#rambler rambles

Athena is finally clearing Bobby's stuff out of the closet in Harry's room. Sorting through his effects that had been removed from his locker and the office and odds and ends that's she's found and stuffed in that closet instead of dealing with the emotions of it all. But it's time.

So she waits for a day the kids are out, the 118 and co. are all occupied and not likely to call or stop by or anything. She pours a herself a large glass of wine to get herself through the day and gets started.

She's about halfway through the most of it. Piles of keep, donate, smaller piles of things to give to the kids and family and members of the firefam because she knows it's what Bobby would have wanted. She just added a couple of pictures of Bobby with a younger (smaller) Buck at what looks like a concert and she vaguely recalls something about Buck winning Springsteen concert tickets on some radio contest his probie year and dragging Bobby with him, when she finds the box. It's an odd size, between a shoebox and something one of those top-of-the-line smart phones Buck and the kids are always on about comes in. There's something in it that shifts as she picks it up and finds a bit of heft to it.

Her shoulders curl inwards and she can't choke back the sob that bubbles up when she opens the box and is met with an envelope with her name on it in Bobby's familiar hand. Her own hand is shaking as she picks it up and holds it to her chest, logically she had known it was odd that through the entire time she and the 118 had been mourning and she had planned the funeral and arrangements for Bobby's remains that no one had given her or anyone else Bobby's final letter.

Every first responder who spent time in the field had them. A letter that would be given to their chosen loved one should the worst happen while on duty. She and Bobby had only spoken of them once, he had told her that before the 118, before her, his had simply been a generic informal will not actually addressed to anyone specific. Just whoever found it. But when they started getting serious, he wrote a new one for her and simply rewrote updated versions every few months as their lives grew and evolved and they had so many good moments and held each other through so many tragedies. That was all he told her. He never told her where it was kept, what was in it or even what in their lives had him rewriting it to match the people they were now.

It's as she's finally getting control of her tears, no longer fighting the body-wracking sobs, that she notices there are other letters. Buck's is on top of course, only under her own. After his are the kids, then some members of the 118, Michael, some names she recognizes from Bobby's AA meetings. There are also some personal effects in the box. Bobby's rosary she had been looking for, cufflinks she knew he had inherited from his father, a handful of sobriety tokens, and some pictures.

She holds his rosary wrapped around one hand and the letter to her in the other as she starts to read. It had obviously been written only a week or so before the lab. It makes her cry all over again seeing Bobby express so much love for her and his life and thanking her for loving him and being his rock, keeping him afloat. There's more to it, more expressed and explained and reassurances that he never would have chosen to leave her. But she can only skim it, parsing out the most important parts. Him begging her to not lose herself in her loss of him like she had with Emmett, reminding her she has her kids and their family and so many people who need her and who are there for her in turn. A part of her is irritated but then ashamed, recognizing she did exactly that.

She finishes her glass then empties the rest of the bottle into it.

Then she sits, looking at the other letters. Bobby's final words to the people he loved and cared about. She knows it's wrong. But she has to know.

Buck's letter almost makes her cry harder than her own had.

In it he thanks the younger man for letting him be a dad again. For not listening all those years ago when Bobby told him the 118 wasn't a family. For being bright and stubborn and reminding him that was allowed to let himself live again. For convincing him to put himself out there again, ultimately giving him Athena. Thanks him for living, always living despite what the world threw at him, bombs and earthquakes and lightning and tsunamis. And he asks so sorrowfully, regretfully, for Buck to be that for Athena and May and Harry, even Michael. Tells Buck that however he died the rest of the 118 have each other, and they were all family, but Buck and Athena and the Grants were his Family. He might want to spread himself out far enough to lose himself in being useful, but Bobby needed him focused.

Needed Buck to step up for him one last time.

Her phone is dialing before she even registers she's pulled it out and opened the familiar contact.

Of course, Buck gets there fast enough to tell her he broke a number of road laws despite his promise to drive carefully and within the speed limit. He finds her still folded in on herself on the floor in Harry's room, the pages of the letter to him clenched in her still trembling hands. He brushes off her apologies when she shoves the letter into his hands, letting herself finally, truly fall apart for the first time since Bobby's death. He has one hand rubbing up and down her back as he reads. She can feel the way his breath stutters in his chest and his body tenses at the words on the pages. Eventually he puts down the tear-stained pages and falls into her the same as she fell into him and lets himself cry alongside her.

She's not sure how long they were there, crying on each other over the words of a dead man. Harry finds them a teary mess that had moved themselves to the kitchen. They had sorted out how to get the letters and items Bobby wanted to make sure were distributed made it to their intended destinations. Now they were still working through the occasional waterworks, sipping on some of Athena's good wine as Buck made dinner from the old family recipe book that Bobby had inherited parts of from both of his grandmothers before they passed. Now it belonged to Buck, every casserole and cookie recipe that Bobby never had the chance to teach him himself.

It's two weeks later, two weeks of pre-shift coffee meet-ups and joining the three kids for Bachelor Monday, and being dragged to farmer's markets and vendors fairs by Buck and May, and roped into cooking some recipe from Buck's new cookbook with him and Harry. two weeks later when Buck has the 118 and families over for a bbq and potluck like the ones Bobby and Athena used to host. But now it's Buck playing host and Eddie weaving in and out of his space, nudging him on to something else when he starts obsessing over a plate of food that's already perfect or poking at the perfectly smoking grill. She waits until everyone is full of good food and the contentment that comes with time well-spent with family.

She hands Chim his letter personally and makes sure to give him a firm hug before handing him off to Maddie. Hen and Karen accept Hen's with teary smiles and the rest of the members of the 118 who had managed to make it are equally solemn yet touched and happy that Bobby thought to leave them something. Buck is in charge of handing out the mementos Bobby assigned to people. Smiling bright through his teary eyes and sharing soft words with everyone left something as he digs their item out of the box the letters had been left in. Old sobriety tokens to firefighters he had helped avoid the same mistake he made at their ages. His rosary to Eddie who held it with an unexpected reverence and held the cross to his lips for a second before sharing a watery smile with Buck. Buck was already wearing a simple chain that she had always known Bobby to wear though even she wasn't sure what the significance was, the cufflinks safe in the house in their velvet-lined box.

There are more letters to distribute. More of Bobby's final goodwill to spread. More of his love and care that will live on for years to come. But for now, watching Buck standing tall and strong and steady in the middle of their big sprawling family, being a touchstone for them as they all rode the latest wave that tried to drown them and tear them apart, being the sort of man Bobby always strived to be, being a son he would have been proud of. For now, she'll let herself have this tie with her family, with the children she bore, and the son Bobby gave her without even realizing.

We're gonna stick w/ Family Video for now. They get hired but Keith only sparingly checks on them and they honestly only get a customer 3-4 times a shift so mostly they spend their time finding new ways to organize the recommended films and new arrivals and Robin educating Steve on important cinema.

They do not connect the dots that they are essentially being paid to fill space on an official payroll. But the kids do. The kids are basically the only consistent business they have on the weekdays and it's actually Mike who makes a quip about Steve being paid to stand around and Robin says something to the effect of "I know, right? So much better than Scoops. And the pay is better too!" And while Mike rolls his eyes, Dustin and Lucas are confused. If they don't actually do anything, and they're the main weekday employees, how does the business make any money?

Stobin shrug and go back to debating their next movie to put on the store's screen.

Cue The Party deciding to investigate. Initially they think that like the Russians and the lab under Hawkins Power and Light, this is something Upside Down related. It is in fact not. Just good old non-government related organized crime.

Good news: No monsters or human experimenting or world-ending physics breaking happening here!