Chapter Text
“We are the ones endlessly in hazard, oh how much time we have!
And only silent death, the wise one, knows what we really are,
And what he can get from us in return for what he has lent us.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II.xxiv
May 2nd
“So,” Buck says quietly to Chris, seated on Bobby’s couch. “Your dad says his frittatas are better than mine now. But I don’t believe him for a second.”
Chris, who is leaning against Buck, while Eddie and Bobby have a very serious sounding conversation in the dining room, smiles.
“They’re tied,” he whispers.
Buck, arm wrapped around this child who he loves more than anything, chuckles.
“You’re being generous to one of us, bud,” he accuses.
“You’ll never know who,” Chris shrugs.
“I missed you like crazy,” Buck squeezes him.
Chris is silent for a beat before responding.
“I think I said really mean things to you,” he confesses sheepishly.
“You were in so much pain, Chris,” Buck says. “I never, ever blamed you. I just wanted to take it away.”
Chris holds onto him a bit tighter.
“You have your leg,” he whispers.
“Salamander powers,” Buck explains, ruffling Christopher’s hair.
Chris huffs a little laugh.
“Buck?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“You’re going to stay now, right?”
“Forever, bud. If you’ll have me.”
“You’d better.”
🌹🌹🌹
Eddie tells Bobby everything.
Well.
Not the kissing in the shower.
But everything else.
He doesn’t make Buck do it, because Buck has already had to do it once in the past day, and because Buck seems to melt into a puddle upon seeing Christopher and can’t really focus on anything else. Eddie gets it. He thinks he would be pretty useless if he was separated from Chris that long again, too. He realizes, despite dying, he’s been the lucky one in all of this. So Eddie tells Bobby.
“Maybe don’t mention the killing part to Athena,” Eddie says quietly.
Athena is working, thankfully. Not exactly sure how she’d react to news that Buck had taken nine lives.
Bobby shakes his head, looking somewhat dazed.
“I’ve been having nightmares about Buck in a hospital bed, unconscious, for months .” Bobby explains. “I thought it was about his coma. I can remember, in the dreams, wondering where you were. Why you were never there.”
Eddie looks at the wood of the dining room table.
“Then, last night, I dreamed I was back at the hotel, helping Hen and Chim load someone into the ambulance,” Bobby continues. “And I heard Buck start to scream. A horrible sound. By the time I got to him, you were… And then he…”
Eddie nods. “I’ve dreamed about the falling part.”
“It was so vivid,” Bobby says. “More like a memory. I thought it was impossible, until Christopher woke up in the morning very confused, thinking he had hurt Buck.”
“He didn’t think any of us would remember anything,” Eddie says. “That wasn’t, uh, part of the deal, I guess.”
Bobby shrugs. “I only know what I dreamed. I don’t remember anything else.”
Buck is the only person burdened with the whole story, Eddie supposes. But at least he has three people he doesn’t have to hide it from anymore. Though. They’ll have to talk about censoring some of that around Chris. Chris already knows too much death already, for a kid only a few weeks away from thirteen.
Bobby stands and rounds the table towards Eddie. Eddie stands and lets Bobby pull him into a crushing hug.
“I’m sorry,” Bobby says. “As your captain, I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”
“Equipment failure,” Eddie replies when they pull apart. “There’s a whole list of people to blame before anyone on the 118, Bobby.”
“Losing firefighters happens,” Bobby says shakily. “But the five of you… It’s not the same.”
“Well, we can thank Buck for it just being a nightmare,” Eddie says.
Again, for everyone but Buck.
Bobby nods, eyes widening like he’s realizing he’s forgotten some important social grace, then turns and strides into the living room to where Buck and Christopher are chatting quietly.
Buck straightens up and stands as Bobby approaches him.
“N-now, you can’t be mad,” Buck starts. “I-I did what I-“
“Not mad,” Bobby chokes out, before pulling Buck into just as tight of a hug as he’d given Eddie.
“Oh,” Buck exhales.
“Hell of a save, kid,” Bobby says.
May 3rd
Buck wakes up in Eddie’s bed.
This is also where he went to bed last night, of course, but waking up here - still alive and lucid, not daydreaming - bears mentioning. If hushed words by Eddie last night as they were falling asleep mean anything now, apparently this is the first of many mornings here.
You’re home now, he’d told Buck. You don’t have to be alone again. Not ever.
