Chapter Text
July 2018
There was nothing Buck loved more than being a firefighter. Sure, he’d only just started on as a probie at the 118 a week ago, but he already knew that this was his calling. When he put that navy blue uniform on, or when he suited up in his turnouts, he got to be someone spectacular, someone who risked their life to save people. A hero.
Obviously, Buck only had the best of intentions when he rushed headfirst into danger during that fire last night. Unfortunately, his captain, Bobby Nash, didn’t really see it that way. Buck was convinced that his superior had it out for him.
Which was disheartening considering that Buck had taken one look at the man and determined he was someone to be admired. All he wanted was Bobby’s approval and acceptance into this family of firefighters, but Buck also couldn’t ignore that howling call to always be the one putting himself in danger to spare others.
Bobby thought he was arrogant. Reckless. Had no care for his safety or anyone else’s. And he told Buck all of this within the span of the last week. Buck had tried to argue, tried to explain to his captain that he wasn’t doing it to show off, he just cared about other people and their safety a great amount. He saw himself as more expendable, less likely to be missed, than anyone else on his crew. His persistent arguments proved useless. Bobby had called him into his office at the end of their shift early that morning, giving Buck another proper reaming and telling him that if he didn’t straighten up he’d be out of the 118 in a heartbeat.
To summarize, Buck was on thin ice.
He shuffled to the locker room to get changed before heading home, his feet dragging on the ground, head hung, and lips pouted with frustration.
“You and Cap butting heads again?” Hen asked. One of the two friends he’d made so far in the last week. She was an impressive paramedic and the exact type of person Buck would want around if he were ever injured. She also seemed to have a natural caring instinct that immediately allowed them to develop a sort of older sister/younger brother dynamic. It was nice to have her in his life since he hadn’t heard from his actual big sister in years.
“What do you think?” Buck answered with a grumble as he approached his assigned locker, perhaps taking too much of his annoyance out on the woman who didn’t deserve it.
She raised perfectly plucked eyebrows high on her forehead, arching above the frames of her stylish glasses. “That was a pretty dangerous thing you did last night, Buckaroo.” The nickname had come about within hours of her knowing Buck. It was likely to stick around for the rest of eternity. “You barely made it back out of that structure before the entire thing collapsed.”
“But I got that woman out, which is what should matter. And I had plenty of seconds to spare.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Seconds? Try exactly one second, Buck.”
“Yeah, okay. I already got an earful from Bobby. Don’t need one from you too, Hen.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t assign you to be man-behind for the next year, after that stunt,” Chimney’s voice came from the doorway to the locker room. He was the other friend Buck had made here at the 118, mostly due to the fact that Chim was Hen’s work partner and best friend.
Buck shot him a glare. “It’ll all blow over in a few weeks. Just gotta mind my p’s and q’s, try not to do anything directly against Cap’s orders, and then he’ll forget the whole thing ever happened. Besides, I think I’d go insane if I was man-behind for that long.”
Chimney came over and clapped his hand against Buck’s shoulder. “It’s actual hell. Trust me.”
Buck looked at him in surprise. “Bobby did that to you before?”
“Not Bobby. It was the captain before him. Guy was a real asshole. Ask Hen.”
“What happened?”
“We got him fired,” Hen said proudly.
Buck grinned. “Really?”
“Oh yeah,” she responded.
“So don’t get on our bad side, Buck,” Chimney added, “or we’ll have you fired too.”
“Might have to fight Bobby for that right,” Buck admitted, returning to his grumbling, pouty demeanor.
They both gave him amused looks before gathering their things and heading off to their respective vehicles to leave the station. Buck lingered at his locker, slowly pulling out the neatly folded clothes he planned to change into, mind still swirling with the memories of last night’s fire, wondering if there was anything he could have done differently to save the woman while keeping himself out of trouble.
After a few moments had passed, Buck stood at the bench, fastening the buttons of a short-sleeved maroon shirt, casting his gaze on all the little details of the empty locker room, familiarizing himself with this environment which was still fairly new to him. That’s when his eyes fell on the inside of his open locker door, catching the single thing that seemed to be out of place.
A small piece of a notepad paper was taped there, each line covered in a messy scrawl of words. Buck reached out and pulled it away from the metal, studying it closely, deciphering what was written there.
