Archive of Our Own ^beta

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?”

Chapter Text

Eddie looks down at himself and then back up at Buck. Buck continues to stare at him like he’s — well, like he’s just seen a ghost.

“You can see me?” Eddie asks, hope blooming in his chest. Maybe being a ghost won’t be so bad if he can still hang out with Buck.

“Oh god,” Buck cries, obviously not on the same page. He scrambles to his feet. “Is this it? Do you see a light? Don’t go to the light, Eddie!”

Eddie frowns. “What? What light? What are you talking about?”

That seems to give Buck pause. “Aren’t — are you dying?”

Eddie looks at the heart monitor beeping steadily beside his bed. “I don’t think so? At least, not any more than I already was,” he amends.

“So you’re…you’re not a ghost?” Buck asks, eyes darting from him to his body and back again.

Eddie shrugs. “I mean, I think I kind of am,” he admits, demonstrating by waving his hand through the railing at the foot of his bed. “But I’ve been here this whole time. I don’t know why you can suddenly see me now.”

Buck stares at the place where Eddie’s hand just passed through the railing. “Oh, I get it,” he says faintly after a moment. “I snapped. I’m hallucinating.”

That startles a laugh out of Eddie. “You’re not hallucinating, Buck.”

“How can I know that?” Buck challenges. He drags a frustrated hand through his curls, then snaps his fingers. “Wait, I know. You have to tell me something. Something only Eddie would know, that I wouldn’t have any way of knowing otherwise.”

“Umm….” There is something that immediately comes to mind, but Eddie doesn’t necessarily think it will assuage Buck’s fears that he’s hallucinating. “I used to do ballroom dancing?” he tries instead.

“You — what?” Buck says, cocking his head with an expression that makes him look more like a confused puppy than usual.

“I did competitive ballroom dancing in junior high,” Eddie elaborates. “I was good, too. There are a couple of trophies on a shelf in the back of my closet.”

Buck’s eyes rove down Eddie’s body like he’s trying to imagine him doing a foxtrot in a sequined uniform. It makes heat flash all over him, like Buck’s gaze is some kind of laser.

“Does that do the trick?” he asks, resisting the urge to cross his arms.

Buck scratches the back of his neck. “Well, I don’t think I would have been able to just make that up,” he says. “But I still don’t understand. How can you be a ghost if you’re alive?”

Eddie looks down at his pale, unmoving body, only functioning at the most basic level because a machine is forcing it to. “Am I?” he murmurs.

“Yes,” Buck says with an intensity that takes Eddie aback a little. “You are. Your heart’s still beating — you’re fighting, Eddie.”

A lump swells in Eddie’s throat. He wishes he could muster a tenth of the faith in himself that Buck has in him.

Before he can say anything else, there’s a knock at the door. “Buck?” Hen calls.

Buck’s eyes widen in alarm. “Do you think everyone can see you now?” he asks in a whisper. “Or is it just me?”

Eddie shrugs again. “I have no idea. I guess we’ll find out?”

Buck nods and starts toward the door, giving Eddie a much wider berth than necessary. Eddie suspects he’s afraid of walking right through him.

“Wait!” he hisses just as Buck grips the handle. “If they can’t see me, don’t say anything.” The last thing they need is for Buck to be put on a psychiatric hold.

Buck hesitates for a second before nodding in agreement and opening the door.

“Hey,” Hen greets him, stepping into the room. “How is he?”

“Uhh….” Buck’s eyes snap involuntarily back to the ghostly version of Eddie standing at the foot of the bed. Hen doesn’t follow his gaze, remaining focused on Eddie’s body, her face falling as she takes in the sight.

“Oh shit,” Chim exhales as he follows her inside, also staring straight ahead. Eddie leans forward, waving his arms, but neither of them spare a glance in his direction.

Apparently it is only Buck who can see him then. That’s…interesting.

“Hey, Eddie,” Hen says softly, taking the seat Buck had been in and reaching for his hand. Chimney steps up next to her, gripping the back of the chair to steady himself.

“How does the guy still look handsome in a coma?” he says, obviously trying for some levity despite his voice shaking a little. “That’s just not fair.”

“Not having a rebar through his skull probably helps,” Hen replies.

“Hmm, yeah, I guess that’ll do it,” Chim muses.

Eddie snorts, and Buck’s gaze jumps from him over to Chim and Hen, still entirely oblivious. When Buck looks back at him, Eddie jerks his head in the direction of the door, silently communicating that they should leave.

Buck nods, taking a step backwards. “I’ll let you guys sit with him,” he says. “I should check in with Bobby…then maybe run home for a bit.”

Hen give him a small smile over her shoulder. “Take your time. We’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Spouse gloves, Eddie thinks again as he follows Buck through the door.

Once they’re out in the hall, Eddie stares at every person they pass, looking for any signs of acknowledgement. A couple of the nurses glance at Buck as they walk by, but no one looks at Eddie, following right on his heels.

Buck’s shoulders are tense as they make their way to the lobby, and Eddie can tell he’s trying hard not to look back every few seconds to make sure Eddie’s still behind him. Eddie quickens his pace to walk at his side, close enough that their arms would be brushing if Eddie were solid.

“I’m still here,” he says quietly. Buck lets out a breath and his shoulders relax slightly.

They run into Bobby just as they round the corner to the last hallway before the lobby. Bobby’s jaw is clenched, and there’s a worried line between his eyebrows. Eddie takes a wild guess that the conversation with his parents didn’t go very well.

“Hey,” Bobby says, smoothing out his expression as soon as he spots Buck. “I was just coming to find you guys.”

Eddie jumps, thinking for a split second that Bobby can see him; Buck seems to think so too, his eyes snapping over to Eddie. But Bobby’s eyes remain fixed on Buck, and when he doesn’t react in any way to Eddie’s presence, Eddie realizes the “guys” must have also been referring to Hen and Chimney.

Buck exhales, evidently reaching the same conclusion. “You found me. I just left Hen and Chim in with Eddie’s — with Eddie. How, uh…how did the call with his parents go?”

A muscle jumps almost imperceptibly in Bobby’s jaw. “They were upset — understandably,” he says, and Eddie winces, imagining the blame his mother must have thrown at Bobby for the incident. “They’re going to look at flights to try to get out here tomorrow with Christopher.”

“T-tomorrow?” Buck repeats, blinking rapidly. “Okay…I should go over to Eddie’s house to make sure his room is ready.”

“You don’t have to do that, Buck,” Eddie says without thinking. “I’m sure they’ll get a hotel.”

Buck opens his mouth, most likely to argue, then glances at Bobby and snaps it shut quickly.

“Sorry,” Eddie whispers, miming zipping his lips. Buck’s own lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh.

Bobby furrows his brow, clearly not sure what to make of the rapid-fire shifts in Buck’s expression. “Buck,” he says carefully. “Are you okay?”

“I’m —,” Buck starts. Eddie expects him to protest that he’s fine, but after a moment, he shakes his head, sagging a little. “Not really,” he rasps with a breathless, humorless laugh. “Kind of feel like I might be losing my mind, actually.”

Eddie looks at him in surprise — is he about to tell Bobby the truth?

Bobby’s gaze softens in understanding; of course, he assumes Buck just means losing his mind with grief, something Bobby is all too familiar with. “I know what you mean, kid,” he says, his voice thick. “But Eddie’s a fighter. I have to believe that he’ll find his way back to us.”

Eddie’s chest goes tight, shame swirling in his gut. Everyone on his team has such a high opinion of him, but the truth is that he hadn’t fought — not when it counted. And he has no fucking idea how to get back to them.

“Yeah,” Buck says hoarsely. “It just — feels different this time.”

Eddie shifts uncomfortably on his feet. Yes, he can see why his appearance as a ghost might make this particular near death experience feel a bit more permanent than usual. He’d been excited to be able to interact with Buck, but maybe his presence is just making this whole thing worse for him? After all, Buck’s immediate reaction to seeing him had been to assume it meant Eddie was dying right then.

Bobby frowns. “Buck —”

“I should go,” Buck cuts him off, eyes darting over to Eddie. “I should really call Christopher now. And then take a shower.” He gestures down at the damp uniform pants he’d been wearing when he jumped into the marina, which can’t possibly be comfortable at this point.

“Okay,” Bobby agrees. “But call if you need anything. Even if you just don’t want to be alone, alright?”

Buck swallows. “I will, Bobby. I — shit. I don’t have a car here.” He glances sideways at Eddie again, the disappointment plain on his face that it might be even longer before they can speak freely.

Bobby reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys. “You can take the ambulance back,” he says, placing them in Buck’s palm.

Buck’s eyebrows shoot up. “You sure?”

“Of course. We can all find our way home from here,” Bobby says, lips quirking into a smile.

Buck closes his hand around the keys. “Thanks, Cap.”

Bobby clasps Buck’s shoulder briefly as he continues down the hall to Eddie’s room. As soon as he’s out of sight, Buck meets Eddie’s eyes and together they hurry out of the hospital to the ambulance, parked at the end of the circular drive.

“So…I’m the only one who can see you,” Buck says the second they’re inside with the doors closed — although Eddie had never opened his, simply materializing through it.

He nods. “It seems that way.”

Buck glances at him from beneath his lashes. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says honestly. “I just…heard you talking to me, and I wanted to be able to answer you. Then you could see me.”

Buck chews on his bottom lip, gaze going unfocused, apparently lost in thought.

“I haven’t changed my will,” Eddie adds quietly. “I still want you to take Christopher if…you know.”

Buck inhales sharply, his eyes widening as they snap back to Eddie’s. “You heard that?”

Eddie nods again.

Tears well in Buck’s eyes. “You’ve really been here the whole time?” he asks shakily.

“Since the dock,” Eddie confirms. “I was there when you pulled me out. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Buck takes another shuddery breath. “So you — you saw me…,” he trails off, his cheeks going pink.

Eddie’s not sure exactly what he’s referring to. His desperate attempts to resuscitate him in this very ambulance? Breaking down in Hen’s arms in the emergency room lobby?

“I, uh, stayed with my body for a while. When we first got to the hospital,” he says awkwardly.

Buck coughs, his face still flushed. “Right.”

“Did anything like this happen to you? After the lightning?” Eddie asks, in part due to genuine curiosity, but also to change the subject.

Buck rubs his thumb along his chin, considering. “No — uh, no. I mean, towards the end of my dream, I guess you could say I had an out-of-body experience where I could see myself. But I wasn’t just hovering around you guys, invisible.” He frowns. “At least, not that I can remember.”

“Hmm. Maybe you weren’t dead long enough,” Eddie muses, and Buck shudders. “Sorry.”

“Is that why you think you’re still — like this?” Buck says, gesturing toward him. “You were — gone too long?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “Right after they brought me back, I tried to get back into my body by touching myself — not like that!” he adds quickly when Buck quirks an eyebrow at him. “I touched my foot — well, I tried to, but my hand went through it. I’m not really sure what else to do.”

“Huh.” Buck’s gaze turns inward, and Eddie knows he’s combing through the catalogue of near death experience stories in his brain for anything useful. “Maybe we need to do, like, a reverse exorcism. I’ll do some research.”

Eddie can’t help but smile. Trust Buck to treat this like it’s one of Christopher’s school projects — something he can figure out with a trip to the library and enough time on Wikipedia.

“Sure, Buck,” Eddie says fondly. “But first…I think you said something about calling Christopher?”

“Yes!” Buck fumbles in his pocket for his phone, then freezes for a second before snapping his eyes back up to Eddie. “Wait — do you think Chris will be able to see you too?”

Eddie had not gotten that far in his thinking. “I…I don’t know,” he stammers. “I guess it’s possible?”

“Maybe I should FaceTime him so we can check?” Buck asks.

Eddie frowns. “Don’t you think it might confuse him if you call to say I’m in a coma and then I appear on video?”

“If he can see you, it would be better for us to figure that out now than when he arrives tomorrow with your parents,” Buck argues.

And yeah, okay, Buck has a point there.

Eddie still crosses his arms stubbornly. “Will I even show up on camera?”

“Pretty sure you’re thinking of vampires,” Buck says, navigating to the FaceTime app on his phone.

“I don’t think ghosts are typically captured on film either,” Eddie grumbles. Maybe if they were, he would have believed in them before now. “Fine, we can FaceTime — but if he can’t see me, same rules as before. I don’t want to freak him out.” Or give him false hope, Eddie thinks but doesn’t say.

“Deal. If he can’t see you, I won’t say anything.” Buck scrolls back through his call history to find Christopher, and Eddie’s heart twinges a little when he sees his own name appear far more than anyone else’s.

He feels another, stronger pang when Buck finally lands on Christopher’s name and he realizes Buck hasn’t FaceTimed Chris since before he left for El Paso.

Christopher answers on the first ring, and it’s immediately obvious that he’s been crying. “Buck?” he sniffles.

Eddie’s heart drops straight through the bottom of the ambulance to splatter on the pavement below.

“H-hey, buddy,” Buck says softly, the humor of seconds before completely gone.

“What’s going on? My grandma said Dad was in an accident at work?”

“Yeah,” Buck says, slowly panning the camera on his phone over to include Eddie in the view. Eddie sees himself in the tiny box in the corner of the screen, right behind Buck.

Christopher doesn’t react.

He can’t see him, then. Eddie’s honestly not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved. Buck glances back at him, one of his eyebrows lifting slightly.

“Buck?”

He snaps his attention back to Christopher. “Sorry! Yes, he was in an accident.” Buck takes a deep breath. “Um…he drowned, Chris.”

