Chapter Text
Two weeks after their first date, Buck took Natalia to the station.
Eddie looked up as they entered and, without turning his head, knew that Hen had the same surprised expression on her face. Suddenly the medical supply box that he had just restocked felt heavy in his hands. Something sharp tugged at his insides, twisted them, and before he knew it, Eddie found himself thinking that it wasn't right.
Blindsided. He felt blindsided, he decided, just to put a name to the feeling spreading in his chest. Buck could at least have told him before, so he could have – he didn't know what he could have done, if he was honest. Maybe he could have taken the day off. Which was stupid, of course, because he didn't even know her, she clearly made Buck happy, and she was probably a nice person.
I feel like she sees me.
“Hey guys!” Buck called out. “Remember Natalia?”
“Sure,” Hen mumbled.
Eddie forced himself to smile.
“Welcome to the 118,” he greeted Natalia. “I'm Eddie.”
He turned to Buck to pull him into a brief hug, but something made him stop before he could make one more step forward. Another spike of pain shot through his chest.
“Eddie, it's so great to finally meet you. Buck's been telling me so much about you.”
Eddie glanced at Buck just in time to detect something flickering across his face, though he couldn't see what it was.
Before he could start to wonder what exactly Buck had told Natalia about him, Bobby came down the stairs. He, too, seemed to stop in his tracks for a second as he perceived the pair. However, he didn't seem to mind her being at the station. He welcomed her politely and even asked her to stay as long as they didn't have to get out.
“There's coffee in the kitchen and some muffins, plenty for everyone.”
So maybe it was just Eddie who had a problem. It was only ten minutes later, though, when the crew was gathered at the table and Natalia asked Chimney how he got his name, then laughed and put up her hands in mock defense when the request earned her a strict refusal from Chim, and Bobby offered her a refill on her coffee to make up for it, that it struck him.
The station was a safe space for the team. For him. He'd earned that space, defended it, they all had; it was a safe space also for their families, a place of comfort and trust and friendship and love.
Natalia was nothing like that.
She'd known Buck for two weeks. She wasn't a part of this.
Seems like she already is, a voice whispered, making something icy slither down Eddie's back.
“I knew even before I graduated that I didn't actually want to work as a consultant for the rest of my life,” Natalia said in that moment. “I always knew I wanted to do something a little more meaningful. I'm sure you of all people understand.”
Buck smiled at her and moved a little closer.
“A purpose. That's what we all need, right?”
“It's just that the purpose of our job is to make sure people are still alive at the end of the day.”
The words left Eddie's mouth before he could stop them. Everyone turned their heads and his cheeks burned up. He hadn't meant to say it like that. It had come out wrong. He knew that Natalia was doing an important job, that she helped people. Somehow, though, he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.
Natalia looked straight back at him, completely unfazed. If she was annoyed, she knew well how to hide it.
“The people I work with die at the end, yes. But I help them to make it easier. I make sure they can say farewell and know that they're not alone. Isn't that what we all want in the end?”
Eddie felt a lump growing in his throat. Her words echoed in his head, so gentle, so genuine. He knew Buck was watching him, but he avoided his gaze. He simply nodded.
“I'm sorry,” he managed to mutter.
Natalia's smile didn't waver.
“However, I'm glad you do what you do,” she said. “I never would've met Buck.”
“Right. Poor soul, you could've done so much better,” Chimney replied and leaned back into his chair, smirking as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Ever since he'd put the ring on Maddie's finger, he seemed to be riding on a wave of happiness. “He's a good guy but he's no Mr. April.”
Even Eddie couldn't suppress the laughter. He didn't know what was funnier, the smug look on Chim's face or the way Buck narrowed his eyes and almost swallowed his tongue trying to come up with a witty comeback.
“Well, I survived a lightning strike.”
Eddie's laughter froze on his lips. Across the table, Bobby turned rigid.
“Do you really wanna measure this, Buck? Here, against us?” Chimney looked around, and his grin faded immediately. “I mean, talk about surviving...”
He left the rest unspoken. The scar beneath Eddie's right collarbone flared up in a way it hadn't for months.
“I still can't believe you did that,” Natalia said. “That's so cool.”
Something exploded in Eddie's chest where ice and fire met. The shockwave spread like wildfire, burning, incinerating. He tasted acid in the back of his mouth.
Before he knew what he was doing, his chair scraped against the floor as he stood up. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't even think straight, could only hear fragments of words and catch glimpses of blurred images.
Can you hear me?
Mayday, mayday, firefighter is down.
We're losing him.
Chim's hands pressing down into Buck's bare chest, almost slipping in the pouring rain. White sheets in a hospital room. Moving lines on a monitor.
