Chapter Text
Eddie hates water.
It’s dangerous. Always has been always will be. The beach is fine or— was fine but that’s the whole point isn’t it. Water was too dangerous. No exceptions.
His mother always warned him of the danger but maybe the real danger she was trying to warn him was in their home.
“Don’t splash so much Edmundo!”
“No Edmundo you cannot take your sisters to the pool.”
“Edmundo. Don't”
“Edmundo! I thought I told you to keep your sisters out of the water!”
“You know what he would say Edmundo. Keep them safe, out of sight out of mind. Never forget that.”
“Water is dangerous. Keep your sisters out of the bath. You know the rules.”
Maybe it pretended not to look to hard when one of his kids spent too long in the bath.
It was supposed to be a normal call. Get in. Get the patient. Get out.
They pull up in front of a cabin and instantly something is off. The door is open and there’s an eerie calm permitting the air when they approach the cabin. Nothing about the situation screamed routine but Eddie remained slightly hopeful the last call of this shift would end on a normal note.
Except when they enter the cabin the patient is sitting unresponsive in the middle of the floor, in front of what looks like a rug ripped— no cut to shreds.
The shreds catch Eddie’s attention. Prompting his eyes to flick from the catatonic patient and back multiple times before he connects the dots and winces, eyes widening slightly.
By then the rest of the team is already trying to assess her. Chim and Hen on both sides of her and Buck kneeling at her front trying to get her to respond to questions. None of them touch her. He knows it’s because they have no idea what she’s been through.
Well most of them have no idea what she’s been through but Eddie knows. The way she’s hunched into herself, clothes hanging on her lithe frame by the thread. Her dried out hair, dull and fraying at the ends. Her cracking lips and peeling skin. Her gaunt cheekbones further emphasizing her dehydrated state.
Eddie definitely knows what happened to her.
He can’t even imagine the pain and suffering she’s feeling. For a tether to be cut so severly that the physical representation could pass as a really shitty rug is… he doesn’t even want to imagine it.
But the team is getting more restless as she refuses to respond to any stimuli. Hen and Chin shift in a way that suggests their going to grab her regardless of the reaction.
And he can’t let that happen.
So he tunes back in and steps behind Buck. He puts a hand on his shoulder to get his attention and then gestures to the truck. Buck frowns eyeing the patient briefly before getting up and retreating, pulling Hen and Chim with him.
They both stiffen and plant their feet. Refusing to take their eyes from the patient, quietly asking Buck what the hell he’s doing, but Buck is only silently observing Eddie still trying to pull them back. And once they follow Buck’s eyeline and see the severe look on Eddie’s face they know it’s time to give him space.
Eddie looks to Bobby for approval. The man stares at him with a raised eyebrow, eyes flicking from the rest of his team, now firmly outside the cabin looking in through the door, to the lone man standing in front of their patient.
Eddie looks determined. His face set, body stiff and Bobby knows this is something personal to Eddie. It’s in his depths. So he nods.
If Eddie can still look to the captain for permission that means this is something important and Bobby is not going to stand around and pretend he’s the prefect person to get someone out of a catatonic state with just words.
Eddie sighs in relief at Bobby’s nod and immediately refocuses on the patient. The pieces are cut to hell and back but the simple fact that she’s not a corpse yet could mean something and he has to try.
She looks up at him as he approaches. He kneels in front of her, gently gathering the scraps of the pelt to hand back to her. She stares at him with wide eyes and scowls, shaking her head and pushing the scraps away.
“Please take them. I think my abuela can fix it. But I need you to touch them first.” He begs but, her scowl only deepens. Her determination to get the scraps away from her increases though, even as he can feel her physical strength waning.
He can hear the rest of the team shuffling closer, in silence as she gets visibly paler and sweatier. He knows their concern only builds when she starts to pant audibly, heaving gasps as she tries to push him away.
“Isabel Diaz.”
She freezes and the scowl fades as she registers the whispered words. She blinks, her eyes focusing for the first time and it’s like she’s actually looking at him not through him. She mouths the name to herself again and again as she shakily touches each and every scrap reverently.
When her hands drop and her eyes meet his again he can see the terror, the exhaustion, the hopelessness, the disconnection. But the thing he focuses on are the flames dancing behind the fear. Anger close to burning through every other emotion.
She manages as single nod before her eyes roll back and she collapses backwards. He doesn’t even have to call for Hen and Chim because their already waiting with the gurney.
He steps back as they load her onto it letting them take over and retreating into his head. He can’t stop staring at the piles of scraps, in his hands that she refused to touch until he mentioned his abuela.
He sits there long enough for Hen and Chim to get her in the ambulance and stable. He’s still kneeling with the pieces clutched in his hands. Eventually Buck realizes he’s not in the rig, not even standing outside, and drags him into it, a worried frown on his face the whole time.
He manages to shove the scraps into his uniform before he sits, darting his eyes away from Buck and Bobby’s questioning gazes. He can feel Buck burning a hole into the side of his face but eventually he just knocks his knee against his own and starts up a conversation with a clearly calculating Bobby.
As soon as they pull into the station he’s out of the rig dodging everyone and heading for the locker room. He grabs his duffle bag and carefully places the scraps in it. He debates changing into his civvies but Buck is getting closer to the locker room, looking like a man on a mission and he cannot be stopped.
Even a peek at those deep blue eyes will have him freezing to stutter out an excuse and that's time he can’t waste. So he walks out in his uniform giving everyone a brief goodbye and booking it to his car.
