#911 2x18 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

schrijverr · 26 days ago

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I Mean, You Love Him, Don’t You?

Divergence from chapter 31, where Shannon sees the bombing on TV and immediately realizes (or thinks she does) what is happening; what has happened without her there. However, upon arriving at the hospital, she realizes it’s a little more complicated than that.

On AO3.

Ships: Buddie

Warnings: injury, referenced emotionally abusive parenting

~~~

Shannon is at home by herself when she sees the news. Ever since fleeing El Paso and the death of her mother, she’s been working on herself. She’s going to community college at night and has a pretty okay job as receptionist.

The dating game is something she’s been out of and she only has a few friends, but she tells herself that she isn’t lonely. That she’s doing okay.

Though, maybe sitting alone on her couch and mindlessly watching TV isn’t the best way of proving that to herself.

However, it works in her favor, because otherwise she wouldn’t have seen the breaking news segment interrupting the game show she was starting to find annoying. The bomber that’s been terrorizing LA blew up a firetruck and is holding a bunch of firefighters hostage.

“If you’re just joining us, witnesses are reporting that this LAFD ladder truck, belonging to station house 118, was hit by some kind of an explosive as it was making its way to a call. Now, you can see there’s a firefighter pinned under that truck.”

The camera pans and Shannon drops her tea cup as she gasps: “Evan?”

She thought of Evan from time to time after she left, the boy that she couldn’t love that she used as an escape from the boy that couldn’t love her. She wondered what happened to him, after she left Chris with him, a thing she still feels guilt about. Wondered where he went after. What job he worked. If he got out of there like she did.

To see him after all these years and in these circumstances is shocking. He did get out. He’s been in the very same city as her. He has a different job now, probably a whole new life. And he’s being held hostage!

Her hands start shaking and she starts reaching around, as if there is something she needs to grab or do that will change the situation. But she can’t. She’s sitting on her couch and he is on an intersection somewhere pinned by truck and some jackass with a bomb.

On the screen, you can see some commotion to the side, before someone is running. The journalist reports: “This is unexpected. A civilian now confronting the young man with that vest. We’ve got no details on this man’s identity.”

As they continue to speculate and report on what’s happening, Shannon is on the edge of her seat. She has always wished Evan nothing but to best. To see him like this now hurts way more than expected.

After what feels like forever, the man that walked onto the scene tackles the bomber. There appears to be somewhat of a scuffle, but then more police, bomb squad looking people are moving in and the reporter on the scene tells them the bomber is taken into custody.

Shannon lets out a sigh of relief, sagging slightly and allowing herself a thankful gaze to the heavens. She hasn’t moved her eyes away ever since she first recognized Evan and she’s pretty sure the tea will stain her rug and her couch.

God, that was super stressful. She doesn’t think she can handle anymore revelations like that today, she thinks to herself.

“Well, that firefighter really appears to have taken the brunt of all of this. That’s an entire ladder truck that you see there. We can only hope for the best at this point.”

She sits back up, wanting to at least keep watching until Evan is freed and on his way to the hospital, maybe even send him a card or something. Then, naturally, because the universe loves to fuck with her, another revelation gets thrown in her face when she looks back to the screen. The camera zooms in on the firefighters helping and she spots a very familiar silhouette among them; Eddie.

Holy shit.

She rubs at her eyes and blinks a few times, before squinting at the screen. She has half convinced herself she’s imagining things, but no, that is still very much Eddie.

From the angle and distance, she can’t make out many of his facial features, but she doesn’t really have to. The way he’s kneeling beside Buck, hand continuously running over him again and again, while his counterpart medic doesn’t, tells her enough.

There is a desperation there when he looks up to the man that rushed in earlier to talk down the bomber. His shoulders are both tight and slumped. He almost looks a little like he did during the last glance she send to him, before she was whisked away by doctors during her birth.

The thought makes her swallow and a pit grows in her stomach when the man responds and Eddie almost collapses in on himself, only held up by the steel in his spine that has been forced in there by his father.

