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Eddie is not a religious man. Not anymore at least. He was raised Catholic, went to church growing up, but belief fades. Especially when the people that you care for continuously get hurt and suffer. Eddie found it impossible to worship a God who would allow that. Instead, he wants to stand up and shout at God, demand answers. Ask him why he would let this happen to Buck? Eddie knows there will just be an echo of his voice asking the same question back to him. He doesn’t know how to answer the question without breaking. He figures if he stays quiet enough, and still enough, all of his pieces will stay together and he won’t end up tearing the chapel up with his bare hands with the fragments of his heart littering the floor.
So, here he was. Sitting silently on a pew in the hospital chapel, barely moving. Waiting to find out if Buck is dead or alive. Eddie is not too sure why he is there. Maybe he just needs a quiet place to hide. Maybe he is so desperate that he’d beg a God he’s not sure if he even believes in just to save Buck. Even then he feels like a failure. Buck saved him when he was shot. Eddie couldn’t save Buck and instead has turned to God.
You’d think turning to God would be comforting. But the stained glass windows looms over him. Mocking him. They knew he’d end back up in front of them. They always instilled a sense of fear into him as a kid. They still do. It was like he could feel the weight of every one of his sins. As if they are the shadows in the corner of his eye, slowly creeping up on him. With God watching, seeing right through him, and judging him for every single on of his failures.
The silence was broken by the door creaking and footsteps approaching him. He knows that they are too heavy, measured and careful to be Buck’s. When the person sits next to him, and their shoulders brush, it confirms it is not Buck. He’d know the man by touch alone. His touch would ignite a longing deep inside his chest that spread throughout his body, washing him in a sense of peace and love. Right now the only thing in his chest is a pit of despair with panic buried deep at the bottom. He looked over at him. It was Bobby. He looked more exhausted now. Eddie noticed his usual straight posture was more slouched. Seemed like the worry and guilt was weighing him down too.
“I didn’t think I’d find you here. I thought you stopped going to church when you joined the army.”
“I did. I stopped believing in all that stuff before then though.”
“So, why are you sitting in a church pew looking like you either want to fight God or beg for some sort of divine deal?”
“Because Buck…was dead and although we got his heartbeat back, I’m afraid the doctor will walk out and tell us our efforts weren’t enough. That I couldn’t save him. And I’ll need to tell Chris the man he considers to be his second father is dead. And I’ll need to come to terms that the man I love is dead. I didn’t even get to tell him.”
There was a hint of a smile on Bobby’s lips, “I’m sure he knows.”
Eddie chuckled, “I don’t know about that. He’s pretty oblivious.”
“So are you. Do you know he loves you the same way?” Bobby mused.
“Of course he doesn’t. He just sees me as a friend.”
“A friend that considers your son as his own. A friend who screamed at the soil and tried to claw though the earth to get to you and dragged you to safety underneath a fire engine when you were shot. The same friend who perfected my mac and cheese recipe to feed you and Christopher. Buck looks at you with so much care that it cannot be mistaken as anything other than love.”
“Hopefully you’re right. I need him to be okay. I don’t think I can survive the grief. Not when it’s him.”
“You’ve lost a lot. You don’t deserve to lose him too.”
Eddie let out a shaky breath, “Neither do you. I’m sorry. I know you see him as your son. I hope you know he sees you as his father.”
Bobby could feel the tears well up in his eyes, the grief constricting his heart, and the fear claw up his throat. He can’t lose another kid.
“I know. I’m sorry too,” Bobby whispered.
They fell into a lull of silence. Both of them had lost so much. They were connected with the string of devastating grief from losing their wives. Bobby knows if he lost Athena, there would be no way he would come back from that. He hopes that this isn’t the same for Eddie. It’s difficult to claw your way out of such a heavy loss.
“You know the first time I felt that crushing overwhelming feeling of grief was when I was 21,” Eddie whispered, as if it would make the loss less real and hurt less if it was said quietly.
“Yeah? Who did you lose?”
Eddie leans forwards onto the pew in front of him and looks up. Even now, he can still feel the leftover love he had for her. He’s sure that if love could keep her alive, she would be there until the world ended.
“My dog. Her name was Jess. I got her when she was 8 months old, I was 7 years old. We grew up together. She started as my sister and turned into my kid in the last maybe 4 years of her life. My dad worked too much to pay much attention to her and my mom started a new job at the time, my sisters were too young to really take on that responsibility. I’d walk her, hold her…love her more than I thought I was capable of. As she was getting older, especially in the last year of her life, she would struggle to go up and down the stairs. So I’d carry her every day without compliant, it gave me a good reason to hold her in my arms. She also didn’t really want to eat either, but she’d eat for me. If I hand fed her, or sat with her while she ate, or if it was just us together. She trusted me to take care of her. I trusted her with my heart.”
“You were good to her. There’s no doubt that she loved you.”
Eddie could just about see the moon through the stained glass window. From all the nights he spent looking up at the moon and stars with her, he couldn’t help but feel like a part of her was still with him whenever night fell.
“She’s one of the only ones where I could never doubt that she loved me back. She loved me up until she died. At 14.”
