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There are too many stars in the sky.
Eddie squints at them in disbelief. On a normal night in downtown L.A., he’d be lucky to spot even one star through the fluorescent haze, let alone a sky flooded with them. He blinks, waiting for their glow to resolve into something more familiar—a streetlight, a high-rise full of windows, something man-made—but nothing changes. They’re still there, bright and beautiful, a thousand twinkling points of light that dance across his vision, cutting through the wave of darkness creeping in at the edges. Eddie smiles at the sight.
Or he tries to, at least. He can’t remember when smiling became so exhausting.
…He also can’t remember deciding to go stargazing.
God, he picked an awful night for it. The evening air is unusually cold for a summer night in Southern California, and though his mind can’t quite make sense of it, he can’t deny the way his body starts to shiver, limbs curling inward to preserve what little body heat he has left.
Eddie fumbles for his pockets, hoping to protect his hands from the worst of the cold until his knuckles brush past something better. A strange, spreading heat just above his right hip, its warmth so enticing that he can’t help but chase the feeling to its source. He presses in, and a soft sigh slips free as relief finally coats his trembling fingers, hot and wet and oddly sticky.
The pain follows a second later. It tears a choked whimper from between Eddie’s teeth, pinpricks of light flashing behind his eyes as they squeeze shut.
He presses harder. The stars burn brighter.
The air smells like blood.
“Wh—” Eddie groans, huffing a breath between lips he can barely feel. The wound beneath his hand throbs, weeping blood, sapping his strength with each passing second, and he has to summon everything he has in him to force his lips to move. “H…help…”
He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. He doesn’t even know where he is. All Eddie knows is that he’s bleeding, and cold, and there are too many stars in the sky.
“Eddie!”
Eddie’s eyes drift to his right at the sound of a frantic voice, scanning the gray wall he just now realized he’s leaning up against. He blinks, trying to reconcile the sight of it with the sky full of stars hanging over his head.
“Come on, Eds, where are you? Whe—…oh God. Eddie? Eddie!”
What sounds like a pair of fists slams into the wall near Eddie’s head, exacerbating the pounding ache steadily growing behind his eyes. He shrinks away from it with a groan, and the person on the other side gasps sharply.
“Eddie, is that you? I’m—” The voice sounds panicked, terrified, but Eddie doesn’t have it in him to reassure them—and even if he did, he’s not sure he could do it without lying. “I’m coming in. Just hang on. Maddie, it’s him, tell them—”
A second later, the wall starts to move. Eddie’s head spins at the sight of it, his mind struggling to keep up—walls aren’t supposed to move, stars don’t shine inside, why the hell is he bleeding—as it splits in half, revealing a tall figure silhouetted in flashing red light. The figure is by his side in a heartbeat, slamming their fingers repeatedly against a part of the wall behind Eddie’s head until the gap slowly closes, sealing them into the small space.
“Shit,” the figure swears desperately under their breath, covering Eddie’s bloodstained hands with their own. “Oh God, Eddie. You’re—fuck, okay. You’re gonna be fine. Alright? You’re gonna be fine. We just—we just have to wait until this is over. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
‘Until what is over?’ Eddie wants to ask. His head hasn’t stopped spinning, his vision going in and out of focus with every ragged breath, and it takes all of his energy to steady his eyes long enough to get a good look at the person hovering over him.
A slow, soft smile spreads across his lips.
“Chris…” he sighs with relief, reaching a shaky hand up towards the familiar head of brown curls.
“W-What?” Chris asks, dodging Eddie’s attempt to touch his hair. “Eddie, don’t—”
“Hey—” Eddie hisses when Chris’ hand presses more firmly over the gaping hole in his abdomen, stomach twisting when he can hear the sick gurgle of blood seeping over his fingers. “Jesus. Don’t…don’t call me by my first name. I’m still your dad.”
Chris makes a noise, then, a strained whimper that sounds as confused as it does heartbroken, and Eddie’s own heart shatters in his chest at the sound. His son shouldn’t be here to see this. Eddie doesn’t even know where here is, but he can tell it has nothing to offer them but blood and gore and death, and Chris has seen enough of all three to last a lifetime.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Chris. You don’t—” Eddie coughs, mouth twisting into a grimace as a spray of blood hits his tongue. “…You don’t deserve this. Not again.”
