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“Trauma bay 2! Page neuro and get an OR prepped, we have an LAFD firefighter just arriving off transport. TBI, severe trauma to the head and neck, GCS of 8, currently non-responsive. Crew is saying he was involved in a building collapse, removed his helmet during a rescue attempt. Vitals dropped off during transport but are now holding. Name is - ”
Buck could hear someone trying to get his attention, but everything was swimming around him. His one point of focus was the blood pooling around Eddie’s head on the gurney.
“Sir, do you know his name?” the nurse yelled for a third time, finally pulling Buck out of a haze, his brain shouting EddieEddieEddieEddie.
“Edd- his name is Eddie Diaz,” he managed to croak out, his voice faltering before he even made it past his first name.
“Patient is Eddie Diaz, again, LAFD crew.” the nurse yelled over the crowd.
Everything felt like a sick dream. This couldn’t be happening again. Not to Eddie. Not now. Not ever again.
Buck had been here before. Helplessly watching the love of his life be wheeled into the same hospital, into the same bay, surrounded by the same deluge of nurses and doctors. Blood on his hands that he desperately wished were his. His body worked against him, dragging him down, collapsing onto the wet pavement, wracked with sobs that he could no longer hold back.
He should be running. He should be helping. He should be doing something - anything - to save Eddie.
As the doors close behind Eddie, Buck’s last thought is I should be the one on that gurney.
1 Hour Earlier
The last thing Eddie sees before the floor gives way under him is the face of a young boy. The ceiling in the apartment building they were called to had started to collapse, rubble grazing the boy’s shoulder, so he had removed his helmet and placed it on the boy’s head.
“This will keep you safe,” he said to the boy, cradled in his arms, unconscious but still breathing.
“Just a few more steps kid, stay with me, we’re almost out of here.” Eddie promised him.
And then the floor gives way.
“EDD-” is the last thing Eddie hears before he hits the ground, nothing more than a choked off scream somewhere in the middle distance.
The last thing Eddie thinks before he loses consciousness, black, pulsating fear pushing in on the edges of his vision, is save him. He doesn’t know if he means the child or the man who uttered the last words he’ll ever hear.
—-------------------------------
Eddie blinked his eyes open, the weight on his eyelids too heavy for one night’s sleep. The darkness behind them, too deep. The sun filtering in through the curtains, too bright.
“Morning, coffee is on the counter if you want. I have to run and get Christopher to school but I should be off early today, so I’ll be back around noon.” Shannon fires at him.
Eddie sees his wife standing at the foot of the bed, bag on her hip as she rifles through it for her keys. She looks tired, run ragged by their schedule. He knew his job didn’t make it easy on her or Christopher, but they were provided for.
“Sounds good, I’m off today so I’ll go pick him up after school, let him skip the bus for a day.” Eddie said, sitting up. He cherished his days off, but there’s no one he would rather spend them with than Christopher.
“Are you still insisting on going to visit that kid today?” Shannon said, dropping a kiss on Eddie’s head as she turned to leave.
“Yes, Shannon. I really don’t want to have this conversation again. Text when you’re on your way home.” he muttered, wishing he could detach from the last patient to be admitted to his floor the last time he was on shift as easily as she seemed to think he should.
He never imagined his life looking like this, but he knew deep in his bones that he had no choice. He couldn’t bear disappointing his family again after having to marry Shannon in a quick, but Catholic, ceremony to avoid Christopher being born into shame. But he loved Shannon, and he loved Christopher, so the sacrifices were all worth it.
In spite of the rushed beginning, he and Shannon were truly happy for a few years. They worked well together and carved out a life that Eddie could relax into. Then, once they had their footing and Christopher was taken care of, Eddie had gone back to school and ended up taking his drive to help others all the way up to pediatric medicine. When he was made an attending, Eddie finally felt like he had done right by his family, by his wife, by himself.
