Differences

Nine

Evan doesn't bother trying to hold off the conversation. It's one that needs to happen, it's one he wants to have, he needs to have. He's been telling Kelly too little to feel comfortable, always giving the man the big picture, despite knowing that he needs all the little details that make it up.

"I never lied." He starts off, his eyes glued to the hands that are holding him. "I didn't tell you a lot of things or I guess I left a lot of things out, but I never lied."
Kelly squeezes his hands, "I know, Evan."
He clears his throat, seeing a tear fall onto their joined hands. "It started after the bomb incident and my leg got crushed." He pauses, wondering just how Kelly is going to deal with this, with everything he had been keeping quiet so as to not anger the man. "Three people visited me in the hospital when I was there for three weeks. Maddie, Carla, and Ali, that's it. Apparently the team had been in the waiting room when the surgery happened, but once they heard that I would survive they left." He shakes his head, he had excused their behavior at the time, not even thinking of it, but now saying it out loud.

"When I got out of the hospital, no one visited other than Maddie. I mean there was Ali, but she left me after she brought me home. She left me because she couldn't accept that I still wanted to be a firefighter even after what happened to me." He looks at Kelly, tears feeling warm on his face.
The older man doesn't say anything, just tightens his hold on his hands, despite the urge to just gather him up and hold him tight.
"That's when I visited you. I got the clear from my doctor to travel after a few more weeks, told Maddie some half-assed lie about going for a month-long retreat to this rehab place and left for Chicago." He doesn't know why he's telling Kelly this, when the man already knows this part. He knows how after Ali broke up with him, although not the reasons, that he went to see him for a month. But, then the next words slip from his lips and it becomes clear why his tongue had decided to relay that part of the story. "And seeing you I felt like I could breathe again. And being in Chicago with everyone it felt like home and I just felt better than I have in so long. I didn't care about not being able to work with you guys, because everyone was always checking in, and I got to work at Molly's again and see everyone." He pulls his hands from out of Kelly's, to wipe at his face.

"Then I came back and I felt worse than I had before. I was here for another month before I saw anyone, and this marked five months since I had seen anyone on the team, really? And it wasn't just on them, I was trying to get back to work and get recertified. And then two weeks after," He stops himself, taking a deep breath, before moving on. "Eddie comes over, he lets himself in, makes me get out of bed." Evan is so focused on the loose thread of the rug beneath his coffee table, that he doesn't see the way Kelly seems to lean in as he starts to talk about Eddie. "And he has Christopher with him, telling me to take him somewhere fun for the day while he works. So we go to the pier."
"Evan." Kelly breathes, making noise for the first time since he started talking. He had known that Evan had been on the pier when the tsunami happened, and had even known he had been off duty. He had no idea that he had been with Christopher.
"It was such a good day, I mean Christopher was so happy and I could feel myself brightening up, but then all the water just vanished, before I could even think I grabbed Christopher and just ran. I put him in one of those game booths, before getting myself in there with him. And then I lost him as soon as the first wave hit." His voice sounds so broken to even his own ears. "I managed to find him, Kelly, only to lose him again. I lost Christopher two times in one day and Maddie when I called her, it was like that didn't matter to her. I walked through half a city trying to find him and Maddie couldn't even seem to grasp that he mattered so much more than me. It was like I was talking to her about a stuffed animal or piece of jewelry." His hands tighten to fists, before he takes a deep breath trying to calm himself down.

"I was at one of the emergency hospitals and I was about to start looking for him again, but Eddie was there and he saw me. And I had to tell him that I lost his son." Evan breaks as he practically whispers the words, crying into Kelly's shoulder as the man wraps his arms around him.
"But you didn't, Evan. Not really." Kelly doesn't know the rest of the story, but he does know that Christopher is alive and that despite what happened Eddie didn't seem to blame him for losing Christopher.
His next words are muffled, "He came over two days later with Christopher. He wanted me to watch him again. Told me that there was no one in the world he trusted more with his son."
With that revelation, everything clicks for Kelly.