Chapter Text
Buck isn’t sure where he is. The last thing he remembers was being out on a call at an accident near the edge of a lake. When he heard there was a child trapped inside a sinking car he had acted without thinking, stripping off his jacket and boots and jumping into the water.
He swam as deep as he could, feeling the water start to drag him down as it soaked into his clothes. The car had already reached the bottom, the water around him full of mud where it had disturbed the silt below. He could hardly see but he was able to pull the utility knife from his belt and feel his way to the back window. He had smashed the window, snatched the little girl up from inside, and kicked desperately towards the top of the water.
Now he’s here, in a place he has never seen before, surrounded by people he doesn't know.
It's bright. That's all he can really tell. Just a bright light surrounding everything everywhere he looks. The people around him seem to come from every walk of life. Young and old, people in suits and people in dirty clothes with bare feet. They walk through the light, everybody heading in the same direction. He peers out to where they're all going and sees far off in the distance two doorways standing tall in the middle of the brightness.
He feels something in his hand and brings it up to where he can see it, squinting to get it into focus. It’s a piece of paper, with beautiful calligraphy written across it in gold letters. It says “Go Back”.
Another glance around and he can see that everybody has a piece of paper in their hand. “What does it mean?” He asks out loud.
“It means your time is not yet over.”
He startles and turns to the voice behind him. It was the first voice he has heard since he opened his eyes in this place.
He can't tell what the… person… creature… being looks like. It's like every time he focuses on their face everything seems to shift and change. One second he is certain they are a woman, the next a man. One second old, the next young.
He stops trying to get the being into focus and asks, “My time?”
“Your time in life,” the being says, pointing to what looks like a mirror that is standing beside them. It's a full-length mirror surrounded in a beautiful gold frame. Buck leans forward and looks into it and recoils at what he sees.
He sees himself, lying on the bank of the lake, with his team all around him. Chimney is pressing on his chest and Hen kneels beside him with the paddles in her hand, waiting. Bobby is kneeling beside Bucks’ head, mouth moving but Buck can't hear the words. All of them seem to be moving in slow motion, as if somebody had slowed down the video.
He watches as slowly, slowly Chim presses on his chest one, two, three more times before pulling his hands away. Hen slowly, slowly places the paddles on his chest and he watches as his own body lifts off the ground, back arching as the electricity tries to start his heart. His body sinks back down and he sees Chim's hands come back to his chest again. He looks closely and can see wetness in Chim's eyes as he presses and presses, slowly, slowly.
“Chim…” Buck whispers, before looking back up at the being.
“They’ll save you,” they say, voice quiet and echoing all at once. “It's not your time. You should go now.” And the being points in the direction of the two doorways before suddenly disappearing as if they had never been there at all.
He has to get back. He has to go back to his team. He joins the crowd walking towards the doorways and begins to run.
He sees the two doorways as he runs. Above one are the words “Go Back” in the same beautiful writing as his ticket. The other one says “Go Forward”. He’s certain he knows what that means and he wants nothing to do with that door.
Before he can reach the front of the doorway he gets stopped by a queue. All the people are lining up to go through one person at a time. He sees that the line for the door he is heading towards is much shorter than the other. It seems that not many people cheat death.
While he’s waiting to go through he looks around and sees the other people milling about. He’s fascinated, and he wishes he could know their stories. Know how they died, know how they lived. What brought them here and what are they leaving behind?
As he’s looking around something catches his attention. It's a click click click sound that’s different from all the other muted sounds he hears. His eyes dart all around searching for the noise and finally he sees about 100 feet away, standing at a mirror like the one he had seen his own almost-death in, is a tiny little boy with crutches in his hands.
He’s not the only child here, sadly. The crowd of people is unending and many are far too little. Most are alone, some are walking with people who are probably their parents.
The boy who caught Buck’s attention is still standing at his own mirror, looking at whatever he sees inside and something feels like it’s pulling Buck to him. A sensation in his chest that makes him want desperately to go help him. Another minute won't hurt, Buck thinks. He has his ticket… he knows he’s going home.
He gets out of line and walks carefully over to where the little boy is standing, still looking in his mirror. The boy doesn't notice him come over, too intent on watching what's happening inside. Buck looks over his shoulder into the mirror and sees an operating room.
