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Eddie’s abuelo is at his own funeral. 

He stands there, dressed in his Sunday best while people line into the church. He hovers over his wife, Eddie’s abuela, and while Eddie only has eyes for his dead grandfather, his dead grandfather only has eyes for his wife.

Eddie watches as his abuelo reaches out, his hand stopping just short of touching Abuela’s shoulder. Eddie’s abuelo retracts his hand, flexing his fingers like he’s trying to recall the feeling of his wife’s skin beneath his hand.

Eddie is nine years old and he stares and stares and stares until his mom pushes him into their pew, and he finally realizes that no one else can see the dead man attending his own service.

~

Abuelo is the first ghost Eddie sees, but he certainly is not the last. They become more prevalent in Afghanistan. 

It is a rare day that Eddie doesn’t see a soldier in blood stained fatigues, the bullets and IEDs permanently marring their bodies even in death. They follow around their platoon members until they inevitably vanish, to some next phase of life or to trail listlessly after their families in America Eddie has no idea. 

When his helicopter goes down in the Valley of Death, he stares up at Greggs, who stares down at him with eyes so wide Eddie thinks his sockets might rip to accommodate them. Except they won’t, because Greggs is already dead. 

The body in Eddie’s arms, the one he dragged from the wreckage after pulling the rest of his squad out, is no doubt Greggs, but so is the ghost standing above him.

The strangeness of it, the jolt of ice down his spine, is what makes Eddie freeze and he stares back at Greggs.

Eddie’s gaze is ripped from Greggs as a bullet rips through his torso. Then another, and another and –

Eddie prays his ghost will not hang around to haunt Christopher and Shannon.

~

Eddie takes the job at the 118. It’s not Captain Nash who convinces him, at least not directly. It’s the woman and two kids hovering over his shoulder that make him send his regrets to Station 6. 

The three ghosts are blonde and blistered, third degree burns covering their skin, but Eddie thinks they may have been beautiful. 

On his first day, Eddie sees the ghost before he meets him. 

There is a boy, younger than Christopher but not by much, who runs around the station like it’s a playground. For a second, while Eddie is pulling a shirt over his head, he thinks the boy is real and someone ought to be watching out for him because a fire station is no place for a kid that young to play unsupervised. 

And then the boy, pale, skinny and too frail for his age, passes through an exiting member of C shift like wind through a plastic bag. A ghost.

“Who the hell is that?” 

Eddie watches as the ghost – just a fucking kid, really – whips his head around to the voice. His face lights up and Eddie’s heart sinks because how cruel can this world be?

Eddie pulls his shirt fully on and steps out of the locker room – who designed it? Glass? Really? –– just in time for introductions. 

“This is Eddie Diaz, new recruit,” Captain Nash says firmly, with an unspoken play nice to that first voice. 

He turns around and Eddie is struck. The man is strong and broad, all blue eyes and defined features. If it weren’t for the splotch of color above his eyebrow, Eddie would think that the man and the little boy standing at his side were genetic matches. 

The boy stares up at the man as if he hung the moon, and the man stares at Eddie like he extinguished the sun. 

So Eddie and Buck don’t get off to the most auspicious start. Eddie doesn’t think it’s all his fault. The guy just makes it easy, and there’s just something about his reactions that made Eddie want to push. 

Buck’s face flushes as Eddie swiftly corrects him in the field, and the way his chest heaves when Eddie tells him about lighting and angles has nothing to do with the weights he was lugging around.

“You’re my problem,” Buck finally snaps, but Eddie can’t even enjoy the way he has risen to the bait Eddie so skillfully laid because the little boy is scowling up at him as well. 

The ire on Buck’s face might as well be copied and pasted onto the boy’s, but on his sunken and sickly face it doesn’t look right. It makes guilt, however irrational, flood Eddie’s ribcage almost like it does when Christopher looks at him like that.

When Christopher looks at him like that, he is usually assuaged by the promise of ice cream after dinner and an extra book before bedtime, but Eddie gets the feeling that wouldn’t be appreciated in this scenario.

The anger on Buck and Bambi’s – what Eddie has taken to calling the little clone of his coworker who dogs their every step – faces are nowhere to be found as Buck and Eddie prepare to enter the ambulance.

“We might end up real close,” Buck tells Bobby with a shaky grin despite his steady hands.

Eddie resists the urge to restrap Buck’s kevlar vest, if only to soothe Bambi’s obvious trepidation as they step into the ambulance. 

It’s okay, Eddie wants to say to him, I’ll take care of him.

Eddie’s never spoken to a ghost before, not even Abuelo when he visits Abuela. They’ve shared glances and nods at best but Eddie’s never been able to bring himself to say something.

He wants to. Eddie wants to all the time. I miss you threatens to escape from his lips every time he sees his abuelo. We should have had more time or Life was better for everyone when you were still here, but it wouldn’t make any difference, so what’s the point? 

Eddie wants to reassure Bambi that nothing will happen to his dad. Eddie is going to get everyone out of this in one piece.

Buck’s hands never waver inside the ambulance and he follows what Eddie says to the letter. Every inhale is reverent, like Buck is surprised to take it but unwilling to focus too much on it, and every exhale is tinged with anticipation like he knows he might not get another. 

Bambi hovers over Buck’s shoulder, too close for anyone alive to be without disturbing something as careful as this. But Bambi is dead and Buck doesn’t even know he’s there, so it’s really no problem. The boy’s presence is a reminder pressing heavily on Eddie’s chest.

They live, even Charlie.

“You’re badass under pressure,” Eddie tells Buck after, and he is blinded by the force of Bambi’s smile. He is equally endeared by the dip of Buck’s chin and the flush across his cheeks. “You could have my back any day.”

Bambi, standing proudly at Buck’s hip, is sunshine in ghost form. He drags his gaze away from Buck to look at Eddie, smug in a way no eight year old should be as if to say now don’t you feel like a jackass.

