Oh well, this is awkward...

She has to deal with almost losing another partner, this one one of her late husband’s people who she’s come to learn over the past months carries so much guilt for not being there when Bobby died.

And now she has to be the one to tell the rest of Bobby’s people that she’s the reason one of them got hurt and she has to look Buck in the eye when they both realize that if Eddie had never left them he would’ve never been there to save Athena from getting shot, just like he wasn’t there to save Bobby.

She has to look Eddie in the eye later when he tells her over hospital bed pudding that there is no world in which he could’ve let her down again, and that’s when she finally understands that every second he’s spent beside her has been penance, that he thought if he kept her safe enough it might somehow make up for not being there the day Bobby died.

And she tells him she never blamed him for that, never once, and that he needs to stop acting like saving her was something he owed because he didn’t owe Bobby a miracle either.

But then he gets a basket from nashville and how is he supposed to say no when Athena tells him that this is what her husband wanted, and that no one needs to know he’s not a firefighter anymore.

So he goes and he has a great time on the other side of the country with his best friend and for one weekend it feels like nothing ever changed between them.

But then they get into a car crash and Eddie is a cop now, you see, even if only a rookie, so he knows immediately he’s not getting help from this sheriff who shows up with all the wrong assumptions and all the wrong questions.

And he goes and finds Buck on his own and holds a woman at gunpoint and gets held at gunpoint in return but he finds him, is the thing, because that old instinct is still there when it comes to having his particular man’s back.

And May is on a ride along with Hen because she’s thinking about getting her EMT certification after they all saw what a great help she was when the sky was falling, and Eddie looks at her and thinks she’s in good hands and so they’ll all be okay without him right? It’s better this way?

But then he finishes his shift and gets home and he can’t sleep because he’s used to firefighter shifts and this new kind of tired doesn’t knock him out the same way but it’s better this way, right? Because at least he gets to kiss his kid goodnight even if it comes with a fondly offended too old for this, dad.

So he lies there awake staring at the ceiling and usually he’d just call Buck but he doesn’t know if they’re on a call or if Buck is trying to catch whatever sleep he can between alarms so instead he just rolls over.

Celeste dos Cravos

An illustration commemorating the 50 years of the Carnation Revolution that took place in Portugal on the 25th of April of 1974, and the woman, Celeste Caeiro, who gave the revolution its name with a simple gesture :)

25 de Abril sempre! Fascismo nunca mais! ✊