In the image the same boy is lying on the table with doctors and nurses all around. Buck glances up at the monitors that are keeping track of the boy’s heart rate and blood pressure and sees that the boy is going tachycardic on the screen.
“Daddy is going to be so sad,” the little boy says. His voice is small and wavering and it brakes Buck’s heart.
He glances down at the little boy's hands where they are clutching his crutches and sees a slip of paper crumpled in one. He sees the telltale letters 'Go For…'.
The doctors are not going to save him. This boy is not going to go home.
Buck kneels down beside him, one hand on his tiny shoulder, and the boy finally turns to look at him. His face is sad, and so so small. “I don't want daddy to be sad,” he says.
Buck thinks about his team, working so hard right now at the edge of the water to bring him back. He thinks about the little girl he tried to save and wonders if she is in these lines somewhere or if he had gotten to her in time. He thinks about his sister who he loves with all his heart, but who he hasn't spoken to in 2 years. He thinks about his parents who he spoke to just last week and the way his mother had sounded so disappointed when she asked if he was still “playing superhero”. They had never understood… never known why he had chosen this life over any of the other ones they claimed he had such potential for.
Saving lives was what he was meant to do. He had never felt whole in any other way besides as a firefighter. He hopes he had saved one life today… maybe he could make it two.
“What's your name?” He asks the little boy.
The boy turns to him and sniffles. “Christopher,” he says.
Buck smiles and wipes the tears off of Christopher's face beneath his glasses. “I don't want your daddy to be sad either, Christopher,” Bucks says.
He reaches forward with shaking fingers and takes the ticket out of Christopher's hand. He folds it in half and slips it into the pocket of his pants, then he hands the boy his own pass. The words “Go Back” glare up at him in bright gold for just a moment before he tucks the boy’s fingers over the paper.
Buck thinks maybe it's okay that he’s not going to get to. It feels right, to send this boy home. To send him back to his father. Buck has lived enough. He’s made bad choices and good ones. He’s done some really stupid things, and some really really good things.
He’ll be happy to go forward knowing that the last thing he ever did was save two little lives that might have been lost otherwise. That's enough for him.
Christopher looks down at the ticket for just a moment, confusion on his face, and then he seems to understand and smiles big and bright in a way that breaks Buck’s heart again. He throws his little arms around Buck's neck, his crutches clacking behind them, and laughs - a sound so full of joy that it makes Buck glad to know it will be one of the last sounds he ever hears.
“Thank you,” Christopher says. Then he turns away from Buck and the mirror and hurries off to the shorter line, running as fast as his legs can carry him. An older woman sees him running up to the line and smiles at him, backing up a little to let him stand in front of her. He looks back at Buck one last time and waves at him before turning to face the line that will take him back to life, back to his dad.
Buck wipes the tears from his face and sighs heavily. He slowly gets up to his feet and walks numbly to the back of the longer line. When he reaches the end he pulls the boy’s ticket out of the pocket of his turn-out pants with shaking hands, unfolding it to look at the golden letters. Go forward.
It’s okay, he thinks again. 26 years might not be that long, but it was enough. It was enough.
The line moves slowly and Buck spends the time thinking about Chim and Hen and how they’ll blame themselves for his death because they couldn’t bring him back. He thinks about Bobby and knows he’ll call Buck a dumb kid but still spend the rest of his life wondering if he could have saved him. He knows his parents will be angry at him for becoming a firefighter in the first place and he wonders if Maddie will ever know what happened. His parents didn’t have her information, she had only shared her address with Buck after he had cried when she said she was moving away.
He tries to think of the good things he had done in his life but can really only go back about 10 months. Before that his life had been practically worthless.
He’s nearing the front now, just a few people ahead of him in line and he tries desperately not to think about what’s on the other side of the doorway. Suddenly he stumbles when someone runs right into him. A man who had been wandering near the lines had tripped – Buck thinks briefly how odd it is that you can still trip in the afterlife – and nearly knocked him over.
“Sorry, son, sorry, my balance is no good these days,” the man says as Buck straightens up.