Call landlord about faulty tap
Tour Christopher’s school
Help Abuela with lawn work
Pick up groceries
Buy new chairs for dining table
Get oil changed in truck
Buck’s face contorted into bewilderment, brain failing to make sense of what he held in his hand. It seemed to be a to-do list of sorts. The problem was, they were not things Buck himself needed to do. Nor had it been written in his handwriting and placed in his locker by him. So, someone had put it here by accident? How exactly did that happen though? Buck was pretty sure that if he were to open someone else’s locker by mistake, he would notice instantly that the contents inside did not belong to him. He certainly wouldn’t remain ignorant long enough to stick a to-do list inside a locker that wasn’t his own.
It was the strangest thing Buck had encountered thus far at his new station. Still, he’d had a long shift and was ready to get home. He didn’t want to spend time asking everyone in the station who the list might belong to. He taped it to the bench where it would be in plain view of anyone who came in to change, and he figured the owner would locate it there easily enough.
He shrugged his shoulders and threw the strap of his duffel over his head, not giving the to-do list anymore thought as he walked out into the morning sun.
***
Weeks passed. Buck forgot about the to-do list. With it having disappeared from the locker room bench by his next shift, he figured someone either claimed it or threw it away.
Bobby did not forget about Buck’s daring stunt at that fire. He still let Buck attend calls, but he kept him on a short leash the entire time, assigning him remedial tasks at every emergency scene and never letting Buck get out of his sight. It was starting to become a little infuriating. All he wanted was for Bobby to trust him to do his job, to know that Buck could do it well.
Alas, it seemed like Buck was going to have to grin and bear it for the time being. It was the superior option compared to transferring stations and losing his budding friendships with Hen and Chimney.
One day, on a particularly hot afternoon toward the end of July, when the harsh LA summer was just barely reaching its fiercest sunny day, Buck was washing the engine when he accidentally spilled sudsy water all down the front of his uniform shirt. He dropped the sponge back into its bucket and jogged to the locker room to toss the sopping garment off and throw on a fresh LAFD t-shirt.
This time, when he opened his locker door, Buck’s eyes notice the misplaced notepad paper immediately. It was the same type of paper, same tape used to stick it to the metal of the door, same exact handwriting, but this time, the words were different.
Cereal
Frozen pizza
Frozen chicken nuggets
Mac and cheese
Milk
Eggs
Bread
Tortillas
Chips
Sandwich meat
Cheese
Oreos
Orange juice
A grocery list? And not a very nutritional one at that. Who outside of a school cafeteria ate frozen chicken nuggets? Buck supposed that the person who wrote this must have a kid, and he vaguely remembered the to-do list from earlier that month saying something about touring a school.
He glanced around at the three other people in the locker room. He knew their faces but couldn’t place any of their names, not having grown any closer with the others outside of his two favorite paramedics.
“Does this grocery list belong to any of you?” Buck asked as he held the notepaper up in demonstration.
They all shook their heads and went back to ignoring him. Buck pursed his lips in contemplation, briefly considering going around to ask the rest of the crew all throughout the house, but then he remembered that he still had half a fire engine to finish cleaning. He shrugged and then stuck the shopping list to the same spot on the bench as the previous note, hoping the owner would find it.
***
Buck was getting fed up. Someone kept sticking notes in his locker, half of them bordering on nonsensical, and he could not figure out who was doing it. He’d eventually asked around to everyone who worked on his shifts, seeing if they’d been misplacing them in his locker by accident, but nobody seemed to have a clue what he was talking about. Then, he’d suspected that this was some sort of prank they were playing on him as the new probie, but he’d asked Hen about it, and he trusted her to be honest with him. When she said it was no such prank, he believed her. Finally, he took to watching his locker like a hawk through the glass walls, trying not to go anywhere in the station where he wouldn’t have it in his line of sight so that he could catch the culprit. He never spotted anyone messing with his locker, and yet, the notes would still randomly appear as if conjured by magic.
Remember to buy Pepa flowers as a thanks, the next one read.
Then there was a random phone number scribbled down a few days later, which Buck obviously called. He found that a receptionist at a physical therapist’s office picked up on the other end. He immediately hung up and then proceeded to casually bring up during dinner time that he was looking for a good physical therapist and wondered if anyone had any recommendations. Nobody did.
And Bobby immediately gave him the third-degree about if Buck had injured himself, so he had to quickly make up a story about an old injury that still bothered him from time to time.
Legendz Boxing, was Buck’s next clue.
On his day off, he decided to make an appearance at the boxing gym, thinking that if he spotted anyone from the firehouse there, then they would have to be the mysterious note writer. But Buck never saw anyone he recognized. Still, he persevered by asking the owner if they had any other firefighters from the 118 that trained there. Their answer was an unhelpful ‘no.’
