Chapter Text
Eddie's dead wife is sitting on his bed.
Buck doesn't really scream. The noise he makes is more akin to a screech, or some kind of otherworldly sound no human being should even be able to do.
Of course, most human beings have never seen a ghost, so Buck supposes it tracks.
He closes his eyes really fast, pressing shut his eyelids. Maybe he's still sleeping. If it's some kind of dream, all good. He will absolutely have to speak about with his therapist, and knowing himself, he will probably be ashamed around the Diazes for a bit, but all good. He can totally live it with it.
Or maybe it's some kind of sleep paralysis: Buck has been reading about it, how people can sometimes be paralysed awake and see some figure standing around. He doesn't have any sort of breathing issue and he can wiggle his toes just fine, but it's the number one explanation for any sort of haunting. Same ballpark than carbon monoxide poisoning, but he changed his detector less than two months ago.
He didn't eat any anonymous brownie either — they thrash them at the reception now, not wanting to replay the last hazelnut and fudge Incident, as heartbreaking as it is — so cross that as an explanation for his hallucination. A shame, even if he's perfectly happy to avoid any kind of bad trip. Last time Athena had to handcuff them and Eddie cried and Cap tried to jump from the roof. Not fun, both things. As good the brownies probably are, Buck doesn't want it happening ever again, thank you very much.
Doesn't help his diagnosis. With all these possible causes put aside, remains... what? Neurologic issues or brain cancer probably, but there was so many tests run on him after the lightning strike that Buck is pretty positive his team of doctors wouldn't have missed it. Hell, even a four-years-old couldn't miss it with so much data.
Shannon has folded her arms. She stands very straight, seemingly pretty uncomfortable being here, in one of her husband's friend's room, with said husband's friend in his pajama. That Buck can totally understand. He is pretty uncomfortable about it too.
"I'm here, not a hallucination." she states.
Her brows are drawn together the same exact way Christopher's do when something annoys or puzzles him.
"You can read my thoughts!" Buck's voice is very high-pitched suddenly, but he considers he deserves some slack in the situation.
"You think out loud."
"Well I live alone, there should be no one to hear me." He retorts, probably a bit nonsensically since, well, there is clearly someone to hear him. To sass him too, if the smirk on her lips is to be believed. (Buck kinda wants to ask whom rubbed on the other first — without innuendo — between Eddie and her, because Eddie's mouth has exactly the same curve when he's decided to be a pain in the ass. Buck is attuned to it: it happens a lot in his general vicinity. Buck kind of likes this smile: on Eddie it means fun. And also, his face is prettier with it.)
About of his best friend, Buck realizes something.
"I have to call Eddie." and he starts patting around his pillow, searching for his phone.
"No!"
Surprised, he halts to give a good look at the ghost. Shannon is squeezing her hands together.
"Don't call Eddie, please."
Buck don't understand.
"I don't understand," he says.
"Eddie doesn't believe in ghosts," she starts, and Buck is of the impression there is more she doesn't tell him, but he can help himself.
"So, you know you're dead?" he asks, a new fear unlocked as he already imagine himself having to console his best friend's very dead and pretty much a stranger to him — he met her what, a couple of times — wife.
"Good!" and he cringes at his own words, because he doesn't want to say it's good she's dead, only that he's relieved. Not relieved because she's dead, and he's spiraling already.
"It's kinda hard to forget." Shannon's voice sounds almost toneless, but Buck doesn't miss the distress hiding behind.
Shannon died three, almost four, years ago. It's a long time to be still walking on this earth, for sure.
"You were alone?" Buck winces at his own question. It's uncomfortable: maybe he doesn't really want an answer to that. His voice is small, tentative, so unlike him it sounds alien in his own mouth. He can't imagine something worst than be let alone.
"Yay." she breathes, and Buck wants to hug her.
They're not friends, or even close. He doesn't know her, at least not for anything else than her being Eddie's wife and Christopher's mother. These are important titles, but they doesn't define a person. For example, right here right now, she is so small in her yellow blouse, her arms wrapped around her middle as to keep her warm, her bang falling on her eyes, her lips pressed together. Lonely and invisible. And maybe it's all Buck needs to withness to see her as more real than ever.
He was invisible once too.
"Hey," he murmurs, "it's okay. I'm here."
She doesn't exactly fall in his arms. She more or less lands on his shoulder, as heavy as a breath of wind, her tears dampening his t-shirt for only a second before disappearing, exactly as they never existed in the first place. At the end, Buck's night tee stays dry as he tries desesperaly to wrap his mind around the fact it should be wet. Probably? Buck is a little bit out of his depth on ghosts physics. It's not a subject he had the occasion to research.
"So," he asks as she wipes the tears on her cheeks. "You have any idea why you're here?"
"Which here? Your room, or like, the living realm?"
Buck has to admit they are both very valid questions.
"I think you called me." she explains, which doesn't make any sense, because he doesn't ever remember doing that.
"Not out loud, but it was right here. A voice. Your voice, telling me to go to you. So I did."
"Never did that." thinks Buck and he winces when he realizes he still is unable to keep his thought for himself.
"Sorry," he mouthes, but she giggles.
"Yeah, I figured. Except if you're some sort of necromancer in your spare time."
"No. But I died for a minute. Well, three minutes and seventeen seconds."
"Ow."
She stays silent for a moment, pensive the same way Christopher is, little face scrunched when he tries to solve his math homeworks totally by himself.
"Prems!" and she laughs with the same kind of full-bodied spark of joy as her son. Buck has to join her. It's some kind of unwritten rule after all. The kind Buck is good to follow.
"But no, I have no idea why I'm still here. I'm searching since I, well, since I died, but nothing. I'm treading water."