All of the blood drains out of Christopher’s face. He sways a little where he’s sitting in his desk chair.

“But they got him back at the hospital! He’s alive,” Buck adds quickly. “He’s just — he’s in a coma.”

Chris swallows a couple of times. “Like you were after the lightning?” he says finally.

Buck nods. “Yeah. Like I was.”

Not exactly, Eddie thinks.

“So he’s going to be okay then?” Christopher asks.

Eddie closes his eyes. He’d wondered at the time if Buck’s survival might skew Christopher’s perception of death. But then again, Chris knew better than anyone that sometimes people — parents — didn’t make it.

When he blinks, Buck is watching him with concern. “I don’t know, buddy,” he says honestly, looking back at Christopher. “But…you remember what I told you before? After your dad got shot?”

Eddie jerks a little in surprise. He and Buck have never talked about this, apart from Buck’s initial assessment that he “kind of lost it” when he told Chris what happened.

Chris sniffs, wiping at one of his eyes beneath his glasses. “That Dad’s tough as nails,” he says, his voice wobbling. “And…and he’s a fighter.”

That word again. Eddie wipes at his own eyes, tears tracking down his cheeks. So apparently ghosts can cry.

“That’s right,” Buck says. “I know he’s not gonna give up. He’ll do whatever it takes to come back to you.”

Christopher’s breathing starts to quicken. “I — I’ve been so mad at him!” he bursts out. “I can’t even remember the last time I told him I loved him. What if I — what if I never —”

Eddie doesn’t even try to brush the tears away now. He wonders if he stays like this, if the feeling of his heart breaking is going to be like a phantom limb situation that he has to experience over and over and over again.

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey,” Buck soothes. “You’ll get to tell him — I really believe that. But even if you don’t, he knows, Chris. And he loves you too, more than anything.”

“How do you know?” Chris says, sounding much younger than his fourteen years.

Buck glances at Eddie. “I just do.”

Chris calms down a little after that, and Buck asks about their flights. They’re scheduled to land around ten-thirty the next morning. Eddie wishes they were arriving a little later to give him more time to figure this whole thing out, but he also understands his family’s urgency to get here.

“I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances, but I’m looking forward to seeing you, bud,” Buck says. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Chris says. “I’ll text you when we land tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

Chris pauses for a second and then adds, “Love you, Buck.”

Buck’s face crumples a little. He, like Eddie, clearly realizes this is in response to Chris not remembering the last time he said he loved his dad — that he’ll be afraid to let conversations end without saying it now. But Buck just says, “I love you too, Chris” and ends the call.

They both sit in silence for a few seconds before Buck turns to look at him. “Are you okay?” he asks in a low voice.

Eddie makes a weird motion somewhere between a nod, a shrug, and shaking his head. “Not really,” he gasps.

Buck’s face falls even further and he reaches forward to rest his hand on Eddie’s shoulder — then jumps about a foot in the air when it falls right through him. “Fuck!” he yelps. “That’s so fucking weird, man.”

Eddie blubbers out a laugh. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Buck gets a slightly desperate glint in his eyes. “We’ll figure this out, Eddie,” he promises, just on the edge of manic. “We’ll get you back into your body and you’ll wake up, and then you and Chris will make up, and everything will be fine.”

Eddie takes a deep breath that he’s sure he doesn’t actually need, but it does help to steady him a bit. “Okay,” he whispers. “Can we…can we just go home now?”

Buck nods and turns the key in the ignition. As they start to move forward, Eddie is once again struck by the fear that he won’t be able to travel too far away from his body. He wonders how much it will freak Buck out if he just randomly disappears. A lot, probably.

But as they pull onto the main street and the hospital vanishes from the rearview mirror, nothing happens. After a couple of minutes, Eddie lets out a breath, his hands unclenching as he glances at Buck.

He’s beginning to suspect if there’s anything — or anyone — he’s tied to, it’s not his own body anyway.

After returning the ambulance to the station and retrieving his truck, Buck drives straight to Eddie’s house, bypassing the exit for his loft without comment. Eddie doesn’t say anything either; he did ask to go home, after all.

True to his word, Buck takes an extremely quick shower as soon as they arrive. After about five minutes, he bursts through the bathroom door, wild-eyed with nothing but a towel around his waist, only relaxing when his eyes land on Eddie sitting on the couch. Eddie doesn’t have to ask to know Buck was afraid he might have disappeared while he was out of sight. With a shaky nod, Buck turns into Eddie’s bedroom, presumably to change into the spare sweats he’s kept there since just after the shooting.

Eddie stays in the living room, waiting for Buck to reemerge. It’s strange to be in his own house and not be able to touch anything; he’s not really sure what to do with himself, to be honest. He can’t even pick up the remote to turn on the TV, and his phone didn’t make the journey to ghosthood with him.

After a few moments of silence, he hears a muffled gasp and a curse from inside his bedroom. “Buck?” Eddie calls, getting to his feet. When Buck doesn’t answer, Eddie materializes through the closed door without thinking.

Buck is standing in front of Eddie’s closet, still shirtless but thankfully wearing pants. He’s holding a trophy in his hands.

“Holy shit,” Buck exhales, looking up at Eddie. “You really did do ballroom dancing.”

Eddie lets out a breathless laugh. “You think I would have lied about that?”

Buck puts the trophy back on the closet shelf. “I think I’ve still been half-convinced you’re a hallucination this whole time,” he admits.

Eddie’s throat tightens. It could be a joke, but there’s something a little too raw and honest in the way Buck says it — like of course he would be so desperate to see Eddie that he would just imagine him being here.

“Oh,” Eddie says, the sound coming out a bit strangled. He takes a few steps backward and sits on the edge of his bed.

Buck turns toward the dresser to pull on the t-shirt he’d discarded in his apparent haste to confirm Eddie wasn’t a figment of his imagination, then looks back over at him, frowning.

“How can you sit on the bed?” he asks.

Eddie lifts an eyebrow. “What?”

“A minute ago, you moved right through the door,” Buck says, waving his hand. “But now you’re sitting on the bed. Why aren’t you falling through it?”

Eddie stares at him. “Are you asking me to explain the metaphysics of being a ghost?” he asks incredulously. “This morning, I wouldn’t have believed this was even possible. I have no idea how any of this shit works.”

Buck drags a hand through his damp curls. “Right, right. Sorry.” He snorts, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you of all people are a ghost. You know Chim would have a field day with this if he knew.”

“Trust me, the irony’s not been lost on me,” Eddie sighs.

They stare at each other for a beat as the absurdity of the situation seems to settle over them. Since they’ve been alone, it’s been almost easy to pretend this is a normal day — just Buck coming over to hang out after shift like he’s done countless times since Christopher left.

But it isn’t. Eddie’s body is barely clinging to life at the hospital. If anyone else were here, they wouldn’t even be able to see him. Eddie still has no idea why Buck is the only one who can.

He watches the grin slowly slide off Buck’s face. “Right,” he says again. “I’m going to get started on Christopher’s sheets.”

Eddie stands up. “I meant it before. You don’t have to do that, Buck.”

“I know,” Buck says, shrugging as he opens the bedroom door. “But what if he wants to stay here?”

Eddie gives up on protesting as he follows Buck out into the hall. He thinks he understands what’s going on; Buck has to feel like he’s contributing somehow, doing something useful. In the absence of Christopher being here to take care of, this is all he can really do right now.

He slips into Christopher’s room behind Buck, looking around as Buck starts to strip the bedding. He hasn’t been in here in months, the door left closed ever since the night Buck found him in here with a half-empty bottle of tequila a couple of weeks after Chris left. There’s a fine layer of dust over everything, but apart from that, it looks like Christopher could be coming back any moment. A novel with a bookmark three-quarters of the way through still sits on his desk in front of the picture of Chris and Shannon at the beach.

Eddie moves forward, his eyes fixed on the photo. Will Christopher need to add another picture of him with Eddie now, turning his desk into an ofrenda for his lost parents? Will he even want to honor Eddie’s memory that way? At least when he and Shannon were estranged, it had never been Christopher’s choice. Will the fact that his son willingly spent the last few months of Eddie’s life apart from him make it easier to deal with his death, or harder?

The washer makes a loud clunking noise down the hall, and Eddie looks up to find Buck watching him from the doorway, his gaze wary.

“Do you think Shannon got to be a ghost for a while too?” Eddie asks, gesturing at the picture. He can’t say he ever felt her presence, but it’s not like he’d been particularly attuned to her when she was alive. “Was she hanging around and we just couldn’t see her?”

Buck’s eyebrows jump up toward his hairline; he clearly hadn’t been expecting that question. “I…I have no idea, Eddie.”

“You’d think with all the people we know who have died or almost died, we’d have encountered this before,” Eddie says. “I mean, why me?”

Buck opens his mouth and closes it again.

“I’m not expecting you to know,” Eddie adds quickly. “I know you like to be the guy with the answers…I’m just thinking out loud here.”

“Maybe you weren’t ready to go,” Buck says softly.

A lump lodges itself in Eddie’s throat. “I don’t think Shannon was either.” I want a little more time.

“Maybe…maybe it wasn’t your time yet,” Buck says, like he just read Eddie’s mind.

Eddie looks at him. “You believe in that? That things happen to people because it is or isn’t their time? Like….”

Like fate.

Buck holds out his hands helplessly. “Before I got struck by lightning? I don’t know. But now…now I think I kind of have to.”

Eddie nods. Yeah, that makes sense. He remembers their conversation at the cemetery, how much Buck had wanted his survival to have meaning. How he’d believed Natalia would be the one to help him find it.

“You can’t be the only one,” Buck says, eyes glinting with a sudden fierce determination. “Where’s your laptop? I’ll start researching.”

He whirls around into the hall, and Eddie follows him again, feeling a surge of fondness despite the dread still curling in his stomach.

That’s how they spend the rest of the afternoon: Buck on Eddie’s couch with the laptop propped on his knees, reading through every near death experience account he can find, while Eddie sits beside him watching the TV Buck turned on. Every so often, Buck gets up, first to move Christopher’s sheets to the dryer, then to make the bed, then to get something to eat from the kitchen. Eddie feels a little guilty just sitting there while Buck flurries around him, but the fact is that he’s physically incapable of doing anything to help.

Bobby, Hen, and Maddie all text Buck throughout the day to check in. Maddie even offers to come over to keep him company, but Buck insists that he just needs to be alone. None of them ask why he hasn’t come back to the hospital, but then again, no one asked Eddie why he couldn’t sit with Buck during his coma either.

Bobby stays with Eddie’s body until visiting hours are over, which brings Eddie dangerously close to tears again. By the time he texts Buck that he’s leaving, there’s been no change in Eddie’s condition. Eddie’s not surprised; he wasn’t expecting there to be. Not a positive change, anyway.

Finally, when it’s getting close to midnight, Buck slams the laptop lid shut with a groan and leans forward to set it on the coffee table. “I can’t find anything useful!” he says, collapsing back on the couch and rubbing his eyes. “There are so many stories about people having out-of-body experiences, but none of them can tell you how they back back into their body — for all of them, it ‘just happened.’” The air quotes are audible in Buck’s voice.

Eddie hums sympathetically. He can’t say he’s surprised by this either — he hadn’t exactly been hopeful that Buck’s reverse exorcism theory would pan out. “You should get some sleep,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”

Buck rolls his head along the back of the couch to look at Eddie and seems like he wants to argue for a few seconds before he sighs. “You’re right. Maybe I’ll see something with fresh eyes in the morning.”

Eddie gives him a small, noncommittal smile. Maybe.

Buck gets up and starts removing the cushions to pull out the couch. “You should just take my bed,” Eddie says, the words more or less bypassing his brain to come out of his mouth. He hurries to clarify. “I mean, I don’t think I can really sleep in this state, so I don’t need it.”

Buck give him a long, inscrutable look, one of the cushions still clutched in his hands. “Are you sure?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah.”

Buck stares at him a beat longer, then slowly puts the cushion back. “Okay. I’ll just be a few minutes,” he says, heading toward the bathroom, apparently forgetting that Eddie won’t need to get in there after him.

Eddie leans back on the couch, his heart thudding hard for no reason. He didn’t say anything weird. He doesn’t need to use his bed tonight — it only makes sense for Buck to take it. He should be comfortable after the day he’s had.

He suddenly wonders if Buck slept in his room after the shooting, or if he’d stayed out here on the couch. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought to ask him.

Buck comes out of the bathroom and hovers in the hall in front of Eddie’s door, twisting his hands. “Um…would you — would you stay in here with me?” he asks haltingly, unable to meet Eddie’s eyes. “You don’t have to all night, but maybe just until I fall asleep? I…I’m just….”

He trails off, but Eddie doesn’t need him to explain. He remembers the look on Buck’s face after his shower earlier. His palpable relief when he realized Eddie was still there.

Eddie gets to his feet, his ribcage feeling a little too tight in his chest — or maybe his heart is too big. “Sure,” he says hoarsely, walking down the hall to follow Buck into his room.

Buck goes around to let Eddie take his usual side of the bed, slipping beneath the sheets while Eddie lays flat on his back on top of the covers. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling as Buck leans over to turn off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.

They lie in silence for a few minutes before Buck shuffles onto his side to face Eddie. Eddie rolls over to mirror him; unlike Buck, his movement doesn’t rustle the sheets at all.

Buck stares at him, his eyes reflecting the faint light drifting in through the door left slightly ajar. “I’m kind of scared to sleep,” he admits quietly. “I’m afraid I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone.”