You have to come back.
He didn't know how he made it down the stairs. Somehow he found himself in the bathroom, splashing cold water into his face and trying to swallow down the bile in his throat. Eventually he looked up into the mirror above the sink. He found his own face staring back – eyes a little too wide, face as gray as ash, and when he cupped his hands underneath the faucet for another splash of water, they were trembling.
He knew, deep down, that Buck didn't play his death off as a joke. He didn't really think it was cool. He knew that, because he knew Buck, and he'd tried to help but apparently it hadn't been enough. He hadn't been enough.
She sees me for who I really am.
Eddie took another shaky breath.
Had he really been too blind to notice the changes in Buck? Had he been too focused on trying to get back to normal to miss the signs that there was no going back from this?
Or had he just been too scared to look too closely, terrified of what he might find if he looked back at these horrible moments and faced some truths he never wanted to find?
It probably was all of it, and more.
The door opened and Eddie held his breath for a second, then exhaled in relief when he saw Bobby in the mirror. He turned around after quickly wiping his face one last time.
“I'm sorry, Cap, I had to get away,” he muttered.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
He probably should. He just didn't know how to put all of his blurred feelings into words.
“It wasn't cool,” Eddie said quietly. “He died, Bobby. And it was – it was -”
“One of the worst moments of your life?” Bobby finished for him. “Because it was for me.”
“Yeah.”
Eddie didn't say more. He was aware that at some point, he might have to examine the fact that the moment was right there next to the endless seconds after the tsunami, when Buck had stood before him with Christopher's glasses in his hands, and Eddie's whole world had started to crumble around him, leaving only him and Buck in its center to be eternally consumed by grief.
Bobby opened his mouth as if to say something, but Eddie was saved by the bell. The alarm went off and he'd never been more relieved to hear it. He splashed some water into his face, then followed Bobby out into the hall. Making a beeline for the truck, he did his best to ignore Natalia, who pulled Buck into a quick hug right as he passed them.
“Make sure you don't die again,” he heard her say, and well, he could definitely second that.
“Are you okay?” Buck asked as they returned to the truck after finishing the call.
It would be so easy to smile and nod. The call had been simple, nobody had been harmed, and the team was in a good mood as they packed their gear back into the truck. But apparently Buck had noticed the way Eddie had kept his distance and only spoken as much as possible with his partner. Which he knew was highly unprofessional, and he'd sworn to get his shit together within the next hour or so, before anyone could notice.
He'd never been able to hide these things from Buck, of course. And when he gave him that look, Eddie found that he couldn't fake a smile this time.
“Can this wait?” he replied evasively.
“Is it something I've done?”
“Buck, no – I mean, it's just – later, okay?”
This was neither the time nor the place. He didn't even know what he waned to say, if he could say it at all, but he was sure that he needed some quiet and a safe space for it.
Buck looked back at him with narrowed eyes, making Eddie squirm a little under his firm gaze.
“You'll tell me if something is wrong, won't you?”
You need to tell me if something is wrong.
What are you afraid of?
“Sure.”
Luckily for Eddie, the shift was neither quiet nor peaceful. There was barely any time in between each call and Eddie managed to keep himself occupied or caught up in conversation with someone else whenever Buck so much as looked in his direction.
“Is this gonna be divorce era, part two?” Hen asked at some point, and the look of confusion on Ravi's face would have made Eddie laugh if he wasn't so busy staring at his phone and taking his sweet time sending a text to Christopher.
“We're good,” he muttered and ignored the way his stomach churned.
Buck finally cornered him just as Eddie was about to put away the last bit of equipment. Without a warning, Buck suddenly stood before him. Eddie hadn't heard him coming. Normally he recognized Buck's footsteps everywhere, but something was off lately, and this was only one of the many things that didn't feel right.
Still, he was in a considerably better mood than a few hours before. Natalia hadn't been at the station ever since they'd left for the first call, Christopher had sent him a picture of his straight A math tests, and no one had spoken about lightning strikes and death in hours and there were only five minutes left on the clock of today's shift.
In hindsight, he really should have known that it was bound to go downhill at some point.
“You counted,” Buck stated without any preamble.
There was something in his voice that took the smile right off Eddie's lips. The rolled up water hose suddenly felt way too heavy.
“What do you mean?“ he asked, though he had a good idea what Buck was talking about.
“It's what you said at the poker game. Three minutes and seventeen seconds,“ Buck said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That's oddly specific and it stuck with me.”
He could feel his chest tightening. Of course it was specific – it had been Buck, not a stranger, and he had died. He had been dead and Eddie had lived in a world without Evan Buckley for three minutes and seventeen seconds and every single one of these seconds had felt like eternity in an infinite Hell.