Helping these kids was the way he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Being able to see them get back up, run into their parents arms as they were discharged, it made the job worth it. But the bad days… they took their toll. Declan was one of those days. Eddie didn’t want to think about the look on the boy’s parents’ faces as they were told he would make it, but he would likely never walk again. Compared to some of the kids who came through his floor, it was a good outcome. But for a mother and father, it was their worst nightmare.
After slipping back to sleep for a bit, Eddie forced himself to get ready to head in. He didn’t make a habit of visiting patients outside of his shifts, he couldn’t afford to get emotionally invested in the outcome of every kid. His team was competent, more than, really, and the kids would still be there when he came back. He could check their charts from home and see how they were progressing. But the devastation on Declan’s father’s face was so evident and heart wrenching, he knew this would be one he couldn’t stop himself on. So he got in his truck and began his silent drive to the hospital.
“Dr. Diaz, didn’t see you on the schedule today, did you get called in?” Howard asked as he rounded the nursing station.
“Oh, no, I just… I needed to check on a patient,” he shot Howard a pleading glance, knowing he didn’t approve of Eddie’s maybe not-so-infrequent visits while off shift. “Please, just, let me do this. I’ll get out of your hair in a few. These parents…” Eddie trailed off.
“I get it, they seemed pretty torn up. I think the dad is still here if you want to go speak with him. Just please, make it quick. For your own sake.” Howard sighed and went back to finishing his notes.
As Eddie neared the room, he could see Declan’s father slumped in his chair, finally sleeping after what was surely an all night vigil. There was no peace on his face, only fear and pained longing. He stirred as Eddie pushed back the curtain covering the doorway.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m Dr. Diaz, I was here when your son was admitted,” Eddie grimaced at the confused look on the father’s face. “I wanted to stop by and see how he was doing. You’ve got a tough kid.”
“I only wish he didn’t need to be,” the father sighed, looking at his son sleeping in the hospital bed, too big for his small frame.
“I didn’t catch your name when he was first brought in…” Eddie questions, reaching his hand out.
“Oh, Evan,” he says, reaching back to shake Eddie’s hand. “You probably spoke to my wife, Abby, I think I was too in shock to be of much help,” he says, looking down, a sense of shame radiating off his shoulders.
“Mr. Buckley, you did more than enough by getting him here. The rest is our job, and this floor is the best possible place your son could be.”
“Thank you,” Evan let out a sigh, shaking back down into his seat, “for saying that, and for everything you did for Declan that night.”
Eddie looks over at the boy, relieved to see his vitals are stable and he’s no longer in need of oxygen.
“Just doing my job. I’ll get out of your hair and let you sleep. Please, anything you need, go speak to Howard at the nursing station, he’ll get you sorted.” Eddie says, turning to leave with a final glance at the monitors.
Five Years Later
Eddie wakes up in a start, a loud crash sounding out from somewhere in the house. Shannon’s side of the bed is empty, again. Why are you still surprised? Eddie thinks as he rolls out of bed and makes his way down the hall just in time to see his wife slamming the front door behind her. Shannon had knocked over the entryway table in her haste to leave. Eddie only hoped she hadn’t woken Christopher this time.
Eddie’s phone pings as he stares at the door in her wake.
needed some air
back in a bit
Eddie sunk into the couch, resisting the urge to follow behind his wife. He had tried that the first few times. It had only pushed her farther away, so he learned to let her leave. She would come back eventually. Tonight, eventually was 7am, just as Christopher was leaving for the school bus.
“What was it this time?” Eddie asked after letting Shannon settle on the couch.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Shannon says, closer to a yell, let out in one breath like she couldn’t hold it back.
Eddie had known this was coming. How could he not? Shannon had been so patient for the first three years he spent in that hospital. Picking up the slack around the house, raising Christopher more on her own than as a family, always willing to put off her life moving forward to support Eddie. But after Declan… things had shifted.