Pencils
Crayons
Notebooks
Erasers
Backpack
Lunchbox
More proof that this person must have a kid. Buck knew that school would be starting soon after the month turned to August, and he guessed that this person was about to do some shopping for all the supplies their kid would need in class.
Knowing that nobody in the station would claim the notes, Buck had taken to simply tossing them in the trash each time they appeared. The writings continued to come in a plethora of reminders, and by mid-August, Buck was exhausted. He supposed his last resort was to fight fire with fire.
He wrote a note of his own and taped it to the inside of his locker door, knowing that whoever was planning to leave the next note would have to read it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
July 2019
Eddie was overwhelmed. He’d been at the 118 exactly one week, and really the job was great, but the hours were long, and he was a single dad who had just moved halfway across the country and had only a month to get his son settled in before school started. His Abuela and Tia Pepa were graciously splitting the work babysitting Christopher for him while he was on shift, but that only lifted a small amount of stress off Eddie’s shoulders. He still had to get the house sorted out, making sure they had everything they would need to live comfortably, hounding the landlord to make any repairs that were necessary. He had to find Christopher a new physical therapist, and himself a new boxing gym to train at (it was Eddie’s only outlet for stress-relief, so he deemed it a must). Then there were the everyday things like grocery shopping and beginning-of-school prep. Cleaning and cooking.
By the time Eddie finally made it to his bed at the end of this laborious routine, it always left him bone-tired and with the urge to sleep for at least 72 hours. But to his dismay, he’d barely manage 6-7 before being woken up either by his blaring alarm clock or his rambunctious seven-year-old.
To make matters worse, Eddie’s tired brain was always scattered and overfull with all the important things he was required to remember as a single parent. He found that the only way to come close to remembering everything was to make lists, writing himself little reminders as he went through his days. He’d started the habit at home, sticking shopping lists and important phone numbers to the front of the refrigerator or on his bedside table. But then he’d been spending so much time at the fire station this past week that he found himself writing out a to-do list in his down time and sticking it to the inside of his locker door.
He was a little perplexed at the end of his shift, however, when he went to retrieve his duffel bag and the to-do list before heading to pick up Christopher from Pepa’s, and he found the handwritten reminder to be missing. Eddie glanced around skeptically, thinking surely nobody would snoop in his locker just to steal a to-do list. It’s possible that the slip of paper could have fallen out somehow, but it was nowhere on the floor either. Maybe someone had tossed it believing it was trash?
He groaned, trying to recreate the list of tasks in his mind, willing his exhausted brain to remember all the things he needed to get done on his day off.
Eddie was sure he would forget something.
***
The next time it happened a few weeks later, Eddie was pissed. He’d spent at least half an hour in his bunk carefully crafting that grocery list only for it to go missing hours after he’d stuck it inside his locker.
If he forgot to grab frozen chicken nuggets, Christopher would never forgive him.
And he simply could not explain how the note had disappeared. Once was a fluke. Twice was intentional. Someone was getting into his locker and taking his things.
He did a quick inventory of everything else he kept there (spare clothes, a worn army hoodie, a photo of Chris, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, cologne, toothbrush, phone charger, random novel that he read a third of and never planned to finish), and it was all still right there as it should be. So why would someone by invading his personal space only to steal the lists he wrote to himself?
It had to be a prank, right? He was the probie, and someone was messing with him.
He glanced at the two paramedics talking in low voices at the other side of the room. Hen and Chimney, he believed they went by. He hadn’t really spoke more than two words to them this month, and they seemed to prefer it that way, walking around the station with solemn looks on their faces. Apparently, the probie that had been here before Eddie had been a really good friend of theirs, and they were still mourning his departure from their crew. At least, that’s what he’d gathered from overhearing a few conversations. Eddie surmised that they probably loathed him for seemingly swooping in and taking their friend’s place.
But he wasn’t trying to replace anyone. He was just trying to do his job and provide for his kid, truly.
He cleared his throat to get their attention. Their heads snapped up as they gave him matching looks of scrutiny.
“Do you know if someone is pranking me?”
Hen tilted her head in question. Chimney raised his eyebrows.
“It’s just that my to-do lists and reminders that I tape to the inside of my locker keep disappearing. I thought it might be someone trying to mess with me since I’m the new guy.”
Something curious flickered in Hen’s eyes, but she said nothing.
“Not that we know of, buddy,” Chimney offered, “although that would be a pretty lame prank, if you ask me.”
