Chapter Text
It’s not a good day, even before the call comes in.
That morning, Eddie had finally mustered up the courage to ask Christopher if he wanted to come visit — come home — for his Thanksgiving break. There were a few seconds of tense silence while Eddie waited with bated breath before Chris murmured something barely intelligible and passed the phone to Eddie’s mother.
“Eddie?” Helena had greeted him, the ever-present, thinly veiled note of impatience clear in her voice.
“I’m here,” Eddie sighed. He could already sense the direction the conversation was heading.
“Listen, I don’t think it’s such a good idea for Christopher to take this trip right now. He’s gotten into such a good routine recently with school and his friends and extracurriculars. I think going back would just confuse things for him.”
Exactly as predicted. “Did he actually say that’s how he feels?” Eddie asked. “Or are you putting words in his mouth?”
“Why don’t you come to El Paso instead?” Helena continued, ignoring him. “Your abuela is here, and your sisters — a proper family Thanksgiving would be good for Christopher, don’t you think? It really makes more sense this way, Eddie.”
“But —” Eddie had dragged a hand over his face in frustration. They’ve had this argument before almost every year, even before Chris was living in El Paso. “I can’t come there for Thanksgiving, Mom. I have to work. I already requested leave to visit over Christmas — I can’t ask off for both holidays, it’s not fair to the rest of the team.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you then,” his mother snapped, the veil over her impatience evaporated. “It sounds like you wouldn’t have much time for Christopher anyway, so I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss.”
It had been all Eddie could do not to immediately hang up the phone and throw it across the room, but somehow he’d managed to end the conversation through the static of anger and guilt and outright self-loathing buzzing in his ears.
Because at the end of the day, it’s his own fault that he won’t get to spend Thanksgiving with his son for the first time since he returned from his second tour. He knows that. His parents might not be helping matters, but the only reason Christopher is even in El Paso to begin with is because of Eddie.
His bad mood lingers as he climbs into the engine to head to the marina, but he does his best to shake it off and focus while Bobby recounts the details of the call.
“A speedboat going way too fast in a no-wake zone collided with a yacht and sent both crashing into one of the docks. Thankfully it’s not busy season, but there are still likely to be casualties. Dispatch said not everyone from the boats was accounted for,” Bobby says from the front of the engine.
Buck slides onto the seat beside Eddie. “Is Coast Guard on the scene?” he asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
Bobby nods. “They’ll be conducting any water rescues. Our role today will be triage and transport.”
Buck throws a grin at Eddie. “Good thing I don’t really feel like going swimming today.”
Eddie tries to force a smile back. “Me neither,” he says with a small shiver for dramatic effect. Even in L.A., the Pacific in November isn’t exactly balmy.
Buck’s expression flickers. “Hey, you okay?” he asks quietly. Because he’s Buck, so of course he can see right through Eddie’s attempts at good humor.
Eddie swallows, his throat suddenly tight. The truth is he probably will tell Buck all about the call with his mother at the end of this shift — maybe even before then if they have enough downtime at the station later. But they don’t have time to get into it now, and Eddie also doesn’t particularly feel like sharing all the tragic details of his life with the entire team.
“I’m fine,” he says, nudging his shoulder against Buck’s. Buck quirks an eyebrow in a way that suggests he’s not buying it, but then he just nods, leaning back against Eddie in a wordless show of support.
The scene at the marina is honestly worse than Eddie had been expecting. The speedboat is crumpled against the back of the yacht like an aluminum can; it’s hard to imagine anyone who had been on board surviving the force of that impact. The yacht was pushed onto its side and halfway up onto the dock, tangled between two other boats that had been anchored in their slips. There’s a Coast Guard boat further out in the canal, and a dingy with divers circling the wreckage. On the dock, a civilian is performing CPR on a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt while a woman sobs a few feet away, bleeding profusely from a wound on her forehead.
The ambulance pulls up behind the engine and Hen and Chim jump out, beelining straight for the victims with their med kits. Bobby surveys the scene, then turns back to Buck and Eddie.
“I want you two to go down to the yacht and see if there’s anyone we can help extract from the dock,” he says. “Be careful if you need to go inside — it doesn’t look very stable.”
“On it, Cap,” Buck says. Eddie nods, and they take off toward the end of the dock together.
They approach the sideways bow of the yacht, perched on that dock at a precarious angle, and peer through a door that leads into the interior cabin. “LAFD!” Eddie calls, shining a flashlight inside. “Is anyone down there?”
“Here!” a woman calls back, her voice strained and weak. A few seconds later, her ashen face appears in the doorway. “You have to help…my son….”
