Chapter Text
Christopher is there one second, the next he's gone.
The space where he'd been crouched on the fire truck is empty, filled instead by a woman Buck doesn't know, by a child he doesn't recognize and by screams and the ugly churn of brown water below them.
"Christopher?"
His voice is already too raw, scraping out of him like he's been calling for Hours.
The truck sways beneath him.
Someone grabs for his arm, maybe a woman, maybe a firefighter, he doesn't know, there are Hands everywhere, but Buck pulls away before any of them can stop him.
"Christopher!"
He climbs down before anyone can stop him.
There's no time.
There is only the empty place where Christopher was supposed to be.
He shoves through the water, through boards and broken pieces of the pier.
"Chris!"
The water slaps into his mouth and the taste of salt engulfes him.
He coughs once, hard enough that his side pulls, but he keeps moving.
"Christopher!"
People are screaming everywhere.
A woman is crying for her husband, a man is holding his bleeding arm against his chest and a little girl is kneeling beside someone who's too still.
He searches under tables, behind broken counters, beside a collapsed stretch of railing half swallowed by the muddy churn. His leg hurts. His side hurts worse and every breath catches somewhere wrong, like a piece of the pier has lodged itself beneath his ribs and stayed there, and cold has worked itself so deeply into him that his fingers barely close when he grabs at debris.
But none of it matters.
There is no cough. No small voice.
...
No miracle.
"Chris, please!"
His voice cracks around the name.
The water pulls back around his calves, leaving mud and wreckage and he staggers forward through the ruined stretch of pier with his eyes burning and his pulse punching too fast under his skin.
Then he sees them.
Half buried in mud against a twisted piece of metal, one lens cracked through the middle like a lightning strike frozen in glass.
Christopher’s glasses.
The screaming fades, and all he can hear is his own breath turning thin and useless as he lowers himself toward the muddy ground.
"No," he whispers
Christopher was here.
Buck looks up, waiting for the cough, waiting for the small sound from the broken souvenir shop.
Only silence answers.
He keeps searching.
He checks the broken shop.
He shoves through the gap with his shoulder, glass cutting his palm, breath snagging as pain lights up under his ribs, and when he drops to his knees behind the overturned counter, there is only water, mud, candy wrappers, splintered wood, and the empty little pocket where a child could have fit.
Where Christopher should have been.
Buck’s hand presses against the ground.
"Chris,"
The world shifts.
…
One second, he's kneeling in the wreckage with muddy glasses clutched in his shaking hand, and the next, he's standing beneath floodlights outside the VA, soaked through and shaking so hard his teeth ache.
He doesn't remember walking there.
Everything feels too heavy to move through, as the lights above the VA burn white and distant and the voices around him blur into one long, muffled sound.
The world has gone muted and far away, until the only thing that still feels real is the cracked frame digging into his palm.
No...
Eddie stands a few feet away in his turnout gear, wet and pale beneath the harsh lights, and the entire world narrows around the sight of him.
The voices fall away.
There is only Eddie, and the empty space between them, and Christopher’s broken glasses shaking in Buck’s hand.
"Eddie," Buck whispers. The name barely makes it out, but Eddie turns toward him with empty eyes.
…
The glasses turn heavier in his hand, dragging his arm down inch by inch until his fingers ache around the cracked plastic.
Eddie starts walking toward him.
Buck can't move, can't breathe.
Oh god… no… please
Eddie’s gaze drops to his hands… To the glasses.
The tiny frame with cracked lenses
Buck tries to close his fingers around them, tries to hide them… but it's too late
Eddie looks from the glasses to Buck’s empty arms.
…
"Where is he?"
Buck opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
Eddie takes one step closer, and Buck flinches even though Eddie hasn't touched him.
"Where is Christopher?"
"I’m sorry," he tries, but saltwater floods his mouth, filling his throat the way it did when the wave slammed over him, and Buck chokes on the apology, coughing hard enough that his whole body folds around the pain in his side.
He tries again.
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—"
More water.
More choking.
The glasses shake in his hand, little drops of mud and seawater slipping from the frame onto the concrete between them.