Eddie’s mouth twists. He wants to reassure Buck, but he honestly doesn’t know if he’ll still be here in the morning. His body could die during the night, and he has no idea if this version of him will stick around if — when — that happens.

“I guess at least now I don’t have to worry about accidentally cuddling you like during quarantine,” Buck adds with a breathless laugh.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “To think there was all that time I could have touched you whenever I wanted, and now —”

He cuts himself off, snapping his mouth closed. He doesn’t know what just possessed him to say that. Redirecting his filter to the morbid, hopeless thoughts that keep clawing at his mind must have left the door open for the other things he usually keeps to himself.

Buck bluescreens, blinking at Eddie for several long seconds. “What?” he finally rasps. “You — you wanted to — touch me?”

Eddie closes his eyes. He could still laugh it off, turn the whole thing into a joke. Say not like that, like he had earlier when Buck read an innuendo into Eddie saying he touched himself.

Or…he could tell Buck the truth. He could tell him about all the soul-searching he’s done since Christopher left. How he’d finally allowed himself to admit that the reason his relationships with Ana and Marisol never felt right wasn’t because Eddie wasn’t over Shannon. That when he took off the rose-colored glasses grief had forced him to wear, he realized his relationship with Shannon had never felt right either. There was a reason he’d spent most of their marriage running away from her; the same reason he’d spent so much time hiding from Ana and Marisol.

A reason he’d fixated on Kim, a last-ditch effort to avoid a truth that become infinitely harder to keep buried after the night Buck quietly, bravely came out to Eddie in his kitchen.

The reason looks at Eddie now, his eyes wide and glassy in the darkness. “Eddie?” Buck whispers.

Eddie lets out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he confesses, irreversibly. “Always.”

Buck makes a pained noise low in his throat, like Eddie’s wounded him. “Why are you only telling me this now?”

Because it doesn’t matter. “I…I guess I’ve finally run out of reasons not to,” Eddie says.

Buck is so close that his eyes dart back and forth between Eddie’s as they stare at each other. “Eddie…,” he breathes, his hand twitching on the mattress between them, like he’s resisting the urge to reach for him.

“Sorry,” Eddie says, attempting a small smile. “You know timing’s never been my strong suit.”

Buck laughs a little ruefully. “It’s okay. But I am going to hold you to this when you wake up.” His gaze turns heated as he looks down Eddie’s body. “And then…we’ll have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

A shiver runs down Eddie’s spine. He’d never let himself think forward enough to wonder if Buck would feel the same, but he thinks, subconsciously, he’d known. “Okay,” he exhales.

He doesn’t correct Buck to say if he wakes up.

They don’t say anything else, and eventually Buck’s eyelids start to droop, his breathing evening out until the sound of his soft snores fills the room. Eddie could get up then, go back out to the living room to watch the TV they’d left on low volume, but he doesn’t.

Buck’s hand is still stretched between them, palm turned up toward the ceiling. Eddie lets his own hand hover just over Buck’s and pretends that he can feel it.

Chapter Text

Eddie is still lying on his bed watching Buck drool onto the pillow beside him when Buck’s phone rings a little after five in the morning. Buck jerks awake before Eddie can say anything.

He blinks at Eddie, his eyes widening as he fumbles on the nightstand behind him. “Hello?” he says groggily, bringing the phone to his ear.

Whatever the person on the other end says has Buck looking instantly more awake. “This is he,” he mumbles, sitting up against the headboard to listen for a moment. “I understand. We — I’ll be right there.”

Buck hangs up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “We have to go back to the hospital.”

Eddie sits up too. “Am I dead?” he asks quietly.

Buck freezes. “What? No! No,” he says, shaking his head fervently as he looks back at Eddie. “But…you came down with a fever overnight.”

Eddie nods, feeling oddly detached from the whole situation. “Pneumonia?”

“They didn’t say,” Buck says gently. “They just told me I should get down there.”

Eddie hums as he gets to his feet. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Buck echoes Bobby’s words from the day before.

Eddie marvels a bit at how easily Buck is able to be hopeful for him now when he wasn’t able to do it for himself yesterday, then realizes that if their positions were reversed, Eddie would be doing exactly the same thing.

When they get to the hospital, Buck goes straight to the nurses’ station in the ICU. “Hi,” he greets the woman sitting at the desk. “I’m Evan Buckley. I got a call about Eddie Diaz?”

She nods. “Ah, Mr. Buckley — yes. Let me just page the pulmonologist.”

Buck glances back at Eddie. He shrugs. Not Dr. Salazar, so apparently the issue is with his lungs, not his heart. The signs are all pointing to pneumonia, just like he’d thought.

The pulmonologist is an older man named Dr. Burke with close-cropped gray hair, glasses, and a grave disposition. He wastes no time in cutting to the chase.

“Mr. Diaz is showing symptoms consistent with bacterial pneumonia,” he says, looking down at the chart in his hands. “In the last few hours, his temperature rose to 103.4 degrees, and his blood oxygen levels are dropping rather than improving.”

Buck scratches at the stubble dusting his jaw. “O-okay,” he stammers. “What are the options for treatment?”

“We’ve increased the dosage of his antibiotics. The next step will be to put him on ECMO.”

Buck visibly swallows.

“But I have to be frank with you, Mr. Buckley,” Dr. Burke says, adjusting his glasses as he looks up. “Mr. Diaz’s lungs are very weak. Even with treatment, I have concerns about his ability to fight this infection. There is a significant risk of him going into organ failure, and if that happens…as his medical proxy, we’ll need to have a conversation with you about his living will.”

Eddie almost bursts out laughing at the doctor’s blunt delivery of such horrible news, but the bubble of hysteria in his throat shrivels and dies when he gets a look at Buck’s face.

“Okay,” Buck says again, his voice cracking. His eyes are wide but not really focusing on anything. “But, um. We’re not — we’re not there yet. Right?”

“Right,” Dr. Burke confirms in the most gentle tone he’s used so far. “I just want you to be prepared.”

Buck nods very rapidly. He looks possibly the least prepared that anyone has ever looked for anything. “Can I see him?” he asks.

Eddie half-expects him to be turned away since it’s not visiting hours yet, but Dr. Burke just nods, which might be the biggest indication of what he thinks about Eddie’s chances. The room is dark when they go inside, but Buck doesn’t bother to turn on the light. He beelines straight to his chair from the previous day and reaches for Eddie’s hand without any hesitation this time.

Eddie waits until Dr. Burke has closed the door behind them to speak. “Buck —”

“I know that sounded bad,” Buck interrupts, glancing up at him. “But obviously Dr. Burke doesn’t have all the information. I mean, he doesn’t know you’re still…you know. Here.”

“Exactly,” Eddie says quietly. “I’m still here.” He gestures down at his ghostly form, still dressed in the uniform he’d been wearing when he fell into the water. Eddie supposes if this is how he’s going to look for the rest of eternity, there could have been worse options. He could have died on Halloween, in the werewolf costume.

Buck’s jaw tightens and he looks back at Eddie’s body in the hospital bed, which also hasn’t changed in appearance at all over the last twelve hours. He’s lying just as pale and lifeless as the day before, the ventilator hissing behind him.

“You said yesterday you tried to touch your foot?” Buck says suddenly.

“Yeah, but my hand went through it.” Eddie steps up to the side of the bed and attempts to place his hand on top of the blanket covering his knee. Once again, he encounters no resistance, passing right through his body like it’s a hologram. “Just like that.”

Buck frowns. “What if…what if you try lying down on yourself? Maybe you need to be completely aligned for your soul to click back into your body…like Legos!”

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Legos? Really, Buck?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Buck mutters, his cheeks going pink. “Just humor me, come on.”

And, well, Eddie doesn’t really have any better ideas. With a sigh, he climbs onto the bed, whatever incomprehensible laws of physics govern the spiritual world somehow preventing him from falling through the mattress even as his knees go straight through his own legs.

He lies down in the exact position of his body and waits — for pain, warmth, cold. For any sensation that indicates his spirit is once again connected to his physical form.

Nothing happens. “This is ridiculous,” Eddie grumbles.

Buck lifts up the hand he’s been holding and squeezes it. “Can you feel this?”

Eddie looks from his hand in Buck’s down to his hospital gown-clad body. He can’t feel the papery texture of the gown, or the blanket pulled up to his waist, or the ventilator tube in his throat. He can’t feel Buck’s warm, calloused skin pressed against his.

“No,” he says softly, looking back up at Buck. “I can’t feel anything.”

Buck’s face falls, and Eddie’s heart drops right along with it. He hates that he’s the reason for Buck’s pain. He hates that he has to cause him more.

But Christopher will be here soon. And Buck won’t be able to help Christopher accept the truth if he’s not able to.

Eddie sits up, shifting to perch on the edge of the bed across from Buck. “I think we need to start considering the possibility that I’m not going to get back into my body,” he says as gently as he can.

Buck is already shaking his head before Eddie’s even finished speaking. “No.”

“Buck, come on,” Eddie says, wishing he could reach over to shake him. “You heard what the doctor said.”

“Yeah,” Buck says stubbornly. “He said we’re not there yet.”

“He also said we need to be prepared,” Eddie reminds him.

Buck doesn’t say anything, his gaze intent on Eddie’s unconscious face, like he’s searching for any sign of life to prove the doctor wrong.

“How long did all those out-of body experiences you were reading about last?” Eddie asks quietly, voicing the fears he had suppressed during Buck’s fruitless research spiral the day before. “More than a few hours? Overnight?”

Buck shakes his head again — not in answer, but denial. “Eddie…,” he says, pleading.

“I don’t want to give up, okay? I don’t,” Eddie says, leaning forward to meet Buck’s eyes. “But…we have to think about Christopher too. If we don’t try to prepare him for what the likely outcome of this could be, it’s only going to be worse for him if — if I don’t make it.”

Buck’s shoulders slump, and Eddie knows he’s finally getting through to him. He closes his eyes, holding Eddie’s hand against his heart like he can force him to absorb some of his own life.

“Okay,” Buck whispers. “I…I hear you, Eddie. And I won’t lie to Christopher about anything the doctors say. I promise.” He looks up at Eddie, his gaze watery but determined. “But I’m not giving up on you either. Not…not until I have to.”

That’s good enough for now. Eddie gives Buck a small smile. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

They’re forced to leave the room when Dr. Burke returns with a team of nurses to hook Eddie’s body up to the ECMO machine. It’s not something Eddie or Buck particularly want to watch anyway, so they go down to the cafeteria, Eddie drifting behind Buck as he orders coffee and a breakfast sandwich. He feels a little strange just following Buck around everywhere like a shadow, but so far Buck hasn’t given any indication that he minds.

Eddie watches Buck eat in silence, not risking any conversation even though the cafeteria is nearly empty. He looks deep in thought, a faint line between his eyebrows, and Eddie’s certain he must still be ruminating on everything they’d said upstairs.

Guilt prickles at Eddie for being so blunt — not all that different from Dr. Burke, come to think of it — but he can’t bring himself to regret it. With every passing minute he spends stuck like this, he’s becoming more and more convinced that the situation is permanent.

Except…well, surely Eddie will be given the opportunity to move on at some point, right? Go into the light, like Buck had been afraid of? He hasn’t seen any other ghosts, so it seems like most people don’t end up trapped on this plane of existence. Unless…unless there’s something specific that’s keeping him here?

Unease swirls in Eddie’s stomach. He wonders how long it will take Buck to mind if Eddie has to follow him like a shadow forever.

When they return to the room, Eddie’s body is in basically the same state as before, but with a few additional tubes. Eddie feels a moment of relief that his son is at least familiar enough with ECMO that he hopefully won’t be too freaked out — then instantly sickened that his barely fourteen-year-old is even aware of such a procedure at all.

A few minutes after eight in the morning, there’s a knock at the door. Eddie looks at Buck, his eyebrows raised in question. Visiting hours have just started, so he’s expecting it to be Bobby or Hen or Chim. Christopher’s flight hasn’t taken off from El Paso yet, so it couldn’t be him or Eddie’s parents.

The door opens and a nurse pushes Sarah inside in a wheelchair.

“Sarah,” Buck blurts out, matching Eddie’s surprise.

“Hi,” she says, her gaze sliding from Buck to Eddie lying in the bed behind him. “I hope this is okay. Caleb told me what happened, and I…I wanted to come see him.”

“Of course,” Buck says, recovering quickly. “Please, come in.”

The nurse pushes Sarah forward a few more feet, then smiles at them — well, at Buck and Sarah — and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Sarah looks around at the various equipment surrounding Eddie’s body. “How is he?” she asks softly.

“He’s….” Buck trails off, which seems to be enough of an answer. Sarah nods, her lower lip trembling. “How are you?” he hurries to add. “How’s your leg?”

“Oh, it’s fine. I think this is a bit excessive, to be honest,” she says, gesturing down at the wheelchair. “But they didn’t want me to risk tearing any stitches.”

“Ah.” Buck nods sagely. “Well, it’s better to be safe in cases like these.”

Eddie huffs out a dry laugh — Buck would certainly know all about the risks of getting back on your feet too quickly. Buck goes completely rigid in his chair, obviously forcing himself not to look at Eddie leaning against the wall across from him.

“Uh…how’s Caleb?” Buck asks, his gaze locked on Sarah.

One side of Sarah’s mouth turns up. “He’s good. He barely has a scratch, thank God. He’s just…been worried about Eddie.”

Eddie closes his eyes, his own grin evaporating. Fuck — he hopes he didn’t traumatize that little boy for life.

