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Eddie’s head pounds before he even opens his eyes. He groans, moving to rub a hand across his face. Only- he can’t. Instead, he finds himself jerking weakly against ropes. Blinking his eyes open, panic strikes through his chest. He’s tied to a chair. Avoiding looking up, Eddie starts to take inventory of his surroundings. The flooring isn’t the kind in his house. It actually looks like… it looks like Buck’s loft. Why is he in Buck’s loft?
The last thing Eddie remembers is getting out of his truck, about to walk into his own house and see Chris. Then something hard and heavy hit his head. Then blackness. Now, he’s tied to a chair in Buck’s loft. He’s still disoriented, dizzy- he’s probably concussed. That would explain the blinding, stabbing pain at the base of his skull.
“Buck?” Eddie tries to call out, but his voice is weak and the word sounds slurred to his ears. He tests the strength of his restraints, yanking against them. They don’t budge. His muscles burn with the effort and- he’s been drugged, most likely. A mild sedative to counteract his strength.
“Would you look at that?” An unfamiliar voice answers him and Eddie forces himself to lift his head, blinking blearily. A blonde man- Jonah- is standing in front of him, grinning from ear to ear. Fuck. Fuck . Jonah’s voice is taunting as he leans closer, as if inspecting Eddie. “Sleeping beauty awakes.”
“What are you…?” Eddie blinks again, shaking his head, trying to make himself more alert.
“See,” Jonah sighs, “I did tell your friends they should stop digging, Diaz. They’re just not the best listeners, I guess.” Jonah’s expression darkens. “And then they went to the media.”
“Greenway, what the fuck is this?” Eddie demands, starting to breathe heavier. This is not how he dies. “You gonna kill me? Like you did all those other people? The ones you were supposed to save ?”
“I did save them!” Jonah snaps, his eyes flashing.
“What about Claudette?”
“That…” Jonah sighs, pushing a hand back through his hair and closing his eyes. “That was an accident .”
“ Killing a woman was an accident ?”
“Yes! I should have been able to save her. It wasn’t my fault her stupid heart didn’t respond.”
“You’re psychotic,” Eddie scoffs, looking away. Jonah makes a growling sound in the back of his throat, and Eddie presses further. “The job is to help people in danger, not bring people to the brink of death so we can get an ego boost.”
“I save people,” Jonah says again, like a mantra. “ That’s what I’m good at.” Eddie just scoffs again, shaking his head. Jonah’s voice turns cold, an amused tint to it. “Oh, you don’t believe me? How about a little demonstration?”
Jonah steps aside and Eddie’s own heart stops. His veins turn to ice, the breath leaving his lungs. Horror, dark and icy, curls in his chest, tendrils seeping through his body, settling around his heart, flooding his lungs, strangling his windpipe.
“Buck,” he whispers, his voice shaking. Buck is lying on his own kitchen table, strapped down with various machines hooked up to him. He’s shirtless and the monitor on the other side of him beats steadily with his heart. “Greenway- Jonah what is this? What are you doing?”
“Like I said, a demonstration ,” Jonah tells him casually, as if discussing the weather. He walks up to Buck and grabs the IV sticking out of Buck’s arm, a syringe in his other hand. “I’m going to stop his heart, and then I’m going to bring him back.”
“No.” His voice comes out hushed, horrified. Eerily quiet in contrast to the panicked alarms going off in his mind. “ No! Don’t- don’t, please . You don’t have to do this.”
Jonah chuckles, shaking his head a little as he injects the needle. Eddie hasn’t believed in God for a while, but now he’s sending out every prayer he can think of, reciting every verse he can remember. Anything, anything to make this stop.
“I know I don’t have to,” Jonah says, glancing over his shoulder. His eyes glint. “I want to.” And then Buck flatlines. Eddie lets out an anguished shout, somewhere between a scream and a sob, and Jonah claps his hands, hurrying over to the other side and grabbing the defibrillators.
“Fingers crossed,” he says with a grin, winking at Eddie. There are tears on Eddie’s cheeks, burning his eyes and freezing on his skin. “Clear!” Jonah jolts Buck and his entire body convulses. Eddie can’t breathe. Then- a beep. He’s back. Eddie sags in his chair, his breathing shaky and tears still spilling down his cheeks.
“See?” Jonah says, setting away the instruments. “I told you, I’ve got this all under control.”