Eddie laughed it off, nodding his head in agreement with Chimney’s statement. The pair left him alone in the locker room, and Eddie resigned that the note disappearance would have to remain a mystery. He had too many other things on his plate than to moonlight as a firehouse detective.
***
Still, the thief did not cease in their cruelty. Eddie wrote down an important phone number for a recommended physical therapist for Christopher, and when he went down to his locker on break to give the place a call to set an appointment, the note was gone. A reminder about getting Pepa flowers to thank her for watching a sick Chris on short notice: gone. The name of a boxing gym that he’d heard good things about: gone. Even his child’s shopping list for back to school: gone. How could a human be so evil? Now, Eddie was sure to do something stupid like forget to buy his son a backpack.
But it was at the end of that same shift of the school supply list going missing that Eddie got the surprise of his life. It was in the moments of shift change, as he was packing his bag and looking forward to a night at home that he glanced at his locker door and saw a note on the inside that he definitely had not placed there.
To whom it may concern,
Please stay out of my locker. You might find it funny to stick random grocery lists and other vague ramblings on note paper and leave it here for me to find, but I see it as an invasion of my privacy. I don’t know who you are, but this is my locker, not yours, so stay out of it.
There was no signature of who had crafted the note, but the lettering was done in neat scrawls, far more legible than Eddie’s chicken-scratch handwriting.
He was baffled to say the least. If someone else was using the same locker that had been assigned to Eddie, surely he would have noticed that by now. The belongings in the locker were entirely his own, nothing extra that was unexplainable, nothing except for this note, anyway. He marched right up to Bobby’s office, hoping the captain could help him piece together exactly what was going on here.
When he knocked on the open doorway, Bobby gestured for him to enter with a kind smile. Eddie needed to pick up his son soon, so he didn’t have time to waste beating around the bush.
“I found this in my locker just now, and I wanted to make sure there hadn’t been some sort of mix-up with the locker assignments,” he explained as he passed the slip of paper to Bobby.
Bobby’s eyebrows scrunched as he read the few sentences.
“I can promise you that locker was empty when you started here earlier this month. You’re the only one that should be using it.”
Eddie pursed his lips, unsatisfied with the lack of explanation this offered. He tried to wrap his head around how someone could be mixing up their lockers this entire time when it was very clear by the contents that it belonged to Eddie.
“But,” Captain Nash continued, “I’ll make an announcement next shift reminding everyone to only use their own assigned lockers and not to go pilfering through other’s. Hopefully, that will settle the issue.”
Eddie nodded in acceptance, knowing that was all that could really be done without more information of who might have written the note. “Thank you, sir.”
“Sure.”
***
Eddie was so fucking angry. He’d written out a time and location for a meeting with a possible home-healthcare aid to help with Chris when Abuela and Pepa weren’t available. He’d thought it would be safe to tape it inside his locker considering the note thief hadn’t made an appearance in several weeks, leaving Eddie’s most recent grocery and to-do lists completely untouched. But it was just his luck that should he write down something this important, it would be the time that the note disappearances started reoccurring.
He tore off a new sheet from his notepad, stilling the shaking fury in his hand long enough to write out a strongly worder letter.
To whom it may concern,
Stop stealing my notes. Stay the hell out of MY locker. Mind your own damn business. What could you possibly want with my grocery list anyway, you creep? That last note you stole was VERY important, and now thanks to you, I might not be able to get care for my son that we desperately need.
You’re an asshole.
He taped it into his locker, feeling a little stupid as he did so because it seemed impossible that he could communicate with someone through notes in his locker without ever catching said person snooping around in there.
The alarm went off, signaling a call, and by the time the engine returned from a pretty rough motorcycle crash, Eddie had a migraine developing. He knew it was the anger getting to him, stressing him out and causing all this tension in his shoulders, neck, and head. He’d have to squeeze in some boxing at the gym tomorrow while Christopher was at school.
The boy had started second grade last week and was, of course, already thriving in LA. He came home each day rambling about all the amazing amenities and activities that his school in El Paso never had. It was the only thing in Eddie’s life right now that brought him less stress, knowing that he had made the right choice in packing up and coming here.
Eddie gathered his shampoo and body wash out of his locker, needing a shower after sweating buckets on the crash scene. Then he saw it: his own note about meeting the home health-care aide. It was all crumpled, as if someone had wadded it up but then tried to carefully smooth it back out again. Still, a relief settled over him that the note thief had returned it so that Eddie wouldn’t have to hunt down the information again.