“He was really brave yesterday,” Buck says quietly. “He seems like a great kid.”

“He is.” Tears begin to well along Sarah’s lashes. “I’ve felt so guilty, because this only happened because Eddie went looking for him…but if he hadn’t, I don’t know if Caleb would have made it out.” She breaks off with a shuddery gasp, wiping at her eyes.

“Hey. I know Eddie would never regret it, okay?” Buck says, his voice gentle but firm. Convincing. “He wouldn’t regret saving anyone, but especially a kid.”

Something about the way Buck says it makes Eddie certain Sarah’s going to ask. And sure enough —

“He’s a father?” she says, her eyes going round as she looks at Buck.

Buck hesitates, and Eddie knows he’s considering whether to tell the truth. But it’s Buck, so of course he does. “He has a son named Christopher.”

Sarah sniffles a little. “That explains why he was so good with Caleb.”

Now Buck’s eyes are starting to water. “Yeah,” he rasps. “He’s…he’s the best dad.”

Eddie scoffs, and Buck finally looks up at him. Eddie knows Buck’s opinion of him is wildly biased, but surely at this point even he must admit that’s not true. The best dad wouldn’t drive his own son out of the state.

Buck frowns like he knows exactly what Eddie’s thinking. Sarah, thankfully, doesn’t seem to catch any of their silent conversation, her gaze fixed once again on Eddie’s body.

“You two are close?” she asks quietly.

Buck nods, still looking at Eddie across the room. “He’s my best friend.”

Sarah looks back at Buck, her face crumpling in sympathy. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Will you…when he…I mean, if…will you tell him I said thank you?”

Eddie sees instantly that this is Buck’s breaking point. Something shatters in his expression, and he jolts out of the chair like he’s been electrocuted. “I will. I, um — I just need some air,” he chokes out, already at the door before Sarah can respond.

“Buck!” Eddie calls, but Buck disappears into the hall, Sarah staring after him in shock.

Eddie follows. By the time he makes it into the hallway, Buck is rounding the corner, moving as quickly as he can without actually breaking into a run.

“Buck, wait!” Eddie calls again, but Buck continues forward, down the next hall and through the lobby, not stopping until he’s exited the building completely and ducked behind one of the planters outside, hunching over with his hands on his knees.

“Buck,” Eddie says helplessly, reaching for his shoulder before remembering he won’t be able to touch him. His hands drop to his sides, useless.

“I’m sorry,” Buck gasps without looking up. “I’m so sorry, Eddie.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie says automatically, not sure what exactly Buck’s apologizing for. Running away? Panicking? He certainly doesn’t need to apologize about that to Eddie of all people. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

Buck sucks in a ragged breath, slumping forward even further in resignation. “It’s not Sarah’s fault you’re like this,” he says miserably. “It’s mine.”

Eddie gapes at him. “What are you talking about?”

Buck finally lifts his head. His eyes are spilling over with tears, their blue almost neon in the harsh morning light. “Her BP dropped as soon as I got her to the ambulance,” Buck says shakily. “The paramedics from the 133 were worried she might code, so I stayed to help them stabilize her, and — and I wasn’t there when you needed me.”

Eddie’s heart sinks. He should have known it would only be a matter of time before Buck found a way to blame himself. It’s the underground fight club all over again.

You can’t save someone from themselves, not if they don’t want it…especially if you aren’t around to see that they need saving.

“You stayed with the patient,” Eddie says quietly. “You were doing your job, Buck.”

Buck shakes his head. “I’m supposed to have your back,” he whispers. “I should have been there to pull you out.”

I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Eddie.

“You did pull me out,” Eddie insists.

A tear slides down Buck’s cheek, his face taut with grief. “Not fast enough.”

All at once, frustration boils up in Eddie’s chest. He knows Buck means well; Eddie’s just so fucking tired of not feeling in control of his own life. He couldn’t stop Shannon from dying. He couldn’t keep Christopher from leaving. He has less control over everything now than he ever has. But he is responsible for his own choices.

Even — especially — the ones he regrets.

“This isn’t your fault, Buck! The only reason I have any chance at all is because of you!” Eddie bursts out in a voice that would be way too loud if anyone besides Buck could hear him. “I did this to myself, okay?”

Buck looks stricken. “Whoa, whoa, hey — you were doing your job too. You saved a kid, Eddie.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Eddie says, holding Buck’s gaze.

Understanding flashes in Buck’s eyes. A split second where Eddie sees an echo of the way Buck had looked at him the night he took a baseball bat to his bedroom. Like he’s afraid for him. Afraid of him.

The look is gone, suppressed in an instant. “Okay,” Buck says in the same gentle tone he’d used that night. “What are you talking about?”

What are you afraid of?

Don’t drag him down with you.

“I —,” Eddie starts, but before he can say anything else, Buck’s phone chimes in his pocket. “You should check that. It might be Christopher.”

Buck stares at Eddie for a beat before reluctantly pulling out his phone. “It’s Bobby,” he says, reading the message on the screen. “He just got here.”

Eddie nods. “You should probably go fill him in on everything that’s happened.”

Buck frowns, obviously recognizing the dismissal. “Yeah,” he agrees in a tone that indicates he’d rather argue. He looks up at Eddie meaningfully. “So…we’ll talk more later?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “You go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”

Buck steps around the planter and walks toward the entrance of the hospital, pausing to look back just once before he goes inside.

Eddie watches him go, his throat tight. Even if the truth makes Buck finally see the worst in him, it’s still better than Buck blaming himself.

Eddie thinks that he’s mentally prepared to see Christopher again.

He’s not.

He follows Buck and Bobby down the hall to the lobby, his phantom heartbeat pounding in his chest. Buck keeps glancing at him out of the corner of his eye; they haven’t really been able to communicate since they returned to Eddie’s room and found Bobby in Sarah’s place at his bedside, but Buck’s wordless worry is palpable. Bobby is obviously picking up on it, glancing at Buck every time he glances at Eddie.

Eddie wishes Bobby could see him too; he would definitely be able to offer some words of advice. Maybe he should let Buck tell Bobby the truth? After all, Bobby’s Catholic, a firm believer in life after death — if anyone would believe that Eddie’s soul was frozen in a hospital-shaped purgatory, it would be him.

Eddie shakes his head to himself. If they tell Bobby, it’ll have to be later.

First he has to face his family.

He spots his parents as soon as they reach the lobby. His mother is standing with her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently. His father stands beside her, pinching the bridge of his nose above his glasses. He lowers his hand, reaching for Helena’s arm as his eyes land on Buck and Bobby.

“Buck!”

Before anyone can take another step, Christopher launches himself out of a chair behind Eddie’s parents and barrels toward Buck. Buck half-kneels, half-crouches, raising his arms to catch Chris in a hug.

“Hey, buddy,” Buck whispers, wrapping his arms tightly around him. Christopher clings back, burying his face in Buck’s shoulder.

Eddie feels like his chest might implode.

They hold onto each other for several long seconds before Christopher lifts his head. His eyes are red behind his glasses, but when he speaks his voice is steady. “I want to see my dad.”

“Chris,” Eddie breathes. Those are the words he’s wanted to hear from his son for months now…but not like this.

Buck nods, releasing Chris as he straightens back up. “I know. Let me just talk to your grandparents first, and then we’ll go see him.”

Bobby reaches forward to shake Ramon’s hand. “Hi, I’m Bobby Nash. We spoke on the phone yesterday and met a few years ago at your son’s certification ceremony.”

“Of course,” Ramon replies. “It’s good to see you again, Captain Nash.”

Buck lifts his hand in an awkward sort of wave. “Hello, Mr. Diaz, Mrs. Diaz.”

“Buck,” Helena greets him with a thin smile. “I understand you’ve been keeping Christopher informed.”

To an untrained ear, it might almost sound like she’s thanking him. But Eddie hears the accusation in her clipped cadence.

And so does Buck.

“I figured someone had to,” he says coolly, dropping his hand to rest on Christopher’s shoulder. “And I promised Eddie I would. In situations like this.”

“Yes, we know what a loyal friend you are to Edmundo,” Ramon says, matching Buck’s tone.

Maybe Eddie’s imagining the slight inflection in his father’s voice on the word friend. He wonders suddenly if Chris ever told his parents about Buck dating Tommy. Eddie certainly never had — mainly because it was none of their business, but he also couldn’t deny a part of him was afraid if his parents found out Buck liked men, then they would read more into their closeness over the years.

And they would be right.

“How is he?” Helena asks, looking pointedly from Buck to Bobby. “Has there been any change?”

“His fever’s come down a bit,” Bobby answers. “We’re still waiting to see if his oxygen levels improve now that he’s on ECMO.”

“I want to see him,” Christopher says again, looking up at Buck.

Buck nods at once. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Helena says as they start to turn away. “Maybe Christopher should stay here while Ramon and I go see him first, to make sure it’s acceptable.”

“Acceptable?” Buck repeats incredulously. “It’s his father.”

“Yes, and we want to make sure seeing his father like this won’t be too traumatic for our grandson,” Helena says in a slow, exaggerated tone that indicates she thinks Buck might be a bit dim.

Buck doesn’t rise to the bait. “Chris can handle it,” he says firmly.

“He’s just a child,” Ramon argues.

Something sours in Eddie’s stomach at the irony that Chris at fourteen is “just a child,” while Eddie at ten was told he needed to be the man of the house. Not that he would want Christopher to receive the same treatment he got, but the proof of how obviously his parents view Chris as their do-over still stings.

Buck brings himself to his full height, suddenly towering over Ramon and Helena. “With all due respect, if Christopher wants to see Eddie, you’re not going to stop that from happening,” he says, his voice as serious as Eddie’s ever heard it. “I think you’ve kept them apart long enough.”

Eddie stares at Buck, taken aback. Buck’s been so diplomatic in every conversation they’ve had about Eddie’s parents since Christopher left — so cautious not to overstep. But now Eddie sees rare anger simmering in Buck’s eyes, the hand not on Christopher’s shoulder balled into a first at his side.

No one will ever fight for my son as hard as you.

Maybe if Eddie had let Buck fight for them sooner, Christopher would have been back by now.

Or maybe if Eddie had fought for Buck sooner, Chris never would have left in the first place.

Eddie’s parents seem stunned into silence, and Buck takes that opportunity to start leading Chris down the hall. Bobby steps forward after them, then turns to glance back at Ramon and Helena. “His room is this way.”

They hesitate for a moment, exchanging a look before following. Eddie hurries to catch up to Buck and Chris.

“Not sure anyone’s ever left my mom speechless like that before,” he murmurs once he’s at Buck’s side. “You’ll have to teach me that trick.”

Buck gives him a small, relieved smile, unable to do more with Chris right beside him. As soon as they’re out of earshot of Eddie’s parents, he tightens his grip on Chris’s shoulder, looking sideways down at him.

“It’s true that your dad…doesn’t really look like himself right now,” Buck says carefully. “Your grandma’s not wrong that it might be upsetting to see him like this.”

Christopher nods. “I know. I remember what you looked like after the lightning strike.”

Buck sucks in a breath, and Eddie’s heart shatters for his son who’s been far more brave in his life than any fourteen-year-old should have to be.

When they reach the door to Eddie’s room, Buck pauses. “You ready?” he asks quietly.

Chris nods again, and Buck pushes the door open. Christopher takes one step into the room and freezes, his eyes going wide as they rove over Eddie’s pale, lifeless body. For a second, Eddie worries that his mother was right — that Chris can’t handle this — but then he takes a deep breath and continues forward.

“Hi, Dad,” he murmurs, sliding into the chair near the head of Eddie’s bed and resting his crutches against the frame.

Eddie’s parents trail into the room behind Bobby. “Oh, Eddie,” Helena says. “What did you do?”

Buck tenses beside him, undoubtedly flashing back to Eddie’s own words earlier. I did this to myself, okay?

But Helena surely assumes Eddie hurt himself by being careless or reckless on the call, not that there was any intention behind it. He remembers her hyperbolic claim that he was killing himself by working three jobs after Shannon left. She hadn’t meant it literally then, either.

“She doesn’t mean anything by it,” Eddie says softly. “She’s just…like that.”

Just quick to assume that whatever happened on the call to leave Eddie in this state was his own fault, just like everything else that’s gone wrong in his life.

Buck’s shoulders relax slightly, but his jaw remains clenched.

Eddie’s father steps up to the foot of the bed, staring down at Eddie like he’s never seen him before — and Eddie abruptly realizes that he never has seen him like this before. By the time Eddie had gotten back to El Paso after his medical discharge, he’d already been halfway healed. And he’d stopped his parents from visiting after the incident with the sniper, downplaying the severity of his injury, ironically so they wouldn’t use it as an excuse to try to take Christopher.

Now, his mother takes a step closer to his father and he wraps an arm around her, tears visible in both of their eyes. A complicated wave of emotion passes over Eddie, mingled sympathy, guilt, and anger. For all of his parents’ faults, all of their disagreements about his choices and what’s best for Christopher, Eddie knows his parents care about him. But he wishes that, just once, their version of caring about him had taken the form of listening rather than judgement.

Bobby clears his throat, breaking the tense silence. “Why don’t I go see if I can track down his doctor?”

Ramon nods. “That would be grea—”

“Actually,” Christopher interrupts, “can I have a few minutes alone with him?”

“Uhh….” Buck’s gaze snaps to Eddie like he’s asking for permission. Eddie shrugs helplessly — it’s not like he can really make any decisions right now.

