Chapter Text
Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither. ― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
The sessions have gotten easier, it’s impossible to deny that. But easier doesn’t actually mean easy, not yet; easier is pretty much the lowest possible bar, considering where he was at before. He’s trying, god is he trying, but talking about himself and his problems for an hour still feels like pulling teeth. He’s a little bit convinced at this point that Frank must be a fucking saint for putting up with him.
“We’ve been seeing each other for a couple months now,” Frank says, and Eddie nods. It’s a statement, not a question, and he doesn’t feel that he’s supposed to comment yet. There’s clearly more that Frank wants to say to him, but sometimes it seems like he likes letting it hang for a moment, forcing Eddie to think about what he’s going to say. “I was hoping to talk with you about something a little different before we finish today, if you’d be open to that.”
He shifts his shoulders uncomfortably, fighting back the knee-jerk reaction to say no, to hide within himself again like he always used to. But he’s trying. He’s trying, and part of that is listening to Frank even when he really, really doesn’t want to. “Okay.”
He’s bracing himself for a question he doesn’t want to answer like usual—something about the shooting, or Afghanistan, or Shannon. He’s so focused on the possibilities that he’s not prepared at all when Frank actually continues.
“What do you know about bipolar disorder?”
Eddie chokes on air.
“I—uh, not a lot? I mean, basics from work, we’ve—we’ve had calls with people who have it before. But nothing other than that. Why do you want to know?” It’s a stupid question; there’s only one reason Frank would ask that right after saying he wants to discuss something new, but he’s trying to delay the inevitable right now. Frank simply raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying the delay tactic. Eddie shifts in his seat again, crossing his arms in an attempt to shield himself, as if it’s going to make any difference here. “That’s—why?”
“I like to think we’ve gotten to know each other better since we first started talking. And as I’ve learned more about you, I have started noticing more in the things you talk about. I was just curious if anyone had ever mentioned it to you before, or if you’d ever looked into it.”
He shakes his head. “Uh, no. No, no one’s ever brought up… anything.” He saw a VA appointed psych once, right after the accident, and then never went back to a therapist until his single session with Frank two and a half years ago, then again now. There hasn’t been a chance for a professional to bring it up before now, and no one in his life ever would have suggested it, especially before he met the 118. “I never even thought there was something to look into, so no, I’ve never looked it up.” For once, it wasn’t him knowing and avoiding; it had never even occurred to him to look into it before. Why would it?
Frank pulls a couple sheets of paper out from the folder on his lap, handing it over. A quick glance tells him it’s a list. Of symptoms and criteria.
He would give anything to be literally anywhere else right now. Give him a five alarm fire any day, rather than this. Frank is watching him expectantly, and he forces himself to actually turn his attention to the paper in front of him, reading through the first few bullet points slowly.
He looks up again, meeting Frank’s eyes before quickly looking away towards the wall instead, not able to maintain eye contact right now. “I—I guess I can see it, yeah.” There were a few that jumped out at him immediately, more than he wants to admit even here. Abnormally and persistently irritable mood and excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences seem to be staring up at him from the page, mocking him. “Have you been thinking about this since the first time I saw you?”
“One session isn’t enough to diagnose anyone, regardless of what it is, and especially not something like bipolar disorder. It takes time. But, I will admit that the thought did cross my mind when you told me about your… activities at the time.”
“You mean that I joined the cage fighting ring.” He’s still ashamed of it. It’s not something he talks about, with anyone, aside from the few times it’s come up with Frank now. The one time Buck tried, he’d shut him down, and it hasn’t been brought up, by him or anyone else, since. There was no reason to, once he went back to normal —and that alone should be a hint that this may have some merit to it. The fact that, suddenly, he wasn’t acting so crazy anymore, seemingly randomly. It had just stopped, all at once.
It wasn’t random, and he hadn’t been acting crazy. The manic episode he was having had ended.
He doesn’t know what to do with that information.