“Ma’am, are you injured?” Eddie asks, leaning further inside to get a better look. She’s down a level, and the currently horizontal stairs won’t be very helpful in getting her out.
“My leg…is bleeding,” she admits, panting, then gestures behind her, deeper inside the cabin. “But I’ll be fine…it’s my son, I can’t find my son!”
Judging by the gray cast to her skin, Eddie doesn’t think she’s fine at all, but he can certainly understand her inability to focus on her own wellbeing while her child is missing. “I’m going to come down to check out that leg and then we’ll find your son, okay?” he calls, then turns to Buck. “We’ll probably need a harness to get her up here.”
Buck nods once and starts jogging in the direction of the engine. Eddie looks back at the woman, now standing a little further from the door, leaning heavily against an overturned table. He turns, gripping the edge of the doorframe, and lowers himself carefully into the cabin.
It’s immediately disorienting to look around and find everything on its side — the staircase, the furniture. Eddie is reminded of the hotel he and Buck had scaled after the 7.1 earthquake, when everything had been tilted at a forty-five degree angle, like an apocalyptic funhouse. He shakes his head a little to get his bearings and approaches the woman.
“I’m Eddie. What’s your name?” he asks, kneeling to get eye level with her injured leg. Her white linen pants are soaked with blood on one side, from mid-thigh to knee.
“S-Sarah,” she stammers, clenching her jaw in pain as Eddie starts to inspect the laceration on her thigh. It’s a few inches long and deep, pulsing blood sluggishly; Eddie is amazed she’s still conscious, let alone standing.
“Alright, Sarah, it looks like you nicked your femoral artery, so I’m placing a tourniquet above the wound,” he explains calmly. “This is probably going to hurt a bit, I’m sorry.”
She groans as he tightens the band around her leg, her good knee buckling. Eddie straightens and catches her around the waist before she can fall.
A shadow appears, and Eddie looks up to find Buck back in the doorway. “Got the harness!” he calls down to them. “Ready to get her out of there?”
“No!” Sarah says, suddenly gripping Eddie’s arm with a surprising amount of force. “I can’t leave, my son is still in here! He was taking a nap in one of the bunks…he’s only six.” Her eyes fill with tears as she shakes her head.
Eddie’s heart tugs, imagining Christopher at that age. “I’ll keep looking for your son,” he promises. “But we have to get you to our paramedics, or you’re going to bleed out.”
She inhales sharply, eyes going wide at his bluntness, but whatever she sees in his face must be reassuring enough for her to nod shakily. “Okay,” she whispers.
Buck tosses down the harness and Eddie secures it carefully, avoiding the tourniquet. “Get her to Hen and Chim,” he calls as Buck begins to lift her. “I’m going to look for the kid.”
“Caleb,” Sarah says, looking down at him. “His name is Caleb.”
“Caleb,” Eddie repeats, nodding. “I’ll find him, Sarah.”
Buck shoots him a look, and Eddie knows he’s broken one of their cardinal rules: making promises they don’t know if they’ll be able to keep. But is it so wrong for him to want to make sure this woman believes she has something to fight for while her own life is on the line?
And yeah, okay, maybe there’s also a part of him thinking if he can’t get Christopher back for himself, then at least he can bring Sarah’s son back to her.
He averts his gaze from Buck’s before he can see through him again. But the softness in Buck’s tone as he says, “Be careful, Eddie” makes it obvious he already did.
“I will,” he says brusquely, then turns in the direction Sarah pointed to head deeper into the cabin.
The yacht lurches a little as Eddie makes his way down a narrow hallway. “Caleb?” he shouts, steadying himself against the wall — or rather, the ceiling. “Are you back here?”
He’s a little surprised there aren’t more victims inside. He supposes most people were already outside on deck since they were close to docking; it remains to be seen whether that was a stroke of luck or not.
The bunkbeds built into the wall at the end of the hallway are empty. Eddie curses, turning back around, trying to think of where else a six-year-old on a boat might logically be. Is there a kitchen? Maybe he had woken up and wanted a snack?
“Caleb!” he yells again, heading in the direction he guesses the galley to be in, suddenly grateful for all the seasons of Below Deck Buck has forced him to watch over the years.
The lopsided angle of the boat increases as Eddie gets closer to the stern, his boot landing with an unexpected splash as he finally spots double doors that look likely to lead into a galley. He looks down to find a thin layer of water covering the floor in front of him. Fuck — is the yacht sinking? Is Caleb in a section that’s already flooded?
“Caleb!” Eddie calls with more urgency, barreling through the double doors. “Caleb, are you in here?”
