In Flames Extras

The Letter

Some THOTS on next week's ep. TW: blood, gun violence

Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion and at the speed of light at the same time. One week back on the job from maternity leave and they were facing a sniper. Mariana had barely turned her head to look at her husband when the shot ripped through the air. Eddie quickly shoved her down, covering his wife with his larger form.

She knew he was hit. He stiffened against her, his fingers curling into her sides as he forced her to lie still and tucked her head into his neck. Mariana scrambled to find where he had been hit, her hands running over his body. She had just passed her hand over his side when let out a pained grunt against her ear. Sticky hot blood coated her hand and she inhaled sharply. Her body was buzzing from energy and she needed to roll him over to start applying pressure and get him the hell out of here. Before Mari could shift their weights, Eddie pressed down on her shoulder and shook his head.

"We can't. Not until the shooter is apprehended."

"Eddie, you're hit!"

He raised his head so he could see her properly. See the panic in her dark eyes and the curve of her full lips and her smooth skin that he had spent so much time committing to the memory of his touch. Tears built in her dark eyes and she craned her neck to look at Buck who was laying on the other side of the truck.

"Eddie's hit!" she shouted.

"Stay down, Buck," he ordered. "Not until we know this guy is gone."

"Eddie, what are you doing?!" she snapped. "We need to get you out of here and on a bus."

He cupped her cheek and drew her head up to focus on him. "I am not letting you get up when there is a sniper on the roof."

She could feel the blood on her uniform from him and she swallowed past the growing lump in her throat. Mariana desperately shook her head and he laid her head back against the pavement so she couldn't see his injury.

"We'll be okay," he assured her. "You'll be okay and the kids are wonderful. They have such a good mom looking out for them."

"Don't," she choked out. "Please don't."

"I need you to listen to me, sweetheart. I need to know you'll be okay."

"Not without you. No, not without you."

He buried his face in the crook of her neck, soft puffs of air washing over her skin and reassuring her that he was alive for now. The paramedic desperately tried to hold pressure against his side as best as she could in this position.

"I keep your presents in the box on the top shelf of the closet because I know you can't reach," he whispered. Mari shut her eyes and let out a shaky breath at his words. Not here. Not now. It's not supposed to be like this. "There's a letter in my locker on the top shelf for you. I wrote it a while back just in case...in case I didn't come home."

"You promised," she gasped out.

"I did, didn't I? I'm sorry, sweetheart. I've been a bad husband."

"Shut up. Shut up, Edmundo. Don't you dare say that. You've been the best husband a girl could ask for. The kids...they love you so much. Hope, oh God, Hope."

"She's got her mom. You'll be strong for them. You're so strong."

He heaved out a breath and she bit her lip to quell the rising sob in her throat. Eddie reached up and ran his blood stained hand over her hair. "It's okay, sweetheart. It doesn't hurt."

"I wish we had more time," she whispered.

"I do too."

Everything was a blur after that. The police gave the all clear and paramedics bolted over to gather Eddie onto a stretcher, leaving Mariana to lay on the street as she caught her breath. Blood soaked through her uniform and plastered the nylon against her skin as iron filled her nose. Mariana rolled over and promptly threw up in the street. She couldn't stop fucking shaking.

"Mari, Mari, you're okay. He's on his way to the hospital," Buck stammered out.

She nodded, pressing against the pavement to feel some form of stability under her palms. Eddie's words kept running through her head and she leaned forward, finally letting out the gasping, tearing, broken sob that had built in her chest.

///

No matter how hard she scrubbed, Mari could still feel his blood on her. Her skin was red and raw from the burning hot shower she had taken to wash it all off, but she still felt completely dripping in her husband's blood.

"Mrs Diaz? You can come sit with him now," Dr Hayden told her quietly. Other than the casual gunshot wound and a few pints of missing A+ blood, Eddie would be fine. He was asleep for now but he would be fine.

Her fingers slid over the smooth paper under her hand as she took a seat next to him. If he wasn't hooked up to a bunch of machines, Mari would have assumed that he had just taken a nap. He looked fine, but she couldn't stop remembering what it felt like to be under him and desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

She ran her hand down his face, pushing back the floppy brown hair he gelled back everyday. Mariana loved seeing him right after he woke up with his messy hair and sleep ridden eyes and the stubble that burned when he kissed her. But seeing him like this made her want to turn back time so today never happened.

The brunette looked at the envelope in her hand and slowly opened it, finding a few pages of a letter inside. She unfolded it, finding Eddie's loopy chicken scratch handwriting on the rough paper. Her dark eyes lifted from the pages to study him once more and she folded up the letter and shoved it back in the envelope.

Whatever he wanted to say, he could say it to her face.