Hope is a tricky thing. It keeps you going for a while but at some point if what you're hoping for is never going to happen then it's just holding you back from your life.
You! I needed a husband and a co-parent. And instead all I got was a life alone in Texas with a baby and you on another continent. I needed someone to have my back.
The problem is after thirty years of marriage I can't get thirty seconds of attention from my husband! It's like I'm invisible. But I'm not invisible. I am here, damn it! See me, Norman?!?! [strips naked for everyone to see] See me now?!?!?
[voice over] Romeo and Juliet, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, Lancelot and Guinevere. Great love stories that started with a bang and ended in tragedy. In the real world, no one's life is that linear. We fall in and out of love. We take it for grant or find it where we least expect it. Some relationships can seem easy from the start and others can be faced with tremendous obstacles. We root for love to conquer all but we also root for a comeback. People who have been knocked down by life and get back up on their feet. Who learned from the mistakes that they've made and grow into better, more complete human beings. So maybe the greatest love stories aren't the ones that end in tragedies. Maybe they're the ones that start with a second chance.
I ran out first. I ran out on both of them. See, when Christopher was first diagnosed I was in Afghanistan. Right at the end of my tour. Instead of going back home...I reenlisted. I told myself it was to pay the bills.
Yeah. But I got to pretend like it was for a noble cause and serve my country. But when Shannon broke, nobody thought she was a hero. She just got called evil.
Well, he has signed every liability waiver and release form the department threw at him. Pretty sure we could drop a piano on Buck's head and he wouldn't be able to sue the city for it.
I don't know what I'm doing. Well, he just.....he doesn't think things through. He acts, reacts, and that leaves the rest of us to have to deal with the fallout.
Yeah, and the hurt feelings. Look, you are allowed to be angry with Buck and worried about this decision that he's made, but you care about the kid. Don't let the other stuff make you lose sight of that.
You're right. I didn't think about what could happen. I was mad at Bobby for not letting me back. I was mad at you guys for moving on without me. I was mad that there was nothing I could do about it. And I just...I just wanted to––
I guess it's like the uniform is my costume. You know, I put it on and suddenly I'm brave, and I'm strong, I make a difference. Feels like without it I'm not much of anything.
You claim you’re a good man, now. But Emmett was always a good man. Oh, he believed in second chances too. He’d be impressed with the life you’ve built. But you built it on the back of a dead man and I, for one, can’t get past that.
Control? That's what this is about, right? You're the guy who always keeps it together, no matter what life throws at you. You shake it off, keep moving forward.
God, when did I not let him down? I wasn't there when he was a baby. Stayed away too long, and it broke his mother. Shannon ran away, I...and I couldn't stop her. I couldn't bring her back home. So I brought him here. And let her back into his life.
Yeah, after she told me she wanted...a divorce. And I'm...I'm still mad. How stupid is that? I'm angry at a dead person and at myself because I forgave her...for everything, and...and it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough.