Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts with a box in the back of Eddie's closet, the kind that's important enough to keep, but not something he wants to have to look at all the time. 

Or really, it starts with Christopher clearing his throat the way he does when he’s nervous but trying not to show it. He's a teenager now, and he's learning how to read his son again. How to interpret things in new ways and remember that Chris, although his baby, isn't exactly a little kid anymore. 

Eddie looks up from the kitchen island where he’s chopping onions, humming quietly along to one of Pepa's old playlists as it flows through the living room speakers. It’s one of those rare, lazy Sundays where he doesn’t have a shift and Chris is home, wanting to spend time with his dad for a change. The sunlight pours  through the windows, a breeze drifting in from the cracked-open back door. It's like the whole house feels settled and safe in a way Eddie never takes for granted. Not anymore. 

Then Chris steps into view holding the box.

Eddie’s whole body goes still. The knife hovers mid-air for a beat before he sets it down, looking at Chris’s nervous stance, the way his face twists up and fingers shake around the cardboard. 

He knows that box. Too well. The beat-up cardboard. The faded tape. The way it seems heavier than its physical weight should allow. It’s survived everything their family hasn’t. From moves, to deployments. Reconciliations. Losses. It's Shannon's things. Or, mostly it is. It's all the things that Eddie saved for his son. It's things Eddie himself doesn't need anymore. A half used bottle of perfume, old letters, a t-shirt or two. There's his old journal from high school. Both of their diplomas. He thinks he threw a yearbook or two in there as well. And photos. Lots of photos. From him and Shannon at the lake as teens to ultrasound photos of Christopher and everything in between. 

He used to go into the box all the time, staring at the photos of her and talking to her as if she could hear him. As if by begging, maybe she'd give him something to hold onto from beyond. Whatever that meant. He hasn't in a long time, maybe at least a year now. He knows that their relationship wasn't what he thought it was, wasn't what he had held onto after her death. In memorializing her, he'd almost lost himself. So, no, he hasn't looked. But seeing Chris with it, holding it out with anxious eyes…he knows it's about to hurt. 

“Hey, mijo,” Eddie musters up the ability to speak, wiping his hands on a towel. “What’s up?”

Chris shifts awkwardly. He's almost sixteen now, growing into himself and becoming a man. He's brave as hell and the strongest person that Eddie knows. Sometimes he even wishes he could be more like his son, and Buck, well he's always thought Chris was the greatest gift to the world. But he's suddenly uncertain, shifting his weight from foot to foot, box balanced between his hands and his right crutch for balance. “I uhm… I found this in your closet and unwanted to–I think– Dad I think it's time…”

Time.

That word hits Eddie like a punch to the gut. He's always thought he had more time, and this is no different. But it is time. If Chris is asking, then it's time. Time to open the past and hand his son pieces of his mother in ways he hasn't before. Time to hand over pieces of himself and the story of their lives he's tried to shield Christopher from for years. Time to open up and face a version of himself he hasn't always been proud of and let his song like at the bruises, ask questions, and want to learn. Time to do the things Eddie now suddenly wishes he had more time to think about 

“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly after a moment.  “Let’s go through it.”

They move to the couch and Chris sets the box down gingerly between them like it's something sacred, something breakable, something a little bit scary. And maybe it is. Maybe it's the pieces of their lives even he's afraid to pick up. 

Eddie lifts the lid and a rush of old-scented air escapes. Paper, dust, the ghost of perfume that was uniquely Shannon, and he thinks maybe he's even imagined the faint grit of El Paso that used to cling to them both. He swallows hard as he starts to shift through things. There's letters, her wedding ring, a baby sock, a stack of hospital bracelets, and even a small plastic keychain that was cracked and warped over time; a little piece of their high school relationship Eddie had even forgotten he had given her. 

“My mom kept everything,” Chris murmurs, letting his finger trace over each item that Eddie sat on the table in front of him with careful fingers. 

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers, barely more than breath. “She did.” 

They sift through the items one by one, Eddie letting the memories come to him and explaining what he remembers of each one and why Shannon may have kept them, and why Eddie had placed them in this box; why he thought they'd be important later. 

There’s a photo of baby Chris with applesauce smeared across his entire face, and Eddie huffs out a surprised laugh. Chris groans in mortification. A stupidly average teenage response to your baby pictures and Eddie sets it aside to make a copy of. He thinks Buck may actually want to see that one too. That only makes Chris roll his eyes. 

There’s Shannon in a floppy sun hat Eddie once teased her about. Shannon holding Chris with exhausted pride, still in the hospital. Shannon and Eddie together at some long-forgotten barbecue, warmth and chaos and youth carved into their bodies like they had time to spare. Like they had a million more years to figure it all out. Shannon's hand rested on her barely there baby bump and Eddie looked, genuinely, happy and he wonders where that went. When had the feelings of joy and hope faded into something more complicated? 

Chris asks questions– real ones. Gentle ones. Some harder ones too. They're honest with each other now, or at least Eddie tries to be. So he answers every question, even the ones that hurt. The ones he'd rather bury. Because he doesn’t do that anymore or at least he tries not to. 

And then Chris goes still. “Dad?” he asks, frowning slightly at something in his palm, confusion etched into his every feature. “Who’s this?”

And he holds up a photo Eddie hasn’t seen in years. He didn't think he'd ever see it again, doesn't understand why Shannon kept it, why it was in her things, why this reminder had to come to him on a random Sunday afternoon so many years later. 

The breath leaves his lungs in one sharp, silent exhale. He swallows hard, throat working to form some sort of words, some type of explanation that will placate Chris. 

The photo is simple, a little crumpled around the edges. It's a group of dusty, sunburned soldiers squinting at the camera in the blinding Afghanistan sun. He figures it was sent to Shannon in one of his letters, a memento for her but also a way to say everything was okay, that he was alright. Because it wasn't just a standard photo. No, it was more joyous than that. A couple of them clowning around. Someone flashing bunny ears. Everyone looks young in a way Eddie can hardly recognize anymore. It's a group that's mostly gone now, young men and women who didn't know what would be coming for them, what they were truly in for 

Eddie finds himself near the center, fatigues  askew and hair messy from his helmet. There's a smile on his face. And beside him–

Matthew.

Eddie’s arm is thrown around Matthew’s shoulder like it belonged there. Like it always belonged there. It's easy and simple and there's a crinkle in his smile and a kind of brightness behind his eyes he doesn't know if he'd recognize now. And Matthew–God– Matthew isn’t even looking at the camera. He’s looking at Eddie. His eyes are soft, overly fond. Completely unguarded.

Chris studies the image with a quiet intensity for a moment, almost like he's looking for the right words. “You guys look… close.”

Eddie swallows. His pulse spikes. “He uh–yeah. He was someone I served with. My first tour. We were all–” he waves his hand around, looking for an explanation that could come anywhere close to making sense. “We didn't really all know what it was going to be like. We were all close. He was my best friend at the time.”

It’s true. It's the truth. He's not lying. 

It’s just not the truth.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one though,” Chris says, brows drawn. Because yea, he has seen most of these photos before. Many of them Eddie has his own copies of but there's a handful that are new, that he doesn't remember. This is one of them. 

“I probably sent it to your mom,” Eddie says, his voice too light. Too casual for the way his heart threatens to rip right out of his chest. “In one of the letters. Back then I’d send anything she might want to see.”

Lie. 

He remembers exactly why he sent that one. And exactly why it gutted him after. It was about making sure a memory got to live, got to stay. Even if it means unknowingly making his wife an accomplice to something. To a piece of him he never wanted anyone to have to deal with. Not even himself. Not after…everything. 

Because Eddie breaks everything he touches. Everything and everyone he loves… his touch corrupts. It harms. It breaks. All he ever wanted was to help and to fix. And he does. Just not for himself. Not for the people he loves. 

“You look happy,” Chris murmurs, breaking the spell the photo has over Eddie. 

 “It was… a good day. For all of us.”

Chris looks at him, eyes soft with concern and with far too much understanding of loss and struggle from a barely 15;year old. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie lies, and it feels like chewing on rocks. “Just– it's uh– a lot of memories in that box.”

Chris nods, satisfied for now, and slips the photo back inside with the stack of others. “I’m kinda getting tired. But we can do more tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.” Eddie leans over, kisses the top of his head. “Love you, mijo.”

“Love you too.”

Chris disappears down the hallway after a few moments. His bedroom door shuts. The house feels as if it exhales with Eddie himself, shifting into some type of calm and he's not sure what to do with. 

And the photo is still there.

Still waiting.

Eddie reaches for it. He cracks the box back open and takes it out. His fingers shake around the edges. He tells himself they aren't, tries to steady himself with no luck. 

He lifts it into the lamplight to get a better look and the years fall away in a single breath.

Matthew. He rolls the name around in his brain. Tries it out verbally, tastes it on his tongue, feels the way his lips move around it. 

He hasn’t said that name out loud in… God. A decade? More? But the moment he thinks it, it lands with the familiar, devastating weight of someone who mattered. Someone he forced himself to bury because living with the truth felt impossible. It's the thing that he can bury from everyone. He buried it and hid it away from his army buddies, from his parents, even from Shannon. Although he thinks she may have known. She was always the smarter out of the two of them. But he could never really hide it from himself, no matter how hard he tried to push it down. He'd never hidden it from Matthew either. He'd never been able to. 

