Archive of Our Own

There is ruckus in the house, too much for half past seven in the morning.

It’s expected, normal even. Eddie struggles to remember a time where his little home was not filled to the brim with chaos; the eternal struggle of living with a morning person. Buck likes to wake up with the sun on his face, cook breakfast with soft music coming from the thin speakers of his battered phone. 

And Chris is a teenager who announces every single one of his movements with either the click of crutches or the sound of a long suffering groan. He’s dramatic, Eddie knows where that comes from, at least. 

Said teenager is supposed to be on the Jeep heading to school in ten minutes. Eddie calls from the kitchen, head peeking down the hall, “Chris, be out in five,” so he can overrule the sound of something shattering in the bathroom.

“I’m okay,” a bashful Buck calls back as he clearly starts putting back whatever it is he shattered on the floor.

Chris sighs good-naturally from his room. “Seriously, Buck?” Eddie hears him say, “We bought a new one last week.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, mutters a prayer to no one in particular and decides if his boys won’t let him leave the house in time, he can at least do something useful in the meantime; he catches the pile of mail sitting on the round dining table and sorts through them, one ear still tuned to whatever is going on in the bathroom just in case Buck actually ends up needing help.

Bills. Bills. Subscription to a pottery class Chris is no longer interested in taking. Eddie’s knee moves up and down, impatient and ready to bolt. Their shift starts in half an hour. More bills. Spam mail.

“Okay, okay. We’re ready,” Buck’s voice announces. Chris falls down on the chair next to Eddie with a loud thump , effectively defeating the idea of actually moving away from the house and into the car.

Buck is still milling around in the kitchen behind him.

Eddie calls, “Keys on the counter, wallet in your jacket from yesterday,” without raising his head from the letters in his hand. Seriously, did no one get the memo that emails are a thing?

More junk mail. Ever since Buck moved his address to their house, they have twice the pamphlets for church groups in their area. 

Dry, chapped lips leave a feather light kiss on the top of his hair, Buck mutters, “Thanks,” against the crown of his head. The jingling of keys in his hand a signal that Eddie can finally start his day. 

He hums back in acknowledgment. 

A letter with neat black stamps sits on his palm, his brain fails to process it as either bills or unrequired solicitors. Janine Matthews Esq. sends a telegram to Mr. Edmundo Diaz from her studio in El Paso, Texas. Formal, old-school. Eddie opens it with the pad of his fingers, slowly ripping across the edges.

Chris gags on air. “Gross.” Buck makes a face at him, tongue out like a little kid, Chris pokes his tongue out back at him. Eddie fights a smile as he starts to read the content.

Everything goes silent after that. Eddie is mildly aware of Chris moving to the door, Buck maybe saying something about how he’s the one slowing them down now, but when Eddie doesn’t answer he gets that something is wrong and walks his way back to him, kneeling next to his chair and taking his eyes away from the paper.

Gentle hands frame his face, a thumb under his eye, and Eddie realizes he’s crying only when Buck’s face fills his vision, eyebrows scrunched at the center. “Hey, hey. Hey. What happened? Where did you go?” 

That’s the tone he uses when he’s scared. Most notably, when he’s afraid for Eddie. It makes him blink, clear his throat and swallow around the words.

“Abuela’s dead.”

He doesn’t sugarcoat it, he can’t find other ways to say it. It just comes out. 

Last time he had to deliver something drastic, something life changing, Eddie had breached the subject with little hesitation, too. 

Buck moves his attention to Cristopher, who freezes by the door, handle in a loose fist. He’s inhaling his pain through widened nostrils, straightening his back as much as he can.

Holding it in, never letting emotions breach containment. 

It’s all it takes for Eddie to get up and out of Buck’s hold, launching toward his kid with open arms. He only needs to lower his head a little to press his lips on Chris’ curls; the glasses pressing against his sternum hurt as his son presses closer to his chest, but Eddie welcomes it.

“I’ll go pack,” Buck says. 

They leave for El Paso in the evening. The plan is to drive through the night, let Chris catch some sleep in the backseat, take turns and reach Texas in the morning. 

August is unbearably hot in Los Angeles, that Eddie knows by now, but August in Texas is a far worse experience; first of all, because he thought he had left it all behind one year ago, for the second and final time.

Renounced the dry heat and the smell of dirt, the gusts of warmth picking up speed and circling his exposed skin like vices. In his memories, the air and the atmosphere itself chokes him under the ever-concerned gaze of his mother, sitting a few ways away from him, scrutinizing.

He’s probably exaggerating. Wouldn’t be the first time he has submerged the objective truth with a version of events easier to digest, one that’s not entirely logical or factual.

Frank called it a defensive behavior, which made Eddie snort in self-deprecating amusement.

“ Basically ,” he said during one of their sessions years ago, one of those things that Eddie’s brain decided to latch on for no particular reason, pen barely grazing the paper on his lap. “ Our brain knows when something is too much for us to handle and it comes up with something more bearable. That’s why we remember the good more than the bad .”

See, the point is, Eddie is trying. He’s happy, truly.

The last couple years have been a windwhirl of complicated emotions. The months surrounding his move to Texas are a non-descriptive mix of sadness, confusion and grief. He’s not so sure he packed all of it in the right boxes yet, so being forced to go back so soon and for something so tragic has him in a mood. 

But he remembers the tools he learned in therapy, he has a structure.

Like right now, he can tell you he sees expanse of desert, endless blue skies; that he feels the paint of the truck under his fingers, splayed over the side of the car door as he lays one hand over the window and out of it to catch the wind, letting it brush his arm as the car moves through the almost empty road.

That he can hear Buck next to him, humming under his breath to the song on the radio, which Eddie had turned on to fill the silence as he came in and out of consciousness during the long drive.

They had taken turns, in which Eddie had driven for a few hours after they stopped for gas in Phoenix and Buck had dozed off in the passenger seat, head rolling back and forth as he blabbed about something he was dreaming.

But as they got closer and closer to El Paso, Eddie grew restless and antsy. Buck had woken up at one point, when the car had stopped abruptly, swiveling to the side and out of the road.

A cloud of dirt had risen, cocooning them in a suspended moment in time. Buck startled awake and watched the dots of yellow sand cling to the car, windows and interiors coated in fine dust.

Next to him, on the passenger seat, Eddie was having trouble breathing. He took his hands off the steering wheel for a moment and noticed they were shaking, so he balled them into fists and rested them on his thighs.

“I — I don't know if I can do it,” Eddie admitted, his eyes wide, impossibly wide.

Buck had put a hand on his shoulder, thumb rubbing in circles until he felt the muscles relax enough that, when he looked down, the balls made out of Eddie’s hands weren't white around the edges with exertion.

“I'll drive the rest of the way, it's okay,” he had offered, and Eddie had nodded.

So Buck had been driving. Four hours and twenty-three minutes, no stops. Eddie had attempted a little play of I Spy to keep both of them awake and almost drove himself into another spiral when he saw the diner where his father would take them during road trips in the summer.

Music had been safer. Buck had chosen a random radio station, flickering away when the hosts talked too much. Eddie let him carry most of the conversation, most of the drive, most of him, too, from where he was splayed out all over the car seat like water.