"At last your not drowning," he shrugs.
His brain hurts a little. It's too early, and he's not really certain he is really up. For all he knows, he could be stuck in a dream in a coma. Again. To give himself time to get back his footing, or at least some semblance of it. He tackles making his bed and getting himself a cup of coffee, trying to ignore the woman hovering around him.
"You're positive I can't call Eddie?" he asks, even if he already knows the answer.
But Eddie always makes everything simpler. He gives him a standing, something to anchor Buck. He really needs his best friend right now.
The response is not immediate. Shannon is pensive, her shoulders a bit hunched. She fidgets with the hem of her sleeve.
"Shannon?" he calls gently.
"I don't want him to know. He will be sad."
Buck waits a little more.
"Or maybe he wouldn't be sad. Maybe he wouldn't care. I don't want to see that. It would destroy me."
"Eddie would care. I swear. But it's your decision." Buck accepts.
He still needs help from someone.
"I think we need more info about ghosts. I never researched them." Buck finally realizes, and it's kinda hilarious since his Wikipedia deep-dive are kind of famous, but he never really dived his toes into ghost lore. Clearly a mistake on his part.
"So what do you want to do? Google it?"
"Too slow. Let's go with someone with practical knowledge."
"You called me to speak about ghosts."
Hen doesn't sound too much impressed by him right now. In fact she rarely does at 8 am a out-shift day. Buck swallows his saliva. He may have made a very big mistake.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he sputters. "I don't want to disturb you."
"Don't you ever dare hang up on me now, Buckaroo!" and Hen has the mother voice down, because Buck slouches a bit and stops moving.
"I'm already disturbed. Now tell me. You watched a documentary on it yesterday?"
"No, Chris wanted to watch something about whales. Do you know that humpback whales songs can last for up to half an hour?"
Shannon pinches the edge of her nose. Buck shrugs: it isn't his fault if Hen asked.
"Buck," Hen says. "Explain. About the ghost thing, not the whale thing." And she is hitting him again with the mum's voice, so Buck has no other choice.
"You have a ghost in your room." deadpans his friend. "Eddie's wife ghost."
"Exactly!"
"Buck," huffs Hen. "Are you sure it's not monoxide poisoning or something? A fever maybe?"
"Hen, I checked," he whines. "My detector is brand new and LAFD approved."
"You didn't eat a cookie from the batch from last shift, tell me? These ones were very scrumptious, but they could have been laced with something."
"No Hen, scrumptious-looking cookies or not, I had Ravi put them in the thrash right away. I don't want Athena having to handcuff Eddie again. Or any of us."
"Yeah, not a fun time," Hen ponders, which is funny because she's probably the one who had the funniest time while high. "No vertigo or anything?"
"Hen!"
"Just doing my job."
"Yes, I understand that. You have to ask. But I didn't hit my head, or fall, or anything, and I had very a thorough battery of tests done less than a month ago. I'm fine, clean bill of health and everything."
"Last time you were fine too, and you ended vomiting blood on Athena and Cap lawn."
"It was on their deck," he groans. "Please, Hen, humor me for a second. I really need help."
The line is silent for a moment. He can almost see his friend assessing his tone. If Hen was here, she would probably be checking his vitals right now.
"Okay," she says. "This ghost of yours, it's not vengeful, I suppose."
"No, she's pretty normal. A little bit shaken, and well, you know, dead."
Shannon raises an eyebrow. She watches him from the side of the kitchen counter. Her eyes on him are attentive, like he is some sort of mildly interesting bug. She's listening, fidgeting lightly on the countertop. She had a manicure not so long before her death probably, her nails painted some kind of soft pink.
"Yeah... I suppose it's a given for a ghost."
Clearly Hen is trying, but she sounds so dubitative that Buck has to double check. But yep, still haunted by his best friend's wife with her pink nails and same blue eyes than her kid.
"I don't have a lot about them, you see. Ghosts and spirits I mean." she says gently, "Chim would be a better bet."
"I don't want to be responsible for driving Chim crazy. You know how he is when he has to keep a secret. And on the subject of ghosts, you're way more knowledgable than me. I know nothing." Buck huffs. It makes Hen chuckles, something a bit soft.
"Okay, Jon Snow. What do you want to ask?"
"So," starts Buck, "Hen says the principal hypothesis is that ghosts stay because they have something to finish here."
"I died before my thirties. I haven't finished a lot of things."
She crosses her fingers together, her bang throwing a shadow on her eyes. She has a smile on her lips, but it's more a bittersweet one than anything. Buck wants to put his hand on her wrist, but he thinks better of it. The chances he only goes through her arm are not negligible, and it risks to be not helpful at all.
Comforting a ghost, specially the one of a virtual stranger, seems more and more to be a way harder task than he envisioned at first. (Not that it's a situation he used to imagine a lot. Or at all.)
She waves her fingers to signify it's okay.
"All good," she says, and Buck asks himself if he has to ignore she is wiping tears of her lashes or not. It's kinda hard to mistake it for anything else from where he sits, but maybe the tactful thing to do is to look elsewhere.
Buck is not often described as a tactful guy. A good guy, yes, or a reckless one, of course, but tactful doesn't pair with his name in most discussions. He's used to it, but it makes navigate some situation harder than it should.
"Ow," he blurts. "I didn't ask. Do you want to stay a ghost or... Uh... "
"Dying from death?" she grins, but she isn't really gleeful. It's mostly a sad, earnest smirk, so Buck doesn't exactly feel like he is mocked.
"I don't really know," she adds.
"There is no reason to take a decision right now," he says softly. "I'm sure it can wait."
"Yeah. It's already been three years. I don't see a time limit on that."
It will appear later that in fact, there is a time limit on that.