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The sky turns white and it rumbles for a split second when it strikes. It happens fast, and there's a second of silence, a second where time stands still, where he looks up and sees Buck hanging from the top of the ladder, his head falling backwards and his entire body going limp. It takes that second for everything to register before giving in and surrendering to the panic, heavier and louder than the thunder that still rings in his eardrums.
He starts moving before knowing what is happening, only a thought passing through his mind as he starts moving upwards.
Oh God, please, not him.
It is said that one's life flashes before your eyes in the event of your death. Precious seconds where you get to relieve it, not too different from the flashbacks you get from PTSD, except on a larger scale. The good things and all your mistakes and traumas.
Eddie used to call it bullshit before joining the army. He thought of it as something out of the movies, a concept done for shocking value on television; not something you get to experience.
Then when he was first deployed he heard people talk, the guys who had seen war shared in horror and awe their experiences brushing death and how it all played out, like in the movies. So he started to believe, he even wondered if it was going to be that way as he stepped out of that helicopter crash, he was kind of expecting it.
Except it didn't. When he was almost killed in the desert of Afghanistan he could only hold on enough to the thought of his family that his life didn't really make its appearance before his eyes. No big movie about Eddie's greatest mistakes, nothing, it was more like a death grip to the love he has for his family, but nothing else. It wasn't the best of lives, though, it was probably better he didn't relieve it.
Until he moved to Los Angeles and started a life that was worth having, a life he could actually fear to lose. A life where he no longer thought Christopher would be better off without him.
When the well collapsed on top of him he saw it. A careful selection of his life, perfectly orchestrated by his brain to give him the strength, to push him and push him. To force him to fight, for Chris and the memory of his mother, and his newly found family.
Now it is a matter of fact, that it can happen that way. That life does flash before your eyes because he's seen it. It can be a gift, for a peaceful death. Or like in that case, it can be the last of your brain forcing you to fight, to stay alive. He's experienced it both ways.
Even the understanding and having known what it feels like to be on the brink of death and see your entire life in a matter of seconds couldn't have prepared him for what it feels like to experience what he's now living.
He is climbing up the ladder with the distant thought that what he is doing is downright stupid, he knows safety protocols and he couldn't care less about them. The sound of the radio with his captain's orders to get down is drowned by the rumbling sound of rain and thunder. His throat feels sore and raw from screaming. He can't stop, he can't stop yelling his name like his only prayer as he climbs to where he could find Buck dead. Screaming is the only thing he can respond with.
Every step he takes, a new memory starts playing, from the very first moment they met, shaking hands with an irritated Buck to all that they've shared. He can barely catch up, 5 years and their lives have become so intertwined that there are few important memories where Buck isn't there in some capacity. They have shared the scariest moments of their lives, moments where they were both so deep down in their own minds and moments where they were the only people strong enough to pull the other out. He sees how much Buck has given him, how much he loves Chris. He remembers their trips to the zoo and late nights with fancy lasagna or the shitty pizza close to the firehouse when they would take a spot to fill in for B shift. He sees their fight at the grocery store and the hug that Eddie regrets not having stayed in long enough because of his pain. He sees Buck's expression full of awe every time Eddie tells him how important he is, as if he can't believe that someone could even think of him like that. He thinks of the tsunami and the well and the moment a few minutes ago, all full of water and he feels like he's drowning. Because he remembers, and remembers, and remembers. Up to just a couple of hours ago when Buck was singing out of tune a song of a stupid cereal commercial when they were cleaning the firetruck, where Eddie's heart ached with the kind of love that happens once in a lifetime.
Eddie sees the entirety of their friendship stretching out before him and he thinks how fucking stupid it is that their entire relationship has been built and defined by nothing but the purest form of love and even then, none of them ever said the words.
Not even as friends, a couple of years ago that feel like decades when Eddie saw him as just a friend. And now he thinks, did he ever? Was their relationship ever just friendship? How stupid it is to define such a thing, when from the moment they pulled out that grenade it's felt so, so deeply engraved into his soul.
They don't tell you that when the people you love the most are claimed by death, your shared life plays in front of your eyes as well. To live one last time the best moments of your life when you might lose it forever.