“What does it matter anyway,” he replied defensively. He stuffed the equipment into the side compartment of the truck. “I just know, okay? I'm a medic,” he added stupidly and instantly regretted it even before Buck took a step back.
“So this was about statistics?”
Everyone in their profession knew some basic facts about life-threatening situations like heart failure. It came with the training, no advanced medical expertise required.
The heart pumps blood through the human body, into every vessel, from the little toe all the way to the brain. With blood comes oxygen, and with oxygen comes life. And it's a miraculous construction, the human body in general and the heart in particular. Most areas of the body can survive a certain time without oxygen without dramatic consequences. The brain, however, is fragile. It will shut down quickly once the heart stops beating.
“It wasn't about statistics,” Eddie managed to say through gritted teeth.
He could still see Buck's prone form before his inner eye; he felt the pouring rain splashing against his face; he heard the voices of Bobby and Hen and the deafening sound of Buck's utter silence.
“I saw you hanging there and called out for you and somehow, the clock started ticking. It wasn't anything conscious, it was just – just there, in the background, always ticking, when I climbed up the ladder, when I lowered you down, when I got back to the ground, when I ran a red light and couldn't even pray to God that no one would come in the way – it was ticking, ticking, it was running out, and Buck, I've never been so scared in all my life. So by the way, no, your death wasn't cool. I bet if you ask anyone in here, they'll tell you it was the worst day of their lives.”
His hands were trembling and he buried them inside the pockets of his pants. He kept his gaze down, just for a moment longer, because he knew that if he looked at Buck now, he'd see his ghost right behind him.
“You got me down? You went up the ladder?”
There was an edge to Buck's voice and the slightest quiver.
“Seriously, that's what you're taking from this?”
“Who – who had your line?”
“Buck -”
“Who had your back, Eddie?” Buck repeated more sharply.
It was obvious that he knew the answer already, so Eddie merely shrugged.
“There was no time for that.”
“Eddie, what the -”
“It was a calculated risk.”
It took one millisecond to end thirty-one years. It took three minutes and seventeen seconds to restart the clock.
“Eddie, you suck at math!”
Buck shook his head, a mixture of anger and dismay flickering across his face. There was something else, too, but Eddie didn't dare to look at him for longer.
“What were you thinking, getting up there, in the middle of a thunderstorm? Exposing yourself like that?”
But he didn't understand. He didn't – couldn't – know the sheer terror that had gripped Eddie's heart when he'd seen Buck's lifeless body swinging from the rope. He had no idea how his heart had burst into flames at the sudden realization that he had probably just lost his best friend. His partner. His -
“What the Hell, Eddie?”
Something snapped when Buck's angry words cut his last thought in half before he could finish it.
“You have no right to say this, Buck! You heard a gunshot and ran straight towards the shooter, remember?”
He saw the color draining from Buck's face.
“Mitchell was dead -”
“You didn't know that! You ran right into an active hostage situation towards an armed psychopath, and somehow I'm irresponsible for going up that ladder?”
“Eddie - “
“And when I got shot, and you didn't run for cover? When you threw yourself in the line of fire of a fucking sniper and - “
Asphalt scraping against his fingertips. The smell of burning gasoline and blood. A fire in his shoulder, cursing through his body, blinding pain and a realization. This is it. This is how I'll die. Searching for a lifeline, anything to keep him from drowning. Buck. Buck. I'm coming for you. Reaching, fighting, just for one more second, maybe he'll get to go home after all. Reaching, always reaching. Just one more second. Pain, then numbness, he might not make it this time after all. Christopher. Buck. The last will and testament of Edmundo Ramon Diaz. Are you hurt? Wide eyes staring back at him. His voice, an anchor, a lifeline, as beautiful as his face, still beautiful even under the sprinkles of red.
Eddie felt his heart racing, pounding against his rib cage. His chest was too tight and the pressure was suffocating.
“You said you didn't remember.”
Buck's voice was hushed, barely audible, and Eddie could hardly breathe.
Always Buck.
Buck, who had died and left Eddie behind, for one hundred and ninety-seven seconds.
He would never forget the way Buck's chest moved underneath his hands, how he prayed to a higher power and the universe to bring him back.
Give him a heartbeat. Give him his life. Give him mine if you must, it's alright.
And miraculously, Buck had returned to them, with a beating heart and a new set of scars. But a part of Eddie's heart had been lost that day.
Give him my heartbeat, if you must. He already has my heart anyway.