“You did,” Eddie all but sobs, “you were right, you win. Just- just let him go.”
“Y’know,” he starts, leaning against the table Buck’s strapped to, “they told me you were close.”
Eddie swallows hard, focusing on the rise and fall of Buck’s chest, unconsciously matching his own inhales and exhales. “Yeah. We are.”
“ How close, exactly?” Jonah asks.
“Small talk?” The words come out as a snarl. “Is that what we’re doing now?”
“Well, I could always stop his heart again-”
“No!” Eddie shouts, jerking against his restraints. He knows his eyes are wide, his terror naked on his face for Jonah to see. He can’t bring himself to care- not with Buck vulnerable still. “No, please .”
“Then stop avoiding my questions,” Jonah instructs, wagging his finger to accentuate each word. “See, I’ve seen how the 118 behaves. You’re all like family. Hen and Chim clearly have a strong bond. Bobby is like, what, a surrogate dad to all of you? But… you and Buck. It’s different. I wonder why that is?”
“He is my family,” Eddie answers, his voice quiet. He can’t make himself look at Jonah, fixated on watching Buck’s chest move with each breath. He’s breathing , he tells himself, he’s alive. You’re going to make it out of this . “He- he’s all me and my son have.”
“Ah yes,” Jonah claps his hands with a sigh. “Christopher. Buck talked about him. A lot .”
“He loves that kid with everything in him. Please- please , don’t make my son lose someone else.” He’s begging at this point, tears flowing freely, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get Buck out of here .
“Buck’s already died once, right?” It hits Eddie like a punch to the gut. “A few years ago, on a date if I’m right.”
“How- how do you-?”
Jonah’s eyes darken. “You guys did your research. I did mine.” Eddie swallows hard. How much does this guy know? “So if Buck’s heart has already stopped once before, technically that was his second time dying.”
“Yes,” Eddie admits, his voice rough through gritted teeth. Anger flashes through him, tinging his panic red, hot in his chest and bitter on his tongue.
“Well. You know what they say…” Eddie’s heart plummets to his stomach as Jonah pushes off the table. He reaches into a bag and pulls out another syringe. “Third time’s the charm.”
“ No! Please, please , I’ll- I’ll do whatever you want, Greenway. Just please- please don’t .” Jonah just laughs again, winking at Eddie. He turns his back and Eddie clenches his fists, straining hard enough that the ropes will leave marks. It doesn’t matter. He’s trapped, he’s helpless, he’s desperate- “Kill me instead!”
Jonah halts, the tip of the needle centimeters away from Buck. Jonah cranes his neck to look back at Eddie, eyebrows raised.
“Kill me instead,” Eddie pleads, crying shamelessly now. “Please, please , I can’t- I can’t watch him die. I’m begging you, kill me instead.”
“You’re in love with him.” Jonah says it simply, as if the words don’t stab through Eddie, as if Jonah hasn’t just taken the deepest, most intimate part of Eddie’s heart and torn it out to bare for all the world to see. Jonah tilts his head, as if waiting for an answer.
“Yes,” Eddie sobs. “Yes, so please , if you have any humanity- please don’t make me watch him die.”
“I won’t,” Jonah promises. Then an unsettling smile spreads across his face, insanity glinting in his eyes. “I’ll make you watch me bring him back.” And then he empties the drug into Buck’s veins as Eddie screams. The beep of a flatline fills the room, paired with Eddie’s cries and pleas for Jonah to bring him back.
Jonah takes his time walking to the other side of the table and prepping the defibrillators. He seems to not have a care in the world, despite the man he just killed lying before him. Eddie, on the other hand, can’t breathe. It feels like his heart stopped beating along with Buck’s. Maybe- maybe it did. He’s joked before about Buck and Chris being the two halves of his heart but- but this feels real. As if someone has taken his heart and ripped it from his very chest.
“Please,” Eddie whispers, staring at Buck’s face. He’s not sure who he’s begging- Jonah to bring him back, Buck to keep fighting, or God to save them both.
“Since you asked so nicely,” Jonah says agreeable, and then he sets the paddles down on Buck’s chest. “Clear!” Eddie’s breath catches as he waits. The monotonous beep still fills the air. Jonah’s eyebrows rise. “Uh oh. Should we try again?”
Eddie ignores him. “Buck, I know you can hear me, c’mon don’t fucking- don’t do this to me. You’re a fighter, Evan. So fight .”