He tore off a fresh sheet of notepaper from his pad and wrote out a simple gesture of good will, hoping it would gather peace between him and the ghost that was apparently sharing his locker.
Thank you, it said. And Eddie didn’t know who would read it or how or if he was actually just losing his mind from a lack of proper sleep, but he stuck it there inside the cool metal door anyway before closing the locker and heading for the showers.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
August 2018
Buck was horny all the time. Or perhaps he was just lonely? It was getting harder to tell the difference these days. He had Hen and Chim, of course, who now invited him to karaoke bars or weekend picnics in the park to meet Hen’s wife and son. But Buck always felt himself longing for a true companion. For a partner. Hen had Karen, and Chimney had a nice enough girlfriend named Tatiana with whom he seemed infatuated. Where was Buck’s person? The one he could come home to and spill his guts about the hardships of the day. The one he could introduce to his friends.
He’d started sleeping around more than he ever had before. More than his brief stint in college. More than Peru. In each hot night spent tangled with some stranger, Buck was searching for something that he was untrained in finding. For he never set out to have one-night stands. He consistently put in great effort to make each man or woman he slept with feel absolutely worshipped and respected during sex. He wanted them to know that he could be good as a partner, more than just a great lay. Yet, each morning when he asked for a phone number or to set up another date, they all looked at Buck like he was crazy. Like why would anyone ever want to date him? Like why would anyone ever be serious about a dumbass like Buck?
And it was these insecurities swirling around in Buck’s head one day that made him irrationally angry when he saw the new note in his locker.
For a couple weeks he’d decided to let the matter go, determinedly ignoring the constant to-do lists, leaving them taped in their places, no longer ripping them down and tossing them. Sometimes, the same list would remain there for days. Other times, it would disappear on its own without Buck ever having to interfere.
Today though, the note was not a to-do list. It was clearly a reminder for a date with some woman. And Buck was jealous and spiteful that this mystery note person was apparently more datable than he was.
Carla
310-747-8986
Café Gratitude at 11 am on August 25th
Buck yanked the note down, smashed it up in his fist furiously and threw it at the trash can in the corner of the locker room. He slammed the door of his locker shut, but did not walk away, standing there, taking a few breaths and willing himself to calm down. He was acting like a child. He needed to chill.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there for, simmering and panting, staring at the wall of lockers and lamenting his sad lonely existence, but he eventually decided it would be best to put some headphones on and relax in his bunk for a while. Buck opened the locker door once again, reaching in to extract the earbuds, but he froze in shock when he noticed that there was a new note on the door.
He had been standing here the entire time, watching the locker, so there was absolutely no logical way someone could have put it there without him seeing.
The person in the note was clearly just as angry at Buck as Buck was with them. The letter was demanding that Buck stop stealing the person’s grocery lists and other reminders, telling Buck he was an complete asshole and all that. But the thing that stuck out was that the ‘Carla’ note was apparently not a setup for a date but rather a meeting for a nanny or something for the person’s kid?
Buck instantly felt bad. He marched over to the trash and plucked the wadded paper from where it, luckily, still rested at the very top. He pressed it down against the bench with his palm, trying to smooth out the harsh wrinkles, and once the note was mostly legible again, Buck taped it back inside the door, hoping it would be enough for this magic person to not be angry with him anymore.
He shut the locker. Sat down on the bench right in front of it, eyes carefully trained on the gray exterior. Thirty minutes ticked by on his watch before he yanked the door open again.
The ‘Carla’ note was gone. In its place was something else.
Thank you
Buck was surely losing his fucking mind.
***
As with all things that Buck had questions about, he took to the internet and did a ton of research, attempting to find any reasonable explanation for what was happening with his locker. Alas, google seemed severely lacking in the answers Buck needed. After brainstorming for days, barely getting a wink of sleep, Buck had come up with a few far-fetched possibilities.
Are you any of the following?
- A ghost
- A Doctor Strange type wizard that is sending the notes through a portal
- Someone that can erase memories so that when I see you putting the notes there, you remove those memories from my brain and leave me clueless as to where the notes actually came from
He placed the list of ideas inside the door, hoping for an answer soon.
Hen gave him odd looks all day, most likely because Buck was bouncing around, taking brief peeks into his locker in-between every chore that Bobby assigned him.
“What’s got you all wound up, Buckaroo?” she asked after hours of his antsy demeanor.
They had been on the station’s couch, playing Mario Kart, yet Buck could hardly focus and was jostling his knee wildly.
“Yeah, did you drink a quadruple shot of espresso this morning, Buck?” Chimney chimed in from his spot in the armchair where he was reading some dumb book about how to be the perfect boyfriend.