Only things keeping him together were Buck’s soft humming and Chris’ voice, carrying them through to Phoenix before he fell asleep against the backseat.

Eddie is glad he can’t see the moment they enter El Paso, he’s sure he’s as pale as a ghost.

His family home is a glorified tombstone, standing in the middle of the desert in the first rays of light. Unmoving, unchanging, gathering dust.

Eddie watches it from the other side of the car window, his eyes are glassy but he’s glad for it; it’s an added shield between him and seeing the large, imposing figure of his past self staring back through the house windows.

Buck gets out of the car first, slamming the door with a nice, definitive sound that drives Eddie out of whatever spiral he was driving down. He blinks once, twice, then he’s up and out into the street, helping Buck with their suitcase (small, they don’t plan on staying long) and pretending it’s enough to feel useful.

There is a tension at the base of his neck, he can’t figure out how to get rid of it, so he moves his head back and forth a few times and closes his eyes against the rising Texas sun.

It’s barely up, but it already feels scorching on his cheeks and his back. The black t-shirt doesn’t help, it gathers every ray of light and pushes it straight into his shoulders.

When Eddie opens his eyes the pain is not gone, but his mother is on the porch, swaddled in a light blazer and large, comfy jeans. She’s leaning against the entrance door with her whole weight.

The steps taking Eddie from the car to the porch feel like lead. It’s not the weight in his hands, he’s capable of rising much more than that; it’s something primal, deeply rooted in his bones, that raises to the surface each time he walks closer to his childhood house.

Feet and hands know the way, he doesn’t need to be present to hug his mother, her lithe fingers skimming their way around his shoulders as she sighs, adrift. 

“I’m glad you could make it,” she says, before she moves on to Chris.

It’s a good thing his body remembers, his bones, his marrow. Everything that is Eddie was born and raised in these walls. Because his soul feels disconnected.

The last time he was here, Eddie had been a guest in his own home, and even that was better than whatever had been left in the wake of his grandmother’s passing. As he touches the railing to the second floor, where his old bedroom is, Eddie thinks, The house understands .

Old wood creaks under his shoes, more feet stumble after him: Chris and Buck and the luggage, Ramon’s voice somewhere far off greeting them, stopping Buck on his tracks, “Let me help with that,” and, “No need, thank you. All in a day’s work, really.”

Eddie doesn’t register it, voices and touches pass by him like he’s the ghost hunting the hallways. 

The door to the guest bedroom is opened, just a smidge. It’s the first thing he sees, because Helena hates doors being left ajar; they slam at the barest gust of wind here, in the desert, where everything comes and goes (the sun, the air, the clouds, the people). Instinctively, Eddie looks inside and sees it: the hospital bed, the machines, the empty IV. 

When he retches on the floor, the last thing he thinks after understanding the taste of bile and stomach fluids hurting his throat is, God, who is going to clean up this mess now?

***

Eddie passes out with the stench of rot stuck in his nose. It’s still there when he wakes up. 

Four things he can see. The water bottle on the nightstand, next to a non-descriptive blueish pill. The clean, white shirt - Buck’s - he’s wearing. His arm tattoo. Buck, sitting vigil at the edge of the bed, texting.

“Buck.” He struggles to sit up, Buck stops him with a firm hand on his chest. “Did you sleep?”

“Little bit.” Eddie can’t tell if he’s lying, there are bags under his eyes; Buck ended up driving most of the night, he must be exhausted. “I’m fine. You were out for a while.”

Eddie tries to sit up on his elbows, wipes the remains of sleep from his eyes with the tip of three fingers.

“You got a pretty bad sunburn, knocked you right out of the park.” Buck is gentle as he speaks, that calm, collected tone he reserves for Eddie and Chris. One hand moves through Eddie’s hair, it’s cold, or maybe he’s simply hot. His bones are freezing. He's not sure.

“Chris?” Eddie says, brows furrowed.

“Was busy showing his grandpa pictures of his latest school trip. He didn’t see anything, just knows you’re not feeling well.” 

Counting the grand Texas debacle of 2024, this is the third time Buck’s had to intervene on Eddie’s behalf to protect Chris from his father’s failures. A metaphorical bat hits the ball in his imagination; it’s a homerun with full bases. Three points against Diaz.

Eddie lays there, arm on his eyes, shielding himself from the sun that’s rising every moment, even with the blinds half-lowered and the curtains drawn tight. “You should go to him, I’ll be fine.”

The answer comes a beat too late for it to be casual, “Will you?”

Million dollar question. “Yeah. Go look after Chris for me.”

“Ok.” Buck leans down, leaves a kiss with dry lips against his temple and adds, “Drink some water and take your meds before you fall asleep again. Love you.”

Eddie whines, returns the sentiment and groans when the mattress shifts. He is alone in the room. The door is ajar, it makes Eddie’s skin prickle. He takes the damn meds.

***

It’s lunch time, because Adriana is yelling, “Dad told me to bring out the salsa ! Mom!”

And Helena is replying, “Yes, yes. I heard you the first time. Dear, could you…” as the sound of platters and laughter and chatter filters from downstairs, because the door is still open. 

Eddie passes the state between unconscious and being awake, that moment after a nap where you know you are not going to go back to sleep again and yet you feel like you could. He rolls on his stomach and finds it settled against the soft mattress, so much so that the smell of meat from downstairs makes it rumble in protest.

Whatever Buck gave him did the trick. He’s not entirely convinced Hen was not in on it, talking him down from a spiral through their text thread. But honestly, Eddie will take it. He did scare the shit out of himself, too, with that stunt.

There are a couple of fresh shirts on the dresser, the ones Buck had packed in LA the previous morning. One black tank top and a deep green one stretched on the shoulders, he picks the second one and walks his way to the bathroom on the other end of the hallway.

Grandma’s room has been shut, but even if it wasn’t, Eddie would have been okay. It is out of his system. 

Always the same, these kinda things. He blows it out of the park with a stellar pity party, Buck has to get him back in one piece and then Eddie is good to go. Riled up and ready to compartmentalize and forget.

So, clearly, he’s okay now. 

The Eddie that stares himself down in the mirror is not the same one who threw up at the sight of an empty hospital bed. His hair is shorter. 

Not shorter, exactly. That’s not the right word. It’s shorter than it was the last time he was here, in El Paso, but longer than the time before that, when he came down for his father’s retirement party. 

Once Eddie crosses the threshold of the house, all Eddies before and after are gone. What remains, what matters, is measured in memories of shattered visits. 

He recounts himself in fragments, the ones that his parents have seen, and tells himself that’s enough. 

“Dad?” Chris calls from the hallway, just a way to Eddie’s left. He forgot to close the door to the bathroom.

“Yeah, Son?”

“Are you feeling okay?” Head tilted, eyes upwards. He looks like Buck; but then again, Chris often does. Look like the best parts of Eddie, that is.

“Yeah, good as new.”

“Great. Because aunt Adriana is asking for you.”

He knows Adriana is here, heard her voice before he even got out of bed. So, why is Eddie surprised about this?

