Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bobby wanted to die for much of his life. Even before everything that happened in Lakeview and with his first family, there were moments when Bobby looked at his life and decided it wasn’t worth continuing to live it.

But he failed in all the attempts that came from those moments. Bobby lived despite anything he tried, and eventually, he simply decided he wasn’t allowed to die.

That was when he received that notebook, when he read the proposition “for all the people we hurt” and realized he had probably failed because he had to pay a penance before being free to cross to the other side.

Since then, his life had been about that—it was about paying for what he caused so he could leave, about helping everyone he could the way he should have done before. It was all about others and never about him.

Bobby liked it. Being himself had been oppressive for so long and had caused most of the problems in his adult life. So his new lifestyle, where nothing about him mattered, was a relief after a day in the sun.

They were good years as he guided the 118 through the dangerous careers of firefighting and built a solid foundation for all of them. Bobby didn’t create the team’s family dynamic for himself, but so everyone would have a line to lean on when everything ended.

Marriage wasn’t in his plans, but Bobby had heard a lot in church and in childhood that he was a selfish being when he wanted to be, so how could he stop himself from seeking at least a glimpse of happiness during the time of penance?

Although Bobby was sure the church and the priests said those things in a much less malicious and judgmental way than his mother ever would.

So he built a life with Athena and aligned it with the 118, because then they would have each other if he failed—when he failed—because Bobby never really stopped doing that. The pattern was just taking longer to repeat.

His two stepchildren were a breath of fresh air, a comfort amid the pain of his loss of his children with Marcy, but also a source of pain for the same reason. Every day, they reminded him of what could have been if Bobby hadn’t been so broken and flawed as he was—as he is.

So the years passed, and amid his official mission, feelings began to arise that Bobby never thought he’d have again after everything.

Suddenly, Bobby didn’t want to follow his plan anymore. He kept track of how many lives he’d saved, though, because he needed to know. He loved his wife and their new life together, loved the 118 and every one of its members.

Bobby realized he loved life now. He loved living in it and wanted to stay.

How ironic it was when his time ran out. Of course, Bobby knew that was usually what waited for people like him—those who spent their lives trying to have something they didn’t, only to stop and realize they already had everything they needed right beside them, but wouldn’t have time to enjoy any of it.

Bobby knew it was a dangerous mission when he took it on with his team, but he didn’t imagine how terribly wrong it would go.

How they got trapped inside with a deadly virus after an explosion, how Chimney got infected and they had to watch him nearly die without being able to do anything to help, how he had to perform an emergency surgery on Hen without being qualified for it because there was no other option—she would die if she wasn’t operated on.

He had to watch Ravi stop breathing and then come back, having to decide to pass oxygen to the boy from others. That could cost more lives in the long run, but it would cost one life right then if it wasn’t done.

Bobby heard the desperation in Buck and Athena’s voices in every transmission over the radio, or Maddie’s barely contained sobs as she watched herself about to lose the husband and father of her daughter, the father of the baby still in her belly.

He saw all of that while feeling it harder and harder to breathe. Bobby ignored everything he could because it wasn’t about him—it was about the others—because if anyone knew about him, they’d be torn.

They hadn’t received the news yet at the time, about there being only one antidote, but Bobby was still grateful for keeping silent because he couldn’t deal with a debate over who would get the dose.

He didn’t feel guilty when he injected the antidote that would save his own life into Chimney’s arm without a second thought. Not when he accepted that this would happen and that Bobby wouldn’t be selfish in the last action he could take for his team.

They would be okay—Bobby knew that every time he looked at his strong and united team, at his incredible and absolutely powerful wife. So he stepped back and kept his pain to himself while everyone else was taken out of the lab to be treated by specialists.

It still hurt deeply, what could’ve been, as he watched their backs walking away while Bobby stayed inside that glass room.

He stopped at the door, his hand a few centimeters from the button that would lock the doors with the security bars. Shouts calling his name came just in time for him to see Buck appear.

The sight of Buck’s reasonably relieved and intact expression gave him the strength to hit the button and lock himself inside, even when both emotions faded from Buck’s face to reveal raw confusion and fear.

When Buck pounded on the glass and frantically shouted for him to open the door because they were leaving, Bobby couldn’t bring himself to speak like a coward.

Then he pulled off the mask, Buck’s increasingly hysterical screams begging him to stop, commanding him even though he wasn’t the only one with authority between them—and Bobby almost smiled because Buck would be a great captain, and he regretted not being there to see it.

The mask came off, and the oxygen too. He dropped them to the floor, looking at Buck’s horrified realization. He knew there was blood in his nose, and the taste of blood in his mouth told Bobby it wouldn’t be long before it started coming from there too.

His body was also beginning to ache and pulse too strongly to ignore. Bobby knew there wasn’t much time left.

Saying goodbye to Buck hurt more than anything he had ever done. Doing the same with Athena nearly killed him alone, and once again, Bobby mourned the fate of things. It hurt to see the pain in her face as he showed her the cannula from the equipment that broke during the explosion and caused his contamination.

He didn’t lie to Athena. He didn’t choose to leave her. He didn’t choose to leave any of them, because Bobby, for the first time in his life, wanted to stay alive with them—but he couldn’t choose himself over his team.

Because he had been selfish for too long in his life and wouldn’t allow himself to be at the end of it. Because Bobby loved them all and couldn’t watch them die just because he wanted to save himself.

Then the coughing started, and Bobby could barely stay standing, blood splattering and staining the glass between him and his wife—the one who refused to leave him in his final moments even if she couldn’t be exactly by his side.

He wavered, closing his eyes, sending a silent plea that at least she wouldn’t see every detail of what was about to happen. Then he smiled at his wife and stepped away from the glass, stumbling with an unsteady balance to the table at the center of the room—the same one he had used to support Chim to administer the antidote, the one he operated Hen on—to kneel and pray.

Bobby felt he should ask for something for himself, but he didn’t, because there was no amount of prayer that could make up for what he’d already done in life. If he was there, then it was because it had to be that way. So he prayed for his team, for all of them to recover well from that day, to be comforted from whatever pain his death might bring them.

Then, because Bobby couldn’t resist, he asked for a peaceful passing. He would pay what he needed to on the other side, but he wanted to go in peace.

He prayed for every soul he had taken that night and then for every soul he had saved trying to atone for what he had done—for reasons as selfish as the seconds he had harmed—because he had been seeking his own forgiveness while doing it. He didn’t realize how much of it was about him and not about the others.

He saved those lives because he could, because it was his job, but also because he wanted to save his own soul in the judgment of God.

Then he blinked, his vision flickering precariously as the edges grew blacker and more blurred. The list of names he had written replayed in his mind in shock.

148 names. He hadn’t even realized he’d reached the 148th name on his list, that Chim was the last name. That meant his penance was complete.

That explained some things. His body slumped forward, from emotional exhaustion and from the weakness spreading through all his muscles. He had paid what kept him there, and now God was taking him, because this should have happened a long time ago.

That should have made him feel better—but it didn’t. It only made him feel defeated as his body slid backward and collapsed on the floor, unable to move.

It didn’t make him feel better as he heard Athena sobbing on the other side of the glass, or when his radio blared with the crying and shouting from the 118.

His vision went black suddenly. The pain that had accompanied every breath disappeared just as the sobs and shouts became inaudible to him.

Not because they weren’t happening, but because Bobby could no longer hear them. He had never died before, but it was very clear what was happening now.

At least it was a peaceful passing—there was no deep agony from the inability to breathe like he had thought there would be. The pain, though sharp, wasn’t extreme enough to be the only thing his body registered, and as painful as it could be, Bobby had his family with him in some way.

With Athena on the glass, with Buck in the hallway—because Bobby knew that despite his instructions, the boy hadn’t left the lab until Athena was with him—with Hen, Chim, and Ravi somewhere safe but still with him in their thoughts, their feelings, and over the radio.

So despite his conflicting emotions, Bobby allowed himself to relax and surrender to what should be the end of his time among the living.

What came next was as uncertain as everything else. Bobby felt he was heading toward an atrocious stay in hell where he would probably relive all his sins until he was deemed forgiven for them.

It was probably what he deserved, but the reality was a bit calmer and more welcoming than he had imagined it would be.

Bobby found himself back in his apartment in Minnesota, the familiar door firmly closed in front of him as it had been that night of the fire. But there were no flames in sight, no chaos or despair happening in the hallways—just people walking past and looking at him with soft, gentle expressions.

He remembered them, those faces that had haunted him every day after the fire—either in dreams or waking memories—the victims of the fire he had caused.

Bobby looked at them in shock. They couldn’t know who he was if they were really looking at him with something other than anger and contempt. He should tell them.

“They know who you are. You haven’t changed that much, Chief Nash,” a soft voice—though certainly a little playful—sounded behind him, one Bobby would recognize at any point in his life, and it made him shudder as more guilt coiled in his stomach.

Bobby turned, unsure if he was ready to see what he would find when he looked at the person behind him—not because of how she looked, but because of how it would make him feel.

He wasn’t ready for either. The last memory Bobby had of Marcy was of her body and face burned from the hospital fire, just before the cardiac arrest that cost her life. But this Marcy was how he remembered her before all that.

Abundant blonde hair framing a soft, oval face. Clear, unblemished skin. Gentle blue eyes glowing with playful mischief. It was Marcy—of course it was, he recognized her voice, Bobby remembered—but not the wife he had killed through his failures. She was the woman he had loved and disappointed countless times.

There were no visible injuries, which shouldn’t have shocked him. They were dead, after all, and Bobby didn’t believe his merciful God would bring them here carrying the physical marks of their traumas—well, not anyone who didn’t deserve it. But it still shocked him, and brought sudden tears to his eyes.

Her calm gaze was the second thing he registered. No anger, no judgment, no disappointment—just calm and a touch of tenderness that Bobby was almost certain he didn’t deserve.

“You weren’t supposed to be here yet, but you were always in a rush, weren’t you?” Marcy joked as she passed by him. Their arms brushed briefly, and Bobby felt his whole body tremble. “Come on, Bobby, go inside the apartment—even if it’s not your home anymore,” she called, opening the door and stepping aside so he could pass.

Bobby shrank, feeling the weight of sorrow that didn’t exist in her voice. She should feel that way—because Bobby shouldn’t have had a second home. That one should have been enough for him, and it wasn’t.

“I didn’t mean to…” he tried, but Marcy shook her head with amusement.

“Of course not. You never could have gone through with it if you were really trying. But there are things that have to happen, and that house was one of them,” Marcy said softly, gesturing once again to the door. Bobby looked at the familiar living room once more.

