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"Kind of anticlimactic, huh?"
Eddie blinks, looks around at the wooden pews of the church, the light that filters gold through stained glass windows.
"Shannon?" he asks, though that voice is etched upon his heart more dearly than any scripture or verse.
Shannon leans her elbows on the altar, hair falling over the sunshine-yellow of her dress, her mischievous smile. "Hey, Eddie."
Eddie takes her in for a moment, another. "Am I dead?" he asks, feeling the cushions beneath his knees, the solidity of the wood under his forearms. It all feels so real, except for how he can't quite focus his eyes.
Shannon rolls her eyes, leans forward a little. "You're definitely not getting any more alive," she tells him, with the same kind of exasperated matter-of-factness that she used to use to tell him how to change Christopher's diapers. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I--" blood through his shirt, a young man and his dead father, a light. "I got stabbed. In the-- the church." He looks around. "Is that why I'm here?"
"It's probably more the rampant Catholicism," Shannon retorts. "You would want to spend your dying moments in a church, Eddie."
"But I'm not dead," Eddie says, looking away from her, around the bright-haze of the structure around him. There's something in the rhythm of his heart, a ringing in his ears. "I can't be dead."
"Why not? People die, Eddie. That's just what happens." a smile like a blade in his gut. "That's what happened to me."
Eddie closes his eyes. Blood on concrete, a hand in his. "I can't die here," he says. "I have to get back."
He stands up, and his knees buckle beneath him. He gasps as he falls, palms slamming into the pew in front of him, the sound echoing through the space. He looks up. Shannon looks back at him with pitying eyes.
"You're in confession, Eddie," she says, gentler than he's ever deserved. "You know how this works. You can't leave until you've been absolved of your sins."
Eddie looks down at the back of his hands, shaking. If he concentrates, he can almost feel something warm on his palm, a pulse beneath his skin that roars with pain that shouldn't feel as dull as it does.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Except, that's not quite right.
"Shannon," he breathes out. The girl he loved watches him, stands above him, the light casting her hair in a halo.
"Eddie," she replies.
He clenches his fists, brings them together, presses his forehead to his knuckles so he does not have to look at her face when he speaks. "I'm sorry," he breathes, each word echoing, bouncing off of wood and glass and something more sacred. "I let you down. I was a bad husband, a bad partner. You died-- you died not even knowing--"
The words falter in his throat, like gravel, shrapnel, blood. Eddie squeezes his eyes, blinks them open to look down at the wood. He doesn't want to say it to her face. He has to.
Shannon is beautiful, and she's dead, and Eddie memorizes the light in her hair as he says: "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you died. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I loved you. I did. I did. I do."
The church is silent, then Eddie feels a gentle touch on his cheek, wiping away a tear. He looks into Shannon's face as she smiles at him, watches as she slips away behind the alter, into the shadows.
"Do you really need me to confess what I think I did wrong with you, Cap?"
Bobby laughs, fingers smoothing over the altar before tapping on the edge, a kind of tic that reminds Eddie of the way Buck will tap on the corner of the kitchen counter when he's about to laugh. It's been a long time since he's seen his captain tap his fingers. It's been a long time since he's seen him at all.
"It's not up to me what you feel like telling me, Eddie," Bobby says, eyes gentle and fatherly.
Eddie exhales, the sound a little ragged. He's not sure if it's the emotion or the gaping wound on his side, somewhere in the real world. "I mean, you are a figment of my dying brain, so."
"Then there's no harm in saying it out loud, is there?" The edges of Bobby's eyes wrinkle as he smiles, and Eddie misses him like a missing organ, one that isn't quite vital, but knocks the breath out of you every time you're reminded of its absence. He presses his elbows into the pew. The furnishings of the church have shifted, slightly. It looks a little like the church that he went to after Christopher left, the one where he confessed to Father Brian.
"I wasn't there, Bobby," Eddie says flatly. "You died, and I wasn't there, and now the closest I'll get to saying goodbye is with my own hallucination of you."
Bobby watches him, and there's something knowing in his eyes that makes Eddie's stomach twist. "You couldn't have known, Eddie."
"I had to be called," Eddie says. "I didn't even know."
"Do you blame them, now, for not knowing?"
Eddie blinks at Bobby, who watches him evenly. It had not occurred to him, to wonder what his team was doing beyond the church, beyond the elevator. They could not know that Eddie's knees were pressed into a church floor, that he was doing his last rites.
"Of course not," he says.
"Then you know already, that I don't blame you for that. That there is no reason to put this on yourself."
"But you believed in me," Eddie snaps, voice too sharp for this holy place. Except perhaps he is the lamb waiting for slaughter, and the blade is only the one already bleeding him dry. "You believed I would come back. And I didn't-- I didn't even let myself imagine it. I let myself be a coward, and then you died."
"Is that what you're sorry for?"
Eddie nods, shakes his head. "Yes-- no-- I don't know." His knees press harder into the ground. His heartbeat grows louder in his ears. It is getting more difficult to breathe. "I'm sorry I was a coward. I'm sorry I didn't let myself think about going home. I'm sorry I wasted it all."
A soft huff, and Bobby crosses his arms on the altar. "I left a space in the 118 for you, Eddie," he says, every word a mote of light. "And you came back. Nothing was wasted, from how I see it."
"I wish you could've been there to see me come back," Eddie confesses, the truth of the matter stark in his words. "I think about it every time I enter the station, and it always hurts. Always."
"When the time is right, the Lord will make it happen," Bobby tells him, and from him it doesn't sound like judgement or condescension or resignation. It only sounds like peace. Eddie lets out something between a laugh and a sob, and Bobby taps his fingers on his wrist, a twinkle in his eye.