He shines his flashlight around the seemingly empty kitchen, just about to give up and continue searching, when the beam catches on a face peeking out at him from a cracked cabinet door.
“Hey,” Eddie says, softening his tone as he approaches. “Are you Caleb?”
The boy stares for a few seconds, then gives a tiny nod.
“I’m Eddie. I’m a firefighter,” Eddie continues, kneeling in front of the cabinet. The knees of his pants are immediately soaked. “I met your mom, Sarah. Is it okay if I take you to her?”
Caleb continues to stare at him with huge, frightened blue eyes before giving another nod. “Okay,” he whispers.
Eddie opens the cabinet door completely. “Are you hurt anywhere, Caleb?”
He shakes his head. “I — I don’t think so.”
Eddie reaches inside to lift the boy out, and he does seem miraculously unharmed. “Okay, bud, let’s get out of here.”
Just as Eddie straightens with Caleb in his arms, the yacht gives another frightening lurch, the water around Eddie’s boots sloshing.
Caleb wraps his arms around Eddie’s neck, looking at him with fear. “It’s okay,” Eddie reassures him. “We’re gonna have to move fast to get out, alright? Just hold on to me.”
Eddie’s chest twinges as Caleb’s grip on him tightens. It’s been so long since he was able to hold Christopher like this. Hell, the last time he saw Chris, his son hadn’t even wanted to hug him.
Eddie retraces his steps at double-time, the yacht continuing to tip further as they move. When they reach the exit, Eddie realizes belatedly that he doesn’t have an easy way to get both himself and Caleb out. He debates about radioing Buck to bring another harness, but then the yacht gives its most violent lurch yet and he knows there’s no time.
He grabs the table Sarah had been leaning against earlier and positions it under the door above them. “Okay,” Eddie says to Caleb. “I’m going to stand on this and lift you out, and then I need you to grab onto the railing outside and hold on really tight. Can you do that, Caleb?”
Caleb nods, and before Eddie can second guess his plan or the yacht can lurch again, he steps onto the table and lifts Caleb through the door. As soon as the boy lets go of Eddie’s neck to grab onto the railing, Eddie grips the doorframe and pulls himself through behind him, looping his arm back around Caleb as he collapses sideways onto the fiberglass hull.
“Good job, buddy,” Eddie says, holding his free hand up for Caleb to high-five. Caleb’s lips twitch into a smile as their palms make contact.
Then the yacht tips another several feet, and Eddie has to grab onto the railing to avoid sliding diagonally down the entire length of the boat and into the water like that one scene in Titanic.
Eddie looks over the railing down at the dock below them. The distance is quite a bit further than when he and Buck first arrived, the bow lifting higher into the air the more the stern sinks.
“We need to jump down onto the dock,” he tells Caleb, whose eyes widen again as he follows Eddie’s gaze. “I know it looks scary because it’s high, but I’ve got you, okay?”
Caleb swallows, and Eddie can tell he’s trying so hard to be brave. “Okay, Eddie,” he says quietly.
Eddie climbs over the railing with Caleb holding on to him. Just as he’s shifting his balance to jump, the yacht lurches again, not backwards this time but sideways, and Eddie realizes what’s going to happen a split second before it does.
He has a millisecond to drop Caleb down onto the dock, wincing when he hears him land with a thud, before he’s falling forward too, unable to reach back in time to grab onto the railing. He knows instantly that he’s falling at a weird angle — not entirely over the dock or over the water.
That’s the last coherent thought he has before his head slams against the edge of the dock and everything goes black.
When he comes to, he’s sinking, his lungs already burning with the desperate need to breathe. It’s the second time in his life that he’s blacked out and then woken up underwater. The first time, it was the thought of Christopher that brought him back to consciousness. The certainty that Christopher needed him had given Eddie the strength to fight his way to the surface.
He doesn’t have that anymore.
Don’t drag him down with you, his mother had said once. He’d been filled with such righteous anger at the time, and then that’s exactly what he’d done. He’d traumatized his son so deeply that he fled the state. Created a rift so wide he doesn’t even want to spend holidays with Eddie anymore.
Don’t drag him down with you.
Eddie’s thoughts grow muffled. It’s kind of peaceful down here, actually. Quiet. Everything starts to get a little dim, and Eddie’s not sure if the water’s blocking out the sun or if his vision is just darkening. He’s not sure he really cares.
Don’t drag him down with you.
But Christopher isn’t with him. Not anymore. There’s no one left for Eddie to hurt but himself.
So he lets the water drag him down.
Alone.