Up close, Matthew’s expression is even more obvious. It's warm and open, hopeful and fond in a way that 20 year old Eddie who'd just celebrated his birthday in the desert hadn’t dared to even attempt to fully understand. 

The edges of a memory pry loose.

Not a full flashback–not the kind that drags him under and makes it feel impossible to breathe right–but the softer, almost crueler kind. The kind that unfolds in sensations and fragments. The one that doesn't steal him away to another world, but that opens it up in his living room. A memory that lets him step into it without losing himself. And he really isn't sure what's worse. 

He knows it was night. Late. Maybe the middle of the night, Eddie was never too sure. Time lost all meaning after a few weeks. The oppressive desert heat finally gave way to cool night time air that stung in the lungs, but felt better against their sun drenched skin. The two of them sat on overturned crates outside the barracks, just sitting together, taking time to talk about nothing and everything at the same time.  The stars were so bright it felt like they were hanging just above the rooftops, close enough to touch. Eddie remembers how bright the stars always were in the pitch black. He doesn't think he's ever seen stars like that since coming home. 

Matthew nudged Eddie’s knee with his own, a soft and easy smile taking over his features. He laughed quietly when Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Diaz,” he said in that low, syrupy voice that Eddie just always wanted to hear more of. “You ever going to do something about the way you look at me?” 

Matthew laughed quietly when Eddie choked on his water, looking up at the 24 year old with large, terrified eyes. 

“It’s okay, man. I’m not judging.” The words were soft and sweet, way more of something in them than Eddie was able to parse at the time with his own mind a swimming pool of confusion and feelings he'd never truly dwelled on before. 

Eddie remembers the exact moment he realized Matthew wasn’t teasing. That it was real and more than just a wink or nudge that the others sometimes gave them. It was more than comradery the way it was with the others. 

He remembers the slow lean-in. The gentle and patient grip of his hands and the space he gave, so  Eddie had  every chance to pull away.

And he remembers not pulling away.

He remembers the kiss.

Not like he’s back there or living it again, but like it’s living under his skin. Like muscle memory. Like warmth blooming low in his chest again after lying dormant for over a decade, pushed down and repressed because he couldn't allow himself to think about it. To remember. 

It was soft. Careful. A brush of lips first. Then a firmer press when Eddie leaned in without meaning to, without thinking, just feeling. Matthew’s hand cupping the back of his neck. Eddie’s breath hitching. That dizzy, terrifying, thrilling spark of want he’d never allowed himself to name.

He remembers how alive he felt.

He remembers wanting more.

And then he remembers why he stopped wanting anything at all.

Because a few weeks later, Matthew was gone.

A mission that went sideways. 

A loss Eddie still feels like a cracked rib that never quite healed right.

A kind of hurt he didn’t have words for. At least until Shannon died, until he was holding her broken body in the back of an ambulance. Until Buck was hanging from that ladder and– Eddie pushes that away. Shoves it all down. He can't think about that now. Can't let his mind drift. 

Eddie learned the cruelest lesson war teaches early on. And maybe it wasn't war. Maybe it was just his life. 

Wanting something makes it easier to lose. Makes it easier to hollow you out. Makes it easier to hurt. 

He closes his eyes, jaw clenched so tight it aches.

He thought he buried this. Thought the layers of life he built afterward–Shannon, Chris, firefighting, Los Angeles, the 118, Buck– had all smothered the ghost of that single moment. 

But looking at the photo now?

It feels like the wound has been waiting patiently for him to look long enough to crack open again.

He drops his head into his hands. His breath shudders.

“Damn it,” he whispers into the quiet room, hoping not to disturb Chris down the hall. 

Because now that the memory is out; now that Matthew’s face is staring up at him again with all that unspoken tenderness and something definitely akin to love. 

He knows he won’t be able to shove it down this time.

Not the kiss or the wanting. Not the grief or that soft echo of what could have been. And certainly not the jagged, dangerous question of why Buck makes something inside him twist the same way and yet not at all. 

But that’s a tomorrow problem.

Tonight, Eddie just stares at Matthew’s picture and lets the truth he’s been avoiding for all the years catch up to him. 

And God, does it hurt.

It’s quiet.

Too quiet for Afghanistan. Too quiet for the base. Eddie learned this now. It's been a few months since his tour began and it's been filled with gunfire, shouting, and grinding metal all hours of the day and night. It doesn't matter that he's a medic or that the recruiter told him he's one of the safest people on the battlefield, he's learned that too quiet is never good. Except…maybe it is. Sometimes. 

The barracks are empty with lights low and still air, dust particles floating lazily by in the slanted moonlight that filters in from the curtainless windows. Empty barracks are a luxury, something to take advantage of. 

And Eddie is warm.

That’s the first thing he notices when he lets his eyes open. He's warm all over, inside and out, the kind of warmth that sinks into your bones and stays there. There’s a weight across his chest that he recognizes as an arm as he comes to. Another body is pressed against him, breath steady against the hollow of his throat.

Matthew.

They’re tucked into one narrow bunk, too close and too tangled together to be able to deny what they are, though they both know that no one will ask. It's a small mercy out here that no one questions, no one judges what they each do to get through it. To live. 

The sheets beneath them smell like sweat, detergent, and the remnants of whatever they’d been doing before they fell into this pile of limbs and heat. Eddie's memory is fuzzy, but his skin still feels alive from it. Oversensitive. Lit up in a way that makes him shy, makes him want to turn away and hide. 

But Matthew looks content. Eyes half-lidded with his cheek resting against Eddie’s shoulder, one hand lazily tracing a line down Eddie’s stomach before settling at his hip. Like he belongs there. Like he knows Eddie, owns him in a way no one else ever has. 

“You’re thinking too loud,” Matthew mumbles, voice low and drowsy.

Eddie huffs out a soft laugh, the sound rumbling up from somewhere deep. “Didn’t know you could hear my thoughts now.”

“You breathe different when you’re in your head.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t pull away. He won’t. He couldn’t, even if he tried. Not here, not now, not in this soft impossible pocket of time. He turns and knows almost immediately that it's a dream. It's vivid and real, but he knows this memory. He's been here before. 

He sinks into it, even if he knows he shouldn't. 

Matthew shifts just enough to look up at him, the moonlight catching the faint curve of a smile. “You okay?”

Eddie swallows. Nods. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”

“About home?”

Home. The word hits Eddie square in the chest. He exhales slowly. “Yeah.”

Matthew presses a kiss to his shoulder in that quick and familiar way, a comforting gesture when they can provide each other nothing else. It's not their first and Eddie knows it's not their last. At least not now. 

“Tell me,” Matthew murmurs.

So Eddie does.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about when I get back,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper. “About Christopher.”

Matthew listens. Always listens. His fingers skim little patterns against Eddie’s ribs, thumb traveling to press slightly against his hip bone from time to time. 

“I’m gonna be there for him,” Eddie says. “Really be there. Not halfway. I'm not gonna be a dad who only sees him between deployments and broken promises. I don't want that for him.” He swallows. “I’m done pretending that Shannon and I can make a marriage work just because we want the idea of one.”

Matthew nods gently, no judgment in his eyes. It spears Eddie on, makes him honest. 

“And I think– I think we’ll be okay as co-parents. Friends maybe. When she stops being mad at me, I think it'll be good. She deserves to be happy too.”

“And you?” Matthew asks quietly. “What do you deserve?”

Eddie’s breath catches.

He thinks about it. Really thinks.

“I want…” He hesitates, searching for the right words. “I want a life that doesn’t feel like I’m always waiting for something to go wrong. I want mornings with Chris. I want to cook breakfast without worrying I won’t be there the next day. I want to take him to school without him worrying that a phone call is gonna take me away to the other side of the world. I want to be there for him. Like I should be.”

Matthew smiles. It's soft and a little sad. “You will be.”

“And I want–” Eddie’s voice thins, grows shy, “--someone with me. Someone who makes the world feel less heavy.”

Matthew’s eyes soften in a way Eddie could never look at directly in waking life. Too intimate. Too honest. Too dangerous.

“We could do that,” Matthew murmurs. “All of us.” He shifts up, propping his chin on Eddie’s chest. “Pick somewhere new. Somewhere stupidly sunny that doesn't hurt. Somewhere with beaches and good coffee and nothing trying to kill us.”

Eddie snorts. “Like what? California?”

Matthew grins. “Could be.”

“Chris would love it.”

“So would you.”

Eddie feels himself smiling before he realizes it. A real one. One he didn’t know he still had in him, at least here.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Maybe I would.”

Matthew leans up, brushing their noses together. It's not quite a kiss, just an almost. A promise. A hope Eddie never let himself keep.

“The three of us,” Matthew says softly. “It’d work, you know.”*

Eddie’s throat tightens. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

The dream glows around them. It's warm and quiet, suspended in a way that hurts to his very core. This is the kind of moment Eddie spent years suffocating, burying, refusing to let himself replay. But here, it stretches out sweet and slow. He remembers this night vividly, the hope that it brought in the darkest of times. Until it didn't anymore. 

Matthew curls into him again, head tucked under Eddie’s chin. “We just have to make it home.”

Eddie closes his eyes.

He knows how this story ends. The dream lets him pretend he doesn’t. Let's him pretend he's living it for the first time. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs back, voice thick. “We just have to make it home.”