…
"He loved you."
Buck’s breath catches.
No please, let this end...
"He trusted you."
"Eddie," Buck tries again, but it comes out broken and wet.
"I trusted you."
The words hit harder than the wave ever could.
"Buck!"
Buck shakes his head, but there is nowhere for the denial to go, because he's been saying the same thing to himself since the water took Christopher from the truck.
"I trusted you," Eddie says again
Buck tries to step forward, or back, or away, but his knees buckle and he catches himself against Nothing.
"Eddie, please, I looked everywhere," he says, or thinks he says, "I tried. I tried so hard. I didn’t stop."
"But you came back."
"I found him," Buck chokes, but the dream shifts the truth under his feet and leaves him with empty arms. "I found him, I found him, I did, I found him."
"Where is he, Buck?"
trusted you
where is he
he loved you
Buck shakes his head harder.
"No, no, Eddie, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry."
I trusted you
"You lost my son."
"Buck!"
He can't breathe.
Eddie’s face twists, and when he speaks again, his voice is so quiet it cuts deeper than shouting ever could.
"I never want to see you again, Buck"
The name folds over itself, accusation turning into sound and hands closing around his shoulders.
"Buck, wake up!"
The cracked frame bends between his fingers, and the broken lens fills with dark water until it spills over his palm.
"No," Buck chokes, trying to close his fist around them, trying to keep the last piece of Christopher from slipping away too. "No, no, please—"
But the glasses come apart anyway. They turn to water in his hand, running between his fingers no matter how tightly he curls them in.
"Buck, please. Come on!"
There is a hand on his shoulder, and he jerks under it with a broken sound trapped in his throat, his body fighting before his mind knows where it is.
"Buck!"
—————
He gasps awake hard enough that it hurts.
His eyes fly open, and his body bolts upright before thought can catch up.
Eddie jerks back just in time, Buck’s forehead nearly clipping his chin as he surges up with a ragged breath and a hand already clawing at the blanket beneath him.
What—
Eddie is above him. His face is too close, pale and terrified and his hair is damp from… rain?
His hand is on Buck’s shoulder and his mouth is forming his name.
"I’m sorry," he gasps.
Eddie freezes.
Buck pushes himself up further.
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry."
"Buck, hey, easy—"
"I’m sorry, I lost him, I didn’t mean to, I looked, I looked everywhere, I swear I looked everywhere, I—"
"Buck, calm down."
His body chooses that moment to remind him that it's still broken.
Pain tears through his side when he tries to sit up fully. Deep enough to steal the next breath, and the room tips so violently that Maddie’s living room smears into colors and shapes.
"Buck!"
Eddie catches him before he can fold sideways, one arm sliding around his back while the other steadies his shoulder, and Buck’s whole body goes rigid at the touch because some guilty part of him still expects Eddie to push him away.
But he doesn't, and when Eddie pulls him in, he breaks immedietly.
There is no dignity left to pretend he's fine… he spent too many hours imagining Eddie looking at him with anger and grief
His fingers clutch weakly at Eddie’s Shirt as he presses his face into his shoulder.
"Eddie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for loosing him."
Eddie’s arm tightens around him and his hand spreads carefully across the back of his neck
"Chris is okay, Buck. He’s safe. He’s home."
Buck’s fingers twist harder in Eddie’s shirt.
Some part of him is still kneeling in dirty water with broken glasses in his hand.
"Just take a breather, Buck. You’re not in the water," Eddie says, and Buck distantly thinks that Eddie's reading his mind "You’re at Maddie’s. You’re on the couch. I’ve got you."
Buck drags in another breath.
It catches halfway down, snagging hard against the pain under his ribs, and his whole body tenses around it, but Eddie’s hand stays at the back of his neck.
"Small breath," Eddie corrects softly. "Don’t force it."
Little by little, the room stops spinning, and the nightmare loosens its teeth enough for him to hear the rain against Maddie’s window.
Eddie waits until Buck stops shaking quite as hard, before he slips his hand from the back of his neck, and he leans back to look at him.
