Triggers: Intrusive thoughts, Depression
Jane was back at work, and she could not be any happier. Not at all.
Sure, she might have liked for one of her first shifts back to be a bit less cold, but she wasn't about to complain too much when the 118 was called to the ice-skating arena. Unfortunately, the mishap that had happened was a bit bloody and had happened in front of a crowd of hundreds of children.
She was a bit more surprised to find that the main victims were Hansel and Gretel and that the two blonde skaters who played them were in the middle of a lover's spat. It seemed oddly appropriate that Gretel's skate seemed to have pierced itself above Hansel's heart, but at the moment, that wasn't her concern. Hen and Chim had the pair in hand, while Eddie and Jane were looking around the rink for fingers. Four fingers had been sliced off of one skater's hand and they had to find them.
Evan Buckley was supposed to be helping them out with the search but well...he was otherwise occupied. Buck was slipping and sliding across the ice and any help he could offer would be a miracle. The first time he fell, Jane and Eddie hadn't been able to stop themselves from laughing. The second time, they'd worried that they'd have to call another ambulance to send him to the hospital.
"Have you ever been to one of these things?" Eddie asked Jane and Buck who somehow managed to slide his way over to their general direction. They searched behind some wooden trees, lifting pieces of canvas that hid support beams in case the missing appendages had somehow fallen between the gaps.
"No," Jane grinned up at him ruefully, catching his eye, "but I always wanted to go to one. After this, I think I'll pass on the experience."
"Me," Buck huffed, finally making it over to them, "too." He was grateful when he was able to step onto the dark piece of canvas that surrounded the trees and gave him steady footing off of the ice.
"You grew up in Pennsylvania Buck," Jane pointed out. "What's up with not being able to handle the ice?"
"I can handle ice," he argued. "Just...uh...not without skates."
"Sure," Eddie agreed and nodded in a way that all three of them knew meant that he and Jane both knew Buck was full of it.
"Besides," Buck told them, bending down to look behind one of the trees, "most of the places I've lived since Pennsylvania, have been warm climates."
"Hmmm," Jane hummed, equally as unimpressed as she looked around a false mushroom, and grinned. "Found the pointer."
"Dang it," Buck groaned. As morbid as it was, there were four fingers missing and three of them. So, they had a small wager. Whoever found more of the fingers wouldn't have to do dishes next shift. Jane had just found the first finger.
"And I've got the middle finger," Eddie called from his position besides the fake bushes.
"No," the youngest blond groaned, not at all liking his odds of winning. It hadn't helped that he'd looked in his safe spot, and now at to go to the other stretch of canvas. He would surely fall trying to get over there. Again.
That was how Bobby found them all when he came in and met Chimney near the entrance to the ice.
"What's the story Chim?" he'd asked immediately.
Jane immediately groaned, knowing Chimney would be unable to help himself, and she was right.
"These two children are abandoned in the woods, and they come upon a gingerbread house where a witch entices them..." he trailed off, as Bobby merely tilted his head to the side, not accepting the sarcasm. So, with a sigh, Chim gave him the rundown of the scene which, he'd missed when he had to check in with Dispatch. Chim also introduced Bobby to Hansel and Gretel and their special entanglement.
After that, Buck spoke up to give Bobby their progress. "We've found two fingers, Cap. Still looking for the other ones."
Bobby was just starting to nod, as Eddie raised a hand in triumph. "Hey! I've got the pinkie."
"Three down, one to go," Buck exclaimed, momentarily excited.
"You should be able to sew those back on, right?" A man who Jane presumed to be playing the evil witch if the black cloak and green face makeup was an indication asked Bobby, while Buck began to grumble about how it wasn't fair.
"Well, they've been on ice the whole time," Jane almost laughed at Bobby's next words, "so that should help."
"He shouldn't have to lose his fingers to Sid and Nancy's psychodrama," the man said scornfully. It looked like even in the real world the witch had no sympathy for Hansel and Gretel.
Jane added her find to their small red cooler, and then went back to look for the last finger. As it was, it was two for Eddie, and one for Jane. If Buck found the last finger, then it could be that Jane and Buck would both get stuck with the dishes, and she was not about to let that happen. Dishes were, by far, her least favorite chore of all time.
So, she ignored the touching saga of the ice dancers who had apparently just broken up. Apparently the girl had an opportunity for Disney on Ice and her boyfriend dumped her in an attempt to be noble. If Jane weren't facing the prospect of dishes on pasta day, then she'd have cared a lot more than she did. As it was, she was sending looks over to Eddie and Buck who didn't appear to have a lead on the last finger, and then back to the sparkly, wooden tree she was searching around.
Looking. Looking. Looking. She ignored the cold that seeped through her layers and gloves she wore. Then, just underneath the piece of dark felt beneath the tree, she saw it. The slightly blue and white from lack of blood, there it was. The final finger.
"And this," Jane raised her hand, appendage secured, interrupting the convergence of the team that had begun around Bobby, who appeared to be searching the ice for something, "is the ring finger. Looks like a tie in our favor, Buckaroo. Two for us and zilch for you. Better luck next time and enjoy the dishes. All the fingers are accounted for Cap!"