The TV was on, and it was apparently night already. Did that exist in the afterlife? It looked just like the last time Bobby came home before the fire, and the memory made him hesitant to step inside.

But Marcy was still waiting—growing more impatient by the second—and Bobby remembered that she was never very patient. So he pushed the feeling aside, glanced one last time at the passersby, and entered the apartment.

He still heard someone whisper to Marcy as she followed him in, “Make him understand.” Then the door closed, and Bobby was trapped in the house he destroyed with the woman he loved and killed.

“You didn’t kill me, Bobby. The fire did,” Marcy said, as if she could read his mind. Could she? Or was Bobby just no longer good at hiding how he felt?

There was a time in his life when Bobby was good at hiding things from Marcy, and that had been a blessing—one that allowed him to sustain a life of addiction and distance. Obviously, that had changed now, and Bobby felt surprisingly more at peace because of it. Knowing he couldn’t lie to Marcy even if he tried made a little of the guilt unravel in his stomach—because lies had always come more easily to him than the truth, and Bobby was tired of them.

“A fire I started. Because I was too drunk to remember the heater. I forgot about you—about all of you.” Memories of his children rushed into his mind, and he staggered back against the wall. The weight of what he had done to them had never been light, nor had it disappeared with the passing years, but few moments had made it heavier than now.

“You didn’t forget us, Bobby. Not for even a second,” Marcy continued resolutely, meeting his eyes with calm, unwavering blue. “You came to us. The first thing that came to your mind that night was me and the kids, so no—you didn’t forget us. But you did forget yourself,” she said. Bobby watched her move to sit on the couch in the living room—the same one she slept on the night of the fire while waiting for him to come home as he drowned himself in whiskey and painkillers.

Marcy sat and then gestured to the armchair across from her. It wasn’t a request, even though her expression was entirely serene. Bobby didn’t have much choice but to sit—considerably more uneasy than the woman in front of him.

A deep sense of displacement hit him as he squirmed in his seat, searching for a comfortable position. Bobby probably wouldn’t find one—after all, this wasn’t his home, and the armchair was far more uncomfortable than any of the ones he and Athena had in their houses—while Marcy stared at him in stony silence, not moving a single muscle.

She was comfortable there. Bobby wanted to run away.

“I know who I am,” Bobby insisted at last, giving up on finding a better position and settling into the least uncomfortable one he could. He crossed his legs at the ankles and rested his elbows on his knees, lifting his head to look at Marcy. Recognition flickered in her eyes.

He had always used that posture when he was uncomfortable or unhappy with something. Bobby could usually launch himself from it and leave faster from wherever he was.

“The door’s locked,” Marcy mentioned casually. Bobby hadn’t heard her lock it, nor had he seen a key anywhere—did that matter? “You’re here because you ran away from who you are, Bobby. You can’t do that here,” she advised gently.

Of course he couldn’t. Where would he go? He was dead—and if this was his penance, then it was his to accept.

That didn’t make it any more comfortable.

“I know who I am,” he repeated, determined to hold on to that as his truth. Marcy just looked at him in silence, giving him time as if she already knew exactly where this would lead.

The silence stretched, and Bobby felt it in every cell of his body as the restlessness crept back in with even greater intensity. He knew where Marcy thought this would go—with him admitting that, yes, he no longer had any idea who he was.

It might be true. Bobby knew who he tried to be every day: a leader, a captain, a husband, a father. And he knew who he tried not to be anymore—not ever again.

A killer. An addicted alcoholic who cost his family their lives.

But Bobby didn’t know if he truly was any of those things—how could he? All he could really see was what used to be.

So he accepted that this was what he had been and would always be, because it was all he knew how to be. The logic hadn’t changed just because of some strange thought Marcy had in that moment. Bobby was still the sinner he had been in life, merely enduring some unknown trial.

Marcy sighed, her brow furrowing slightly in frustration—for the first time, her serene face showing an emotion other than calm. Ironic that it was that which made Bobby finally quiet down, because frustration, he knew how to deal with.

He was a master at it, because it was as familiar to him as breathing. Bobby had always been great at frustrating people, so he took comfort in the fact that some trace of that part of him still remained.

What would come next was obvious: Marcy would call him stubborn and then list everything that made it true. She’d say he couldn’t keep acting this way and that she was trying to be patient, but he was making everything harder.

It was what he always heard after another bout of stubbornness. Instead, Marcy simply returned to her usual calm and leaned back on the couch, offering a playful smile.

"You’ve changed since the fire, Bobby. And I don’t just mean you stopped drinking—though I am proud of you for that," Marcy said slowly. Bobby frowned deeply, unhappy—why couldn’t she just stick to what was supposed to happen next? "I mean you looked happier. Happier than you ever were with me." It was a statement, plain and certain.

Bobby threw himself back as if he had been shot, his back slamming into the armchair and knocking the air out of his lungs in one burst.

Pain exploded in his chest as tears once again welled up in his eyes, but Bobby shoved them back with even more oppressive force.

He had been happy—Bobby knew he’d been happy in the days he had the 118 and Athena with him. He was happy with every silly moment and every challenge because he had them . But how could he forget?

How could Bobby dare forget what he had done? How could he allow himself anything good after what he had caused?

The guilt suffocated him all over again as Marcy blinked at him patiently.

"I’m sorry…" Bobby didn’t know what to say next, so he stopped. He didn’t know whether he was apologizing again for the fire, for having been happy, or for thinking he deserved anything but death in that lab.

"Happiness is human, Bobby. You deserved that," Marcy pointed out gently, using the same tone Bobby remembered her using with the kids when they were being stubborn and rebellious. "You deserved every second you spent trying to make up for an accident that wasn’t even yours to own," she said. Bobby squirmed, a seed of frustration beginning to grow in his stomach, directed toward Marcy.

"But it was mine," he insisted, furious, and Marcy shook her head. "I left the heater on, and the fire started because of that. It spread through the building—"

She never let him finish.

"Because it was horrifically inadequate," Marcy said as if it were simple—as if it were a universal fact Bobby was ignoring out of sheer stubbornness. Maybe he was. "The building materials were far too flammable to have ever been acceptable, even at the time it was built. The sprinklers didn’t work properly because they hadn’t been maintained for over a year. The apartment layout only made it easier for more people to be affected in less time," she listed calmly. Bobby scoffed, though he recognized all of those facts as true.

He knew. He’d read the report so many times, of course Bobby knew every sordid detail about the building’s structure and how they contributed to the fire’s devastation. After all, those details were what saved his firefighting career—what kept him and his drunk ass from ending up in a cell for the rest of his life.

"None of that would’ve mattered if I hadn’t started the spark in the first place. There wouldn’t have been a fire if I hadn’t drunk so much that night," he insisted, and Marcy tilted her head with a slight shrug.

"Then a fire could’ve started another day, for another reason. A day when no rescue units were available because of other emergencies, and more people could’ve died. A day when you were on duty and suddenly got a call saying we were dead—and you couldn’t do anything about it. Would that have made a difference for you? Would it hurt any less?" Marcy asked, head tilted.

No, it wouldn’t. But then Bobby wouldn’t be carrying the guilt for 145 other people. He’d only have to grieve for three. Marcy gave him a wry smile, leaning forward until her forearms rested on her knees in quiet consideration.

"You would still blame yourself for them—even if you hadn’t caused the fire, Bobby. Admit it. You’re a firefighter in every sense of the word. It’s part of who you are. And I know that even when it’s not your fault, you absorb the guilt for deaths you couldn’t possibly have prevented," Marcy pointed out softly. Bobby hated that she was right.

He probably would have ignored whoever had caused the fire in that situation. Instead, he’d have looked at the building’s structure and tortured himself for not realizing how screwed up it was.

Bobby would’ve taken that blame anyway—because he was too drunk to perform his role as fire captain and see past the flaws.

But what had really changed about what happened? Bobby still hadn’t realized any of that on his own.

"There’s a difference between turning a blind eye and not noticing, Bobby. Only one of them is a reason to feel guilty for," Marcy corrected firmly. She obviously wasn’t allowing any arguments on that point. "Ignoring a truth comes from selfishness, from indifference to the risks and the consequences of doing so—that’s unforgivable. But not noticing is nothing more than a mistake. A perfectly human one. You were human, Bobby. You were spread too thin, and you started to falter," Marcy said softly.

That wasn’t true. Bobby couldn’t believe that—because he should have been able to endure whatever came his way.

He had done it in Los Angeles. As good as his years in the city were, none of them were entirely easy or even remotely light to get through. In fact, Bobby couldn’t remember facing nearly as many dangers in St. Paul as he had with the 118.

And yet, despite all the hardships, Bobby had carried their weight—and done so without a single drop of alcohol in his system. So he could have done the same in Minnesota too. He could have. And that would’ve saved so many people. It would’ve saved Marcy’s life. Brooke’s. Bobby Jr.’s.

"You endured it, Bobby. But you didn’t do it because you had the strength. You did it because you knew what you could lose if you didn’t. You were strong because you had to be," Marcy said in a soft tone, then gave him a small, lopsided smile. "You’ve always found more strength when it stopped being about you—and became about others," she pointed out, looking only slightly displeased by that fact.

Bobby shook his head, not at all convinced, even though he knew that most of his life had been about others and very little about himself.

"I should have done better, should have listened to you, should have stopped drinking, should have realized that buying that ten-dollar heater was a terrible mistake, I should have..." Bobby didn’t quite know what else to say after that — what else should he have done? So many things, and yet nothing came to mind.

Marcy gave him a small smile in that moment, shaking her head. She leaned forward and placed her palm on Bobby’s thigh, making him flinch.

"Stop it, Bobby," she asked, his name leaving her lips with affection as she realigned her eyes with his. "You did the best you could and you kept going no matter how hard things got for you," Marcy said firmly, and Bobby huffed.

"The best I could do was to keep failing, every single day of my life. I failed everyone after you — Buck, Athena, Eddie, Hen, Chim, all of them..." Bobby felt his voice falter as the faces of each one of them appeared in his mind.

To Buck, trapped in that truck because of Freddie Costa’s revenge against Bobby. To the Buck who was furious for being pulled out of the 118 by him without hesitation, who started the entire process. To the Buck who was hit by the tsunami and didn’t allow himself to pass out until he had Chris back. To the Buck struck by lightning. To the Buck he almost lost in that fire due to a heart attack. To the Buck who lost Eddie right in front of him, and Bobby didn’t know what to say or do that could possibly make him feel better.