It's not far, but Buck feels the loss of contact like cold air rushing into an open wound.
Eddie studies his face for a second, still too pale himself with rain still caught in his hair and worry carved into every line of him.
"You good, man?"
Buck lets out a small, broken Sound.
"No," he says, voice hoarse. "I’m, uh..."
He drags a hand over his face.
"I’m pretty much the farthest thing from that."
...
"I’m sorry," he says again, less frantic but somehow worse because now he can actually hear himself. "I’m sorry, Eddie."
Eddie’s lips press together, and to Buck it Looks like he's holding back five different responses at the same time.
…
"I’d appreciate it if you’d stop apologizing for saving my son, you know."
What?
"Eddie—"
"No," Eddie cuts him of, before the apology can turn into another spiral. "You can be scared or upset, and we can talk about all of it, but I’m not going to sit here and let you apologize like bringing Christopher back to me was something you did wrong."
"He was scared."
"Of course he was! Everyone was scared, Buck. Chris was scared. I was scared. You were scared."
Buck looks down and Eddie leans a little closer, trying to keep him from disappearing into another thought.
"But that doesn’t make it your fault."
Buck’s jaw trembles.
"Eddie—"
"No," he says. "A tsunami hit. You brought him back. None of that changes because he was scared."
Eddie’s voice softens.
"And Chris isn’t mad at you either."
"He should be."
"No," Eddie says immediately. "He shouldn’t."
"He was crying."
"I know he was. But he wasn’t crying because he blames you, Buck. He was crying because he’d just survived something terrifying, and the person who got him through it was on the ground and wouldn’t wake up."
Buck doesn't know what to do with that.
For hours, he carried the image of Christopher crying like evidence laid out, that he hurt Eddie’s son so badly even a child could understand who to Blame... but now Eddie's turning it sideways and Buck suddenly sees something he hadn't let himself look at because guilt had been easier than the possibility that Christopher had reached for him because he was scared Buck was leaving too.
…
On the ground, pale and soaked and not answering.
"And then you left the hospital before I could show him you were alive."
Buck goes still.
Eddie’s eyes are too bright, and Buck realizes with a strange, distant shock that Eddie looks almost as wrecked as he feels.
"That," Eddie continues, "is what I’m mad about."
Buck forgets how to breathe.
"Not the wave," he continues, with frusration Lacing his voice. "not any part of a natural disaster that none of us could’ve seen coming or stopped."
...
"I’m mad because you left hurt and alone before I could tell Christopher that his Buck was still alive."
Buck’s face crumples.
His Buck.
Eddie doesn't seem to notice the way the words affect him, or maybe he does and keeps going because stopping now would be worse.
"I’m mad because you had no phone, no car, no wallet, barely steady on your feet, and I kept thinking you were out there somewhere on the ground."
His voice nearly breaks.
"So yeah, I’m mad," he says. "I’m mad because you disappeared before I could prove you were wrong."
What the hell is he supposed to say to that?
That he was a coward?
Yeah, fine, maybe he was, maybe walking out of the hospital before Eddie could get there had been cowardly, maybe begging Maddie not to call him had been pathetic and unfair and all the things Buck already knows, but he heard those nurses.
He heard about what it would feel like to leave your kid with someone for one afternoon and get him back terrified and shaking apart.
And he can't even blame them for thinking it.
What father wouldn't look at the person who lost their son in the middle of a tsunami and look for someone to blame.
Of course he expected some horrible confirmation that Eddie understood Buck had brought danger to his son and then dared to collapse in front of him on top of it.
...
The room is quiet now except for the faint patter of rain against the window
His voice comes out small.
"I thought you wouldn’t want to see me."
Eddie goes still.
Maddie makes a small sound behind them, barely more than a breath, and Buck finally remembers that she is there, standing near the edge of the room with one hand pressed to her mouth and her eyes wet.
Shame hits him hot and fast.
Eddie swallows hard, his eyes flicking once toward Maddie, in silent acknowledgment that this next part is going to hurt.
Maddie seems to understand before either of them say anything.
