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Shadows cling to every surface, making each turn and step feel clouded and more dangerous than it actually is. But then again, there was no feeling safe once the reality set in of what had happened less than an hour before. The guilt and regret turning over and over, images, replaying the conversation before and the aftermath, the now. Humidity had made sweat begin to bead on her skin, though only one task was in her mind, hell bent on getting to her destination.
The lights are still on in the bay of station 118 by the time she reaches it, stepping through the small door next to the big rolling one, her shoes clicking loudly against the concrete when she stops between the ladder truck and the other engine. There’s a murmur of voices from a room somewhere near the back, sounding like a TV, the echo sending back some form of song. Eddie would know what to do, how to even begin to mend her. An old friend (sometimes bordering more) who would drop everything for her, would listen and maybe begin to piece together how to proceed. Help her choose a label for what had happened.
Drop by sometime, I can give you a tour, let you meet everyone. He had said, on that afternoon months before. The timing was just never right.
An older man steps between the two rigs before she can move, looking to where she stands, blinking in confusion.
“Can we help you?” He questions, taking a tentative step closer, eyes seeming to assess her without actually drawing near, and for a second she wonders what he sees.
Her eyes flicker from him to the sight of a light being turned on somewhere down a hallway above, letting it register for a moment just how odd this probably seemed.
A woman, alone, meandering into a firehouse at nearly midnight on a Saturday. Her deep green dress wrinkled and dirt clinging to the skin of her knees, blood crusting on top of a nasty looking cut just below her right knee. She had no idea how the rest of her looked, knowing only that a bruise was going to be forming on the back of her shoulder where fingertips had gripped too tightly.
“Eddie Diaz- is he h-here?” She inquires as a response, eyes darting to the ambulance and back as he blinks at the request.
“May I ask who you are to him?”
“A friend, but- I need to see him. I-“
“Okay, okay. I can go get him. Can I get your name?”
“Y/N.”
“I’m Captain Nash, I’ll be right back.” He states, a soothing edge to his voice as he turns on his heel, disappearing through a door, her eyes following until he is no longer in sight.
The step up on the ladder truck makes for an excellent makeshift seat, the metal digging into the meat of her thighs when she sits, arms wrapping around herself when she’s left alone with her thoughts, even for a moment. The roaring within her mind is too loud, the silence of the garage doing nothing but making it worse, until the sound of footsteps replaces it.
There’s another firefighter with Eddie besides Captain Nash, a blonde man who looks rather confused at the sight of her sitting on the step.
“Y/N?” Eddie questions, his pace increasing slightly so he can drop to his knees in front of her, taking in the sight of her injuries, eyes clouding at the realization that her dress has a tear in the hem. Fire lights in his eyes when he sees the cut on her leg, fresh blood beginning to well from the movement of her sitting down, the hollow look in her eyes sending anger rippling through him.
He looks to the other two, murmuring about needing a minute alone with her, and with a nod of acknowledgment, they both disappear. Eddie shifts to reach up to her hair, a leaf caught up in the strands that he gently tugs out, discarding it on the concrete.
“What happened?”
There’s no easy answer, they both know it. Something deep within her mind knows exactly what happened, but it hasn’t caught up yet, that reality. That version of herself that had yet to make its way to the surface.
“Did he do this?”
He, who she thought she loved. He, who used guilt to his advantage and convinced- guilted her- to cave, to find a secluded spot in the public park where nobody would bother them. He, who had let his true self shine through in those few minutes. His grip was too tight, the ground was rough against her knees.
Eddie had never liked him, making that known to her though she was too blinded by who she thought he was. It was amazing what people could hide behind closed doors.
“I’m going to kill him.” Eddie spits, attempting to rise to his feet, but she only reaches out to grab his wrist, tugging him back down.
“No.”
“He-“
“It’s my word against his, and I gave consent.”
“Willingly?” He demands, noting the way her eyes drop, finding a certain spot on the floor that seems to suddenly have her attention. A stain on the concrete that bore a faint resemblance to a T-Rex.
Eddie fights the urge to punch something, remaining on his knees in front of her, sucking in a breath. Fighting the urge to explain the fact that she already knew, that unwilling consent was not consent at all.
“Will you-“ She begins to ask, cutting off at the sight of Captain Nash and the other firefighter reappearing.
“I’m going to take her home, Bobby.” Eddie states, already understanding what she was going to ask, Captain Nash nodding his approval.
“Go get your things, we’ll look at that cut, if that’s okay with you?” He questions her, the small nod prompting the blonde to take a step forward. Both of them pull on a pair of blue gloves, the latex creaking when the blonde habitually stretches his fingers.
“I’m Buck- Evan, but everyone calls me Buck.”
The nervousness of the blonde sends a feeling of calm through her as he slowly extends her leg, Captain Nash bending to take a look at the injury, lightly touching the area and saying something to Buck.