Shannon claps her hand to her mouth, nearly choking on her tears. She can’t have just been forced back into this sphere she left behind just to face another tragedy. She can’t watch as Eddie loses another person dear to him after her. She doesn’t even want to begin to think what it would mean for Christopher.

“Now, look at this. Bystanders stepping in. They're gonna help out. This really is an amazing scene that’s unfolding. What an incredible show of support and gratitude.”

Oh thank God. Bystanders are indeed stepping in, running over the blockade to help and lift the truck off of Evan. The tears now truly start to fall and she can only feel gratefulness towards everyone there, who stepped up and helped.

She watches as Evan is lifted on a stretcher by the woman who was helping Eddie earlier and another man. Eddie is also there, but he doesn’t appear to be helping, instead holding Evan’s hand as he disappears into the ambulance.

Despite following along every moment, it doesn’t all register until the camera pans away from the disappearing ambulance.

Shannon tunes the journalist out, who is babbling about beautiful moments of support, instead again realizing that, holy shit, Evan and Eddie are in the same city as her. Christopher is probably in the same city as her. Evan and Eddie still know each other. Work together.

When she left Christopher with Evan, she did so, because leaving him anywhere else would invite questions that would crumble her resolve. She always felt bad about it, but she never questioned what that would have meant. Now, she understands that her leaving the way she did, forced Evan and Eddie into each other’s orbit.

She has always assumed that after a while, Evan would leave El Paso too. That he would have saved up enough and leave that shithole town behind like they both always wanted to. In a way, he did, though he didn’t leave it alone.

Or he ran into Eddie again at work and this is all coincidence.

However, Shannon has a hard time believing that. She remembers Evan clearly no matter how many years have passed, the way he was always ready and happy to help, delighted in watching Christopher, showing him all the chickies. Seeing them together still, it doesn’t feel unreasonable to her that he stayed when she left. That he kept offering to help.

A part of her feels like she should be surprised Eddie took the offered help. When she was still there, he wanted nothing to do with Evan – the boyfriend – always making sure she did drop off and pick up when Evan watched Christopher.

But she doesn’t find it weird. Evan is so open and earnest and Eddie must have been panicking when he found her gone. Guilt stabs through her again. She can totally believe that he would have been weak to those baby blues just like she was, especially when she divorced him for the reason she did.

Yeah, sure, Eddie never confirmed she was right and resisted her more delicate way of bringing it up, but he signed those paper without too much protest, and looking at him now, even tiny on that television screen, she can tell he nearly lost the love of his life.

She needs to find him.

She knows it sounds crazy, because she walked out on not only him, but their child soon and she never turned back. After all she did, she is probably the last person he wants to see. Ever.

However, he just went through something ginormous and he needs people to lean on. Shannon might not know anything about accidents, but that looked bad, and she does know what it’s like to have hospitalized and dying loved ones. You need people to prevent you from drowning. Eddie needs someone right now. A friend.

Before she got pregnant and responsibility took them down – something much bigger than they could prepare for tying them together – they had been friends. Good friends. They’d spend hours driving around, talking, laughing, sharing things they never shared.

If she hadn’t become pregnant, Shannon believes that even though they wouldn’t have worked out in the end as partners, she would have had a lifelong friend in Eddie.

Besides, if her theory about what happened between them is correct, then Christopher just had one of his dads be severely injured. If wanting to support her child, even if Eddie won’t let her see him directly, isn’t a good reason to at least try to find him, she doesn’t know what is.

So, she spends some times trying to figure out where the truck bombing happened, before finding nearby hospitals, driving to the wrong one first, before finding the right one.

Shannon is a little anxious, just as she was the first time, when she gets out of her car, but pushes through anyway. She’s been running for long enough from this. The people that were once her family need her, she isn’t going to abandon them again.

She is glad she gathered herself in the car, because she runs into Eddie a lot quicker than she thought she would, finding him slumped on the ground next to the ER entrance. His knees are up to his chest and his head buried between his knees.