"I’ll be in the kitchen, I'll uh... I’m just giving you both some space."
Buck turn toward her momentarily, and Maddie gives him a small, broken smile just before she steps away.
Eddie breathes out, sharp and disbelieving and turns back to him.
"You’re not making any sense, you know."
Buck flinches, but something else rises under the shame, and he pushes at Eddie’s chest before he can think better of it.
"Buck, don’t—"
Buck stands anyway.
Or tries to at least.
His knees nearly betray him the second his feet hit the floor, but he grips the back of Maddie’s couch before he can fall.
Eddie follows him instantly.
"Sit down."
"No," Buck snaps, and pushes himself to stand upright "It makes perfect sense."
"Buck," Eddie says carefully, one hand lifted like he wants to reach for him and doesn't know if Buck will let him.
"You trusted me with the most important person in your entire life, Eddie."
"Buck—"
"No, don’t," Buck cuts in, because if Eddie says his name like that, he's going to break in half. "Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault... I know what happened, okay? I know I couldn’t have stopped the whole damn ocean, but he was with me."
His voice cracks.
"He was with me."
Eddie takes one slow step closer, but Buck only shakes his head.
"And then I came back with him hurt and scared, with his glasses and crutches were gone. I know that stuff isn’t exactly cheap, and now you have to replace all of it because I couldn’t just go to the fucking movies!"
Eddie’s lips press into a thin line as something stricken and furious moves across his face.
"Jesus, Buck," he breathes.
Buck laughs, but there is no real humor in it.
"I know compared to everything else it sounds stupid, but it’s not just the glasses or the crutches... it’s that I kept thinking, one of the most important people in my life trusted me with his child, and I couldn’t even bring him back whole."
His heart does a weird skip. A hard, uneven little jump that makes him realize exactly what he said a second after the words leave his mouth.
One of the most important people in my life.
It's true and it has been true for so long that saying it shouldn't feel like stepping off a ledge... but it does, it feels terrifying and too close to all the things he trained himself not to want from Eddie.
"Do you even hear yourself?"
Buck’s mouth snaps shut as Eddie fixes him with a look.
"Do you actually hear what you’re saying right now?"
"I’m saying what happened."
"I don’t care about the damn glasses, Buck!"
…
"I don’t," Eddie says again, "I don’t care about the glasses. I don’t care about the crutches. I don’t care About the fucking Money! I care about the fact that my son is alive."
Eddie’s voice shakes as he takes another step closer.
"I care about the fact that you are."
…
"You couldn’t have known the wave was coming," he says. "You did everything you could with the impossible thing that happened to you."
Buck’s throat works.
"So tell me," Eddie continues, "If it had been me with him instead, if I’d taken Christopher out and the wave hit while he was standing next to me, would you blame me?"
Buck huffs a broken, disbelieving sound.
"That’s not the same."
Eddie’s eyes flash.
"Yes, it is."
"No, it’s not."
"It's exactly the same, Buck."
Buck shakes his head, stubborn and furious because Eddie is twisting it into something he can't answer without giving up the only logic his guilt has left.
"No, because you’re his father."
"And you’re a hypocrite," Eddie snaps.
Buck goes still.
"You are. If I were standing here telling you I should’ve predicted a tsunami, that I should’ve been strong enough to hold on to him when the entire ocean came down on us, you'd look at me like I had lost my mind."
His eyes start to burn again.
"Eddie—"
"You'd tell me it wasn’t my fault and that Christopher being alive is all that matters."
Buck’s mouth trembles, but he can't find an answere quick enough.
Eddie’s anger cracks open into something terrified.
"You don’t get it. I thought you were going to die too!"
The words hit him and everything behind his eyes seems to switch off for a second.
Even the shame disappears for one impossible heartbeat, swallowed by the strange, hollow shock of realizing he's been picturing Eddie’s face wrong this whole time.
Eddie swallows hard, eyes shining and jaw clenched.
"I saw Christopher in triage, and he was crying... he was reaching for you, and then I saw you on the ground."
He never thought about that...