He probably didn’t mean it exactly like that, but Eddie takes some adult liberties in the syntax.

“Or – you know,” Buck smiles shyly at Eddie, all boyish and loose in a way they couldn’t be in the ambulance, “you could have mine.” 

It seems Buck takes his promise of having Eddie’s back seriously, because in nearly all ways he begins creeping his way into Eddie’s life even outside of the fire station. 

“I love kids,” he tells Eddie in the back of the engine. Buck leans down to look at the picture of Christopher Eddie has proffered, and Bambi mirrors him so they are cheek to cheek looking at Eddie’s son.

Eddie waits for Buck to bring up his deceased son, but he stays frustratingly tight-lipped. Maybe en route to assist with an earthquake isn’t the best place to talk about dead kids though, so Eddie doesn’t push.

A better place to bring up the past never really comes, however. 

In time, Eddie learns about the three ghosts that shadow Bobby – Marcy, Brook, and Bobby Junior. He is told one evening by Buck that they died in an apartment fire that Bobby blames himself for. 

Marcy smiles a lot, her blistered and bubbling face peeling wide, when Bobby is with Athena.

Eventually, Chim mentions someone named Kevin, and the pieces regarding the young Korean man that occasionally follows Chim around fall into place. 

He’s wearing turnouts and he walks with a limp, like he fell and landed suddenly on his feet without being able to brace for it. The majority of Kevin’s face is burnt and disfigured, not unlike Marcy and the Nash children. Despite his youth, Kevin never fails to look achingly proud of Chimney.

Eddie learns, through bits and pieces, about every ghost haunting the 118. All except one. 

Another piece of the puzzle is slotted into place with the return of Maddie Buckley, who makes both Buck and Bambi stare at her like she’s the ghost. 

Bambi’s face shrivels up and he begins to wail one of the first times Maddie joins them all out for drinks and karaoke. His cries shouldn’t be audible over the pitchy rendition of Before He Cheats, but there is something piercing about his sadness. 

He is a ghost, Eddie reminds himself, but he is also eight. He is a child who is dead but not gone and forced to face everything he no longer has. 

The sight of a crying Bambi, sitting in a conveniently empty space at the bar booth, makes Eddie’s chest twist and it takes everything in him not to shush the boy like he does his own son. Bambi’s frail frame shudders with every sob, like each one is enough to break through his ribcage and split him in two.

After that night, the urge to speak to Bambi is almost too much to ignore. Eddie aches to bite the bullet and ask Buck or even Maddie about it, but there’s no way to bring it up without sounding absolutely insane.

Eddie Diaz doesn’t believe in curses and superstitions, so if he starts asking his friends about the ghosts hanging around them, he has no doubt that he’ll be institutionalized by nightfall.

Then life gets too busy to worry about Buck’s dead, because all of a sudden, Eddie has to worry about his own.

First, Shannon comes back into his life. Then Shannon… well… 

Not long after Eddie’s wife dies, a firetruck falls on Buck’s leg, crushing him from the knee down. The sounds of both Buck and Bambi screaming are imprinted in Eddie’s brain, grooves etched into his skull like a vinyl record.

A figure hovers over Eddie’s shoulder in the hospital waiting room. She is wearing a yellow blouse and she walks with a limp when she manages to drag herself closer to Eddie.

Eddie stares at the doors leading further into the hospital, where there are ORs and surgeons and his partner. 

Is it selfish that Eddie prays for Buck to stay alive? To be here with him and the rest of the 118 instead of with his son who so obviously misses him?

I’m sorry, he wants to tell Bambi, I just want to hold onto him a little longer.

Eddie glances around the waiting room. 

Bobby is in the hospital chapel, Eddie is sure. He’s had the rosary wrapped around his knuckles so hard there are beaded imprints across his hands ever since Buck vanished behind the doors.

Athena, when she isn’t seated next to Bobby in the pew, has been on the phone with so many prosecutors and higher-ups in the LAPD to make sure Freddy winds up with the heaviest sentence she can manage. 

Hen has long since gone home with the need to hold her wife and child, and Chim’s attention has been solely on Maddie since she whirled into the hospital. 

Nobody spares a second glance when Eddie locks eyes with a seemingly empty space and jerks his head to the hall.

Eddie walks out of the waiting room and towards the little hallway leading towards the bathrooms. He’s aware of the presence shuffling their feet behind him as the door shuts. 

After a quick look, down the hall and back, that assures Eddie no one is coming, he presses his back against the wall and slides down in a squat. “Hey, kid.”

Bambi inhales sharply, wringing his hands in front of his chest shyly. He shrugs his shoulders and says nothing.

“That was really scary,” Eddie tries again. His throat tightens because fuck, it was scary. It was scary for him, a Silver Star army vet, so of course it was scary for a child – for a son. “Are you okay?”

Bambi shrugs again. His eyes trail towards the door they just walked through, like if he stares hard enough a nurse will come with good news.

It won’t work. Eddie tried that an hour ago.

“Buck’s in really good hands, kid,” Eddie promises, though it feels empty to his own ears. “Your dad is going to be just fine.”

The kid’s head turns back to him sharply. With how frail and sickly he is, the movement is bird-like and unnerving. “He’s not my dad.” 

Eddie’s heart leaps into his throat.

He spoke. A ghost spoke to Eddie.

And he’s – he’s not Buck’s son? 

“He - he’s not?” Eddie repeats. “Then why – who –” Eddie breathes in through his nose, partially to calm down his spiking heart rate and partially to buy himself some time before he has to speak again. “I shouldn’t have assumed, I’m sorry.”

Bambi shrugs again and tucks his chin into his chest. “‘S fine.” 

“What’s your name?” Eddie asks softly. If he isn’t Buck’s son, then who could he possibly be? 

The ghost rocks on his feet, the fluorescent hospital lights catching on the gaunt skin stretching across his cheekbones. “Daniel. I’m Buck’s big brother.” 

