Still utterly heartbroken over 9-1-1 Season 8 Episode 15? Yeah, we’re right there with you.
The ABC drama just delivered its most tragic episode yet, with Bobby (Peter Krause) dying after being exposed to a super strain of a virus (Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever) and keeping silent about it until the only antiviral they had was given to one of his firefighters. He accepted his fate, which led to the most emotional scene yet for Bobby and his wife, Athena (Angela Bassett).
But before that moment, the two had quite the love story over the years, going back to a surprise date to cap off Season 1, big milestones like an engagement and wedding over the subsequent seasons, a honeymoon from hell, and, of course, teaming up to solve mysteries on and off the clock. Below, we take a look back at the highs and lows of one of the best romances on TV in recent years.
Bobby and Athena’s First Date (Season 1 Episode 10)
One of the most memorable emergencies of the entire series—a man ripped in half in a motorcycle accident and all they can do is be there while he dies—is what brings Bobby and Athena together. She joins him as he takes a moment on the curb. He’s worried about not being professional, and sge assures him, “No one bats 1000, not with the things we gotta see every day. When I’m on duty, this is who I need to be. But the second I walk through my door at night, I turn into a completely different person.” She asks if there’s anything she can do to help him, and he brings her to church. Later, they have dinner. That poignant conversation at the call that makes this one of the best beginnings of a relationship on TV.
Relationship Reveal (Season 2 Episode 1)
Something that has been clear since the beginning of their relationship is not just how great they are together but also how passionate they are. Here comes the first test of their relationship: It’s been almost four months, and he wants to go out, but she wants to “enjoy this while we can, just the two of us, no pressure.” As she sees it, their relationship is a redemption for him, but it’s complicated for her since she’s the first one in her family to get divorced. But after her ex-husband Michael (Rockmond Dunbar) calls Athena out on her fears, she joins Bobby at the 118 and apologizes. Their kiss reveals their relationship to everyone — Hen (Aisha Hinds) even makes some money (and admits she wishes she’d set them up).
Bobby Meets Athena’s Family (Season 2 Episode 3)
After a major earthquake makes leads to tough shifts for both of them, Bobby calls Athena at home and says he has to see her. She joins him outside. “You came all this way just to see me?” she asks. “I would’ve walked if I had to,” he says. They were both worried about the other, and he found it “nice, having something so important to worry about I had to work hard to put it aside to get the job done.” Michael’s the one to join them and insist Bobby come in for dinner to meet his and Athena’s kids.
Bobby and Athena Get Engaged (Season 2 Episode 10)
Athena is the one to broach the subject of the couple taking a step forward: him moving in. “I get tired of having to say goodnight to you at the door,” she says. “Tired of sleeping alone in a bed made for two. I want you in my life. I know the idea of another family, instant family, probably rings a lot of bells for you after what happened.” Hen warns Bobby not to pretend to see a future with Athena if he doesn’t see one. “Just tell her the truth,” she says. “The truth is that I felt panic,” he admits.
He goes to Athena and says, “You were speaking from your heart, which is something that I love about you,” and then he proposes! “I don’t want to take the next step. I want to take every step, with you for the rest of your lives. Marry me, Athena. … I know it might feel sudden and fast, but we both know how life works. Life is fleeting and it’s precious and when you find happiness and you find somebody who fills your heart, gives you hope for the future and faith in yourself, you have-” She interrupts to say yes.
Bobby Meets Athena’s Parents (Season 2 Episode 11)
Athena’s father (Henry G. Sanders) is friendly, but her mother (Beverly Todd) immediately asks if he’s living there already. “You’re very tall,” she offers, and soon after remarks that Athena and Michael are “barely divorced.” She then later tells Bobby that her grandchildren are not his “consolation prize.” Athena insists that her mother needs to apologize to him because it’s none of her business. It then comes out that Athena’s mother’s problem is that her daughter hasn’t filled her in on things in her life (like that she was seeing Bobby, he proposed, and May almost died). Bobby comes to Athena’s defense at her mother’s cutting remarks.
Bobby and Athena’s First Meeting Flashback (Season 2 Episode 16)
In one of the flashbacks to when Bobby first comes to Los Angeles, he and Athena meet when the 118 breaks up a cock-fighting ring. She arrives on scene to respond to a stabbing, and he hands her the “assailant,” a chicken named Maurice. “Don’t worry, he’s been disarmed. Go easy on him, Sergeant. He’s had a rough day.”
The Wedding (Season 2 Episode 18)
To cap off a finale that includes Buck’s (Oliver Stark) leg being pinned under a fire engine, Bobby goes home and suggests to Athena, “What if we get married? Go to the courthouse, get our license, say our vows, just do it. You, me, and the kids, that’s all you said you needed, and we have that, now, today, and if there’s one thing you and I know it’s that today’s the only thing you can be sure of, so let’s not waste another moment waiting.” She’s in, and she even has a dress ready!