***
Eddie blinks and finds himself back on the dock, completely dry. He looks down at his uniform, confused. The last thing he remembers is sinking in the water. Had he dissociated and lost time as he fought his way to the surface? But then how are his clothes already dry?
“Eddie!” Buck shouts, and Eddie turns toward him, relieved. Maybe Buck can help explain the last few minutes.
“I’m here, I’m okay,” Eddie says, but Buck isn’t looking in his direction. He’s looking past him at Caleb, still standing by himself on the dock in front of the yacht.
“Hey!” Buck jogs up to him. “Are you Caleb?”
Caleb nods.
“Have you seen another firefighter?” Buck asks, kneeling so he’s at Caleb’s eye level. “His name is Eddie, he’s a little bit shorter than me?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Ha ha, very funny, Buck.”
Caleb nods again, but he doesn’t look at Eddie either.
“Is he still on the boat?” Buck asks, glancing up at the yacht.
Eddie frowns. “Okay, joke’s over. I’m right here, Buck.”
Caleb shakes his head, then points down into the water. “He fell,” he says quietly.
Eddie’s entire body goes cold. It’s not like Buck to play a prank like this on a call, especially with a kid, and even if he were, Caleb wouldn’t know to be in on the joke. And the last thing Eddie does remember is falling into the water…
“H-hey,” Eddie says shakily, stepping closer to them. “I did, but I got out. I’m fine.”
Neither of them look at him. Buck stares at the water, his jaw tight with worry. “How long ago did he fall in?” he asks Caleb.
“I don’t know,” Caleb says, suddenly on the verge of tears. “I want my mom!”
Buck rests both of his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. “I know,” he says gently. “She got a cut on her leg and needed to go to the hospital, but she wants to see you too. I just need to make sure Eddie’s okay, and then we’ll take you to her. Can you stay right here for a few more minutes?”
“I’m here, Buck!” Eddie shouts helplessly. Why can’t Buck hear him? What is going on?
Caleb takes a shuddery breath, then nods, his lower lip jutting out. Buck smiles gratefully. “Thanks, buddy,” he says.
Then he straightens and takes a step back, clearly preparing to dive into the water.
“Buck!” Eddie reaches for him as Buck launches himself forward —
— and his hand passes right through Buck’s arm.
Eddie stares down at his hand as Buck disappears into the water with a splash. What the fuck?
He — he must have misjudged the distance and missed. He thought he was close enough to grab onto Buck’s arm, but maybe his depth perception is off from hitting his head. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Right?
Eddie kneels down in front of Caleb and slowly reaches for his shoulder, the same way Buck had just a few seconds before. His hand passes through him, closing on nothing more than air.
Panic washes over Eddie in earnest, pins and needles erupting over his arms and legs as his breathing quickens. “Caleb,” Eddie says sharply. “Caleb, can you hear me?”
Caleb doesn’t look at him. He keeps staring at the water, chewing on his bottom lip.
Eddie falters. “Can — can you see me?”
He waves his hand back and forth in front of Caleb’s face. The boy doesn’t react.
Eddie’s ears start to ring. He presses the call button on his radio. “Cap, Chim, Hen, come in. Can anyone read me?”
No response.
Eddie tries again. “Cap, can you read me? Anyone? Please?”
The only sound from Eddie’s radio is static. Well…maybe it was damaged in the fall…maybe it got too waterlogged…
Before Eddie can think of any more excuses, Buck bursts back through the surface of the water with Eddie’s body in his arms.
Eddie looks down at himself, still kneeling on the dock, and then at what is unmistakably also him in the water. Buck sucks in a great gasp of air, but the Eddie in the water doesn’t. His head slumps limp onto Buck’s shoulder, and the puzzle pieces of the last few minutes suddenly fall into place.
Finding himself back on the dock with no memory of how he got there. Buck and Caleb unable to see or hear him. Eddie’s hand passing right through the both of them.
Oh. He didn’t make it out of the water. He drowned.
Buck maneuvers them both onto their backs and starts to kick toward the dock, Eddie’s head lolling against his chest as they go. When they reach the ladder, Buck briefly disappears back beneath the surface to drape Eddie’s body over his shoulder. Even under the circumstances, Eddie can’t help but admire the ease with which Buck supports his soaking wet dead weight as he climbs the ladder onto the dock, something tugging low in his gut as he watches Buck gently lay him down, cradling his head like something precious.
Buck kneels beside him, brushing Eddie’s hair out of his face and rapping on his cheek. “Eddie,” he croaks, lowering his ear to Eddie’s mouth and then his chest when he doesn’t respond, confirming in rapid succession what a part of him must have surely realized when he found Eddie unconscious underwater.