"I didn’t know if you were crashing, or if you were going to wake up!"
"Eddie..."
"And then you did wake up," Eddie interrupts once more "and you left."
...
For a few seconds after Eddie finishes, neither of them say anything.
Rain taps softly against Maddie’s window, steady and distant and too normal for the way Eddie is standing in front of him with his chest heaving like he's just run through the whole city.
He probably did
...
He hadn't thought about it like that.
Not once.
Well, not that he really had time to think things through... but still
The longer Buck stands there, the harder it gets to keep standing.
A dull ache spreads up his side, curling under his ribs until every breath feels thinner than the last.
Gosh, that goddamn piece of debris really took something out of him.
His knees start to tremble.
…
Of Course Eddie sees it.
"Sit down."
"What?"
"Sit down," Eddie repeats,"I’m serious, Buck, sit down before you fall over and give me another heart attack."
He sits down because his body stops giving him a choice.
His knees fold and he lands back on Maddie’s couch with his breath punched out of him, one hand catching the armrest while the other presses uselessly against the place under his ribs.
Eddie doesn't sit. He stays standing in the middle of Maddie’s living room with his shoulders tense and his jaw locked, still too close and somehow impossibly far away.
There it is.
There it is, finally.
He's standing because sitting next to him would be too much, because Buck has pushed too far and there has to be a point where even Eddie stops reaching for him.
His fingers are still shaking, and he curls them into the blanket, trying to hide it.
…
"You don’t have to stay," he says when the silence is too much.
He almost wishes he could take it back, even though some horrible part of him means it and because giving Eddie permission to leave feels like the only decent thing he has left to offer.
"Do you really think that’s what I want?"
Buck flinches sligtly before he can stop himself.
"I don’t know what you want from me anymore."
A flash of hurt passes over Eddie's face, and Buck almost wishes he hadn't caused it.
He waits for him to say that he wants him to stop making everything harder, or that he wants him to think for once in his life.
It'd be true
But Eddie just looks at him like Buck has somehow managed to miss the most obvious thing in the world.
"I want you to stop acting like losing you wouldn’t destroy me too."
Buck stops breathing.
Me.
Not Christopher, or the 118.
Me.
…
Wait, no
If he lets himself believe for even one second that Eddie means it the way Buck’s heart wants him to, then there will be no surviving the moment he learns he's wrong.
So he does what he always does.
He makes himself smaller before someone else can.
"You would’ve been fine,"
He hates how flat the words sound, how tired, but... still certain somehow
"And the team would’ve..." He stops, swallows, tries again. "They would’ve been sad, obviously, I’m not saying nobody would care, but they would’ve been okay eventually. Everyone keeps going. "
Eddie looks like Buck has slapped him straight across the face and he wishes that alone would make him stop.
…
But it doesn't.
"And Maddie has Chim,and she’s stronger than she thinks, and you have Chris, and Bobby has Athena, and Hen has Karen, and everybody has somebody they actually belong to, and I'm just floating around somewhere."
There.
There is the truth, ugly and exposed in the space between them, and Buck wants to crawl out of his own skin the second he realizes he said it out loud.
"God, Buck," Eddie says after a long moment, voice rough enough to scrape. "Is that really what you think you are to us?"
…
The answer should be no.
He should be able to say that he knows they love him and that he's not just some temporary fixture in their lives.
Eddie is staring at him like he's begging him to say exactly that.
But he's so tired, his head feels packed with cotton and the nightmare is still close enough that if he closes his eyes, he can still feel Christopher’s broken glasses dissolving in his hand.
So all he has is the truth.
"I don’t know."
…
Eddie’s face changes, something sharper and wounded flashing through his eyes so quickly Buck almost misses it before Eddie turns his head away with a disbelieving sigh.
Buck thinks he finally found the line he can't uncross
Then Eddie laughs humorless.
"God, you’re an idiot,"
Buck stares at him.
Yeah I am. Thank you for noticing.
Eddie looks back, eyes too bright and too frustrated.