“Don't talk like that,” Chris says sharply, more desperate than angry. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
Eddie manages a close-lipped smile. He doesn’t want Chris to see the blood on his teeth.
“I know, buddy. I want to be. I promised—” His throat gets tighter. “I promised myself I’d never let you lose another parent.”
For a long time, Chris doesn’t say anything. Eddie has to force himself not to push him, to give him time they don’t have as his proverbial doomsday clock ticks closer and closer to midnight. Eventually, the silence is broken by a sniffle.
“You’re not,” Chris insists, voice thick with tears. “You’re not, okay? You’re coming home. I’m—I’m gonna bring you home.”
Eddie tries to shake his head. He’s pretty sure he succeeds, but the cold is starting to seep beneath his skin, so it’s hard to feel much of anything anymore.
“I don’t think so, mijo,” Eddie huffs. He’s gotten hurt before, gotten close to death before, but this—this is different. He knows this is different. “I need you to listen to me, okay? Before—”
Eddie lets the words die on his tongue, but they both hear them.
Before I go.
“…O-Okay.” Eddie thinks he sees Chris nod, but it’s hard to make anything out apart from the puffy edges of his curls. “Okay. I’m listening.”
Eddie sucks in a deep breath, gritting his teeth against a flare of pain in his belly. “My will is in the fire safe in my closet. The combination is fifty-two—” He loses his words for a moment, tongue faltering while his brain catches up with his mouth. “—s-seventeen, sixty-four. Say it back to me.”
“Fifty-two. Seventeen. Sixty-four,” Chris repeats between soft, wet breaths. Eddie squeezes his hand as hard as he can. It’s the only thing he has the strength to do. “I got it.”
“Good,” Eddie sighs, a warm burst of relief cutting through the worst of the cold settling into his bones. “That’s all you’ll need. Just give it to Buck, he’ll—”
Eddie’s eyes go wide. Unseeing, unblinking, he scrambles to grab Chris’ wrist, and God, it’s so much bigger than he remembers, the width of it so shockingly huge in his grip that in that moment, he realizes how lucky he’s been to watch his son grow up. To see him go from the sweet, innocent little boy he once knew to the incredible young man Eddie always knew he would become.
Shannon wasn’t so lucky.
Connor and Kameron wouldn’t be either.
“Chris, you have to—” Eddie pleads desperately, unsure of what he’s even going to say before the words are spilling past his mouth. “He has to know. He has to—”
“Hey, hey, slow down,” Chris murmurs softly, trying to soothe Eddie’s pounding heart before he bleeds out even faster. “What do I—what does he have to know?”
Eddie swallows roughly. Darkness looms in his periphery, the constant threat of oblivion forcing him to keep his eyes open. He won’t let himself slip away. Not yet. He has something important to say.
Desperate for something to keep him focused, he stares up at the stars. The tiny, impossible points of light drift across his vision, aimless at first, until slowly, deliberately, they start to shift into familiar shapes. Recognition blooms in Eddie’s chest, sudden and awed, as fragments of memory emerge from the constellations.
Buck, face lax, asleep on Maddie’s couch with baby Nash cradled against his chest.
Buck, fingertips streaked with glittery nail polish, beaming as he shows off his latest manicure from Jee-Yun.
Buck, shielding Theo’s eyes from the horror of his parents dying in front of him.
Buck, happily carrying Chris on his shoulders for three straight hours at the LA Zoo.
Buck, dragging Chris’ fragile little body out of a roaring tsunami with his bare hands.
Buck, mouth agape, struck dumb by the simple fact that Eddie trusts him enough to leave his son to him in his will.
Buck, smiling.
Buck, laughing.
Buck, breathing.
Buck. Buck. Buck.
“He has to know that he can do this,” Eddie finally says, more breath than actual speech. His eyes drift back towards Chris’ blurry face, and he can’t help but smile. “Theo, a-and you. He can be what you both need. H-He…he already is.”
Chris doesn’t even attempt to hide his tears anymore. His wails tear raggedly from his chest, raw and primal and so deeply, profoundly hurt that Eddie almost finds the energy to drag him into his arms. If the blood loss doesn’t kill him, the shard of guilt carving through his heart definitely will.