Marital Problems (Season 4 Episode 13)
It’s always tough when mom and dad fight. What’s worse? When one’s been lying to the other. Such is the case here, with Athena following Bobby after realizing he’s been keeping something from her. She finds out he’s sponsoring a woman whose drunk driving caused a pile-up earlier in the season. When she calls him out on it, he in turn brings up the fact that she dismissed retirement without talking to him, and he’d hoped the fact that she’s used to doing things on her own would change.
“Maybe you wouldn’t feel like an outsider if you talked to me instead of playing this tit-for-tat game. Marriage isn’t supposed to work like that,” Athena suggests. Then comes the blow, when he responds with, “Who says this marriage is working?” (The call about Ryan Guzman’s Eddie getting shot by a sniper interrupts them.)
Athena Saves Bobby (Season 4 Episode 14)
With a sniper targeting firefighters, everyone’s on high alert — and then when Bobby is trapped with the offender, Angela comes to his rescue, wearing turnout gear, and taking down said sniper while walking through fire. “You went into a burning building. I didn’t imagine that part, right? You actually worked through fire,” he checks once he’s in the hospital. “Well, you were inside. I wasn’t going to let a little fire stop me. I needed to get my partner back,” she says simply. And when he thanks her for coming to get him, she tells him, “Always.” Relationship goals.
Bobby and Athena’s Confessions While Nearly Dying (Season 7 Episode 2)
It takes them over four years to finally take their honeymoon, only for everything that can go wrong to go wrong — all while things are strained between the couple. But when they’re trapped after doing everything they can to save the passengers (who are getting on lifeboats), Bobby apologizes. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me. You didn’t want to come on this damn cruise. I made you. What the hell was I thinking, deserve a second chance like this?” She tries to stop him, but he pushes on: “No, I don’t deserve you, Athena, I never did. But you said yes.” She makes sure he knows, “And I would again.”
But he still can’t hear her. “I didn’t have a right to ask you, not after what I did. I couldn’t save my first family, and I can’t save you either.” But he already did, Athena says. “You’re not the only one getting a second chance here, and you didn’t make me do anything. I’m here because I want to be. with you,” she tells him. “And yes, I was afraid. I was afraid that I wouldn’t know how to be with you without all the noise, and when we were really truly alone, I would have nothing to say, but now I find that I have lots to say, but not enough time. I love you, husband.” He repeats back, “I love you. I love you, my wife. I love you,” and then makes sure she can hold onto a pipe above her.
Bobby Saves Athena (Season 7 Episode 9)
As Bobby struggles with the appearance of a man, Amir (Malcolm-Jamal Warner), who was burned in the fire he accidentally caused that killed his family, he ponders quitting the LAFD. Athena remarks that it seems like he’s getting his affairs in order. She brings up the events of Season 2’s “Dosed,” when she found him on the ledge. Bobby admits he had a plan to fix the fact that he didn’t die in the fire he should have (the book with the 148 lines, one life saved to repair one lost, which he threw out after their first date). He hadn’t wanted any of this to touch her. But then, Bobby wakes to their house on fire, with Athena unconscious in the bedroom. He carries her outside, does CPR and brings her back, then collapses himself.
Athena Meets Bobby’s Family (Season 8 Episode 11)
To Athena’s surprise, Bobby’s mother (Lesley Ann Warren) is alive, as she learns when he runs into her and his brother on a call. The subsequent meeting goes well for Athena and Ann, who loves her daughter-in-law, but not so much for Bobby and his mother, with her harsh remarks and the tension boiling over.
Bobby Dies (Season 8 Episode 15)
Oh, how this one hurts because of everything that came before it, the big moments we’ve discussed here and the small ones, like the two just crossing paths during a call. Once Bobby locks himself in the lab after the rest of the 118 is evacuated and reveals he’s been infected (and there’s nothing they can do, since he used the one antiviral dose they had on Kenneth Choi’s Chimney), Buck calls Athena in, then leaves them alone after Bobby’s “I want some time alone with my wife.” What follows is devastating, so emotional for Bobby and Athena, and among Krause and Bassett’s best performances of the show.
“I’m sorry, this isn’t how I wanted to leave you,” Bobby says, but Athena protests that she won’t let him.
“I’m not choosing to leave you. I chose to save my team because it was the right thing to do. It was never because I wanted to go,” he continues. “I don’t want to go. If I could choose, I would stay with you, always.” As much as they want and need more time, they don’t have it. “Mine was always borrowed. L.A. was supposed to be my penance, not my home. Then you said yes to a dinner invitation, and I started to live again,” he says, making sure she knows, even as he coughs up blood, “I love you, baby. I love you.” He doesn’t want her to see what comes next, but she refuses to leave. “I’m here, for all the parts that we have left,” she tells him, and he puts his hand up against the glass where hers is. And after one last “I love you” exchange, she watches him die.