“Christopher, honey,” Helena says. “I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

“Please,” Chris begs, looking from her to Buck. “I just — I need to talk to him.”

Buck’s expression crumples. Eddie’s chest goes painfully tight; this might just be the thing that breaks him.

“How about this?” Bobby cuts in, taking charge. “Helena, I’ll take you and Ramon down to the cafeteria to get some coffee while Christopher stays here with Buck, then in a few minutes we can switch to give you two some time alone with Eddie. We’re not really supposed to have this many people in his room at once anyway — ICU policy.”

Eddie can tell his mother wants to argue, but Bobby is utilizing every inch of his fire captain authority, already stepping towards the door and holding it open like them following his orders is a foregone conclusion. Buck looks down at Christopher.

“Is that okay with you, Chris?” he asks.

Christopher nods. “Yeah. You can stay,” he says softly.

Helena sighs. “Alright. Just — call if you need us and we’ll come right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Chris says in a pacifying tone that Eddie knows he’s used himself.

Eddie’s parents reluctantly shuffle out of the room, Bobby pulls the door closed behind them, and then Eddie’s left alone with his son, Buck, and his own unconscious body.

Christopher looks back down at the Eddie lying before him. “Do you think he can hear me?”

Eddie is reminded, viscerally, of Christopher asking the same question about Buck nearly two years before.

Buck glances over at him. “I know he can.”

Christopher looks up, his brows lifting in surprise. “Could you? When you were in your coma?”

“Yeah, bud. I heard you,” Buck says, surprising Eddie too. Eddie had never asked if Buck heard Christopher’s heartbreaking pleas for him to come back. It hadn’t felt important in the aftermath of Buck waking up, the pure joy and relief of him being alive.

And it also had been easier for Eddie to forgive himself for being such a coward and avoiding Buck’s bedside if he could believe nothing he said would have made a difference anyway.

He wonders if Buck is telling the truth, or just saying this to convince Chris that Eddie can hear him now. A part of him hopes it’s the latter.

Christopher seems to take his word for it, his eyes once again falling on Eddie’s comatose form. He reaches forward to rest his hand on Eddie’s arm.

“Hey, Dad,” he starts. “I know we haven’t really talked in a while…and I’m sorry about that. But, um…there’s actually a lot I want to say to you.”

Eddie inhales sharply, bracing himself. Buck’s hand twitches at his side, like he wants to reach for Eddie’s.

Eddie wishes he could.

“I forgive you for the thing with the lady who looked like Mom,” Chris says with all the tact of a teenager. “I know how confusing it was for me to see her…and I guess it must have been pretty confusing for you too.”

Eddie closes his eyes, his face flashing hot with shame. He’ll never understand where Christopher learned to be so empathetic. It’s certainly not something Eddie learned from his own parents.

“I’m still angry that you lied,” Chris continues, the words hitting Eddie like a blow to the stomach. “But I don’t want to be angry anymore. I want things to go back to how they used to be. I…I really miss you, Dad. So I need you to come back, because I don’t want to miss you anymore either.”

The air seems to vanish from the room as Christopher’s voice grows thicker, obviously holding back tears. Guilt squeezes Eddie’s chest like a vice. He’s brought so much pain into his son’s life, and Christopher still just misses him.

I miss you all the time.

Buck shoots Eddie an alarmed look, and Eddie realizes he’s hyperventilating, a panic attack overtaking him before he even has a chance to register it. The monitor behind Chris starts to beep erratically, a red warning light flashing at the top.

Chris whirls around, his face going slack with fear. “What’s happening?” he cries.

“His oxygen levels are dropping!” Buck crosses the room in two long strides, ripping the door open and shouting into the hall. “Help! We need help in here!”

Oh, god. This is it. Eddie’s about to die right in front of his son.

Buck pulls Christopher out of the way as a team of nurses rushes in and swarms Eddie’s body. “Dad,” Chris whimpers, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Eddie can’t see this. He can’t watch Christopher watch him die. He squeezes his eyes shut.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.

I’m sorry, Chris. I’m sorry, Buck.

The sound of the alarm and the frantic voices of the nurses begin to fade. Eddie blinks his eyes back open just in time to see Buck mouth his name before the room around him disappears completely.

Chapter Text

When Eddie blinks again, he finds himself in his living room.

He looks around, disoriented by the sudden silence. Huh. Can ghosts teleport? Or…is his body truly, irreversibly dead now and his version of the afterlife just happens to look a lot like his house on South Bedford Street?

He spots Buck’s duffel bag next to the shoe rack just inside the front door, and his laptop on the coffee table where Buck had left it the night before. Those details feel a little too specific for an afterlife. Maybe now that Eddie’s dead, his spirit is confined to his earthly home? He supposes haunted houses must be a cliche for a reason.

He could try to test that theory, step outside and see how far away he’s able to get, but instead he collapses onto the couch, letting his head fall into his hands. What horrible fucking timing for his body to hang on just long enough for Christopher to be in the room to watch him go. The best he can hope for is that someday, maybe, Christopher will be grateful he was there to say some semblance of a goodbye. It’s more than he got for his mother.

And Buck…Eddie can’t think about everything he’s lost with Buck right now. Or what he would be losing if he’d ever been brave enough to let himself have it.

Because now it’s too late. Eddie will never be able to love Buck the way he’s wanted to for longer than he even knows. He’ll never be able to make things right with Chris. They’ll never be the family they should have been all along.

And it’s all Eddie’s fault.

He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting there — time seems to be moving weirdly for him now — when the front door opens. Eddie jerks his head around to see Buck step inside. As soon as Buck’s eyes land on Eddie, he drops his keys, his hand flying up to clutch at his chest.

“Eddie! Oh my god.” Buck pulls the door closed and races over to fling himself onto the couch, ignoring his fallen keys. “I can’t believe you’re here! I — I thought you were gone.”

Up this close, Eddie can see that Buck’s eyes are red-rimmed with deep bruises beneath them, his lips raw from worrying them between his teeth. He looks wretched.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says hoarsely. “I don’t know what happened. I — I guess I was pulled here when I died and —”

“You didn’t,” Buck interrupts, aghast. “God, Eddie, have you thought that this whole time? You didn’t die. You — your body’s still alive.”

Eddie stares at Buck in shock. “It is?” he says dumbly.

Buck nods. “Y-yeah. Your lungs started to reject the ventilator for a minute there, but they were able to get you stabilized again. You’re alive, Eddie,” he repeats, like he can tell Eddie’s having a hard time believing it.

A sob escapes Eddie’s throat before he can force it back down.

“Sorry,” he gasps, covering his mouth with his hand. “I just — I really thought that was it.”

An odd expression passes over Buck’s face, and Eddie takes a deep breath to collect himself.

“How’s Christopher?” he asks when he feels a little more steady.

Buck frowns, dragging a hand through his frizzy, unstyled curls. “He’s, uh, he’s okay. He was pretty freaked out, that’s the main reason I stayed at the hospital so long. But your parents took him back to their hotel a little while ago,” he says with a grimace. “Fuck, maybe I should have listened to your mom and not let him see you right away.”

Eddie shakes his head fervently. “No. You fought for what he wanted, Buck — that’s why I put you in my will. Because I know you’ll push him forward when the rest of the world wants to hold him back, and — and he’s gonna need that.”

Buck’s frown deepens. “Why are you saying this like you won’t be there too?”

Eddie looks down at the floor.

“Eddie,” Buck says softly. “I just told you you’re still alive. Why are you so determined to believe you’re not going to pull through this?”

“Buck,” Eddie says, his voice thin and frayed. “Come on.”

Buck crosses his arms and waits.

Eddie sighs. “Just because this was a false alarm, that doesn’t mean my prognosis has improved.” If anything, it seems like he’s weakening.

“We don’t know that,” Buck says stubbornly.

“Buck, you know the stats on non-fatal drownings as well as I do — better, probably,” Eddie shoots back. “I’m going on twenty-four hours on life support with no improvement. If it were anyone else in this position, what would you think about their chances?”

Buck stares back at him, breathing heavily. “But you’re still here,” he says in a low voice. “There — there has to be a reason for that!”

Maybe because you can’t let me go, Eddie thinks, but the words feel cruel even in his own mind. He knows damn well that he’s the one who can’t let Buck go.

“I’m just trying to be realistic,” Eddie says, avoiding Buck’s eyes.

Buck doesn’t say anything for several minutes. Eddie stares at a water ring on his coffee table that he’d accused Buck of leaving years before. They’d actually fought about it, one of their first arguments after everything was resolved with Buck’s lawsuit. Such a silly thing to get upset over.

And then Buck had showed up the next day with a pack of coasters that they’d used for their beers, and something inside Eddie had settled at the confirmation that even if Buck got mad and stormed off, he would always come back.

Buck sucks in a deep breath, like he’s bracing himself, and Eddie knows what’s coming.

“Eddie, what did you mean earlier,” he asks quietly, “when…when you said that you did this to yourself?”

Eddie closes his eyes. He knew Buck would circle back to this eventually. The truth is going to hurt him even more than Eddie already has, but Eddie’s not going to lie to him.

He turns on the couch to face Buck and waits until Buck looks up, meeting Eddie’s gaze with wide, concerned eyes.

“Falling was an accident,” Eddie begins. “I lost my balance, hit my head on the side of the dock. Blacked out before I even hit the surface.”

Buck gives a small nod, like Eddie’s just confirming everything he’s already surmised.

“But….” Eddie’s throat tightens, and he swallows a couple of times before continuing. “I regained consciousness in the water.”

Buck inhales sharply.

“I, um —” Eddie’s voice breaks, but he goes on. “There was a minute where I knew what was happening, and I could have fought my way back to the surface…but I didn’t. I didn’t fight. I just kept thinking about all the ways I’ve fucked up and how it would be easier to let go, and I…I gave up, Buck.”

Buck doesn’t say anything. His eyes well with tears.

“I regretted it as soon as I realized what I’d done,” Eddie adds, his own vision blurring. “In the ambulance, at the hospital, I kept thinking about how much I wanted to live, to — to see Christopher again. But by then it was too late.”

“It’s not!” Buck says fiercely, leaning forward. “It’s not too late, Eddie!”

“Buck…,” Eddie pleads. He normally appreciates Buck’s relentless optimism, loves it about him even, but right now he thinks it might break him.

“What I’m hearing is that you made a bad call when you were concussed and probably already hypoxic and actively drowning, Eddie,” Buck emphasizes. “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to recover from this.”

Eddie shakes his head. How can Buck still refuse to admit this is Eddie’s fault? “Don’t make excuses for me.”

“I’m not.” Buck drags a hand over his face, the heel of his palm catching on his lower lip. “This — this really fucking worries me, okay? It does. I knew I should have encouraged you to go back to Frank after Christopher left, and you better believe you’re making an appointment as soon as you wake up —”

“If.” Eddie finally can’t keep it in anymore. “If I wake up.”

“When,” Buck pushes back. “I told you I wasn’t giving up on you until I had to, and I meant it, Eddie.”

“God, Buck, just stop!” Eddie shouts, suddenly on his feet without even realizing it. “You can’t fix this, okay? You can’t fix me.”

Buck reels backward like he’s just been slapped. He stares up at Eddie, wide-eyed, hurt and confusion written across his face.

“Then why did you let me think that I could?” he rasps. “You sat across from me in the hospital earlier and said that you didn’t want to give up either. You — you watched me do research for hours last night. Hell, you told me you want to be with me!” Buck gets to his feet too. “Why would you say that if you didn’t think it would happen?”

Eddie drops his gaze back to the floor, and Buck lets out a humorless laugh.

“That is why, isn’t it?” he says quietly. “You only admitted how you feel about me because you didn’t think anything could ever come of it.”

Eddie doesn’t respond, which is about as loud of a confirmation as he could possibly give.

Buck laughs again, but it sounds more like a sob. “Fuck, Eddie. That — that’s so unfair to me.”

Eddie nods. “I know,” he whispers, his eyes still on his shoes. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m so sorry, Buck.”

Buck takes a few steps and stoops to pick up his keys. “I…I’m going to take a walk. I need to clear my head.”

Eddie moves toward him. “Buck —”

“Please don’t follow me.” When Buck looks up, the hurt is still plain on his face, but his jaw is set. “I just…I need a little time.”

Can I maybe just get a little damn time?

But what if there’s no more time left? What if they’re already out of it?

“Sure, Buck,” Eddie whispers. “Take all the time you need.”

Buck leaves the house without looking back.

When it becomes clear that Buck is not going to immediately turn around and come back inside, Eddie wanders down the hall to Christopher’s room.

He thinks about actually trying to find Christopher. He knows the hotel where his parents have stayed when they’ve been in town before; he could try to get there and look for them. But he doesn’t want to be gone when Buck gets back, and he’s not sure he could stomach the sight of his son grieving him, anyway. Or whatever his parents are doing to try to comfort him.

This time, when he goes into Chris’s room, he turns to study the cork board on the wall beside the door. Christopher hadn’t taken anything down before he left for El Paso, so the board is still scattered with pictures and drawings and various ticket stubs — a perfectly preserved memorial to the years that they were happy here.

The first thing that catches Eddie’s eye is a photo booth-style strip of pictures from May’s graduation party featuring Buck and Christopher posing goofily in wigs and colorful sunglasses and silly hats. In the bottom picture, Buck’s scooped Christopher up into a hug, both of them smiling so wide that it makes Eddie’s cheeks hurt just to look at it. His heart twinges; he has a similar photo strip with Buck from the same party hidden in the drawer of his bedside table.