It was the plain, undeniable, frighteningly clear truth, and yet he hadn't seen it then. It was only here that all the fragments shifted into place, and Eddie wondered how he didn't realize it sooner.
Always Buck. Always Evan.
He'd almost lost him and it had been the most frightening one hundred ninety-seven seconds of his life because whenever he thought about his future, Buck was there. He'd thought that Buck might be a part of his future, but he had been wrong. He didn't want him to be a part of his future. He wanted Buck to be his future, completely, all the pieces, the broken and frayed ones, the soft ones, the ones he had never even seen.
“Eddie?”
He couldn't look at Buck, not right now, not when the ground was falling away beneath his feet. Not when Buck might look back at him and see something that could destroy everything they'd built in a blink of an eye.
“I can't do this, Buck, I'm sorry, I can't – I can't.”
He didn't know how he made it to the locker room and managed to get his bag. He didn't hit the showers as he usually did. He couldn't stay one second longer, he had to get home, he had to pick Chris up from his friend's house, he had to clear the mess in his head and silence the taunting voices inside it.
How could you let this happen?
You can't feel this way for him.
You were just starting to feel normal again, and you had to go and screw it up.
He almost missed the exit to the Miller's living area. There were a few minutes left before the agreed pick-up time, so he parked the car at the side of the road and checked his face in the rear view mirror.
Some dark streaks covered his forehead and the left cheek. Eddie managed to find a tissue in the depth of his pants and quickly tried to get at least some of the ash and soot off his skin, but only made it worse. His hair was pressed flatly against his head. All in all, nothing out of the ordinary. A normal end of the workday.
If only he wasn't in love with his best friend.
Maybe he was being stupid. Maybe it was nothing. After everything that had happened recently, it was probably normal to be a little confused, to read something more into feelings that were the same as always. His mind was simply overreacting and why shouldn't it, when his best friend had died right before his eyes?
White, hot pain in his shoulder. Red splattered across Buck's face. Reaching, screaming, fading. Just stay with me, okay? We're so close. I need you -
I need you.
“Dad?”
Christopher's voice pulled Eddie from his thoughts. He flinched and hastily turned his head. Christopher was already in the backseat, crutches next to him, blonde curls barely hiding the concerned look behind his glasses. God, he almost looked like an adult. He should be the one going through emotional crises, dealing with feelings and relationships and everything that came along with it, and he should get support and good advice from his dad. That was the way it should be, not the other way round.
“I'm sorry, buddy,” he apologized and turned the motor on. “I was distracted. How was school?”
“It was good.”
He saw Mrs Miller standing at the front door and waved courtly before he glanced back at Christopher.
“Did you have a good time with Alex?”
“Yes, Dad.”
It seemed to be everything Eddie had to know. He knew better than to ask too much. He searched for a radio station instead and hummed along to an 80s rock song, wondering if the time had finally come when Christopher was too cool to share stories from school.
What are you afraid of?
Eddie headed for the shower as soon as he got home. Christopher had already eaten at the Miller's place, so he just put a frozen pizza into the oven, set the timer and made his way to the bathroom. He allowed himself five minutes to let the hot water run down and wash away away the dirt and sweat. He closed his eyes and let the water hit his face, holding his breath for a moment before he turned the water off and inhaled deeply.
He wondered if Buck had gone to Natalia after the shift.
The thought came out of nowhere and he hated himself for even thinking about it. He had no right, no right at all to be jealous.
It was stupid and pathetic. Pointless, too, because it would surely pass. He had almost lost his best friend, he was bound to overreact a little. He wasn't in love with Buck.
He couldn't be in love with Buck.
He couldn't envision Buck on his couch, their bodies pressed against each other, their hands feeling warm where they touched; he couldn't picture himself waking up in the future and finding Buck looking back at him from the left side of the bed, eyes still half-closed and sleepy, hair tousled and three days of stubble on his chin. He couldn't -
Eddie pulled the towel from the rack with such force that he almost tore the metal from the wall.
Stop. Just stop.
He made it back to the bedroom just in time to hear his phone buzzing. For a short moment he thought it might be Buck, which made his pulse sky-rocket with both anticipation and anxiety. He couldn't talk to him, not on the phone, probably never; he wished he could apologize for his behavior and pretend that it had just been a rough day.
One look at the screen told him that this conversation had to wait. Groaning, he pressed the answer button on the screen while trying to pull the shirt over his head.
“Mom, hey, sorry, it's really not a good -”
“Eddie, it's... it's your dad.”
His mother sniffled quietly, and with that sound, something cold washed over him.
“What's wrong?” Silence, a broken sob. “Mom? Mom, what is it?”
He could hear himself, not so long ago.
We have time.
“He died, Eddie.”