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The boxes are all piled up, ready to go and Buck can hardly look at them. If he’s told himself that it’s for the best once then he’s said it a thousand times.
Despite that it’s the deepest, darkest most secret wish of his heart that this wasn’t happening but it is and he’ll just have to deal with it. It’s for the best. It’s what Eddie needs to do. It’s what Chris needs too. He can visit, FaceTime, it won’t be the same, he’s not stupid but he can survive. Probably.
At least the house is just being rented out for now. At least Eddie has given him that much to hold onto. The hope that they might actually come back one day. It’s not much but it’s something.
“I wish…”
Buck turns his head to Eddie’s voice. It’s the first time he’s spoken in an hour. They’re both lying on the floor, the couch is already in storage along with the other things Eddie’s not taking with him to Texas.
“I wish, I hadn’t walked past that shop, that I never saw her. I wish none of it had happened.”
Buck looks back up at the ceiling. Right, her; Kim - Shannon mark 2. The woman Eddie lost his mind and his kid for.
The woman who looked enough like his dead wife that he threw everything away for one more time together.
The woman that Chris found in his house.
Her. Buck wishes that Eddie had never seen her too, which is probably unfair to Kim. None of this was her fault after all. She’d seemed nice enough when he’d met her at the station, after the shock of seeing the spitting image of Eddie’s dead wife wore off of course.
The likeness was remarkable with just enough differences between them to know it wasn’t really her. They’ve never talked about this, looks like they are now.
“I didn’t tell you but I told her about Shannon, about why I wanted to spend time with her. I showed her pictures, I said I was sorry. That it was wrong. She was upset but I stopped it. After you talked to me, I realised I was being…” the pause last a while,
“You know, I still don’t know what I was being or what I really wanted from her.”
Lifting himself up off the floor to rest on one elbow Buck studies the profile of the calm, still face of his best friend. It’s the face of a man who’s resigned himself to his fate. Eddie’s flat on his back, eyes closed lying in the remnants of a life he’d tried to build for himself and his son. A life that collapsed around him after one or maybe two bad decisions.
“When she left I thought it was over. I was relieved, thought it would be ok but then she came back.”
If Eddie was looking at him he’d see the frown land on Buck’s face at that brand new piece of information. What does Eddie mean she came back?
Next to him, the calm facade falters and Eddie’s face crumples, his feelings escaping in the thin lines of distress. Buck knows it’s just a weak echo of the distress he must have felt that day, made smaller, quieter by Eddie’s rigid self control.
“She came back Buck and she looked…”
It sounds like a confession, Eddie’s breath shakes on the way out and Buck’s heart beats faster. There’s something bad coming. Something he doesn’t know about.
A voice that doesn’t really sound like Eddie at all continues slowly, each word forced out.
“She looked.. just.. like… her. She’d …”
Eyes squeezed shut Eddie’s hand waves vaguely around his head.
“It was a shock, it hurt to look at her. I said no. I asked her to go, to stop because… because I knew… I knew it was wrong, before I always knew she wasn’t Shannon but when she came back and she looked, like that…”
The pained look deepens, Eddie eyes open, glassy and full of unshed tears. It makes Bucks chest ache.
“It was her. It really was.”
Unsure what he’s hearing Buck just tells the truth.
“Eddie I don't understand what you’re telling me.”
The laugh that leaves Eddie’s lips is painful to hear, broken and hurt. It slices at Buck’s chest.
“Neither do I. She was an actress but I don’t know how she did it. The hair yeah, she’d cut it, dyed it and the clothes she’d seen those in the photos.”
An uneasy feeling stirs in the pit of Buck's stomach. Eddie’s not said anything about this before. He’d assumed… he’d assumed something very different.
“But she was Shannon… it felt like I was looking at her, that she was right there in front of me.”
Again for a second his face shows the truth, before it’s packed away like all his other belongings.
“She looked just like her Buck and I wanted to know. I wanted to know so badly.”
Chest tight Buck asks a question, worried he already knows what’s coming.
“Eddie? What are you saying?”
There’s no direct answer but the truth is bleeding out into the room and it’s making Buck feel more than a little nauseous.