Once he reaches the accursed vehicle, he’s carefully placing the duffle in the passenger seat, going so far as to buckle it in. Once he’s on the road he’s practically vibrating, checking on the duffle multiple times as he drives.
Staring at it when he hits red lights and traffic jams, trying not to let himself dwell on the monster who could have done something so horrible.
As he pulls into abuela’s drive way he scrambles to put the car in park and pull the duffle out of the car. He tries to school his face as he walks to the door. Knocking firmly but bursting in when he sees her face.
She looks at him, frowning with worry before he shows her the bag. He unzips it under her scrutiny and watches her whole face scrunch up with anger as he shows her the scraps in the bag . She shakes her head, lips pressed in a thin line and quickly ushering him into a room he's never stepped foot in before.
She gestures to the pool in the middle of the room and he feels sick with the implications that the pelt can’t be fixed outside of water. He approaches the pool cautiously, stepping into it and wading to the middle with a grimace. He dunks the opened duffle bag under the water and let the scraps float freely to the surface.
When he can see all the scraps he carefully lugs the waterlogged duffle out of the pool glancing at it with a sigh before refocusing on the scraps. He can hear abuela bustling around, grabbing the tools they need to hopefully salvage this situation.
She eventually wades into the water with him, descending the steps with frightening focus. She comes to a stop next to him and stares at the scraps in silence, white knuckling the needle and thread she holds.
She eventually moves to start arranging the scraps, letting one piece float to another and press them together lightly. He replicates her movements, trying to feel for the edges, like their doing an entirely fucked puzzle.
Together they arrange the pieces and get a semi coherent shape. Abuela has a deep furrow in her brow as she looks at it. Eddie feels a similar sense of apprehension. But he remembers the fire in her eyes and he steels himself. Ready for when abuela runs her hands along two edges, nods to herself, and hands him the first two pieces he needs to hold steady as she threads the needle with precision.
When she places the first stitch, they both grimace. The cuts are a day old at minimum and they weren’t in any contact with the wearer or water after the snips so this was going to be a challenge. Forget the few seconds she held them after Eddie practically shoved them into her hands.
They could fix the pelt all they want but breathing life back into was where the problem lies. Most wither away at the first cut let alone one shredded to pieces like this one.
But the woman had enough fight in her to recognize abuela’s name. Eddie held on the the hope that would be enough connection for the tether to reestablish. So he hunkered down and felt abuela do the same.
It was grueling. Each ragged edge cut more brutally than the last. Finding where the edges fit was hard, but fitting them together was harder. One wrong move and the whole thing could be pointless.
Not that the woman would ever slip into her second skin again but at least this way her mind wouldn’t fracture into two. She would just lose a body.
And even that was better than they could say for most others in her situation.
They succeeded in sewing all the pieces back together but the pelt was still severly dehydrated. Letting it soak in the pools while they dried off and went to sit in the kitchen to talk was the best option.
They sat across from each other sporting grim looks. Abuela placed his hands in hers, lips pressed in a thin line, and just looked at him for a full minute before speaking.
“Edmundo” she whispers voice low and flat. None of her warmth could be spared for a conversation about a scissor happy monster.
“Who did that come from?” Her tone lightens when she asks about the victim, she’s probably thinking of his parents and how her own son could, would, or did put his mother in the same situation.
Eddie knew his mother was far from abuela’s favorite person, but he’s also sure if abuela could go back and warn his mother about his father she would have.
The what ifs are always there. What if his father grew up knowing. What if his father did know and pretended not to. What if his father wanted the rest of the family to pretend too.
Instead of voicing any of these thoughts he frown, shaking his head, dropping his gaze to the table “I don’t know. We got called to her location.” He squeezed her hands, eyes pinching shut “I’m not sure if she called or someone else did but she was pretty much catatonic when we got there.”
Abuela hums but she doesn’t look surprised in the slightest. Honestly neither was he after noticing the condition her pelt was in. Not to mention the hair, nails, the stare. “She had definitely been sitting there for a day minimum” he finishes with a grimace.
Abuelas eyes narrow and she stands slowly, letting go of Eddies hand to walk around the table and give him a hug “You did good my Eddito.” She pulls back searching his face and apparently she likes what she sees because she nods and kisses his forehead.
Eddie sighs and presses into her chest, feeling her hands card through his hair “Doent feel like it but I think she’ll make it here. She had a fire in her eyes” Abuela hums and he can feel it reverberat through her chest “We’ll see. All we can do now is wait and hope the connection is still strong enough”
Eddie stiffens suddenly, gritting his teeth, and pulling back from Isabel’s grip “No way I’m going to go back and try and find who did this” he seethes, already on his feet.
He tries to fully pull asay from Isabel but she grabs his jaw, forcing him to look her in the eye. A sad glint lingers, but it’s consumed by the determination to make him understand something.
“Edmundo.”
“Do not let this consume you.”
”There are monsters out there who will not stop at your first. They will take everything you have to give and more.”
She stares him down and he looks back at her. Her gaze searches his face again and he feels unsettled. Something curdles in his gut at her advice like it rings truer than he ever cares to explore.
Regardless she lets him go with a heavy sigh, taking a step back and watching out on his shoes and dissapear with a heavy heart. The slam of the door closing replicates the cries of the ocean as her children get cut away from their connection to her one by one.
She just prays for her sake that the person her mijo finds doesn’t make their way to a pair of shears in his presence.