“Please,” Eddie begs, hating himself for having to ask even more of his grieving child. “Let Buck take care of you, okay? He’s—he’s gonna be such a good dad.” He hears Chris start to protest through his sobs, but Eddie is quick to cut him off. “I know, I know I’m your dad. And no matter where I go, I’ll always be your dad, Chris, but Buck…he’s your dad, too.”
“Eddie—”
“He has been for years,” Eddie insists, as firm as he can manage with the air barely clearing his lungs. “Y-you belong to him just as much as you belong to me, and he's—he’s gonna need you. To be his family. To be Theo’s family.”
Chris shakes his head so violently, Eddie can see it without even having to squint. “He’s not—”
“He is.” Eddie manages a fond smile, soft and shaky. “I know he is. If Theo needs him, h-he’s gonna give him a home. A good home.” He presses his lips flat, swallowing back the wave of tears tightening his throat. “I wanted to…be here to help. I was gonna—ha, gonna ask if he wanted to move back in with us. To raise our family together, l-like…like we should have from the start.”
Chris sucks in a sharp breath. A shocked silence falls over the room, only broken by a few stray sniffles. Not that Eddie can blame him—this is the first time he’s said it out loud, the first time he’s let anyone else in on the secret he’s been trying to bury for longer than he can remember.
Ever since he joined the 118, Eddie has lived with a second heart in his chest. Its warm, steady rhythm beats so perfectly in sync with his own that most of the time, he forgets it’s even there. He lets it take up space in the safety of his ribcage, too stubborn to admit that it’s the only thing keeping him going on his worst days, too scared to ask himself what that might mean because he knows the answer would tear his friendship, his sanity, his life, to pieces.
It was the drive to El Paso that finally broke him. Somewhere around the Arizona state line, a sudden emptiness in his chest struck him like a bolt of lightning, and he realized he’d gone too far. He couldn’t feel Buck’s heart anymore.
He pulled over to the side of the I-10, threw his truck in park, and sobbed into the steering wheel so hard the cab shook with it.
He’s been coming to terms with his feelings for Buck ever since. And he knows, he knows, he should’ve said something by now. He never should’ve let Buck drag him out to that club, or the bachelor auction, or those stupid Nashville honky-tonks, when they could’ve had each other this whole time.
He just—he thought he had more time. Time to figure out who he is. Time to work up the courage to let this long-neglected part of himself see the sun without worrying if he’ll get burned. Time to tear his chest to bloody shreds and pry open his ribcage so Buck could look inside and see how good a job Eddie’s done at taking care of his heart.
They were supposed to have so much time.
“Please, don’t…” Chris sniffs hard, squeezing Eddie’s hand. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“Of course I mean it,” Eddie says, struggling not to cough between words. It’s getting harder and harder to talk, but he can’t stop. He has to get it all out before it’s too late. “Listen to me. I made Buck your guardian because there is n-no one in this world who will fight for you the way he will. If I can’t be with you, both of you, then I need you to have each other. I need you to—” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “—to love each other the way I love you. Because…God, I love you. I love you so much, Chris. I love…”
Eddie finally starts to cry.
“I love Buck.”
Chris sucks in a shaky breath. It’s ragged, and wet, like he’s going to start sobbing again any second. In the swirling pit of his blood-starved mind, Eddie curses himself for dropping such a massive bomb on his kid right before he has to leave him, but he couldn’t help it. Someone had to know.
He couldn’t let the truth die with him.
“…He loves you, too,” Chris finally says, a forlorn whisper in the looming silence. “He loves you so, so much.”
Bloody teeth be damned, Eddie’s mouth curves into a gentle smile.
“I hope so,” he mumbles. His eyes flutter shut, muscles going lax, his consciousness on the brink of fading into impending oblivion when— “Wait. One more thing.”
With a trembling hand, Eddie reaches into his pants pocket. His fingers meet cold metal, the tacky blood clinging to his skin helping him maintain his grip as he pulls out a simple silver medallion, all too similar to his own. He holds it up, arms shaking with effort, until Chris finally takes it from him.
“Give this to Buck,” he says, curling Chris’s fist closed around the necklace. “I was gonna give it to him if…if he brought Theo home. I w-want him to have it.”
The metal chain clinks softly as Chris lifts the medallion closer to his face.