“Do either of you believe in ghosts?” Buck prompted instead of answering their inquiries.
Chimney rolled his eyes and went back to his book.
“Nah, I’m not about that haunting stuff,” Hen replied.
“What about magic?” Buck pressed.
“Hmm, I mean I do believe that full moons cause people to act all kinds of crazy. I guess that could be considered magic? I dunno. If you’re talking about wand-waving and all that, though, I’m gonna have to say no.”
Buck chuckled. “I guess I’m just wondering if anything has ever happened to you that you have no other way of explaining besides… magic?”
Hen smirked at him. “Is this a love at first sight thing or something?”
“Awe, is our Buckaroo in love?” Chimney piped up again, always in the mood for teasing.
He waved them off. “No, nothing like that… Never mind, I’m being dumb.”
Buck stood from the couch and stalked off to check his locker for the sixtieth time that day. To his pleasure, the note-leaver had finally left a response.
I am none of those things. Are you?
Ps. Are you a Doctor Strange fan? I never bothered to watch his solo film until after Avengers: Endgame. As part of the ensemble cast, it made me appreciate his character a tiny bit more, but I still think he’s one of the dullest of the MCU.
Buck’s blonde eyebrows knitted together, trying to make sense of the words. Endgame? That movie didn’t premier until next spring. Buck would know; he’d been counting down the days after that cliffhanger at the end of Infinity War. How had this person already watched the film?
What is today’s date? he wrote.
The reply came soon: August 28th, 2019. Why?
Did you mean to say 2018? Buck asked. It was like they were conversing in real time now, the notes being replaced with a new one every minute.
No. I am 100% sure that the year is 2019. Also, you didn’t answer my earlier question: are you a ghost or a wizard?
Buck frowned. How was this real?
The bell rang before Buck could get his answer. The call they headed to was a long one, a bad car crash off a bridge over the river, and the crew didn’t manage to pull back into the station until B shift was already arriving and getting ready to take their place. As they all filed into the locker room, sweaty and exhausted from the multiple rescues they’d performed over the last few hours, Buck discreetly wrote out a note and stuck it to the inside of his locker door while he gathered his spare clothes and soap to go take a quick shower.
Maybe I’m going insane and these notes are a figment of my imagination? Maybe this is just a really strange dream that I’ll wake up from sometime soon?
He gathered his things and slammed the locker shut before taking his brief shower and then heading home. He would have to wait until his next shift to read any further responses.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
August 2019
Are you asking me to prove to you that I’m not some imaginary pen pal you’ve conjured up in your head? Because I don’t have the time or energy to do that. I don’t know what’s going on with this faulty locker that we’re somehow sharing, but I can promise you that I do in fact exist in the real world.
Eddie was admittedly quite cranky this morning as he wrote out the latest reply. He’d hardly gotten any sleep last night because Christopher started having nightmares about a 7.1 earthquake LA had experienced last week. He’d been perfectly safe at school, but the newness of the situation still spooked him. They didn’t get many large earthquakes back in Texas.
After getting fully dressed in his uniform and fastening his watch onto his right wrist, he checked his locker one last time before getting busy with his daily tasks at the station.
If you’re real, then tell me your name so I can look you up on Instagram.
Eddie frowned and scrunched his nose. He did have an Instagram account, but he barely used it, and all the settings were as private as possible. He didn’t trust social media much, or the internet in general, really. He certainly wasn’t about to give out his info to a mysterious stranger.
Are you crazy? Why should I trust you enough to tell you my name so that you can stock me online? You still have yet to even deny that you’re a ghost or a wizard.
He slammed his locker a bit forcefully and cringed as Chimney shot him an annoyed look. He still hadn’t made much headway of becoming friends with anyone on the crew. They all seemed very closed off to him and unwilling to accept a new member into the family. He maintained his hypothesis that it had something to do with the probie who had been here before him, but none of the 118 were willing to divulge the details of exactly where that probie had gone off too. Eddie guessed he either got fired, quit, got injured on the job, or transferred to another station. Whatever it was, Hen, Bobby, and Chimney all seemed especially bothered by his absence.
Hours later, Eddie was hardly surprised to find another short letter.
How about a compromise? I hereby deny that I am a ghost or wizard. In doing so, I request that you at least give me one letter of your name. That way I know who to address these notes to.
Sincerely,
B
B,
You can call me E, I guess.
