So I was rewatching the Eddie Gets Shot episodes (like one does late at night while catching up on admin) and ALSO thinking about Tommy’s comment that the 118 should have their own hospital wing, when my thoughts spiraled.
What if Tommy was on shift when the 133 called in Eddie getting shot? It was probably on an open emergency line, right? They identified him as “firefighter Eddie Diaz of the 118” over the radio on the way to the hospital. Hearing repeated and increasingly frantic “shots fired” and “firefighter needs help” over and over with gunshots in the background over the radio has to stick with a guy, you know? Plus, Eddie and the other firefighter who got shot were kinda infamous in LA first responder circles after that.
So when Chim introduces Buck and Eddie to Tommy before they fly off with Hen to rescue the cruise ship, that radio call echoes in his head so loud he can barely hear anything else. Oh. Eddie. Eddie Diaz of the 118.
Then he’s getting to know Eddie and hang out with Eddie and like Eddie. Of course he’d never ask, just like he’d never ask Eddie how he got his silver star. You don’t casually ask a guy to relive that kind of trauma. But it sits heavy in the back of his mind. This great guy he’s starting to be really good friends with was the firefighter that needed help.
And then he gets to hear Eddie talk about Evan and Christopher talk about Evan and he starts to truly understand the depth of Eddie and Evan’s connection.
Then he gets to spend more time with Evan and hear Evan talk about Eddie and that call over the radio rings through his mind again, because Evan. Dear god, if this is how closely these two are intertwined, what that day must have been like for Evan.
And then I got to thinking about Bobby radioing in a, “Mayday Mayday Mayday, this is Captain Nash of 118, we have a firefighter down …” and that probably made Buck a little infamous too but what if Tommy was also on shift for that and it doesn’t really hit him until the first time he sees Evan’s scar and everything clicks into place. That firefighter that got hit by lightening at the 118 was Evan and fuck that day must have been hell for Eddie.
But Tommy’s been over at Harbor for five years, right? So he might also remember the firefighter from 118 who got caught under that ladder truck because it was all over the news for a week. But it’s been a long time and the firefighter’s name kinda fell out of his head. He knows it was someone at the 118, but not anyone he’s familiar with. But Buck showed up to that first basketball game with compression sleeves and a brace on one of his legs and he made an offhand comment about an old leg injury acting up because of the rain the other night and fuck that was Evan too.
Basically, what I’m getting at and what I wanna ponder more is Tommy and these two inseparable, gorgeous, strong men he’s suddenly got in his life. And Evan, who he’s probably starting to love a little bit even though he’s wayyyyy too old to believe in silly things like that only a few months in. And Eddie. Eddie, who Evan would die for and Tommy who doesn’t have their history but might not hesitate to either. And how much pain they both have stored up in their bodies. How many times the world has tried to take them and probably will try to take them again and again. How radio sqwauks are a little more emotional for Tommy than they’ve ever, ever been in either the LAFD or the army.
Anyway this is what I’m gonna be chewing on.