“She was trying to be kind. Trying to help me, to say goodbye. Ask the questions I didn’t have answers to. I told her no, I said go, but I I wanted to know why.”
The voice telling the story breaking Buck's heart cracks.
“She, she was as close as I could get to knowing why.”
Then in a moment Buck knows will haunt him, Eddie’s sad brown eyes open and find his. The hurt in them is breathtaking, sharp and raw and enough to make him check he hasn’t actually been punched in the chest.
With a hand held just above his aching heart, he clutches at the fabric bunched beneath his fingers to stop him from reaching out to his friend. He feels helpless, there’s no way to change what’s already happened to Eddie, all Buck can do is listen and finally understand the truth of what he went through the day he let Christopher leave.
“I just wanted to know why. Why didn’t she love me, why didn’t I get a letter. Why did she want to leave me twice?”
Blinking back his own tears Buck understands that he’s made a mistake. A big one. And probably not just him. He’d thought that Eddie and Kim had… but no, he was wrong about that. That’s clear now, the tears rolling down Eddie’s face, silent and helpless tell a very different story.
What happened to Eddie was worse than cheating, making a poor choice. This whole ‘Kim/Shannon’ thing isn’t at all what he’d thought it was. A wave of frustration washes through his sadness, making him angry, for God’s sake why is this the first time he’s hearing about any of this. Why did Eddie let him think it was all about sex.
Another truth hits the tense air between them
“She wanted a divorce you know. I wanted to try again when she thought she was pregnant. I thought we’d get another chance that I could be better, not miss any of it second time round, be better, be the husband she needed. Do it right, but it was just a mistake and she was so happy, so happy not to be pregnant with my kid. She didn’t want me. She left me twice. Three times actually and I didn’t understand any of them.”
There isn’t anything to say so Buck stays silent but he does reach out this time. How could he not, how could he sit and listen to Eddie’s pain and not offer support. He covers Eddie’s hand with his own and is grateful when the other man links their fingers together, letting himself have a small amount of comfort.
“I just wanted to ask her why. I know it was wrong, I know what I did was wrong. I should never… I was weak, I put what I needed before Chris and then he came home and he saw…”
Buck's hand tightens, as Eddie’s breath catches on a sob at the memory of Chris walking in and seeing what, if Buck understands properly now, was a woman who had deliberately made herself look as much like Eddie’s dead wife as possible and made him play a sick game of make believe even when he’d asked her not to.
Tension settles in his jaw, beyond angry on Eddie’s behalf that someone would do that to him.
“Oh God, Buck he saw… and she looked just like his mom. Just like her.”
Unable to stand it a moment longer Buck pulls at the hand linked with his and Eddie is suddenly sitting upright and being folded into his embrace. There’s no protest, Eddie settles in his arms willingly and Buck holds on as tight as he dares while he processes the fucked up story he’s only just learnt about.
“Fuck Eddie! That’s…” words fail him. He holds on tighter, presses his lips onto the top of Eddie’s head as he thinks about what to say.
“Shit.”
They sit in silence until Eddie’s voice, muffled against his chest starts again.
“I fucked it all up and now I have to leave LA. I don’t want to leave. Don’t want to leave you, or my job, the team, any of it but I have to. I’m sorry Buck, please don’t hate me too.”
He knows Eddie’s sorry but sorry doesn’t fix anything. Buck knows that very well. Eddie definitely made mistakes, poor choice after poor choice, but with this new information to consider Buck’s not at all sure that Eddie bears all the responsibility for the disaster that ripped their family apart.
“So let me check I understand this right. You told Kim about Shannon.”
Eddie’s head moves against his chest to confirm that.
“And you finished it with her?”
Another nod.
“Then she came back and she’d changed her hair, her clothes so she looked exactly like…”
He can’t even make himself say it out loud. It’s insane. Who would do that? And Eddie thinks it was a kindness. Fuck.
There’s the smallest movement yet as Eddie confirms the unthinkable truth with another tiny nod.
“And then she started some crazy role play.”
Eddie pulls away from him but he doesn’t make eye contact when he answers.
“I asked her to stop but she didn’t and then it was like a switch flipped inside me and I.. I was talking to Shannon, saying everything I never got to say.”