"NO!" Buck griped, his face contorting in disappointment.
"YES," Jane was pleased with herself and victoriously placed the final finger in their red cooler before picking it up and making her way over to the rest of her crew. "Our work is done, so, what are we doing now?"
"Bobby's looking for something," Hen explained. "We have no idea what."
"Fair enough."
"Jane, about that bet-" Buck started, but the shorter blonde was already shaking her head at him. "No getting out of it, Buckaroo."
Before Buck could continue to try to wiggle his way out of dishes, Bobby looked up from where he peered down at the ice with his flashlight with an excited, "Ah!"
The group watched as Bobby, with the same enthusiasm Jane showed when she found a finger, lifted a small object that none of them could make out in the short distance.
"Found it," his voice oozed with satisfaction.
"What's that?" Eddie asked.
"A sequin," Bobby explained. "When your blade runs across one of these, it stops your skates dead in their tracks."
"Wait, one sequin did all of this?" Buck clarified, as shocked as any of them. I mean, it had been a bloody scene. It seemed almost impossible to imagine that something so small could have inflicted such damage.
"A wardrobe malfunction can be the most dangerous part of figure skating," Bobby relayed knowingly.
"So," Chimney pursed his lips, his expression giving away his confusion, "how come you know so much about figure skating?"
Bobby sighed and looked away, embarrassed before explaining.
"My partner Heidi Shatsky and I were Twin Cities Junior Pairs Champions three years running."
Eddie, arms crossed, nodded slowly. Jane pinched her lips together, desperately trying to push back the smile that came at Bobby's announcement. The others were just confused.
Eddie shrugged, obviously trying to keep cool, "I always thought you were a hockey player, Cap."
"Who says you can't do both?" Bobby pointed out, gesturing openly to the rink.
"Yeah," Jane agreed, her own voice coming out a bit squeakier than intended. "Who says you can't do both? It's the 21st century."
Then, Bobby just gave them all one final look and walked away, leaving the entire crew looking after him in stunned disbelief. Hen's eyebrows were drawn down. Eddie was squinting after Bobby, as if trying to work out a math problem. Chimney's mouth was so far agape that Jane was certain his gum was going to fall out.
"We'll Google for photos later," Buck spoke, a promise even as a smile danced at the edges of his lips.
Chimney merely pointed at him and waggled his finger, as if to say, yes, yes, they would be doing that. Hen looked over at Jane and Eddie, seeking a confirmation that what she had heard was in fact what she had heard. Jane just shook her head with a tiny grin. She reached out and picked up Eddie's hand, pulling him after her as she followed them out of the arena. They couldn't linger too long. They had fingers to transport after all.
.............
"So, real talk," Jane said seriously, looking her boyfriend right in the eyes as she held two boxes in front of him. "There is only one correct answer. Which one of these frozen appetizers do we need to have for our next movie night with Chris, Buck, Chim, and Maddie."
Eddie couldn't stop the grin that stretched over his own face as he took in her oh-so-serious mock glare. Things had been so difficult in the past few weeks since the trial. Both were distracted, even when together. Eddie had been frustrated, disappearing from time to time, and Jane had been so out of it that even if she had noticed, she hadn't been able to consider why that might be. Despite their struggles, they'd missed each other. A lot. Hence, one of the big reasons they were knocking out their grocery shopping together even if it added an additional hour to their trips with traffic.
"Both," he responded easily, earning a wide grin from Jane as she nodded in approval, putting both frozen treats down into the cart in front of her. "Is that the last of everything we need from the freezer section?"
Jane moved her eyes between his neatly written out list, complete with handmade boxes to check each item off, and her haphazard collection of stacked sticky notes. Each note had been written with a different writing device, pens, pencils, a crayon or two, and even a highlighter. While she was generally organized, she knew that if she didn't write something down when she thought of it, that she'd frequently forget it. Hence writing down her grocery list on the sticky notes she kept in her purse each time she remembered a thing or realized she was out of something she liked or needed for a special baking project.
Eddie...well Eddie was just organized. The man had some control issues, she'd learned quickly in the time they'd been dating. Some of that, she knew, could be attributed to his time in the military when he needed to be as organized as possible. Such a trait had easily transferred to their job where if you forgot something, it could be the difference between life and death. However, Jane instinctively knew that Eddie's organization went beyond necessity.
Eddie Diaz, for all of his good traits, had to be in control. Not over the people in his life, no. He wasn't so far gone as to think that he could control the people in his life, and she didn't think that such a thought had ever crossed his mind. The world, as they both understood it, was unpredictable, but Eddie could control a lot of things. He could control his routine, his grocery lists, and he fought tooth and nail to control himself. To control his own emotions. Loss of control...it was something that he struggled with.