That he has no breath. No heartbeat.
He’s dead.
“No,” Buck gasps, jerking his head up to gaze at Eddie’s lifeless body in horror. Eddie — the Eddie that’s been on the dock this whole time — leans around Buck to get a good look at himself for the first time and immediately recoils.
His lips, his entire fucking face is blue, his eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar. Eddie’s been on the scene of enough calls with drowning victims to know what they look like when they’re too far gone to be resuscitated.
Not that he would ever expect that to stop Buck.
Buck tilts his head back, pinches his nose, and leans down to breathe into Eddie’s mouth. He pauses to listen for a couple of seconds, then gives him another breath, and Eddie allows himself a pang of regret that the first time Buck’s lips are touching his, he’s not alive to feel it.
He’s a little surprised by how readily the thought comes to mind, but what does he have to lose by admitting it now? He’s dead.
Buck switches on the call button on his radio, then positions his hands on Eddie’s chest. “Cap, Eddie’s down. I need a Lifepak and a gurney at the end of the dock,” he says as he starts compressions.
Bobby replies instantly. “On our way.”
“Come on, Eddie,” Buck grunts as he pushes down on Eddie’s chest. “Don’t do this, please don’t do this.”
“It’s done, Buck,” Eddie whispers, his eyes glued to his own unresponsive face. White foam appears at his lips, and Buck rolls him onto his side, wiping away the foam and holding his jaw open to try to clear his airway. It’s a little bit grotesque, and Eddie swallows against a wave of nausea.
Hen runs up to them with the Lifepak. “What happened?” she asks urgently, dropping onto the ground beside Buck. Eddie hurries to move out of the way — uselessly, since her knee goes right through his leg.
“I don’t know!” Buck says, turning Eddie onto his back and resuming compressions. His voice sounds awful, as ragged and wrecked as Eddie’s ever heard it, like after the tsunami when he’d tried to tell Eddie about losing Christopher. “He fell in the water, I don’t know how long he was down there — his scalp was bleeding, I think he might have hit his head — oh shit.”
He snaps his head up, looking down the length of Eddie’s body. Eddie follows his gaze to find Caleb watching the entire thing, his small face expressionless, clearly in shock. Fuck — Eddie had forgotten about him too, a little distracted by the sight of his own corpse. Well, Eddie supposes he’s three for three now for traumatizing the children he rescues by almost — or actually — dying right in front of them.
“Is that the boy he was looking for?” Hen asks softly.
Buck nods. “Y-yeah. Caleb.”
Hen steps over to Caleb as Bobby and Chim rush toward them with the gurney. “Hey, Caleb,” she says, her voice gentle as she directs his attention away from Eddie’s body. “I’m Hen. Can I take a look at you over here?”
Caleb glances back as she leads him away. “Is Eddie gonna be okay?”
Hen’s mouth wobbles before she answers. “We’re going to do everything we can.”
By the time Eddie looks back at himself, they’ve got him on a backboard with a c-collar around his neck. Buck and Bobby lift him onto the gurney, then Chim climbs on top of him to take over compressions from Buck as they race back toward the ambulance.
Eddie follows, not sure what else to do. Does he need to stay with his body? He supposes he’ll find out once he’s buried. Will he disappear completely before then or just keep hanging around indefinitely?
He would almost laugh at the irony of him, a self-proclaimed skeptic and non-believer, confirming the existence of ghosts by becoming one if the entire situation weren’t so fucking devastating.
He slips through the ambulance doors as Bobby’s closing them, huddling in the corner on impulse before he realizes it doesn’t really matter if he’s in anyone’s way. Bobby darts around to the driver’s seat, giving dispatch an update on their situation.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. We’ve got a firefighter down at the Marina del Rey boat collision. Drowning, head injury and possible spinal, in respiratory and cardiac arrest. En route to First Presbyterian, about ten minutes out.”
Just as he switches on the sirens, Hen jumps into the front passenger seat. “How is he?” she asks, twisting to peer into the back as Bobby speeds forward.
Chimney’s moved up by his head to work the Ambu bag secured to his face while Buck’s back on compressions. At some point, they ripped his shirt open, the Lifepak paddles now attached to his chest.
“Hold for pulse check,” Chim says, and Buck freezes. After a few seconds, he shakes his head. “Still nothing.”
“Come on, Eddie,” Buck begs, resuming compressions.
It’s the most surreal moment of Eddie’s entire life — or death, he supposes. The whole thing is horribly reminiscent of when Buck was struck by lightning, except for being a bright sunny day instead of a stormy night. He wonders if Buck had an out of body experience like this while they’d been working to bring him back. He must not have, or at least must not remember it. It wouldn’t be like him to experience something like this and not tell them everything about it.