Buck’s big brother.

A nurse pushes through the doors on the opposite end of the hallway, pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Their presence saves Eddie from having to speak. 

He stares at Bambi – at Daniel – even as the nurse passes by and offers a soft hello. 

Eddie’s heart pounds in his ears. Brother. It puts things into perspective now; the way that Daniel wailed when Maddie first appeared at the firehouse and attended their outings. 

Buck’s older brother. It’s a jarring idea, that this dead boy, all of eight years old, is his partner’s older brother. By this point, Buck has lived longer than his older brother and is older than Daniel ever will be. 

“It’s really nice to meet you, Daniel,” Eddie finally says, his voice shaky as he drags his hand away from his mouth. “I’m an older brother too.” 

Daniel’s chin wobbles and his thin, cracked lips begin to twist. “You’re better – better at it thah-than me.” His tone is familiar to Eddie, who has become no stranger to an impending breakdown from an eight year old. 

“What do you mean?” Eddie shifts on his feet, trying to push past the ache in his thighs in this position. “You’re a great big brother.”

The thrill of speaking to a ghost has subsided. Now, Eddie is just speaking to a little boy who wants his brother.

“I’m not!” Daniel finally cries. Tears, fat and quick, track down his face and his mouth crumples into something ugly. “I’m bad!” 

Eddie lurches forward, falling forward onto his knees in front of Daniel. “Hey, hey, that’s not true,” he promises. His hands hover over Daniel’s trembling shoulders, unsure if he should touch him or if he even can.

Daniel’s hands twist into his shirt, stretching the cotton scattered with dinosaurs and pterodactyls. “Yes, it is!” He screams it now, the way that kids are quick to do when they don’t have the words for the emotions welling inside of them. “I’m bigger! I’m s’posed to protect him!” 

You’re dead, Eddie does not say even as his heart breaks. Daniel can’t protect anyone anymore. “There was nothing you could have done,” he says instead. 

Eddie watches Daniel’s hands move from his shirt, the fabric now crumpled and stretched, to scratching down his forearms. Thin, pale welts, paler than his already wane skin, rise up after the path of his nails.

Eddie clasps his hands gently on Daniel’s wrists, his skin cold, clammy, and solid beneath Eddie’s. The contact jars Daniel into stillness. “It was not your fault,” he promises. “Daniel, it was not your fault. All you have to do right now is love Buck, can you do that?”

Daniel’s chest shudders as he fights for a steady rhythm of breath. He drags his eyes up from Eddie’s fingers closed around his wrist until he’s looking at Eddie’s face. His dull blue eyes are still filled with tears. “I can – can do th-aht.” 

“Course you can,” Eddie tries to smile. Probably falls short. “That’s what big brothers do.” 

~

The two of them return to the waiting room. 

Chim and Maddie each give him a nod, and Eddie is relieved to see Maddie has stopped actively crying. 

Now that he’s seen both Daniel and Maddie cry, not something Eddie was going out of his way to experience, there are more similarities than he previously thought. Both of their chins tremble the same way when they’re trying to be strong.

Bobby has finally returned from the chapel, though Eddie can see his rosary is still wrapped around the irritated skin of his knuckles, but Athena is nowhere to be seen – either back on the phone or taking a breather.

There is a ghost guarding Eddie’s previous seat. Her yellow blouse is stark against the pale waiting room, and the ache in Eddie’s chest is violent. 

He wants nothing more than to talk to his very first best friend.

Shannon stands from the chairs when she sees them, and their eyes lock for possibly the first time since she’s become… like this. Dead. 

Eddie wants to say something, anything, as he and Daniel approach the line of chairs against the wall, but nothing feels like enough.

She steps aside to let him retake his seat, and Daniel hops onto the one next to him. 

The dead boy stares curiously up at the dead woman, but his child-like shyness keeps him silent.

Eddie fumbles his phone out of his pocket and pulls up his notes app.

Daniel, he types with clumsy thumbs, this is my best friend Shannon.

Daniel hooks his chin over Eddie’s shoulder, the same way Christopher does because they are both eight and nosy, with the unerring entitlement that comes with being a child in the presence of someone else on their phone. “I thought Buck was your best friend,” he says aloud, his voice still shaky but clear as day in the otherwise silent room.

Shannon blinks in surprise. Her eyes dart down to Eddie’s phone, though he isn’t sure what she can decipher at her upside down angle. But Shannon, sharp as a tack like always, takes Daniel’s accusation in stride and sits down on Eddie’s other side. “I was Eddie’s very first best friend. Buck is Eddie’s best best friend.”

Was, Eddie catches. She was Eddie’s first best friend.

You still are, he wants to say. You always will be.

There are days that Eddie misses Shannon like a lost limb. The stories he hears about soldiers who experience phantom pain in a limb that is no longer there will strike too close for comfort. Before the pregnancy, and marriage, and enlistment, there was no one on this earth that Eddie felt more comfortable with than Shannon, and that perhaps was the biggest tragedy in everything – Eddie lost his person.

It’s juvenile and embarrassing, but Eddie misses his best friend all the time. 

Eddie doesn’t say any of that out loud because he is not insane and starts typing on a new line.

Daniel is Buck’s big brother. He tilts the phone towards Shannon, just barely so it doesn’t look strange to anyone glancing his way.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Daniel. How are you feeling? What happened to your brother was scary.” Shannon speaks calmly and patiently, and Eddie is suddenly struck with a memory of how she spoke to Christopher after he was first born and Eddie was home on leave.

Even as a newborn, swaddled in a blanket with a little green cap pulled over his peach-fuzz head, Shannon spoke to Christopher like a grown man because she was always too embarrassed to do the baby voice. “I’m making you a bottle,” she had explained to the fussy baby. “Your grandma wanted me to breastfeed you, but I just don’t think I want to have my boobs out all the time, you know?”