“...Saint Theodore,” he murmurs in awe. “Like—”
“Like my Saint Christopher,” Eddie answers for him, hand drifting up to touch the medallion hanging around his neck. “Yeah.”
“How did you—?”
“Tia Pepa.” Eddie smiles at the thought of her, soft and sad. “I stopped by her house on our way into work this morning to pick it up. She bought it while I was overseas.” He huffs a weary laugh. “Saint Theodore is the patron saint of s-soldiers. Kind of ironic, if you think about it.”
Chris tries to say something, but it comes out as a whimper, the words strangled by the lump of grief tightening his throat. Eddie squeezes his hand, but his grip is noticeably weaker now. The darkness is closing in fast. He isn’t ready to go—he’ll never be ready to go—but at this point, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have much say in it anymore.
“Tell her I love her, okay?” he asks shakily, unsure if what he says even sounds like words. “And Hen, and Chim. Maddie, and Karen, and Athena. Just—tell everyone I love them. And that I’m sorry.”
“Don’t—don’t say that,” Chris pleads, ragged, desperate. “Don’t go. Don’t go, please, don’t—”
Lips frozen, eyes going dim, Eddie squeezes his son’s hand one last time.
“I’m so sorry, mijo,” he breathes. “I love you so much. I lo—ah!”
Eddie’s eyes roll back into his head, blind with pain, and Chris’ touch turns frantic, his voice a warbled mess that Eddie can barely make out as his belly explodes with renewed agony.
“Don’t—Eddie, pl—need you, I need you, I love you—”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Eddie insists, even with blood filling his mouth. “I love you. It’s gonna be okay.”
He loses consciousness before he can finish his sentence. The last thing he sees before the darkness consumes him is the wall to his right slowly sliding open, a tousled head of curls, and a pair of blue, bloodshot eyes.
~oOo~
Consciousness slams into Eddie’s skull like a wrecking ball.
There is no sweet, gentle ascent from the depths of his slumber, no birds singing outside his window to slowly coax him back to full awareness. There’s just nothing, and then all at once there’s everything, antiseptic in his nose and pain in his limbs and the sharp, familiar beep of a heart monitor in his ear. From what Eddie can tell through the sudden, all-encompassing sensory overload, it sounds strong. Regular. Blissful, normal sinus rhythm.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
“Ngh…” he groans, slowly convincing his eyes to open, and—oh God, Jesus, why do hospitals have to be so fucking bright?
…Hospital. That’s where he was. Not outside, not stargazing, or whatever the hell else his mind came up with while it was slowly being starved of blood and oxygen. He was in the hospital, in the chapel, praying for Athena to make it through her surgery because he knew it’s what Bobby would’ve done, and then—
Detective Hooks. Fuck, Eddie knew there was something up with that guy.
He’d left Eddie to die in that chapel, blood splattered against the pews in a way that could’ve passed for spilled communion wine if he squinted. He probably hadn’t expected Eddie to drag himself out of the room, down the hall, and into an elevator—the moving wall, Jesus Christ, he must’ve lost a lot of blood. Not enough to kill him, clearly, but enough to completely rob him of his senses and dull his memory of the whole ordeal. He’s not even sure how long he was in there before–-before…
Eddie finally manages to fully open his eyes, and there, bowed in prayer next to his bed, is a familiar head of curls.
“...Buck.”
Buck straightens with a soft gasp, eyes wide and red-rimmed as they bore into Eddie’s with something akin to disbelief.
“Eddie,” he breathes brokenly, fists tightening around the silver chain clutched between them like a lifeline. “H-Hey.”
“...Athena?”
“She’s okay,” Buck says, relief softening his features. “That detective got caught trying to force his way into her OR, but he never made it past the door. By the time they moved her to recovery, SWAT had him in cuffs."
"Thank God." Eddie lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "What about the others?"
"They're fine. Everyone sheltered in place in the waiting room until they found him. I, uh—I was there, but Maddie told me the shooter had been spotted near the chapel, and I…” He shrugs, a bit bashful. “I sort of went after him."
Eddie's heart sinks into his stomach. "Did you...did he see—?"
"What? No, no, hey. I'm good, Eds. I'm fine. He was gone before I even got there," Buck reassures him. A beat, and then the light in his eyes dulls, just a bit. "It's you you should be worried about."