Jane, whose entire life had felt so out of her control for so long...she could understand and appreciate this trait about Eddie, even if she didn't think she'd ever completely convert to shopping by such a neat grocery list. Or living with such a structured routine. In her childhood, so much of her time had been taken structured, and in retaliation, she'd done the opposite and went with the flow most days even if she had a general routine. Jane had momentarily thought that this would be an issue that drove him nuts, but she had caught Eddie's muffled chuckle when she'd pulled out her scattered notes. He hadn't even once complained as she'd sorted through every single note with each aisle they passed. He just waited patiently and helped her get items from the top shelves. She thought that he rather liked her the way she was.
"Yup," she responded to his question, crumpling up the little post-its that were no longer necessary and shoving them into the bottom of her purse. "That's it. I think I'm ready to go. Are you good?"
Jane asked him this like she didn't know. Every single box had been check-marked. He was good to go.
"Yeah."
The pair easily made their way to the check-out counter where their cashier was a girl no older than twenty with neon blue pixie hair and a nose ring, whose nametag read Velma. Jane had just begun to put her items on the belt, when she began to look frantically from her purse to her cart. Eddie noticed immediately.
"What's wrong?"
"I forgot the cat treats for Felix."
"Oh," Eddie looked relieved, and that's when Jane noticed that he'd jumped to being on edge when he'd noticed her concern. "I can get those."
"Really?" she asked him innocently. "That'd be great."
"Of course. The kind in the yellow box right?"
"Yeah," she smiled. "Those are his favorites."
"I'll be right back," he gave her an easy smile and left. Jane was glad that there were more than a few open lanes in the market they were in, so she hadn't needed to hold up a line. Jane watched Eddie until he disappeared down an aisle and once she was sure that he was out of earshot, she snuck two bags onto the checkout counter from the bottom of her cart and gave the cashier a sneaky look.
"Quick. While he's gone add these to my total."
The cashier looked down at the bags of jerky, and back up at Jane, an expression of concern on her face. "Uh...are you okay?"
"What?" Jane was startled.
"Like, does your boyfriend say you can't get jerky or something, so you have to sneak it? Because if so, that's not okay. Like, at all."
Jane nearly laughed, "Oh! No. It's not like that. See, these are his favorite snack, but he got these on his grocery trip last week. He has this insane master grocery list, and alternates weeks that he allows himself to buy this stuff. Well, he's out of jerky, and I decided that I don't like him not having stuff that he likes around."
"Oh," she nodded, scanning both bags and putting them into one of the brown paper bags at the end of the line. "That's cool."
"Thanks for worrying about me though," Jane smiled widely at the girl, touched by the gesture that a complete stranger would look out for her. "Keep up that energy and someday I bet you'll save somebody, and you might not even know it."
The girl gave her a half-laugh, "Boss says I'm too nosy for my own damn good."
"Not enough people speak up when they should, and well, it's hard to see how bad a situation is when you're in the middle of it. Sometimes it's what the strangers in the grocery check-out say that make the biggest impact."
"I'll keep that in mind."
When Eddie came back with the cat treats, Jane remembered the white chocolate she needed to grab for a cake she was making for Farrah. Which was strange, as she knew she'd written it down, but hadn't seen the sticky note in her stack earlier. She didn't want Eddie to have to go back twice, and so he and Velma had a nice laugh as she went back to the baking aisle. Those two mishaps aside, Jane was confident she got everything she needed from the store, and was proud of herself when, after they'd dropped her groceries at her apartment and went to unload his selection in his house, she could pull out the jerky triumphantly.
"Ta-da!" she cheered, pushing the two bags into his face, causing a startled yelp. He'd almost dropped his eggs, and once he realized that Jane was holding his favorite snack in front of his face, he started laughing.
"You didn't have to do this," Eddie grabbed both of bags from her with a big smile and put them down on the cabinet. Then, to her surprise, he reached into the bottom of his bag of snacks that he'd gotten for Christopher and pulled out a bag of gummy bears, handing them to her. "But I might have also done this."
"What?" she squealed a little happily, beaming. "When did you have time to do this?"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a yellow sticky note with the words 'white chocolate' written in glittery purple gel pen. "It fell off of your stack and I thought I'd use it as an opportunity to smuggle the bears."
She laughed at that, "Could you imagine? An underground ring of gummy bear smugglers?"
"I can," he retorted without pause. "Christopher would definitely be leading it."
"He does have the right amount of ingenuity."
"If only he showed the same excitement for math."
"And you're telling me that you showed the same amount of excitement for math and candy when you were a kid?"
"Nah," he agreed easily. "It's just wishful parental thinking."
"I'll say," she chuckled again, and then pulled him in for a quick hug. "Thank you, Edmundo. I think I needed the pick-me-up."
"You're welcome, and thanks for the jerky. I know how much this stuff costs."
"Forgetaboutit," she brushed aside, meshing the words together as one with a terrible east coast accent. She even waved her hand, gesturing him away as she moved to put the bread away.
Eddie rolled his eyes at her fondly, "Whatever Donnie Brasco. Thank you."
"Well, you can thank me by ordering my dinner tonight. I'm thinking...Indian food?"
"That sounds great, but uh, I can't tonight."
"Oh," she was momentarily startled. Chris was with Shannon and Max, and well she'd thought that they would take advantage and spend some much-needed time together. Things had been so...strained for the past few weeks. It all felt a bit topsy-turvy and Jane's head didn't feel like it was working right and she just...she felt like she was missing something.