Silence settles over them. Matthew’s breathing evens out. Eddie runs a hand through his hair, down his back, slow and reverent as he  memorizes every inch of him without allowing himself to understand that he’s doing exactly that.

He presses a kiss to Matthew’s hair as soft snores start to fill the silence around them. 

The moment holds.

And holds.

And holds.

Until the dream begins to dissolve at the edges, like someone tugging a thread loose from a perfect but fragile tapestry.

Eddie feels it slipping. Feels Matthew fading.

He tightens his hold instinctively. Desperate and helpless.

No.
Not again. 

But the dream is already breaking apart, warmth draining and light dimming.

And Eddie wakes with a sharp inhale, loss crashing over him like a tidal wave he never learned to swim through.

Eddie wakes up feeling like he never actually slept.

Sure, his body went through the motions– lying down, eyes closed, breathing evening out on autopilot–but his brain stayed lit up like some kind of overloaded circuit board. Every time he drifted close to the edge of rest, that damn photograph slipped in. Matthew’s face, his smile, the way he’d looked at Eddie. It was seared into his eyelids, every time he closed his eyes he saw it. Every time he let himself dream even a little bit, he'd wake up with a hoarse cry and drenched in sweat. There was no sleep for him. No solace in rest. 

By the time Eddie pulls into the station lot the next morning, his stomach is twisted tight and sour. He hasn’t even had coffee because the thought of tasting anything at all makes him want to be sick. It's not exactly the best combination. 

He tells himself it’s fine. He’ll get through the shift. He always gets through the shift. He can put his own shit aside and box it up to get the job done. He's good at that. He can just push it down and keep going until he gets home. Then he can break. At least until Chris gets home. 

But the second he walks into the locker room, he knows he’s screwed.

Because Buck is there.

And Buck…stupid, beautiful, painfully earnest Buck. Well, he lights up immediately when he sees Eddie. Because of course he does. Eddie was an idiot to think he'd be getting through anything easily today. 

“Morning,” Buck grins, leaning against his locker like he’s rehearsed the pose. “Did Chris get through his history project? I know he was stressing over it yesterday.”

It’s harmless. It’s sweet. It’s Buck being Buck. It's him caring about Chris and as an extension, Eddie. It's wonderful. Or, it usually is. Usually makes him feel warm inside, butterflies knocking against his stomach in a way that he has to swallow down before he dies something stupid. 

But today Eddie feels something punch into his chest. Something sharp and mean and fueled by confusion and grief he doesn't know how to say out loud. An image flashes through his mind of Matthew. He's leaning against a Humvee door in the exact same casual posture with warm eyes, waiting for Eddie to finish some dumb joke.

And then Matthew in the dirt, limbs cold to the touch, green eyes unfocused and glassy. Blood. So much blood. 

The nausea spikes so fast Eddie swallows hard to keep it down. He can’t look at Buck. Can’t breathe around Buck. He can't do this today. Not right now. 

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, turning toward his locker. “He got it done.”

Buck waits for more. He always waits for more. Eddie is always the one who gives him more.

But today Eddie’s fingers fumble with the combination, and he focuses harder than necessary just to get the latch open.

He hears Buck shift. “Hey, you good?”

Eddie’s whole nervous system screams no. Screams to let Buck in, to tell him everything. To fall into his arms and say he's not okay, that he needs something, that he doesn't know what to do with all these big, complex feelings that have suddenly reared their ugly head in a way he can't ignore this time. 

Instead he keeps his voice flat. “Fine. Just tired.”

Buck doesn’t buy it. Eddie can feel it. Buck’s concern is practically a physical presence; it buzzes in the air and crawls along Eddie’s spine.

“Okay,” Buck says slowly, “but if something’s up–”

“Buck,” Eddie snaps. Too sharp. Too fast. “I said I’m fine.”

The silence that follows is awful.

Eddie doesn’t have to look to know Buck’s expression has cracked a little. His brows drawn, mouth softening in that hurt, confused way that usually guts Eddie instantly and tells him that his choice of words or tone was just a little too harsh. Today it just piles onto the guilt already eating him alive. The hollow feeling that has been living in his chest in that unforgiving way for hours now. 

Buck steps back like he’s giving Eddie space. Or like Eddie pushed him away. He's not sure which it really is. 

“Yeah,” Buck says quietly. “Okay. I’ll– I uh–see you out there.”

He leaves and Eddie sinks onto the bench, rubbing both hands over his face as his heartbeat thunders painfully against his ribs. He didn’t mean to do that. He never means to hurt Buck. But right now even being looked at feels dangerous.

Because every time Buck’s eyes land on him, Eddie feels that same terrifying, familiar ache. The one he thought he buried overseas. The one he doesn’t have room for, doesn’t have language for, doesn’t have any damn idea what to do with. He's seen it, felt it, dealt with it. But it's getting harder to ignore now. Harder to push down and bury. Not with that photo gnawing at the carefully constructed brick wall in his mind. Not with Buck's careful words and gentle touches and far too soft eyes that are blue instead of green but equally as disarming in ways he doesn't want to think about. 

He buttons his uniform with hands that don’t want to stop shaking, takes a deep breath, and readies himself for the day. 

The shift starts normally enough. Chim's morning briefing is short and to the point, nothing too long or drawn out. It's been nearly a year now of him being captain, and he finally doesn't feel the need to prove himself. Eddies happy for him, proud in a weird way. The first call ends up being pretty much routine. It's just a simple medical that barely gets his adrenaline up. He splints some young girls wrist while Hen tells her mom about some activity options that won't include the kid attempting to jump from the top of a swing set. They don't even have to transfer her in the ambulance. 

It's ridiculously normal. The type of shift they all dream about. A break from the madness their lives often are. But the whole time, Eddie feels Buck like a gravitational pull a few feet away. Buck keeps glancing at him, trying to check in, trying to bridge the sudden distance Eddie threw between them. 

And Eddie dodges him. Every time.

He keeps conversations short. Sits on opposite sides of the engine, avoiding the knee touch that's become a standard form of communication for them. He volunteers for tasks that conveniently put him anywhere Buck isn’t. He knows the team can sense it. He ignores the questioning looks the same way he ignores Buck's expression as it falls a little bit more each time he realizes that the space is deliberate. 

 Eddie feels like he’s scraping some raw, tender part of himself across broken glass each time he looks over. Because as much as he's trying to avoid Buck, he's a glutton for emotional punishment. He glances over when he can, taking in the hunched over shoulders and deflated looks, and feels himself breaking. It's not fair to Buck. It's not fair to the team. It's not fair to him. But the theory of protection is something he uses like an armor, even if it's rusted and not doing its job anymore. He'll hold onto it until he can't anymore. 

He’s relieved when they get back from a run and Buck disappears into the loft to eat lunch with Chim and Ravi. Eddie heads for the ambulance bay, needing the quiet, needing something to do with his hands so the memories don’t claw up his throat. He's still not hungry. Can't even stomach the idea of food without that sick feel creeping into the depths of his stomach. At least he won't have to awkwardly walk by the table, attempting not to make eye contact. 

He finds Hen restocking the rig. And she's one of the last people he wants to talk to. Fearful that she'll take one look at him and see through the hard exterior that the other have used to ignore him for the day. 

She glances up the moment she hears him. Her eyes narrow. He can feel her judging him, looking for something. “You’re walking weird.”

Eddie blinks. “What?”

“You’ve got the posture of someone who’s either hiding a gunshot wound or a feelings wound,” she says, popping open a bin of gauze and counting. “And nobody’s shot you today, so…”

“Hen.”

“Mmm?” she hums, deliberately innocent as she continues to work.

He grabs a box of saline to help, even though she clearly doesn’t need it. He needs something to do. He can't have this conversation just standing there like an idiot. He doesn't really want to have the conversation at all if he's honest about it. Hen’s not going to give him that option though. 

“I’m fine.”

“That’s what Buck said when Chim asked if his heart would spontaneously combust if you actually looked at him today.”

Eddie chokes. “Hen,” he says again, with a little more warning in his voice.

She steps back, crosses her arms, and gives him a look that could strip paint off the wall. He stands back and stares right back. 

“You want to tell me why he looks like a kicked puppy? Or should I call Athena and she can mom-voice it out if you so we all know what we're working with? 

Eddie’s whole body flinches. Hard.

Hen sees it. Her entire expression softens instantly, like she understands that this is deeper, more complex than just the average disagreement or argument that he and Buck sometimes find themselves in. 

“Hey,” she murmurs, reaching out and placing a hand on his forearm and he fights the way his body tenses up immediately. “Talk to me. Whatever it is, it’s clearly eating you alive.”

Eddie’s jaw works uselessly as he tries to decide what to stay. He swallows, the word lodging in his throat.  He doesn’t want to say this. He hasn’t said it. Not to anyone. Not ever. Sometimes he even wonders if he's said it to himself or if he's just pushed it down each time he even lets his mind wander there, never letting himself actually say it. 

But it’s like the words swell in him until they’re pressing against his teeth.

And Hen’s gaze is steady. Safe. Patient. Motherly in a way that breaks down every boundary that Eddie has built. 

The dam cracks. It splinters. It breaks. And everything comes spilling out. 

“It’s just–” Eddie starts, then stops, then tries again; lowering his voice. “Yesterday, Chris found this box of stuff from Shannon. And in it– there was uh– there was this picture.”

Hen tilts her head. “Okay.”

