There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end. “Not… God, Nancy, don’t tell me it’s Tim.”
Nancy can only choke out an affirmative before another sob crawls its way up her throat, and suddenly she’s sliding off the bench onto the cold floor. Michelle’s crying too, she can hear it faintly down the line, and it’s a small comfort to know she’s not totally alone in this.
Mateo doesn’t bother to change before speeding out of the firehouse, letting his legs carry him wherever. He can’t shake the feeling of guilt from his body, like if he’d just tried harder, been faster, done more , he could have stopped it.
Maybe if he’d helped Tim evacuate his patient. Because, really, Tim shouldn’t have even still been there by that pool. Someone should have helped him. Mateo should have helped him.
He’d heard what the others said. It was nobody’s fault, it was a freak accident, he shouldn’t blame himself… Thing is, Mateo can tell they don’t believe it either. He can see they all feel just as guilty as he does.
Still. Mateo knows it’s not their fault. He just wishes he could believe the same about himself. They’re not the ones who have to prove themselves, after all, but he’s still the probie. Still the one who’s out on his ear if he fucks up - like letting a team member get killed on call.
His feet come to rest outside the church, his breath coming in harsh pants and his whole body aching after running for however long. The sun is well and truly up, so it must have been a while.
He hasn’t been to church in a while, but there’s nothing like a guilty conscience to convince a man to go back. Is it selfish, this desire for redemption?
Does he deserve it?
Paul holds her until her tears have dried up and she’s almost collapsing on him, exhausted to her very soul. He holds her after, too, sitting on the gym’s floor with her as she stares blankly into space.
“You can go home, if you want,” Marjan eventually manages, pulling away to wipe at her eyes. “I’ll be okay.”
“I’m good here,” Paul says.
Marjan looks at him then - properly looks at him. She’s not as good at reading people as Paul is, but she’d be a fool to not see how much he, too, is hurting. It makes her feel guilty for forcing him to be there for her, when he’d lost Tim just as much as she did.
“Are you okay?” she asks. Which is a stupid question, because are any of them okay ? But it’s also the only question left to them; it’s a reassurance and a comfort and an answer wrapped together.
Paul smiles fleetingly. “No. You?”
“About the same.”
Paul nods and Marjan leans into him, not caring that they’re both sweaty and grimy. They sit in silence for a long while, until the sun is high in the sky and then some, taking comfort in the presence of someone else next to them.
And, carefully, they hold each other together.