It was too much, the voice in her head echoed. The trial, the aftermath, it was all too much. He's pulling away but he can't leave you completely. Not when you work together. Not when Chris likes you so much. He's too nice to do something like that.
No, she argued with herself. He wouldn't do something like that. He wouldn't lead her on. He wouldn't want to see her outside of work if that were the case. If he were avoiding her, then he wouldn't have asked for them to do this joint grocery run.
"That's okay. We should try to do dinner this week sometime though," she forced herself to get out.
And, to her immense relief, he sent her his devastating smile when he responded, "Absolutely."
"Hey," Jane broke the moment as she caught sight of a really nasty bruise that spanned most of his forearm. He'd just turned away to put vegetables in the fridge and she caught his arm in her hand, stilling him to get a better look at the injury. He'd been wearing a long-sleeved army shirt, which had hidden his bruises from her earlier. He must have pushed his sleeves up when they were bringing in groceries. "Are you alright? This looks painful. How'd it happen? You weren't the one who was falling down on the ice this week."
He turned back to her, giving her a neutral grin that seemed just a bit too forced. "It's fine. Nothing to worry about, querida. Just knocked into something." In loose terms, Eddie wasn't lying to her. That technicality was very important to him. The object that his arm had knocked into just happened to be another man's fist.
Jane, although suspicious, told herself she was being silly. He'd have no reason to lie about a simple bruise. It hit her again, that she was missing something, but her fog clouded brain full of self-doubt and depressive hatred wouldn't let her see beyond her own issues.
Still, she pushed that all aside, not letting go of Eddie's arm. Allowing herself to push aside the strangeness that lingered between them, she'd decided to embrace the fact that while they wouldn't be together that evening, they were together then.
"If you're sure, you're alright," she ran her pointer finger gently across the discolored skin, light as a feather. She traced the veins on his arm, back and forth a few times, the close contact causing goosebumps to erupt on the back of Eddie's neck. She thought she might have heard his breath catch.
He gulped, "I'm sure."
"Must have landed really hard to leave a bruise like that," Jane's voice was as soft as her touch, and the smile she gave him was devastatingly sweet. Then, surprising them both, she leaned her face down and kissed the bruise.
"There," her words were breathy. "All better."
His knees nearly buckled, and not for the first time, he wondered if he would be able to survive having another person care for him this much.
It had been a problem, this last month, how much he wanted her close to him. Not a problem he wanted to change or get rid of. A problem in that he found himself wanting her close to him at every single moment of every day because he needed to reassure himself that she was safe. The emotional toll that the trial had taken on her was big, and he'd never admit it, but it had taken a significant toll on him too. He thought Jane might know that too, but he'd never ask, and she knew him well enough not to bring it up without prodding. At least, not yet.
Eddie Diaz was a protector. As a child, not even ten years old, his father had given him a lecture about how he was to be the man of the house while his father was off, sometimes weeks at a time, working in the oil fields. Eddie, having a deep sense of duty and responsibility from a young age, had carried the weight of those words, the weight of his entire family, on his shoulders. His father had said so, he had to take care of his mother and sisters. He had to step up for them. Protect them.
Those protective instincts had easily translated when he joined the army. He became a medic and took up the duty of taking care of each patient under his charge. He took personal responsibility that every soldier or civilian he saw, from the first encounter on the field until they left the field hospital, were his duty. His responsibility. They were entrusted under his care, and it would be his fault if they lived or died. But Eddie Diaz, as stubborn as he was, as talented as he was, he couldn't stop death. Even if, in the deepest irrational part of his mind, he felt as if he should have been able to.
Becoming a father had forced him to put some things into perspective and some things only got worse. Now, he was a fully grown adult and for the most part, Christopher was his sole responsibility. With his new role, he'd come to understand that sometimes he had to let Christopher go out and be his own person. His kid was growing up and Eddie wouldn't be able to be right next to him all the time. However, with Christopher's medical condition, Eddie also knew that he had to prepare his son for a world that wasn't always going to be ready for him. So, his protective instincts were heightened, prepared to defend his child from anyone who wanted to try to put blockades in Chris's way simply because he wore crutches. He wouldn't fail his kid. Not in the way he thought his dad might have failed him.
But here he was, with this wonderful woman who was his partner in every shape of the word, and he felt...incompetent. He hadn't been able to protect her. Logic had no place in his mind. It didn't matter that the first incident occurred before he knew her, or that no one had any idea that Jane's former Captain stalked her to her apartment. Jane was his partner, and she'd been brutalized and beaten, forced to relive the trauma, and the only thing he could do was to hold her hand. It hadn't felt like enough. It didn't feel like enough. And that picture...
Eddie had nightmares. Nightmares of war. Nightmares of the job at the 118. Nightmares where he failed Christopher. And, for the last month, nightmares where Jane, beautiful Jane, sweet Jane, HIS Jane, was naked and bleeding and vulnerable, calling out for him, begging for his help...and he could do nothing. He couldn't save her. He had no control, his body malfunctioning on him as it wouldn't allow him to move. Jane would get hurt, again and again, and he could do nothing to stop it.