“This definitely needs a good cleaning but that’s something you can do at home. Eddie is an excellent medic, though, you’re in good hands.” Captain Nash explains, glancing toward the door as Eddie approaches, keys jingling in his hand.
The reality of the situation remains unspoken between the three firefighters, Eddie helping her stand and the two of them heading out into the night.
-
Her apartment is dark when she opens the door, reaching to click on the lamp as Eddie follows her in. She leans down to take off her sandals as he locks the door, pushing against it to make sure it’s sealed through and through. When her hair shifts enough, he can see a dark mark just under the top of her dress.
“What the fuck?” He questions, sucking in a breath and taking a step closer, gently brushing her hair to the side when she straightens, using the tip of one finger to pull the fabric of her dress down enough to see the extent.
“It’s nothing-“
“That’s a bruise.”
That statement isn’t exactly accurate, though. It isn’t one bruise, but multiple, showing the exact line where fingers were pressed. Ugly purple marks, seeming to grow darker by the second, in perfect little shapes. Any harder and his fingerprints would have been etched into her skin.
All of a sudden the reality of her situation hits, the fragile glass wall between the before and the after shattering into a million pieces, bringing with it the flood of tears that had been withheld.
Eddie catches her when she stumbles, almost collapsing to the floor in a heap on her own, but instead it’s the two of them dropping to the carpet. Eddie takes the brunt of impact, a sharp pain shooting directly down his spine from the spot where the wood edge of the couch digs in. Her face presses to the spot just under his chin, fingers clinging to the soft fabric of his LAFD shirt, the warmth of her tears soaking through it as he engulfs her. Drags her ever closer even when there’s no space left between them.
“I should’ve- I should’ve said no-“
He grasps for something to say. Battling the rising internal anger, trying to think of something he even could say. It was probably a good thing he couldn’t remember much about the asshole. If he knew where he lived- no. Thinking about what he could do to him wasn’t going to help this situation.
“This isn’t your fault.” He whispers, the sentence only seeming to make her cry harder.
“But I-“
“No. Don’t try to put this on yourself.”
She pulls back enough to look up into his eyes, drawing in a shaky breath. Her eyes have already started to swell, the mascara running down and staining her cheeks, and the sight makes Eddie’s heart wrench. He doesn’t know what to say, the only thing he really knows that he can do is hold her.
“We need to clean your leg, before it starts to get infected.” He finally manages to say, the feeling of her shaking her head against his chest reminding him of a night long ago, when he had done the same to her. Before he ever met Shannon, and had fallen in love through their whirlwind romance. Of course, Shannon was gone now, and had been for a while.
A night when he didn’t believe that he was worth anything to anyone, his own demons clawing their way to the surface and dragging him under, into the endless darkness that threatened to consume his own mind. They had only multiplied through the years, especially considering the recent things he’d gone through, but she needed him right now.
“Y/N, please. The last thing you need is an infection.” Eddie tries again, tilting her chin up so her eyes meet his.
It takes a minute, but she finally nods, fingers releasing his shirt, the fabric wrinkled from where she was gripping so tight. Eddie helps her to her feet, his fingers entwining with hers until she’s steady, pushing himself up from the floor and following her to the bathroom.
He opens the bag he brought in from his truck, his medical bag. She sits on the closed toilet lid, Eddie on the edge of the bathtub, pulling her leg into his lap and looking at it up close for the first time. He takes a minute to think about what he might need, pulling a washcloth from the stack on her shelf and running it under the warm water.
Tiny pieces of gravel are embedded in the skin, blood coating each little piece as he runs his finger ever so gently across the cut, the sting enough to make her wince. Dirt and small pieces of what look to be twigs are intermixed with the tiny rocks.
“I’m going to have to get these out.” He states, eyes flicking up to her face before he reaches into his bag and finds the pair of tweezers still in their packaging, still sterile.
Each piece feels like the edge of a knife, sharp and brutal, dragging with it a reminder of why she was even here in the first place. A shudder runs down her spine at the feeling of the metal tweezers scraping against one of the biggest pieces, though Eddie sets the tweezers to the side after removing that one, the last.
“Okay, that’s all.. you’re not going to like this.” Eddie mutters, dousing the washcloth in an antibacterial soap and swiping it across the cut before she has time to react.
He reaches out with his other hand, catching hers as she grabs for anything to hold on to, his fingers entwining with hers again as she exhales a shaky breath.
She’s still shaking when he bandages up the cut, abandoning his medical bag on the floor by his feet when he stands, standing and letting her rest her weight against him, slowly making their way together to her bedroom.
He turns away when she begins to tug her dress up, eyes finding the wall and never straying until she taps him on the shoulder.
“Does he have a key here?”
“I moved the spare, but we’d never gotten to that point.” She answers, though worry clouds Eddie’s eyes again.