“And this guy in the photo, Matthew, was in my unit. Back in Afghanistan.” Eddie swallows hard again, trying to figure out how to explain this, to tell her how big this is. “And he–he looked at me in this way. And I think I used to look back.”

Hen says nothing, but her hand squeezes gently, a way of encouraging. 

“I haven’t thought about him in years,” Eddie whispers, shame curling tight in his chest for the admission. “But seeing that photo… it just hit me. I felt everything. All at once. And I remembered–”

His voice wavers. He coughs. It's a little wet and he realizes that he's starting to cry.

He remembers dust in the air, moonlight catching on Matthew’s cheek, the heat between them like a living thing. He remembers the feel of Matthew’s lips against his, quick and desperate and real in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to admit.

He remembers losing him later. Starting to build something. To dream. To want. Before it was ripped away, just like everything else. Like everyone else. 

“I think maybe I’ve–I’ve always been–” He swallows the word. It feels too big. Too sharp. Too targeted. 

“Hen,” he tries instead. It makes it easier. “What if I’m gay?”

Hen doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. Her voice is soft when she finally speaks, throwing the question right back to him. “What if you are?”

Eddie’s breathing shudders. “I don’t know how to hold that. I didn’t even let myself think about it back then, and then I lost him, and it felt like the universe was telling me–” His voice cracks, a few more tears starting to fall, “--that I wasn’t allowed to feel that way. That it was dangerous. That I couldn’t survive it.”

Hen’s expression melts into something heartbreakingly gentle in a way that he almost can't handle it. 

“Oh, Eddie.”

“And now…” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Now every time Buck looks at me, I feel it all over again. That same thing. That same pull.” He presses a hand to his chest like he can hold the panic inside. “But I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t do that again. It’s easier if I just don’t–if I stay where it’s safe.”

Hen steps closer. “Eddie,” she says, voice warm, “you’re not staying safe. You’re breaking your own heart and I think you know you're breaking his too.”

He laughs, but it’s hollow and shakes apart halfway through. “Maybe that’s better.”

“No,” Hen says firmly. “It’s not. And Buck? Buck isn’t Matthew. This isn’t a warzone, even if I know it can feel like it sometimes. You’re not that scared kid anymore.”

Eddie’s throat feels too tight to swallow around anymore. “Hen, I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t even know how to tell myself.”

She cups his elbow, grounding him. “Start with this. Talk to him. Buck deserves that much. And you deserve someone who knows you. All of you. If it doesn't work, he's not going to abandon you, and neither will any of us. But you have to say something, before it ends up ruining you both.” 

Eddie’s stomach flips violently.

“I can’t–”

“Yes,” Hen insists. “You can. You don’t have to say everything. You just have to stop running from him.”

He drops his gaze, staring at the concrete floor like it might give him answers. But all he sees is the look on Buck’s face that morning. Hurt. Confused. Waiting. It makes his chest ache. 

Hen pats his arm once more and steps back. “He loves you, you know.”

Eddie’s head snaps up. “Hen–” 

“Not saying he’s in love with you,” she clarifies easily. “Just… Buck loves you. In that big, messy, stupid Buck way of his. And maybe he's in love too, I don't know. But let him show up for you. Even if you can’t give him the whole truth yet.”

Eddie breathes out shakily. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Well,” Hen says, grabbing another box of supplies and getting back to work.  “Lucky for you, you don’t have to figure it all out in one shift. Just stop avoiding him. That’s step one.”

Eddie nods, even though his pulse kicks hard at the thought. Even though the idea of Buck’s eyes on him feels like standing too close to an open flame.

He’s not sure he can do this.

But he also knows the alternative… pushing Buck away until there’s nothing left.

And that feels worse.

Much worse.

Hen gives him a tiny smile. “Good. Because he’s coming down the stairs right now.”

Eddie startles so violently he nearly drops the saline.

Hen laughs softly. “Welcome to step one.”

He turns and runs. He can't do this at work. 

It’s hot.

That’s the first thing Eddie feels. Not warmth, but absolute all encompassing heat. Suffocating, dizzying heat that clings to his skin and crawls beneath his uniform, prickling down his spine in a way that feels equal parts disgusting and terrifying. 

He hears shouting before he sees anything. Or maybe he sees dust first, hanging in the air like a mini sandstorm. It's hard to know. Hard to separate one sense from another in the desert. Everything bleeds together, too vivid and too distant all at once. 

Someone screams, “Incoming!” and the world cracks open with the sound of an explosion. The ground trembles under his boots. His teeth rattle.

This isn’t real, something whispers to him. It already happened. He's lived this before. But the dream doesn’t care. It pulls him in by the throat anyway.

He’s running before he understands why. Feet pounding, lungs burning, and heart slamming against his ribs. He hears gunfire. Those short, sharp bursts that slice the air like tearing metal. Someone calls his name, maybe Ruiz, maybe Johnson, maybe no one at all. Every sound is layered wrong, distorted like a radio picking up three channels at once. No matter how many times they're caught like this, it still takes time for Eddie to process, to orient himself. 

“Man down!”

The words slice through everything else.

Eddie’s stomach drops.

He skids around a corner, boots sliding in dust and debris. His ears are ringing. His vision stutters. And then he sees him.

Matthew.

He’s on the ground, half-propped against a broken wall, fingers pressed to his own abdomen. Blood stains the front of his uniform dark and spreading. His eyes are wide. He's not panicking, but searching. Looking for something. Looking for–

Eddie drops to his knees so fast the impact sends pain shooting up his legs.

“I’m here,” he hears himself say, though it sounds like someone else wearing his voice. It's distant and warped, like he's trying to speak underwater. 

Matthew’s hand twitches. “Ed,” he breathes, voice thin and fading. 

Eddie presses down hard on the wound. Blood wells between his fingers almost instantly, hot and slick and relentless.

“Stay with me,” Eddie pleads, his voice cracking, lungs squeezing tight around the words. It's horrible and terrifying and Eddie doesn't know how to do this. Doesn't know how he's supposed to help even though it's his entire job, the reason he's even here. 

Another explosion rocks the ground. People scream. Someone yells for a medic, pointing in the vague direction of Matthew's slumped over body in a pool of his own blood. Eddie shouts back that he’s got him. He’s got him.

He doesn’t. God, he doesn’t.

Matthew coughs, a wet sound that splashes more blood down his chin. His teeth are coated with it, a red sheen against normally pearly white teeth. His eyes flutter, sliding out of focus before dragging back to Eddie like it’s costing him something huge to even try to move. 

“You okay?” Mathew whispers it, reaching forward as if trying to make sure Eddie is the one who's okay, making sure he's still there. Still alive. 

Eddie nearly chokes. “Yeah. Yeah, man, I’m good. You’re good. You’re fine.” His hands shake, but he pushes harder, harder, desperate to hold the blood in, to keep life from spilling out onto the dirt.

But Matthew’s breath stutters. “You always… say that,” he murmurs, a thready almost-laugh under the pain.

“Because it’s going to be true,” Eddie insists, voice breaking. “Just hold on.”

The med tent materializes around them too fast, like he's being yanked from one nightmare to the next without the in-between steps. One second they’re in the dirt, the next Eddie is dragging Matthew onto a cot while the world spins and his pulse roars in his ears.

The lights in the tent are too bright. The noise is too loud. People move around him, but their faces blur like smeared paint.

Eddie presses harder. Matthew groans. The smell of blood, sweat, and antiseptic hits Eddie all at once. It's thick and suffocating.

Someone shouts that there’s no surgeon available. Someone else curses. Eddie keeps working, hands slick, and  arms trembling.

“Hey,” Matthew whispers suddenly. His voice cuts through the chaos like a knife. Too soft. Too intimate. “Ed… look at me.”

Eddie’s eyes snap up. He knows he looks helpless. Probably terrified. 

Matthew’s gaze is steady, even as the edges of it dim. “You’re… really something, you know that?”

Eddie shakes his head, throat tight. “Don’t– don’t talk like that.”

But Matthew keeps going, voice fading like it’s drifting down a long hallway. “Wish we had more time.”

Eddie barely remembers what happens next. It's brief and chaotic. Just a second, a moment,  stolen in a dark corner where no one can really see them amidst the chaos. Matthew leaning in. Eddie meeting him halfway because he couldn’t not. A kiss quick and hungry, almost like breathing after holding your breath for months. It's a gasping, desperate thing. Deep and sharp and more painful than anything else Eddie thinks he's experienced. Slick with blood, tasting of salt and sand.  It's his own heart falling into the floor, shattering at his feet as he watches someone he loves, truly and deeply and maddenly, slip away. 

Matthew’s fingers brush Eddie’s wrist, weak and trembling. “Wish I told you before.”

Eddie’s heart lurches. “Stop. Just stop. You’re gonna be fine.” He knows it's a lie. He knows it's not what he's supposed to say. But, he wants to believe it. Wants Mathew to believe it, to keep fighting. 

Another cough, wetter this time. Blood splatters onto Eddie’s cheek. It's everywhere. Sprayed across his face, coating his tongue, crusted into his hair. Matthew’s eyes flutter again. His breathing stutters. It slows. Falters. 

Eddie leans over him, panic choking him. “Matthew! Matthew, stay with me– Matt–hey–you–cmon man!”

Hands pull at Eddie’s shoulders. Someone shouts his name. Someone tries to move him aside. Eddie shoves back, chest heaving, refusing to let go. “No, I’ve got him. I’ve got him—”

But the hands are insistent now, dragging him backward. His grip slips. Matthew’s head lolls.