They were both so young.

“I’m okay,” Daniel said bravely, even though he looked anything but. “It was scary but – but all I have to do is love Buck right now.” 

Shannon nods and smiles softly. “That’s right. You’re a very good big brother. Buck is lucky to have you.” 

Daniel nods jerkily. “Thank you. Eddie is lucky to have you too,” he speaks carefully, like he’s trying out the words too.

Eddie’s heart clenches and the pressure in the back of his throat increases tenfold. “I am,” he says thickly. “I am so lucky.” 

The old man closest to Eddie shoots him a strange look before scooting a bit further away, like Eddie is contagious. 

Shannon clears her throat delicately and tucks her hand, cold and clammy with death, into the crook of Eddie’s elbow. On Eddie's other side, Daniel wraps his hand around three of Eddie’s fingers. 

The three of them stay until Buck is out of surgery.

~

It is a looming, daunting recovery ahead of Buck. The doctors managed to save his leg, which is now encased in a cast all the way up to his knee. 

The 118 gleefully take turns signing it and Eddie doesn’t miss how Daniel watches, nearly sick with envy, at every new signature on the plaster. 

Eddie’s signature, tiny and slanted, graces the back of Buck’s leg, over his hamstring. 

“Why did you sign it there?” Buck complains, twisting as much as he can to try and catch a glimpse. “I can’t even see it.” 

“You’re not supposed to,” Eddie says as he caps the sharpie. It isn’t a lie. He’s testing something – Buck just can’t know what that is yet. “I gotta have your back, you know?”

Buck’s face softens and his cheeks pinken. “You always do.” 

Not always, Eddie thinks, his eyes flicking down to the cast again. “C’mon,” he offers Buck an arm instead of what he wants to say. “Let’s get you seated.” 

Buck hooks his elbow with Eddie’s in a practiced motion and allows himself to be lowered onto the couch. He lets Eddie carefully lift his leg onto the stack of pillows already waiting on the coffee table.

There is, Eddie notes in relief, a great deal of available cast space between the couch and the coffee table. 

Daniel clambers onto the couch next to Buck, who shivers under the sudden burst of chill. His fingers ghost, no pun intended, over the cast. 

Tiny fingertips trace rough signatures – the swirling ‘H’ of Hen, the careful loops of the ‘B’ in Bobby, and the obnoxious scrawl of CHIMNEY (complete with a rudimentary drawing of what must be a brick-built chimney and what are maybe? two legs sticking out the top). Athena’s name is tidy yet authoritative, something Eddie didn’t know could transfer through writing, and rests just below Bobby’s. 

The blanket Eddie pulls over Buck’s form has an immediate effect – he settles even further into the couch, ducking his chin under the sherpa lip of the blanket. It is leopard print and glaringly out of place in Eddie’s home – he and Christopher both can’t stand the sherpa material, not even mentioning the over-the-top print.

Eddie gives it ten minutes before Buck is snoring away.

Daniel sits back on the couch, his legs pulled up beneath him in an achingly child-like way. His finger fiddle – or at least try to since they keep passing through harmlessly – with the blanket by his toes. His eyes remain fixed on Buck’s leg beneath the blanket, like he can still see the signatures through the fabric.

Eddie sits down on the other side of the couch, discreetly nudging Daniel to scooch further into the middle of the couch. He turns on the TV to some mindless, brainless show that he knows will lull Buck right off to sleep.

Sure enough, by the second commercial break Buck is drooling into his blanket. 

Eddie gives it to the third commercial break just to really make sure before he nudges Daniel again. His skin is cold and clammy despite the comfortable temperature Eddie keeps the house at. “Come here,” he whispers and slides off the couch.

Eddie awkwardly shimmies under the overflow of Buck’s blanket and into the space on the ground between the couch and coffee table. He lays on his back, blinking up at the vague outline of Buck’s propped up legs, until Daniel finally worms his way underneath with him. 

“This is weird,” Daniel whispers in their private pocket of darkness. 

Eddie grapples for the sharpie tucked in his back pocket, waiting for this exact moment. “I just want to try something,” he says and pulls out his phone next.

With his phone resting face down on his chest, flashlight on and pointing up to illuminate Buck’s legs.

His cast looks even more bulky and disorienting from this angle. Monstrous almost. Eddie swallows down the guilt rising in his throat. 

“What are we doing?” Daniel digs his shoulder into Eddie’s armpit, like he can learn Eddie’s idea through osmosis. 

Eddie grimaces as he uncaps the sharpie. “You ever practice your signature when you –” were alive is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows that down too. “ – were in the hospital?” he finishes lamely.

Daniel frowns, realization not quite hitting him yet. “Uh-uh,” he shakes his head.

“That’s okay.” Eddie slowly reaches out with his other hand, contorting at the elbow awkwardly to grasp Daniel’s too-thin wrist and bring it to the hand holding the sharpie. “We’ll do it together.” 

With Daniel’s hand shifting to cover Eddie’s fingers, they both reach up to the space between Eddie’s name and the very top of the cast.

“We gotta try and keep it small,” Eddie explains softly. “But we’ll know it’s there, and that way it can be a good luck charm for Buck. Keep him safe.”

Daniel nods eagerly, finally catching up with Eddie’s plan. “Yes!” He nods his head rapidly. “Yes, you have to help me do it.” 

Together, the two of them gently press the felt tip of the marker just above the slanted ‘E’ of Eddie. 

The ‘D’ is small and jagged, nerves evident in every centimeter of writing. The ‘A’ is capitalized and too close to the first letter like it doesn’t want to take up space. Eddie lets Daniel’s shaky grip push and pull the sharpie into the path of an ‘N,’ this time lower case. 

“I forgot the rules,” Daniel whispers nervously.

“That’s okay,” Eddie whispers back as they begin the stubby ‘I.’ “There are no rules for signatures.”