Her stride pauses for a second, unsure how to get his attention. His shoulders are shaking a little and it hits her that he’s crying. She can’t recall ever seeing Eddie cry before. Not when he left for boot-camp, not during the birth, not after that doctor’s visit that got Chris a diagnosis. Not when they fought and not when they divorced. He always seemed so strong, so perfect, so much more in control of himself than her.

It’s almost odd to see this version of him, but it humanizes him too. He isn’t the perfect parent that she could never be, the good son to her bad daughter. He’s just a man. And right now he is alone. Everyone just walks past him, letting him cry by himself.

After hesitating for a moment longer, she takes a deep breath and makes her way over to him, sliding down the wall and sitting down next to him. She doesn’t say anything or touch him, just sits close enough so that he can feel her presence.

“Are you going to be disappointed at me again?” Eddie asks after a moment, voice rough and raw. He doesn’t look at her when he says it, she isn’t even sure he knows who he’s talking to.

“Why would I be disappointed in you, Eddie?” she asks, proud of herself when she doesn’t waver when she talks to him. She is also curious at the answer, wondering why that’s what he expects anyone that is here with him to be with him.

Eddie’s head whips up at the sound of her voice. His eyes are red-rimmed, wide in their shock, and his hair is an absolutely mess. He gapes a few times, then almost seems scared as he softly asks: “Shan?”

“Hi, Eddie,” she smiles crookedly. “It’s been a while, huh?”

“Wha- what are you doing here?” he asks, scrabbling back a little.

A part of her withers in her chest. She didn’t expect a warm welcome, but this is also a little extreme, though to be fair, she did ambush him slightly. So, she tries not to take it to heart as she explains: “I saw what happened on the news. First recognized Evan, then you. I kinda guessed what might have happened, since I left. I wanted you to not be alone.”

Eddie stares at her as if she’s an alien, clearly trying to find his wits and failing slightly. She might not know him well anymore – maybe she never did – but she knows his overwhelmed face from miles away.

“I know being alone sucks,” she says, when he stays quiet, wanting to give him more context. “I never meant to stay gone. Never meant to leave the way I did. I just didn’t know how to come back. This kind of felt like a sign, I guess?”

“Signs aren’t real,” Eddie tells her, almost instinctively. He startles a little at the sound of his own voice, then blinks himself into the presence and frowns: “You didn’t know how to come back? Maybe pick up the phone? Call? Send a card? Or a text? Hell, even a telegram or a fax.”

She can’t help the humorless chuckle that escapes her and she shakes her head: “It’s not that easy, Eddie.” He is about to protest, but she cuts him off: “I am sorry. I am. So incredibly sorry. You have no clue how guilty I’ve felt all these years. I want to make it right. Make it up to you. To Christopher. But right now, I just want to be here for you. Are you okay?”

With the way he looks, Shannon would have thought she slapped him, instead of merely asking a question.

Then he glares at the ground, as if his eyes can burn a hole in it. There is a small tremble in his lips, but he bites down harshly, pushing it all down. “I’m fine,” he grits.

Watching him now, she wonders how much he pushed down when they were together, how much of his hurt she didn’t see, like he didn’t seem to notice her hurts. God, they had just been stupid kids, hurting themselves in doing something neither of them wanted to.

She nudges him and waits until he is looking at her again, before she gently says: “It’s okay if you’re not fine, you know. I mean, you love him, don’t you?”

His eyes go from a mild glower to a wide eyed stare and he lets go of his bottom lip to gape at her. For a few moments, he’s silent, then he says in a hushed whisper: “Oh my god, I love him.”

“Did you- did you not know that?” Shannon asks, almost cautious. Maybe her assessment that they ran into each other and it was a coincidence was more correct, but then how long have they been working together for Eddie to fall for him the way he has?

“Yeah,” Eddie squeaks. Then he looks panicked as he asks: “Does this- Am I… am I gay?”

Shannon freezes, unsure if it is considered rude to answer yes to that. Finally she settles on saying: “Do you think you’re gay?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie yelps. “Do you think I’m gay?”

“Uh…”

“Oh my god, you totally think I’m gay.”