Eddie looks over the rest of the display. There’s a few pictures of Chris with his friends from school, and a group shot of the whole 118 extended family at one of Bobby and Athena’s backyard barbecues. There are also a couple of just Eddie and Christopher — one of them at the beach, another from Eddie’s LAFD certification ceremony.

But there are just as many of Christopher with Buck, and even more of all three of them together.

Christopher and Buck at the zoo, smiling in front of the primate exhibit. The three of them at the firehouse one Christmas with Eddie’s abuela. A still from Carla’s video of Buck and Eddie pushing Christopher on the modified skateboard, Buck frozen mid-whoop, Eddie turning to grin up at him with such a pure expression of joy on his face that it takes his breath away. He’s not sure he even knew he could look that happy.

For an instant, Eddie is absurdly, insanely jealous of the version of him in this picture. He wants this. He wants the family they’d hovered on the edges of for years but never defined. He wants it so badly, he thinks it might choke him.

Eddie stumbles backward and falls onto Christopher’s bed, trying to quell his rising panic. He doesn’t know if his panic attack earlier is what caused his body to momentarily reject the ventilator, but it seems safer to assume it wasn’t a coincidence.

That’s how Buck finds him when he returns about twenty minutes later. Eddie jerks his head up when he hears the front door close, followed by his footsteps in the hall.

“Hey,” he says when Buck appears in the doorway.

“Hey,” Buck says back.

For a minute, they just stare at each other, the air between them thick with tension. Then Buck sighs heavily, twisting his hands as he steps into the room.

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes downcast, “for walking out like that. You were being really vulnerable, and I…I made it about me.”

“No.” Eddie shakes his head. “You were right, Buck. I only told you how I felt — how I feel —because I didn’t think I would live to see it through. So I wasn’t risking anything anymore. But I —” Eddie’s voice starts to give out but he keeps going. “I really wish I’d been brave enough to say something sooner.”

Maybe everything would be different now if he had been.

Buck nods, coming to sit beside Eddie on Christopher’s bed. “Hey, it’s not just you. I could have said something sooner too.” He smiles a bit ruefully. “I mean, when Tommy dumped me, he dropped a pretty heavy-handed hint that he thought there was someone else.”

Eddie looks over at him in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. He didn’t mention you by name or anything — but who else could he have meant?” Buck tilts his head, his smile turning sheepish. “I just was so convinced that you were straight, I never really let myself think about it.”

“I tried to convince myself of that for a long time too,” Eddie admits, the familiar guilt swooping in his stomach at the thought of Ana and Marisol…and Shannon. “I don’t know if I ever would have been honest with myself if you hadn’t come out first.”

Buck winces a little. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t be,” Eddie says with a laugh. “You are brave, Buck. You never hold yourself back. You go after what you want.”

Buck gives him a long look, his eyes flicking briefly down to Eddie’s mouth. “Not everything,” he says softly, and Eddie’s stomach flips again for a completely different reason.

They hold eye contact for another beat before Buck breaks it, clearing his throat as he glances away.

“So — speaking of what you want,” Buck says, suddenly seeming very interested in Christopher’s bookshelf across the room. “I was doing some thinking on my walk, and I actually might have a theory about all of this.”

“A theory?” Eddie echoes.

“Yeah.” Buck takes a deep breath, his hands flexing on his thighs. “So…you know how you said you were thinking about how much you wanted to live to see Christopher again in the ambulance? And then you were also thinking about it when we got to the hospital?”

Eddie nods, his brow furrowing in confusion. “I — yes. I was.”

Buck looks sideways over at him. “We almost got you back in the ambulance,” he says quietly. “And then they did get you back at the hospital.”

“Okay…,” Eddie says, frowning. He thinks he sees where Buck is going with this.

“And then right before I could suddenly see you yesterday, you said you were thinking that you wanted to talk to me.”

Eddie sighs. “I did say that.”

“So?” Buck holds out his hands like he’s just displayed irrefutable evidence. “What if it’s all connected?”

“What are you saying here, Buck?” Eddie challenges. “Do you really think I’m in control of things? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Buck doesn’t back down, holding Eddie’s gaze. “I think you might have more control here than you think.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Buck —”

“What were you thinking about right before you were pulled back here?” Buck cuts in. “Right before you disappeared from the hospital?”

Eddie goes still. Because…well, he was thinking that he wanted to get out of there, wasn’t he? I don’t want to be here…and then he wasn’t.

Could…could Buck actually be right?

When he looks up, Buck is watching him, and whatever he sees on Eddie’s face must confirm his suspicions. “That’s what I thought,” he says softly.

But Eddie can’t accept that. If what he wants has been driving everything this entire time, then why can’t Christopher see him? Why is he still a ghost at all?

“So what?” Eddie says, bordering on hysterical. “I just have to want to wake up, and I will? You’re saying it’s that simple?”

Buck nods, his eyes wide and earnest. “Maybe it is.”

“But — but I already do,” Eddie insists. “I want to get back to Christopher. I…I want to come back to you.”

How could he not when Christopher has finally forgiven him after all these months? When Buck’s all but admitted that he returns the feelings Eddie’s kept hidden for so long, even from himself?

Buck smiles a bit sadly. “That might be the problem.”

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks helplessly.

“I mean….” Buck’s eyes drift to Christopher’s cork board, roving over the same pictures of the three of them that had caught Eddie’s attention earlier. “That’s you wanting to live for Chris…and for m-me.” He exhales shakily and looks back at Eddie. “I think you have to want it for yourself.”

Eddie stares at Buck. He doesn’t understand. Chris, the 118, Buck — that is his life. If he’s not allowed to want to live for them, what does he have to live for?

“I don’t know how to want it more than this,” he says honestly, his voice breaking.

A look of pure devastation flashes across Buck’s face, replaced just as quickly with one of determination.

“Well…what if you start by thinking about times you’ve been happy?” Buck suggests. “Just you, without Chris…without me. Times that you’ve been happy on your own — not for anyone else, but just to be alive?”

And because Eddie’s brain hates him, instead of any happy moments, his mind is immediately flooded with a highlight reel of his very worst memories.

Waking up in the chopper under gunfire, his entire unit unconscious, thinking that was the most alone he’d ever felt in his life. Realizing just how alone he could really feel when he found himself buried forty feet underground. Bleeding out on hot pavement and reaching for Buck, who might as well have been a football field’s length away for all the good it did him.

Shannon splayed out in the street. Buck dangling from the ladder. Christopher leaving with Eddie’s parents, refusing to even meet Eddie’s eyes as he went.

Nothing good ever comes from Eddie being on his own. When he’s on his own, it means he’s dying or someone he loves is dying or he’s failed them in some other unforgivable way.

“I can’t,” Eddie gasps, back on the knife’s edge of panic. “I don’t — I don’t think I have any.”

“You do,” Buck insists. “I know you do.” He gets to his feet and starts pacing back and forth along Christopher’s bed. “Maybe times you’ve been happy is too broad…what about things? Things that make you happy?” He gestures to the print of gaming headphones pinned to Christopher’s board. “Like Chris loves video games — and me, I like cooking and learning new random trivia. So what are things like that for you?”

Playing video games with you and Chris, Eddie thinks. Watching you cook while you rattle off random trivia.

But that’s not the purpose of this exercise, so Eddie closes his eyes and tries to really focus.

His conversation with Father Brian from just a couple weeks ago comes to mind. It feels almost absurdly prescient in hindsight.

I think you were denying yourself because you don’t feel worthy right now.

I don’t feel worthy of juice?

Of joy.

Eddie had scoffed a little at the time, but was Father Brian right? Surely for most people, it can’t be this hard to think about what brings them joy as individuals. But Eddie had never really learned what makes him happy; his identity has been too wrapped up in other people since before he was old enough to have one. From a teenager desperate to please his parents, to a soldier actively discouraged from any expression of individuality, to a father whose life revolved around his son and a firefighter whose entire sense of self-worth came from serving others.

But in that same conversation, Father Brian had challenged Eddie to something a lot like what Buck is asking of him now.

I want you to do something frivolous, something fun…something that expresses pure joy.

And then Eddie had danced around his living room like a fool, and he’d felt a flicker of real happiness for the first time since Christopher left him alone in this house.

“Dancing,” Eddie whispers, looking up at Buck. “Dancing…has made me happy before.”

Relief breaks across Buck’s face. “That’s great!” he says, nodding encouragingly. “Keep going with that. What else?”

Eddie closes his eyes again, thinking. Dancing leads him logically back to his ballroom days. He really had loved it once, before his parents sucked all the fun out of it — Mom with her competitiveness and Dad with his quiet judgement. But for a few years in his early teens, being on the dance floor was the only time he ever really felt free.

Then after dancing, he’d switched to baseball, and he’d loved that too. In high school, there’d been nothing like the exhilaration of throwing a game-winning pitch. His teammates’ excitement was infectious, and his parents’ involvement had lessened as his father traveled more for work and his mother focused more on his sisters’ extracurriculars. He thinks baseball could have been something he loved for a long time if a shoulder injury — his first of many — hadn’t ended that path for him at the beginning of his senior year.

And then there’d been Shannon, and subsequently Christopher, and Eddie’s life had never been wholly his own again.

He shakes his head. There have to be more recent examples of times he’s been happy since his teenage years. Happy apart from Christopher, that is.

Even though Chris had been there, Eddie thinks about leaving El Paso to move to California. Happiness hadn’t come easy to him in those days, Shannon’s departure still a raw, open wound, his parents’ blatant disapproval constantly ringing in his ears. But with every mile that he put between himself and his hometown, their voices had grown quieter until finally, staring out at the empty stretch of highway, Eddie felt something like peace settle over him.

And yes, part of the reason Eddie had left El Paso was for Christopher, because Eddie could never be the father he needed to be if he let himself continue to be suffocated. But a lot of it was also for Eddie.

He hadn’t even known then that it would be the best thing he ever did, but he’d felt, in his soul, that it was right.

Memories come more easily from there. Graduating at the top of his class from the fire academy, full of pride not just for his achievement, but for pursuing the path he wanted. Driving his truck through L.A. on the rare light-traffic days, his window rolled down, singing along to the “dad rock” playlist that Chris and Buck both mock mercilessly. Lounging on the beach, a cold beer in his hand and the sun warm on his face, lulled by the sounds of the waves crashing in the distance and birds chirping overhead.

He’ll have to go back to the beach soon so he doesn’t develop any aversion to the water, like he’d done with Christopher after the tsunami. He doesn’t want to miss out on more perfect days like that just because he’s afraid.

Buck’s gasp pulls him from his thoughts. Eddie blinks his eyes open.

“Eddie,” Buck breathes. “I think something’s happening.”

Eddie looks down at himself and immediately sees what Buck means. He’s been completely opaque since the moment he found himself on the dock, but now he — his body — is disappearing before his own eyes, transparent enough for him to see Christopher’s striped comforter through his legs.

When he looks back up, Buck smiles at him, his eyes filling with tears.

“Do you see a light?” he asks.

Eddie laughs breathlessly. “No. But I…I think I can hear the hospital?” As he says it, the sounds of the beach he’d imagined begin to solidify, the crashing waves morphing into the whir of a ventilator, the chirping birds echoing the beeping of an EKG.

Buck inhales shakily. “This is really it, then.”

Eddie nods, slightly in disbelief that Buck’s theory actually worked so quickly. He should have known better than to doubt him. “Buck,” he starts, but he doesn’t know what else to say to adequately convey his gratitude. Thank you doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

Buck nods back, still trying to smile even though his lower lip is wobbling. There’s another flash of pain in his eyes.

“What is it?” Eddie asks, getting to his feet. He can feel now that he doesn’t have much time. The hospital sounds grow louder, and there’s a pressure on his chest like an unseen force is trying to drag him backwards. Eddie pushes against it, holding his ground.

Buck grimaces. “It’s just…,” he says, gritting his teeth like the words are being dragged out against his will. “You know how you asked if anything like this happened to me after the lightning strike, and I said not that I remember? What if…what if you don’t remember any of this once you wake up? Or it all just feels like a weird dream to you?”

Eddie understands then what Buck is really worried about — that Eddie won’t remember confessing his feelings. That he won’t remember they’re reciprocated.

Personally, Eddie doesn’t think there’s any reality where he could forget that, but if Buck needs reassurance, Eddie can give that to him.

“I love you,” Eddie says simply. “I’ll remember that.”

Buck’s mouth drops open, his face taking on a soft, awestruck expression. He starts to reply, but Eddie holds up his hand.

“Get back to the hospital,” he says. “Tell me in person.”

Buck hesitates for a second before nodding. “I’ll see you soon.”

“You will,” Eddie promises. He stops resisting the pressure on his chest and focuses on the whirring and beeping still echoing in his ears, letting the sounds draw him back to where he’s supposed to be.

I want to wake up, he thinks. I want to live.

I want to live.

This time, he’s expecting it when the room starts to fade around him. Eddie stares at Buck, and Buck stares back until he starts to fade too, and when Eddie finally closes his eyes, he allows himself to hope that Buck will be the first thing he sees when he opens them.

Chapter Text

When Eddie becomes aware again, the first thing he really registers is pain.

He hadn’t noticed the absence of pain as a ghost until it all slams back into him, full force. Every inch of his body is sore, a dull throbbing in his head where it had slammed into the dock, his ribs aching from the resuscitation attempts. He feels less like a person and more like a giant bruise.

But he feels. He feels the firm, hospital-grade mattress beneath him. He feels the scratchy texture of the sheets against his skin. He feels the tube down his throat, forcing air into his lungs.