It's just as his father had said. "Eddie. A man has one job in life, to take care of his family. To protect them."
Seeing that picture, Eddie's first instinct had been to attack. To attack the threat, the perpetrator, the one who would ever think that they could do that to a woman. To someone who would dare to do that to Jane. He'd wanted to smash his face into the ground and beat his body until there was no possibility that John Willis would ever stand up again. But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't. So, it started to become too much. He felt on edge. Out of control. He became wound so tight that at the very first sign of aggression from a complete stranger...he'd punched him in the face...and had promptly landed himself in jail.
He'd been almost completely out of options. He couldn't call his grandmother, aunt, or Carla for obvious reasons, their judgement. He didn't want to involve Shannon because while they were great about parenting together and she would have helped immediately without reservation, he never wanted to give her a single reason to ever think that he would be the wrong choice for Christopher. Buck wasn't an option due to the lawsuit, and the last thing he wanted was to have Jane worry about him while she was dealing with court.
So, he'd called the only other person he could think of. Lena. She'd given him an earful, telling him over and over again that he should have called Jane. That she'd want to know about what happened, that she'd want to hear how he was hurting for her. She told him everything that Eddie already knew.
But Eddie Diaz was a protector, and he couldn't protect Jane from much. He hadn't been able to protect her from John Willis or the tsunami. But he could protect her from his pain. His rage. His mistakes. He could protect Jane from himself. So, he would.
.............
Evan Buckley had a young heart and a strong penchant for the mischievous. So, it shouldn't have been a surprise to Jane when she arrived at the firehouse for their shift later that week to see Buck looking too pleased with himself. She'd been a part of the text chain that Buck had between him and Chimney, who had helped him with the endeavor of tracking down the history of Bobby Nash the figure skating champion. Jane had done her best to discourage them from going too far, if only to save Bobby from some major embarrassment.
"No," Jane said, watching Buck pull a suspiciously life size flat, brown package from the trunk of his jeep. She pulled her own bag from the backseat and shut her car door with an echoing thunk. "I told you not to. Besides, I thought you were just printing a picture. That looks...much bigger than previously discussed."
"Jane," the look he gave her was more than a little amused, his dimples were showing. "How could I pass up such an opportunity when the printer had a discount on life sized cutouts?"
"Buck," she chastised, even as the tiniest of smiles threatened to give on her own face. "Just...don't be too mean, okay?"
"Never," he assured. She gave him a look, indicating that she knew he had a habit of pushing people to the edge, but he just grinned unrepentantly. Then, just to needle her he walked over and with his free arm, pulled her in for a side hug. He knew she couldn't stay irritated when hugs were involved. Not a moment later, they heard a large vehicle pull up behind them, giving a small honk of greeting.
Jane turned, expecting one thing, and seeing something completely different. She'd expected to see Eddie in his old, but mostly reliable truck. However, what she saw instead was a large, shiny black truck that her boyfriend was slowly getting out of. She felt her jaw drop, stunned.
"Uh...did he mention this to you?" Buck asked her.
"Not at all," she murmured. "You?"
"Nope."
Exchanging confused looks, the duo approached. Jane moved much more cautiously than Buck. Since when had Eddie had the money to blow on something so extravagant?
"Whoo!" Buck hooted recovering from his confusion quickly, his eyes gleaming. "Nice truck! Is it a rental?"
Oh. Jane hadn't thought about that. It could be a rental. She knew his truck had issues with the A/C the other day so maybe he was getting it fixed again.
"Nope," Eddie gestured his arms out, facing the glossy exterior. "All mine."
"Wow," was all his girlfriend could say.
"I, uh, I didn't know you were getting a new ride," Buck looked between Jane and Eddie, sensing the tension that had overtaken the pair. Eddie seemed unbothered by this new development, and Jane looked...well she looked like she'd been run over with the truck.
"I didn't either," Jane said softly, inexplicably feeling as if she were going to cry. But that was silly. He didn't have to tell her everything. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the cloud that was fogging her head that spewed a bunch of negativity about why he hadn't mentioned getting a new truck to her.
"Yeah, well, A/C crapped out on the old one," Eddie began, pulling his duffle out of the back seat. "Again. Christopher and I were sitting in traffic, well sweating in traffic. Saw this at the dealership. Thought, why not?"
Jane could think of a dozen reasons as to why not off the top of her head, all of which he'd told her not long ago as to why he couldn't even consider getting a new truck. Taking care of a kid was expensive, especially in California, and with Christopher, there were additional monetary necessities. Even with government programs available, Carla wasn't cheap. Then there was the house payment, bills, school fees, Christmas coming up... these were all stresses that he had, at some point, shared with Jane. Eddie had been taking on extra shifts to cover those expenses and it had all just worked out, but Jane had no idea how he planned to take on this added expense without working himself to death. She was...worried about him.
"A total impulse buy," Buck summarized from Eddie's short story. At least he had the guts to point out, "Not like you at all."
