17


*Trigger warning*
Chapter Seventeen: Here We Go Again

One more Big push come on Yes that's it! There was tearing running down her cheeks. She didn't want to be doing this, here of all places but there was a blizzard in Chicago and they were snowed in.

So here she was, giving birth in the middle of her apartment. With Gabby and Shay.

When she found out she kept it hidden from Taylor and everyone for as long as she could, until her stomach grew bigger eventually she told a select few and kept to herself after that.

Taylor wanted nothing to do with it, even if he did, he was nowhere to be found. Probably getting high god knows where.

She pushes one more time and the baby comes out, there wasn't any sound. And Luna was growing worried, Gabby takes the baby off to the side, she is using an aspirator to clear the airways, only it is working.

The baby is blue and with a blizzard happening there would be no way that an ambulance was coming.

They load up the car and race to med with hopes of getting that little baby to take a breath but it never happens, Luna cries and cries all while blaming herself.

She vowed to never do this to herself again, to Never be hurt like this again, if only it were that simple....

Eddie was pacing back and forth; he was about to burn a whole into the floor. Luna had left his house early to go into work; she didn't want to be late, not like she ever was. He was trying to calm himself trying to figure what he should say, how he should go about approaching this type of situation. Truth be told he was new to this whole dating thing.

And while it was fun to be in love it was also vulnerable and scary which was something He wasn't good at Showing, but somehow with Luna it was easier. To just be himself he didt care about crying or anything, he just cared about her and how she felt and he felt like he should take a bigger step, make a big move in their relationship. But he didnt know how to approach it, or how to go about it.

Maybe he would forget about it? Hold it off for as long as he could, he was already doing it that way anyhow. Maybe he could keep himself so busy with his work that he would have no other choice but to forget? If only he was careful what he wished for. The 118 arrives at the scene and Athena leads Bobby inside where Luna is waiting with the family.

"Made sense. But then I'm interviewing the mother, asking the usual questions, and I saw this. Photo came with the house." Athena holds up the photo. There in the photo is a man standing next to an old style car and a windmill in the background

" I didn't see a windmill when we pulled up." He says as Luna nods.

" Yeah, torn down years ago. It used to power a water pump." She explains.

" There's an abandoned well on the property."

It was now all hands on Deck Luna was standing with a crowd of Firefighters in front of her.

"The little boy is 4 years old and his name is Hayden. His mother says he was last seen by his sister. They were playing a game of Hide and Seek. The property is about 4 acres long so spread out and look for him."

Everyone was spread out shouting his name, and looking for him. Luna watches as she sees a small gate open, she squints her eyes at it, before walking up to it. She continues something was telling her to trust her gut to keep heading in this direction, she sees a small green toy lying there on the ground and picks it up, it was a an army tank, she smiles at the toy kneeling down to look at the dirt, she looks around at the yard, then closes her eyes remembering the picture Athena showed. Before opening her eyes and taking a step back, this was the exact spot where the windmill would've been.She moves forward seeing tiny footsteps and she knows now she is in the right place.

"Hey, guys! Over here!" she yells before trying to move things out of the way she was looking like a mad woman but she was following the footprints. Everyone runs over. " Hey, give me a hand!"

" Cap, think we found something." Chim runs over Eddie is already hot on everyone Trials, he runs over too, helping Luna move some old rusty things out of the way, there was a whole in the ground the size of a small child and Luna can feel it in her gut, that something isnt right that the child has to be in there.

" Hayden! Hayden, can you hear me?" She yells and now Athena was with Bobby watching the woman work.

"All right, we're gonna need a visual." Bobby says as Luna nods she doesn't want to leave. But she has to step out of the way.

//

"30 feet. 35 feet." Chimney and Buck were lowering down a tiny scope.

''How far down does this thing go?"

" We're at 40 feet, Cap. Only got 50 feet of cable." Chim says as Luna watches on the monitor with everyone else. She was nervous, but hopeful.

"Can a boy even survive a fall that far?"

"Well, the well's narrow, so there's lots of friction to slow a fall. But if he's really down there..."