The frown on his face greets him as his eyes flicker to the mirror, an unconscious need to scold himself into neutrality. Then he remembers the only audience he would be performing for is his son and Eddie’s face relaxes. He forces it to.

Or not. That’s not. He has nothing to force, nothing to constrict. It’s fine, he’s fine.

“Yeah, okay. Meet you downstairs, Bud.” 

As Chris shuffles away Eddie makes a mental note of his son’s retreating back. He needs new crutches once they go back to LA, there is a brand made of lighter materials that the doctors suggested might be good for him, because Chris is naturally thin, would be even without the muscle issues.

His father was thin, remained so even when age started to bring about the usual tiredness and lethargy, the normal ins and outs of retirement after a life well spent. Eddie knows the shape of Ramon’s back intimately, because he finds it in his reflection when he looks in the mirror - like before - and when he looks at Chris’ retreating back - like now - and it’s comforting as much as it’s painful.

They’re all tied together, it’s not just blood; it’s the stone from which they have been carved. Pepa, Ramon and Eddie, Sophia, Adriana, Chris. His grandmother, whoever comes next, too.

Eddie walks into the kitchen with a grin he doesn’t feel, muscle memory makes him round all the right corners until he gets stuck on a photo on the wall next to the fridge that he did not remember being there a few months ago.

“I know, right?” a voice says behind him, the pitch steals Eddie’s breath away. “Sophia is obsessed with newborn photo shoots, says they’re all the range in Italy.”

He needs to tilt his head lower to talk to Adriana face to face. 

She has always been the smaller of the three, both in age and size. Pepa used to say she would have grown into it eventually, but Eddie and Sophia always hoped she wouldn’t, because they were supposed to be older and, of course, taller, too.

Adriana tells the story at Christmas, she jokes that it’s their fault she can’t reach the upper cabinet at the grocery store, because they bullied her into it.

Eddie engulfs her in a hug, feels the smirk that grows onto his face and tucks at the corner of a cheek as he does. “Adri,” he breathes, like he’s surprised to see her there. “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too,” She replies, patting his back twice. Her hand is so small, a little cold against his shirt, despite the sticky warm Texas summer air. 

Eddie laughs once, moves his sister’s hand with it from how deep it is. He opens eyes he hadn’t realized were closed and sees Buck there, perched on the other side of the kitchen table with Chris next to him, a mop of curls engrossed in whatever is going on inside his phone.

Watching Eddie with Adriana must do something to Buck (or to him, because every reaction of Eddie is a matching one from Buck) because his face opens, the smallest hint of teeth. As Eddie inhales Adriana’s shampoo, Buck exhales, full bodied and relieved.

“Eddito, you’re crushing me,” Adriana bubbles, dramatic.

He lets her go in a chuckle, fixes the strand of hair that’s settled in front of her face. She tried to get curtain bangs, with little success. Her hair is dark and thick, bold curls everywhere; it used to be loose and frayed when she straightened it religiously, now it falls on her shoulders with ease. 

Ramon steps into the house, he brings in the smell of smoke and a large plate of cooked meat which makes Eddie’s mouth water and Chris’ head snap to attention. “Great, I’m starving,” he yells, but he waits for the plate to hit the table before he even tries to fill his plate.

At home, Buck would have stolen a sausage straight from the grill and Chris would have been encouraged, if not expected, to do the same.

Eddie and Adriana make their way to the table in silence, matching grins on their faces as they settle around. He ends up at the head on one side, Buck to his left and Chris not far behind, because the chair that used to be his is Buck’s for now. Adriana finds her old seat, at Eddie’s right.

“How are you feeling?” Buck asks. He thinks he’s subtle, but Eddie is sure they heard him all the way in LA. 

“Better,” he mock-whispers back. Buck rolls his eyes. 

“Just for that, you fold the laundry when we get back.”

“You’d never do something like that to me.”

“Watch me.”

Adriana elbows him, eyes moving from Eddie to Buck like she’s watching a tennis match. “Oh. You two are gross ,” she says, like she just made a scientific discovery.

Buck blushes bright pink, sneaks a glance to Eddie on the way to ducking his head with that smile he gets when he’s embarrassed. Eddie holds his hand under the table, settles them on Buck’s thigh so he can lean a little in his space, smiles the quiet, self-assured fondness out of his body.

The screen door opens and closes one more time, Helena comes inside, notices Eddie and Adriana, preens and says, “Look at you guys, almost like old times, uh?” She’s smiling so hard when she takes a seat at her old post.

She’s never sitten anywhere else. Not that Eddie has ever seen.

It’s a mismatched version of their childhood meals, but Eddie doesn’t mind; the changes are not all bad. There is his boyfriend and their kid, his father occupying the large chair on the opposite side of the table, the one that would remain empty most of the time while he was out on his work trips.

Buck fixes Eddie a plate, smaller portions and no sauces because he has been unwell. He pretends he doesn’t notice, focuses on the story Chris is telling about going to the lake with Adriana and Sophia that one time when he was staying over.

That’s what they call it now, to preserve the peace. Or Eddie’s sanity.

“Then Tia Adriana went after the guy with her car.”

“He was being a jackass.”

Helena turns white as a sheet. “Adri-!” but she’s halfway to laughing herself, Ramon is already hiding his smirk behind a fist and Buck is not far behind. Eddie ruffles her hair.

“Tell me it was the pick-up truck.”

Adriana nods sagely. “It was the pick-up truck.”

“How did I not know about this,” Helena keeps protesting half-heartedly, between the family’s subtle snickers. Chris is delighted, kicks his feet under the table and lets out that little snort of laughter he does when he’s not trying to be a cool teenager; Eddie’s heart soars with it.

“I’m lost,” Buck says, “What’s the deal with the pick-up truck?”

Adriana holds up one finger, the other hand busy with getting as much food in one forkful as humanly possible. Some rice falls back in her plate, loses its balance, some other ends up on the creases of her top and Eddie moves one napkin-covered hand to fix it for her.

She smacks him away playfully. “Wait, Eddito, I was trying to answer a question.”

“You could have answered while I saved your shirt from salsa stains.”

“Mom would have washed it.”

“Nah, Mom is not that good with laundry.”

“Edmundo!”

“What?!” Eddie leaves the napkin on the table, defeated.

“Anyway,” Adriana says, back to Buck, “The pick-up truck…”

“Come on, it’s funny ‘cause it’s true,” Ramon says, to his wife, still trying to stifle his mirth.

“It’s not!” Helena blushes under her concealer. “I know how to wash away a stain.”

“Tell that to half of my dress shirts for the last forty years,” Ramon bites back.

“Is it the same pick-up truck dad smashed against a fence?” Chris picks up.

“No, that one is older than you, Chris,” Adriana laughs.

“Wait, how old was dad when that happened, again?”

Buck tenses next to Chris. “Uh, so… Adriana! You know? I don’t think I care about the pick-up truck anymore. Let's change the subject!”

“Oh, come on, that old tale again?” Ramon mumbles, clearly done with whatever was happening between him and Helena. “We went over that a million times.”