“Yes. But, you also said some other things during our initial session, and in other sessions since then. Your depression is part of this, too—that’s on the second page, there, and I’d recommend looking through that as well.” Actually hearing the word depression out loud is just as jarring as hearing bipolar had been. It’s the same way he had felt the first time someone actually said PTSD to him, instead of just hinting and talking around it like he was used to from his family. “Some of these things are subjective, and only you can know how true they are, but quite a bit of it is observable. Have people in your life ever noticed changes before?”
He thinks back to two years ago, after the cage fighting, Buck and Bobby asking him what was going on only for him to brush them both off. A few months ago, before his breakdown, Buck cornering him in the kitchen to beg him to just be honest with him. Bobby saying he wasn’t ready for active duty yet. Even further back, to Shannon confronting him—when he reenlisted and again when he’d finally come home for good and was a shell of himself. People in his life have always noticed the changes in his mood, the extremes it could be at—he’d just shut them down any time they tried to actually bring it up. Nothing Frank is saying is anything new, he just doesn’t know how to deal with any of it now that he’s putting a word to it.
“Yeah. Yeah that’s—I mean, I told you about my fight with Bobby. What he said, and what I said.” He doesn’t think the shame and guilt is ever going to fully go away. It shouldn’t go away. He still can’t believe Bobby was able to forgive him for it, even knowing how kind he is. “People have noticed. A lot, actually. I just… never listened.” Deny, ignore, move forward. It’s been his life philosophy for so long.
Frank nods, offering a small, reassuring smile. “We’re almost done for today. I’d like you to read through that before our next session. See if it feels right.” Eddie’s not so sure that how it feels is really going to factor into things; Frank is going to diagnose him even if he says he doesn’t like it. Feeling bad about the idea isn’t going to make it less true.
He nods anyway, giving a wry smirk. “More therapy homework. My favorite part.”
It’s no longer a surprise to come home and see Buck in his kitchen, looking for all the world like he belongs there. It had been like that ages ago, back before he was shot and everything changed. Since his breakdown a couple months ago, they’ve gotten it back. He wishes that it could have been under different circumstances, but he can’t ever regret the fact that Buck is there.
He drops down at the kitchen table heavily, and Buck turns from the stove-top to give him a blinding smile. “How’d it go today?”
“You ask me that every time.” He rolls his eyes, but he’s incapable of keeping the fond smile off his face.
“Well, I wanna know every time,” Buck says obstinately. God, Eddie knows that he really means that, too. He really does want to know every time. He wants to know how Eddie is doing every day—not just because he’s worried about another breakdown, but because he really wants to . He doesn’t know how to deal with that kind of interest, that kind of care. Because that’s all Buck does—he cares, always. He’s just sincere, never faking it.
He doesn’t know how he got this lucky to have a friend like him.
“Do you know anything about bipolar disorder?” He doesn’t mean to ask him, but Buck has always been better at getting him to drop his walls than anyone else, even when all he’s doing is just standing there with his wide, soft smile.
Buck clearly isn’t expecting the question either, and he almost drops the spoon he’s holding. He sets it down carefully after a moment, turning his attention fully towards Eddie.
“I’m guessing that’s not a random question?”
Eddie appreciates that he isn’t pushing, even if for once he kind of wants him to, rather than needing to offer the information up on his own. “No.” He gestures with the papers Frank had handed him. “I got homework. And maybe uh—maybe a diagnosis. For it. He wants me to read through this before anything’s definite, but… he seemed pretty sure.”
Buck settles in the seat across from him, leaning on the table as he gives him all of his attention. “What do you think?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know yet. I think… I think he might be onto something. Gotta read this first. I don’t know that much about it right now.”
Buck nods. “I don’t either.” The smile returns to his face, and he nudges Eddie’s hand with his own. “Looks like we’ve both got homework.”
It takes all his self control not to burst into tears at the sheer implication behind that offer. Buck just… assumes, right away, that he’s going to be there for this. He’s going to help. We, not you. It’s not even a question to him, he doesn’t seem to have considered backing up from him at all. He’s all in, just like always.