Buck’s brain is a little scrambled about the whole thing, really. On the one hand, he trusts Eddie implicitly. In fact, he’s not sure he’s ever trusted anyone the way he trusts Eddie; even if he has done terrible things to try and shatter that trust between them.
You have been awful for months. You have tried to make me hate you. You have hurt me more than I think I have ever been hurt. And I am still here.
So, if Eddie says Buck doesn’t have to be alone again, if Eddie says Buck gets to stay - has to stay - then Buck believes him.
On the other hand, it’s still a shock when he wakes up, Eddie’s truly hideous plaid comforter pulled up over his eyes to keep out the sun. Like this must be a dream. There’s no way it’s real. He’s going to wake up in a hospital bed, coming down off a heavy dose of morphine, only to find himself marred and alone and having imagined this entire thing.
It’s with this strange fractured mindset that Buck wakes up for the first time in Eddie’s bed, believing it is where he is meant to be, and yet somehow uncertain it is where he really is.
Buck’s alone in the bedroom, wearing nothing but a pair of Eddie’s pajama pants that are a bit short around the ankles. He can smell coffee and hear Eddie and Christopher talking in muffled, unintelligible voices elsewhere in the house. He rolls over and checks the time on Eddie’s alarm clock.. It’s just after nine - a Friday. Eddie must have let Christopher take the day off; reasonable, in Buck’s opinion.
Buck sits up in bed and takes a deep breath.
Real. This is real. It’s got to be real. He tells himself over and over.
As if hearing the siren call of Buck’s anxiety through telepathy, within seconds, Eddie is opening the bedroom door, steaming, fresh mug of coffee in hand. It’s a souvenir mug from the zoo, designed to look like an old wooden sign; the same one Buck always used when he slept over before.
Everything has changed. Nothing has changed.
“Morning,” Eddie says.
He hands Buck the mug, presses a soft kiss to the top of his head, and then sits on the edge of the bed beside him.
Buck inhales, the scent of Eddie and coffee mingling in his nose.
“Good morning.”
“Bobby’s going into work today,” Eddie says. “But he gave us another shift off.”
Buck nods. “That was good of him.”
“He’s going to talk to Hen, Chim, and Ravi,” Eddie says. “Figured you wouldn’t want to be the one to do it, if they remembered.”
“And Maddie?” Buck asks.
“On her way over,” Eddie admits. “She called a bunch while we were sleeping, and when you didn’t pick up, she called Bobby panicking.”
“She remembers, then?” Buck asks. “Had nightmares?”
“Sounds like it.”
Buck groans.
“I can send her to the fire station,” Eddie says gently. “If you’re not ready to talk.”
Buck shakes his head. “I can do it. I can talk to her.”
“I’ve got your back,” Eddie says, wrapping an arm around him.
Buck leans into him. “Thank you.”
He decides to keep living in this, to keep reminding himself to believe it, until he forgets to question it.
🌹🌹🌹
By the end of the day, here is what they know.
Maddie and Chim remember a lot. More than Eddie and Bobby. Almost as much as Christopher.
Hen remembers Eddie’s funeral.
Ravi remembers dropping the ropes, and what Buck said to him in the hospital.
Athena remembers Bobby relapsing, and being worried for Buck.
These are the only people to whom they extend the truth. The truth, minus the killings, that is. Everyone else, they unfortunately have to sort of, for lack of a better term, gaslight.
They hold off a number of concerned calls from family members; Eddie’s parents, sisters, Abuela, Pepa. Carla. Even Buck’s parents call. All with the same story. They had a strange, blurry dream, and felt that something very bad had happened.
“No,” Eddie says, rehearsed and uncomfortable, to everyone who calls him. “Christopher and I are completely fine. Everything’s fine. I don’t know why you would have dreamed something like that.”
🌹🌹🌹
It takes a long time for them to be alone. No Maddie, no phone calls, no check ins from Bobby or the other members of the 118. Not that Eddie can really blame anyone for their reactions; least of all Maddie, who spent half of her time hugging Buck and crying, the other half scolding him for not confiding in her.
“Maddie, if Chim found out, Eddie would have been dead in thirty seconds,” Buck had tried to reason.
They ask everyone else to give them time. Which is difficult, considering they all want to see Eddie and Buck and extend something. Sympathy, remorse, love, frustration? All of the above? Eddie isn’t sure.
But they don’t need that right now.
When Maddie finally goes - and Eddie supposes he’s just going to have to get used to Maddie showing up going all older sister on them, from time to time - and the calls stop coming through, Eddie finally feels like he can breathe.