The man pulls on him, helping him steady himself, and runs old, wrinkled hands over his shoulders and arms. “You all right there, son?” He asks. “Didn’t hurt ya, did I?”
Buck laughs softly and shakes his head, patting the old man on the shoulder. He’s small, barely comes up to Buck’s shoulders, his back bent with age. His eyes are dark and twinkling and Buck thinks he must have a million stories behind them.
“I’m fine, sir. Are you?”
The man smiles and straightens up the best he can. “Fine as can be, I suppose,” he says with a wink. “Mind if I join you?”
Buck shakes his head and gestures for him to stand with him in line. The man steps into place beside him and slips an arm into Buck’s, leaning heavily on him. Buck smiles and holds him up, glad to have the contact here at the end of everything.
The last few feet of their walk is spent in silence and then it’s their turn.
Buck moves to help the old man through the doorway but he waves him off. “Give an old man just one moment more.”
Buck sighs and steps away from him, facing the doorway that will be the end. It’s terrifying, but at the same time a calmness washes over him as he closes his eyes and takes that last step forward.
He meets a wall and can’t move.
His eyes pop open and he looks at the doorway. In front of him is just brightness, like there has been since he arrived. He hadn’t gone through. He can see the lintel of the doorway at his sides and glances back at the old man who gives him a shooing motion.
Buck tries to step through again and once again he can’t.
He puts his hands up and feels… nothing. Just nothing. No wall, no barrier, there’s nothing there to feel, but he can’t push through.
“What’s happening?” he asks. He’s confused, and the calmness is gone now, replaced with a throbbing fear. Had he done something wrong when he gave Christopher his ticket? Would he be stuck here forever?
“You’re using the wrong door.”
Buck startles again at the same voice from before and turns to find the being standing beside him, hand held out towards the other door.
“No,” Buck says, shaking his head frantically, looking around for any sight of the boy. “I gave Christopher my ticket. He went through, he must have.”
“He went through,” the being says softly. “But you’re using the wrong door.”
The being points to the ticket in Buck’s hand and he looks down at it. “Go Back” it says in bright, gold calligraphy.
“I don’t… I don’t understand. Did you…?” Buck looks to the being, who only shakes their head and points back towards the door labelled ‘forward’. Buck looks back in time to see the old man walk, with a skip in his step, to the brightness of the door Buck had failed to go through.
“I saw what you did for that boy,” he says, waving his ticket at Buck, a crease running down the middle where it had been folded in half. “And I was going to get one of these sooner rather than later. I don’t think you’re done with that uniform yet, son. Go save a few more lives before you come back here, alright?’
And before Buck could move, to stop him or thank him, the old man was gone. Buck stood there a while longer, watching more and more people pass on, move forward to whatever came next. A hand landed on his shoulder. It felt like the sun, it felt like a mountain of stone anchoring him down.
The being turned Buck to the other door, pointing once again to the ticket in his hand. “Your time is not yet over,” the being repeated their words from earlier.
Slowly, slowly Buck walked towards the door, going back… going home.
***
The day had been awful and Eddie is fucking exhausted. Walking sideways up and back down a crumbling building, losing that man (awful as he was), then the worry that they wouldn’t find Hen on the other side of that wall… and beneath all that the constant aching fear that something had happened to Christopher and he didn’t even know.
Riding in Buck’s car he feels like he’s aged a hundred years in the last day. He struggles to keep his eyes open as he directs Buck to Chris’ school. Thank god for Buck.
Not only had the other man spent most of the day reassuring him that Chris was safe, but he had taken one look at Eddie at the firehouse and told him under no circumstances was he allowed to drive.
“You’re not picking your kid up when you’re this dead on your feet. The last thing I need is to come pull your ass out of your truck when you crash into a tree. I don’t think I could lift the jaws of life right now, man.”
“You’re tired too, Buck,” he had protested weakly. “You were right there beside me all day.”
The truth was he didn’t want to drive, but more than that he didn’t want to go home alone. After a day like today the last thing he needed was to put Chris to bed and spend the rest of the night staring at his ceiling in the dark.