Daniel dots the ‘I’ with too-heavy a hand, turning it into a dark smudge it bleeds into the next letter, the ‘E.’ 

Finally, Eddie and Daniel finish off the most important signature of Eddie’s life, right after his own name on Christopher’s birth certificate, with a slightly crooked ‘L.’ 

Daniel squeezes Eddie’s fingers before Eddie caps and lowers the sharpie.

There, in the light of Eddie’s phone, the two of them stare up at the two signatures guarding Buck’s hamstring. Watching his back.

Suddenly, Daniel’s frail little shoulders begin to tremble against Eddie’s chest. One of Daniel’s hands clamp over his mouth, just in time to muffle the first sob. 

“Hey,” Eddie manages not to jerk and wake Buck, but he shifts as best he can to look at Daniel. “What’s going on, buddy? What happened?”

Daniel’s teary eyes stare unblinkingly at the signature above him. “I’m here,” he whispers almost like he’s reassuring Buck. “I’m right here.” He points with a shaky hand to his name and –

Oh.

Eddie inhales a slow, measured breath because otherwise he might cry.

There, right before their eyes, is proof. Tangible, hard proof that Daniel Buckley is here. For the first time in over twenty years, there is evidence that Daniel is on this earth and has an impact, even if there had to be a third party to do it. 

Daniel Buckley is here and he is with his brother.

They stay down there, staring at the evidence until Eddie has to leave to pick up Chris from school.

~

(Buck doesn’t tell Eddie this, so Eddie doesn’t know, but Maddie stops him one day when the two of them are in Buck’s loft for the first time in weeks.

“What’s that signature?” She asks sharply, staring after Buck as he crutches past her. 

“Huh?” Buck glances over his shoulder to see Maddie staring down at the back of his leg. “Oh! Eddie signed it there. Said it was so he could watch my back.” 

Maddie frowns and rounds the kitchen island. She pushes firmly at Buck’s shoulders when he tries to turn and face her, forcing him back the other way. “Hold on,” she demands before dropping into a crouch. “There’s something over his name. Is that Christopher?”

Buck drops his gaze to where Christopher’s bold signature rests over the top of his foot. “No, it’s not Chris – Maddie, what the heck are you talking about?” He tries to crane his neck over his shoulder.

“Duh-Dah-Dan –” Maddie shoots up abruptly, nearly cracking her forehead with Buck’s. “Daniel?” She can hardly breathe. “Does that say Daniel? Who is that?” 

Buck frowns, now twisting even more to try and catch a glimpse. “I don’t know any Daniel,” he frowns. “Are you sure that’s what it says? Right above Eddie’s name?” 

“Buck, I’m sure.” Maddie’s eyes well with tears, the way she’s never been able to hide. “How would that have gotten there?” She says it more to herself than to him, which Buck is glad for because he has no idea what the fuck Maddie is talking about. 

“Maybe you should sit down,” Buck offers gently, and Maddie nearly collapses into the chair behind her. “Are you – what’s – what’s happening? What are you talking about?”

Maddie inhales, big greedy gulps like she can’t get enough air.

“Can you – Buck, can you just… Can you sit down? There’s something I need to tell you.”)

~

Sometimes, when Eddie imagines the perfect world, he imagines it like this: Everything is almost exactly the same, but Daniel is alive and Buck’s son, and their family unit becomes a family of four. 

Christopher and Daniel would be best friends, and the two of them would team up to make both Eddie and Buck’s lives hell, but it would be gloriously exciting. 

Eddie and Buck would probably live together, just out of convenience sake. It would make things easier if they were all under one roof. Cheaper too. Cheaper still if they got a three bedroom – separate rooms for Christopher and Daniel since they’d be growing boys that shouldn’t have to share a room, and Buck and Eddie can just share a room. That’d be normal for co-parenting best friends, right? 

That world doesn’t exist – can’t exist – so there isn’t any use dwelling on it. 

But sometimes it feels pretty damn close. 

Tonight, there are three living beings and one ghost squished on the couch watching old reruns of The Clone Wars. Christopher insisted on watching it with Buck so he could better appreciate the prequels.

Usually Buck is enthralled. His limited pop culture knowledge makes him a sponge for any modern TV show, regardless of its intended age group, but today he seems distracted. He watches half-heartedly, laughing a beat too late at the gags and gimmicks and only offering barely there uh-huh’s to any of Chris’ comments. 

Daniel watches with rapt attention from where he is squeezed between Buck and Christopher. For just a moment, he is a living boy with no terminal illness and the world is peaceful. 

Eddie takes a sip of beer. 

He watches from the corner of his eye as Christopher’s gaze begins to drift off, staring into the space between him and Buck. 

Eddie narrows his eyes as Chris blinks rapidly, seeming to stare directly at Daniel before he yawns and shoves his knuckles against his eyes in a harsh rub.

Eddie’s heart stutters back to life.

They manage another two episodes before Christopher lists off to sleep, and Eddie excuses himself to carry him off to bed. 

“Goodnight mijo,” Eddie whispers against his curly hair as he tucks him under the sheets. “Sweet dreams.” 

“G’night, dad,” Christopher mumbles into his pillow. “Say goodnight to your friend for me.” 

Eddie frowns, running a gentle hand over his forehead. He smoothes unruly hairs on Christopher’s eyebrow. “What friend?”

Christopher opens his eyes to slits, hazy and already half asleep. “That boy. Watching with us. He’s quiet.” 

In between one breath and the next, Christopher drops off into sleep.

Eddie stares, frozen in place. His hand is still resting on Christopher’s head, the thumb glued against his eyebrow like it was before Christopher dropped a bomb on him. 

Can Christopher see Daniel? Can he see other ghosts too? Does he ever see Shannon when she’s hovering nearby? Or did he ever see Eddie’s abuelo when they visited Abuela? 