To Eddie, who had lost so much in life, who had fought so hard against so many things that he forgot what it meant to live without constantly fighting. Bobby failed him when Eddie kept pushing through every day, when he lost his wife and had to learn to grieve alongside his son alone. When Eddie was trapped in that tunnel and they couldn’t do anything to help. When Eddie was shot and Bobby wasn’t there. When Eddie didn’t even know Chris had been hit by the tsunami and had nearly died. In the bridge collapse. And then, when his whole world fell apart when Chris moved to El Paso to stay away from Eddie after Marisol. Bobby didn’t know how to ease any of that for him.

Then there was Chim, who had been so insecure in his relationship with Tatiana, and instead of sitting down to talk it through properly, Bobby just blurted things out, which led to Chim fleeing and getting into that accident. When Chim was tortured because Bobby had let that damn Jonah into their home without listening to Hen’s concerns. When Maddie left, and Bobby did nothing but let him go after her. When he nearly lost another brother, the only consolation he had was that at least Bobby had done one good thing for Chimney before dying — he managed to save his life.

Then there was Hen, the woman he trusted and asked for help on the night of his relapse after the plane crash, only to lash out at her the next day when she tried to do exactly that. The woman he couldn’t comfort when Mia was taken from her family after a year of fostering. When she was overwhelmed with college, he failed her. When he ignored her concerns about Jonah and allowed things to continue, only for her to witness Chim being tortured right in front of her. He failed her again when he couldn’t get her out of the lab completely safe and risked her life by performing a surgery he wasn’t qualified to do.

Bobby didn’t even try to mention Athena. He had failed her in so many ways that it seemed hard to believe there had ever been something he’d done right. The greatest failure was the last — not being able to come back to her, not being able to look at Athena and say everything would be okay, that he would be okay. It was making Athena watch as he took his final breath.

Bobby shuddered as something lodged itself deep in his throat and his eyes filled with tears. The image of his family etched behind his eyelids, showing all of them smiling at him, oblivious to his failures — or simply ignoring them, because they had always done that.

For some reason, the 118, Athena, and the kids looked at him and decided he was worth overlooking how broken and flawed he was — something he had always been grateful for but never fully understood.

Then there was a hand squeezing his and two familiar blue eyes staring at him with such gentleness it almost made Bobby choke. Marcy had left the couch and settled closer to him, for the first time not looking like the calm, composed entity she had always been before.

"You didn’t fail them, Bobby. You did what you could with what you had at the time," Marcy said in a calm rhythm, and Bobby took a breath.

"Let me finish. You made mistakes, yes, but they all did too — and that’s okay, Bobby. Humans make mistakes every day, and that doesn’t make them worse or better, just human," Marcy said, squeezing the hand she had pressed against his knee. Bobby looked up at her, knowing the truth and the lie behind that statement.

Humans made mistakes — that was true. But some mistakes did make people worse than others. Bobby knew his mistakes, and he knew they made him worse than the rest.

"I hurt them, Marcy. Again and again. When they needed me, I hurt them by not being able to see what the right path was." Bobby spoke, though his tone was suddenly monotone, feeling too tired to express how deeply it wounded him. Marcy probably already knew, just like she knew everything else. "I hurt them when they came to me needing support and I wasn’t able to give it in the right way. I attacked, pushed them away, and offended them because I thought it was right — but it wasn’t, and all of that was failure, Marcy," he said, the words weighing heavier on his shoulders as they left his mouth.

"You were still learning. All of this was new to you, and Bobby — you can’t know what the right path is if you’ve never walked it before," Marcy murmured, tilting her head. "Your failures weren’t selfish; they were simply inevitable, because no one can know everything. Do you want to know what does matter in this story? What matters to me ? What mattered to them ?" she asked firmly.

Bobby remained silent, knowing she would probably speak anyway, even if he refused. It hadn’t made a difference to her before and certainly wouldn’t now.

"What matters is that you tried , Bobby. It matters that even blind, you moved forward for them. Because you were able to recognize when you failed — and when you did, you fixed it. No one tried harder than you did to support them, Bobby, and that’s what matters," Marcy said, like it was a universal truth. "That’s what it means to be a partner. That’s what it means to be a father, Bobby. It’s doing what needs to be done, even when you don’t know if it’s right, but having the courage to find out. So no, you didn’t fail them — not in what truly matters. And the rest... well, you should forgive yourself for that, Bobby. Just like they did," she continued softly.

Bobby blinked at Marcy for a few seconds, feeling his eyes sting.

"How could I dare forgive myself? Marcy, I..." She interrupted him, her tone serious.

"You have already been forgiven, Bobby — by me, by the kids, by the 118, and by your new wife. To us, your mistakes are part of the past and don’t change how we feel about you. Forgiveness is part of the journey of life, and you know that. Forgiveness comes easy to you when it’s about giving it to others — I know that," Marcy pointed out.

"That’s not true. I haven’t forgiven many things that happened in my life," Bobby insisted. Most of those things were from his childhood, and even though he had made peace with his mother, those wounds would probably never heal completely — especially since some came from his father, and with him, Bobby would only find understanding once he met him after Marcy.

"You did . The things that matter now, you forgave, Bobby. You forgave your team’s mistakes even when they hurt you deeply. You forgave Evan Buckley for the lawsuit, even though it pained you. You forgave Edmundo Diaz even after he threw trauma at you unfairly during an argument. You forgave Howard Han for screaming about me, ignorant of my death. You forgave Athena Grant for doubting you with that woman. Bobby, what you’ve done most for them — is forgive . But now it’s time to do that for yourself," Marcy said gently, her blue eyes steady but filled with careful tenderness — the kind Bobby used to see so often at the beginning of their relationship, before the alcohol blurred it all.

The one who came back after Robbie and Brooke were born, when Bobby stopped drinking for a while because the existence of his children was enough to appease the constant need to simply disappear, to not be in his life, to not be himself. Bobby hadn’t seen that for some time before the fire, and after that… well, he could never see it again.

Except he was seeing it again now, and it was exactly the same as it had been before.

"I don’t believe I deserve to forgive myself, that I deserve to be forgiven," Bobby admitted, feeling his shoulders drop in defeat. What would change? Resisting the truth wrapped inside him wouldn’t change what it was, and he was trapped there anyway.

Bobby didn’t know if he would ever feel worthy of anything other than contempt and fury. He didn’t believe he would ever receive anything else, and even after years of somehow being on the good side of the feelings of so many good people, Bobby still didn’t believe he could be forgiven for his mistakes.

"Then believe me when I say that you’ve been forgiven, Bobby. And it wasn’t a careless decision. And believe them when they tell you if you haven’t been," Marcy said with a small, calming smile. "My decision wasn’t careless or quick either. If it makes you feel better, when I got here after the fire, I hated you. I hated you for your lie in that hospital bed and for what I considered your involvement in the fire." She tilted her head with sharp, intelligent eyes.

Because it was true—knowing that Marcy had once felt anger toward him made him feel calmer. In a twisted way, it dispelled much of his restlessness, because anger was a feeling he had toward himself that night, and until now, no one had shared it.

With the 118 and with Athena, despite what he expected, all Bobby received was calm understanding and silent support, and he appreciated that because having it thrown against him at that point in his life would have destroyed more than he could ever repair. But as time passed and Bobby recovered enough not to feel shattered by thinking about how it happened and how he felt through it all, the lack of negative feelings that matched his own began to bother him.

Because those feelings existed, but none of them seemed to find reflection or truth in his life. So those feelings stayed trapped inside him and slowly rotted, but they never left.

Until now—because Marcy had felt anger toward him, because she had hated him the same way Bobby had hated himself. It was comforting. Being allowed to feel that emotion for himself brought him relief.

"But I’ve watched you since then. I watched you fight to be punished for your actions and be denied that. I saw your attempts to correct what you considered a mistake. I saw the failures, and then your journey to Los Angeles clinging to a penance of guilt through that book. That’s when I realized I couldn’t blame you anymore, Bobby. That’s when I let myself see beyond what I thought I knew. That’s when I allowed myself to see how much of that wasn’t your fault, how much of it was theirs. Because you already blamed yourself. You blamed yourself enough for all those people who lost their lives. And we forgive you."

Her words came out like a verdict, as if it decided Bobby’s fate, as if Marcy were a powerful judge and he was just a soul awaiting judgment.

He had it. Bobby had been forgiven by those he had hurt. He already had the forgiveness of those who met him afterward and knew his story. That constant flow of seeking absolution from others ended there.

Bobby looked at Marcy without really knowing what to say then, because wasn’t that what he had sought so deeply throughout his life? Wasn’t it to be absolved by someone who had every right to hate him?

He thought he had a chance with Amir. He recognized the grief and pain that permeated the man’s actions, and for that reason, he knew it would be a difficult trial. But Bobby went into it because it was the reachable chance to try to obtain absolution.

But it failed because Amir would never be able to forgive him. Bobby would always be the one responsible for the man's wife's death, and the attempt only made Amir believe more firmly that Bobby didn’t deserve forgiveness. It only made Bobby realize that his motivations had been selfish.

"I didn’t do it for you guys—the notebook, the lives saved. I… I pretended it was for that, but I just wanted to save myself, Marcy. All of that was done for me," Bobby trembled with the memory of Amir’s words. Marcy nodded her head, still looking gentle despite the sharp glint in her eyes.

"You did. All of it was done for you, Bobby," she agreed simply, and Bobby flinched, shrinking into himself. "And that’s exactly how it should be, Bobby. Because the only one who needed that in order to forgive was you. I didn’t need you to save anyone for me to see that you regretted starting the first spark. None of them need that. We can see your regret and how much it cost you," Marcy shrugged, unconcerned, even when he looked at her, slightly shocked.

Was there anything that could make him feel like he wasn't the only one lost?

"Amir is a selfish man. He allows himself to be suffocated by grief and pain while ignoring that there are other people who share the same feeling. He refuses to admit that you share the same pain and chose to use that as a shield to try and gain some petty revenge against you," Marcy said sharply, and it seemed like Bobby had just discovered where the sharp edge in her gaze came from. "He will have his own challenge when his time comes. His wife is quite unhappy with some of his life choices, and that’s something we’re not going to comment on, Bobby. Everyone has their own trials to go through alone. Yours is this one. Facing your truths is the best punishment you could receive. His will be the one he deserves," Marcy said with finality, clearly recognizing the part of Bobby that would be curious about the paths of the afterlife. A bit guilty, he just cleared his throat.

"What comes after the trial?" He couldn’t help but ask, and Marcy shook her head, softening her expression.

"A choice," she said simply, offering a comforting smile. "You’ll hear it when we’re finished here, and then it will be up to you to decide which path you want to take," Marcy said, tilting her head.

Bobby shook his head, unsure of how that worked, but decided that it would come at the right time and there was no way to find out unless Marcy told him.