The heart monitor flatlines.

The sound rips through Eddie like shrapnel. He freezes, breath frozen, lungs locked tight.

Everything stops.

The tent dissolves around him until it’s just Matthew’s body, too still, too quiet, his uniform soaked through with blood. Eddie’s own hands coated in red. The taste of dust in his mouth. The ache in his ribs like someone reached in and squeezed his insides hard, hollowing him out in one moment. 

Something fractures in him. Something he didn’t have words for then and still doesn’t now. 

Eddie stares at his shaking hands. At the blood he can’t scrub away. At the man he couldn’t save. At the truth he never let himself keep.

Then he inhales, sharp and shaking.

And he puts it all away.

Pushes the grief down. Pushes the fear down. Pushes the longing down. Pushes Matthew down.

He tells himself it’s survival. He tells himself it’s duty. He tells himself it’s the only way he’ll make it through the next day, the next tour, the next breath.

He stands. He wipes his hands on his ruined uniform. His chest goes numb.

He looks at Matthew’s body one last time.

And he makes a choice.

Never again.

Never feel this. Never want like this. Never love like this. Never give anyone the power to be ripped away.

He seals the memory like a wound he refuses to treat.

He walks out of the tent.

And his heart goes quiet.

Eddie doesn’t remember deciding to drive to Buck’s place. He remembers keys in his hand, the clatter of the front door closing behind him, the hum of the truck engine turning over. He remembers streetlights flicking through the windshield as his mind drifted somewhere far away. But the actual decision, the moment his body said go, gets lost somewhere between leaving the station and winding up here, in the parking spot that might as well have “reserved for Eddie Diaz” painted on it.

His heart is beating too hard. Not fast, exactly but  just… hard. Heavy, like each thump is trying to shove something loose inside his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

He knows that.

But apparently knowing and doing are different skills, because he’s already standing on Buck’s doormat, fists tucked deep in his jacket pockets, breath puffing out around him in little clouds. His mouth feels dry. His palms are sweating. He has no idea what he’s planning to say.

Before he can knock– hell, before he even lifts his hand–the door swings open.

Because Buck heard him coming. Of course he did. Eddie should’ve known. Buck always hears him. Buck knows him better than maybe anyone ever has. 

“Eddie?” Buck’s voice threads through the doorway, quiet but warm, full of that instinctive softness he saves for only a few people. “Hey. You okay?”

And Eddie, the  stupid, fragile man that he is, feels something inside him wobble. Not shatter. Not crack. But just wobble a bit, like a table leg starting to come loose.

Buck’s standing there barefoot, hair damp from a shower, and sleeves pushed up on a soft gray sweatshirt that’s probably the most comfortable thing in California. His brow is furrowed in that concerned way that makes him look younger and older at the same time. He’s just open. All the time. Heart first in everything he does. 

Eddie hates how much that affects him.

“Yeah,” Eddie manages, then immediately winces. “I mean– well– no. Not really. Can we…?” He gestures toward the interior, vague and awkward. “Can I come in?”

Buck steps aside without hesitation, hand brushing Eddie’s shoulder as he lets him pass. It's a tiny point contact, barely there. Still, Eddie feels it like a match being struck under his ribs. The spark crawls up his arms and shoots down his spine. 

The house is warm. Soft. Lit by a few lamps instead of the overheads. It smells like cedar, clean cotton, and the faint remnants of whatever soap Buck uses that Eddie has thought way too much about at least six times this week. He stands in the living room like he’s a misplaced piece of furniture as Buck shuts the door gently behind them.

“So,” Buck says after a beat, voice easy but careful. “Hen said you were… off today. And I tried to talk to you at the start of shift, but you kind of sprinted in the opposite direction.”

Eddie groans quietly. Jesus. He didn’t know it was that obvious.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Buck comes around the couch, leaning against it with his arms crossed loosely, a posture that’s casual but attentive. Inviting. Not pressing. Never that. But curious and supporting. Interested in hearing Eddie out and making sure he's okay. 

Eddie both appreciates and hates him for that all at once.

Buck waits. Actually waits. No prying questions. No lecture. Just space. 

Eddie’s throat tightens as he tries to explain what he can. What he's willing to. 

“Chris found some of Shannon’s things yesterday,” he says, letting the half-truth slide out of him. It’s not the whole story, not even close. But it’s a plausible shape of honesty. A shadow of the real wound. “He was… going through an old box. And it hit harder than I expected.”

Buck’s face softens instantly. He steps closer, just an inch, like there's an invisible string connecting them together and Buck can't help but be dragged in by the pull. “Eddie. I’m sorry. That stuff can come out of nowhere.”

And Eddie hates how gentle Buck is being. Hates how kindness feels like someone cupping his face and telling him to breathe. Hates how easily Buck accepts the explanation without doubting him, without asking for the truth Eddie can’t give.

“I didn’t mean to shut you out,” Eddie says, voice low. “I just– I wasn’t ready.” there's a double meaning there, even if he knows it's not understood. Not yet at least. 

“That’s okay.” Buck says it like he means it, like it’s not even a question. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You never do.”

But Eddie wants to owe him something. Wants to be able to give him more than scraps. The guilt swirls inside him like silt stirred up from the bottom of a river.

“Come sit down,” Buck murmurs. “Or, actually, you know what? You feel like getting in the hot tub? I was about to go out there. Helps my leg. My back too.”

Eddie huffs out a breath. “You’re not even 40 yet.”

“And yet somehow built like a retired dock worker,” Buck grins. “Don’t judge me.”

Eddie can’t help the small smile tugging at his mouth. “Yeah. Okay.”

Buck’s grin widens. It's bright and threaded with relief. Almost like he was concerned Eddie would say no. But Eddie could never. 

They head out to the back porch, where the night air is cool enough to make the heat rising from the hot tub look kind of like a halo. Steam curls lazily around them. Eddie toes out of his boots and shrugs off his jacket, feeling strangely exposed and yet safe at the same time.

A few minutes later, they’re both sunk down into the bubbling water in way too little clothing than they should be, beer bottles in hand even though they both know that's not the best idea.  The warm pressure of the jets works its way into Eddie’s shoulders, loosening muscles he didn’t realize he was clenching. The city is buffered by the trees lining the neighborhood, but it still hums softly around them. It's inescapable like that.  Everything feels suspended. Gentle.

And Buck… God. Buck is a weapon without trying to be.

His face is glowing faintly blue from the LED lights in the tub. Drops of water cling to his eyelashes. He tips his head back with a quiet sigh, exposing the long line of his throat, and Eddie feels his heartbeat stutter.

They sit in silence for a bit.

The kind of silence Eddie only gets with Buck. The one where he doesn’t feel the need to fill the space or apologize for just breathing.

“Feel any better?” Buck asks eventually, turning to him, voice low and warm.

Eddie swallows. The beer bottle is slick in his hand. “Yeah. Actually. Yeah, I do.”

Buck smiles at him, soft and relieved, like Eddie being okay is something that matters to him personally.

And that’s when it hits. Not subtly or slowly, but all at once. Like someone pulled back a curtain Eddie didn’t know was there.

This.

This is what he wants.

Not the messy half-truths he told Hen. Not the fantasy life he built with Matthew in a bunkroom that was never going to be the end. Not the patched-together marriage he tried to salvage with Shannon. Not the careful distance he’s kept for years.

This. 

The heat of the tub. The night air brushing his wet skin. The city humming in the distance. Buck’s knee drifting against his under the water with no urgency to move away. The quiet. The comfort. The gravitational pull Buck has on him without even trying.

This easy, domestic closeness.

This softness he doesn’t get anywhere else.

This feeling like he is allowed to breathe around someone.

Eddie wants it.

He wants it so badly with a clarity that scares the hell out of him.

His mind tries to shove the feeling away like he always does–shove it deep, shove it down, shove it into whatever locked box still holds Matthew and half his heart. But the truth keeps glowing, persistent and quiet, like the lights under the water.

He risks a glance at Buck.

Buck is watching the skyline, hair damp and slightly curled, his mouth relaxed around the rim of his beer bottle. He looks peaceful like this. Comfortable. Trusting.

And Eddie feels something twist painfully under his ribs. Because he knows this story. He’s lived this ending.

You fall for someone.

You let them in.

You imagine a future.

You let yourself believe you’re allowed to want happiness.

And then one day you’re kneeling in the dirt with blood on your hands, praying to a god you're not sure you even believe in anymore, wishing you’d never let yourself love in the first place. 

Eddie takes a slow breath, letting the steam cloak his face.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Eddie shakes his head. “Nothing. Just… long day.”

Buck nods like that’s enough. Like he doesn’t need more. Like he trusts Eddie even if the answers are stilted, even if he knows they aren't fully true. 

Another twist of guilt. Another flicker of longing. Another pull toward the cliff he’s terrified to approach.

“Thanks for letting me come over,” Eddie murmurs.

Buck bumps his knee gently underwater. “You don’t have to thank me. You know you always can.”

Yeah. That's the problem. That’s the exact, precise problem. 

Because Eddie wants this. This moment, this closeness, this life, so badly it tastes like copper on his tongue.

Wanting things is dangerous. Wanting Buck might be the most dangerous thing of all.

He leans his head back against the edge of the tub, staring up into the dark sky, letting the steam curl around him.