Shannon always warned him against getting attached. He knew he shouldn’t. Everything in his training told him it was a bad idea. But he couldn’t help it with some cases, and Declan was one of them. Against all better judgment, he developed a soft spot for him and his parents and insisted on taking every consult he could for the child. He had been doing well, any logic would dictate that he should’ve made it out of that hospital bed. But then, on a night Eddie was meant to work but had traded to get in a date night with Shannon, he crashed. There had been no mistake made, no missed condition, no untreated trauma. His body just… couldn’t sustain his recovery anymore.
When Eddie walked into the hospital the next morning for rounds, the boy’s father, Evan, was standing at the nurse’s station with Howard. Eyes still red and swollen, Eddie knew immediately what had happened. Howard told him the boy had crashed right before the night shift was about to leave.
Eddie didn’t want to blame Shannon. Wanting to have a date night more than a handful of times a year with your husband wasn’t an unreasonable request. There was no way for her to know what trading that shift would do to Eddie. To their marriage. The kid could have still died even with Eddie in the hospital. But blame and resentment settled into his heart.
“Okay.” Eddie finally let slip.
“‘Okay’? That’s it? 15 years of marriage and all you have to say is ‘okay’?” Shannon cried.
Eddie looked up at his wife, the woman he was meant to protect and cherish in the eyes of God, as she cried out for him to save her. Save this. Their marriage. Their family. Do anything, say anything that might save this from being an utter failure.
And then as he blinked, his wife’s face fell away and he sunk into darkness again.
—-----------------------
Eddie blinked at the door of Buck’s apartment as he stood waiting for the door to open. He’d had a key to the loft for years, but the tone of Buck’s text left him feeling like he needed to be let in this time.
Hey, can you come over? Need to talk to you about something.
Eddie can’t remember the last time Buck actually asked him to come over. They usually just dropped in on eachother, flowing through one another’s lives like the blood in their veins. It was natural for them, an instinct at this point. If Buck was asking him to come over… it was enough to make Eddie anxious around the one person he thought had excised that emotion from his heart.
The door swung open and Buck looked… scared wasn’t the right word. Deer in the headlights would be more apt.
“Hey, come in.” Buck said, ushering Eddie into the apartment and closing the door behind him. “You want a beer?” he said, already reaching into the fridge for two bottles.
“Sure, thanks,” Eddie didn’t want to feel on edge, but quite frankly he felt like he was balancing on a tightrope about to snap. “So what’d you want to talk about?”
Buck’s eyes snapped to Eddie’s, a flash of anxiety running across them. Maybe Eddie should have let him bring this up, but he needed to know. Buck was acting off and Eddie needed it to stop.
Buck swallows, his throat working over the anxiety Eddie could feel radiating off of him.
“You know when you saw me and Tommy out at dinner the other night?” Buck steels, waiting for Eddie.
“Yeah, of course. Why? I mean I’m glad you guys are hanging out, Tommy’s cool, but… is that really what you needed to talk to me about?” Eddie questioned, unsure how this justified such a formal invitation. Tommy was his friend and he was more than happy that Buck seemed to finally be coming around to him.
“It was a date.” Buck blurts out. “When you ran into me and Tommy, we were on a date.”
Buck somehow looks more scared now than when he had let Eddie in. Eddie… well Eddie feels like his world has been kicked off its axis.
“Really?” Eddie questions, eliciting no more than a soft mmhm from the man.
“Wait, Tommy’s gay?”
“That never came up while you guys were hanging out?” Buck asks.
“No, I mean, no, not that it would have mattered.” Eddie says, trying to come off as reassuring for Buck, but feeling more like he’s reassuring himself that he’s not horribly fumbling this entire conversation.
“Sure, I don’t think he volunteers it but he doesn’t hide it.”
“So you two were…” Eddie trails off.
“We were on a date, yes.” Buck nods.
“Okay” Eddie says, trying to process how this is where this conversation has ended up.
“Is that weird?” Buck questions.