"Maybe it should be," Eddie shrugged, sending a cautious look Jane's way. Tentatively, as if scared that she'd reject his touch, he reached out to grab her hand.
"Well, I'll remind you of that next time you're begging for extra shifts to cover the payments," of course he would. Buck loved saying I-told-you-so, mostly because it was usually the other members of the 118 who did so to him.
"Yeah, yeah," the older man smiled at his friend and then looked back to the blonde woman holding his hand. "So, what do you think?"
"I think that it's a big decision to get a new truck," she responded cautiously, staring at his face as if she could figure out what was going on in his head that way. "It's like what Buck said, its surprising that you'd just get one impulsively."
Eddie nodded, "And you and Buck are always telling me to live a little, to be a bit out of the box with my planning. Shouldn't you be glad I'm taking your advice?"
She had said that to a certain extent. She just couldn't fight the feeling in her gut that more was there. Eddie looked away, trying not to appear guilty under her gaze. He should just tell her. It's not like what he was doing was wrong...necessarily. Under the table, yes. Violent, yes. Illegal? .... technically.
But he knew why he couldn't tell her. Because she'd know why he was really doing it, and she'd encourage him to work out his anger elsewhere. Elsewhere, being in an office where he was really not comfortable going.
"So, what's this?" Eddie pointed at the brown paper Buck carried, effectively distracting at least one of them from his out of character actions.
"This," the youngest blonde smiled, "this is epic. I found Heidi Shatsky."
Buck continued to chatter on excitedly about what he'd found out from Bobby's former figure skating partner, but when he was called over by Chimney, who wanted to see the cutout for himself, Jane pulled Eddie back.
He looked down at her again, at her clear eyes, and he couldn't just walk away.
"What's going on? First, you get a new car without mentioning anything and then you have all of these bruises..." she was trying to connect all of these strange occurrences in her head, but nothing made sense. "Eddie, I'm worried about you."
"There's nothing to worry about."
"That's not true," she shook her head at him, reaching out for his other hand, holding him to her. "If there's nothing to worry about, then where were you the other night?"
"What?"
"Where were you the other night?"
"I was out. I told you I had plans. Is that what this is about? Now that we're together, you expect us to be together twenty-four seven?" His words were defensive, and Jane let them brush passed her for impact, but she wasn't about to let him get away with them.
"Eddie," Jane's voice was hard. "Not fair and not true."
He sighed, immediately remorseful. "I know. That was uncalled for. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, especially since I'm the clingy one in this relationship."
If she weren't still irritated, she would have laughed at the truth of that statement. Surprising them both, Eddie was the one who always wanted to be together and when they weren't together, he'd still keep in contact. He'd call her while doing odd things around his house or right before he fell asleep, when he was driving to drop off Christopher, or going to the gym. He'd ask about her day and talk about this funny thing or that frustrating person. He was so open with letting her into his life, and she just wondered what was so wrong that he couldn't tell her whatever THIS problem was.
"Eddie, please. What's going on with you?"
He said nothing. He couldn't tell her, and he couldn't lie or brush it off again, so he said nothing.
Thoughts were intruding on her in flashes.
He's not telling you. He's doing something bad. Seeing someone else? But that wouldn't explain the bruises or the impulsivity. Whatever he was doing, it wasn't good for him. It wasn't helping him. It was putting a wedge between them, and he wasn't telling her, so maybe he wanted that wedge there. Maybe they were too much, too fast, and he needed an out and this was him pulling away from her.
Because she was too much. She was too needy. She was too demanding. Her trauma was disgusting. The trial had made him see her for what she really was. Broken. Ugly. Used.
Stop, she told her brain. Stop.
She couldn't do it. Whatever Eddie was going through, she couldn't push because despite how much they talked, she KNEW he kept his feelings under check. Eddie was slowly becoming more open, but he wasn't there yet. His instinct wasn't to talk about what was going on, it was to shut down. To internalize it. She'd heard his stories about his father, and the type of toxicity that had been ingrained into his head about men expressing emotions. She KNEW that whatever was going on, he wasn't keeping it from her to hurt her, but he felt it was his duty to spare her.
He would talk to her when he was ready. That she trusted.
She couldn't help him if he didn't open up. If he didn't ask her.
And she couldn't do it while her own brain worked against her.
So, as painful as it was, she let go of his hands. He had to come to her.
"Just...talk to me when you can yeah?"
"Yeah...I will."
..............
Hen had been acting strange. She'd been stressed out for weeks. Jumping when her cellphone rang, and answering immediately, even if they were out on a call. Jane, frustrated with the secrets everyone seemed to be keeping, had nearly exploded in curiosity. Still, she didn't ask. She wanted to. She wanted to ask so much, but Jane knew better than to push. It was like with Eddie. Her friends didn't want to burden her as much as she didn't want to burden them. She just had to wait and they'd come to her.
Fortunately, unlike with Eddie, Hen confessed all when Jane called her after that shift and asked if she or Karen needed anything. It all spilled out, and Jane's heart broke with her friends. Karen had lost all of the embryos. After many painful shots, examinations, doctor's appointments, and thousands of dollars, there would be no baby. Jane's friend was grieving children that she would never know, and Jane knew the feeling. She knew it all too well. And Hen...well poor Hen was trying to be there for Karen while taking care of Denny. It was a lot.