He wasn’t thinking about sleeping with Buck. Okay, that’s a lie, he had thought about sleeping with Buck a lot in the last week, the man is sex on two long-as-sin legs. But that’s not what he wanted tonight. Tonight he just… wanted something other than the dark and the loneliness.
“Yeah, I’m tired,” Buck had acquiesced. “But I didn’t have to take care of a kid this morning. Or have to take care of one tonight. Or tomorrow morning when I wake up. So the least I can do is fucking drive you to pick up Christopher. Let me take one thing off your shoulder’s, Eddie. Alright?”
Eddie had smiled and given in. How could he not when Buck was looking at him with those earnest blue eyes and that sweet smile that, if Eddie wasn’t so fucking tired, he would be tempted to kiss.
So here they were, two blocks from Christopher’s school where Principal Brandt had been kind enough to wait with him, and he was torn between thinking about his son and not thinking about kissing his new friend and partner.
Then Buck pulled the Jeep to a stop in front of the school and Eddie was running. Christopher was waiting for him and nothing else mattered right now but that. Not the bone-deep tiredness or the ache in his shoulders or the way the muscles in his legs burned as he slid to his knees in front of his son.
Nothing mattered but the boy in his arms.
After thanking Principle Brandt repeatedly he headed out to where Buck was waiting, juggling the familiar bundle of tired child, backpack, and crutches all at once. Buck bounded out of the car when he saw them walk out of the school. He rushed around to the other side to open the back door where they had put Christopher’s car seat, taking the backpack and crutches from Eddie so he could buckle Christopher in.
“Hey, buddy, I’m Buck. I work with your dad. It’s really nice to meet you.”
Chris gave a tired little wave around Eddie. Eddie figured they could do a more formal introduction another time, they were all beat after the day they’d had, but as he pulled back and Christopher got a good look at Buck he did something Eddie hadn’t expected. He laughed.
It was a sound of pure joy that filled Eddie’s heart even as it confused him.
“I know you!” Chris said, one hand reaching out to Buck.
Buck reached back, taking Chris’ tiny hand in his, holding it gently. “Has uh… has your dad talked about me?” he asked. Eddie smiled at the cautious optimism in his voice. It was the same way he had sounded just last week when Eddie had told him how badass he was to follow him into that ambulance. His soft little ‘me?’ had warmed Eddie’s heart and erased any trepidation he might have still carried about him.
“He’s talked about all of you,” Chris said, eyes bright and smile shining big. “But that’s not how I know you.”
Buck floundered a bit, glancing at Eddie as he tried to figure out what was going on. “I-I don’t think… I mean…”
“Okay, little man,” Eddie interrupted, rescuing Buck. Seven-year-olds are weird, especially when they’re tired. Chris was probably just playing a game and Buck didn’t understand. He gently pulled Chris’ hand out of Buck’s grasp and tucked it in next to his chest. “Let’s get home, huh? It’s been a long day.”
“Is Buck coming?” He asked, eyes still trained on Buck who was standing behind Eddie, still looking confused but also like he was desperately trying not to screw up this meeting with Eddie’s kid.
Eddie nudged Buck to get his attention and waved him towards the driver’s side where the car was still running. Buck blushed and ran around the car while Eddie checked Chris’ seat belt one more time.
“Of course he’s coming, pal, we’re taking his car aren’t we?”
Chris laughed again and clapped his hands together excitedly. But he quickly sank into the seat, eyes blinking rapidly like they always did when he was tired.
The drive back to the house was short, all of them trying hard not to fall asleep before they got there. Buck was doing the best, thank god, eyes opened doggedly like he was afraid if he blinked they wouldn’t open again.
At the house Eddie grabbed a mostly asleep Christopher, and Buck once against grabbed his crutches and backpack. Before Eddie could even step into the hall to take Chris to bed the boy was suddenly wide awake again, reaching out towards Buck like he had in the car.
Buck set his things carefully by the door and walked over to them, grabbing Chris’ hand again.
“Can you stay?” Christopher asked, his little hand gripping Buck’s like it was a lifeline.
“I uh… I think you’re going to bed, buddy,” Buck said, his tone guilty, like he didn’t want to say no. The kid already had him wrapped around his little finger.