“How’s the kid?” Bobby asks, veering in and out of traffic.
“He’ll be okay. The 133’s taking him to his mom,” Hen answers.
At least Eddie had kept his promise to Sarah. Too bad he couldn’t keep his promise to his own kid…or to himself.
I’m always going to fight to come home to my family. But he hadn’t, had he? He’d had a moment of weakness. He’d given up.
And this is the cost.
Fuck. Eddie hopes Christopher doesn’t blame himself. Maybe it’s for the best that he’s in El Paso for this. Maybe it will hurt less this way.
Eddie just wishes he could have seen him one more time.
“He’s in v-tach!” Chim shouts suddenly. “Charging d-fib…clear!”
Eddie stares, holding his breath. His body jerks as the charge is administered, the Lifepak monitor beeping a couple of times before flatlining again.
“Damn it, back to asystole,” Chim says, glancing at Buck as he resumes compressions with renewed vigor. “Buck —”
“Don’t you dare say to call it, Chim,” Buck grits out.
“I’m not!” Chimney says, aghast. “But maybe we should switch, let me take over for a bit.”
Buck shakes his head, even though his face is pink and his arms are visibly trembling from the exertion of keeping Eddie’s heart beating for the last several minutes. “I’ve got him,” he insists breathlessly.
“Buck —”
“I said I’ve got him!”
Eddie gets it. When he’d been forced to drive Buck to the hospital after the lightning strike, his hands had itched to be the ones keeping Buck alive.
He watches Hen and Chim exchange a worried look, and he gets that too. He’d known, of course, in an abstract way he never really let himself think about too much, that Buck wouldn’t handle his death well. He just had never thought he’d somehow still be around to see it.
“Almost there,” Bobby says tersely.
A team of doctors and nurses is waiting at the emergency room entrance, flinging the ambulance doors open the instant they come to a stop. This time, Buck has no choice but to let someone else take over compressions. As soon as the gurney touches the ground, one of the nurses steps up onto the side to maintain the rhythm as the others wheel Eddie’s body inside. Bobby follows, shouting details after them just like he had with Buck, the rest of the 118 trailing into the lobby behind him.
Eddie takes a few steps past Bobby, torn between following his body where it’s just disappeared around a corner or staying with his team. They stand in stunned silence, no one seeming to know what to say now that the immediate responsibility for Eddie’s life has been taken out of their hands.
Then Buck lunges for a trashcan and retches.
“Oh — oh, Buck.” Hen kneels beside him, rubbing his back as Buck continues to dry heave into the basket.
“S-sorry,” Buck stammers, wiping his mouth.
“It’s okay.” Hen glances up at Bobby and Chimney, every line of her face etched with concern. Chim’s eyes are filled with tears. Bobby just looks haunted.
“I should call Maddie,” Chim mumbles, pulling out his phone.
“I — I need to —” Buck swallows and tries again. “I need to — c-call Christopher.”
Eddie’s heart sinks.
“Not right now, you don’t,” Hen says sternly. “You’re in shock, Buck. Just take a minute. Breathe.”
Buck looks at Hen, tears spilling over from his red-rimmed eyes. “I — I can’t do this,” he whimpers. “This — this can’t be happening. Hen —”
Hen’s expression crumples as she pulls Buck into her arms. He more or less collapses, sobbing into her shoulder, great heaving gasps that echo around the room.
Eddie stumbles backwards. Fuck — he can’t watch this. He can’t watch Buck grieve him.
The decision is suddenly easy. Eddie turns on his heel and runs.
***
It doesn’t take long for him to find his body. He rounds the corner, drifts into a trauma bay, and there he is, the team from outside still working on him. They’ve cut his uniform off completely now, a sheet draped over the lower half of his body like a shroud.
“His core temp’s low, barely above hypothermic. Start a line of warm saline and push another round of epi,” the doctor says — Dr. Salazar, Eddie realizes. The same one who’d once treated him for a panic attack.
“On it,” a nurse says, inserting a line into the IV in his arm. Another nurse is continuing compressions, while a third pumps the Ambu bag over his face.
Eddie wonders idly how long they’re going to keep this up before calling it. Not that he wants them to — the second biggest irony of the day, after him becoming a ghost, is that he’s never been more certain of just how much he wants to live.
It’s a shame it took dying for him to figure that out.
“He’s in v-tach again!” one of the nurses says, grabbing the defibrillator and placing the paddles on his chest. “Charging…clear!”