"Forgiving me won’t change what happened, Marcy," he returned to the initial subject, and the woman tilted her head, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing will change what happened, Bobby, because it happened, and it would have happened anyway," Marcy said indifferently. "Forgiving yourself won’t change what happened, and not doing it won’t either. It’ll only trap you in a mistaken idea of hate that none of us hold," she said mercilessly.

And that was also true, probably the most painful truth. Bobby knew that nothing would change what had happened, no matter how much he wished it could.

Nothing ever changed, and he had wished so much.

"I don’t know if I can," Bobby sighed. He didn’t have enough strength to force himself to believe in that—not after so long exhausting himself trying to convince himself that not being forgiven didn’t mean he couldn’t be loved anyway.

"You don’t need to believe in yourself, Bobby, even though you should. If it’s too hard now, then use others’ beliefs in you to help you start," Marcy advised gently. "Believe that the 118 believes you are worthy of forgiveness, that Athena and your children believe you deserve forgiveness. Believe that I and our children think you are worthy of forgiveness, that each of those people from the fire believe you are worthy of forgiveness—and then forgive yourself," she finished. Bobby kept his eyes on the ground as she said this.

He thought of Buck and his enthusiastic, sometimes almost rebellious support—how he followed and listened to him without hesitation because he believed in what Bobby said as his captain, because he trusted and believed in him even when he knew his past.

He thought of Eddie, who trusted Bobby enough to let him see him at his lowest, even though the man had been conditioned to keep everything secret and not let the personal interfere with the professional. How he believed Bobby about Chris and his staying at the station for so long, that he believed him enough to admit he needed time away from the 118 and believed him—painfully—when Bobby kept him away because he trusted Bobby would know when the time was right for him to return.

Eddie, who believed that Bobby would hold his place at the 118 while he went to El Paso for his son.

He thought of Hen, who trusted Bobby to hold the key to her house in case anything happened to her on the job, who trusted Bobby with her past with Eva, who believed in Bobby to support her when medical school became too heavy alongside the shifts at the station. She believed in him even when she shouldn’t have, when Bobby said Jonah should be left alone. She believed in him to allow him to perform surgery even knowing Bobby didn’t have half the experience required for it.

He thought of Chim, who trusted him enough to share how he felt about the rebar incident, who believed in him to hold his place while he went after Maddie, and then trusted Bobby when he promised everything would be okay when that failed. Chim, who believed in him with his life and the correct application of the anti-virus.

And then Athena, who trusted him with two of the most important things in her life—who believed he would be a good stepfather to May and Harry, believed he would protect and love them as if they were his own. Athena, who trusted Bobby to admit he didn’t want the promotion for the first time.

Athena, who believed he could make the team work with rookies after Eddie and Chim left the 118 at the same time. Who trusted that he would get May out of the flaming dispatch. Who believed in him when Bobby couldn’t—after meeting Amir and having his past thrown in his face in the worst possible way. Who believed in him when Bobby said he’d get her a lead to land that plane, and that she’d be able to do it.

And then he thought of the Athena who refused to leave him in the lab even while suffering through his inevitable death. He thought of the cries of grief that clearly came from his team as they mourned him. He thought of Eddie, who didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye or even knew what was happening.

He thought of all of them and the belief they all shared—that he was worthy of their trust, of their unwavering support.

Bobby couldn’t forgive himself for his own sake, but he could do it for them, because he had disappointed them before, but that wouldn’t continue. It would take a long time before Bobby could forgive himself for himself.

But for now, Bobby could do it for them. He knew he could, because the things he had done for others had always been bearable for him. This was just one more time, in a different way.

Marcy looked at him with a satisfied smile, bordering on proud, as she clearly waited for him to consider it in silence.

"So, Bobby, do you forgive yourself?" she asked with a soft voice, as if this were the conclusion of something. Bobby still hesitated a few seconds before mustering the courage—this was for them.

"I do," he said softly, a bit of fear curling around him, driven by the impression that the moment he dared to forgive his mistakes for any reason would be the moment he’d be punished for his audacity.

But nothing happened. The environment didn’t change. Marcy didn’t change. Bobby didn’t feel different—only surprisingly lighter, as if he could breathe deeply after a long time of only shallow breaths.

Marcy gave him a smile full of satisfaction as she leaned back against the armchair and opened her arms to the room—one that no longer felt oppressive, only comfortable.

Bobby blinked toward the open door—the same one that had been locked before and was now open just enough for him to see the hallway and the passersby, all of whom smiled at him when they saw him looking on in shock.

"But you said the door was locked?" Bobby felt astonished, and Marcy laughed, nodding.

"It was, Bobby. But not anymore. The door stayed closed while your punishment lasted, but that’s over now, and you’re free to go wherever you want," Marcy said playfully, and Bobby stared at her in shock.

"My punishment was forgiving myself?" He felt his jaw drop, and Marcy shook her head, laughing again.

"It was what you needed, Bobby. You punished yourself enough in life, so you didn’t need more punishment heaped onto you. What you needed was the chance to forgive the person who needed it most—yourself," she explained gently. Bobby blinked at her, trying to understand the logic of her words.

He gave up, knowing it was better just to accept what she was saying. Bobby didn’t know what he was supposed to do now—get up and leave the apartment to find out if the afterlife was all like St. Paul? Stay there and live again in his first home?

Marcy had also said he would have a choice once the punishment ended. What choice was that?

"And what about the choice?" He decided to pursue that thread, and Marcy sighed, folding her arms.

"It wasn’t your time to come here, Bobby," she repeated the same phrase she had said before they entered the apartment. Bobby frowned, not understanding why that was relevant now.

"But I’m here now. Why does that matter?" he asked, confused, and Marcy gave him a small smile.

"Because if it’s not your time, then it means you have a chance. That’s your choice, Bobby," she leaned closer to him again. "You still have time left to live—at least a few good years before your real time to die comes. That means, for all that matters, you still have a right to life," she explained. Bobby didn’t understand where she was going with this, lost in talk about rights and time left. He couldn’t see how he could have let Chimney die, and there had only been one dose of the antiviral. There had been a choice, and he had chosen.

"What do you mean? The lab…" Bobby was interrupted by a sorrowful Marcy.

"It was never supposed to happen, Bobby. Not like that, anyway. Something changed and brought you here before your time," Marcy explained slowly before slightly relaxing her posture.

"And what’s my choice? What do I have to choose between?" he asked. Marcy blinked at him with calm blue eyes.

"You can choose to stay here and give up the time you had left to live. You’d live here—or wherever you want to live. This world is just like that one, only eternal, dear. And Los Angeles is still open if you wish to live in your new home until your new family catches up with you. You could build a life with our children again and watch them grow, just like I do," Marcy offered the first option.

Bobby felt his heart race with emotion at the idea. A life with his children—wasn’t that everything he had wished for all those years? To see them grow and develop? To see them alive, above all? And even though that last part wasn’t entirely true, it was still close enough.

"Or you can go back—to life, to the living Los Angeles with the 118 and Athena, to live for the time you have left. You’d return at the exact moment you left. But if that’s your choice, Bobby, you need to know that once you’ve crossed the veil between life and death, you’ll have to fight to stay on that side—at least while you go through the ordeal that cost you your life in the first place. You’ll still have the virus and the side effects, and all I can tell you is that there’s a solution in that lab that could save you," Marcy said finally in a serious tone, no trace of her earlier amusement remaining in her expression.

Bobby felt his stomach twist as he absorbed the alternatives laid out before him—a choice that in simple words meant stay or go, but in reality, asked him to choose between what could be and what already was.

Throughout his life, he had longed for a chance to live with Bobby Jr. and Brooke—maybe not so much with Marcy, because they had already lived that for years before having their kids, and both knew their marriage would’ve ended one way or another because of the alcohol if not for the fire—but their children had died young, and Bobby always wondered what it would have been like to see them grow up.

He had that chance now. If he chose to stay, Bobby could be the father he should have been in St. Paul—he’d see them grow and develop.

But then there was the family he had built in Los Angeles—the one he hadn’t tried to start when he moved there, one Bobby definitely hadn’t been looking for or wanting, yet it had formed before he realized. It came in the form of his restless, irrepressible team. It came in the form of the absolute force of nature that was Athena. It came in Harry’s enthusiasm for his career. It came in May’s acceptance and reserved affection. It came in Michael’s approval for him to enter his children’s lives.

The one he abandoned to go to death. The one he could return to just by choosing to—even if he argued he hadn’t wanted to die and would’ve chosen them if he could.

Bobby hesitated. He hadn’t lied in everything he said—because it hadn’t been his choice to die, but to save Chim. His death was a morbid consequence of that choice. But Bobby hadn’t actually chosen them the way he had told Athena he would.

He looked at Marcy, who seemed perfectly neutral, then sighed, knowing he wouldn’t get any suggestions from her. This was his choice.

"The kids…" he decided to ask, because he needed to know. They were young when the fire happened, but not too young to understand what happened—not too young to feel hurt or angry at him.

"They love you, Bobby. You were still a hero to them," Marcy said with a slight smile. "Might’ve made me more irritated at you in the beginning because I saw what happened—and so did they—but even so, you were still their favorite," she said softly.

Bobby shook his head, not knowing how to react to Marcy’s statement. He expected her to say it might be hard to win them over again because they were hurt. He even expected to hear that none of them cared to know more about him. But he was still a hero—still a father.

"Things will never be quite the same again, Marcy. I’m not the man I was in St. Paul—thank God—and me and the kids… me and you…" He didn’t really know how to express his thoughts, but she just nodded as if she understood how he felt.

"Things won’t be the same, Bobby, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be good—if that’s what you want. The kids will adapt, and we’ll adapt to make it work in the best way possible," Marcy explained calmly, tilting her head. "Our marriage had been over longer than we liked to admit. It was hard to accept that at the time, but we were both unhappy. You shouldn’t carry guilt for the end of a relationship that had already ended. If you choose to stay, then it will work like any divorced couple," she finished.

Bobby nodded. Those facts weren’t unknown to him, but he didn’t know how to deal with them.

It didn’t surprise him that the promise of a good life didn’t make him more excited to stay than before—because it didn’t do anything but finish balancing the scales.

Bobby would have a good afterlife there. He would have a good life back in the world of the living.

He was loved here—and loved there.

But Bobby couldn’t fix his mistakes—ones that could be forgiven, of course, but still existed—and Bobby wouldn’t run from them in the afterlife. He could never do anything to change the past or give another chance at life to any of his children or Marcy. He could apologize and be a better father now, but he could never erase the years of neglect he inflicted on them.

Marcy and the kids had forgiven him for those, and they would all move forward because of it.