“That’s a good age for a dog.”
“Yeah…still didn’t feel like enough time though. I insisted on being there with her when we put her down. At that point she was struggling, even refusing to eat for me. Although, she had eaten 5 savoury eggs two nights before after I broke down crying, begging and trying to get her to eat. She only stopped eating after I stopped crying. I knew she was going to die, and I hoped that eating some damn savoury eggs would save her. Which is stupid, but I was desperately trying to find some solution, some way to save her. I guess I failed at that.”
“You didn’t fail. There was nothing you could’ve done.”
“I know. But I’d saved her before when we’d gotten attacked by an aggressive dog. Shielded her body with mine, smelled the blood on her breath as I held the dog back by it’s throat. All I could do was reassure her. We both got lucky and walked away with minor scrapes but…I guess I was hoping I could fight death off one more time.”
Bobby is instantly reminded of the night he lost his family, “It never really works out that way.”
Eddie shakes his head, also reminded of when he lost Shannon, “It doesn’t. When does the guilt go away?”
Bobby sighs, “I’ll let you know when I find out. Why do you feel guilty?”
“At the vets. Before she went in, I sat there and held her paw, and held her head up and she looked on at a box of new born puppies. Then after she died. I was the last one left in the room. We’d taken her blanket with us. The one I used to wrap her up to dry her and keep her warm after an impromptu investigations in the rain,” Eddie chuckles.
“But my mom put the blanket over her just before she left. As I walked out and was closing the door, I looked behind me and could just see her nose poking out the blanket. I was still gripping on to one of her favourite toys at the time. I started to walk down the hallway away from her and just broke down. It felt like I was leaving her behind, abandoning her. I wanted to take her in my arms one last time and just bring her home. Instead we got her ashes back a week later. With the house empty and quiet without her stuff and her occupying her usual spots. I guess I felt guilty over leaving her there and for the house looking like she never existed only a day after she passed. Felt like we were saying she was forgettable. As if I could forget my best friend.”
“You just wished you had more time,” Bobby murmurs.
“I still do. I even used to dream about her. She would run up to me, all excited, tail wagging, almost saying to me you were looking for me?! Truth is I was always looking for her, I still do in a way.”
“Even after all this time?”
“I could never run out of love for her. It remains, sitting in my chest and wishing I still had her with me. It sticks with me whenever I’m back at my parents’ house. I could walk through the house blindfolded and I wouldn’t step in the spots she would reside, or where her bed would be, or her bowls. I’d always leave a space for her to walk next to me.” There is a beat of silence. Eddie is half hoping he’d hear the sound of Jess walking into the room as impossible as it is. The other half is waiting to hear Buck walking into the room. “You would’ve adored her. She was the most gentle and loving thing.”
“Jess sounds like she was a wonderful dog.”
“The best.”
Eddie isn’t too sure why the grief of losing his dog 12 years ago was coming back to haunt him this hard tonight. Perhaps it was the way Eddie never had to doubt that Buck loved him in some way. He was always sure platonically, but never romantically. Until now maybe. It also could be the way that Eddie would still keep a space next to him for Buck. The way he could walk though his house in the dark and know exactly where Buck’s hoodie was sitting, or where his shoes would be, or what spot on the couch he would always be. It could even be the way Eddie tries his best to save the ones he loves from the forces of nature, yet still failes. There were too many parallels with the one who helped him survive childhood and the one who helped him survive L.A. and becoming a better father.
“But you weren’t wrong. What you said earlier. About me looking like I’m either going to fight God or beg him to let Buck live. If I could find a way up there, I’d be yelling at him for hurting him, for trying to take him away from me. I’d tackle him to the ground and punch him so much I wouldn’t be sure where my fist started and where God’s face began. I’d kill God and let the universe be damned if it meant I could just bring him home. If I could just love him the way he’s meant to be loved. But in reality, all I feel like I could do is fall to my knees and cry and beg that Buck lives. That if I cry loud enough and hit the ground hard enough when I fall to my knees that something out there will hear me and take pity. That maybe Buck will get to stay.”
Bobby nods, “I wish I could say with certainty that he’s going to be okay but-”
“I know he has a 2% chance of survival. Another one of his facts.”
Neither of the men like the odds.
“Is it ridiculous to say that I miss him already?” Bobby murmurs, his voice cracking.
Eddie looks to his side, foolishly hoping Buck would be sitting next to him, “No. I miss him too.”
If later on, Eddie intertwines his fingers with Buck’s while he sits vigil at his bedside and prays for the first time in 12 years, it’ll stay between him and God. Eddie may be a man capable of great violence, of lashing out and hurting others when he’s so overwhelmed with grief. But right now, all he does is hold the hand and cradles the face of the man he loves. He loves him unbearably so and very tenderly. He hopes he can say Buck’s name and let him hear how tender it turns his voice, his mouth and his being. He hopes to have more time.
And if days later, Buck squeezes Eddie’s hand back, Eddie will press a gentle kiss onto the back of Buck’s hand and hopes it conveys the love he has for him.
Buck knows. He knows and holds on tighter.
They refuse to let death tear them apart.