(A 911 Buddie Fic) You Were Made From Scars

Chapter 3

There was no such thing as normal anymore. Eddie didn't think there ever would be. But each day, he got up and he got ready and focused on what he had. He had Christopher, and the 118. He had family, one that was there for him every step of the way. He had a job that meant he could make a difference. Sometimes it was only a small difference, and sometimes it was so much more.

He allowed himself to smile more often as the months passed, and allowed himself to cry too. Sometimes, he would spend hours at Buck's headstone in silence, and sometimes he would talk about everything that had happened. He would talk about how Chris was doing in school, and about Maddie and Chimney, letting him know that Jee-Yun still asked about her Uncle Buck, and about how Bobby still set a place for him at dinner in the firehouse.

Nine months. Nine long months.

"Christopher wants to come by this weekend," Eddie whispered into the quiet air of the cemetery, eyes locked on the name etched into the headstone. "He misses you."

His chest ached, gaze falling a moment.

"I miss you."

It hurt to say it out loud.

"He's er... he's been talking to this girl in his class," Eddie continued, swiping the back of his hand across his cheek to brush away a stray tear. He tried for a small chuckle, but it came out broken. "So much for no dating until he turns twenty-one. I guess I've got all that drama to look forward to. Just... do me a favour? Keep an eye on him, for me? I don't know how much you can do, or if you can even hear me but... he still needs you."

He couldn't bring himself to voice that he still needed Buck too, that he would always need Buck. To admit as much would be torturing himself. Frank had told him, time after time, that it was okay to open himself up, it was okay to feel vulnerable and broken, that there was no timeline for grief and no one expected him to bounce back, as if nothing had happened, as if his whole world hadn't been torn apart.

Still, there were some things he couldn't talk to Frank about, or anyone else for that matter. There were some things that he had only ever been able to open up to one person about.

"If you can't be honest with Frank, at least be honest with me."

Buck had always seen right through him.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, the alarm sounding out. He had set it knowing he would lose track of time. The first time he came to the cemetery before work, he ended up with a phone call from Bobby asking if he was okay and where he was. He ended up a good forty-five minutes late that day.

Letting go of a sigh, he said his goodbyes and made his way towards his truck. It was just a regular day. A Tuesday of all days. Nothing about it was out of the ordinary, not the slow-moving traffic, or the chatter in the firehouse. Not the first call, or the second call. Not the third, or fourth, or fifth. And certainly, nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary about the last call either.

An apartment fire, late that evening.

It had started on the third floor and had spread quickly. Most of the residents had already evacuated by the time the 118 reached the building, coming in to support the fire crew already on scene, but there were a few stragglers. A child was stranded in an apartment on the fourth floor, and the stairwell leading up had collapsed. Judging from what Eddie was hearing from the crowd, some reckless civilian had gone in to try and save the kid, which meant they now not only had to rescue the kid, but they had to pull him out too.

"Diaz," Bobby commanded, "I want you on the roof supporting the 120. You know the drill, if you can't find a safe way down inside, we'll go from the outside."