(Eddie doesn’t see Abuelo much anymore, if ever. He wonders, sometimes, if ghosts ever move on. Sometimes they vanish without a trace and Eddie never sees them again, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be relieved or devastated when that happens to Shannon. To Daniel.)

He pushes himself up to his feet and exits the room on robot legs. 

Back in the living room, the TV has defaulted to Roku City. The screen casts a purple glow across the otherwise dark room, highlighting the gaunt shadows of Daniel’s face and the high cheekbones of Buck’s. 

They could be twins in another life.

“You okay?” Buck asks, his voice startlingly loud in the quiet of the night.

Eddie clears his throat. “Feel like I should be asking you that. You’ve been off all night.”

Buck looks away, down at his cast that is due to come off soon. “Um. Yeah – about that…” 

“Everything okay?” Worry creeps up Eddie’s spine. His appointments have been going well, haven’t they? He’s hitting all the appropriate benchmarks and taking his recovery seriously – Eddie and everyone else in the 118 family have been making sure of it.

Between them, Daniel’s spine straightens and he rises on his knees, almost blocking Eddie’s view of Buck as he searches his brother’s face for something. 

“Maddie was over the other day,” Buck says slowly. His face is pinched, like he’s trying to recall something. It’s that face he gets when he writes a script in his head and is trying his best to follow it. 

Buck usually doesn’t get that look when it comes to Eddie. There are no scripts between them, no preconceived roles and expectations. 

“And she saw — on my cast she saw — there was a name. On my cast.” Buck hasn’t quite memorized his lines yet, and Eddie’s chest aches at what might be coming next. 

Daniel is catching on too if the way he turns to look at Eddie with wide, fearful eyes is any indication.

“Buck —” 

“Why is the name Daniel on my cast right above yours?” 

The room freezes. 

The purple of Roku City bathes Buck’s face in its ethereal glow. You could hear a pin drop at 4995 South Bedford Street.

Daniel’s breath audibly hitches and he scrambles forward. His thin hands try to grasp at Buck’s shirt to no avail. “Buck! Buck, it’s me! I’m here – I did it! I signed your cast — Buck –” He looks over his shoulder at Eddie, and the TV glow illuminates the tears dripping down his face. “Eddie, tell him it was me. I’m right here,” Daniel begs.

Eddie swallows. “Buck —” 

“Maddie told me everything.” Buck soldiers on, oblivious to the ghost trying to prove it’s existence. “I had a brother. He… he died when I was a kid. Leukemia.” His voice is so fragile, like the tenuous veil between life and death.

Eddie’s heart pounds in his chest. His heart roars in his ears while his palms begin to sweat. “I know.” 

Buck nods slowly, like he is not surprised. “You know,” he parrots softly. “I know you know. I just can’t figure out how you know, and neither can Maddie.” 

“Tell him!” Daniel wails, still trying in vain to grab onto Buck’s shirt. His cries pierce Eddie’s heart.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Eddie whispers.  

Buck’s mouth twists before he can stop it. He schools his expression, but the damage has been done. Eddie saw beneath the mask. “Tell me anyway.”

And Eddie does. 

He starts at the beginning, his abuelo at his own funeral and the way he hovered over his wife’s shoulder. Greggs in Afghanistan looking down at his own body with matching wounds to his ghostly visage. All the ghosts that follow their 118 family around, even Shannon. And finally –

“Daniel. I saw him on my first day at the station.” Eddie can’t help but look at Daniel now as he speaks. “He was just running around at first, playing all by himself. I almost thought he was —” Eddie doesn’t say the word alive, because that isn’t fair. Daniel is alive. In all the ways that count, he is alive and has an impact on this earth. 

“And you spoke from halfway across the firehouse and he just — he lit up, man,” Eddie blinks away the memory as his throat gets tight. “Any time you breathe, he looks at you like you’re the reason the sun rises and falls. And he looks just like you —”

“Stop,” Buck demands quietly. 

But Eddie doesn’t. “He loves you, Buck. That’s why he’s here — with you. He loves you. When I first saw him next to you I thought he was your son. He looks just fucking like you, Buck. I was calling him Bambi before I learned his name.” 

“Is he…” Buck glances around the room. “Is he here now? Daniel?”

“Yes,” Daniel cries, his hands now grasping at his hair. He pulls at it in harsh yanks, and Eddie instinctively hisses as he leans forward to stop him. Buck jerks away at the sudden movement, at the sharpness of Eddie’s motion in the otherwise still — to him — room.

“I’m right here, Evan,” Daniel’s voice is nothing but a whisper now, all the energy vanished from his weakened body.

“Yes,” Eddie finally says. “Always.” 

Buck swallows harshly.

If Eddie looks close enough, he can probably see the pulsing of Buck’s carotid artery. 

“Can he…” Buck trails off. His face twists up and Eddie can see the internal war going on behind his eyes. 

His view is stolen when Buck’s eyes flutter shut and he takes a deep breath in.

“Daniel? Can you… can you hear me?”

Buck’s voice does not echo in the room. Not in the way you’d think something as momentous as this deserves. His question should bounce off the walls and reverberate throughout the house.

But it doesn’t. It is swallowed up by soft couch cushions and throw pillows. By ridiculous leopard print blankets. It does not bounce, but it soaks. It settles into the house’s foundation and into Eddie’s very bones. 

Daniel’s body shudders. His face twists into something so ugly and purely childlike that it hurts Eddie more than a bullet ever could.

He looks away. He tells himself it’s to preserve a family moment, but it's really because Eddie is a coward. He can’t bear to look.

“I can hear you,” Daniel sobs, and his whole body shakes with it. “But you can’t hear me.” 

“He can hear you,” Eddie whispers, still facing the TV. His head begins to pound with the force of Eddie holding his tears at bay. 

Eddie opens his mouth to say something else. Shuts it. Why should he speak when it’s Daniel who really deserves to be heard?

“I’m so sorry,” Buck’s voice cracks right down the middle. He stares at the space between them on the couch, where Eddie had lunged to as Daniel started to pull at his hair. 