“No! Absolutely not.” Eddie’s voice pitches up on the No and he worries if he just fucked this entire thing.
“Good. Okay, good. Although I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway cause I dumped him.”
Eddie’s head snaps up at this, meeting Buck’s eyes and searching for how he should answer. A voice buried deep in his mind tells him he’s had this chance before.
“Uhm. Okay. I’m… sorry?” Eddie says, Buck’s head cocking to the side, “Did he do something?”
“No, no! Tommy was fine, I just… it didn’t feel right being there.” Buck says with a sigh, taking a sip of his beer to cover most of it.
“Sorry, I’m lost, you’re gonna have to catch me up. You… invited me here to tell me you went on a date with Tommy just to tell me you dumped him? But he didn’t do anything wrong?” Eddie feels like someone turned off half his brain. Buck still looked terrified despite seeming to have gotten this whole thing off his chest.
“I mean, yes. But no. Mostly. Fuck, this is not going like I thought it would.” Buck groans, running a hand down his face.
“What do you mean, this. You told me the Tommy thing-”
“I dumped him because I kinda couldn’t stop thinking about you the whole time.” Buck nearly yelps, eyes going wide as he watches the words sink into Eddie.
“Me? Why would you spend your date thinking about m- oh. Oh. Oh no.” Eddie whispers, realization dawning on him.
“Oh no?” Buck panics.
“No! Not oh no, Buck-” Eddie scrambles for purchase in a conversation that’s quickly slipping out of his hands.
“If I just made this really weird and you want to leave, please, go but I just felt bad cause I felt like I was lying to myself for years and then I was lying to Tommy and it just started feeling like I was lying to everyone-”
“Buck” Eddie levels.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve just kept it to myself, I’m so sorry Eddie I know you probably don’t-” Buck rambles.
“Buck. Stop.” Eddie says, catching Buck’s eyes. “Years?”
“Pretty much since the day I met you.” Buck admits, trying to break eye contact Eddie continues to chase, rubbing at the back of his neck.
Eddie stills. How many years had he wasted? Trying to please his family, a faith he no longer believed in, a version of himself he hasn’t been since 18. Chasing a life he didn’t want, a wife he didn’t need, a mother for his son he could never truly replace. Life had dropped his answer in his lap 6 years ago and he had spent the entire time trying to brush it off.
“Buck. Please come here.” Eddie says, barely above a whisper. Buck doesn’t make a move to stand so Eddie repeats, “Please.”
Eddie stands to meet Buck as he closes the distance between the two of them. For a moment Eddie is frozen, unable to take that final step, settle this gift into his lap and accept it for what it is. And then his eyes meet Buck’s, and it's like the final piece of the puzzle slots into place.
“It’s always been you. Hasn’t it?” Eddie gasps as he finally reaches out and allows himself to touch.
“I think so. I think it has.” Buck says, taking the man’s face in his hands and pressing his lips to Eddie’s.
It takes everything in Eddie to not let out a sob as their lips meet for the first time. It’s a ghost of a kiss, just enough to show Eddie that this is real. This is where he’s been meant to be all along.
Eddie leans back and sees the same clarity reflected in Buck’s face. No more fear, no more apprehension, just a calm, clear sense of belonging.
Eddie crushes their faces back together, and then once again sinks into darkness.
—------------------
Eddie is in a coma for 12 days, 14 hours and 43 minutes. When Christopher is in school, Buck only leaves his side when forced, either by hospital policy or the pleading looks on his friends’ faces as they beg him to please, get some rest, Eddie would want you to.
Telling Christopher that his father has been hurt again, and this time it’s not looking good, is the worst pain Buck can imagine. His brain beats out a steady beat of itshouldvebeenmeitshouldvebeenme as he kneels before his son, their son, and tells him what happened.
Eddie’s family flies out when Buck calls and tells them the doctors aren’t hopeful. His friends try to get Buck to let them make some of the calls, shoulder some of the burden, but Buck refuses them at every turn. This is his fault. This is his responsibility.