Athena and the 118 didn’t have that. Bobby died in silence about his illness because he didn’t want to force a choice on them—and left them with the stupid guilt that they could’ve changed things if they’d noticed sooner.

Bobby had never let his mistakes cost them so much before—and he wasn’t going to start now.

He looked at Marcy, who smiled softly, relaxing her posture. She seemed to know the choice that was solidifying inside him and looked deeply satisfied with it—her calmness transferring to Bobby as he allowed himself to embrace what he wanted to do.

Marcy and the kids would be here when it was his time to return. If he was meant to see any part of their growing up, it would happen. Bobby would always be proud and happy for them, whether or not he was there to witness it.

"I’m sorry, I…" Bobby sighed, and Marcy shook her head.

"Don’t be. I’m proud of you, Bobby," she confided with a smile. "Proud because you’re choosing yourself—and never doubt that you are worthy. Now tell me, dear, do you wish to stay or return?" she asked lovingly. Bobby looked once more into Marcy’s calm blue eyes before gathering his courage.

"I want to go back," he said in calm, well-articulated words—the same quiet command tone he had learned to use as a captain. And when the final word left his lips, the room seemed to tremble and then blur before his eyes.

Everything slowly seemed to vanish from his sight as he began to feel an unpleasant sensation crawling through his limbs and chest.

He recognized the feeling. It was the same one he felt before dying—his body shutting down organ by organ from the virus. Marcy was the last thing to disappear, and she was still smiling.

"Fight, Bobby, and don’t stop fighting until you’re back with your family," she advised, her figure vanishing—but her voice still echoed with one final simple phrase—"The solution is still in the lab." Then everything went dark for a moment as the sensations returned to his body.

Then he opened his eyes.

Chapter Text

The first thing that came into focus in his vision was the floor. The standard gray material of the laboratory’s ground didn’t do much to help him get his bearings, even less so when his lungs contracted in his chest, sending a wave of agonizing pain through his body.

Bobby choked, though his limbs felt far too heavy for him to writhe in response to the pain, the thin air escaping his lungs much faster than it was coming in, leaving him gasping for breath.

It was the same sensation he had endured in the hours before his death—not so much because he was alive now, but because it seemed infinitely worse this time. There was nothing beyond that; his nervous system was overloaded by so many pain signals from his organs that it was incapable of registering any other sensation.

Bobby still forced himself to try to look around. It was difficult through his blurred and unfocused vision, but eventually, he managed to make his brain interpret the images in front of him.

There was the table—not the top anymore, but the underside of it. Farther back, destroyed laboratory cabinets and debris from pillars and ceiling appeared in random positions. He must have fallen then, his body sliding from where he had been leaning on the table after his prayer, down to the floor where he was now.

It was silent—not that his hearing was much better than his sight at the moment—but at least it was clear enough for Bobby to decide there were no more people speaking over the radio and no more sounds of movement around the lab.

How much time had passed between him falling there and coming back? Did it matter?

He decided it didn’t when a cough made his body convulse and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He hadn’t spat it out yet, which was good, though it didn’t seem it would take long before he did. That one had been a bad cough, and it meant his time was running out.

He still took a moment to gather breath and strength. His muscles felt limp like jelly as he gathered them to push his body upward, his weight seeming infinitely heavier than it really was when he finally began to rise.

Bobby shivered when the movement made his world spin, and a nauseating wave swept through his body so strongly that he first had to push himself to sit back on his heels, letting himself sink as he recovered.

His torso swayed, and Bobby braced himself on his knees, keeping his head low and his breathing as controlled as possible between small coughs, each breath coming in slow, difficult bursts that were not always effective.

The world swayed dangerously as his vision darkened and cleared in worryingly short intervals, but Bobby forced himself to stay conscious.

Marcy’s warning about how he would slip back into death if he allowed himself to came back to his memory, making it clear that fainting now wouldn’t get him any closer to keeping his place here.

So, despite everything, he pushed himself higher—first onto his knees, then onto one foot, the other bracing on the table—finally managing to get his body upright and center his balance, only to almost fall backward.

Bobby gripped the edge of the table tightly, refusing to go back to the floor. His stomach acid wasn’t so lucky, because the swaying made his nausea spiral out of control, and the next thing he registered was that he was bent over, bile rising from his throat, accompanied by a few droplets of blood.

It had been hours since Bobby had eaten anything. It had been pasta Thursday, and the meal had been easily digested by his system hours before they entered the lab to begin. Since then, so many things had happened that eating hadn’t been a priority. Now, it was a blessing—otherwise, he would be even more nauseated.

When the flow stopped, he straightened, not fully free of the nausea but well enough that he didn’t feel like he would vomit again, slowly looking around.

Everything seemed exactly as it had in the last hours—destroyed things, locked doors, and no one but himself to count on. Bobby didn’t quite know where to start looking for a solution. Marcy hadn’t been helpful when she said the solution was here.

But where was “here”? And what exactly was “here”?

There was only one antiviral—he knew that for sure because it was the basis on which he had allowed himself to sacrifice himself. Chimney had a growing family, and Bobby wouldn’t allow him to be passed over because of him. It had to be, right?

The scientists had said there was only one—two before the damned rat got it—and that it was at Moira Blake’s house. Buck and his beautiful Athena had managed to get it for them, but that was it.

Bobby leaned more heavily on the table, feeling worse and worse as he tried to see something that didn’t seem so obvious.

Moira Blake was a genius—by the scientists’ words. Bobby would call her crazy. That was why she created a superstrain of one of the world’s most dangerous diseases to develop a cure.

The experiment had worked, and she developed two doses of the antiviral—one for testing and one for safety, probably her own—but then she was fired for criminal conduct and decided to set fire to the lab where she had cultivated the virus.

But from what Bobby remembered, Moira hadn’t conducted her experiments only in that lab. She had a private one in her house where the second antiviral dose was found and then brought to Chim.

Bobby frowned, gasping as a new wave of pain spread through his abdomen. That didn’t make sense.

Why would she leave the only antiviral so far away when the virus was also in the lab?

If something went wrong here, she would have to leave the building under safety protocols, go to her house—at least an hour away—and then inject herself. Moira was supposed to be a genius, yet she had left her only chance of survival so far from herself.

Unless there weren’t only two antidotes. Bobby considered this, lifting his eyes to frantically scan the room. Moira probably knew there were people after her who questioned her research, and to throw them off and calm tensions, she said there was a second dose—when in reality there were three.

One for testing, one for her home lab, and one for this lab.

That could explain Marcy’s phrase about the solution being in the lab. It also gave Bobby a chance to save himself.

But where was it now? Ravi had already checked the testing room earlier and found nothing. The place where Bobby was had no storage space for substances.

Moira wouldn’t leave the dose in an easily accessible place—not if she had really lied about the third dose. That would already rule out any shared-use areas.

Bobby ruled out the adjoining laboratories—everyone had access, and hiding something serious there would be nearly impossible in a population of scientists. It was in their nature—as it was for first responders, though to a lesser extent—to question anything they didn’t know. Moira wouldn’t risk having to answer questions about keeping an unregistered dose.

Bobby decided that if there was anywhere the antiviral could be hidden, it would be in an office or restricted-access room. He looked around again, searching for any door that looked less like part of a laboratory and more like an office.

There was nothing there, but Bobby saw the adjoining hallway in the far right corner and decided to bet on that route. There was no point staying here if there was clearly nothing to help him in his search.

Bobby gathered a bit more strength and determination, attempting to step sideways from the table—still leaning on it heavily, his balance extremely unstable. His legs tingled painfully, his knees giving out with the same intensity as their trembling. This would definitely not be his most dignified walk.

He didn’t care as he staggered forward, trying to make his vision focus on the path. He didn’t want to trip and fall back to the ground—but that would happen if he couldn’t see where the lab debris was.

His feet felt like lead, the world spun harder, and now there wasn’t a single part of his body that didn’t ache with sharp cramps that nearly paralyzed him. It wouldn’t take long before moving became physiologically impossible at this pace, but Bobby did what he could.

He would crawl if he had to, but he wouldn’t stop until he was sure he would survive—or that there was absolutely no way to change his fate.

But there had to be. Marcy said there was. Bobby just had to find it.

It was a hard moment when he moved away from the table—his balance wavered, and his legs locked immediately after he put his full weight on them. Bobby shuddered, fighting against the vertigo and weakness before sinking momentarily to his knees again.

Not lying down, and not completely on the floor—thankfully—but Bobby still found it hard to push himself up without the table for support. His muscles trembled in protest, and the taste of blood spread further over his tongue.

But Bobby stood and took the first step—then the second, then a third—advancing slowly but steadily toward the hallway. He could lean on the wall there; he just needed to reach it.

His vision blurred, making it hard to define exactly where the hallway was. Bobby blinked frantically to clear his eyes, furious that his body kept betraying him, making things even worse.

Then he coughed—more bile escaping his lips and barely hitting the floor because he didn’t have time to bend over—but at least his vision cleared as Bobby recovered from the vomiting.

The wall came closer, and Bobby moved his arm to use the solid surface as support while he moved forward.

For a few steps, it felt easier—but then Bobby had to clutch his chest as a wave of paralyzing agony overtook him. At the same time, his body doubled over, and a vomit full of blood escaped his lips, staining the entire floor around his feet, his lips, and a bit of his boots.

The sudden movement made him lose his fragile balance, and overwhelmed by pain, Bobby stumbled sideways, hitting the wall hard, painfully, and then sinking toward the floor, falling on his right shoulder, which popped and ached with the impact.

His breathing was slow, heavy, and far too painful for Bobby to think it was a good sign. Coughing blood never was—and that amount made everything terribly concerning. The breathing difficulty could only mean the disease was hitting his lungs—and fast.

Bobby couldn’t move. His vision was blurred, pain coursing through every inch of his body, making it hard to think of anything else.

For a moment, he simply allowed himself to relax, doubt—fueled by pain—creeping into his determination like weeds.

What difference did it make? To all of them, Bobby was probably already dead. No one would know, no one needed to know, that he had tried and given up.

Bobby could finally rest and stop pretending he could do something without failing.

Then Bobby opened his eyes, not even realizing he had closed them, the image of the 118 and his Athena crystal clear in his mind. It was for them, only for them, that he had to keep moving—because he was there to fix a mistake, there to prove that everyone mattered to him, to show that Bobby would choose them.

That he loved them. And God, he did—Bobby loved them with everything inside him, good or bad.

That was the one thing he would never question in life.

That was why he had to keep fighting, for them, why Bobby had to rise through the crippling pain and find the damned antidote.