Eddie swallows hard, taking reluctant stock of his stiff, aching muscles. “How…how long have I been out?”
“Two days,” Buck answers instantly, tugging his chair closer to Eddie’s side. “The bullet nicked the lower tip of your liver and basically destroyed your right kidney. It was a through-and-through, so the surgery wasn’t all that complicated, but you'd lost a lot of blood before they got you in the OR. You…you coded on the table.” He swallows roughly. “Twice.”
Eddie lets out a shaky sigh—of shock, fear, relief, or maybe a bit of all three. "Oh."
"I thought..." Buck shakes his head ruefully, sniffing hard against a wave of tears tightening his throat. "I thought I was gonna lose you. There was...so much blood, Eddie."
"I know. I know, I'm sorr—"
All at once, the breath rushes out of Eddie’s lungs.
Buck went looking for him. Buck saw the blood. Buck found him. Which means—
…Oh.
Slowly, careful of the tubes and wires snaking across his torso, Eddie stretches out his hand, palm up, and waits with bated breath until Buck covers it with his own.
He's still holding the chain. The cool metal feels familiar against the pads of Eddie’s fingers.
“...The medallion,” he says, turning Buck’s hand over so he can see the image of Saint Theodore nestled in Buck’s palm. The icon’s edge is still streaked with blood–Eddie’s blood. “You…I thought you were Chris.”
“Yeah,” Buck confirms. The word breaks a bit in the back of his throat, soft and weepy. “You were really out of it, man. You said…”
Buck’s voice trails off. He lets his gaze fall to the paper-thin blanket covering the lower half of Eddie’s body, the ID bracelet wrapped around his wrist, the IV sticking out from the crook of his elbow—anywhere but his eyes.
“Hey,” Eddie says softly, giving Buck’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “What did I say?”
The thing is, Eddie knows what he said. Everything that happened in that elevator is a bit of a blur, but that? He remembers that part in great detail.
And best of all, he remembers what Buck said back.
Buck shakes his head. He still won’t look at him. “It’s fine, Eddie, you don’t have to—”
“Buck,” Eddie cuts him off. His throat hurts, voice raspy from disuse, but he doesn’t care. He needs to hear Buck say it again. “Tell me. Please.”
For a moment, Buck doesn’t say anything. Then, gathering up his courage, he takes a breath, swallows it down, and finally looks up to meet Eddie’s gaze, his eyes brimming with cautious hope.
“You told me you loved me.” A hesitant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Among other things.”
Eddie beams. He’d meant to let the words hang in the air for at least a few seconds, just to keep Buck on his toes, but God, he can’t help it. He said it. He said it, and Buck heard it, and they’re both still in one piece…relatively speaking. He’s standing in the sun, letting the light shine on each and every part of him, and it’s warm, and good, and right.
“Good,” Eddie finally says, soothing his thumb across the racing pulse point in Buck’s wrist. “Because I do. I…I love you, Buck.”
Buck’s eyes immediately start to water. He tightens his grip on Eddie’s hand, squeezing hard enough to leave a Saint Theodore-shaped imprint in the meat of his palm.
“…What a coincidence,” he breathes, lips finally spreading into that smile Eddie loves so much. “Because I’m pretty sure I said I love you, too.”
Eddie snorts under his breath. “Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm.” Buck leans in, carefully closing the space between them until he’s hovering over the bed, his mouth only inches from Eddie’s. “Not sure if you remember. You were a little busy making the elevator look like that scene from The Shining.”
“Wow,” Eddie laughs, wincing at the brief flare of pain in his gut. “I almost die, and you're already cracking jokes.”
“It's how I cope,” Buck shrugs, his playful grin softening into something that melts Eddie’s insides into goo—if Detective Hooks only knew the kind of damage Buck’s smile could’ve done to him, he would have never bothered with a gun. “But you love me, anyway.”
The heart monitor beeps, the IV drips, and the room still reeks of hospital.
Eddie stopped noticing any of it the second Buck climbed into his bed.
“Yeah,” he breathes, letting his smile brush against Buck’s waiting mouth as it slowly descends. “I do.”
And when luck finally kisses him, Eddie swears he can see the stars behind his eyes.