He won’t lose anyone else.

He can’t.

It's better to keep the door shut. To pretend he doesn't want more. It's better if he chooses the version of love that stays. Better if he locks all these feelings up tight where it can't die in his arms and lean into something expected. Something he doesn't really want with someone he'll never truly love, as long as it means that keeps his true heart safe. Keeps the person he truly loves out of harm's way. 

But God.

For one small moment, in the quiet glow of Buck’s back yard, Eddie lets himself want anyway.

Just long enough to know the truth, to feel it come alive inside of him. He wants this. He wants Buck. He so desperately wants a life he'll never let himself have. And for a moment he thinks maybe, Buck might want it too. And it's dangerous. That truth. That want. 

Buck nudges him again. “You look like you’re overthinking.”

Eddie forces out a breathy laugh. “Yeah. Always.”

Then he takes another sip of beer, willing the warmth that spreads through him to dull the edges of the truth he can’t face.

He won’t let himself fall.

He can’t.

Not again.

But the damage is already done.

She’s pacing again.

The apartment is too small for this kind of argument. The kind that bounces off every wall and circles back in a way that's louder and angrier. The kind that never really starts and never really ends, because it’s built out of everything they’re both refusing to say. It's built on a fragile foundation neither of them knew how to create. Built on something that was never really what either of them wanted. 

Shannon stops near the dresser, fingers twisting in the hem of her shirt. “Eddie,” she says, voice trembling with that brittle frustration he’s never figured out how to reach through. “I’m asking you a simple question.”

He presses a hand to the back of his neck. The skin there feels too hot, too tight. “It’s not simple.”

“It should be.” She meets his eyes. She always meets his eyes when she’s hurting. “I’m not asking for details. I’m not asking for–it doesn’t have to be everything. I just want to understand what happened to you over there.”

He looks away.

He can’t help it. He tries to hold her gaze, tries to plant his feet in the ground like a good man, a good husband, a man who tells the truth. But the words get caught somewhere between his ribs and his throat, and when he blinks he’s back there again; dust hanging in the air like fog, Matthew’s laughter brushing his shoulder, the heat of a hand on his spine, the soft murmur of a future he wasn’t allowed to want.

He swallows once. Twice.

“Nothing happened,” he says, and hates the way it sounds. Like a lie dipped in panic. Like a man afraid of the truth inside him.

Shannon’s shoulders fall. “You’re not the same.”

He flinches.

“You came back different,” she continues softly. “You’re distant. You’re quiet. You barely touch me anymore. And every night when you think I’m asleep, you lie there with your hand over your mouth like you’re trying not to scream. I know everyone says that you'll come back different, but this…” 

His mouth goes dry.

“Eddie,” she whispers, “what did you lose over there?”

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Nothing he can say. Nothing he can admit. Nothing that wouldn’t tear his whole life open and spill everything out into a firm of wrongness. 

If he tells her the truth, he’ll break something.

If he tells her the truth, she’ll see him the way he sees himself, cracked and broke in places he can’t fix. He shakes his head. Not to deny her, but to deny the truth clawing its way upward. “It’s fine,” he manages. “I’m fine. It’s just– I'm adjusting. There's a lot I have to– it's not anything you can fix, Shan. I just need–time–I need time.”

She stares at him for a long moment,  long enough that it feels like hours. A whole deployment tucked into a single heartbeat.

Then she nods. Nods, because she’s too tired to fight. Nods, because the baby is asleep in the next room. Nods, because she loves him more than she should. Nods, because she’s slipping, and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

“I can’t keep doing this alone,” she says quietly.

He freezes. The room tilts. His pulse thuds so loudly he almost misses her next words.

“I need you to talk to me,” she says. “I need you to let me in. I can’t be married to a ghost.”

He wants to tell her he’s trying. God, he’s trying. He wants to tell her that there are pieces of him scattered across a desert thousands of miles from here, and he doesn’t know how to gather them. He wants to tell her that he touched another man’s hand in the dark and something inside him opened like a wound. He wants to tell her that he held a future in his palms for one fleeting heartbeat and then watched it bleed out.

He wants to tell her everything.

But when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is, “I don’t know how.”

Her breath stutters.

She nods again, but this time the nod is final, like a door closing. “I can’t stay like this.”

He feels it then. The shift. The distance stretching between them that's always been there but is unbearable now. He’s watching her slip away, and all he can do is stand there with his hands empty, unable to reach for her even if he wants to. 

She steps past him, heading for the bedroom. He follows. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just watches. Maybe this is the memory he’s rewritten a hundred times, trying to decide what he could’ve done differently. What could have saved them.

He hears drawers open. Hears fabric rustle. Hears the soft, broken sound of someone folding the rest of their patience into a suitcase.

He doesn’t stop her.

He doesn’t follow.

He stands just there, feeling everything ache.

And when the light changes, it takes him a moment to realize it’s morning.

Early morning. That bluish, quiet nothing-hour before the world wakes up.

He blinks, groggy and heavy-limbed, and realizes two things at the same time:

1. Shannon’s side of the bed is cold.
2. Chris is curled against his chest, small and warm and breathing softly.

His son must’ve climbed in sometime after the argument. After the silence. After she had just sighed and said something had to change as he was handed the card to a therapist through the VA. 

Eddie’s breath catches.

He looks at Chris, at the little face relaxed in sleep, at the soft curl of his lashes, at the fist gently clutching Eddie’s T-shirt. Chris makes a tiny sound, burrowing closer, trusting him completely in a way Eddie suddenly feels wholly unworthy of.

And something inside him settles with a heavy, terrible clarity.

This is what matters.

Not the echo of a man he loved in a desert far away or the truth he's never dared to speak out loud. It's not about that twist of want inside him that's pulled so tight he's threatening to break. 

No, this is what's matters. This. Christopher. His baby. His son. His responsibility. His future. The one thing he can’t afford to risk.

He runs a trembling hand over Chris’s hair and breathes in deeply. 

He made a promise. Even if he never said it out loud. Even if it was forged somewhere between a battlefield and a baby crib.

He can’t want things for himself. Not anymore. Not if they jeopardize this. Not if they make him into someone who takes instead of protects.

Chris shifts again, sighing into Eddie’s shirt, soft and trusting and safe.

And Eddie decides, quietly and brutally, that whatever parts of him got bent out of shape overseas will stay bent. Whatever he lost will stay lost. Whatever he wanted will stay buried.

There’s no room for the rest of him. Not if he’s going to be what Chris needs.

He presses his lips to the top of his son’s head.

Then he closes his eyes and lets the truth settle into his bones like concrete being poured to weigh him down. 

Wanting is dangerous.

Needing is selfish.

And Eddie Diaz will not be selfish.

Not ever again.

Eddie spends three days trying to convince himself he doesn’t need to do this.

Three days telling himself that Chris is a kid– his kid–and he shouldn’t have to carry the complicated tangle of Eddie’s past, or his mistakes, or the jagged truths Eddie has never said out loud.

Three days pretending he can swallow the memories back down, press them into the cement slab where he buried Matthew, and let them fossilize there forever.

Three days pretending he can look Chris in the eyes and not feel the lie lodged in his throat like a fishhook.

It doesn’t work.

By the fourth evening, he’s restless. Bone-deep restless. The kind that makes him reorganize the pantry twice and shove the mop around the kitchen like he’s trying to scrub something invisible away that never will. Chris trails him for a while before giving up, retreating to his room to do homework with the door cracked open just enough that Eddie can hear music from his playlist. It's something soft, something easy. A mix between newer hits, Eddie's latin songs and things he recognizes as Buck's playlist. 

Eddie stands in the kitchen doorway, watching his son bent over a worksheet with that Diaz concentration that could crack granite. And it hits him.  The realization he’s been circling like a skittish animal.

Chris deserves honesty. Chris always deserves honesty. It’s Eddie who’s been scared of this. Of the truth. And he shouldn't be, at least not when it comes to his son. 

He wipes a hand over his face and sighs decisively.

“Hey, mijo,” he calls gently

Chris looks up, pencil tapping against his notebook. “Yeah?”

“You hungry? I was thinking spaghetti.”

Chris grins,  that quick, bright thing that Shannon gave him. “Extra garlic bread?”

“Always.”

Dinner is simple. Familiar. The kind of meal Eddie can make while half-asleep or half-panicking. He plates the food, pours Chris a soda, grabs himself a water he won’t drink. His hands are steady, but everything inside him feels hollow and vibrating. 

Chris digs in immediately– teenage metabolism is a beast–and Eddie sits down across from him, watching him take the first few bites. He’s suddenly grateful for the noise of forks scraping plates. It gives him something to anchor to.

“Hey, Dad?” Chris says around a mouthful. “This is really good.”

Eddie huffs out a weak laugh. “Thanks.”

He waits.

He waits until Chris looks up again, until those big blue eyes settle on him with the kind of easy trust Eddie has spent years trying to be worthy of.

“Chris,” he says slowly, quietly, “I need to talk to you about something. Something uh– important.”

Chris stops chewing.

The tension that flickers across his face is faint but real. Old scars and memories floating to the surface in an instant panic. Eddie hates that he still carries that fear. He hates being part of why.

“It’s nothing bad,” he adds quickly. “You’re not in trouble. And nothing’s changing. Not with us, or with our family. I just–I owe you honesty. We talked about that last year right? No more lies?” 