In some distant, logical part of Eddie’s brain, he knows that with the ventilator he doesn’t need to make himself breathe, but his body can’t help it — as soon as he notices the tube, he tries to suck in an involuntarily breath and immediately gags.

The beeping of the monitor beside Eddie’s bed quickens, accompanied by an alarm. Just as true panic starts to penetrate Eddie’s foggy brain — What if he dies now that he’s back inside his body? Will he become a ghost again or was that a one time deal? — unfamiliar voices flood into the room.

“He’s tachycardic but his oxygen levels aren’t dropping yet.”

“Is he trying to breathe on his own again?”

Eddie tries to blink his eyes open to see who’s talking to — or about — him, but all he can see is a too-bright blur. He certainly doesn’t see or hear Buck; he must not be here yet.

“Shit — I think he’s waking up!”

“What?”

“Mr. Diaz? Mr. Diaz, if you can hear me, try to stay calm, alright? You were in an accident and you’re in the hospital now, but you’re okay.”

Eddie tries to nod, but he’s not sure he succeeds in actually moving his head. He blinks instead.

“We need to sedate him again until we can extubate and take him off ECMO.”

No, Eddie thinks, but he has no means to communicate this. He doesn’t want to go back to sleep, not before Buck gets here. He promised he’d see him soon. What if they put him back under and he doesn’t wake up again?

“His heart rate’s increasing. Turning up sedation now.”

No, Eddie thinks again before his thoughts drift away from him, along with the pain. His eyes slip shut.

For the first time since this whole ordeal began, when he closes his eyes, he doesn’t go anywhere.

The next time Eddie wakes up, the breathing tube is gone, replaced with a nasal cannula. The pain is back.

His throat feels like it’s been rubbed raw with sandpaper. He takes a ragged breath that makes him feel like he’s just swallowed a bag of razor blades; instead of gagging, he coughs, wincing at the sharp ache in his ribs.

“Eddie?”

He recognizes that voice, and he’s happy to hear it even though it’s not the one he was hoping for.

“Hen?” he tries to say, but it comes out as a garbled hum. He blinks his eyes open. Everything is still blurry, but he can make out the shape of her as she leans over him.

“Hi,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.

Eddie tries to swallow a few times to moisten his throat.

“Thirsty?” she asks, and he nods, his hair rustling against the pillow beneath his head. She leans away for a second and then holds a cup with a straw up to his lips. “Here. Tiny sips, okay?”

He follows her instruction, taking a couple of small, painful sips. “Thanks,” he croaks hoarsely, but the word is at least intelligible now. He blinks a few more times, and Hen gradually comes into focus.

There are tears in her eyes. “It’s so good to see you awake,” she says, setting the cup down on a table beside his bed. “I kind of can’t believe you’re already talking.”

Eddie couldn’t explain it all right now if he tried, and he finds himself suddenly desperate to see the one person who already knows everything. “Buck?” he says, hoping his question is clear enough.

“He just went down to the cafeteria with Christopher,” Chimney says, and it’s only then that Eddie realizes he’s also in the room, just behind Hen. “He’ll be so pissed that he missed this. He’s been sitting here for hours.”

Hours, Eddie thinks with a pang. That’s better than days, but still, he can imagine the uncertainty Buck must have wallowed in — whether their plan had worked, if Eddie was truly back in his body, if he would remember everything that happened.

As much as Eddie also wants to see Christopher, he needs to see Buck.

It must be written all over his face. “I’ll text him,” Chim says, pulling out his phone.

Eddie’s eyelids droop, his small reserve of energy sapped just by leaning forward to take a drink of water, and he’s struck by the sudden fear that he’ll pass out again before Buck and Chris make it back to the room.

“Tell him…I remember,” he whispers, gripping Hen’s arm with the little strength he has. He’s having trouble catching a full breath. “Need to…tell him I…remember.”

Hen’s brow furrows in confusion, but she nods. “We’ll tell him, Eddie. Just rest now, okay? You’ve been through a lot.”

She has no idea. He collapses back against the pillow, his grip slackening as his eyes drag closed. “Thanks, Hen,” he mumbles.

He’s dozing, not quite awake or fully asleep, when another flurry of activity at the door drifts over to his ears.

“Is he still awake?” Buck asks in a frantic whisper.

“I don’t think so,” Hen says apologetically. “But he said something before he fell asleep. He said…to tell you he remembers?”

Buck gasps. “What?”

Eddie tries to force his eyes open, but they seem to have glued themselves shut during his brief nap.

“Yeah, we don’t know what he was talking about, but he was pretty intense,” Chimney says. “Maybe that he remembers the accident? Not sure why he needed you to know that so badly, but —”

Eddie finally manages to separate his eyelids. “Buck,” he murmurs, blinking in his direction.

Buck is at his side in an instant. He’s wearing the same sweatshirt Eddie last saw him in presumably just earlier that day, but Eddie feels like he’s seeing him for the first time in months.

“Hi,” Buck says, smiling tearfully.

Eddie smiles back as much as he’s able to. “I…remember.”

“I heard,” Buck says, taking Eddie’s hand. “I love you.”

Somewhere in the room, Hen gasps.

Eddie laces their fingers together, shivering a little at the contact. They’re touching. Eddie can touch again. He can touch Buck as much as he wants to from now on, because he’s alive and Buck loves him. “I love you too,” he whispers.

“Oh, shit,” Chim says.

Buck leans forward until his forehead is pressed against Eddie’s, their noses brushing. Eddie can feel Buck’s breath against his mouth, and it would be so easy to tip his head up and close the last bit of distance between them.

But after the literal years of build-up, Eddie doesn’t want their first kiss to be when he’s just barely regained consciousness in a hospital bed and everything still has a surreal, dreamlike quality. He wants to be sure he’ll remember that too, with perfect clarity.

“Wait,” he breathes. “Not…not like this.”

Buck pulls back, nodding, his eyes still closed. He blinks them open, pushing his free hand gently through Eddie’s hair. “Okay. We’ve waited this long. We can wait a bit longer.”

Eddie looks around him to find Chim and Hen both staring at them with matching gobsmacked expressions.

“Alright,” Chim says, putting his hands on his hips. “What the hell happened in that coma?”

Buck looks at Eddie for permission. Eddie laughs, his ribs twinging again. “It’s a…long story.”

“Clearly,” Hen says, her eyebrows frozen high on her forehead.

Eddie thinks he might want to tell them the truth at some point, but right now he has a higher priority. He looks back at Buck, who reads his expression instantly.

“I left Chris with Bobby and your parents. I wanted to see how you were first,” Buck says, squeezing Eddie’s hand. “Do you want to see him?”

More than anything. Eddie nods, tears filling his eyes. “Please.”

The reunion with Christopher is unsurprisingly emotional. Chris says a lot of the same things he said to Eddie’s comatose body, which Eddie pretends to be hearing for the first time, but they hit just as hard the second.

There are a couple of new things that he says. Namely, that he wants to stay in town to spend Thanksgiving with Eddie, and also that he wants to move back to L.A. permanently as soon as he’s done with this semester of school. Thankfully, Christopher makes both of these statements right in front of Eddie’s parents, so they can’t contest that it’s what Chris really wants.

Eddie has to check, though. “Are you sure, Chris?” he asks despite the hope already blooming in his chest. “I know…you might be scared because I just got hurt, but —”

“It’s not because of that,” Christopher says quickly. “I was already thinking this before.”

Eddie can’t stop himself from glancing at his mother standing at the foot of the bed. She looks a little sheepish, which is all the confirmation he needs.

Chris misreads Eddie’s hesitation, and uncertainty passes over his face. “As long as it’s okay with you,” he adds, chewing on his lip as he looks at Eddie.

“Of course it is,” Eddie says, reeling his son back in for another hug. “I can’t wait to have you back home, bud. I’ve missed you.”

“Eddie,” his mother cuts in. “Are you sure it’s such a good idea for Christopher to move back so soon? I mean, you almost just died, sweetheart. Surely you’ll need some recovery time before you’re ready to go back to raising him on your own.”

“He won’t be on his own!” Buck blurts out, his cheeks flushing pink when Eddie raises his eyebrows at him. “I-I mean, I’ll be available to help them with whatever they need.”

Like he already has been for more than six years, Eddie thinks.

“And you three are of course invited to mine and Athena’s for Thanksgiving,” Bobby says from his post near the door, before turning to Eddie’s mother. “You and your husband are welcome to join us as well if you think you might stay through the holiday. We’re in a temporary housing situation so it might be a little cramped, but the more the merrier.”

“Oh, I — that’s very generous of you,” Helena says, apparently unable to summon her usual level of condescension in the face of Bobby’s sincerity.

To be fair, Eddie’s parents do seem genuinely elated that he’s okay. After he’d let go of Christopher for the first time, they’d both hugged him with tears in their eyes, his dad squeezing him a little too tightly considering Eddie’s bruised ribs, but Eddie didn’t mind. It’s probably the sheer physical exhaustion, but Eddie can’t summon the energy to feel particularly angry with them right now, even with the confirmation that his mother had more or less lied about Christopher’s desire to come home.

Maybe — most likely — the anger will come later, but for now the overwhelming relief at being alive and reunited with his son is all Eddie really has room for.

Bobby had seemed just as relieved as either of Eddie’s parents, which surprised Eddie a little even though it probably shouldn’t have. As Bobby leaned over to hug him too, Eddie had been overcome with a wave of emotion, thinking about how Bobby kept vigil over his body until visiting hours ended that first night and was the first one — besides Buck — to arrive at the hospital the next morning.

“I knew you’d find your way back to us,” Bobby had murmured, low enough for only Eddie to hear, before straightening.

Eddie had looked over Bobby’s shoulder at Buck, ruffling Christopher’s curls with a wide, goofy grin on his face. “I had a little help,” Eddie admitted.

Bobby’s gaze softened. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said with a small, knowing nod.

Now, Eddie gives Bobby a grateful smile, his eyelids growing heavy. It’s well past visiting hours for the night, but the nursing staff had made an exception due to Eddie’s fairly miraculous return to the land of the living.

Bobby smiles back at him. “Looks like you could use some rest,” he says with another nod.

“I’m —” fine, Eddie starts to protest, but the second word almost immediately turns into a jaw-cracking yawn, and everyone, even his parents, laughs. “Okay, maybe,” Eddie allows.

The grin slides off Christopher’s face, his eyebrows pinching together with worry. “Can I stay here with you?” he asks, gripping Eddie’s forearm.

The fact that Christopher wants to stay with him is enough to make Eddie melt, but he knows from personal experience the hell trying to sleep in hospital chairs can wreak on one’s back. “You should go with your grandparents,” he says reluctantly. “Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll be here in the morning, I promise.”

“You better,” Chris says, falling back into Eddie’s arms. “I love you, Dad.”

Eddie lifts one hand to grip the back of Christopher’s head like he used to when he was a little kid. “I love you too,” he says, the words muffled in his son’s hair. “So much, Chris.”

After Christopher pulls away, Helena leans over to kiss Eddie on the cheek, his father clasping his shoulder, and then Bobby leads the three of them from the room with promises to return as soon as they are able to the next morning. Buck makes no move to leave, and this time Eddie knows he’s not imagining the suspicious glances his parents throw their way as they exit, but it’s another thing Eddie can’t bring himself to care about now.

“You know the nurses are gonna kick you out of here eventually,” Eddie says, turning his head on the pillow to look at Buck.

Buck drags his chair right up to the edge of Eddie’s bed and takes his hand. “They can try,” he says intensely.

It’s only then that it strikes Eddie that they’re finally somewhat alone for the first time since he returned to his body. His heart rate kicks up a little at the realization, which Buck seems to come to at the same time. They stare at each other for a beat before Buck shakes himself.

“I, uh, I actually talked to one of the nurses in the hall earlier,” he says quickly. “She said Dr. Burke will be able to give a more definitive answer when he gets back in the morning, but she thinks there’s a good chance he’ll want to keep you here for about a week to monitor your lungs and finish out your course of antibiotics.”

“Figures,” Eddie sighs. Even though he’s in much better shape than he knows he logically should be at this point, his lungs are still obviously not working at full capacity.

“Yeah…so in light of that, how set are you on this whole not-having-our-first-kiss-in-a-hospital thing?” Buck asks conversationally.

“Buck!” Eddie laughs, his cheeks flushing.

“I’m serious!” Buck whines. “It could be a week, Eddie. A week.”

“What happened to ‘we’ve waited this long, we can wait a bit longer?’”

“Not a whole week!”

“Buck,” Eddie says more seriously. “I can barely catch my breath as it is. If you kiss me now, I think my lungs might stop working again altogether.”

Buck’s shoulders slump in resignation. “You’re right. We can’t risk that,” he agrees, lifting Eddie’s hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles in apparent compromise.

As if to prove his point, Eddie’s breath catches in his throat, his lungs fluttering for a moment before they seem to remember how to inflate. “Just think of it as more lost time we’ll have to make up for,” he gasps once he’s capable of speaking again.

Buck quirks an eyebrow at him, one side of his lips curving suggestively. “I like the sound of that.”

Eddie settles back against his pillow, feeling warm and content. He can hardly believe just earlier that day, he hadn’t even been sure if he would live. Had been pretty convinced he wouldn’t, actually.

Now, he has Christopher planning to move home in a few short weeks. He has an entire future with Buck at his fingertips. He can do whatever he wants, both with them and just for himself — beach days, road trips, an amateur dance class. Anything within reason.

