(A 911 Buddie Fic) You Were Made From Scars

Chapter 1

I was asked to write a fic where I killed Eddie or Buck. This is as close as I could come.

If you are not in a good headspace right now, you may want to bookmark this fic and return to it later. There is a lot of angst and heavy material and your mental health is important to me, so please remember to look after yourself.

Disclaimer: As always, 9-1-1 and it's characters do not belong to me. Buddie would be canon if it did.

-.-.-.-.-

It was a Tuesday. Just a regular day. Nothing about it could have ever prepared Eddie for what was waiting for him on the last call of the day. Nothing. And yet, despite it all, he felt like he should have known. He should have been able to do something to prevent it.

"You okay, Diaz?" Bobby asked, brow furrowing at Eddie as he passed him by.

Eddie pulled his gaze up from his phone and cleared his throat. He had been sat at the table in the loft for the past half hour or so, passing the time until their next call. "Yeah, it's just..."

Bobby paused before he could reach the kitchen area, turning to look at Eddie fully, head tilting to the side slightly in a prompt for Eddie to continue.

"I got a message from the school," Eddie continued, holding his phone up and leaning back in his chair. "They said Buck never showed to pick Christopher up."

"I'm sure he's just running late," Bobby answered, and despite his logic and small comforting smile, Eddie was sure he could hear a hint of concern. "Have you tried calling him?"

"Straight to voicemail."

That was when the smile on Bobby's face flickered, frown taking hold. After all, they both knew that wasn't like Buck. Buck, who had taken the day off so he could take Chris to the zoo after school because he had had to work late the previous week and wanted to make it up to him. Buck, who had sent photos earlier that morning of the pancakes he had made for him and Chris after Eddie had already left for work.

Bobby didn't get the chance to say anything else on the matter, and Eddie didn't have the chance to dwell on it. The alarm rang loudly, announcing another emergency that needed their attention, and they were both moving. Eddie tucked his feelings away for now, sending Carla a quick message to ask if she could pick Chris up, just in case Buck's jeep had broken down somewhere he didn't have any signal... because that was the only explanation Eddie could come up with. It was the only explanation he allowed himself to think about.

"Okay, we've got a pretty bad pile up waiting for us," Bobby began, as the engine hurtled through the streets toward their destination. "According to dispatch, we've got at least one car on fire, so we've got to be quick but cautious."

"What the plan, Cap?" Eddie asked, pushing everything else aside to focus solely on what was ahead of them.

"We won't be the only ones on scene, but we'll be the first, so I want you to focus on getting that fire out and getting the area cleared. We can't do anything to help anyone if we have a ticking timebomb ready to blow up in our faces at any moment."

Except, it wasn't that simple. It never was. The pile up was on a narrow stretch of freeway, making accessibility an immediate problem, and amongst the centre of it all was the tell-tale smoke and flames of the car that was on fire. It wouldn't matter whether they came at it from the front or the back, getting to those flames was going to be an issue, and with the sun beating down on them, the scorching heat was only going to make things worse and fast.

They were moving before the engine had even come to a complete stop. Once their feet hit the ground, they began grabbing the gear they needed, Bobby calling out commands as they went. Eddie was sent scrambling ahead, finding a safe passage through the wreckages of the cars, finding the best way to lay the hoses whilst also attempting a quick assessment of any other casualties that would need immediate help. But his priority was the car on fire, and making sure no one was trapped inside, or nearby.