“Well, you just agreed that you love a guy, pretty sure that’s kind of gay,” Shannon exclaims, hands fluttering about awkwardly. “And, like, I kind of thought you were… when I divorced you. But you can say you’re not.”

“I mean, yeah, but I didn’t know that,” Eddie says.

“You didn’t?” Shannon can’t help but ask.

Eddie groans and buries his head in his hands, but she can see his ears have turned pink. Embarrassed he asks: “Was I- Was I that obvious about it?”

“A little,” Shannon winces apologetically. “But I only noticed after Chris was born. Too caught up in it all before that, I suppose.”

“Sorry,” Eddie murmurs. “I- I wasn’t a great husband.”

“No, you weren’t,” Shannon sighs. “But I don’t think either of us were great at being married. God, remember how we fought?”

“Yeah, that got bad,” Eddie says, uncurling slightly and managing a small smile. He is relaxing again, seeming slightly more grounded than when she first arrived and accidentally made him question his whole identity. Them being able to joke about their marriage won’t fix everything and there is so much she still has to make up for, but it feels like a good first step.

With them on more solid footing, she feels a bit of curiosity burning, both at what happened with Chris after she left as well as with Evan and Eddie. Slightly suggestive, she asks: “So… you and Evan.”

“Buck,” Eddie says. “He goes by Buck.” Then he blushes at the correction that seems to come almost instinctive.

“Okay,” Shannon nods with a smile. “So… you and Buck.”

The blush get worse and he curls in on himself. “It’s not like that. We’re best friends. He probably doesn’t even like me like that. He’s just so good and nice. Too nice.”

Shannon can recognize that. She can still remember the way she said the same thing to him. It hadn’t been a compliment then, not entirely. But the reproach was mostly directed at herself. How she didn’t deserve his kindness.

Eddie rubs his face and groans again: “God, he is so fucking nice. And sweet. And good with Chris. He loves that kid to death, you know.”

Vaguely she thinks, that maybe her first assessment was right, except the being in love together kind, but just that Buck stayed to help. That realization, though, gets overshadowed by a stab through her heart at the words. At the knowledge that someone else is good with her kid, that Christopher has a bond that she was supposed to have with someone that is not her.

However, she knows that she can grieve the feeling of a lack of connection to Christopher, but it’s her that walked out. So, she swallows it and with a wobbly voice, she says: “I’m glad Christopher has him.”

“Me too,” Eddie says, voice tight. “Fuck, I don’t even know how I’m going to tell him about this. What can I even say to him? Do I bring him here to wait for Buck to wake up? Or do I wait until Buck is out of surgery? Let Chris sleep tonight and burden him tomorrow, but risk him feeling like he missed out on being here for Buck or – god forbid – saying goodbye to him?”

Shannon’s breath catches and she almost doesn’t dare to reply. She hesitates, wondering if Eddie is actually asking her on advice about raising Christopher again, if he trusts her with that, or if this is just him ranting.

Cautious, she asks: “Would the security of knowing Buck is okay later be better for him or the ability to be here for him now regardless of the situation?”

“The- the last,” Eddie finally decides. “He’d want to know. He’d want to be here.” He nods to himself, then goes to fish his phone out of his pocket and dials a number. “Hey, Carla. Did you see the news?”

She has no clue who Carla is and tries to remember if it’s anyone from Eddie’s vast extended family that he mentioned when they were married, but no one comes to mind. It sits wrong in her chest that she doesn’t even know the person who is with Christopher right now.

“Yeah, he’s in surgery. He’s probably going to live, but his leg- it’s bad. Really bad. Uh, can you- can you bring Chris to the hospital? I- I want to tell him myself. In person. And I can’t just leave Buck alone here,” Eddie’s voice snaps her back to the conversation.

When he replies to whatever Carla said, he sounds like there is something stuck in his throat. “Thank you so much. I- I don’t know what I would do without you.” Then he quickly hangs up, clapping a hand over his mouth and squeezing his eyes closed.

