Save Me (An Eddie Diaz 911 Fanfiction)

Broken

"I got stabbed and it totally sucked. But then I remembered a wise man once said, 'Life moves fast. If you don't stop and look around once and awhile you could miss it.'" Chimney quoted the 80s movie to Hen and Jane as they watched him fold and compulsively organize a backlog of laundry on his coffee table.

"The wise men of history," Hen recited dramatically. "Aristotle, Solomon, Dr. King, Bueller, Bueller."

Jane laughed and finished in the perfect monotone, "Bueller."

"Don't mock me, I'm convalescing," Chimney chastised them while he folded a white t-shirt. He'd been out of the hospital awhile, but he would be off the job longer still. They knew that he had to be going nuts, so Hen and Jane had made the decision to visit him together. Which, they were learning, was a good thing because he had watched Marie Kondo and was taking it to the extreme.

"Anyways," Chimney continued, "Ferris Bueller only had one day off. I have weeks of free time, and I'm determined to make the most of it. Last time I almost died, I didn't get to have any fun at all."

"Is that why you're turning all your clothes into index cards?" Hen asked him with raised eyebrows.

"Not all of them," he raised a white shirt to his face, staring at it intently.

"What on earth," Jane said repressing laughter, "are you actually doing Chimney?"

"I'm trying to determine if this shirt sparks joy," he looked at them as if they were the strange ones, and then turned his attention back to the shirt, "and I did, and it doesn't, and now I thank the shirt." He raised the shirt dramatically and stood up, "Thank you," before tossing it away into what Jane assumed was a donation pile.

"Ah, Marie Condo. Inspiring one homebound invalid at a time," Jane said shortly.

"Okay," Hen said, exasperated, but amused, "You need therapy Chim."

This, of course, made the Asian man start laughing, which made Jane lose the battle and start laughing, which caused Hen to give in and laugh too.

"So," Jane said once they'd calmed down, "I hate to be the one to bring this up but...have you spoken to Maddie?"

"Yes," Chimney said shortly, moving on to the rest of his pile. "I have actually. We're going to go out and try this whole first date again."

"Oh," Jane breathed out, sending an unsure look to Hen. "You are just...going to move forward?"

"Yeah," Chimney gave Jane a strange look, "Why wouldn't I?"

"I just thought that with everything that had happened, you might just take some time first," Jane told him gently. No one wanted Maddie and Chimney together more than Jane after she'd seen how much they cared for each other, but they had both been through something horrific. People don't just recover from something like that, and as much as it sucks, Jane knew that when Maddie's ex-husband stabbed Chimney, he'd changed the dynamic of Maddie and Chimney. Jane just wanted them to take care of themselves and maybe gradually work back up to the date.

Jane was struggling with how to convey this message, but Hen had no such reservations.

"You both just almost died," their friend told Chimney, "Now you're going to just prance over her place and pick her up for dinner like it never happened?"

"No," Chimney said simply, "Maddie is coming over here to pick me up, because she is a modern woman and also because I'm pretty sure they couldn't get the bloodstains off that brick." He joked darkly, earning another chuckle from Hen, but Jane recognized the defense mechanism for what it was.

"And not because of the residual trauma from the last time you went over to her apartment?" Jane asked, earning herself a pointed look from Chimney which caused her to raise her hands in the universal gesture of, don't shoot the messenger. "Hey. You are talking to someone who required all of you to come help move me out of my old place after what happened there. I completely understand, possibly more than anybody, how something like what happened to the two of you can effect a person."