The EKG starts to beep erratically, the lines on the monitor representing Eddie’s heart rate jumping in a rapid, uneven pattern.
“Still v-tach…charge back to 300,” Dr. Salazar orders.
“Clear!”
They shock him again, and the beeping steadies. Eddie stares at the monitor, disbelieving. They actually got him back? He’s…he’s alive?
“Sinus rhythm’s holding!” Dr. Salazar says. “Alright, let’s intubate!”
Eddie keeps his eyes fixed on the peaks and valleys of his heartbeat, not particularly wanting the visual of a tube being shoved down his throat. He’s alive. He’s alive. But wait…then why isn’t he back inside his body?
Maybe he needs to make contact. He steps up to the foot of the gurney and places his hand on his leg — or he attempts to, anyway. It passes right through just like it had earlier with Buck and Caleb. Nothing else happens.
Well, shit. What does that mean? Is he brain dead? Does his soul or spirit or whatever somehow know this alive state of his body is only temporary and see no need to reintegrate itself?
Eddie waits for the monitor to flatline again, but it holds its steady rhythm. His heart, at least, seems to be working.
For now, anyway.
He follows as they move him down another hall into the ICU. It’s only once he’s set up in the cramped, antiseptic-scented room that Eddie finally has a moment alone with his body since this whole ordeal began.
He looks fucking awful. His skin, behind the mask holding the tubes of the ventilator in place, is so pallid it’s practically gray, and the tips of his fingers are tinged blue around the nails. If it weren’t for the mechanical rise and fall of his chest, Eddie would think he was still looking at his corpse.
“How do I wake up?” he murmurs.
His body doesn’t respond.
With a sigh, Eddie wanders back out into the hallway in search of better company.
When he reaches the lobby, he almost runs directly into Dr. Salazar — realizing belatedly that it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. The 118 is gathered in front of her; Eddie sidesteps to join the circle.
“We were able to resuscitate him,” Dr. Salazar is saying. “He’s stabilized for now, but we’re still considering his condition critical.”
“W-what does that mean?” Buck asks at once. His eyes are red and puffy, but he’s no longer crying and he also changed into a dry LAFD t-shirt at some point. “Stable but critical?”
“His oxygen levels are still dangerously low. We have him on a ventilator to give them a chance to improve,” she says. “There also was fluid in his lungs, so there’s the risk of infection. We’ve started Mr. Diaz on a preventative course of antibiotics, just in case. And of course, it’s difficult to assess the severity of his head injury in this state, but we can’t rule out the possibility of a TBI.”
Huh. Certainly not out of the woods then. Maybe Eddie was right about his spirit deciding it’s not worth jumping back into his body in such a weakened state.
Buck’s eyes bulge as Dr. Salazar speaks. Bobby clears his throat. “What would you say his prognosis is at this stage?” he asks.
Dr. Salazar’s expression softens as she looks around at them. “It’s too early to tell what lasting effects there might be from such prolonged hypoxia,” she says gently. “But the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours are going to be crucial for him to have a hope of recovery.”
Hen and Chim exchange a look. Bobby nods somberly. Buck swallows, looking like he’s about thirty seconds away from shaking right out of his skin.
“He’s in room 214 whenever you’re ready to see him,” Dr. Salazar adds. “Just no more than two at a time, okay?”
Bobby nods again. “Thank you, Doctor.”
She gives them a sympathetic smile before disappearing back down the hall. Bobby reaches over to rest his hand on Buck’s shoulder, and Buck jumps like he’d forgotten anyone else was there.
“They told us similar things about you,” Bobby says softly, “after the lightning strike.”
Buck sucks in a shaky breath. “But I was only down for three minutes. Eddie was down for almost twenty.”
“And I was down for fourteen,” Bobby reminds him. “We don’t know anything yet.”
Buck nods, but Eddie can tell he doesn’t really believe it. “I guess I should call Christopher now,” he says, then frowns. “Or maybe I should call Eddie’s parents first?”
“Let me do that,” Bobby argues. “I’m his captain. I should be the one to call his parents.”
“But —”
“Buck.” Bobby cuts him off with a look. “You don’t have to take this all on yourself.”
Eddie’s throat tightens. He’d known when he made the decision to put Buck in his will all those years ago that the 118 would support him in the event of…well, this. That he wasn’t just leaving his son with Buck, but with a family, much more loving and supportive and open-minded than the one he’d grown up with.
That doesn’t mean he was prepared to see it though.
“Okay,” Buck relents. “You let them know what’s going on, and then I’ll call Christopher. It’s better for them to be prepared before I talk to him.”