"And I'm calling you that, because somehow you can stand there and tell me that Christopher would’ve moved on, that everyone would’ve just kept going, like you haven’t been in my house so often my neighbors think you live there."
Eddie takes one step closer, then seems to remember himself and stops, still Standing.
"And me?" hiss voice cracks on the word, "Jesus, Buck, me?"
He looks away again, but this time it feels less like a door closing and more like he has to look somewhere else because keeping his eyes on Buck is too much.
"You really don’t know? After everything, you really don’t know what you are to me?"
Do I?
He knows Eddie trusts him with Christopher, or used to, or maybe still does in some impossible way Buck can’t make himself understand yet. He knows Eddie lets him into his kitchen, his bad days, his quiet mornings, the parts of his life that most people don’t get close enough to see... He knows he's probably the first Person Eddie calls when somethings wrong
He knows all of that.
But does Eddie even know what that sounded like just now?
Buck stares at him as his fingers twist so tightly in the blanket his knuckles start aching and his heart has started to beat widly in his chest.
Fuck it.
"Well, what am I to you?"
…
Eddie doesn't answer.
His mouth parts slightly, like there is a response waiting, but nothing comes out. His eyes flick over Buck’s face once, and then away again, toward the window and the floor, basically anywhere that's not him.
"Eddie?"
That seems to make it worse.
Eddie blinks like he's trying to come back into himself.
"I..." he starts, and then stops.
Oh God, I broke him.
His nex breath catches the wrong way, and his hand flies from the blanket to his abdomen.
That breaks whatever spell Eddie had frozen inside.
"Buck?"
"I’m fine," Buck answeres automatically, which would probably be more convincing if his voice didn’t break around the second word.
Eddie moves instantly, the almost-confession vanishing beneath the kind of focus Buck knows too well from calls.
"No, you’re not."
"I just stood up too fast earlier," Buck tries, because if Eddie stops looking at him like that then maybe he can breathe normally again.
That makes no sense...
"Okay," Eddie says, "We’re not doing this right now."
Buck blinks up at him, disoriented.
"What?"
"This." Eddie gestures once between them, sharp and helpless, "Whatever this is, whatever we’re about to say, we’re not doing it while you’re half-delirious, in pain, and pretending you aren’t about to pass out on your sister’s couch."
Buck’s heart gives a weak, stupid lurch.
Whatever this is.
Not nothing, then.
Not nothing.
…
"Eddie," he whispers, and he doesn’t know whether it's a question or a plea.
Eddie’s face cracks for half a second.
"I know,"
Buck doesn’t think he ever heard two words carry that much weight.
He wants to beg Eddie to finish the sentence, before one of them gets scared enough to bury it again.
But then the room tilts, and his hand presses uselessly against his side.
Eddie catches him before he can slide sideways.
"Okay, that’s it," he says, "Maddie!"
Buck closes his eyes as Eddie lowers him carefully back against the cushions, one hand braced behind his shoulders.
"I’m sorry," Buck breathes.
Eddie’s mouth tightens.
"No more apologies today."
"Later?" Buck asks before he can stop himself.
Eddie goes very still, and for a second, Buck thinks he ruined it.
…
"Yeah... Later."
Later.
Not never.
Maddie’s footsteps come back from the kitchen, quick and careful at the same time, and the look on her face makes the fragile warmth in Buck’s chest twist into something colder.
Eddie's head turns toward her immediately.
"Did you call the hospital?"
Maddie nods.
"Yes, a while ago. I got through to the discharge nurse."
Buck frowns.
"Discharge nurse?"
Neither of them looks at him.
"Did they say anything useful?"
Maddie glances at Buck then, just once, like she is trying to decide how much to say in front of him, which is ridiculous because he's literally sitting right there.
"She sounded relieved I called, honestly," Maddie says "She said she was sorry. That she tried to convince him to stay longer, but they were completely overwhelmed, and he slipped through the cracks."
Eddie lets out a sharp, humorless breath.
"Of course he did," he mutters, glancing sideways at Buck.
Buck’s mouth opens.
Eddie points at him without fully turning.
"Don’t."