Eddie’s family realizes two days into visiting that Buck is the one watching Christopher. They get antsy about it four days in. On the fifth day, they finally ask.
Cries of Why is Christopher staying with you? Don’t you have a partner, a family? We can take things from here if you have people to get home to echo in his ears as he stares a hole in the wall behind Eddie’s hospital bed.
“Christopher is my responsibility. Eddie is my family. I have to do this, and I want to do this.” Buck grits out, praying that he won’t have to explain further.
But they insist. They push, they tell him they’re his family, they tell him how great of a friend he is and how it’s admirable what he’s doing, but really, they’ve got it from here.
On the sixth day, Buck breaks.
“I’m Christopher’s legal guardian if Eddie dies. And right now, it’s looking like that is exactly what is going to happen. So please, let me do this. It is what Eddie wants.” Buck tries to level his voice, but it comes out croaky and angry.
Legal guardian? How? Since when? This makes no sense, Eddie would not have done that. We’re his family.
“It’s in his will. Has been for years. If you have a problem with it, you can speak to his lawyer but please do not hurt Christopher anymore than he already has been.” Buck says, leveling his voice to hide the anger boiling beneath the surface. Tears are biting at the corners of his eyes but refusing to fall.
Buck spends the next five days waiting for the call from the lawyer, telling him he has to give Christopher up, he has no right, he made the whole thing up, but the call never comes.
On the eleventh day of their visit, Eddie wakes up.
The doctors are unsure how he managed to pull through. This wasn’t like the shooting where he was put under to allow him to heal. Eddie’s body was failing him. He shouldn’t have woken up. But while Buck is holding his hand, in the quiet of the night at 3:17am, Eddie wakes up.
“Buck?” Eddie groans out.
“Oh my god.” Buck shoots up in his chair, staring at Eddie to make sure he isn’t hearing things. But there he is, slowly blinking awake, and asking for Buck. Buck scrambles for the call button, never taking his eyes off Eddie, fearing he might slip away from him again.
“Nurse! Please somebody get in here, he’s awake. Eddie’s awake.” Buck yells into the remote, one hand still grasped in Eddie’s.
For the next two hours, there is a constant thrum of activity in Eddie’s hospital room. Doctors and nurses crowding in and out to check vitals, his memory, his function, his entire being. Miraculously, Eddie is okay. He’s a long way from being released, but he’s somehow just fine.
Once everything has calmed down and Eddie’s family that has been summoned has been assured he’s doing well, Buck is finally able to have a moment alone truly with Eddie for the first time since the accident. Not with the body he was praying Eddie was still somewhere inside of.
Before Buck can get a word out about Eddie nearly dying on him, again, Eddie grasps Buck’s hand and says the words Buck was so sure he would die without hearing from the man he’s loved for six years.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
The words tumble out so fast that Buck isn’t sure he heard them right. But the sob that breaks from his body, completely unbidden, assures him he did.
Eddie just watches as Buck breaks down, sobbing through a smile like he’s only dreamed of.
“Couldn’t have saved me the heart attack and realized that after the first near death experience?” Buck laughs as he cries.
“Is that an I love you too or an I’m going to kill you for good this time ?”
“Of course I love you. God, I've wanted to say that for so long. Jesus. How did you - what happened while you weren’t… with us?” Buck asks.
“I think my brain got fed up with kicking this can down the road and finally decided to hit me in the face with it.” Eddie sighs.
“I have no idea what that means,” Buck laughs, still crying but slowly feeling like he might feel like himself again one day.
“It means I’m in love with you and I think I have been for a very, very long time. And I’m sorry it took me nearly dying, again, to realize that.” Eddie pleads. Tears are forming in his eyes as he watches Buck realize he’s here, he’s alive, and he hasn’t been alone in this silent love.
“Well when I propose, I’m doing it in the hospital parking lot.” Buck grins.
“Fair enough.” Eddie laughs.