“Once,” Eddie manages. “We talked about it once.”

“I said I was sorry,” Ramon says.

“Actually you didn’t,” Eddie replies, automatic and stilted, eyes already back on his plate. 

“ Eres siempre tan serio y intenso . Relax a little.”

Eddie is relaxed. He’s having lunch, it’s okay. He’s fine. He takes a mouthful of meat and chews around the taste of rubber in his mouth. Smashes it with his teeth, swallows, drinks it down with a glass of water.

The conversation dies. Adriana clears her throat. Eddie wishes he had some beer; Texas is too fucking hot.

Buck tries to reach for him by touching the tips of their shoes together under the table, Eddie presses back. It’s normal.

Then, like clockwork, Helena: “Give me your shirt later, Adriana, I’ll put it in the wash for you.”

“It’s fine, Mom. It won’t stain,” Adriana replies. It will, she’s lying; the faint red blotch is staring at him from Adriana’s shoulder.

It happens in slow motion, almost like they’re all buried in molasses and Eddie is the only one who can really predict what’s going to happen before it does, from his vantage point at the head of the table; this foreign, different perspective into the house he’s known all his life.

His mother huffs in annoyance, the grip on his father’s fork is strong, but he’s not actually eating anything. He never does when he’s getting riled up, guess that’s one of the secrets to remaining perpetually thin.

There is no way to stop the avalanche that hits them. 

“I’m not that hungry anymore.” Adriana gets up, her chair screeches across the wooden floor, the steps she takes rattle the house to the bones like she’s wearing combat boots.

“I don’t understand. Everything was going so well,” Helena rebuts.

“Tell that to your son. We can’t even joke around now.”

‘Now’ can mean a lot of things. Now they’re in the house again and Helena is scared he will run off like last time, now Chris doesn’t live here anymore, now Isabel is dead, now their son is gay. Eddie imagines it’s a bit of everything, all rolled up in one neat package.

“Yeah, no.” Eddie doesn’t raise to the bait, but he does rise from his seat. “Buck, pull the car around. We’re going for a drive.”

“The funeral is tonight,” Helena adds, growing more and more bewildered. It’s the first time someone has actually said why they’re all gathered around this old, empty dining table. “Your suits are here, you need a shower, you can’t just…”

“I’ve got it, Mom,” Eddie explains, simple and in control. Then, to his left: “Buck, please.”

Chris gets up before Buck is done turning around, he puts a hand on his grandmother’s arm for a moment, then he’s getting the crutches from the side of the table and scurrying off to the front door.

Ramon makes an aborted move, like he’s about to get up or say something, but Helena holds his hand and he stops, looks at Eddie like maybe he’s watching down at that scared teenage boy who would tremble at the idea of saying he doesn’t want to do ballroom dance anymore.

Buck claps once, loud and awkward, he cringes with it. “Thank you for lunch. Uh. We should… we’ll be back later. I think.”

Eddie gives him the time he thinks he needs, then nods at his parents once and guides Buck away with a hand on the small of his back. They’re not in a rush; he knows his parents, they won’t start fighting until they’re alone in the house. 

“Where are we going?” Buck whispers. It’s still too loud, it makes Eddie smile.

“Just bring the car around, I’ll go get Adri,” Eddie whispers back. An honest-to-god quiet whisper.

The front door shuts behind them, leaving on the other side a mountain of feelings Eddie has no time or patience to unravel. He sighs.

Buck kisses his cheek, lingers close for a moment, takes advantage of the proximity to try and catch Eddie’s mask faltering.

Except there is no mask here. In fact, Eddie feels settled for the first time since he opened the letter those thirty-something hours ago. That’s what fighting for his family does to him: it fills him with purpose and pride, makes him feel righteous when he leaves a battlefield with his boys by his side.

Chris is standing a few feet away, halfway to Buck’s Jeep, eyes squinting in the sun as he looks up at them from his phone, brows pinching just so when he does. His curls need a cut; it’s too hot to have their foreheads covered like this. 

“Meet you here in ten. Chris will have questions. Don’t scar him too much without me,” Eddie jokes.

“You think your mysterious-thing is so cute, don’t you?”

Eddie squints in the sun, brows pinching just so. “No, I don’t think it’s cute. You think it’s cute.”

“Correction, I think it’s hot. But that’s mostly just your Eddie-thing.”

Eddie blushes redder. “There you go.” 

“Remind me where we are going again?”

“Never told you, Bud.” He squeezes Buck’s hand, returns the favor by kissing his birthmark and backs away, never facing away from either Buck or Chris, who are wearing matching curls and confused expressions. “Ten minutes.”

Eddie twirls around, gathers the sight of the old house and the forest behind it, the mountains just ahead, the expanse of El Paso center visible if you move two steps to the left and the idea that, beyond those mountains, if he drives twelve hours all the way north and then east, there is home.

He might not know where Adriana is, but his bones remember. He starts walking.

When he was five, he planted a tree with Ramon. His father was teaching him the value of patience, or so Eddie thought when he tried to rationalize the actions of that random Sunday, but as he grows older he’s more convinced that Ramon was simply trying to plant a tree.

Even if his father hadn’t planned any deeper reason, Eddie cared for the tree and he came back sometimes to find it and see if it had grown. It was never going to bear fruits, but it was his in the way Chris and Adriana were, so he remembers the way even thirty years later.

Adriana is already sitting there, her knees and shoulders touch where she’s hunkered over herself like a pretzel.

“You’re gonna make yourself look like a shrimp,” Eddie says. He sits down next to her, leaning against the tree to prove a point until he realizes there has been dog waste in the same place his nice shirt is touching. 

He crosses his arms. He likes the shirt, but he loves making a point.

Adriana glances his way. She’s twenty-three and amazing, Eddie loves her and loves her and loves her. He looks at her and sees the newborn he crushed his father’s truck for, sees the sneaky kid who’d steal energy bars right from his lunch box.

He sees her as she was, small and breakable and not much else. When he stops to peer behind the brown in her eyes and the black curls of her hair, Eddie realizes he doesn’t know why she had her nails done in that shade of blue, if she is partial to the sweater she’s wearing, if the shoes at her feet are ruined because she likes them too much to throw away or because she hasn’t bothered to buy a new one.

These are all things he knows about Hen. Not Adriana, though.

“Ok, Mom ,” she huffs with a laugh. Eddie tenses, Adriana straightens her back. “It got pretty ugly in there. You okay?”

A month ago, he would have answered immediately. Now, Eddie considers, head looking up at the sky, searching for the few stars that light pollution hasn’t taken away from them, yet. He finds four before he admits, “No.”

Hands reach out to land on his forearm, solid but small. Adriana did not expect that. “Eddie, I… you know how they can get.”

Does he ever. “You’d think after thirty-something years it’d get easier.” 

Slender fingers are replaced with a headful of hair. Eddie glances sideways fast enough to get Adriana’s curls in his mouth, her body a long line of heat against his side where she’s pressing herself like she wants to disappear.

Eddie leaves a kiss on the crown of her head, the imprint of his lips against soft curls. She’s so much like Chris in that moment that it makes him tear up. 