Unable to standby and do nothing, Jane had cautiously asked if she could talk to her. Hen, needing a break and wanting an afternoon with Athena, readily agreed. She was grateful, and so with Hen out and Denny with school friends, Jane made her way into their home armed with soothing teas, cookies, and two casseroles to help with a few nights of dinner for them.
The house was a bit of a mess, Hen had warned, but Jane hadn't been prepared. Karen was super clean. She was wonderfully organized to the extreme, so much so that her label-maker was labeled. The disorganization was startling. So, before she disturbed Karen, Jane got to work on their home. Only when the house was back to rights and she'd made herself and Karen some sandwiches for lunch, did Jane knock on her friends' bedroom door and enter cautiously.
"Hi, Karen."
"Hey," she sniffled, eyes puffy and red as she slowly sat up from where she'd been tucked into bed. "When did you get here?"
"Not too long ago. I was worried about all of you, so I brought over some casseroles and cookies. Denny's out with friends and Hen went to Athena's. I took care of some dishes and did some laundry. I also made some lunch if you want to come in and join me."
"Thank you," her voice was a soft whisper, cracking with emotion that was still so close to the surface. "Maybe...maybe I need to get up."
"Only get up if you want to."
"I...I should try."
"You should. Do you want to do anything before lunch?"
Karen looked down at the clothes she hadn't changed from in three days. "I might want a shower."
"You do that, and I'll make sure our lunch is ready for us, alright? Take all the time you want, and I'll meet you at the table."
"Okay...Jane?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you." Jane smiled at her friend, one of her dearest friends.
"Anytime. You know that."
About twenty minutes later, Karen emerged, clean and feeling a bit better than she had from the bedroom, and when she smelled bacon, she actually felt hungry. It had been two weeks since she'd last registered that she was hungry. Karen slowly came in and was unsurprised to see how Jane had done up the table. She'd added a flowered tablecloth, and had obviously brought over her pretty tea set, because it looked like a fancy tea party. It was pretty and there were fresh flowers in a small vase on the table and...it was nice.
"Ready to eat?" Jane asked with a smile, coming out with a piping hot kettle that she poured into her favorite teapot. It was a white porcelain piece covered in purple flowers.
"You...you shouldn't have gone through so much trouble."
"No problem," Jane gestured for Karen to take a seat. Then, like the mother hen she was, she subtly encouraged Hen to dig into their lunch. Jane had made simple chicken sandwiches with bacon and lettuce. The smell and look must have been enough, because Karen didn't hesitate long. They were delicious, and for a moment, the other woman was silent as she devoured first one and then part of a second sandwich. Once she was done, Jane passed her a cup of dark tea and a few cookies.
"These are really good. New recipe?"
"Yes. Eddie's weird and doesn't like chocolate as much as Chris and I do, but he loves citrus, so I've been experimenting with different lemon cookie recipes."
"Well, my vote are these."
"I'll remember that," Jane's smile faded as she took in Karen. She looked so...worn. It was as if the life had been stolen from her, and the sight broke Jane's heart. She understood Karen's heartbreak as well as her own...and she just hoped that God might grant her the ability to say the right thing. She desperately didn't want to make Karen worse. Not when Hen and Denny needed her to get better.
"It was good to focus on friends rather than my own mess of a life," Jane continued as she sipped on her own tea. "Besides...while I treated you so awfully in January, the year before...you, Hen, and Denny saved me."
"Jane...I-" Karen's voice caught in her throat. "I'm sorry," she cried, burying her face in her hands. Instinctively, Jane got up and wrapped her arms around the woman. "I'm so sorry. I didn't...I didn't know. I didn't understand this...this feeling. I didn't understand this pain. I thought I could, I thought I did, but I didn't."
"I know," Jane moved her hand so that it began to stroke Karen's head. "I know. I'm so sorry, Karen. I never wish for anyone to feel like that."
"The emptiness...does it go away?"
Jane wished more than anything that she could say yes, but she'd never lie.
"It fades. It gets to the point to where you might be able to go for days or weeks without feeling it. But...too often I catch myself wondering what he'd be doing now. If he were here, he'd be turning two you know? In January. Probably walking and beginning to talk just enough that I know he'd mean something, but not enough that I'd understand him all the time. But there are so many things I wonder. Like if he were allergic to nuts like I am. If he was blonde like me or have dark hair like my father and brother. If...if I'd have been the kind of mother to him that I wanted to be."
"I keep," Karen struggled for words, "I keep seeing their faces, and sometimes, in my dreams, I see them so clearly, it's as if I know them. And I reach out for them, trying to pull them back to me, to keep them safe...and then they disappear. It...it hurts so much."
"It does," she agreed. Jane questioned if she were the right one to do this. When this had happened to her, she hadn't been like Karen. After that first day, she turned off her emotions and went seven months without shedding a single tear. She'd kept it all together right up to the plane crash, when she'd fallen apart...and she still fell apart once a year. But Karen had helped her pull back together. Karen had been there, and she could do no less.