It was still hard to move his body—the only thing that seemed to respond to his efforts to lift himself were his fingers, which contracted until his hands were fists.

He didn’t care, gathering whatever scrap of strength remained in his body to brace his closed fists against the floor and then push himself upward.

His arms trembled as he began to lift himself again, his injured shoulder sending a particularly sharp bolt of pain—enough to, for a few seconds, stand out above the rest of the pain in his body.

But that was also what drove him—the acute pain cut through the shroud of immobilizing agony that had been gripping him, and Bobby used the leverage to push himself even further up until he was once again standing.

Leaning heavily against the wall, Bobby blinked tiredly at his surroundings; walls stretched almost the entire length of the hallway, broken only by two doors at different distances.

The first, the one closest to him, was the entrance to the testing room where Ravi had searched for the antiviral earlier. It was entirely made of glass, allowing Bobby to see the whole interior.

The second, farther away and harder to reach, was a wooden door with a small pane of tempered glass that looked perfectly untouched despite the chaos around it.

It was a strong door, its resistant, treated material perfectly immune to low-caliber explosions or fires. It seemed like the ideal kind of door for someone wanting to keep the nuances of their plans to themselves—especially if that someone was a mad scientist.

Bobby dragged his feet through the debris toward the door, his fingers precariously gripping some heavy material to use as a battering ram—he didn’t have enough strength in his limbs to believe he could break down that door with muscle alone.

He also wasn’t in the mood to make his mission look heroic—Bobby could be the most decrepit, awkward person in the world if he came out the other side alive.

He reached the door, waging war against his own limbs to lift the object—a solid block of concrete—up and back before hurling it with as much force as he could against the door.

The block hit the wood with a sharp crack, making it creak and shake but not give way; his block crumbled as soon as it hit the floor. Bobby groaned in frustration, throwing himself forward and trying to use his own weight to force a way through.

The first hit made his shoulder burn from the impact and the door tremble; the second sent pain flaring up his side where he collided with the wood; the third dislocated his shoulder and made the wood give slightly; the fourth pushed the bone further out of place; and the fifth—despite the nauseating pain it caused—finally forced the door wide open.

His body wavered when the door’s support vanished, but Bobby managed to extend his arms and brace against the wall in time to stay upright. He stood still, panting, the coughs starting up again, the taste of blood growing stronger in his mouth as it rose up his throat.

Whether it was coming from his stomach or his lungs was hard to tell—but it was bad either way.

Bobby stayed still for a few more seconds, giving himself time to take in the room.

It was an ordinary office, with a solid wooden desk in the center and a comfortable wheeled swivel chair, standard-colored walls with no decorations or special additions except for a framed picture of a rat, a small fridge in the back that looked completely out of place for a place like this, and then a cabinet of items running from one end of the room to the other.

It looked as depressing as its owner and irritatingly empty for a potential antiviral hiding spot.

Bobby felt his hopes waver at that realization, but then he shook his head, determined, because he could very well check for himself.

Moira wouldn’t leave something like that in an easily accessible place—he knew it would be hard, and that he might fail in the end.

Bobby just needed to be sure.

The cabinets were empty—all of them covered in a damning layer of dust, which told Bobby they hadn’t been used in a long time, maybe never.

The desk was also empty except for a few sheets of calculations Bobby didn’t understand in the slightest—probably the formulas Moira had used to create the virus or the antiviral—but even if he did understand them, it didn’t matter in that moment.

Bobby would never have the time to create an antiviral right then, and he didn’t have the capacity anyway.

The fridge only had water and a few cans of the worst energy drink Bobby had ever seen—he even thought they had been discontinued, which meant they had been sitting there for quite some time without being consumed.

No sign of a vial or injector with a dose. Bobby backed away until his shoulders hit the opposite wall, feeling the weight of the last few minutes press down on him.

It had all been useless—Bobby wasn’t any closer to getting the antiviral than he had been in the last twenty hours of his life.

A sob caught in his throat, too choked by the weight of his failure to even make it out as a cry—or maybe it was the illness making his throat feel as dry and closed as it was.

What would he say to Marcy when he inevitably failed there again and returned to the afterlife? That he was a failure and that thinking otherwise was stupidity?

Did Athena even know he was still alive? Did any of his 118 boys know? Bobby hadn’t even looked through the glass to see if his wife was still there—his radio was silent, but he hadn’t even tried to call them.

Bobby muttered a curse, throwing his back against the wall as he tried to drag in one of his deep breaths—but instead, it felt like the air was slipping away from him. He spat a bit of blood from his mouth before shaking his head.

Then the 118 and Athena faded again from his mind, and Bobby was forced to face what was happening in the present.

Another wave of wet coughing wracked him as his lungs contracted in agony from the lack of air; when it was over, Bobby gasped, hearing the terrible sound that accompanied his breathing. Then his eyes swept the office again—the place that was supposed to hold his salvation but instead was just another place to die.

But Marcy had said there was a solution in the lab—had she lied? She had no reason to, after all—Bobby was already dead, so he didn’t need to come back just to die again to pay for something else.

Bobby closed his eyes, feeling his consciousness waver, then stubbornly pushed the sensation away to focus again. His vision blurred with tears, and then his frustration crossed the line.

Bobby wasn’t proud of it, but the next thing he registered was kicking a chunk of stone at the wall with the picture frame, as hard as he could. The item hit the frame, making it shudder and then fall—but it wasn’t the block that caught his attention, it was the way the frame behaved.

Bobby had expected that when a hit like that struck the item, it would shake and fall off its perch—but instead, it didn’t even fall. It seemed to sink momentarily into the wall before returning to its normal position.

Bobby blinked in shock before a spark of hope stirred in his gut. He pushed off from the wall and stumbled forward, tripping over his own feet until he reached the picture and grabbed it.

He pulled the item back and watched with renewed energy as the frame—actually a painted hinge disguised as a picture—swung forward, revealing a hole about the width of an arm.

Bobby didn’t hesitate, shoving his hand into the opening and feeling around for anything that didn’t feel like solid wall.

He almost shouted when his hand hit a solid container, much harder than the wall he had been feeling so far. He grabbed it and pulled it from its hiding place.

It was a metal cylinder—Bobby had no idea what it was called, but it definitely looked like the kind of thing that could hold a dose of antiviral.

He leaned against the wall, forced his fingers against the lid, and twisted it—it took every last bit of strength in his body, but then the metal screeched and opened to reveal a syringe with a familiar blue liquid.

The same one Bobby had seen in the syringe that saved Chimney, the same one that carried the cure for that damned disease.

Bobby took a second to register it before laughing and grabbing the syringe, pulling it out of the storage container.

“It’s here—I found it.” He didn’t know who he was talking to—maybe his team, maybe his wife—both of whom couldn’t hear him—or maybe just to convince himself that it was real and that Bobby had it now. But it didn’t matter.

What mattered was that the cure existed and it was in his hands. He felt his knees buckle under him as he moved. Bobby looked away from the needle, not wanting to risk fainting, and then closed his eyes as he injected the antiviral into himself.

A little pathetically, he hoped the antiviral would make him feel instantly better—it was such a fanciful thought for his exhausted mind that it almost made sense—but reality was a little less magical.

Although Bobby felt some of the crushing pressure on his organs and breathing lessen, everything else—from the cramps to the shortness of breath—was still there.

But now, with the antiviral, he could get out of there—he could get help and go back to his family. Bobby just needed to hold on a little longer and find a way to tell them he was still alive and could be rescued.

But then maybe Bobby didn’t have that much time before collapsing from the damage he had already sustained—blood was still trickling from the corners of his mouth, and his breathing was still stuttered.

He needed a few seconds to get through a particularly strong wave of sickness. His consciousness was fading—Bobby didn’t feel the impact with the floor when it happened; instead, he barely realized he had fallen until he blinked at the dark gray floor just inches from his face.

Bobby cursed, feeling his strength slipping away, but he had to get up—had to make it to the main lab and call for his team so he could get back to them.

Because everyone thought he had chosen to go, because Bobby hadn’t told them he was infected, because he had locked himself in and refused to listen when they tried to convince him to leave the lab.

But Bobby hadn’t done it for himself—he had chosen to save them and keep more people from being at risk—but now all that could go to hell because he wanted his family. He wanted to live with them and keep seeing all of them grow.

He wanted to live in his new house with Athena, wanted to see his stepchildren grow up, wanted to be able to welcome Eddie back when he finally worked things out with Chris.

Bobby wanted to live, even if now it meant spending the rest of his time suffering the consequences of doing so.

His vision was darkening; Bobby blinked hard to stay awake.

“Fight, Bobby—you have to fight.” Marcy’s voice boomed in his head, and Bobby felt a little shock run through his system. Why could he still hear her? He should be alive—he shouldn’t be hearing the dead.

Then he realized—he was crossing the veil of death again, dying even though he didn’t want to. Bobby didn’t quite know how to fight to stay, so he clung to what he knew belonged to his real body.

The pain in his body, the shortness of breath, the floor against his injured head and shoulders.

All of it should have kept him further from unconsciousness—but Bobby couldn’t stop it. His eyes closed against his will, reality drifting away.

But he held on to life as best he could—Bobby could cross the veil between life and death as many times as his stupid body wanted, but he would drag himself back to life every single time.

The world went suddenly dark—no more pain, no more discomfort.

Bobby hoped someone would find him and take him out of there—maybe the next time he woke up, because he would wake up, he’d already be with his family.

He let himself fall into unconsciousness and oblivion.

-*-

The laboratory was destroyed; the cameras hadn’t done justice to the reality of the scene—pillars and debris were scattered everywhere, and there were wires sparking in the far-right corner of the place.

It was a tragedy—so much research lost, so much money wasted, and now a life had been lost because of a single woman who was supposed to be the key to salvation.

It was Milly’s first day as a medical assistant for the army. She had arrived at the base full of expectations, and so far only one had come true—that she would be sent into the field that day. From then on, everything was different from what she could have imagined.

She had to watch as the Los Angeles Fire Department’s 118 unit was trapped inside the laboratory, saw one of them get infected, saw another have to be operated on by her own captain, who apparently wasn’t trained for it.

Milly saw the youngest firefighter in the group stop breathing, saw the captain do everything to save his team, and then watched—nearly crying—as he said goodbye to his wife and his team when he gave the only antiviral to his fellow firefighter despite being just as infected himself.

They all watched as he fell to the ground and went still; they heard the cries of his wife, Sergeant Grant, and the 118 team. Then Milly was called to prepare because she would be accompanying Dr. Alvarez to officially confirm the death.

The camera system pointlessly kept running behind them—there was no one left to watch, and no one cared to turn them off.