Buck can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “She pretended to be your dead wife even when you tried to stop her.”
Eddie’s bowed head nods, a hand scrubbing across his face.
“That’s fucked up man, she should never have done that to you! It’s fucking insane! Unbelievable!”
He fights to keep the simmering range under control. Eddie looks up, he looks so tired, defeated. Another terrible thought occurs to him.
“Did you tell your parents what she did to you?”
The answer is just as he expected, a short sharp shake of Eddie’s head. His jaw aches from gritting his teeth, of course he didn’t.
It’s an effort to keep his face neutral as he stands up, he’s not been this angry for a while. Reaching for his phone he dials a number.
When Bobby answers he walks away from Eddie into the kitchen and explains what he needs. They’ve already talked about the possibility so Bobby’s not particularly surprised. He doesn’t have to say much just that Eddie needs him and that he needs some time off. Bobby understands and gives him what he needs.
Walking back into the empty living room Eddie’s exactly where he left him. Buck sits back down in front of him.
The look on his best friend’s face is unfamiliar, he looks nervous, lost. Buck takes his hand again, keeps his thumb moving over Eddie’s knuckles as he talks, making sure he sounds firm but still gentle.
“Ok, listen to me, I’m mad; I’m mad at you for not telling me any of this sooner, I’m mad at your parents for not helping you and just taking Chris away and keeping him all this time. I’m mad at myself because I thought I knew what happened and I didn’t and I didn’t ever ask you.”
He holds up a finger to stop whatever Eddie was going to say.
“And I’m really mad at that woman for what she did, I’m so mad about that,”
Aware that his voice is slipping towards significantly less gentle now he carries on anyway.
“I mean that was absolutely bat shit crazy behaviour Eddie! She crossed so many lines! It was a totally insane thing to do!”
A choked off noise that might have almost been a laugh escapes Eddie, surprising them both.
“Suppose it was a bit.”
“A bit!”
Eddie’s smile gets a tiny bit brighter at the outraged exclamation.
“So this is what happens now; we go to Texas. We talk to Chris and we explain, he’s fourteen Eddie, he can handle some honest conversations. He understands about grief more than most kids. Trust him. Talk to him.”
“We?”
“Yeah, I’m coming too, not getting rid of me that easy. Think you could do with some back up down there don’t you?”
“Really?”
There’s no mistaking the look of relief on Eddie’s face when he nods to confirm it.
“Got your back Diaz, always have, always will.”
Eddie’s eyes look glassy again but his voice is calm when he replies.
“Thank you.”
Buck smiles, glad Eddie’s accepting the offer of help so easily, he’d have persuaded him eventually but this is better.
With a squeeze of his hand and a flash of a smile Buck disentangles their fingers to stand again, maybe Eddie’s a little slow to let go, maybe he imagines it.
“Better get myself a ticket then.”
He gets his phone out and starts tapping to get organised, a list of things to do rushing through his head. He’s off to Texas with Eddie and he feels better than he has in weeks. They’ll talk to Chris, make him understand and there’s going to be some honest conversations with Helena and Ramon Diaz too, unimpressed doesn’t even come close to how he’s feeling about their behaviour.
Buck’s had examples of both good and bad parenting and he knows precisely which one Eddie has been on the receiving end of his whole life and it’s time someone told them that. He’s hoping it will be Eddie and he’ll be there for him if it is, but if he can’t, well Buck is more than up for the job.
Truths have been told tonight and truths will be told in Texas. Maybe one day they’ll both be ready for one more truth, but they’re not right now.
A quick glance over his shoulder shows him Eddie’s lying on his back again, eyes closed, still and silent like before but he looks less tense, less sad, less alone now and that’s enough. It’s funny how things can do that, change so much from one moment to the next.
More things are going to change now but they’ll deal with that one thing at a time, first they go to Texas, then they talk to Chris, tell him the whole truth, tell the Diaz parents some truths too if he gets his way.
Then they come home together, rebuild their lives and maybe one day, when they’re both ready Buck thinks he might tell Eddie one more truth, about his own heart, something that he's learnt about recently, and then maybe everything can change again.