"There. Right there." Eddie points as Luna doesnt take her eyes off the boy, he turns to look up.

"Hey, he's alive."

" Look at the way he's pinned. Arms forward, chest constricted, shallow breath."

"45 feet. At that depth, oxygen's an issue. Cap, we gotta get a line of compressed air down there ASAP." Chimney explains.

" All right..."

Before Bobby can finish Hayden's mom is running over. " You found him? Is he... Okay,"

" He's alive. He's alive."

" Oh, my baby." She sobs looking at the screen.

//

Athena and Luna were walking up to Bobby.

"Copy that, Dispatch." Athena says.

"You heading to another call?"

" Yeah. But I'm leaving some officers behind for crowd control. And Stardust here wants to See it through." She nods to the direction of where her partner was standing with a few officers.

" What crowd?" Bobby's question was soon answered when a few new vans rolled up.

" Word leaked out when they started calling around for a drill rig. These are just the local stations. If the story hits nationwide... "

Bobby shakes his head. "Like we don't have enough to worry about." thunder claps in the sky and everyone looks up at it. Luna finishes talking with the deputies before walking over to her boyfriend who was getting into his turn out gear.

" You gonna be okay?" Luna asks as he turns to look at her.

"Yeah it's just a little thunderstorm," Eddie shrugs, as Luna approaches him.

"That's not at all what I was talking about?" She places a hand on his shoulder. "You've been distant lately Edmundo is everything alright? You haven't been opening up to me as much anymore."

Eddie sighs, he knew why he was being so distant, it was him being stubborn, truthfully he loved Luna, and he wanted to take their love to the next step. But he felt anxious and scared, like maybe she wouldn't feel the same. "I promise once this case is done we will go back to my place and I will explain everything." he cups her face and as she nods. Before she can speak he is being called over.

Luna was explaining to the mother what was happening as they walk over to where everyone was set up.

" So I'll be able to talk to him?"

"Well, you might not be able to hear him but hopefully he'll hear you. Just let him know you're here and help is on the way." Hen explains as Chimney hands her the radio.

" Radio's at 40 feet, Cap."

" Okay, let's do this. Everybody off, all channels." Luna already clicks her radio off.

"Hayden? It's Mommy."

" Buck, raise the radio. There's no signal."

" Hayden, can you hear me? Hayden. Hayden, please! Please look up!" Hayden lifts his head up.

" Okay, he can hear us now, Buck"

" I know it's scary right now down there by yourself, but it's gonna be okay. They're coming to get you." Hayden is screaming but they can't hear any sound, "Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't do this." Luna consoles the mother. She's crying and Luna feels herself wanting to cry too, wanting to sob so hard until her heart stops aching but it won't do her any good.

" I got this. Hey, Hayden. My name is Eddie. I'm a firefighter. I'm here with your mother and a whole lot of other people. We're all working to get you out of there. Just stay calm, Hayden, okay? It might get a little noisy. Don't be scared. We'll be there soon." Eddie places the radio down.

" Thank you."

" Thank us later. When we give you back your son."

Luna is taking reports from the other officers about the length of the crowd and the Weather. Her raincoat wasn't holding up with this weather and she wanted nothing more than to be home with her boys snuggled up into their sides and content, happy even, with hot cocoa and a movie. She loved Chris and Eddie more than anything in the world, they had been dating for so long that it felt like they were married but two and a half years does that to you. She makes back over to where the 118 was and she gets word from Buck that Eddie is going down into the tunnel.

She shakes her head at him. "You really don't want to finish that talk?"

Eddie refrains from laughing, he tightens the jumpsuit on his chest. "I will make it back in time to finish our talk."

"I'm holding you too, Edmundo. Because I need you. " she looks him in his eyes and for a split second he feels his heart melt. He loved her so fucking much.

"What do you mean?" Luna ran a hand over her face, she was tired and the bags under her eyes were noticeable. "It's a headstone, Look I am not asking for much, if you could just..." her voice was filled with anger, this was the third person she called and this was the third No she was getting.