After he taped the new note inside the door, Eddie turned around to find Hen Wilson standing there gazing at him suspiciously with a single raised eyebrow. “You sure write yourself a lot of notes,” she observed.
“Yeah, I have a pretty shit memory when it comes to errands and stuff,” he explained with a shrug.
She didn’t really look like she believed him but didn’t press the matter either, turning to her own locker to dig out her phone charger. He took that as his opportunity to leave and head for the loft where Cap was working on his famous baked Mac and Cheese for lunch.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
September 2018
Over the course of the next month, Buck spent his every waking hour thinking about his magic locker pen pal. They wrote to each other as frequently as possible without arising suspicion from the rest of the 118.
E,
Have you told anyone about our correspondences? I sort of brought it up with my best friends in a vague way, but they mostly brushed it off and resorted to teasing me. I considered telling my captain, but I’m already on thin ice with him, so I don’t think he’d appreciate some wild story about locker ghosts. As the newbie, I’ve learned it’s better to keep a low profile in order to avoid ticking people off around here. Respect my elders and all that. Also, should we further discuss the fact that you’re apparently in the year 2019, while I’m very much stuck in 2018?
B
B
I’m not sure there’s much to discuss there, considering that I don’t believe you’re actually speaking to me from the past. There’s simply no way that’s possible.
No, I have not told anyone about all this. I’m pretty sure they would think I was certifiable.
You’re the newbie too, huh? At least that’s one thing we have in common. What made you want to become a firefighter?
E
E,
Look, we can argue about this until we’re blue in the face, but I swear on my sister’s life that I’m currently living in the year 2018, not 2019.
As for firefighting, I sort of fell into it on a whim. Saw an older movie that made the job look really exciting and heroic, and I decided to give it a try. Before that, I was basically lost and wandering around without a purpose.
B
B,
How do I know you even have a sister to swear on? You could have just made her up to trick me into trusting you.
Also, it was Backdraft, wasn’t it?
E
E,
I most certainly do have a sister. Her name is Maddie, and she’s wonderful. Don’t you dare insult her again by questioning her existence.
Yes, it was Backdraft. How did you know? Is that what got you into firefighting as well?
Also, what pronouns should I use for you? Mine are he/him.
B
B,
He/him pronouns for me as well.
Every other person I talked to in the fire academy was there because of Backdraft. You’re not special.
For me, it was just a natural continuation of finding a way to help people after I left the army. I have a background as a combat medic. This career path made the most sense for me.
You and Maddie are close then? What’s she like?
E
E,
You’re a really blunt type of person, aren’t you? But I’m going to have to strongly disagree: I very much am quite special. I’ll have you convinced of that sooner or later.
*gasps* I’m shocked that you were so forthcoming with a teensy bit of information about yourself. I didn’t even have to pry it out of you. Combat medic, huh? That’s impressive.
You want to know about Maddie? Well, she practically raised me. She’s super smart, always helped me when I struggled with my grades in school. She went to nursing school, and I’m sure she’s killing it at her job right now. We haven’t been in touch over recent years, but I know she’s there if I need her and vice versa.
Do you have siblings?
B
B,
Two sisters, Adriana and Sophia, but we’re not as close as you and Maddie clearly are.
Yes, I’m very much a person who usually prefers to call it like I see it. Is that a problem?
E
E,
Not a problem. I respect honesty. Besides, it’s not like I can do much to you if you piss me off besides not replying to your letters.
You mentioned before that you have a son. Does that mean you’re married?
B
B,
Divorced as of last year. Things fell apart pretty much right after I got home from Afghanistan. She’s got a lot going on with her sick mother, so I have full custody of Christopher. He visits her on the holidays, but that’s about it.
How about you? Have a family at home waiting for you to return from your firefighting duties?
E
E,
Quite the opposite. It’s pathetic how empty my apartment feels when I get home at the end of a shift. This is a little embarrassing to admit, but your letters have become the most exciting thing about my life right now. I sometimes agonize for hours over what I’d like to ask you or say to you next, wondering how you might respond.
How do you spend your free time away from the station?
B
B,
I’m glad I could provide you with a source of entertainment for the time being. And I don’t think you sound pathetic. Just lonely. A feeling I’m all too familiar with.
When I’m not working, I usually make an effort to take Christopher on some fun adventure. We’ve explored so many parts of LA just in a matter of a couple months. We’ll run out of things to do if we’re not careful.
E
E,
What sort of things is he interested in? I’ve explored most of Los Angeles myself and could possibly provide some recommendations for fun activities.