“How…” Eddie clears his throat. “How are you?”

Adriana snorts on his shoulders. “I mean, mom has to do far worse than that to rattle me. You’re the crybaby.” She snuggles closer, scooches so she’s glued against him neatly. 

He can’t resist the eye-roll, Adriana pretends she doesn’t notice. Eddie hugs her, one hand around slender shoulders. “Not right now. I mean, is everything good?”

She shrugs against his palm. “I guess. Work’s work, you know? My boss gives me hell because I’m new, but the team is fun.”

Ramon mentioned Adriana found a job in a fancy lab nearby, somewhere east of North Hills. She graduated in geology, majoring in something Karen would certainly be able to talk about. Eddie doesn’t even know enough to ask questions more specific than, are you doing goon? 

He feels so inadequate, holding the beautiful, smart woman who has grown up without him around to see. He latches onto what he knows when he says, “That’s nice. Being friends with your coworkers helps a lot, you know.”

“We’re not friends,” Ariana says, offended. “They’re just guys I work with. We’ve known each other, like, three months.” 

During his first three months at the 118, Eddie had already molded a copy for his house key to give Buck, raised Bobby on a pedestal so high it was impossible to look at without craning his neck, helped Maddie move in her new house, sat with the team as they waited for Chim to get out of surgery overnight.

Clearly not a common experience. Eddie hums, at a loss for words. 

Somehow, in the silence, she understands. “You don’t have to, like, dispense words of wisdom or whatever, you know? I’m not a little kid.” 

It eases something in Eddie, he deflates against the tree trunk behind him, strings cut. He walked over here to comfort his little sister, but she ends up doing all the work herself.

“Do you have to leave right after the funeral?” she whispers in the space between them, eyes up to the sky. “Maybe we can all go do something tomorrow, or whatever.”

Eddie considers it. He was pretty out of it when Buck called Chimney for some PTO early yesterday, he’s not sure how the conversation had gone.

“‘Course.” Then, because he’s tragically incapable of avoiding the subject for more than a handful of minutes, “I’d like for you and Buck to get to know each other.”

Adriana pinches his biceps, Eddie jumps, surprised more than anything. “What was that for?!”

She withdraws enough to look him in the eyes, mouth twisting in a wicked grin. “Oh, you’re blushing!”

He is, Eddie’s ears and cheeks are flaming. He can’t blame the sun, they’re even sitting in the shades.

Considering him for a few more seconds, Adriana finally nods and settles back against his shoulder, getting comfortable and closing her eyes. “We talked a little while you were sleeping.” She grips his arm tighter, hugging him like when it was raining outside and the thunder scared her as a little kid. “I’ve never seen you all love-sick like you are with him. It’s nice.”

He has never actually lived with his younger sister.

Never witnessed her as a fully-formed person for long periods of time, only catching the tail end of her arguments with their Mom in between tours, at dinner tables for Christmas once or twice.

When Chris was born, Adriana was nine. Then there was the army, Shannon, the house, the three horrible, horrible jobs all at once. Then L.A.

Somehow in all of that, Adriana and Sophia became an afterthought. He wonders now, her hair ticking his nose until he turns around to sneeze and she startles away, laughing like he told the funniest joke on God’s green Earth, how he could ever have let something like this slip by his fingers. 

Adriana’s laugh is not pretty. She snorts when she’s really getting into it, so hard she has learned to put a hand in front of her mouth when she does because Clara Rivera teased her about it in fourth grade. One of her teeth is crooked from the time she stumbled and fell on her face while riding the pink bike Ramon had got her for her seventh birthday.

These are things he knows about her, not about Hen. Not first-hand.

Once she’s calmed down enough to stand up with a bounce and offer him a hand up, her stomach rumbles. Eddie starts another fit of laughter that bends him over.

Eventually, he takes her hand and gets up, groaning all the way.

“I guess we kind of skipped lunch.”

Adriana lowers her lips in a pout, something Eddie recognizes as the expression he makes when he’s trying not to be mean. Buck calls it his frog-face. “I was thinking ice cream,” she declares.

“We’ll have to get Chris.”

She nods, sage, and starts walking back to the house. “And Buck. You can’t leave him alone with Mom, that’s just cruel.”

He’s not alone, Buck and Chris have each other’s backs. Eddie doesn’t say, least he gives Adriana even one good reason to make him spend more time apart from them. “Deal.”

Adriana is grown up. She graduated last summer and he saw pictures, but didn’t go to the ceremony because Captain Gerrard didn’t approve his PTO. She pouts like Eddie, she’s as tall as Pepa, but she has their mother’s eyes. She’s beautiful and kind and snarky and she finds comfort in her big brother’s shoulder.

The hole that’s been left by his grandmother will never be filled, but Eddie looks at Adriana as she twists and turns to check for grass stains on her jeans, chuckles when she loses her balance, and the world keeps spinning.

***

Eddie hadn’t gone to a tailor shop in years. Not that he had many reasons to find a dress, the last formal occasion he had attended was the Hen-Wilson vow renewal, and that had been more of a casual affair. The last time he had gone, for Ana’s thing, he fainted and ended up in the hospital, so not a pleasant experience overall.

Before that, though, Ana had started asking Eddie questions, like, “ What time should I pick you up? Do you want to drive or should I? Do you think you and Chris should match? ” All perfectly innocent things to say, but none he had been able to give an answer to.

Either is fine, I don’t mind. Let’s see.

There is no time to procrastinate now, when he’s halfway out of his family’s property, Buck driving aimlessly in a direction that will either take them to the old blockbuster or Sophia’s old high school. 

“So, uhm, I feel like I need some directions here. Where are we going?” He hesitates, glances around to Eddie and tries to fight back a grimace when a motorcycle cuts a bit too close on their left and he has to swivel at the last second. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Hopefully somewhere with a kitchen. I was promised ice cream.”

“Really?” Chris chimes, wicked grin pushing against both cheeks.

“Now you’ve done it,” Eddie chuckles. 

“So?” Buck holds the steering wheel tight. He stops at an intersection, hazard lights on; there are no signals on the street, just the crossroads. 

What feels like a lifetime ago, Eddie was talking with Chris about going to the lake, dipping in the shallow water when the sun was too hot to bear because the ocean was nowhere near close. The idea of living somewhere he couldn’t simply walk to the beach had made Chris squirm, a clear sign that his son might have been born in Texas, but he was a good-natured Angelino by the age of ten. 

How he ever pictured making a home there that could satisfy them both, Eddie will never know. 

“Left,” he decides, already holding Buck’s phone to insert an address into the Maps application. “Go left, then follow this.” 

It’s barely ten minutes before they leave behind buildings and cement, the scenery changes and they’re met with the endless desert on both sides. The only thing that stays the same is the music: a soft mix of top-forty pop music and some older classic rock Chris sneaks in his spotify playlist for Eddie’s sake.

At one intersection, the one with a horse ranch on one side and a tiny road on the other, where they were supposed to squeeze the Jeep into a tiny stretch of road - not that one, the one right after, next to the tree with the weird branches - they end up getting lost for a whole ten minutes. 