When you love a person like that, it is akin to have your own life be stripped away from you. Worse, in many ways. It's painful to think what the world would lose if he finds that its brightest heart has stopped beating.
He reaches the top of the ladder and looks down to where Buck hangs, his body limp and uncommonly still. He can't reach him and it feels abysmal what separates them. There is nothing but rain and up there everything smells of ozone, and he can't help but feel small and helpless, so far away. He gets the pulley moving to lower him down, and the image is one that'll haunt him in his dreams. In a way it's like seeing an angel falling from the heavens with broken wings.
"Please, Evan. Please. Don't give up now." He whispers and he can only hope someone is listening.
He sees Hen and Chimney taking Buck carefully and he rushes down the ladder, even tripping a couple times. He is running downwards and he doesn't see the lighting bolt that hits him until he's flying back, his back hitting the top of the firetruck.
There's a ringing sound echoing in his head as he forces his eyes open, assessing himself as quickly as he can. It didn't hit him, he thinks. There's just a sharp pain in his head and his arm feels sore, but he is conscious.
He then remembers his training in the army, his superiors who told them countless times that even if you've been shot, if you are awake you move, you don't stop, you force adrenaline to your body and you keep on moving. And the only thing in his mind is still Buck, Buck, Buck. So he moves.
The paramedics are quick to show by his side, trying to look for his injuries, to treat him.
"I'm fine! I'm fine, I wasn't hit!" He shouts to whoever the paramedics that are trying to check him are. He climbs off the ladder truck and moves towards Buck. "Get off me! Focus on him!"
On Buck who, as he reaches the gurney, is being resuscitated by Hen and Chim.
It's an image that will refuse to leave his nightmares in the years to come. He is lying there, rain hitting his face and not moving a muscle. They cut his uniform to shock him, another volt of electricity about to run through his veins. He sees Chimney trying not to panic and Bobby walking away, always putting on a strong mask for his team. He sees them putting the pads on while Hen is begging him to just stay with them. And don't give up, Buckaroo. He looks at his chest and neck covered in red fractal figures creating a pattern that could be beautiful if his entire world wasn't falling apart in front of him.
It's all a little bit of a blur after that. The fear, ice cold, running through his entire body. Forcing his way to stand by Buck's side and trying to help in any way he can, the relief not lasting and feeling too unstable when his heart starts again long enough to get him to the ambulance and crashing again just a minute and fifteen seconds before reaching the hospital.
He doesn't remember who he had to fight to get in that ambulance without anyone hovering over him from his fall, all he knows and is sure of is that he holds Buck's hand the entire ride.
His cold, motionless hand.
Buck is wheeled inside the hospital and as Eddie steps down from the ambulance he lets his mind wander. He has been in the field for enough time and he knows what news they could receive in the next hours. He thinks of what he's going to tell Chris, he thinks about Maddie and Jee running inside the hospital, a storm barely contained. He begs secretly that the Buckleys are decent enough to visit their son in the hospital, to be there for once in their lives. He thinks of the team, of these moments of desperation, on everyone trying to hold a fort, to be strong for him.
At last he thinks of the worst scenario.
He imagines a life without Buck in it. He sees a life he didn't think he'd ever have to even imagine, a life that barely earns its name for how… Lifeless it looks. He sees the heart being torn out of the 118, its core gone. Chris losing another parent figure, and Eddie losing… Well, the love of his life. He wonders if from now on he will only find the blue of Buck's eyes in the sky and the ocean. In the water that came to reclaim him after losing that battle before. It's one of the most terrifying things he can think of.
Death stands pale and welcoming, stretching a warm hand to Evan Buckley. It offers quiet and peace, maybe even answers, if he chooses to go.
Eddie Diaz stands in the waiting room of a hospital, and he prays with all of him, maybe a little selfishly, that Buck doesn't take its hand. That he doesn't give in.
Some things he'll never forget from that night, but he isn't sure he'll remember what happened before the adrenaline faded and his body collapsed on the ground. The last thing he can grasp before giving into the black nothingness is that the sound of Buck's flatline hasn't left his ears.
He doesn't think it ever will.