B
B,
He LOVES science. Space stuff. Dinosaurs. Animals. Plants. We’ve already got a yearly pass to the LA Zoo and aquarium. I think this weekend we’re gonna do the botanical garden. Natural history museum and the observatory are both on our list as well.
What are your interests? Surely writing these letters isn’t the only thing you do when you’re not working.
E
E,
Wow! Sounds like he’s gonna end up working for NASA or something. You must be so proud to have such a smart kid with such big interests.
I go hiking or cycling on occasion. Or I’ll do a shorter workout at home. I’m trying to learn how to cook and bake, but it’s not going so well. YouTube tutorials can only get you so far. I asked my captain to teach me, since he’s like a five-star chef, but we’re still not on the greatest terms, and he wasn’t too eager to help. Looks like I’ll be sticking to takeout for a while.
B
B,
Nothing wrong with takeout. I can’t cook to save my life, so we order delivery all the time. Anything else we eat around here comes from a box or frozen.
E
E,
Ah, yes. I remember the frozen chicken nuggets on your grocery list.
B
B,
I’m sensing judgment in your scribbles. And after I was so kind as to assure you there’s nothing wrong with having to rely on takeout.
I require a copy of your own grocery shopping list as payment, so that you can stop using mine against me in such a holier-than-thou manner.
E
E,
Kale. Salmon. Quinoa. Cauliflower. Oat Milk. Organic chicken breasts. Broccoli. Asparagus. Bananas. Brussel Sprouts.
Satisfied?
B
B,
You’re so full of shit.
E
***
September 2019
The summer was coming to an end, and for the first time in ages, Eddie sort of felt settled. Chris was well into his semester at school, thoroughly enamored with all his new friends and teachers. Carla was a blessing to have in their lives, and Eddie was already at a loss of what he’d ever do without her around.
The pen pal situation was… perplexing to say the least. There was simply no way that both he and this “B” person could be existing in the same firehouse at the same time without having seen each other. Which meant that B’s explanation of them being in the past/future respective to each other was the most plausible scenario. But even that solution was absolutely absurd.
B,
I suppose I’m ready to talk more about this mystical situation we find ourselves in. I know you’re determined to believe that I’m from the future, based on me saying I’d already watched Endgame which premiered in April 2019. The problem is, we have no way to support this theory. Me questioning you about the past doesn’t prove anything. You questioning me about the future would only become fruitful at a later date.
E
E,
Not true! I could ask you a question about something that’s supposed to happen tomorrow on September 30th. Then we’d only have to wait until tomorrow to prove the theory is true.
B
B,
But even then, it would only be proved to you, not me. I would have no way of knowing that you weren’t still lying about being in the past and playing along with this ridiculous game. We need to come up with a way to prove it on my end as well. Otherwise, I’ll never be fully sold.
E
E,
We could schedule a time to meet? Like we could plan for it this weekend to you, but it would be a year from now for me. That would take all the mystery out of this thing, if we just talked face to face.
B
B,
Did you forget the part where I still don’t trust you entirely? Why would I agree to meet you?
E
E,
Omfg why are you so difficult?
How about this: pick a spot in the firehouse, anywhere besides this locker (since we’ve already established that it has magical/deceptive qualities). Pick a bunk in the bunkroom or a stall in the showers or whatever. Doesn’t matter, your choice. Get a good look at it, commit it to memory. Better yet, get photo evidence. Then, tell me something specific to carve into it. As soon as you send the note through, return to the designated spot and wait for the carving to magically appear.
Once it does, you’ll see that it’s there because I did it in the past after you wrote it in your note to me.
B
Luckily, it was a slow day at the station, otherwise he wouldn’t even have bothered fooling with all this. He marched toward the showers and hurriedly snapped a photo of the blank wall in one of the shower stalls. Then he returned to his locker to write out his next note.
B,
Fine. Third shower stall from the door. Right side, around eye level (I’m 6 foot).
Write: E is not difficult. In fact, B is the difficult one.
E
As soon as he shut the locker door, he jogged back to the designated shower, pulling the curtain shut behind him so that nobody would walk past and puzzle about what he was doing in there fully clothed. The minutes ticked by on Eddie’s watch, and he held his breath as nothing happened for an unbearable amount of time.
Then. One by one, uneven letters began to carve into the wall, as if put there by an invisible hand. Eddie grew lightheaded as he watched it happen, feeling like he’d accidentally stepped into a horror film at some point. The message wasn’t entirely the one Eddie had instructed, but it still got the point across loud and clear.
E is cantankerous. B is an angel. Ps. I’m taller than you.