Eddie orders Thai for dinner, while Buck and Chris chat on the couch. Months of unshared facts and school stories are being purged from Christopher’s memory at high speed. Buck listens like every small detail is the best thing he’s ever heard. Eddie feels a sort of stillness in his heart, despite everything, that he’s not entirely certain he’s known before.
“So,” Eddie says, sitting down next to them. “Buck and I have to go to work Sunday morning, but we have all day tomorrow. And I think we should use it to do whatever we want.”
Buck’s smile could probably melt gold. “Whatever we want, huh?”
Eddie can see how tired he is. He can see how much he needs a break. He can feel it, in the night, when he holds him; how much sleep he is missing.
“Whatever we want,” Eddie confirms.
“Well I want to go to the zoo,” Christopher announces. “Our last trip got ruined.”
“The zoo?” Eddie echoes.
Buck beams. “I would love to go to the zoo with you tomorrow, Christopher.”
Eddie’s heart feels so warm.
“Okay,” he agrees. “But I’m checking the forecast first.”
May 12th
They move all of Buck’s stuff on their next four-off.
It’s been a strange week and a bit, Buck will be the first to admit. Despite insisting he just wants things to go back to some sense of normalcy at work, he doesn’t miss the wide-eyed stares and sharp inhales that his presence is eliciting from his team members. He doesn’t miss the way Hen hugs Eddie a little more often than usual, or how Ravi is more nervous on shift and needs more encouragement. He didn’t want any of them to have this trauma. He was supposed to carry it alone.
But then, at the same time, maybe it’s a good thing, in its own small way. Maybe the fact that no one teases him and Eddie about their swift relationship status change, after months of bitter silence, is the best for him right now. Maybe the fact that no one doubts either of them anymore is a good thing - especially for Eddie, who’d got the shit end of that stick. Maybe it’s a really good thing that Buck no longer has to pretend. Whoever he is now, whatever is leftover, has been welcomed with open arms. Not a monster in hiding, but a slightly misshapen thing that is still worth loving, out in the open.
“We’re getting rid of all these newspapers,” Eddie says when they’re boxing up Buck’s kitchen. “Like, burning them. You’re not being implicated in anything.”
Buck is more than fine with that. He’d only ever kept the newspapers for the days he was having trouble looking at screens, and after the deed was done, for the express purpose of being able to prove what he had done to Eddie. To confess and beg for absolution.
“Okay, then we’re getting rid of your mattress.” Buck shrugs.
“Because my mattress might connect us to murders?” Eddie challenges.
“Yes.” Buck answers, as seriously as he can manage. “The murder of my back.”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “So much drama.”
“I never want to see this place again,” Buck mutters as they leave his keys on the counter and shut the door.
“Good thing for you, I do not intend on having you stay anywhere but home,” Eddie promises.
May 14th
It is a testament to her unending grace and kindness that Natalia agrees to see them.
Really, Buck would understand if she told them both to fuck right off. Instead, she agrees to meet at a park near her apartment to talk things out.
“On April 30th, you drove me to a crossroads in Whittier and helped me summon Death,” Buck starts the conversation, because there’s no point beating around the bush after all the things he’s said to her.
Natalia’s jaw drops.
“Eddie is alive because of you,” Buck says, motioning at Eddie. “And, uh, everyone else is significantly better off, m-me and Chris most of all, so-”
“I remember,” Natalia says.
“You do ?” Eddie asks.
“I had dreams about driving you to a crossroads,” Natalia says. “About helping you onto your knees because…”
“I only had one,” Buck finishes. “I needed you.”
Natalia nods, bringing her hand to her lips in contemplation.
“Natalia, Death… The deal we made… I got a chance to redo things, but I couldn’t tell .” Buck says. “I had to send you away. The things I said to you were horrible, and I am so sorry. I-I hate that I made you feel bad, I hate that I was cruel. You don’t have to forgive me, but I need you to know I didn’t mean a word of it.”
“I don’t know how to adequately thank you,” Eddie tacks on. “Other than to tell you that I owe you everything .”
Natalia takes a shaky inhale, wipes at her eyes absently. “That, uh, that explains a lot.”
There’s a long stretch of silence while Natalia processes.
“You know, I usually don’t do that,” she says. “It’s kind of against my whole philosophy. So what happened, this time, to change my mind?”