She hangs up the phone and tosses it across the room, hating herself more by the minute. It had been three weeks, three weeks since she had given birth, it was a stillbirth, something she didn't even know existed, basically when she was delivering the baby had lost a lot of oxygen during that time and died. She waited too long to push, she was scared to deliver her own baby by herself.

Look at what it cost her, she hated herself from the moment she got the news til the moment she had to bury her own child. She blamed herself over and over again, whose fault it was to begin with. If only she didn't listen to Taylor, maybe she wouldnt be worried about a baby or unwanted pregnancy.

She could be just having a regular day at work. It wasn't a regular day, she was losing herself bit by bit, piece by piece, she was losing her sparkle and nothing was going to bring that back. Gabby and Shay watch as she cries to herself, covering her mouth to silence her sobs, they were witnessing their bestfriend lose herself. Shay decides to walk into her office, she hugs her feeling Luna's body shake.

This was the hardest thing she had ever gone through and she was so thankful that her friends were there. Gabby walks up too hugging her, now she was squished between her two best friends and they definitely weren't moving til she stopped crying.

"Please don't do anything Stupid Kells will kill me."

Gabby and Luna both laugh as Shay smiles, feeling proud of the fact that she made her feel a bit better.

"Yeah, plus I need you, I don't think Kelly and I would survive on Ramen noodles for long." Luna laughs again,

"I need you too, who else is gonna Annoy Les with me?" Gabby says as Luna lifts her up to look at her friends.

"I am not going anywhere. I promise." they hug her tighter. "I need you guys." she just sighs feeling herself cry more they just hug her again.

//

"Okay, we're gonna lose comms, so here's the plan. You have 30 minutes to dig yourself across, not one minute more. After 30 minutes, you're gonna feel two strong tugs on your line, then we're pulling you out. Same goes for you. You find that boy first, you tug on that line twice."

" Let's bring him home."

" Okay. 30 minutes. See you then."

Luna runs up quickly. "Hey Edmundo? I'll be waiting." she says as he nods. He starts getting lowered down, Luna wanted to stay and watch but she had to finish working with the other officers. The crowd control was getting out of hand and you would think the storm would stop them but it wasn't. She returned back to the group only to hear that Eddie cut his line.

"What do you mean he cut his line? Like with a knife?"

"He cut his line by himself with a knife." Chim sasses as Luna looks at him.

"I don't need sass, Not with...Eddie...my Eddie in a tunnel, that could possibly collapse on him and kill him....He could die. Oh my god." Luna was panicking and everyone at the 118 was looking at each other, they had never seen her this way, not at all. No one but close family, friends and Eddie had seen her this way.

"You're an ass Kells."

"That's usually not what I hear from women about my ass but...." Luna rolls her eyes as Mouch and Otis are chuckling alongside Mills and a few others, Casey shakes his head chuckling. They were sitting around playing Cards When Luna walked up it was almost the end of the shift, Luna was cleaning a few things on the ambulance.

Luna, holds up a bag. "Stop leaving fake bugs in the draws of the rig, it's not funny."

Everyone is hunched over at this point, Mouch is out of breath while Otis and Herman are laughing just as Hard, Peter chuckles alongside Casey. Luna growls and throws the bag at Kelly causing the group to burst into more fits of laughter. This was just how their relationship was parking each other every chance they got.

They were literally like brother and sister, ever since Kelly met her actual brother and sister and they fell in love with him, Luna's family wanted nothing more than for them to date. She shut that idea down quickly. After explaining that she only valued him as a friend. Derek never believed her but she didnt care she knew the truth.

Kelly always vowed to keep Luna safe, come hell or high water, is what he would say. He loved Luna more than she knew, and sure their jobs were dangerous, but if they were going to die, they would do it together.

She just shakes her head and continues working as the night grows longer and the shift finally ends. Everyone was slowly piling out of the firehouse. Luna was turning off the lights, she was walking towards her car when she stopped seeing Taylor leaning up against it. she sighs, pulling her keys out of her purse.

She says nothing, walking over to unlock the door. He just watches her.

"LuLu, Baby...I missed you. It's been forever since we talked."

Luna shakes her head before making eye contact with him. "What the hell do you want Taylor?"