He’s unerringly staring at Daniel, so intently that Eddie almost convinces himself he can see him.

“I couldn’t save you,” Buck says and the tears begin to fall. “I should have saved you.” 

“It’s not your fault.”

The words are said at the same time, once by Eddie and once by Daniel. 

Daniel wails the words, drowning out Eddie’s whisper in his own ears even though the whisper is all Buck can hear. 

“I’m your big brother!” Daniel sobs. “Me! I keep you safe! I protect you!”

Eddie shakes his head to keep the tears at bay. 

“What is he saying?” Buck demands, suddenly addressing Eddie. “Eddie, what is he saying? I need to know.”

“He’s —” Eddie clenches his eyes shut. “He says that he’s your big brother. He protects you, not the other way around.” 

“This isn’t fair!” Daniel screams, lurching off the couch. “I hate being dead! I hate it!”

“This isn’t fair,” Buck whispers. “He’s right here. He’s been here, and I didn’t even know it.” 

Eddie can’t stop the hiccup that escapes him. It’s not fair. There has to be something he can do. There must.

But Eddie doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know why it’s him that sees these ghosts. He doesn’t know why they stop appearing sometimes and sometimes they stay. He didn’t even know he could touch one until —

Eddie can touch ghosts. 

He sits up against the couch, suddenly opening his eyes to stare at Daniel.

Daniel stands in front of him, his frail chest heaving beneath his dinosaur pajamas. His eyes, so blue, are red-rimmed and they would look alive if not for the strange, sickly sheen over them. 

“Daniel, give me your hand,” Eddie reaches out with his left, and it trembles in the space between them.

“I don’t want to hold your hand!” Daniel screams, so shrill and young it hurts. “I want my brother!”

“I know,” Eddie says quickly. “But I want to try something. Please. Give me your hand.” 

Daniel watches him balefully before he smacks his hand into Eddie’s. 

Buck watches him with wide eyes that flit to his face to Eddie’s hand, that hovers in midair and is seemingly closed around nothing. “What are you doing?”

Eddie has no idea. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don't know anything about any of this. I just… I have an idea.” He reaches out with his other hand, this time towards Buck. “Can we just try?” 

Buck stares at his outstretched hand like it’s something alien. 

Part of Eddie feels guilty. If Buck were 100% healed, he would be halfway to China by now, running for the hills. Except he’s not, and he’s stuck on Eddie’s couch because Eddie drove him to his house for movie night and he can’t go anywhere like this.

“Please?” Eddie begs, his hand stretching further.

Eddie watches as Buck visibly gathers himself. His gaze travels to the spot where Daniel stands. 

Buck’s hand shoots out to clasp Eddie’s. 

And that’s it.

There is no bolt of lightning. No sudden white flash or strange mirage. Nothing to indicate that Eddie is doing something supernatural.

And then Buck sobs. 

Eddie’s gaze shoots up.

Buck’s shoulders have caved in on himself, looking for all the world like Eddie’s hand is the only thing holding him up. He stares, wide-eyed and disbelieving at Daniel, who trembles in place.

“Daniel?” Buck whispers the name, like saying it will spook whatever is allowing them to do this and his big brother will vanish without a trace.

“It’s me,” Daniel is nearly blubbering. Spittle, snot, and tears shine on Daniel’s face as he nods. 

Eddie wishes he could look away. He wishes he could allow them the privacy and dignity to reunite, but he is a purposeful intruder in something so precious. 

Buck’s face crumples, and Eddie wonders if he notices how alike they look like this. “You’re so beautiful. Daniel. You’re — you’re my brother.” 

Daniel lunges forward. He wrenches Eddie’s arm with him as he collapses against Buck. 

Against, not through.

He makes solid contact with Buck’s chest, and Buck doesn’t hesitate to wrap his other arm around Daniel’s waist. It wraps around his whole torso easily, dwarfing his sickly frame and Eddie has no doubt he is feeling the toll cancer has taken on Daniel’s body — the protruding ribs, the fragile vertebrae of his spine, the concave stomach that has stolen the childlike potbelly Daniel probably had at some point.

Buck ducks his head into Daniel’s hair, thin and straw-like, and sobs. “I’m sorry,” he cries. “I love you, I’m sorry.”

Eddie looks away. He twists his neck to provide some modicum of privacy, ignoring the way the motion pulls at his bad shoulder. This isn’t his moment. 

Buck squeezes the hand still holding Eddie’s, drawing him back to the Buckley brothers. 

“Thank you,” Buck squeezes his hand tighter. He’s still half buried in Daniel’s hair, like he can’t bear to pull himself away, but there seems to be an easy fix. 

In a movement so in sync, anyone else would think it practiced, the Buckleys drag Eddie into their hug.

It’s a little awkward, with all of them having to hold some point of contact, but Eddie finds his arms settling around both of their waists and his forehead dropping to Buck’s temple. 

“Thank you,” Buck says again, more emphatic now that the distance has closed. 

Daniel tips, more solidly on the couch now, until he’s bracing against both Eddie and Buck’s chests. He’s still being overwrought with sobs, which travel through to Eddie until he inexplicably begins to cry too. 

The tears stream down his face, hooking down his jawline to streak down his neck until they soak in his collar, and suddenly Eddie can’t stop. 

The three of them cry into their twisted little hug for however long it lasts. It could be hours for all Eddie notices. The sunlight could have started streaming through the windows to outshine the purple glow of the TV and he wouldn’t have cared. 

But Daniel is the first to pull away by some unspoken rule. Buck and Eddie would have stayed right there, contorted into their human pretzel for as long as it took for Daniel to feel secure enough to rise. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t a better brother,” Daniel says quietly. “I couldn’t protect you like a big brother should.”

Eddie’s heart breaks all over again.