Chris nods, encouraging but still obviously nervous. “Okay.”

Eddie exhales. Steadies himself.

“You remember last week,” he begins carefully, “when you found that old photo in your mom’s box?”

Instantly, Chris’s shoulders pull tight. “Yeah. The one from when you were in the army.”

“That’s the one.”

There’s no turning back now.

Eddie’s voice softens. “The man I had my arm around, you asked about him? His name was Matthew.”

Chris nods like he knew that part was coming.

But Eddie isn’t even close to done.

“We were… close,” he says. “Very close. And I never– I didn't talk about him. Not to your mom, not to your grandparents, not even to myself for a long time. He was part of my life when everything felt really confusing and dangerous and uncertain. And I cared about him. A lot.”

He pauses, waiting for the fear to hit. The fear of saying it out loud, the fear of breaking something delicate between them.

It doesn’t come.

So he goes on.

“He was important to me. More than just a friend.”

Chris doesn’t flinch. He just watches, quiet and steady. Like he's putting pieces together, calculating something. 

And Eddie knows  if he stops now, it’ll be worse. If he gives half the truth, he’ll spend the rest of his life choking on the other half.

So he pushes forward.

“And I– I liked him,” Eddie says finally, the words landing with a weight that feels both terrifying and relieving. “In the way sometimes you like someone a little bit more than a friend.”

Chris blinks. “Like dating?”

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers. “Yeah. Like dating.”

He waits for the world to tilt. For the disappointment. The confusion. The hurt.

Instead, Chris just sets his fork down and says, perfectly calm. “Dad…I know.”

Eddie’s entire brain blue-screens.

“You–what?”

Chris shrugs, like it’s obvious. “I mean… yeah. I’ve known.”

“You– you've  known.” Eddie repeats it like he’s trying out a foreign language. “Since when?”

Chris taps his chin. “Uh… a long time? Maybe since I was ten? Or eleven?” He squints. “Definitely before I started high school.”

Eddie grips the edge of the table. “And how – uh–how exactly did you know?”

Chris gives him a flat, unamused teenage look. “Dad, you make the stupid eyes at Buck.”

Eddie chokes on absolutely nothing.

Chris keeps going, completely unfazed. “And he makes heart eyes at you. Like, all the time. Literally constantly. It’s actually kinda gross.” He wrinkles his nose. “No offense.”

Eddie feels heat crawl all the way up his neck. “Chris–”

“I thought you guys were dating,” Chris continues breezily, cutting him off. “For, like, a long time.”

Eddie freezes. “You…wait what?”

“Well yeah,” Chris says. “Back when I was a kid, you and Buck did everything together. He was always here. You talked a lot. You were happy. And I figured… cool, my dad has a boyfriend.”

Eddie’s soul leaves his body. He's no longer on this earth. He died during that last fire call and this is his punishment. The idea that he's been gay this whole time and everyone but him knew about it. Even his kid. 

“And then,” Chris adds, spearing a meatball, “you started dating other people. And I thought that meant you and Buck broke up.”

Eddie makes a strangled sound he’s pretty sure isn’t human.

“Dad, do you remember when I yelled at you that time for no reason after school?” Chris continues casually. “Like I got all mad that you picked me up instead of Buck?”

“Uh,” Eddie croaks, “yes?”

“That was why.” Chris shrugs. “I thought you broke up with him and I didn’t understand why.”

Eddie drops his face into his hands.

“Omigod,” he mutters.

Chris laughs, big and bright and unburdened. “It was really dramatic. I cried a lot. Abuelita told me I was being ridiculous. She definitely knew too.”

Eddie’s head jerks up. “She what?!”

“Anyway,” Chris says, waving a hand, “I figured out later that you guys weren’t actually together. But I still kinda thought… maybe you should be? Or you would be eventually. I–i thought maybe after the whole Tommy thing and I was in Texas you would– I thought maybe you just didn't want me to know or something. I don't know.” 

Eddie’s jaw is somewhere on the floor. 

Chris peers at him gently. “Dad… I’m not upset. I’m not confused. I’m not weirded out. I’ve literally known since I was, like, tiny. And it’s not a big deal to me.”

Eddie’s chest aches.

And then something inside him shakes loose and drops,  like a stone he’s been balancing precariously for years finally falling where it belongs.

“So you’re okay with this?” he asks quietly, voice cracking in a way he hates. It's too vulnerable. 

“Dad,” Chris says, leaning forward, “I love you. You’re my dad. You’re the best dad ever. Who you like doesn’t change that.” He smiles.  “If anything, it makes more sense now.”

Eddie is not the crying type.

He’s cried more in the last few weeks than he has in years.

But this… this hits like a punch straight down into the softest part of him.

He clears his throat roughly. “I–I wanted to be honest with you, mijo. I didn’t want to hide anything from you.”

Chris nods. “I know. And I’m glad you told me.” Then he grins again. “But seriously, Dad? I’ve been waiting for you to figure this out for, like, forever.”

Eddie laughs helplessly. “Okay, okay, enough.”

“I’m just saying.” Chris points his fork at him. “You and Buck are very obvious.”

Eddie shakes his head, a helpless smile tugging at his mouth. “We’re not— Chris, Buck and I aren’t—”

Chris cuts him off effortlessly. “Not yet.”

Eddie opens his mouth to argue. But nothing comes out. Because he can’t deny the truth;  not after everything he’s been remembering, everything he’s been feeling, everything he keeps trying to bury under sand and silence.

Not after the hot tub or the ways Buck looked at him. Not after the way he wanted. He swallows hard, eyes trained on his own almost untouched plate of food. 

Chris watches him carefully for a moment before speaking again. “Dad? You’re allowed to be happy. You know that, right?”

The words land like a gentle hand on an old bruise.

“I want to be. I just– I don’t want to mess anything up. Not for you.”

Chris snorts. “I’m fine. I promise.” He pokes at his pasta. “But you don’t have to… not want things. Just because you’re my dad.”

Eddie stares at him.

This kid. This incredible, perceptive, painfully kind kid. His son, who has seen right through him since he was barely tall enough to reach the table. He's not sure how he got so lucky.

Chris gives him a small, reassuring smile.

“You can have good things too,” he says simply.

Eddie’s breath shakes. He reaches across the table, placing his hand over Chris’s with a soft squeeze. His son squeezes back immediately 

And for the first time in a long, long time, maybe ever, Eddie lets himself imagine a world where wanting something for himself isn’t the beginning of disaster. A world where wanting isn’t dangerous. Where needing isn’t selfish and loving doesn't mean loss. 

A world where Buck…

Where Buck might not be the threat he’s spent years pretending he is.

Eddie takes a slow breath.

“Thanks, bud,” he murmurs, squeezing Chris’s hand again. “For being honest with me. And for… being you.”

Chris beams at him. “Anytime, Dad.”

California feels too big.

Too open, too loud, too bright; even in the dim glow of a single lamp Eddie hasn’t bothered to turn fully on. The bulb hums low in the corner of the tiny bedroom, casting uneven shadows across the bare walls, like the place is waiting to figure out who he is before it decides what shape to take.

He sits on the edge of a mattress he bought that afternoon at a discount store, the kind that comes rolled tight in a box and takes hours to inflate. It still smells like plastic and factory glue. His clothes are folded in one half-open suitcase. The other sits zipped at the foot of the bed. He's too tired to even attempt to unpack it 

It’s quiet, almost in a way that's overwhelming. Chris is asleep down the hall in his new room, tuckered out from the drive and the move and the promise of beaches and new adventures. Eddie kept his voice brave for him all day, upbeat and steady, talking about how they were going to make a life here, how everything was going to be okay.

Now, in the silence, the bravado slips right through his fingers.

Eddie rests his elbows on his knees. His hands hang uselessly between them, palms open, as if he’s waiting for something to settle into them. A direction. A feeling. An answer to why the hell he still can’t breathe right when he thinks too long about Texas soil and desert heat and all the places he left pieces of himself behind in. 

He reaches for his duffel bag without looking, fingers brushing past shaving cream, socks, a half-empty bottle of Tylenol, until they find the worn fabric-wrapped rectangle tucked deep in the front pocket.

The photo makes a soft rustle as he frees it.

Matthew looks up at him from a few years ago, smile bright and eyes gentle. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Eddie like he always did, easy and unselfconscious and so damn warm it hurts even now.

The room feels colder with the photo in his hands.

He shouldn’t have brought it. He knows that. He told himself over and over during the drive to the drive. Leave it in Texas, leave it buried. But when he zipped that bag, the photo was already inside, like it had willed itself there.

“We made it,” Eddie whispers anyway, voice shaky in the way he’d never admit out loud. “California. Whole new start.”

The words hang in the stale air, weighty and strange. Because saying them out loud makes the truth echo louder. Matthew was supposed to be part of that start. He was supposed to come back with Eddie, step off a plane with him, promise him stupid things like getting a place near the water, or finding a diner they’d go to every Sunday, or raising Chris in a neighborhood where kids rode their bikes until sunset.

Matthew was supposed to be alive.

Matthew was supposed to be here.

Eddie closes his eyes, just for a second, and the memory slides in uninvited–the soft rustle of sheets in an empty barracks, Matthew’s chest under his cheek, the quiet murmur of imagined futures. The kind you whisper only when the world is asleep and hope feels allowed.

God, he can almost hear him.