"A second chance, I want to prove to you that I can do this, I am willing to do whatever it takes to love you."

"You lost a second chance when you decided to stop returning my calls and when your mom sent one of your lawyers by my house threatening to sue me or worse if I didn't leave my own house that I bought, to you...yeah you can take that second chance and shove it up your ass. Get off my car." She shoves him off and opens the door, getting inside and immediately locking the door.

The minute she gets home she walks inside. Shay and Kelly were laughing at a movie on the couch. She closes the door slamming it as loud as she could, all these emotions are flooding around in her brain and her two best friends/ roommates just look at her from the couch.

She had moved back in just a little bit after Taylor forced her out of her own house and a few weeks after the baby died. She hated herself still but not as much as she did before. She says nothing, the look on her face was saying it all. Shay pauses the movie and they watch as she stands there contemplating life.

She says nothing, looking at them, she just starts laughing, hard, over and over again, she couldn't believe that she stood up to him that everything for once in her life seemed like it would be a little bit different. Then it was now.

//

Luna watched as Chimney emerges with Hayden in his arms, his mother was relieved,

"Oh, Hayden. Here you go." He hands Hayden to his mom.

" Let me get you two somewhere quiet. I need to check him out." Hen says as Luna nods to a deputy to escort the trio. The crowd of onlookers were clapping and cheering as Buck and Bobby were helping Chimney stand all the way up,

"All right. Eddie's fine. He just needs a ride." Chim says as Luna's heart settles she lets out a sigh.

" All right. I need to drop another 50 foot line to get my guy. Buck, let's pull Eddie up and let's all go home." Bobby was relieved just as much as Buck was, the thunder claps lousy and everyone looks up at the sky, before the light above them bursts, Buck is tackling Bobby out of the way and everything is happening quickly, the hole where Eddie once was is now covered in mud.

" Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! No! Eddie! Eddie! No! No! Eddie!" Buck was clawing at the dirt and Luna finally came too having been tackled by another firefighter. She feels herself losing all control, the calm she just had was not interrupted.

Luna had to coordinate evacuations for everyone else, the storm was causing too much trouble she had managed to get most of the news reporters to leave before she decided to walk up the house to figure out what their plan was for this entire thing, she hoped they were not giving up on him that quickly.

"How long can he last down there?" She arrives just as Buck asks.

"We're talking 30 feet of wet earth coming right down on top of him."

Luna looks around at everyones expressions, she was smart enough to read the room. "Wait, you all think he's dead."

" Nobody thinks that." Bobby assures her and Buck the two of them combined were very over protective of Eddie. They loved him and if it would take the both of them, they would get Eddie out themselves, without anyone else.

"We just don't know how to get him out." Chimney continues.

"Nobody's giving up on him." Hen shakes her head. " Nobody. We're gonna find him."

Luna felt this moment, way too much she felt the exact moment when they pronounced Shay dead or when they spoke at her funeral. She hated this feeling. It haunted her truly.

Meanwhile Eddie was swimming, the oxygen he had left was finished. It beeped and he tossed it to the side with a glow stick in his hand he was trying to find someway out, but without the proper oxygen there wasn't really much he could do. His eyes slowly close and he sees his life flashing before him.

"Whoa, you got a kid?"

" Christopher." Eddie shows a picture of Christopher to Buck.

"That's super adorable. I love kids."

"I love this one." He looks back at the picture shaking his head.

Christopher is holding his helmet in his hands as he walks up to his dad, Eddie scoops him up into his arms as everyone claps and cheers. " Welcome to the Los Angeles Fire Department, Firefighter Diaz."

Eddie is laughing at a joke that Christopher told the crew, it was the day he didnt have a babysitter so he brought Christpher to work with him.

"What I miss most after leaving the army is the camaraderie. Working shoulder to shoulder with a great team. There's nothing better than the one I found here. Well, that's what the 118 is. The family we chose."