“’Til tomorrow,” Chris begged. He wiggled in Eddie’s arms until he was facing Buck and used his grip on Buck’s hand to pull him close. Buck came easily, stepping closer to them until Eddie could feel the heat of Buck’s body against his shoulder and side.
Chris’ other hand reached out to touch Buck’s cheek, like he did with Eddie when he was tired or happy, and it made Eddie smile. Christopher obviously felt some sort of connection to Buck, and while Eddie definitely thought it should seem a little weird, he was glad for it too. Chris and Buck deserved to have more people that cared about them.
“I don’t know, Christopher…” Buck glanced from Chris to Eddie, obviously torn on what to say. Eddie just nodded and mouthed ‘your choice’. He wanted Buck to stay. Wanted the company and wanted his kid to be happy, but he wasn’t going to press it. He couldn’t force Buck to be with them.
But of course Buck smiled, big and bright, and gripped Chris’ hand a little tighter. “Yeah, buddy, I’ll stay until tomorrow. I can make pancakes!” He glanced nervously at Eddie again, like he wouldn’t approve. “I-I really like making pancakes.”
“Yay!” Chris shouted, wiggling even more in Eddie’s arms.
Eddie laughed and jostled him around until he got a better grip on him, then headed down the hall. “Say goodnight to Buck.”
“Goodnight, Buck!” The second shout was as loud as the first but he still heard Buck laugh as he carried Chris into his room.
Excitement quickly gave way to exhaustion as Eddie helped him brush his teeth and change. (He was going to have to send Principle Brandt a gift basket or something, to thank him for staying so late and raiding the cafeteria to feed Chris too. Eddie would have cried if he had to cook a meal right now.)
When he finally pulled the covers up to Chris’ chin he was sure he was about to nod off himself. Part of him wanted to just curl up in bed with his son and not move until tomorrow. But he had company that he didn’t want to ignore. A quick kiss and an ‘I love you’ and he was about to head out the door when he heard Chris say, “It’s him, dad.”
He turned back around to see a smile on Chris’ face as he lay back on his pillows and tried not to close his eyes.
“Who, kiddo? What are you talking about?”
“The man…from the bright place. It’s Buck. Remember? I told you he was wearing firefighter clothes and he had a red spot on his eye. It’s Buck. I found him. I knew I would.”
Eddie felt like the ground was shaking again, but he knew it wasn’t aftershocks this time.
Chris hadn’t talked about the bright place in months. Eddie thinks Chris knows how much it upsets him. He doesn’t like thinking about the day he almost lost his son.
Chris’ heart had been stopped for nearly 5 minutes after he had a bad reaction to the anesthesia during surgery 6 months ago. The doctors had been able to get him back but Eddie will never forget how close he had come to losing the only good thing that had ever happened to him.
After he woke up in the hospital Chris had talked about the bright place. He had a hard time describing it other than that, just… brightness everywhere. Sometimes when he talked about it, in the beginning before Eddie’s distress had made him stop, he could remember a door, sometimes two doors, sometimes a mirror or a bunch of other people.
But he could always remember a man. A man with firefighter clothes he said, blue eyes and blonde curly hair… and a red spot over his eye.
Like Buck.
Chris’ description of the man who had given him the other ticket – “The one that let me come back to you, dad.” – had never changed, never wavered or been confusing to him. It was always the same description.
Eddie’s catholic upbringing made him want to believe his son had seen heaven when he nearly died, or purgatory perhaps, a waiting area before going to heaven. But Eddie’s not sure he believes in heaven, or hell, or even God anymore. He had seen too many bad things to want to believe in a god that would sit by and let them happen.
He couldn’t help but thank God though when Chris had come back to him. And there was a small part of him, that tiny little part that never really lets go when you’ve been raised in religion, that - if he believed at all that what Chris talked about was real - believed it was an angel that Chris had seen when he was almost dying on the operating table. The man in the firefighter clothes that had sent him back. The man that apparently looked just like Buck.
“It’s him, dad. I know it.”
He sounded so sure. Completely unwavering, like he had had always been, and Eddie didn’t know what to say.
“Go to sleep, Christopher. I love you. So much.”