Someplace new, Eddie. Just us. We could do it.

Instead he’s alone in a rented room thousands of miles away, trying to build a life out of nothing but drywall and determination.

He looks down at the photo again. His thumb drags across the edge, following the faint bend in the corner from years of handling. Matthew’s eyes in the picture are steady, soft, and so full of something Eddie never gave a name to.

He should’ve burned this photo. He knows it. There’s no logic in keeping a memory that feels like a bruise. No sense in holding onto a ghost when he’s trying so damn hard to be a father, to be a man who makes the right choices, the safe choices.

But he can’t let go. Not tonight.

The nightstand drawer slides open with a dry scrape. Inside is empty, a hollow space waiting for something to claim it. He sets the photo inside, face up. It lands with a soft whisper of paper against wood. 

“We’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs. Not sure who he’s talking to. Maybe himself. Maybe Matthew. Maybe both.

He closes the drawer. The click is quiet but final, sealing the memory away where it can’t leak into the parts of him that still hoped too loud.

Eddie lies back on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. The room around him feels foreign and too bright, like California hasn’t decided if it wants him either.

Eventually, exhaustion pulls him under, slow and heavy.

And in the drawer beside him, the photo waits, patient and silent. Suspended between the life Eddie’s choosing and the one he never got the chance to have.

Eddie doesn’t even hear Buck come up the walkway.

He should. He's trained for that, lived entire years with his nerves tuned so sharply that footsteps in gravel could yank him awake from the deepest sleep. But tonight he’s standing at the stove, staring at a pan of rice he forgot about twenty minutes ago, letting it burn into a single dry layer. His thoughts are still tangled around last night and Chris’s face when he said I know, Dad, the unshaken calm in his voice, the relief and ache bleeding into one. Eddie had taken it all like a punch to the ribs.

He’s still standing there when someone knocks twice, hard, and then pushes the door open.

Of course Buck doesn’t wait. Of course he just walks in like he always has. Except this time it spears right through Eddie’s chest. He isn't ready to see him right now, doesn't have all the words yet. 

“Hey,” Buck says, voice already on edge, not letting Eddie even attempt a greeting. “We need to talk.”

Eddie jolts, slams the stove off, and turns, wiping his hands on a towel even though they’re not wet. “You can’t just—you can’t barge in like–”

“Oh spare me,” Buck snaps, waving a hand and marching into the kitchen like he owns it. “You said that when I first met you and you didn’t mean it then either.”

“Buck–”

“No.” Buck’s finger is pointed straight at him, blue eyes sharp. “We talked two weeks ago. We sat in my damn hot tub and I thought we were okay and we were getting somewhere and then you do this? You disappear again? You dodge my calls? Pretend you’re fine on shift and then bolt the second we’re done?”

Eddie backs up so abruptly he hits the counter. “I’m not– I’m not doing anything.”

“Bullshit!” Buck’s voice cracks upward. “You’re pulling away from me again and I don’t know what the hell I did!”

Eddie’s chest tightens. Hard. “You didn’t do anything. It’s– it’s complicated.”

Buck laughs at that. It's not mean, just bewildered. Hurt. The sound slices Eddie open. “You know what’s complicated? Trying to be your friend when you yank the rug out from under me every other week.”

Eddie flinches. “Buck–”

“You asked me to let you in after the lightning strike, remember that?” Buck demands, closing the distance between them. “You told me to stop being afraid of needing people. But you? You’re doing the exact same thing and pretending it’s different!”

“That’s not– that’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Buck’s voice is warm and furious all at once. “Because it feels pretty damn fair from where I’m standing.”

Eddie’s pulse hammers, climbing too fast. The walls feel too close. The air feels thin. Buck keeps going, stepping forward until Eddie has nowhere left to go but backward, deeper into the kitchen.

“You’re doing the thing again,” Buck says, softer but more devastating. “The thing where you look right at me and pretend you don’t see me.”

Eddie opens his mouth to respond, to argue, deny, deflect.  but the words don’t come. They clog somewhere in his throat and burn.

Buck shakes his head, hurt spreading across his whole face. “Talk to me. Just talk to me, Eddie.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Buck’s voice breaks open. “Why not me? Why not now?”

And something inside Eddie, something old, something buried so deep he thought he’d killed it,  snaps.

He moves before he thinks.

One step. Then another. One grab. One helpless, desperate choice.

He fists a hand in Buck’s shirt, yanks him forward, and kisses him.

Buck’s breath catches against Eddie’s mouth, a single sharp, startled inhale, and then he’s kissing him back. It's all heat and tension and a low sound Eddie swears he can feel straight through his ribs.

It’s messy. Angry. Too much.

But it’s also the realest thing Eddie’s felt in years.

Buck’s hands slam onto his waist in a harsh, bruising grip, steadying them both, dragging Eddie closer like he’s been waiting for this, like he’s been starving for it. Eddie opens to him helplessly, everything he’s been shoving down roaring to the surface like a broken dam.

When they finally rip apart, both of them panting, Buck’s forehead falls against Eddie’s.

“What–” Buck’s voice is shredded. “What the hell was that?”

Eddie can’t breathe. Not right. Not enough.

“The truth,” he chokes out. “Or–I–part of it.”

Buck pulls back just enough to search his face. “Eddie. What's going on?”

Eddie’s hands tremble. He lets go of Buck’s shirt and steps back, rubbing both palms over his face like he can hide behind them.

“You want the truth?” Eddie says, voice shaking. “Fine. Here. You get all of it.”

Buck swallows, nodding.

Eddie closes his eyes.

And opens the door he’s kept locked for far too many years. 

“There was someone,” he says quietly. “In the army. His name was Matthew.”

Buck goes utterly still. It's almost like he isn't even breathing. 

“We were–” Eddie’s voice cracks. “We were together. As much as we could be. We– it was real. It was– God, Buck, it was the first time I felt–”

He breaks off, sucking in a shaking breath.

“He died,” Eddie whispers. “On my first tour. And I couldn’t save him.”

Buck’s face softens in a way that hurts.

Eddie keeps going because if he stops he’ll never get the rest out.

“And Shannon–she died–she–and I couldn’t save her either. Bobby died and I wasn’t there to save him. Abuela… gone. Those people I pulled out? They're all gone too.  All of them. Everyone I– everyone I cared about. Everyone I've ever loved–just–they–” 

Buck opens his mouth, but Eddie shakes his head sharply.

“I’m not done.”

Buck shuts it again.

Eddie’s voice drops to a raw, shaking whisper.

“And then you.” He meets Buck’s eyes, chest splitting open at the face he sees.  “You died, Buck.”

Buck’s breath stutters but he doesn't try to interrupt. Not yet. 

“You died,” Eddie repeats, like the words can’t help but come out. “You got struck by lightning and you died. I watched them do CPR on you, and I prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed for anything in my life. I dont–I don't know where I stand with God but I used everything I could to try and bring you back. And then you–you woke up. Somehow. A miracle. But I don’t get miracles, Buck, I don’t–I don’t get to keep people. I don’t get second chances.”

“Eddie–”

“No,” Eddie says, voice rising, trembling with fear he can’t control. “You don’t get it. I can’t– I can’t love you.”

Buck looks like Eddie slapped him.

Eddie forces the words out anyway, every one tearing something open on the way.

“If I love you, it means I’m going to lose you. And I can’t do that again. I can’t bury another person who– who matters.” His voice is thick, breaking a part at the seams, but he can't stop the words as they spill out between them. “I can’t love you because you’ll die too and I won’t–I can’t survive that.”

Buck stares at him like his heart has been split clean down the middle.

Then he steps forward.

Slowly. Deliberately.

“Eddie,” he whispers. “Look at me.”

Eddie shakes his head, breath stuttering. “Buck—”

“Look at me.”

Eddie does. Because he'll never be able to dent this man anything. 

And Buck reaches up and cups Eddie’s face in both hands. Gentle. Steady. Warm. Like Eddie’s not something fragile. Like Eddie’s not something doomed.

Buck leans in, rests their foreheads together.

“You think loving me will kill me,” Buck says quietly. “But Eddie… I’ve already died. And I came back.”

Eddie’s throat tightens painfully.

“I came back to you,” Buck says, voice soft as a vow. “I’ve always found my way back to you. And Chris.” 

Eddie’s breath shudders out of him.

“And I always will.”

Buck kisses him again.

It's not like that first one. that one was desperation and heat and confusion wrapped into a brief touch. This one is soft, gentle. This one is an answer to a question he didn't even know how to ask. 

Eddie melts into it, helpless and terrified. And Buck holds him like he’s the safest thing in the world. Like what they're doing isn't a nuclear bomb threatening to detonate at any moment. 

The kiss breaks only because they both need air, but Buck doesn’t move his hands. Doesn’t back away. He stays right there, thumbs brushing Eddie’s cheekbones like Eddie’s allowed to be held. Allowed to want this. Allowed to love and be loved in return, somehow without fear. 

Eddie lets out a shaky exhale.

Buck smiles. It's small and warm and unbearably gentle.

“Let me stay,” he whispers. “Let me stay this time.”

Eddie’s eyes close. His forehead drops to Buck’s. And in a voice that breaks and heals in the same breath, Eddie whispers back, 

“Okay.”

Buck kisses him again. And again. And again.

Until the kitchen disappears, and the fear melts, and the only thing left is the thing Eddie’s been running from for half his life–

Love.