Eddie wonders how his parents will take the news. If his mom will feel guilty at all about Thanksgiving. He supposes this will put a bit of a damper on the wholesome family holiday she had planned.
“Should…should we go see him?” Hen asks hesitantly.
“You go ahead. I’ll make the call.” Bobby pulls his phone out of his back pocket and steps across the lobby.
“Buck?” Hen prompts.
Buck looks a bit like he would prefer to dash out the door and into oncoming traffic, but after a moment he nods. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “He shouldn’t be alone.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Eddie says as they turn away from him. “I’m not in there.”
But he follows them back down the hall to the ICU anyway.
They’re all familiar enough with this hospital at this point to find Eddie’s room without any difficulty. Buck pauses with his hand on the door, looking back at Hen and Chim.
“Is it okay if I go in by myself first?” he asks. “Just for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” Hen says, resting her hand on Buck’s arm. “Take all the time you need.”
“We can run down to the cafeteria. Want us to bring you anything? A sandwich, coffee?” Chim offers.
Spouse gloves, Eddie thinks. They’re treating Buck with spouse gloves. He remembers Hen using a similarly soft tone to talk to him when Buck was in his coma. He’d been too lost in his own pain and grief at the time to recognize it for what it was, but it’s painfully clear now, seeing it from the outside.
“I’m good,” Buck says, attempting a small smile. “Thanks, though.”
As Chim and Hen continue down the hallway, Buck turns back to the door, visibly bracing himself. Eddie had done the same thing at the door to Buck’s room, chickening out several times before finally forcing himself to go inside for Christopher.
Buck takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. He’s always been the braver of the two of them.
Eddie slips into the room as the door swings shut. He feels oddly like he’s invading Buck’s privacy by witnessing this, but he also couldn’t look away if he tried.
Buck freezes a few feet from the bed, staring at the pale, impossibly still Eddie before him. His eyes go wide, breath catching in his throat. Eddie steps up beside him and realizes his hands are trembling where they hang at his sides.
“I know,” Eddie says softly. “It wasn’t easy to see you like this either.”
With a shaky exhale, Buck takes another step forward, dragging a chair from the wall up to Eddie’s bedside. He sits slowly, hesitating for another moment before reaching forward to take Eddie’s limp hand between both of his own, massaging his fingers like he’s trying to warm them.
Eddie’s eyes start to burn. Can ghosts cry? It’s not something he ever in a million years would have thought to wonder, but it seems like he might be about to find out.
For a few seconds, there’s no sound apart from the beeping of the heart monitor and the whir and hiss of the ventilator. Then Buck begins to speak.
“Hey, Eddie,” he whispers. “I, uh…I don’t really know what to say. The last time we were in this situation, I couldn’t really sit with you…since I was taking care of Christopher.”
After the shooting, Eddie realizes.
“I really wish you could tell me what to do this time,” Buck continues, voice cracking. “Do you still want me to take him if you…if you don’t — fuck. It’s been so long since we talked about your will. I don’t even know if that’s still what you want.”
“Of course it is,” Eddie says, surprised. “I would have told you if that changed.”
But he can see why Buck might have trouble believing that, since it had taken Eddie so long to tell him about his will in the first place.
Tears begin to slip down Buck’s cheeks and he leans forward, gripping Eddie’s hand like a lifeline. “I really need you to wake up, Eddie,” he pleads. “I know things haven’t been great lately, but we can fix it. I can fix it. I just need you to come back.” He takes a ragged, shuddery breath, then adds in a small voice, “I just…need you.”
And Eddie knows his heart is across the room in a comatose body, but he swears he feels it break anyway.
“I’m sorry, Buck,” he whispers, wishing more than anything that he could answer Buck’s plea. That he could find a way to let Buck know if he doesn’t wake up, it’s not because he didn’t want to come back to him. He’d do just about anything to make Buck happy — a fact he probably should have examined more closely a long time ago.
Buck goes completely rigid, his eyes snapping up to the comatose Eddie’s face. “E-Eddie?” he asks hesitantly.
The Eddie in the bed doesn’t respond; he couldn’t with the ventilator, even if he had miraculously regained consciousness. Which he hasn’t — his eyes are still closed, face slack behind the mask. But Buck is certainly acting like something just happened. Maybe one of his fingers twitched?
Eddie leans forward to get a better look. “What?” he says, not actually expecting any sort of response.
Definitely not expecting Buck to jump in his seat, whirl around, and stare right at him.
Him him, not the unconscious version of him lying in bed. The blood drains from Buck’s face as he and Eddie lock eyes.
“Eddie?” he gasps again.
Eddie stares helplessly back, feeling just as unmoored.
“Buck?”