As usual, he seems to know what Eddie’s thinking, reading it across his face, something no one else has ever been able to do quite so well. He reaches across the table, grabbing Eddie’s hand to squeeze it. “Hey. I still got your back, right? That means this, too.” The few months they weren’t partners just seem to have made Buck even more determined to stand behind him for anything and everything in his life, even now that Eddie has returned.
“Yeah. You always do.” He looks up, meeting Buck’s eyes to take in the soft gaze currently directed at him. Buck is always looking at him like that, like he’s the most precious thing in the world. Before him, he’d never been on the receiving end of a look like that. It’s beyond fond, into an entire new category that Eddie knows in the back of his mind but isn’t willing to put a name to yet. He’s not ready to examine what it means, for either of them.
Buck squeezes his hand again before he stands and walks back over to the stove, picking his spoon back up to stir whatever it is he’s working on. “Do you wanna talk about it?” It’s another completely genuine offer, and Eddie still doesn’t know what to do with it. How he’s supposed to let himself relax enough to accept it with no hesitation.
“Not right now.” Not at all, actually, but he knows if he says that, Buck’s going to give him those sad puppy dog eyes, like he can feel Eddie’s pain himself, like it’s breaking his own heart. He can’t be on the receiving end of that look right now. “... you’ll be the first person I go to.” That he can say without hesitation. If—when—he’s able to talk about it more in depth, Buck is the first person he’s going to turn to.
Buck’s face breaks out into a wide, sunshine smile, the kind that always makes Eddie’s chest feel lighter and the room light up. “I’d better be.”
It’s not until that night, after Chris is in bed and Buck has returned to his own home, that Eddie pulls out the papers again, forcing himself to actually read through everything this time instead of just skimming it.
A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood and abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy, lasting at least 1 week and present most of the day, nearly every day.
He has to force himself not to put it down and shove it away from himself again. He has to force himself to keep reading past those first few lines and actually think about this, try to bring up old memories that he never wants to touch, and re-examine them now with this new information.
During the period of mood disturbance and increased activity, three (or more) of the following symptoms (four if the mood is only irritable) are present to a significant degree and represent a noticeable change from usual behavior:
- Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity.
- Decreased need for sleep.
- More talkative than usual or pressure to keep talking.
- Flight of ideas or subjective experience that thoughts are racing.
- Distractability (i.e., attention too easily drawn to unimportant or irrelevant external stimuli), as reported or observed.
- Increase in goal-related activity or psychomotor agitation.
- Excessive involvement in activities that have a high potential for painful consequences.
The mood disturbance is sufficiently severe to cause marked impairment or occupational functioning.
Five. The minimum is three, and he’s relating to five of them when he thinks back at points in his life, especially the cage fighting and the weeks surrounding it.
It’s getting harder and harder to deny, now that he’s reading this. Even the few things Frank had said had been enough to get him to admit, at least to himself, that there may be some truth. These now are more than enough for him to admit that’s almost certainly true. Grandiosity, irritability, increase in activity, high potential for painful consequences—fuck. He isn’t sure if he can keep reading this right now
He knows if he doesn’t keep reading right now, he’s not going to pick it back up; he’s going to convince himself that he’s fine with not knowing. But for once, he actually isn’t sure that he is okay with it—the not knowing, the hiding, the withdrawing… he’s tired of it. He’s not sure, just yet, what difference is going to be made by him knowing, but he finds that he genuinely does want to know. If only for himself, to put a word to how he feels, he wants to know.
Frank had told him that he should read the next page as well, and he lets out a long breath before turning to the page with Major Depressive Episode blazoned across the top. Without even looking, he has a feeling that he’s going to relate to just as much of this, if not more because of how much more recently it fits. He can fake being fine all he wants, but he knows—he’s good enough at his job to know what depression looks like, and that he has it.
Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2 week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one symptom is either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.
- Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report or observation made by others.
- Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day (as indicated by either subjective report or observation).
- Significant weight loss when not dieting, or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% body weight in a month) or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
- Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day.
- Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day (observable by others; not merely subjective feelings of restlessness or being slowed down).
- Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day.
- Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt (which may be delusional) nearly every day.
- Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness nearly every day (either by subjective account or as observed by others).
- Recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or specific plan for committing suicide.
He can’t tear his gaze away from the last bullet point. He hasn’t shared it before, only hinted to Bobby that he didn’t know why he was still alive, but he knows it’s true. He also knows what kind of look he’s going to get from Buck if he ever admits to it out loud; he’s been the cause of Buck’s pain enough times, especially in the past year, and he isn’t about to add to the list by telling him how badly he’s wanted to die. It may not be as bad as it was a few months ago, he may be making good progress on that front, but there’s still a part of him that thinks about it on some level.
Not that he’s ever going to act on it, even during the times when he wants it more—Chris needs him, he can’t leave him behind, leave him with another dead parent. He can’t force him to grow up knowing that his father did that, that he left in that way. Letting Chris think that he isn’t enough to stick around for is unforgivable. Even if he hates it every day, he’s going to live for him. Chris has always been his reason to keep living, the most important reason even now that he genuinely wants to live for himself like he’d told his father, too.
But the thoughts? The want? It’s there, has been for years, thrumming beneath the surface, just waiting for him to let his guard down and give in. It’s waiting for the next time he loses his mind and doesn’t know what he’s even doing—he still can’t remember attacking his room. There’s no telling if he almost made an attempt on his life, too. He could have. No matter how much he thinks back on that night, it’s all a blank between trying to call Mills and Buck showing up, his brain completely offline the entire time.
He could have done it. He could have killed himself that night, never knowing, with no plan or note, nothing left behind for Buck and Chris aside from the pain he’d cause them.
The last time he was that bad, he almost did. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for it, even though he never went through with it, even though he had stopped himself before killing himself. The next day, he had gone out and reenlisted instead.
He still hasn’t forgiven himself for that, either.
And no one knows. No one is ever going to know, if he has any say in it. The idea of someone looking at him with pity, or pain, or disgust when they learn how close he had come to pulling the trigger—especially if that someone is Buck—is one that he can’t deal with.
He sighs, dragging a hand over his face before putting his arms on the table, resting his head on them.
His phone buzzes on the table next to him, signaling a new text and effectively breaking him out of his spiraling thoughts. He glances at it, seeing that it’s from Buck, and when he opens it he can’t keep the small smile off his face.
Buck: did u know that vincent van gogh was prbly bipolar??? 🤯🤯
He can’t tear his eyes away from the stupid little emojis, overwhelmed with fondness. Even now Buck is using his usual ridiculous texting style, and it makes the whole situation feel so much less heavy. It feels just—normal. The topic might not be their usual, but they can still talk to each other just like they always do. He picks his phone back up, quickly typing out his own text in response.
Eddie: Did you go home and immediately start looking things up?
Buck: duh i told u i was going to
Buck: the cool lady frm the space movies chim likes was too!!
Eddie: I know that you know what Star Wars is and just pretend you don’t because you think it’s funny to annoy him.
Buck: no comment
He rolls his eyes again, the smile still on his face. A few months ago, even a few weeks ago, smiling this long about something wouldn’t have seemed possible anymore. Now, his face almost hurts with how much he’s been smiling lately. He still almost can’t believe how much better he feels now.
He’s not fully there yet, he’s not going to kid himself by pretending that he is, but it’s enough that he has noticed a difference. He knows that he has Frank to thank for a lot of that, even on nights like tonight when the aftermath of therapy and the homework Frank gives him had him spiraling for a minute.
He also knows that he has his team—his family—for it. He’s known from the beginning just how lucky he was to have Bobby reach out to him, and it’s only become more clear over the last few months, from him leaving the team to now coming back, not once losing an ounce of the support that they’ve always given him.