She pulls his tense form into her side. Her ass is cold and kind of numb from sitting on the ground outside, but she doesn’t care. She’s run so long from this. Not just from El Paso, her in-laws or Christopher, but Eddie too. They had never been there for each other, no matter how much they tried to be. If she wants to come back, that has to change too.

So, she holds him, lets him tuck his head into her neck and feels the way he cries. Even now, he is restraining himself, shoulders tight to prevent them from hitching and cries silent, only felt as hot tears hit her skin, not heard and carefully hidden from view.

Still, despite his restrain, he doesn’t succeed in stopping himself from crying and it takes a few minutes before he stops himself.

Once he does, he pulls away from her. He roughly rubs his tears away, frowning as if annoyed with himself that they’re even there. Before taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders.

Shannon just watches in a weird sort of fascination as a mask gets pulled on, then realizes with a start that mask is more familiar to her. She wonders if she’s a stranger to Eddie too. Wonders if they were ever anything other than two strangers pretending they weren’t.

“I need you to go,” is what he finally sees when he has gathered himself completely.

“What?”

Her heart constricts, cracks and gets folded in on itself to punch her in the gut. She knew not to expect a warm welcome, but she thought she at least broke the ice somewhat, opened herself up, apologized, and it seemed like Eddie accepted that somewhat. But now that is undone and he is shutting her out, like he always does.

The instinct of all their years together is to fight, to get angry, but she suppresses it. Eddie is not her husband anymore and she gave up the right to call herself Christopher’s mother. It’s up to Eddie to let her in again, to let her make it right. It crushes her that he doesn’t want her to, but it’s not on her to force this on him.

So, she swallows the bile that comes up. The taste of broken hope foul in her mouth.

However, then it seems Eddie’s words register in his own mind and he waves his hand around kind of panicky as he says: “Oh, no, not- not like that. I just- For now.” He pinches his own brow and takes a breath, then steadier he says: “I need you to go. For now.”

“Just for now?” Shannon asks, unable to help keep that vulnerably hopeful note out of her voice as she does.

“Yeah, just for now,” Eddie assures her. “I- I can’t- Right now, I- I have to worry about Buck and- and Chris and our- our job. Fuck, I- I only just realized I love him. I can’t- I need to process that, be here for Chris, for Buck. I can’t deal with you being here on top of that. I need to talk to- to Buck first.”

“Of course, yeah, no, I get that,” Shannon immediately says. She can’t even begin to imagine how tonight must have been for Eddie. Her showing up was a gamble and it paid off, but not right now. Not in the midst of all this.

Still, she is going to do it right this time, not abandon Eddie to his fate like she felt abandoned. It’s a terrible feeling, trust her. So, she checks: “As long as you’re gonna be okay. Are you alone here? Will you have anyone here other than Christopher? Someone you can lean on?”

She almost asks after Carla, but stops herself. It sounds jealous even in her own mind, even though it’s not meant like that. God, what if Carla is Buck’s girlfriend? That would make this whole thing even more of a mess.

“I’ll- uh, I’ll have Carla? Maybe,” Eddie offers. “She’s an at home care aid, watches Chris. That’s something.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of anything,” Shannon breaks kindly. “Is there anyone you can call? Didn’t you get here with coworkers?” She’s pretty sure she saw more people on the news.

Eddie winces at the mention of coworkers and he says: “Uh, they all kind of hate me right now.”

“What? Why?” Shannon frowns. She now remembers how their conversation started, how Eddie thought there was someone there to be disappointed in him. She can’t imagine why someone would be in these circumstances. Unless Eddie somehow caused the accident, but that seems unlikely.

“Uh, they all found out me and Buck are married,” Eddie mumbles, not meeting her eyes as his cheeks flush once more.

“You’re married?”

The flush only strengthens and Eddie ducks his head, still refusing to look her in the eyes. “Yeah, we, uh- we are. Marriage of convenience. So, Buck could adopt Chris and watch him while I re-enlisted. I- I didn’t want my mom to take him. She might not have given him back.”

That is a loaded sentence and Shannon needs a moment to process every part of it.