Buck claims Eddie's instructions are not clear. “You're just too much of a city boy.”

Chris rolls his eyes when the GPS settles back on the blue path. He goes back two songs because, “I couldn't hear the bridge over your flirting.” Then, to his tia , “This is a good one.”

Adriana snorts and shakes the curls on top of his head. “Who taught you about Mother Mother , uh?”

“Dad did.”

Eyes wide, surprised, Adriana meets Eddie’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Oh. Dad did. I thought you only listened to Bob Seger.”

“Nah,” Buck interjects. Eddie can sense what’s about to happen the split second before it does. “He just dances to it.”

“Buck!”

“Tell me everything .” Adriana scoots closer, hands on either of the front seats, head turned to Buck between them like a dog.

Eddie groans so loud Chris starts laughing hysterically, it gets up to his nose and he has to sneeze it out. The music gets louder.

It’s normal. It’s good.

After a painfully embarrassing retelling of Eddie’s greatest hit - bar the part where Buck was being willingly obtuse about his break up, because winners get to tell the story - and a few more wrong turns during which Chris manages to get them halfway through Hozier’s latest, Buck parks the Jeep in an indent of road between two hills.

Calling them hills might be a stretch. It’s sand, mountains and mountains of orange dirt as far as the eye can see, short grass and dunes. 

They are well into New Mexico; Texas doesn’t have many lakes and Eddie didn’t really want to superimpose new memories over old ones, so he pointed the car towards Tiber Mountain and hoped they would need fewer bathroom breaks than usual in order to have at least a few hours in the water before they had to get back.

On the way, Buck stopped at a gas station for sandwiches and drinks. Adriana managed to wrangle ten more bucks out of Eddie for some candy, after a convoluted game of thumb-war, to eat in the backseat while the music played softly inside the vehicle. So once everyone climbs off, Chris can single-mindedly throw away both shoes and socks, ambling to shore.

“Do not get wet, we need to leave in a few!” He tries, but Adriana is already halfway there to support her nephew, flipping Eddie the bird as she walks backwards and discards her own sneakers.

The sun is relentless, even close to the water and later into the day it still presses heavily on all their shoulders. 

Eddie touches his back, where the t-shirt label meets bruised skin, self-conscious all of a sudden. The heat already defeated him once earlier in the morning. 

Reaching the final destination of their impromptu road trip leaves him with little to think about beside his grandmother. Loss creeps up on him like an old injury on rainy days. 

He hoped going to a different lake would solve this, dragging his family two hours and then some away from where it hurts the most, but where the name differs, the water remains.

It’s still the same green color, the same placid, solid ground littered with grass; Eddie takes a step and feels it crush behind his shoe, takes them off just to feel the blades hit the cotton of his socks, like the contact with nature could ground him.

What really does the job in the end is Buck. Always Buck, boyish and free; of the shackles the desert carries, the memories of Eddie’s old life, the grief surrounding them heavy and gray and ever-looming, ever-lasting.

Buck has none of these things, he’s something else entirely.

Not that he didn’t love Isobel. He did, in his own way, but it’s different for him. They hadn’t seen each other in years, not since she moved back to Texas, and there are only so many texts you can exchange with an eighty-something woman who doesn’t speak English that well. 

His pain is secondhand. Not less-than, just different, less raw. Eddie wouldn’t want it any other way, would never wish for anyone else to feel the tender way his heart aches when he remembers they’re not just visiting family for the sake of it.

And remember he does, out of the blue, every once in a while, in outbursts that live and die inside his brain, like he’s not allowed to be calm for too long, because that would be disrespectful. 

She would want us to be happy , his dad had said, but Eddie heard the underside of it: be happy, but not too happy. Be content to the extent where you don’t burst into tears over the mac and cheese your hosts bought for you, which would be completely rude.

Eddie watches as Buck rolls his shirt into both hands, taking it off from the back and over his head like he’s a teenager, expanses of pink skin and ink covered by nothing but a pair of bermuda shorts, unruly curls swept in the wind and a glint in his eyes Eddie can’t see because of his sunglasses but knows is there, can feel it pierce straight to the center of him.

“You coming?” Buck asks, distant enough that Eddie needs to take another step forward to grab his hand, then grip the bulge of his bicep, mouth watering in a way that’s entirely too inappropriate for the company in front of them.

It takes two seconds before Eddie shrugs, “Fuck it,” and makes a run for it, leaving Buck in the dust behind him, the sound of his breathy laughter following him.

Eddie launches for Adriana, who’s busy teaching Chris how to make rocks skip on the lake’s surface. The only warning she has before his brother throws her into the water is the sound of woodboards behind Eddie’s feet as he runs.

Then, they’re hurdling down and swimming their way to the surface, spitting and kicking.

“What the hell, Edmundo! You could have killed me,” Adriana yells. She’s not that threatening when she’s busy moving hair away from her face with both hands, mascara dripping down to her cheeks. 

Eddie struggles to remain upright, lake water is far heavier than the ocean. That, mixed with keeping himself from giggling too hard, makes it difficult to notice when Buck jumps in behind them, at least until a splash of cold water hits the back of his head.

It's seconds between that and the moment where Eddie is lifted above water, strong arms circling his thighs and dropping him again in an ill-advised jump. He breaks the water’s surface with a start, holding his breath at the last possible second as his ears get filled with more laughter.

When he resurfaces, finding Buck’s shoulders for support - his feet are firmly planted on the ground, the giant bastard.

“Dick!” he smiles and slaps at Buck's chest with his other hand, but they're both grinning, water droplets running down their faces.

Eddie turns to see that Chris has joined them, too, shirt discarded somewhere on the pier, one hand grasping the wooden poles as he giggles at his father.

“Oh so you’re all ganging up on me, I see how this is.” He’s trying to sound mad, but it’s so hard when his family is around him, lighter than he has seen them in days.

The four of them play around in the lake until it’s a little too late for comfort. Buck keeps a careful eye on the time, so when half an hour has passed and their hands start to turn prune-y, they try to get dry by laying on the sun, along with Adri’s tank top.

Eddie takes pity on her and lands her his own oversized t-shirt, so his sister can skip around the desert with Chris hot on her heels, who has decided his Tia is the coolest thing since Bayonetta 3.

“Put on your shirt, you’ll get sunburnt,” Eddie suggests. He doesn’t turn to look at Buck as he sits down, doesn’t really need to.

“Can’t let you have all the fun,” Buck comments, laying down beside Eddie on the pier, one long leg dangling so his toes dip into the water below. He’s practically naked, down to a pair of sopping wet bermuda shorts that glue to his legs, like Eddie, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

It’s always easier to do silly things when Buck comes along for the ride. 

“Won’t be fun when we get into the car with wet pants.”

The point of the whole thing was to dry up and get back on the road, but Buck’s foot is still half inside the murky lake water, the contrarian.

Buck turns his head, just enough to face Eddie where they are side by side on their back. He pushes his sunglasses up so they form a headband around the mop of his damp curls; it looks ridiculous and endlessly charming. Eddie is five seconds away from tugging him back into the water so he’s not at the receiving end of that gaze anymore.