So there was Milly, staring at the destroyed, dirty, debris-strewn floor as she tried to locate the firefighter they had come to declare dead.

He had been right there, beside the huge metal table where the first infected had received the dose—she had seen him fall there—but now the floor was empty except for broken chunks of debris.

Milly looked at the attending physician, who seemed indifferent as she moved forward. Couldn’t she see how strange that was? The man should have been dead right in front of them—they had seen him fall—but there was no body.

They walked down the hallway, Milly lingering a moment longer over a large pool of blood and bile on the ground, the discomfort in her stomach growing.

They found the captain lying motionless on the floor of Moira Blake’s office—he was face-down, with blood around his head and neck.

His shoulders were twisted in odd positions, and Milly realized they were dislocated—he hadn’t been like that before, which meant he had been alive after everyone thought he was dead.

The lead doctor crouched, extending a gloved PPE hand to confirm the death—and Milly couldn’t hold her tongue.

“Shouldn’t you be using a standard glove? PPE gloves can dull the senses and make weaker heartbeats harder to detect,” she recalled from the manuals she had read at the academy—it was procedure, and no one should declare a patient dead using improper materials.

“He’s dead,” the doctor said without emotion. “He was dying before, and now he’s gone.” Dr. Alvarez continued forward, and Milly frowned unhappily.

“He made it all the way here—he was alive—and we don’t know when exactly he fell. He could still be alive,” Milly argued, and then the doctor shot her a mocking look.

“He has CCHF—a deadly disease in super-strain form. If he’s not dead, he will be soon. Now shut your mouth and watch a real professional work,” the doctor snapped, finally reaching for the man’s jugular. A second passed, then she shook her head, grabbed the radio, and switched it on. “No pulse, death confirmed—initiating body removal process,” she said.

Milly watched her in guilty silence, watched as they zipped him into the bag and removed him from the scene, her stomach heavy.

She also watched as the family was informed of the captain’s death—something they already knew but had been waiting to have confirmed. Then she followed the doctor as they took the body to be disinfected at the main infectious disease laboratory in East Los Angeles.

Milly lost sight of him as soon as they reached the base—but that wouldn’t be the last time she heard about him.

No, the last time was reserved for the shocked conversation Milly overheard between two army doctors.

The captain had survived—he was completely cured of the disease, and no one had any idea why.

She thought that meant he would be released—that once his survival was confirmed, the captain would be taken out of the government lab where he had been sent, and his family would be notified.

Milly was wrong—instead, Colonel Hartman and the scientists would keep him there to be studied. They wanted to find out how and why he had survived.

They turned him into a lab rat. Milly watched in horror as the still-unconscious captain was moved to undergo test after test—tests that always came back inconclusive.

The disease had simply vanished—completely destroyed and eliminated from his system—and the only thing indicating that the captain had ever had it was the damage it had left on his organs.

No one tried to heal him—or rather, to repair the damage to his organs. All they did for the man was stabilize his condition enough to keep him from dying.

She resigned before the captain woke up—she couldn’t stand the idea of being complicit in something like that.

But Milly couldn’t tell anyone—it was a lifetime secrecy contract, and she would be killed if she spoke about it.

She knew she should take the risk—go to the Los Angeles police department or the 118 fire station and tell them their captain was alive and was being used as a lab rat.

She should speak up and throw those idiot colonels into the hands of justice—because that was certainly illegal. Human experimentation had been a crime in California for at least a century, so Milly could blow the whole scheme wide open—they would be arrested and wouldn’t be able to come after her.

But Milly was far too afraid.

She told no one and left the state two days later.

Chapter Text

Bobby had expectations of what he hoped to find when he opened his eyes, the first being a hospital bed—something he perpetually hated but would have infinitely welcomed at that moment.

He imagined the rough sheets but the relatively comfortable bed of a room, imagined the constant beeping of the machines that recorded his heartbeat, expected the hot-and-cold sensation that accompanied the refrigerated environment but immobile blankets, expected the sterile smell that entered his nostrils and stayed there for hours in his sense of smell.

And finally, Bobby imagined opening his eyes to see someone from his family, probably Athena, but with luck he might see his whole family there when he woke up.

The first part was more or less as he expected, it was definitely cold and he was definitely on a stretcher, but not the familiar hospital stretcher that came with uncomfortable softness and synthetic material.

He was on a hard, cold, and inflexible stretcher, lying completely stretched out on it like a doll, his back aching from spending so long in the same position on the uncomfortable surface.

And he had no one there with him. Bobby didn’t have his eyes open but after so many years in his job he had learned to recognize the silence of an empty environment and the silence of an environment with people.

There was no sound of clothes moving or fabric rustling from a chair, no sound of footsteps or feet striking lightly as they met the ground when changing position, and when Bobby forced himself a little more, he couldn’t hear any sound other than his own breathing.

These were always the giveaways when Bobby wasn’t alone in a hospital room, because people made noise even when they didn’t mean to.

None of that was there now, only the dry hum of the air conditioner and his own breathing.

Confused, Bobby tried to open his eyes to find out exactly where he was. Only to have to shut them again suddenly from the intensity of the lamp right above his face, the pain shooting through his body like a gunshot and making him groan in discomfort.

Somewhat pathetically, he thought it was actually pretty obvious, after all, in most cases hospitals and quarantine areas tended to have lights always on, so Bobby probably could have predicted that everything would be far too bright for his unaccustomed eyes.

Maybe that was where he was after all, in a quarantine area because Bobby had contracted a very serious and dangerous contagious disease. Even with the antidote, people might have felt cautious about him.

No one wanted an outbreak of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, not when they had seen firsthand how bad it was.

Did that mean Chim was there too? Bobby definitely perked up at the thought, fighting against the discomfort of the brightness to open his eyes and analyze the environment.

All Bobby could see was an impersonal white ceiling and vaguely some wires he supposed belonged to medical equipment. Hospital environments had never been as empty as this one was, always filled with machines and objects lurking at the edges of his peripheral vision.

There was none of that there, his sight could only catch an endless stretch of impersonal white ceiling with sparse standard LED lights.

Once again confused, and now also a little frustrated, he pulled at his arms trying to sit up, only to realize that he couldn’t move them.

Instead, his wrists struck against a material as solid as the stretcher beneath him, the impact spreading a dull pain through the area that had hit the restraint. Bobby turned his head, his heart racing with the panic that began to take over his senses, his eyes searching for what exactly was holding him down on the stretcher.

It was a fused metal shackle that was clamped almost against his skin, curving around his wrist, locked in place by a solid metal clasp that no human strength could break. The shackle was so tight against his skin that even without touching it Bobby could still feel it.

To hell with the half-sharpened senses that all those years as a firefighter had given him. Bobby could even feel the cold from the material pressed against the table on his body. The same shackles were around his ankles too, if he could trust his sense of touch in that area and the fact that he couldn’t move his legs any more than his arms.

That wasn’t the most important thing now. Bobby desperately needed to know where he was and what was happening at that moment. Why wasn’t he with his family? Why was he tied up? Where was he?

The gray, impersonal ceiling with painfully artificial LED lamps did nothing to help him discover the answers to any of his questions or doubts, nor did the beeping of the machines behind him, which only served to irritate him further with the frequency of the heart monitor.

He didn’t need a reminder of how fast his heart was beating at that moment. Bobby could feel it pounding against his ribs hard enough to hurt.

The sound of a door opening was enough to catch his attention. Bobby turned his face, trying to identify who was coming, only to find himself staring at a person about 1.70m tall, completely covered in an impersonal white suit. The only thing not white was a completely black visor that successfully hid the identity of whoever it was.

The person, without gender or anything to help classify them, pushed an old cart that squeaked and had a crooked, nonfunctional wheel, moving in slow, rhythmic steps until stopping beside his stretcher. At first, Bobby was ignored while the figure slowly handled items on the cart.

That seemed to be the only pace the person knew. There were needles of various sizes, a medication Bobby was almost sure was a sedative, and tubes of different sizes for blood collection.

Then the black visor turned toward Bobby, and he felt nervousness twist in his stomach.

“Where am I? Who are you?” Bobby asked, his voice hoarse and broken from disuse. How many hours had it been since he’d blacked out in the lab? His throat was dry too, and his voice dwindled until it became a murmur, forcing Bobby to clear his throat to ease the burning.

The suited person did not answer any of his questions as he wanted. Instead, when her voice came, it was cold, impersonal, and as rhythmic as all her previous actions, but undeniably female.

“All of this is classified, Mr. Nash. You were contaminated with a strain of the CCHF virus, altered in a laboratory to be more lethal and more aggressive than the common disease. Do you remember this?” the woman asked methodically. Bobby nodded in affirmation.

“I remember. My team… are they okay? Where are they? When will I be able to see them?” Bobby couldn’t resist asking, his last memories of them were from the lab where they all nearly died, and then of their backs walking away.

“Mr. Nash, you must understand that all of this is confidential. Everyone from Station 118 was declared stable,” the woman said. Bobby frowned even as he felt relieved that his team was safe. “You too were recently considered cured of CCHF. There are no traces of the virus in your body,” she continued indifferently. Of course, he was cured. Bobby had taken the antivirus.

“Then when will I be able to see them? If there’s no virus, then I’m not a risk to anyone. When will I be able to leave? And why am I strapped to this stretcher?” Bobby demanded, pulling at his limbs. The metal gave a small creak when he pulled but didn’t even tremble under his strength.

“Your recovery took everyone by surprise. The virus should have killed you, Mr. Nash, but you survived, and we want to find out why,” the woman continued as if she hadn’t heard him. Bobby blinked incredulously at the black visor in front of him.

How had he survived? They didn’t know how Bobby had recovered? He couldn’t believe they didn’t know he’d gotten the antivirus. The cameras should have captured that.

He struggled again, taking a breath to tell the woman, but it didn’t help that at that moment his lung seemed to twist, sharp pain flooding his chest and making him gasp with a grunt of agony. The pain was familiar but didn’t calm him.

The woman didn’t even move while his breathing faltered and he had to cough to try to clear his airways. She just stayed silent until the coughs subsided and all that came out were gasps and wheezes from his weakened breathing.

“You’re here because we want to understand what saved you and replicate it. That’s why you’re here,” the woman continued as she turned back to pick up a smaller needle from her arsenal and the sedative.

“You can’t keep me here forever. This is kidnapping and illegal imprisonment. I am—” The woman interrupted him, her voice as calm as if they were discussing the weather, but also mocking like a slap.

