In Flames // 9-1-1 Fox (seasons 1-4)

forty-five

Bobby stepped outside of the diner to answer a phone call from Athena, leaving Buck and Mariana to continue flicking sugar packets at one another from across the table. She had just scored a nice hit straight to his chest when Buck cleared his throat and laid down the packets in his hand.

"Will you tell me about...about Luis?" Buck asked.

Mariana paused in her movement before she finally followed through with her hit, landing the sugar packet right on his nose. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair before nodding. She raised her finger to let him know to wait and then grabbed her phone out of her purse, quickly searching for something. Flipping the phone around, Buck could see the photo on the screen. He glanced down at the photo and then back up at the brunette seated across from him, a look of surprise on his face.

It was a photo of the Ramirez family. Little Mariana was seated on her father's lap, a toothless grin plastered across her face, while Luis was held in her mother's arms. She looked almost identical to her mother, but Teresa Ramirez's smile didn't have the same razor sharp edge to it that Mariana's carried. Her father looked like a goofy man especially with how he held bunny ears up behind her head.

"You can swipe through them," she said quietly, offering the phone to him.

Buck took her offer and found more photos of Mariana and the boy. Luis looked like his sister but tanner and his hair was a darker color than her deep brown. The two siblings looked positively happy in every photo but he could see the differences in some of the years. The older they got, the harder it was to look at the photos because Buck knew what was happening on the other side of the camera. The last photo showed three young adults and a baby in a pool. A blonde woman held the baby on her hip and smiled brightly at the photo while a young man next to her pressed a kiss to her cheek. His left arm was wrapped around Mariana's neck as she stuck her tongue out at the camera. She couldn't have been much younger than she was now but she was clearly happier.

"Luis and Jess, his wife, and their son, Diego. My nephew," she explained. "They died at nineteen, three days after this photo, by a random drive by shooter. It was date night for them. One of their friends was babysitting Diego because I had a shift at the ER."

"Mari, you don't have to-"

"I want to. I need to tell you. I...I know there's nothing I could have done to save them, but I wish there was. The paramedics wheeled in the gurneys and I didn't recognize them. There was so much blood. And then I heard Luis begging for Diego and I knew. The same little kid that climbed into my bed because of nightmares was begging for his kid. I don't know how I didn't break right there. Thirty-three minutes of compressions with no break. Leslie had to literally pull me off him and my God, I remember looking down and just being soaked in blood. And I couldn't breathe. All I could do was sit there. CPS came by and asked about Diego and I looked down at the blood on me and I couldn't...how could I look this little boy in the eye and tell him that I couldn't save his dad? I let them take him and if it wasn't for Leslie, I probably wouldn't have gotten home that night. She took my keys for a whole month until she felt like I could drive again."

Buck rested his hand on top of her shaking fists and held her tear-filled gaze. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for. I just hope you can understand what I mean by the last thing I want to do is give you CPR while you're bleeding out from under me."

"I never knew, I'm sorry. Do you still see Diego at all?"

"My aunt is his guardian. I could take him in whenever I want but it always just feels too late or not at the right time, y'know? How could I even be a good mom?"

He let out a snort and rolled his eyes to which she responded with a smack on the wrist. "Oh, come on, Mari. Like you aren't Christopher's mom practically."