The alarm clock wakes Eddie up from his dream, he hits snooze on his alarm before turning over, there next to him is the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, she was just laying there the blankets barely covering her, hair sprawled out all around her, it in a mess of kinks and curls, the sun was beaming down at the perfect angle, not bright enough to wake her, it shown on her ebony skin, making it glisten. Her beauty was so outrageous it seemed foreign. He watches as her chest rises and falls, the lace of her underwear peeking up under the shirt she was wearing, the sheets covering her the rest of the way. It was cold enough for the comforter. Christopher was snuggled up into her side and he laughs at how loud that kid snored for such a tiny person

He watches in awe as she turns over, her face now facing him, she is sleeping peacefully unbothered and for a moment, he feels the bliss, the sweet beautiful bliss of his entire life. Everything he needed was right there in front of him, she had her arm sound over his head while he held onto her waist. Eddie so desperately wanted to snap a photo. But he was too busy savoring this moment. This perfect moment that was happening right in front of him.

"I know that all of this may seem so weird. but we still got each other. We're gonna be okay."

" You're not like any other kid. You're my kid."

" Eddie, Christopher needs you." Luna's voice was Echoing in his head.

"Come back to me Edmundo."

In that second Eddie wakes up. He keeps fighting, he keeps swimming further and further until he sees a light and he swims towards it.

"I'm always gonna fight to come home to my family."

He reaches the end of the light gasping as he feels the air cycling through his lungs. He throws his helmet off and takes off swimming towards the grassy area.

//

"Okay, listen up. Buck here is gonna get some thermal cams. We are going to fan out and do a grid search. Chimney is gonna have oxygen tanks and warming blankets standing by. I wanna start at the well and go outward in concentric circles." Luna was trying her best not to lose her mind, but that was her Eddie down there.

" LAPD copters are on the way. We'll use their thermal imaging to scan this wider area. Try to pick up Diaz's heat signature." Everyone was listening and taking notes.

" Won't be easy" Luna snaps her head in the direction "Eddie?"

"Eddie!" they all look Seeing Eddie stumbling through the crowd.

" I'm pretty cold." Eddie continues as everyone runs up to him.

" Eddie!" she cups his face as everyone else was helping him stay up.

" Hey. Hey. Get him up, Buck. Come on, Eddie."

" Hey, hey, hey. Let's get you checked out, buddy. So we can get you home." Hen says as Luna is sighing in relief.

" Yeah. I got a big date on Friday. I can't miss it. " he nods before they scoop him up. "Plus I still need to have that talk with my girlfriend." He says as everyone laughs.

They get him checked out and cleaned up and all the couple does when they get home is sleep, for what feels like years but only a day. He had the rest of the week off so he could speak at Christopher's Show and Tell which was happening today. Luna stood in the back next to Carla who was recording.

"And that is why the silver star is one of the highest honors a member of the Armed Forces can receive." Thank you." everyone claps for Christoper.

" Good job, buddy." Eddie smiles down at him.

"Now tell 'em how you got it." Christopher says as Eddie looks to him than to everyone around the room.

" I was in a helicopter... helping a wounded soldier get back home. And there was an accident. Helicopter went down, ended up on fire..."

" Dad got everyone out. He saved them all." Christopher eagerly interrupts him.

" I did my job. I did my job." A child eagerly puts their hand up. "Yeah?"

" Do you ever wear it?"

" I'm not really a jewelry kind of guy. Except for this." Eddie pulls a necklace from his pocket. " My St. Christopher medal."

"So that's your good luck charm?" Another kid asks.

" No. He is." Eddie looks down at Christopher who is smiling as the class claps one more time just as the bell rings, the kids quickly scatter out excited for the weekend. Night has fallen before long and Eddie asks Carla to get Christpher ready for bed. While he goes and talks with Luna; they never get that talk.

"Edmundo?" She seems surprised to see him at the door before she can even ask, he's cupping her face kissing her at first she's tense but then she is relaxed practically melting under his touch.

"I Lied when I said that only Christopher was my good luck charm....So are you." he smiles at her as she smiles back. " I am sorry I have been so distant....I didn't know how to say this or I am just gonna go for it. I want to wake up next to you everyday and see you when I get home and watch you sleep and....Will you move in with me?"




Word count: 4500


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