The possibilities are wide open.

“Buck,” Eddie murmurs, squeezing his hand. “Thank you.”

Buck’s gaze softens. “You did all the work, Eddie.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Wouldn’t have gotten here without you.”

Buck ducks a little, smiling bashfully. “Well, we’ve always made a pretty good team.”

They really have.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Eddie says, hoping Buck realizes he doesn’t just mean now, but every time he’s tested their bond over the years. Giving Buck the cold shoulder after the lawsuit. Retreating to dispatch and closing himself off after the shooting. Lying about Kim, clinging with all his might to his assertion that Buck coming out didn’t change anything — everything — between them. “Thank you for not letting me go.”

Buck’s eyes fill with tears. “Never, Eddie,” he rasps. “I’ll never let you go.”

And as Eddie drifts back to sleep with his hand held firmly between both of Buck’s, he knows with complete certainty that Buck means it.

It ends up being another eight days before Eddie is released from the hospital, and even then Dr. Burke seems reluctant to allow him to leave. Mainly because he can’t really explain Eddie’s recovery.

“It’s almost unheard of for someone who went without oxygen as long as you to not experience any level of cognitive impairment,” the doctor says for about the tenth time after walking them through Eddie’s discharge instructions. “Not to mention how quickly your lung function has improved.”

Buck grins sunnily at him. “Eddie here has always been a bit of an overachiever.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

Dr. Burke ignores both of them. “There’s no medical reason not to discharge you at this point,” he says, sounding more frustrated than anything else. “But I want to see you back in three weeks for a follow-up.”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie agrees, knowing that Buck will drag him here by force if he even tries to refuse. Despite how annoyed Buck has been regarding his own medical leave in the past, he is taking Eddie’s extremely seriously.

Dr. Burke hands the discharge paperwork to Buck along with a couple of prescriptions, and with a final exasperated shake of his head, leaves the room.

Buck holds out his free hand to help Eddie up from his perch on the edge of the bed. “You ready to get out of here?”

“God, yes,” Eddie says, letting Buck pull him to his feet.

It’s just the two of them. Buck is maxing out his vacation time to stay by Eddie’s side, but the rest of the 118 is back on shift today. Christopher and Eddie’s parents, who checked out of their hotel a few days ago to stay with Pepa instead, are planning to join them for dinner later that evening. Eddie had strongly pushed back on any kind of surprise ‘welcome home’ party given that Thanksgiving is next week, so the compromise had been a ‘welcome home’ family dinner.

Eddie had been relieved at first when everyone agreed to allow Buck to escort him home from the hospital, but his heart starts to pound as they get closer to the exit, Buck’s hand pressed to the small of his back to support him since Eddie had also strongly pushed back on using a wheelchair. He’d told Buck he didn’t want their first kiss to be in the hospital, and they’re about to leave the hospital. What if Buck kisses him as soon as they step outside? Eddie should have brushed his teeth again.

But the moment they walk through the doors, Buck deposits Eddie on a bench and hurries to pull the car around.

Eddie swallows down his disappointment. He’s been calling all the shots on this so far, he realizes. He’s the one who told Buck he wanted to wait to have their first kiss. He’s going to have to be the one to make the first move.

When Buck parks his truck in front of the hospital entrance and jumps out to open the passenger side door, Eddie thinks about just walking up and laying one on him — but that makes it feel a bit like ripping off a band-aid. He needs to kiss Buck because he wants to. When it’s something he wants to savor, not just get over with because he’s nervous.

Why did he think it was a good idea to build up even more anticipation for this? Now Eddie’s so far inside his own head that he climbs into the truck in a daze, sits in silence staring blankly out the window for the first several minutes of the drive, doesn’t even hear Buck calling his name until he reaches over to touch Eddie gently on the shoulder and Eddie almost jumps out of his skin.

“Whoa,” Buck says, yanking his hand back. “You okay?”

“Mm-hm.” Eddie manages to nod, his eyes fixed on Buck’s mouth. He forces his gaze upward to find Buck glancing anxiously between his face and the road.

Not wanting Buck to think he’s having second thoughts about anything, Eddie reaches across the center console to take Buck’s hand, pulling it into his lap and rubbing his thumb soothingly across Buck’s knuckles. The tension drains out of Buck’s expression, a pink flush rising in its place, and they stay like that for the rest of the drive.

When they pull into Eddie’s driveway, Buck gets out and jogs around the front of the truck to help Eddie down, leading him into the house with an arm wrapped firmly around his waist. The second they get inside, he insists Eddie sit on the couch with his feet up, retrieving extra pillows from the closet to slot behind Eddie’s back.

“You did hear the doctor give me a clean bill of health, right?” Eddie asks, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I — I did.” Buck pauses in the middle of pulling the blanket from the back of the couch to drape over Eddie’s legs, the worried pinch back between his brows.

Eddie loops his fingers around Buck’s wrist. “Buck,” he says softly.

Buck closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath. “You died, Eddie,” he whispers, blinking his eyes back open and forcing a brittle smile. “You might just have to deal with me fussing over you for a bit.”

Eddie is instantly transported back to another night in this living room, when Buck had been the one on the couch with his feet up and Eddie had watched him sleep for far longer than he should have just to reassure himself that Buck was still breathing. When Eddie had been the one to say you died, Buck and tried to pretend that merely saying those words wasn’t every bit as painful as the gunshot wound they’d just been discussing.

He should have realized then what it all meant. But he knows now, and suddenly the thing he’d been agonizing over for the entire drive home feels ridiculously simple.

“Okay,” Eddie says, tightening his grip on Buck’s wrist and pulling him down beside him on the couch. “Come here.”

Buck perches on the edge of the cushion next to Eddie’s knees. “Now?” he asks breathlessly, wide eyes roving over Eddie’s face. He looks a little nervous, which makes Eddie feel braver.

Eddie nods, reaching up with his free hand to cradle Buck’s jaw. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”

And before either of them can come up with a reason to wait another second, Eddie leans forward and kisses him.

If Eddie had any lingering doubts about his sexuality, they vanish in an instant. The moment their lips make contact, Buck moans low in his throat, and sparks erupt over every inch of Eddie’s skin. Everything feels new and electric — the firm muscles of Buck’s bicep and pectorals beneath Eddie’s wandering hands, the rasp of his stubble against Eddie’s cheek, the size of Buck’s hands gripping Eddie’s waist and sliding around the back of his head to tangle in his hair. He’s never felt this turned on just from kissing, even in the earliest days with Shannon. He can’t believe he denied himself this for so long.

Too soon, Eddie has to break away to catch his breath. Buck rests his forehead against Eddie’s just like he’d done in the hospital right after Eddie woke up, also breathing heavily.

“Wow,” Buck exhales.

Eddie smiles. “Yeah? Worth the wait?”

“Oh yeah.” Buck nods fervently, then pulls back to stroke his thumb along Eddie’s cheekbone, gazing at him with an almost reverent expression.

“What is it?” Eddie asks, sliding his hands up to loop around Buck’s neck.

“I just — I thought I knew what it was like to want to touch you and not be able to.” Buck shakes his head, laughing incredulously. “And then you turned into a fucking ghost.”

Eddie laughs too, ducking his head against Buck’s shoulder. “I know. How’s that for the universe screaming at us, huh?”

“So you believe in that now?” Buck asks, running his hand down Eddie’s spine.

Eddie shivers a little, pulling away slightly so he can meet Buck’s eyes. “I believe…that I’ve been given a second chance,” he says slowly, cupping Buck’s cheek with his hand. “And I’m not going to waste it.”

Buck visibly melts, leaning forward to capture Eddie’s lips again. This time, he continues to press Eddie gently down onto the couch until they’re both horizontal, seeming determined to start making up for all of their lost time.

Eddie closes his eyes and surrenders himself to the sensations, letting himself enjoy it as Buck touches him and touches him and touches him.

They end up having Thanksgiving dinner at Chimney and Maddie’s house. It just makes more sense to relocate from Bobby and Athena’s temporary apartment after Eddie’s parents decide to stay and Eddie also invites Pepa to join them. The weather is mild enough for all of them to sit outside, a couple of heaters left over from Maddie and Chim’s engagement party put to good use.

Eddie wanders into the kitchen to retrieve a couple of fresh beers for himself and Buck, and finds Bobby hunched over the oven, checking on the turkey.

“I think we’re just about there,” Bobby says, closing the oven door as he straightens.

Eddie leans against the counter, beers in hand. “Can I help with anything?”

Bobby waves him off. “No, no, you go relax. If you want to send Buck in, though….”

Eddie laughs. “You got it,” he says, turning toward the back door.

“Hey, Eddie.”

He turns back around to find Bobby looking at him with that proud, knowing smile he wears sometimes.

“You seem happy,” Bobby says simply.

And despite how much Eddie had struggled with that concept just a couple of weeks ago, now he finds it easy to answer.

“I am.” Eddie takes a deep breath, wondering if Bobby will remember the conversation he’s referencing. “I decided it was time to let myself have something real.”

Bobby’s eyes shine a little. “I’m glad. You deserve it…you both do.”

Eddie smiles back at him, feeling tears prick the corners of his own eyes. “Thanks, Bobby.”

He knows there will still be days when the happiness doesn’t come so easily. When the doubts about his own self-worth begin to creep back in, his negative memories threatening to outweigh the good. But just as Buck had promised, he’d gently encouraged Eddie to make an appointment with Frank a couple of days after he got out of the hospital, and Eddie hadn’t fought it. He’s determined to prioritize his mental health, to do everything in his power to make sure he doesn’t fall into such a low place again — for Buck and for Chris, but also just for himself.

He finds Buck outside talking to Maddie and approaches just as she leans up on her tiptoes to give Buck a hug.

“Hey, Bobby’s looking for a sous-chef,” Eddie says, hanging back a little awkwardly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You’re not!” Maddie says quickly, pulling away to wipe at her eyes. “I was just going to check on the kids.”

She squeezes Eddie’s arm as she passes, crossing the yard to where Jee-Yun and Mara are playing, supervised by Hen, Karen, and Athena.

Eddie presses one of the beers into Buck’s hand along with a kiss to his cheek. “What was that about?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Oh, nothing,” Buck says, sliding his free hand around Eddie’s waist as he takes a sip of the beer. “She’s just happy for us.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Eddie says, his breath catching when Buck’s fingertips find a sliver of bare skin. And it’s true — besides Maddie and Bobby, Hen and Chim had also been thrilled for them. Pepa was absolutely over the moon, and even Eddie’s parents have only been politely supportive so far…although Eddie is sure they will probably have some questions for him once they have more time to digest it.

But most importantly, Christopher approves. He’s been staying with Eddie at their house since Eddie’s second day home from the hospital, and Eddie had come out to him that very night. Of course, Christopher had some questions of his own, mainly about Shannon, but otherwise he hadn’t seemed as surprised as Eddie might have expected. Especially when Eddie told Chris that the man he wants to be with is Buck.

“That’s probably for the best. He might be the only one who can match your freak,” Christopher had said, nodding sagely. And even though Eddie was positive he didn’t want to know what that meant, he was happy to take it as his son’s blessing.

Now, Eddie looks over at Chris huddled at the table with Denny, laughing at a TikTok on one of their phones. They already have a sleepover planned to catch up on video games once Christopher moves back home permanently in a few weeks, which makes Eddie’s heart soar just to think about.

He lifts his gaze to his parents, chatting with Hen and Athena further back in the yard. Eddie knows he still has a lot to work through with them, when he’s ready. In their conversations over the last week, they’ve barely scratched the surface on their effort to keep Chris from him the last few months, and Eddie knows the resentment could fester if he lets it — but he doesn’t want to. They’re here now, and they’re not fighting Christopher’s decision to move home, and that’s something.

Letting go of anger, Eddie’s learning, isn’t always selfless. Sometimes it’s selfish, and that’s okay.

Eddie looks around at the rest of his family, both blood-related and not — Maddie chatting animatedly with Pepa, Chim and Karen clinking their wine glasses together — and a feeling similar to what he’d felt driving out to California settles over him. Something a lot like peace.

He looks up at Buck to find him already looking back, his eyes sparkling in the twinkle lights strung up around the patio.

“You good?” Buck asks softly.

Eddie nods. “I’m good. I’m just….” He places his hand over Buck’s on his waist, slotting their fingers together. “Extra grateful this year. To be here.”

They haven’t told anyone else yet about the days Eddie spent as a ghost — mainly because they didn’t want anyone to question Eddie’s sanity just when he’s about to regain custody of his son. Eddie thinks that once Christopher’s officially moved home and his parents are back in Texas, he will share the truth with Chris and the rest of the 118, and maybe with Pepa as well.

But for now, it’s enough that Buck knows. That they went through it together.

“I’m extra grateful that you’re still here too,” Buck whispers, and pulls Eddie in to kiss him on the lips.

“Oh, gross!” Christopher calls over to them. “Get a room!”

Buck whips his head around in mock outrage. “Watch it — there might be more where that came from when we come pick you up from El Paso in a couple weeks!”

“Yeah, and more where this came from too!” Eddie says, swooping over and kissing Christopher on the forehead with a loud mwah.

Buck descends on them, giving both Eddie and Christopher loud smacking kisses on the head, and Christopher groans and rolls his eyes, but he’s also laughing.

As Buck gives them a final squeeze before hurrying into the kitchen to help Bobby, Eddie looks down to find Christopher smiling up at him, and he realizes with a rush of warmth that what he’s feeling is more than just something like peace.

It actually feels a lot like joy.