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The call with the toddler in the well doesn’t trigger Eddie.
It should. It should remind him of being buried alive, gasping for air, lost and alone, cut off from the people who mattered most. It should remind him of being taken from Christopher too soon. It should bring on a panic attack, or give him hives, or at least set him back on his heels a little.
Or maybe it should inspire him, remind him why he fought so hard to escape last time, the strength of will he’d found thinking about Christopher and the family they’d built in LA. How he knew if he didn’t come back from that, Christopher would be alone, how he’d have to live with his grandparents and be raised like Eddie was—one of Eddie’s greatest fears.
Instead all he feels is tired.
It’s been over four long, tough years since that first well call. In the engine on the way back to the station, he takes silent inventory of his life now, compares it to then, and while it’s different in many ways—it is different, he knows it is—it also drives home how little progress he’s made, no matter how hard he’s been trying. Like nothing has mattered, not almost dying at least twice, not trying to move on, not therapy. Nothing.
He looks around at his team, his friends, and wonders what the hell is wrong with him. While he’s stagnated, Chim has lost and found Maddie, had a daughter, and gotten married. Hen has made it most of the way through med school and finally been able to add to her family. Bobby has struggled and persevered, found closure, and now he and Athena seem better than ever. Buck literally died and then had a whole sexuality revelation.
But Eddie? He’s still stuck there, frantically beating against the walls around him, crying out where no one can hear him, cut off from the most vital part of himself. Fighting a war of attrition against life and losing, losing, always losing.
Hopelessness pulls at his limbs as he showers and changes into a fresh uniform, as he pours himself a cup of coffee, and smiles and laughs in all the right places while the team bustles around him. He knows this feeling, knows how seductive it can be to give up. He’s been resisting its siren song all summer. He flirted with the edge of this despair not even three years ago. If it hadn’t been for how bad he’d scared Christopher…
But Christopher isn’t there anymore to call Buck when Eddie can’t find his own way back. He can’t depend on Chris to ask for the help that Eddie can’t ask for himself. He has to learn how to ask, to say it himself.
The words are on the tip of his tongue the rest of the shift. They crowd his mouth, pressed up tight against his teeth, and he aches to loosen his jaw and let them go. Instead, he bites down.
In the end, it doesn’t matter.
They’re called out again. This one, a jumper on top of an office building, which just figures given Eddie’s current mental state.
Even better, they find out shortly that the jumper is going through a very messy, very contested divorce.
Eddie stands at the ready while Chim and Bobby confer with the almost ex-husband on the ground, trying to block out the sounds of Bobby and Athena working in tandem to talk the vic off the literal edge. Trying not to think about anything at all.
A little gets through, though. It’d be impossible to keep it all out and do the job effectively.
He hears Athena talking about how divorce doesn’t mean giving up, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. He hears Bobby say how letting go can be a second chance at a life, a happiness you never knew was possible, even if you’ll always mourn what you’ve lost. He hears the ex-husband apologizing, saying, “I’ll always love you, even if it’s not in the same way, even if our marriage ended.”
And something within Eddie cracks wide open.
He keeps it together as they bring the victim down unharmed, as they deflate the safety air cushion and pack up, as they wind down the shift and go their separate ways.
At home, with no one to hide from, he shatters.
He thinks of Shannon telling him she wants a divorce, of the anger and hurt he packed away, buried beneath his grief. He thinks of that fucking letter again, the one she left Christopher, without leaving anything for him, any kind of clue of what he’d done wrong or why they couldn’t work it out.
He’s always tried to be so fair to Shannon in death to make up for how he fell short while she was alive. Tried to make up for his parents’ scorn. Tried not to speak ill of her to Christopher, so he always remembers the mom who was there for him, the mom who made smores and surprised him on Christmas and read him stories at night.
But in being fair to Shannon, he wonders…he wonders if he hasn’t been a little unfair to himself, too.
He’s allowed to be mad that she left him alone with Christopher while he was struggling with PTSD and recovering from his injuries.
He’s allowed to be mad that she didn’t reach out to him for three full years after leaving, that he had to take the initiative to bring her back into their lives.
He’s allowed to be hurt and confused that she came back into his life, fell back into his bed, and then asked him for a divorce when he wanted to recommit.
He’s allowed to be a little relieved about it, too, that she wanted out and asked him for a way, when he wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, and would’ve kept them encased in their mutual misery forever.
He’s allowed to see Shannon, their relationship, in shades of gray—they were both right and they were both wrong, and they were kids and they were both forced to grow up too soon, and they made a beautiful miracle together but they both ran from it, from him.
Eddie sits on the floor of his living room, head hanging between his knees, and he lets it all go, lets it roll through him, sobs shaking his body, until he’s heaving.
“Eddie?” he hears, and doesn’t try to hide as Buck drops down beside him. He hadn’t even heard the front door and there is no Christopher to make the call, but somehow it doesn’t surprise Eddie that Buck just…knows to be there.
Bucks wraps an arm around his shoulders, not saying a word, not asking a single question. Eddie does what he never would’ve done before. He reaches up and grabs Buck’s arm, pulling his embrace tight, a silent and shameless plea for comfort, for care. Stay.
Buck presses his face to the top of Eddie’s head, nods, and lets Eddie cry himself hoarse.