“I’m not letting you stay here by yourself tonight. Tomorrow- we can figure something out, but…” He trails off, looking at the flimsy handles and remembering the single lock on the front door.
“What about Christopher?”
“He’s taken care of. Buck is going to get him from Abuela’s in the morning.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. I’ll sleep on the couch-“
“No. If you’re staying, you’re staying in here.”
Eddie pauses, wondering if he should really stay, but the second the thought even crosses his mind he finds himself nodding. There’s no way he could ever leave her alone, especially not after what she’d been through.
She goes to get a shower while he checks the door again, noting the changes that needed to be made if he was going to ensure the apartment was safe for her. He finds her a few minutes later, rummaging through the drawer on her desk, finally pulling a phone charging cable from it and slamming it shut.
Wordlessly, he takes the cord and plugs it in across the room, sitting on the carpet next to the outlet to plug it in and not moving to get back up.
“What are you doing?”
“Sleeping down here? Toss me a pillow please?”
“When I said you’re staying in here-“
“I’m giving you space- trust me, take it.” Eddie explains, reaching out with one hand to catch the pillow she tosses to him.
When she turns the lamp off, the room is plunged into darkness so thick that there’s no seeing a single thing. It feels like his eyes are closed, even though he knows they’re open, darting uselessly around the room in effort to see something.
The sound of a quiet buzz finally ignites a shred of light, her face outlined in the pale light of her phone when she picks it up to check, clicking on the lamp on the bedside table.
“He texted me.”
“Block him- actually- let me see your phone.” Eddie requests, shuffling across the carpet and taking it from her outstretched hand.
They’re both quiet as he types, fingers moving furiously across the screen as he types what seems to be a book from her perspective.
And then, almost immediately after hitting send, the phone rings.
His voice comes through the phone in a rush demanding to know why Eddie was texting through her phone and screaming obscenities, though Eddie cuts him off.
“She’s done with you- you’re lucky she doesn’t press charges.”
“What the fuck are you talking about-“
“Leave her the fuck alone. Don’t contact her, don’t try to meet her anywhere.”
“I was owed it. It had been months, and whatever she told you-“
Eddie pauses for a second, glancing over to make sure she’s not breaking again.
“You aren’t owed anything. If you have to guilt someone into having sex with you, that’s assault.”
Eddie hits end when he starts yelling again, blocking the contact in her phone before handing it back.
“I’m a statistic now.” She quietly says, dropping the phone back into the spot it was in before, but Eddie reaches over and lays a hand gently on her arm.
“You can report it, you know.”
“Who are they going to believe? They’ll call it regret and wave me off.”
“You don’t know that. I’ll take you to the-“
“I’ve already showered.”
Eddie takes a second to try and figure out the best way to ask his next question, not wanting to sound like a thirteen year old boy when he asks it.
“Do you need to worry about getting pregnant from this?” He cautiously asks, not really wanting to know the details but knowing well what the consequences could be.
She looks at the wall, blinking at the white drywall as she thinks.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s the only good thing, I guess. The fact he actually wore a condom.”
Before he can respond, she’s laughing. A giggle that turns into a full on cackle, something that Eddie isn’t expecting, but then he can’t help himself. He starts laughing with her, though he’s still watching for tears as she flops back on the bed, clicking the lock button on her phone and sitting it over on the bedside table.
After a few minutes, Eddie moves back down to the floor and resumes his position by the door, laying down and thinking to himself that it would do him good to take Ibuprofen when he wakes the next morning, and really, it’s the last thought he has before falling asleep.
It seems like hours pass before the sound of Y/N exhaling a gasp wakes him, not really being a deep sleeper considering the night shifts he had to pull often. And, the notion of needing to be easily woken if Chris needed him had really prevented him from falling in too deep a sleep.
“Are you okay?” He questions through the darkness, the sound of sniffles cutting through giving him the answer he needs.
“What do you need right now?” He adds, using his hand to feel along the edge of the wall as he stands, slowly feeling his way back over to the bed.
When there’s no answer, he reaches over to click on the lamp, finding her curled into a ball on the bed and feeling his heart shatter at the sight.
“I- I’m fine, really.”
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, reaching to pluck a loose thread on the comforter, though she meets him in the middle and entwines their fingers.
“You’re here now, you might as well stay up here.” She states, shuffling to the left to give him room, watching as he hesitantly brings both feet up and leans back against the headboard.
He doesn’t complain or question it when she lays her head against his chest, settling in for the night and almost immediately falling back asleep, Eddie willing her to have at least a few hours of peace. He knew better than anyone how horribly nightmares could fuck with the soul, and truthfully tomorrow would bring its own challenges.
But that was a problem for the mid-morning, only six hours away, when reality crept back in and ruined the peaceful look on her face.
He only wished he could make it stay.