“A dead man. At least in the eyes of the whole country. Mr. Nash, you were declared dead by the specialists, and that is what everyone in this country believes you are. There was even a funeral,” the woman said coldly, her body approaching his IV stand to inject the drug. “No one is looking for you, nor do you have rights. This is a secret facility dedicated to the study of contagious diseases, and you’ve just been contaminated by one. We have all the legal rights over this experiment.” She spoke mercilessly. Bobby tried to writhe as the needle pierced the IV to insert the sedative.

He couldn’t resist, and little by little the world grew blurry again. Bobby blinked, trying to stay awake, though it was useless against the drug.

“I… won’t… stay here…” he said, his words increasingly scattered as his body slackened. “Go back… to… them… promise…” he mumbled, his vision darkening slowly as he barely saw the white figure blending into the environment again, turning back to the tray and speaking.

“This will save lives. You are expendable. The experiment is not—”

The world went dark.

-*-

Bobby slowly shook his head, he felt confused with thoughts spinning in his mind without seeming coherent with one another, his vision wavered before focusing on the familiar white LED lights. He felt sick, not the same kind of illness as before, but the kind that made his stomach twist over and over, that made his head pound as if it wanted to explode.

It felt like the symptoms of a hangover, Bobby could still so clearly remember so many mornings waking up with that same discomfort, back then it had been a twisted consolation because it felt exactly like the punishment he deserved for all his mistakes.

Now the sensations sent him into a panic, all the years fighting for his sobriety and now everything felt so distant. He struggled to look around searching for what he could have drunk, he couldn’t remember having done something like that, Bobby should have remembered.

Then he tried to sit up and it was only when his wrists hurt from banging against metal that the fog dissipated and Bobby managed to remember where he was and what had happened.

It did nothing to calm him, the memories of the person in the white suit, her indifferent words, the medicine that had knocked him out—was that a sedative? Bobby had thought so when it happened, but the symptoms he felt now made him almost certain it was a narcotic.

A damn narcotic, the one damn thing Bobby could not use if he didn’t want to fall back into his cursed addiction.

His head throbbed harder, Bobby gasped, squeezing his eyes shut tightly, holding back the urge to cry. He had beaten this once and would do it again, there wasn’t even certainty that the stuff was addictive, it could be a non-addictive narcotic.

Bobby could get through this, he had done it once after the fire when he had no reason at all, this time he wouldn’t even be able to list all the reasons he had to overcome the addiction in less than a few hours if he tried.

The main ones were Athena, May and Harry, and the 118, maybe on a smaller level even for himself. Bobby had to overcome whatever trial this ordeal had in store for him.

The door opened again, the same body of about 1.70 meters tall, with the white suit and black visor, the same tray with needles of different sizes and vials and the same medicine as last time.

Bobby twisted again, not caring as his limbs ached from being forced against the metal, he needed to get out of there, back to his family.

“I need to leave,” he growled at the unknown person, her rhythm did not change as she placed the tray on the stand near the head of the bed.

“You are not authorized to leave, Mr. Nash,” the impersonal voice sounded steady, not at all concerned with his struggle or bothered by how wrong it all was.

“You can’t keep me here, this is a crime, I need to get back to my family, that’s where I belong,” he snarled, absolutely furious, the headache worsening as he grew even more stressed trying to break free.

The woman did not respond immediately, instead the lab remained silent for a few minutes as she picked up the syringe and drew a measure of the medicine to apply it again to the IV.

Bobby was certain it was an even larger dose than the last one he had received.

“You belong to us, Mr. Nash, there are no rights for you, your body legally belongs to us since you were declared dead,” the woman said as she reached for the IV. Bobby thrashed once again. “The only thing that matters about you is the reason why you survived,” she said and administered the medication again.

Bobby felt his body shutting down, the stuff worked quickly and he suspected it only worked faster because the effect of the last dose hadn’t yet been fully processed.

His eyes closed as his control over himself diminished, still awake enough to feel the sharp pain of a particularly thick needle entering his arm. Bobby shuddered, the mental image of his family floating in his mind, it was a happy moment for them with everyone gathered at the station for lunch.

Everyone smiled, everyone was fine, Bobby did not let the memory slip away until everything shut off and he passed out.

-*-

The world was a blur, his senses tingled and Bobby wouldn’t have been able to make them work even if he tried, none of the blinks he attempted cleared his vision which still remained terribly blurred. At least he no longer felt the hangover symptoms, though that was only because Bobby was sure the narcotic dose was still too strong to allow it.

He could hear, somewhat distorted, the clinical voices of some people as they obviously conducted an experiment with him, Bobby couldn’t feel pain but he was almost sure that the pricks he felt in his arms came from needles.

Unable to speak, move, or even think coherently, Bobby clung to what he could do, which was to remember anything that belonged to the people he loved.

He remembered Athena, her brown skin that had only rare scars despite her career and the time she had served, her brown eyes that always lit up when she spoke to someone she cared for or who was important to her, the sharpness that made her absolutely unmatched in the field, the tender and loving moments they shared in their marriage.

He remembered Hen and her willpower, her helping hand that she extended to him when he was just a newly appointed captain at the station, the unconditional support she gave him after discovering his struggle with alcohol, the advice in difficult moments, the double dates that Karen and Athena arranged and ended up dragging both of them to, the hard times where they held each other up when the other needed it.

He remembered Chim and his jokes, his firm but playful acceptance, remembered how he was the first person to discover his plan and didn’t treat him like he was crazy, how Chim helped him see the blessings he had received, the fun times they shared.

Of Eddie, what came to Bobby’s memory was that day still in the probationary year of the youngest firefighter when Eddie had to bring Chris to work because he had no one to leave him with. He was visibly afraid Bobby would think it was wrong, he remembered how much Chris had fun until he had to leave and then the hug Eddie gave him in thanks, then he remembered that time after Jonah when Eddie went to Bobby’s house and stopped him from making a huge mistake without even knowing it.

And then there was Buck, the puppy-eyed boy who had shown up at his station on that first day had grown and become a man who still struggled with abandonment, but who fought for what he believed in, who helped everyone he could just because he could, who learned what they tried to teach him without question, who created his own family without ever even realizing he was doing it, their moments cooking together, the Springsteen concert, the jokes between crazy calls.

The memories swirled in his slow mind, lost in the artificial effect of the narcotic, but it didn’t matter because they were all happy memories and they were of his family.

“Home… go home,” his voice came out slow and slurred, but it was still understandable, and then the voices changed momentarily.

The next second a shadow passed over him and something was injected into his IV, the medication.

Bobby passed out.

-*-

Bobby felt confused, his mind was a mess and nothing seemed to make sense, faces blended together in his mind overwhelmed by the drug directly sent into his vein.

He knew all of them, but little by little the names were getting jumbled for him. Sometimes Bobby found it hard to think of a face and give it the right name, only for the name to suddenly change to the correct one.

The first one he confused was Chimney, the face was as clear as it could be since it was directly in his mind, but suddenly he caught himself referring to him as Ravi. Then it was Eddie who blended with Buck.

Then Hen and Athena, Hen and Karen, Karen and Athena. At some point Bobby couldn’t define which physical features were merging with each other.

No face seemed right but he also didn’t know what was wrong, everything seemed equally wrong to his mind.

He was also wrong, it had been some time since he couldn’t differentiate between being awake and passed out, everything was blurring together in his mind.

Sometimes he thought he felt a stab of pain, which probably meant it was a particularly painful test if it could break through the inertia of the drugs, sometimes there were distorted and incomprehensible voices entering his mind.

Bobby thought they were frustrated, maybe yelling, they obviously weren’t getting what they wanted from him.

What was it again? A cure? A reason?

How did he survive? Was it because of him, was it because of Marcy and the last antidote hidden in the lab?

Was it really?

-*-

Bobby couldn’t remember, he had the terrifying feeling that he needed to remember something but simply couldn’t do it through the weight of his tired and forcibly clouded mind.

The images in his mind were so distorted that they were now just blurs, never sharp again no matter how much he tried, and their meanings and the people in them seemed even more distant.

The feelings weren’t, the flashes of voices and laughter weren’t either, Bobby clung to what he could and it wasn’t much.

The pain was starting to blend into the nothingness now, his body obviously wouldn’t withstand much longer what they had been doing.

Bobby didn’t remember why he knew that, it just felt right when he thought about it, his mind insisted on the word overdose.

His body was probably showing the first signs of overdose from that narcotic, the information disappearing in his distant mind right after it appeared.

Bobby was feeling tired, maybe it would be better if his body just stopped altogether.

-*-

Something was wrong, very wrong, and Bobby wasn’t talking about how thinking of anything at all was impossible for him, he was talking about the intermittent beeping that kept repeating and slowly cutting through the fog of confusion the drug had infiltrated into his brain.

The loud sound sent a wave of uncomfortable pain through his temple, forcing a painful groan to escape his lips and his eyes to open.

His eyes burned as if they had been scorched in their sockets, everything was like a bright glare with slightly different tones in each direction. His ears felt submerged in bubbling water and Bobby almost regretted that the malfunction of his hearing hadn’t kept him from hearing the sirens.

Bobby tensed up, his body reacting to the sound as if it were instinctive, it was like a memory so distant it became unreachable to his mind but still so present it forced his body to react to it.

There were firm footsteps somewhere in his hearing that weren’t the alarm and weren’t his ringing ears. That’s a distant shout.

Something Bobby vaguely recognized as “LAFD call,” he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think clearly about how he should try to talk to whoever the being calling him was.

He just stayed still, his mouth silenced by his own tongue far heavier than he could move, his eyes closing as he accepted the burden that he wouldn’t be able to call anyone for help.

Bobby needed that, even if the concept of why he needed it was still a bit abstract at that moment, he knew he needed help.

The sound of the door opening should have made him feel calmer, but he couldn’t calm down as he opened his eyes again wanting to see who had arrived, was it help? Or just another one of those people in white suits?

He couldn’t make out anything beyond shadows with his terrible and blurred vision, but it was a much darker shadow than the guys who came to test him. If he had to guess it was a black uniform with neon yellow.

Firefighters, his mind whispered in a last effort to be coherent and then Bobby was looking at the ceiling again, hearing frantic calls.

It didn’t seem like it to him, though, maybe they were radios, was the person just yelling?

A female face appeared in his vision, familiar as most things were in his mind but Bobby didn’t know where the familiarity came from.

He didn’t know what name completed that face, the glasses and dark skin were familiar, it came with a nasal laugh and a quick feeling of something that felt like pride.

She was talking to him, Bobby decided, watching as she kept moving her mouth to call him while more thunderous footsteps echoed in the hallway.

“Cap, Cap, Cap, Cap” it was with that sequence of calls that Bobby felt his eyes roll back into his head and everything went dark at once.

Looks like he got help after all.