“Buddy, I don’t know how to tell you this but he’s kinda, well, dead right about now.”
“Hit him again!” Eddie shouts.
“That’s not very polite, Diaz.”
“ Please , please bring him back.” Eddie can barely see through his tears, can barely speak through his sobs. As each second ticks by, Buck gets further and further away. “Please, save him .”
Jonah clicks his tongue and sighs, rolling his eyes slightly. “Well. Since you asked so nicely. Clear!” Buck’s body jolts with the shock, and for several heart-stopping moments, nothing happens. Then- a blip. Slowly, his heartbeat returns. Eddie takes a deep, shaking breath, his body going limp yet again.
“Thank you,” he cries softly. This time, he knows who he’s talking to. Thank you, Buck. Thank you for fighting.
“Now that was exciting!” Jonah exclaims, his eyes wild as he puts the paddles down beside Buck and walks back around the table, looking at Eddie instead of Buck. “I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t sure we were gonna get him back that time.”
Eddie just lets out a ragged, breathless sob in response, his entire body trembling. He forces himself to look up, to see the rise and fall of Buck’s torso, to prove to himself that yes, Buck is breathing. He’s fighting. He’s alive . And then- Buck’s hand twitches. Just barely. But- a movement. Something like hope blooms in Eddie’s chest. He just has to keep Jonah’s attention away from Buck long enough for Buck to- he’s not sure. Hopefully something.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Well, see, your friends started looking into some things that they should have left alone,” Jonah bites out, his words venomous. “I tried to warn them, really, I did.” Don’t look at Buck .
Distract him. “You were hurting people, you couldn’t have really expected them to let that go.”
“No,” Jonah admits, “but I at least thought it’d give me enough time to deal with them.”
“But it didn’t.”
“You have your boyfriend’s girlfriend to thank for that,” Jonah snarls. Buck’s hand moves again. “Bitch started investigating further, getting a story ready.”
“So- so what is this, some kind of revenge ?”
Jonah pushes off the table, anger flashing across his face. “ This is meant to get my goddamn point across, Diaz. Buck is what ties your sad little team together. So either, you all stop fucking with me, or next time I don’t bring him back.” Jonah starts to turn away and panic races through Eddie.
“You can’t seriously expect this to work!” Jonah stops, glaring at him. “You’re going to jail for this, Greenway. You can’t- even if we can’t prove everything else, this is enough to get you put behind bars for good.”
Jonah tilts his head, as if contemplating. “Well. In that case, maybe I should just kill both of you and be done with it. I’ll move on to a new city and you two will just be another tragic story in the evening news.” Sadistic glee sparkles in Jonah’s gaze, “Maybe Taylor Kelly will finally get her ‘big break’ story.”
He turns, reaching as if to grab another syringe as Eddie shouts, when Buck makes his move. It must take everything he has, but he swings an arm up and slams one of the defibrillator paddles into the side of Jonah’s skull. He drops like a bag of rocks, crumpling to the floor. Buck lets go of the paddle, letting it dangle over the side of the table as he slowly, shakily unclasps himself and all but tumbles off the table, landing on the floor.
Eddie can’t even form coherent words, only sobbing in relief as Buck crawls over to him, rising to his knees in front of Eddie and throwing his arms around Eddie’s torso, pressing his face into Eddie’s abdomen as they shake together, crying.
“I thought he was- I thought you were- God, Buck ,” Eddie gasps through his tears. Buck’s fingers scrabble against the knots and then Eddie’s free and he’s throwing his arms over Buck, both of the sinking to the floor. “I thought I fucking lost you.”
“‘M- ‘m a fighter,” Buck murmurs, his words slurred as his eyes droop shut. “‘S what you said, right?”
“Fuck, Evan,” Eddie whispers into his hair, gripping onto Buck as if he could single-handedly hold him together. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re a fucking fighter.”
“For you,” Buck whispers. “You and- ‘nd Chris. Fought for you .”
Eddie just grips Buck closer and buries his face in his solid, warm, alive shoulder and sobs. All he can think about is- the words tumble out before Eddie can stop himself. “I never- I never want us to be apart- I don't want us to be apart anymore, Buck. Ever .”
“Never again,” Buck murmurs in agreement, his fist loosely holding Eddie’s shirt and his own face buried in Eddie’s neck.
Eddie moves one hand to cradle the back of Buck’s head. “Never.”