So Buck tells her everything. He can tell, halfway through his story, that any anger she held towards him has been forgiven. She knows better than anyone the toll that Death takes.
“What we don’t understand,” Eddie ends the story. “Is why anyone but Buck and Chris remembers.”
“What do you mean?” Natalia asks. “Like their nightmares?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Buck confirms. “The deal was only for Christopher and I to end up in, uh, this timeline.”
Natalia quirks an eyebrow. “ What ?”
“Well, you know, I didn’t want to leave Christopher in the timeline where Eddie died and I left s-so I made the deal to bring him with me. No one else should have any memories of it, though. I didn’t trade for that.”
“What other timeline, Buck?” Natalia asks. “Whatever life we all lived? Well, not you, Eddie, sorry. It’s destroyed now. Just a fuzzy dream leftover with any strong emotions, but… Yeah, it doesn’t exist.”
Buck’s jaw drops.
Eddie squeezes his shoulder. “I think you got played.”
What. The. Fuck.
No. No. Because he could have killed half the amount of people. He could have… He wouldn’t have had to worry about Christopher’s memories. He wouldn’t have had to worry about Christopher being abandoned.
Buck can’t stop the panic laced with anger that squeezes his throat and stings his eyes.
Not only was it all a fucking game, but… But, there have got to be people who didn’t want their lives erased, right? Like people who had good things happen to them, that probably don’t want those good things undone. And Buck undid them. Kids born and goals reached and billions of happy little moments. What if they don’t happen again?
It has to not matter, Buck resolves. He has to not care. The entire earth deserves to weep if Eddie is not there. Anything good will happen again. Otherwise, nothing good was worth Eddie’s absence.
“It’s okay,” Natalia says gently. “You’re not the only one to experience this. Certainly, you’ve been on the receiving end. A strange, lifelike dream that seemed just a little bit too real? It might have been.”
Buck watches Eddie’s face scrunch up in contemplation, like he’s searching for time that has been reset. Buck decides he doesn’t want to think about it. He got the reality he wanted, didn’t he?
“So, why was it so easy on me, then?” Eddie asks. “I kind of feel like it let us off the hook.”
Natalia hums thoughtfully.
“You said Death said it didn’t want you, Buck?”
Buck nods, remembering the strangely pained way that had hit him. “It said that it liked some souls to be, uh, marinated? With emotions and experiences.”
Eddie wrinkles his nose.
“Right,” she nods. “That’s right. It has, uh, investments. I’ve seen enough of them. Figures I’d end up dating one.”
“A-and having me fail, seconds away from success, that wasn’t emotional enough?” Buck asks. “I mean, not that I’m complaining. I’m really, really not. I just don’t understand the bargain it made with Eddie.”
Natalia scrunches her mouth to the side. “I think it just decided to double down on the investment. Double the souls, and new kinds of emotions.”
“What do you mean?” Eddie asks.
“I mean, it doesn’t just crave negative emotions. Not just pain. It also likes big positive emotions just as much.”
Buck looks at Eddie.
“Maybe, when it had you, Eddie, it saw… It saw a glimpse of what else it could get.”
“L-like what?” Buck demands.
“I don’t know,” Natalia says. “What else have you felt, like what you felt when you got each other back? When it was over?”
Buck’s not sure he can parse it in any way that makes sense. He’s not sure there are words. Surprisingly, though, Eddie finds them.
“I thought Christopher was dead for all of thirty seconds after the tsunami,” he says. “And when I saw him again, the relief was like… Like a wave of its own, hitting me square in the chest. I watched Buck die and wake up again three times in just over a year.”
“Relief,” Buck says. “That’s a pretty big one. Death wants our relief ?”
Natalia gives them a knowing look. “And probably the rest of it, too.”
The rest of it.
Buck looks at Eddie.
Love.
Right.
“I know it’s all gotta be pretty confusing,” Natalia says. “But, if I were you guys, I’d take the win. Believe me, with a deal like yours, it’s not… Well, both parties don’t normally make it.”
Buck looks at her.
I don’t want you to risk it, selfishly. I always think it’s better when people find a way to move on.
That’s what she had said to him.
He remembers the image of her brother that Death had wielded against her. For someone so comfortable with death and dying, who had known what to expect, that had still hurt her.
Oh wow.
“Which side of it were you on?” Buck asks her.
Natalia looks at Eddie. “His.”
🌹🌹🌹
“She’s right, you know,” Eddie says quietly on the drive home.
Buck, who had been lost in thought about Natalia and her brother, looks at him. “Hmm?”