"It hurts more than anything else I've ever experienced. It will probably always hurt, but you know what?"
"What?"
"A very smart, very kind, very loving woman told me that I had people who loved me. So that when I had to be sad or mean or angry, I could do it, but even when I wanted everyone to leave me alone...it wouldn't happen. Because I was loved whether I wanted to be loved or not."
"Well she sounds like a busybody."
"Don't you go badmouthing my Karen like that," Jane retorted, earning a small laugh from her friend, leaving Jane feeling awfully pleased with herself. "Now, I'm not as good with words as you are. So, all I can say is that you aren't alone. I love you. Hen loves you. Denny loves you. Hen and Denny, when you are able to get out of bed every day, they will be here. You aren't alone."
Jane knew there was more to it. She knew that when Karen got into a better headspace, she and Hen would have much to talk through. Hen was getting so overwhelmed with the household duties and the distance between them. There would be more things that would need to heal when all was said and done. But it wasn't Jane's place to get into the middle of those problems. So, she didn't.
...............
Later in the week, the shift following the one that had involved an electric car driving a heart attack victim into a hospital, literally into the hospital, Eddie's secret was finally revealed. Unfortunately, it wasn't revealed by Eddie.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jane demanded, her voice not angry or upset.
After reporting the truth of the incident to Captain Nash and arguing with Eddie, Lena Bosco ran into Jane in the parking lot as she stormed out of the 118. The other woman had immediately apologized, only to be surprised that Jane had known nothing about what Lena was talking about. Apparently, Eddie had been illegally fighting for money and to release some serious rage in a ring that Lena had introduced him into. She had no idea that he'd do it so regularly and fight until he'd almost killed a man in the night before.
Jane had brushed aside the woman's apologies, understanding that whatever she'd done, everything that had happened was Eddie. Eddie was the one who'd evaded telling her about going to the matches. He was the one who had been keeping things from her. He'd been careful though, Jane thought. He probably lied only once or twice about where he was going, usually just evading the question altogether.
When Jane had seen him, visibly upset, after a talk with Bobby, she'd marched right up to him, gripped him firmly by the collar, and had pulled him behind the stares and away from prying eyes. Or, well, away from Buck and Chimney who would definitely have something to say.
When she'd asked her question, he'd said nothing. So, she repeated it, "Why didn't you tell me? About the fights? About where the money had come from? I wouldn't..." she licked her lips, "I wouldn't have judged you."
"I don't know," he admitted, causing her to let out an involuntary scoff.
"Sure you do," she disagreed. "If you didn't know, then you wouldn't have lied."
"I- I tried not to lie. I realized the first time I did it that it was the wrong thing to do. I just didn't want to put my shit on you. Not after last-"
"After last week? When you swore that we were fine. Are you serious?" Jane suddenly understood his need to hit someone, except she just wished to knock some sense into him. "Eddie if I-"
But Jane would never finish that sentence. The bell went off and it was like everything erupted. Every single negative piece of the last few weeks erupted into the worst possible thing happening.
The call itself wasn't the worst, even though it had been questionable that the man would make it. Jane, Bobby, Buck, and Eddie were loading up, following behind the ambulance that had left. Jane was mentally planning how to get back to addressing the revelation of Eddie's fighting.
How dare he bring up last week? If...if he were going to use that as an excuse then maybe she'd been right. Maybe they should have-
"Dispatch this is ambulance 118," Chimney called over the radio, causing them all to pause. "We have hit a civilian vehicle at the intersection of West Olympic and Main. The vehicle's driver was injured and we request assistance ASAP."
Jane could feel her eyes widen as the entire crew exchanged looks of worry and slight panic.
"Dispatch, this is Captain 118 and we are en route to the scene at West Olympic and Main."
"Cap! Cap! Who was driving the ambulance?"
"Hen."
"Oh God," Jane breathed, before climbing into the back of the truck. Closing her eyes, she hoped with everything in her that the driver would be okay. She didn't know what Henrietta Wilson would do if she wasn't.
....but the girl, a young woman named Evelyn, died on the scene.
Everything, it seemed to Jane, everything was going wrong.
All she could do was hold on and brace herself for the fallout.
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Dear Reader, Thank you. Thank you so much for reading this book and Thank you for understanding that I haven't been able to update it. I wrote half of this chapter, sitting at my grandparents home as my paternal grandfather was on hospice, and I was writing it when my paternal grandmother went to the hospital. I was writing it during the week they both passed away and slowly, ever so slowly, I've been writing it these four months since then. This was, I think, going to be a difficult chapter to write anyway, but the timing was just right to make it feel impossible. Still, I made it there in the end thanks to lovely messages from you and your hilarious off the wall comments!
I'm still writing. I'm still going to finish this book. I've just come to understand that my journey to getting where I need to go, and the journey to get to the end of this book, is going to take me much longer than a lot of people's, and that's okay. I promise the next update won't be four months later though. I feel a lot better. Love to all of you! Talk to you in the comments and in the next chapter!
Love M.