He closes his mouth again, offended mostly because he had absolutely been about to argue.
"She said his scans were clear of active internal bleeding before he left," Maddie continues. "No splenic bleed, no liver injury, nothing they were seeing then that needed surgery."
Eddie’s jaw flexes.
"Yeah, they told me something similar when we were still in the waiting room. But why is he still in this much pain then?"
"You know I’m still here, right?" Buck says.
Eddie’s eyes flick to him.
"Unfortunately."
Buck opens his mouth to argue once more, but this time Maddie talks over him.
"They think it’s from where he got slammed into debris during the wave," she says. "Severe soft tissue bruising along his side, probably abdominal trauma, plus bruised ribs or strained muscles. They said even without a fracture, it can hurt badly, especially if he’s been panicking, moving around too much, or trying to breathe through it wrong."
Buck looks between them.
"Okay, first of all, I did not leave the hospital with a pamphlet titled 'how to deal with a tsunami aftermath', you know."
Maddie gives him a look.
"Evan."
"What? I’m contributing to the conversation about my own body."
Eddie looks back at Maddie.
"Did they say he needs to go back?"
Buck’s stomach drops.
"No,"
Maddie’s mouth tightens.
"They said if the pain gets suddenly worse, if he coughs blood, vomits, passes out, or gets confused, then yes, ER. Immediately."
"Great," Buck mutters. "Love the list. Very relaxing."
Eddie does not smile.
"And if it doesn’t?"
"Rest," Maddie says. "Actual rest. Pain meds on schedule, fluids, and someone needs to keep an eye on his breathing because of the hypothermia and the shock."
Buck lifts a finger.
"I would like to object to the phrase 'someone needs to keep an eye on him'."
"No," Maddie and Eddie say at the same time.
Buck blinks.
"Wow. Okay. Rude."
Maddie’s expression wavers, softening with worry even as she tries to look stern.
"Buck, you scared the hell out of me."
The humor dies in his throat, and he looks down at the blanket.
"I know."
Maddie looks at Eddie, then at Buck, then back at Eddie again.
"He shouldn’t be alone tonight."
"I’m not helpless,"
"No one said helpless," Eddie says.
"You’re both kind of insinuating that I’m a wet cardboard box with a head injury."
Eddie stares at him.
"You are literally wrapped in a blanket on your sister’s couch after almost passing out twice."
Buck raises his eyebrows weakly.
"So a very brave wet cardboard box."
Maddie makes a small broken sound that might have been a laugh.
Eddie doesn't laugh, he just looks at Buck for a long second.
"You’re coming with me."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"You can’t just decide that."
"I can when you’re making stupid decisions."
Buck pushes a hand through his hair.
"I can go home," he says, trying to sound reasonable and hearing himself fail. "You have my keys, so there’s that. I can get into the loft. I can take care of myself."
"You passed out in a disaster triage tent twelve hours ago, Buck. Twelve hours ago. So no, you can't take care of yourself."
…
"I’m not going to pass out again." Buck mumbles weakly.
"You’re not going back to an empty apartment where nobody will know if you fall over."
Buck’s mouth snaps shut.
He hates that Eddie is right.
Maddie exhales softly.
"Eddie’s right."
Oh come on.
Buck looks at her, betrayed.
"Maddie."
"I know," she says, "I know you don’t want to hear it, but he is. You shouldn’t be alone tonight."
"I wouldn’t be alone forever," Buck Mutters.
"Buck," Maddie says.
…
He should say no again, because going with Eddie means Christopher.
It means being somewhere that already feels too much like home.
And that's the problem.
"Buck."
He doesn't look up.
"We have..." Eddie stops for a moment "We have things we need to talk about, don’t you think?"
Buck’s face goes hot so fast it's embarrassing.
He can feel it crawling up his neck and into his cheeks, and suddenly the blanket becomes the most interesting thing in the entire room.
Things.
What am I to you?
Buck swallows, but his throat feels too tight suddenly.
"Yeah," he forces out,
"Yeah?"
Buck nods once, still not looking at him.
"I think we probably do."