“I want to take the win, Buck.” Eddie clarifies. “I don’t want to waste a second. Maybe that’s cliche, or whatever. But fuck it. We should just live the best life we can, and not hold back on stuff, like I know we’re both pretty good at doing.”
And Buck spent the past nine months denying Eddie everything, so who is he to say no even one more time?
Buck grins.
“Let’s do that, then.”
June 21st
They do end up going back to Vegas, but Buck doesn’t wear his red suit. New outfits are required all around all around for the occasion.
It’s a decision they make out of practicality and assuaging any room left for anxiety as much as it is about seizing their second chance by the horns. Not anxiety about splitting up, of course. If that existed - and Eddie’s fairly certain it doesn’t - a piece of paper wouldn’t solve that. They’ve already looked ‘til death do us part’ in the face and decided, ‘no, longer .’
This anxiety is one that still lingers after all the very frank conversations they’ve had about life and death and the future. Christopher. Neither of them wants to leave firefighting. At least not for now. And although they can do their best to be careful, and the carabiner incidents across the continent have led to renewed interest in equipment safety testing standards, there are no guarantees. There never has been.
Once, that fear had led him to putting guarantees on paper. Once, that fear had led him to leaving his job, pushing people away. Pushing Buck away. Once, that fear had become a reality, one that he hadn't had to live through. So, Eddie can’t do anything about the fact that he might die too early. But he can put more assurance on what happens after; more than a silent change of his will, and a brief conversation after being shot. He can hold the tectonic plates of his world together, even if he’s no longer on it.
So they marry quietly on a family trip to Vegas on a Friday afternoon, with just the three of them in attendance. Maybe one day they’ll have some kind of bigger party, when Buck is ready for that sort of thing again; but for now, this is just theirs. The adoption paperwork is already filled out at home, just waiting for this one extra piece before being submitted.
Of course, it’s not just practicalities. Not just insurance. The simpler, more immediate reason, is that Eddie is so in love with Buck that he would sew the very fabric of their souls together if he could. If they aren’t already sewn. The simplest reason is that his resolve to continue loving him is stronger than death and sorrow and two hundred and seventy five days of any sort of torment. Other than his love for his son, it is the thing in life, now, that Eddie is most certain of.
They stay in a fancy hotel complete with a big pool and waterslides. Eddie suspects there will be no real gambling this weekend, but that’s okay. He still has an outstanding invitation to LAFD poker nights if he wants to play his luck. He doesn't feel the need these days.
Eddie and Buck sit, shoulders touching, on a fold-out pool chair, while Christopher takes what feels like a hundredth turn down one of the slides. Buck fiddles with the new silicone ring on his finger; the one they’d purchased for work, and really didn’t have to wear to the pool tonight, but neither of them wanted to enter the fourth hour of their marriage ringless or risk the nicer silver pieces they’d chosen.
“Who do you think will notice first?” Buck asks, because they’d told exactly zero people they were doing this.
Eddie hums, contemplative.
“Bobby. But Hen will say something before him.”
“Oh, good point,” Buck says. “Well, we have a few days until we need to worry about that.”
Eddie grabs Buck’s hand, stilling his fidgeting.
“No one is going to be seriously mad,” Eddie says.
“Maddie is.”
“Almost no one is going to be seriously mad,” Eddie amends.
Buck smiles softly. “I guess if they are, we’ll deal.”
“Regretting how we did this?” Eddie asks.
Buck shakes his head. He squeezes Eddie’s hand.
“No regrets,” he whispers. “Not a single one.”
Eddie wraps an arm around his shoulders. He presses his lips into the side of Buck’s face, so he can whisper, very softly.
“Thanks for saving me so I could marry you.”
Buck laughs, nudging him. “That’s the only reason I did it. Thought you’d look good in a tux.”
Eddie kisses the rim of his ear. Buck shivers, ticklish.
“Worth it?”
Buck chuckles. “Gone fishing, Eddie, really?”
“And if I am?”
“Then I’m happy to report, it was easily in your top five looks of all time. Dare I say top three? Smoldering hot, really.”
Eddie grins. “I aim to please.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then-”
“DAD! BUCK!” Christopher calls from the pool, cutting Buck off. “You haven’t even tried the slide yet!”
“We’d better go have fun with our kid,” Eddie says.
There’s a brilliant sort of twinkle in Buck’s eye.
“Yeah,” he beams. “We’d better.”