Firstly, marriage of convenience? Does Eddie mean to tell her that these two idiots got married, because it was useful and it’s taken him until now to even realize he’s in love with the guy? That he’s fucking gay? Really?

Secondly, Buck adopted Christopher. She doesn’t know why that feels like a punch in the gut. She already knew that Buck has a prominent spot in his life, that he took over for her after she left. But hearing that he has a legal claim on him, while she gave up hers, makes it real in a way that tears her up inside.

Thirdly, they did that to prevent Helena from taking Christopher. Out of everything, that’s the easiest to absorb. Helena has wanted to raise Christopher on her own from the moment he was born, even before that too. If it wasn’t a federal crime, Shannon maybe would have snapped at some point and just taken Christopher and ran across state borders to get away from her.

Once everything has settled, she has to pick what to focus on, finally deciding to say: “Only you, Eddie, only you.”

“Uh, thank you?” Eddie replies, horridly awkward in a way that reminds her of the eighteen year old she fell in love with once upon a time.

She giggles, unable to help herself, the laughter only growing stronger as Eddie squawks and gently pushes with a pout.

“Shut up.”

“I’m sorry,” she smiles. “It’s just very you. Bet it was your idea to lie about it to your coworkers.” He blushes. “Oh my god, it totally was.”

“I said shut up!” Eddie exclaims, but there is something lighter about him when he does.

Shannon holds her hands up in defeat as she smirks: “I will, I will.”

“Good.” Eddie eyes her suspiciously, then pouts: “It wasn’t meant to get this much out of hand. We just started lying and then we got in too deep and couldn’t get out anymore.”

In a way, the words remind her of what he did with her. The way he convinced himself that he loved her, kept going and going until they had a child, a marriage, a home, and he couldn’t get out. How both of them got trapped in his lie.

This time, he has a different lie, however. This time he probably kept telling himself it wasn’t that deep, that it was just convenience and didn’t mean anything. That no one had to know, because then no one could tell him what he was doing meant something. Then no one could force him to see what he’s been ignoring for so long.

Her chest constricts for him and she squeezes his shoulder. “I hope it works out well for you this time, Eddie.”

He frowns for a moment, probably confused how she got to that response, then smiles crookedly: “Me too, Shan.”

“Tell them they need to be there for you, yeah? And let them,” she asks, because she’s sure Eddie won’t let them, even if they extended an invitation. He has always been stubborn like that.

In response his face contorts and he doesn’t meet her eye as he says: “Maybe,” which is probably all she is going to get from him now, unless she wants to push, but she doesn’t.

As predicted, Eddie decides he’s had enough of this for today, because he hauls himself onto his feet and holds his hand out to pull her back up. A part of her feels like maybe she should call him out on it, but he’s probably has had a hard enough day. Plus, he still has to break the news to Christopher. She wishes she could be there for that, but knows it’s too soon. It wouldn’t be good for Christopher and she refuses to be a horrible mother. So, she lets Eddie pull her up.

Eddie pauses for a moment when they stand there, clearly hesitating for a moment. His spine straightens with resolve and then he quickly wraps too arms around her, squeezes her for a moment, before letting go and stepping back. “Uh, thank you. For coming.”

The bashful little look he gives warms something inside her and for a moment, she remembers the moments like this one that made her fall in love with him all those years ago.

However, she’s older now. Wiser too. The warmth is no longer the flutter it used to be, instead it’s a nostalgic fondness. A love she used to feel, now whittled down into something else, something more friendly. She likes that that still exists too.

“Of course,” she smiles. “Is it too early to make an in sickness and in health joke?”

“Probably,” Eddie snorts loudly at that. That stupid snort he always did when he genuinely found something funny. God, she missed that. She missed the friend she had.

“Then I’ll wait with that,” she grins widely. A little more timid, she asks: “Will you call me when you have news on Buck?” and news on if I can ever see my son again, she doesn’t say, though she’s pretty sure Eddie picks up on it.

He sends her a sympathetic look, but it doesn’t make her feel pitied like it used to do, even if Eddie has his mother’s face. “I will,” he promises. To add a bit of lightness to it, he jokes: “Does that mean you’ll unblock me?”