"The time isn't right for this yet, Eddie," he says. And then, smiling, even as he folds back into the shadows-- "And I'm sorry I didn't get to say this, Eddie, but welcome home."
"Oh, mijo."
Eddie blinks away his tears immediately, something swelling in his throat as abuela looks at him from the altar. He wants to go to her, but his knees are pressed to the ground, bruised and numb.
His whole body's a little numb, actually, which probably isn't great.
"Abuela," he says.
"I've always worried about you, Eddito, you and your heroism, your big heart."
"Well, I wasn't really saving anyone this time, 'buela," Eddie tries to laugh. "Just trying to pray, like we used to."
"And how did that go?"
There's no recrimination in her voice, but Eddie's eyes fall anyways. "Abuela," he says.
"You've always found belief difficult," she says, looking around. He looks around with her. The walls are darker, now, the furnishings older, smaller. He knows this church, the place where his mother would put a hand on his shoulder to keep him still on Sundays.
"I've been trying to be better, now," he says, feeling childish again. "I've been trying to find Him, abuela."
"Who?" she asks.
Eddie furrows his brows. "God," he says, slow and not quite reverent on his tongue, a little too heavy in his throat.
"Is that who you're looking for?"
"What else do you look for, here?"
"Peace," she says, easily. "Absolution. Faith. All manner of things, Edmundo. God is in us all, and in all that he creates."
"And if I find him, I'll find peace," Eddie tries.
Abuela shakes her head, looks at him like he's five years old again, asking her to explain something better to him. She's always been the one most willing to explain things to him. "It is the opposite," she says. "You will find him where you find peace, mijo. Do you find peace in this place?"
Eddie thinks of a childhood in the dark, a girl trapped, a knife. "I--"
"I told you that God is in your heart, Edmundo," she tells him. "There is no shame in not finding him in this place, mijo. But you have to find it regardless."
Eddie feels a pounding in his head, his throat, his side. "What do I need to find?" he asks, a prayer, a plea.
Abuela just points to him, and one of Eddie's hands lifts from the pews, presses over his chest. Hollow silence. An empty church.
"What am I doing here?" Eddie asks, looking at the empty altar. Nothing answers but his own voice, the pain that is starting to whiten the edges of his vision. "Aren't I done?"
He tries to stand up. His knees press on the ground. He looks down. The cushions are soaked through with crimson. He tries to press a hand to his side. His fingers remain clasped in front of him.
"I don't want to die," he says, to something that he doesn't believe is there. "Come on, come on."
He presses his elbows into wood, trying to push himself up. It hurts. He grunts, screams. It echoes off the walls. He remains on his knees. He doesn't know what there is left to pray for. Nothing here cares about him.
"I don't have anything left," he shouts, his voice raw and tasting of copper. "I tried to believe, I tried, and I can't. There's nothing for me to believe in. There's nothing for me to confess. I just need--"
Footsteps. A figure. Eddie's words die in his throat.
Buck's turnouts are open, his helmet askew on his curls. There's a quirk to his lips, an easiness to his gait. Eddie can't stop looking at him.
"Hey, Eddie," he says.
Eddie exhales. His side burns. His knees press into the ground. Buck stands behind an altar, tall and steadfast and beloved, and for the first time Eddie's mind grasps onto the word for worship, rather than confession.
"Buck," he breathes. And, oh, of course. If there is anyone else he needs to apologize to, it's Buck. Buck, who is looking for him, who will find him first. Eddie knows this to his bones, knows that Buck will remember him even when everything else is dust. Will find his body in the elevator, and think him another person who left.
"I'm sorry," he says, the words coming easily this time, slipping from his tongue. "Buck, I'm--"
Buck steps forward. One step, then another, until he is at the edge of the raised stage. Eddie stares as he hops down, turnouts flaring slightly behind him. He grins at Eddie. Eddie blinks back.
"What are you doing?" he asks, because this is not how it's supposed to work.
"What are you doing?" Buck retorts, all childish bickering. He walks towards Eddie, until his boots hit the edge of the pew. He is so close, standing over Eddie, and the hollow space in Eddie's chest reaches out like a starving thing. "C'mon, we have to get out of here. You don't have much time."
"I'm dying," Eddie says.
"No you're not," Buck replies. "You're still alive."
"I'm supposed to confess to you."
Buck's brows furrow as he kneels on one knee, reaching a hand out. "For what?" he asks. "Did you steal my shampoo again, or something?"
"No I--" Eddie's breath hitches. "I need to apologize. For everything. For the way all of it is. The way I am."
He's expecting-- gentleness, a brush on his shoulder, a quiet word. Buck's fingers circle his forearms instead, and Eddie is being lifted to his feet, face to face with Buck.
"I like the way you are, Eddie," Buck tells him, straightforward and startling, light carding through his curls and making him alive, alive, alive. His hands are damp, and this close, Eddie can smell the rainwater and earth on him, see the edge of lichtenberg scars peeking out from his collarbone. "You've never needed to apologize for anything. Not to me."
A gentle tug, and Eddie is being led down the hall, between the pews, which are starting to look a little like a wedding aisle. "If you've got something to confess, though," Buck grins, sun bright, back against the brilliance of the open door that he has pulled Eddie to. "You can tell me in person, okay?"
Eddie looks down at their entwined hands, at the easy way Buck is holding him up. He is still bleeding, a trail like rose petals across the hall. But it doesn't hurt anymore. It can't, when Buck is holding him.
"Alright," he breathes out, and blinks into sunlight, elevator lights, blue eyes, life.