It’s so intense, so laser focused on him, that Eddie fights to remember anything else exists outside of it.

“Worth it,” Buck says with a wink.

“Was it?” Eddie replies, it comes out in an exhale.

“Yeah it was, it got you to smile.” 

It would be a ridiculous pick up line, if it wasn’t so genuine. Eddie rolls to the side so he can get closer to Buck, hold his face with both hands, kiss him under New Mexico sun with the wet pants and the dropping hair and the dripping eyelashes that clump together and brush Buck’s cheek when he tilts his head and opens his mouth on a moan.

In the space between their foreheads, Eddie hums. “Thank you.”

“What for?” 

“For being on the outside.”

Buck’s face twists uncomfortably between them, Eddie can only kind of see it with his eyes crossed in the middle because he doesn’t want to move away. Somewhere between the press of hands and arms against Buck, his chest has ended up plastered along Buck’s side, too. They’re wet and the lake water is a little sticky, but it’s the most settled he’s felt since leaving LA.

“You know what I mean,” Eddie clarifies, kissing the underside of Buck’s eye for comfort. When he inches further away, the frown on Buck’s face hasn’t diminished. 

“I…” Buck starts, holding onto Eddie’s wrist to move both hands from his face, interlacing fingers with his own. Always, always clinging, even when he’s hurting. “Not to make everything about me, but, uh… I want to be on the inside. I kinda thought I was already.”

And that’s all wrong. Not good, not good at all. Eddie groans, frees one hand to pinch at his nose. “Not in the way I am. Or Chris or Adri.”

Buck chuckles, but it’s half-hearted. “What- what do you mean?” He sits up, hovering above Eddie, detaching all contact between them in the process.

Eddie needs to sit up, so he does, to match Buck’s gaze. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He tries to look for Buck’s eyes, ducks his head until he meets a downturned nose and blue pupils, nods once they lock with his and he can guide Buck back to the surface. “Of course you are my family. You and me and Chris, that’s never going to change.”

He says it so stead-fast and unwavering, the only thing he’s sure of, that Buck preens the tiniest bit. 

“But us, we’re… it’s the fairytale life, right? I mean, I have a son I love, a job that gives me purpose, and I get to share that with you, which is-” Eddie inhales, whole chest filling with it. “You’re the love of my life, you know that, right?”

Buck blinks, breaks out into this shy and wonderful and tentative smile that ends up splitting his face in half, tries to hide behind the palm of his hand until Eddie takes it back and kisses the back on it once, finally settles their joined hand on his thigh.

“You almost got me there for a second.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Never.” Then, “What I meant to say is, this life we have is one thing, right? And the life I have in El Paso is… another. Last time I came here I was so different.” 

He thinks back to checkered shirts buttoned to the collar, to a man who pretends his house is better than it is, that his job is different, that he is satisfied. To a man who sits in front of his father and drinks beer, smiles through the humiliation, looks for his parent’s approval, allows them to step all over him.

“I don’t like the me that I am here. You keep me intact, Buck. Because you’re not part of this,” Eddie gestures to the horizon, the whole of Texas somewhere south of them. “You’re part of… us.”

Buck seems to be seriously considering it. He hums, thoughtful, thumb brushing over then back of Eddie’s hand where they’re interlocked together. He squeezes once. “I’m not sure I like that.”

Eddie frowns. That monologue was one of his best works. “You don’t?”

“No.” Buck’s nose crinkles with disapproval. “I get what you mean. It's like, every time you get to a new place and build a new part of your life, you find some new piece of yourself, right?” He accompanies the words with large strokes of his arm, to drive the point across.

“That’s way more optimistic than what I said,” Eddie notes, deadpan, even as he sees what Buck is driving towards.

The mischief in his eyes tells Eddie that Buck understood it, too. “But you do. There is no El-Paso-Eddie or Los-Angeles-Eddie, they’re all just you.” Buck pauses, gathers his words, “You brought us to this awesome lake, and I met your sister, who’s way funnier than you are, by the way. That’s not someone else’s life, that’s your life. Every single beautiful thing from today is all you.”

“You calling me beautiful?” Eddie deflects.

Buck eyes Eddie up and down experimentally, like he’s seeing him for the first time, smirks in that wolfish way he gets sometimes. “I love that I get to be here with you,” he says, instead of rising to the bait and changing the subject. “I love that you trust me with you, to take care of you and Chris, but I don’t want you to think of us as something separate.”

Adriana laughs somewhere behind them, loud and young, it travels all the way up to her nose the way Chris does sometimes when he’s particularly free with it. Eddie catches the similarity and aches all over again. Chris never learned it from her, it’s just the way families are.

When he turns back around, Eddie watches Buck watch them and he understands. 

The Eddie that lives with Buck in Los Angeles takes some of El Paso with him everywhere; it’s in Christopher, too, in all the ways he’s like Adriana and the ways he’s like Buck, a perfect mix of all of them that Eddie could never hate, not even in fragments. 

Most importantly, it’s in the way each and every one of those shards come from Eddie, whose very fabric has made Chris, who shares that same fabric with Adriana - shining, witty, strong Adriana. 

“If they’re in El Paso, it can’t be all bad, right?” Buck whispers next to his ear, nose brushing the side of Eddie’s cheek, nuzzling there. His eyes have wandered over to Chris again, faintest smile raising the corner of his mouth.

“No,” Eddie agrees, presses his shoulder against Buck’s front. “I guess not.”

***

In the end, it’s far later than Buck would like when they pile up inside the car. 

Chris enters from the passenger’s side and has to wiggle his way to the other half of the car, because Buck’s legs are too long and his seat is too far behind for Chris’ gangly teenage legs, but some tourist with a snazzy SUV has squeezed his way between them and a very large tree on the car’s left.

Adriana needs to be talked down from vandalizing it twice. 

The seat is a bit damp under him, Chris is cranky for half an hour until he manages to fall asleep, exhausted from swimming in the lake and the bundles of emotions from the past forty-eight hours. 

Eddie drives the way back - he knows Buck prefers to be sitting behind the wheel, likes it even more when Eddie is in the passenger seat, likes the idea of pampering him. But there is only so much time he can spend on the road in a foreign state.

He loves cars, finds pleasure in being behind the wheel when there is no queue to stay behind, but Buck’s car is clunky and old; as much as he tried to keep it in good conditions, he never put the same amount of borderline obsession Eddie had for his Denali, so it spits and bursts sometimes when he takes a curve too fast.

It would be the perfect recipe for disaster, any other day. Small, inane things all piling up until Eddie snaps, annoyed, and says something he’s going to regret as soon as he’s done bitching. 

Buck huffs, looks behind them to check on Chris and smiles at Adriana, asks her, “Everything okay?” all soft.

She nods, hums once and slides further down the seat, knees up to her chest, folded like a pretzel. 

Eddie catches it all from glimpses in the rearview mirror and smiles, despite everything.

***

Mass is almost over by the time the car pulls up outside. 

Pepa is there, dressed in a long black gown and matching camisole, her hair tied in a complicated updo. There is a frown on the edge of her mouth, which softens when she sees the state of them.