Shannon lets out a short laugh at that, though it’s more of a wet chuckle if she’s honest with herself. “I will,” she promises too. Both promises feel like more than coordinating an update.

For a moment, they just stand there, next to the ER entrance. Silently. Then Shannon jerks with her thumb in the general direction of her car and says: “I guess, I should go now?”

“Uh, yeah,” Eddie agrees, obviously feeling a little awkward about the whole thing. “Uhm, goodbye, then, I guess? For now.”

“Yeah… Goodbye. For now,” Shannon nods. She hugs him again, then quickly walks away before she can find another excuse to stay. Christopher has to deal with this first, before she can come back. She isn’t going to be a horrible mother. Not again.

So, she leaves.

Well, she goes to her car. Then she sits behind the wheel, telling herself to turn the key and drive away, but finding herself unable to do so. Before tonight, she thought she would never see Christopher again, that he was halfway across the country. But now he’s in the same city as her. Almost at the same building. So incredibly close.

Which means that Shannon sits right there. Unable to move, eyes trained on the ER entrance Eddie disappeared through moments earlier. She isn’t going to talk to him. She just wants to see him.

After fifteen minutes, there he is. He’s walking with an Afro-American woman, who is leading him gently. He’s dressed in his pajamas and looks a little sleepy, but he’s walking easily with his crutches, glasses firmly in place. He looks okay. Happy. Healthy. So big.

A breath catches in her throat and without her permission a tear slides down her face. It’s immediately followed by another, then another one, until she’s crying in her car. Alone.

It’s not even an entirely sad sort of crying. It is a little, but it also isn’t. Sure, she is sad because the baby she once held is now a little boy, easily standing on his own too legs and no longer tripping over his crutches and it aches, because she missed so much. But he looks okay. He lived. She didn’t irreparably fuck him up for life and that’s a relief she didn’t see coming, until it suddenly hits her now, sitting in her car, watching him.

She waits until he’s inside, then sits there for a few minutes longer. It’s a Herculean task, but she turns on the ignition and manages to drive away.

At home, she falls into bed feeling exhausted. She is anxious about how tomorrow will go. If Eddie will ever contact her again, if Buck will let her back in Christopher’s life, or if he’ll block her return while Eddie would have let her back in. If she will ever see Christopher again. If he will still want her there.

It gnaws on her. Her mind keeps running and sleep alludes her until the late hours. In the end, she finally manages a few hours fitful sleep.

However, she shouldn’t have worried, because when she finally wakes up the next morning, it is to a series of texts from a number she hasn’t had contact with in years. The contact name is still Edmundo, which she had done to be petty after the divorce. She changes it back to Eddie, before opening them.

Is a hospital a weird place to confess?

This is Eddie, by the way.

Chris took the news about Buck as well as he could.

Buck is okay too.

We’re with him now.

Might take a while to bring it all up.

A knot unclenches in her stomach and a smile comes on her face. It’s not perfect, it will be a while for her to be allowed back in, but Eddie isn’t pulling back and Christopher and Buck are both okay. She couldn’t ask for more.

So, she decides to be hopeful instead. She’s been working on herself. This is a good step for her. It’s maybe even a first step to getting some semblance of a social life, because when she’s honest has been a little lonely.

With a shit eating grin, she texts back: A hospital is a great place to confess

Hug Christopher tight from me?

Would it be ok for me to send Buck a card?

A/N:

Does this AUAU primarily exist to fuck with people that check the titles for this fic on tumblr to trick them into thinking the reveal wasn’t happening in chapter 30? Mayhaps. However, I am happy about bringing Shannon back for this, just to let her know what happened in her absence, since that will always be iconic to me, because that is wild from her POV

I am sad I didn’t bring Shannon back in the main verse, but you can’t bring her back without having to deal with all the messy emotions that come with the way they split up and the insecurities and whatever and that isn’t what the main fic is about. And if I brought her back, that is what it would have become about. However, dipping my toe in it through these AUAUs is very fun :D

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