“Hey, what are you talking about?” Buck’s voice is hoarse and ragged, but no less firm. “You’re an amazing big brother. You stayed with me the whole time. You were always there for me.”

No one mentions the way his voice wavers. 

Daniel shakes his head. “It didn’t matter. I’m dead.”

“I don’t care,” Buck refutes immediately. “You’re here now, and I love you.” 

Daniel sniffs hard. “I love you,” he echos, scuffing his socked feet against the couch.

“And I — I need to say something,” Buck continues. He seeks out Eddie’s gaze, and Eddie gives it readily. Of course he does.

Eddie nods in support and offers his hand a quick squeeze, though he doubts Buck really needs him. 

“I’m glad I know you,” Buck says, turning back to Daniel. “Life stole a lot from us, and I wish you could have had the life you deserved instead of following me around the whole time.” His voice trembles harder until it finally cracks. Buck brings one hand up to cup Daniel’s gaunt cheek. “I couldn’t have asked for a better brother to be with me, even when I didn’t know it.” Buck smiles ruefully. “I wish I could have saved you.” 

Daniel’s free hand, the one not still clutching at Eddie’s, grasps at Buck’s wrist. His fingers are almost comically small compared to Buck’s hands — man’s hands, a man who has gotten the opportunity to live and grow. 

“You didn’t have to save me,” Daniel says simply, and maybe it is simple when you’re eight. “You just have to love me.”

“I do,” Buck promises vehemently. “So much.” 

Daniel shrugs and offers him a watery smile. “Okay. I love you too.” 

Buck’s smile shakes before he pulls it back together. “Can you… can you stay?” 

“I don’t know.” Daniel looks down at his body, like he’s realizing something about it for the first time. “I think…” he looks at Eddie now. “I think I have to go soon.”

Eddie’s chest seizes. 

Go? 

No, he – he can’t. He has to stay. He and Buck just finally met. They’re brothers, they can’t be separated. 

Eddie can hold both of their hands for the rest of his life if he has to. They need to be together.

“I don’t — Daniel, what are you talking about?” Eddie rasps, fighting against the sudden cottonmouth. 

“I don’t know,” Daniel repeats. “I can just feel it. Like I feel it in my tummy.” 

Eddie shakes his head. He can’t. This isn’t fair! He can stay. Daniel can stay, he just has to —

“It’s okay,” Buck says gently. “Daniel, if you have to leave, you can leave. I understand.” He swipes his thumb, hand still cupping Daniel’s cheek, against the pale bruise beneath Daniel’s eye. 

“But I don’t want to leave,” Daniel whispers, tears welling back in his eyes. “I want to stay with you.” 

Buck tries to smile. It lasts on his face for maybe a second before it drops. “I want you to stay too, but I don’t think you can.” 

Daniel nods, like he was expecting this. “I’m gonna miss you, Buck.” 

“I’m gonna miss you too, Danny.” 

Daniel blinks in surprise. “No one’s ever called me that before.” 

Buck sniffs harshly. “I think I would have called you that. You would have been my Danny.” 

“I am your Danny,” he insists. “And you’re my Buck.”

Buck’s chest shudders and Eddie is not far behind.

Fuck.

Eddie blinks back the harsh stinging behind his eyes and ignores the way Buck’s hand is drenched in sweat against his. His palms are probably no better.

“I think I have to go now,” Daniel whispers.

“Okay.” Buck breathes in through his mouth, shaky and loud in the quiet living room. “I love you. You’re the best big brother. Please don’t forget that, wherever you’re going.”

Daniel nods. “I love you too.”

The two of them draw back in for a hug, Buck’s frame nearly enveloping Daniel whole.

Eddie catches Buck’s gaze from above Daniel’s head, and the acceptance in his eyes is all Eddie needs to understand.

Slowly, Eddie begins to retract his hands from both of their grips. He slides his fingers against both of theirs until he’s touching them just by the barest tips of his digits. 

“Bye Eddie,” Daniel’s voice is muffled against Buck’s chest. 

Eddie’s vision blurs until the two brothers become a fuzzy mass — one being. “Bye Bambi.”

He lets go.

~

Buck gets out of his cast not long after. He has one request to the doctor who saws through the plaster to remove it. 

“Can you take a picture first? Of the name on the back?” He hands her his phone, which she takes with a bit of confusion.

Eddie, along for the ride — literally since Buck still can’t drive himself —, feels his heart clench. 

To remove the cast, the doctor will have to take the saw and cut through the back of the cast, from the hamstring down. Right through the only evidence that Daniel Buckley was here. 

She dutifully takes the picture, and Buck holds Eddie’s hand, like it’s a whole new surgery and not a click of a button, while she does.

They leave with a whole new set of instructions and PT regimens, and one more photo in Buck’s camera roll.

“Can I see it?” Eddie asks after they’ve climbed into his truck. They’re both buckled and the engine is on, radio turned low to some generic rock station.

Buck pulls his phone out of his pocket and slides it across the center console to Eddie.

Eddie picks it up gently, like moving it too suddenly will erase the photo from existence. He puts in Buck’s passcode before pulling up his photo album. 

It’s a good picture. The fluorescent lights that usually wash out skin and over expose every pore has captured the two signatures nicely.

There is part of Eddie that feels selfish for enjoying the way that his name is visible. He was here too. He helped his best friend reconnect with some part of himself he didn’t even know he lost. 

That part of Eddie is drowned out by the sheer love he feels, both for Buck and for Daniel, at the sight of Daniels’ name scrawled into the outer bandage. 

Daniel Buckley was here.

Buck slips the phone out of Eddie’s hand and slips his hand into Eddie’s. They don’t speak for the rest of the drive to pick up Christopher from school, but Eddie doesn’t mind. With Buck’s palm against his own and their fingers tangled up together, Eddie feels like he can face the world. Or at least the 2pm pick-up line. 

For the rest of his life, Eddie does not see any more ghosts. The living are his concern now.