Eddie tries to fix his hair by combing them back with both hands, but that’s not even the start of their problems. 

They’re quite the little mismatched mess. Adriana’s top is wet where it meets her bra and it shows, her hair is frazzled, dried in the heat. Chris and Buck’s curls have lost all shape. Eddie is sunburnt, shoulders and nose beet red.

Buck shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and the sand under his shoes crinkles with it.

“ Ay, Dios .” Pepa chuckles, the absurdity of it almost brings her in a fully fledged coughing fit. “What am I gonna do with you?” 

Eddie shrugs, sheepish.

She tries to cover Adriana’s shoulders with a stole that manifests magically from inside her purse, bundles her niece as best she can to hide the shape of her bra. “You stink.”

“Like wet dogs,” Chris nods as Pepa tries to tame his hair with a small brush. It does not work.

“How much stuff do you even have in there?” Buck marvels, looking at Pepa’s bag.

“Not enough to fix this,” Pepa replies. She urges both Buck and Eddie, one hand on each back, and says, “Get it, get in. Helena is going to murder you boys.”

True enough, when they burst into church, silence follows.

Eddie doesn’t know the priest on the altar. Last time he was inside the room, Father Bruno chastised him for missing mass and Eddie replied saying he needed to talk with him about officiating a wedding.

He doesn’t bother with trying to take in the space. The large hall is familiar, it hits him at once and slides off just as easily when he guides Chris to a seat at the end of the room. Buck and Adriana follow, but Eddie stays upright.

“Come, sit down,” Adriana whispers, head whipping from the disapproving looks of their family to Eddie, standing there in bermuda shorts and a shirt caked with mud. 

“Give me one second,” he says, holding a finger up. Then he starts marching to the altar, as a crowd of people stares him down in disbelief. 

He’s almost there when Helena gets up and stops him, a hand grasping his wrist tight. “Eddie. What are you doing?” she seethes. “Sit down.”

Ramon is sitting there, eyes forward, red with tears that he won’t shed, jaw set.

When Eddie got the call about Bobby, he cried. There was a moment when he imagined he was going to pass out, the tears were so strong and the pain so real that it threatened to burst out of his chest.

Shannon was not that different. Despite their time away from each other, Eddie had always cared for her, deeply, in a way he still fought to comprehend sometimes. 

Yet there his father was, unmoving, like a statue. Eddie thinks, He must be really sad , and the idea makes him pity Ramon even more. 

It must be so awful, living so long and not letting yourself live at all. To think he could have ended up the same.

 He won’t look at Eddie, but they can still hear him. “ I know you won’t get this,” he says, speaking over his mother’s shoulder. “I hope you’ll forgive me.” 

Left hand over his mother’s on his wrist, Eddie untangles them, squeezes Helena once and smiles. “I’m gonna be a minute, Mom.”

With tears in her eyes, Helena sobs, “I don’t understand you anymore, Eddie. I really don’t.”

There are a million things he could say to that, but none of them fit and he’s tired of lying, so Eddie simply admits. “I know.” A kiss on her forehead, then, “It’s going to be okay.”

He climbs on the altar and a few older ladies gasp. 

Eddie turns to his grandmother’s closed casket, imagining her there, sleeping peacefully. For a whole minute, he simply stands there to absorb it all: the minister at his back, stopped from interfering by Pepa, the cross above him, Jesus’ head bowed, imposing. 

The audience talks of a life well-spent. Family and friends, members of the community, people who cared about her and will be sad she’s gone. Eddie lets the grief roll inside him and melt out to his toes, the bottom of his feet. 

He turns to the room and starts, “So, uhm. It’s been a minute since I’ve been up a place like this. Not much of a catholic after the whole…” He gestures around with one hand, encompassing the whole church. The whole everything that’s surrounding him. “Well. You know.” 

They don’t. He giggles, tries to wash it away by scrubbing at it with the palm of a hand, but only manages to catch a whiff of muddy lake water and sunscreen.

The smell of this day is never going to get away from his skin. 

“My abuela, she was… an amazing woman. Complicated, like all our family, but what family isn’t, right?” He breathes, looks out to his father and his pinched eyebrows. 

That brow pinch Chris does. That pinch Eddie does. It’s all blurring together. 

“For the longest time, I’ve run away from mine. My house, my parents, my sisters. Told myself it was what’s best for me and my son. And I love my life in Los Angeles and the family I chose there. But coming here for this…” He puts a hand on the casket, smiles at it like he’s looking through it. “It made me remember that I love this place. And the people inside it. Even the ones I’ve run away from. Because they’re part of the person I love most in this world, they’re part of what makes my son - and there is not a single part of you that I don’t love, Chris.” 

Eddie meets Chris’ eyes, he’s blurry through the tears. He sniffles away uselessly, Chris does it at the same time. 

“And…” His vision clears when he meets Buck’s eyes. “And they’re part of me, too. All of them. All of this.” He smiles, wet and teary, lets it out before he can start sobbing again: “I’ve got it on pretty good authority I’m not so bad myself. Might be halfway to believing it, sometimes.”

With one last sigh to the ceiling, Eddie concludes, “So thank you, Abuela, for giving me these parts of us. I won’t run away from them anymore. I’m sorry I did. I’m sorry I didn’t give you more time to remind me, but hey, we got here in the end. Am I right?” He kisses the tip of his fingers, brings them to the casket. “Love you.”

He climbs down, marches straight to the very end of the church and sits next to Adriana at the end of the bench.

On the altar, the priest clears his throat, asks Pepa for permission with his eyes and keeps going with Mass.

At the right moment, Eddie takes Adriana’s hand in his, she does the same with Buck on the other side - he goes along, confused, as Chris takes his right. “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

***

“Careful, it’s hot!”

Chim moves his chair backwards so Buck doesn’t burn him when he lays the mac and cheese on the table. Hen digs in almost immediately, so does Ravi. 

“I said it’s hot,” Buck chastises them.

“Cut them some slack,” Eddie says once Buck sits down, patting his thigh under the table. “They’ve been eating frozen pizza for three days.”

“While you were out there gobbling on your aunt’s tamales, don’t think I’ve forgotten.” Hen points her fork at them, but it’s far less threatening when a string of cheese dangles from the end of it.

“I’ll make tamales for you next week,” Buck hits back.

“Next week!” Chim yells, affronted. 

“I don’t have ground beef!”

“Man,” Eddie says, forking a mouthful of pasta. “It is good to be back.”

As if on cue, the alarm goes off. Everyone groans.

“First my tamales, now my mac and cheese. Is nothing sacred in the world anymore?” Chim laments, jumping upright and making for the stairs. 

“This is your fault,” Hen complains, looking straight at Eddie, “Spiritually.”

“What did I do?” 

“You provoked the EMT gods,” Ravi explains, like that makes any sense, as he goes.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

Buck pats him on the back as they climb down the stairs. “Give them by the end of shift, they’ve already forgiven you.”

Eddie smiles to himself, rounds the corner and climbs inside the ambulance. Hen nods at him from the passenger seat. 

They leave the bay. Life goes on.