Chris reached up to give Eddie one last hug, then he relaxed back onto the pillows and sighed, a small little smile still on his face. “Love you too, dad.”
Eddie walked out of Christopher’s room a little dazed. This day was endless and he just wanted to sleep, but how could he after the revelation his son had just dropped in his lap? How could he just go to sleep when the man in his living room might be the same man that had saved Chris’ life?
Eddie took a deep breath in the hallway, leaning against the closed door. Buck didn’t seem to know Christopher. There had been no recognition on his face when Eddie showed him Chris’ picture in the truck all those hours ago, and he had seemed genuinely confused when Christopher claimed to know him at the school.
Maybe none of it had ever been real, just a child's dream. Or maybe it was all real and Buck had saved Christopher's life six months ago and didn't even know it. Eddie took one last deep breath and walked out into the living room. Standing in the hallway avoiding Buck wasn’t going to help anything.
Buck was sprawled across the couch, shoes off and by the door, his feet squished up against one armrest and his head resting at an uncomfortable angle on the other. The man was too damn tall for his own good.
“This couch is a bitch to sleep on. You want to bunk with me?” Eddie asked, startling Buck a little.
Had that sounded casual enough? Was it weird that he had asked? It hadn’t been unusual for the soldiers in his unit, men and women, to crash together after a long day, sharing bunks or falling asleep in what his buddy Spence referred to as the ‘puppy pile’. But this wasn’t a war zone where they were all a little desperate to remember their humanity, and he hardly knew Buck. It felt like they had been working together forever but it had only been a week.
“Dude, any day I don’t have to cram my body onto a couch is a good day in my book, lead the way.” Buck jumped up to his feet, a little too enthusiastically if the way his body swayed slightly was any indication.
“You hungry?” Eddie asked because his mom had raised him to be a good host. There had to be something in the fridge he could microwave if he had to. Maybe. Abuela always sent him home with leftovers.
“Too tired to be hungry. Bed, please.”
Eddie laughed and led Buck to his room. It was… bare. They hadn’t really been here that long, the last box unpacked just a few weeks ago, but still. He knows it’s a little sad. He had put all his energy into making sure Christopher’s room felt as much like home as he could. He was the one that chose to uproot them after all. The least he could do was make sure Chris had everything he needed.
Buck didn’t notice, or at least he didn’t comment, just gratefully took the sweats Eddie handed him and started to strip. The firehouse was a lot like the army when it came to modesty. Why spend time worrying about people looking at you when you could strip out of wet, muddy, ashy, sewage-y clothes all that much faster?
So they had changed in front of each other a couple of times in the last week and this was no different. No really, Eddie reminded his body which had decided it wasn’t that tired after all, this was no different. Except it was.
Buck was naked in his bedroom, putting on Eddie’s clothes, getting ready to sleep in Eddie’s bed. And the man was fucking beautiful. All long lean lines and pale skin dotted with the dark ink of his tattoos.
“I think I have a spare toothbrush in the cabinet, I’ll go look!”
Eddie grabbed his own sleep pants and all but bolted for the bathroom.
Now was not the time. Now was as far from the right time as things could possibly get. They were both exhausted, banged up and sore. And his kid had just told him that the mysterious possible-angel that had saved his life in what might have been purgatory was actually his new friend and work partner who he definitely did not have a stupid little crush on.
Now was not the time.
Remembering the conversation he had had with Chris helped calm down whatever part of him had been getting interested in Buck’s presence in his bedroom.
Right.
Buck was, apparently, an angel. Or if not an angel, then a man willing to sacrifice himself so that Eddie wouldn’t have to lose his son.
‘He didn’t want you to be sad either.’
That’s what Christopher had said about the man in the bright place. And yeah, that sounded like Buck alright. Their rocky start had blown over fast and easy and Eddie was well aware of what kind of caring, selfless man his partner was. The guy who had been willing to die alongside Eddie at just a chance to save a stranger’s life… that was the kind of guy who gave up his ticket back to earth to save a child.
Eddie changed quickly, brushed his teeth and grabbed the spare toothbrush from the cabinet before slowly walking back to his room. Buck was sitting on the bed dressed only in Eddie’s sweatpants, head hung low like he had already fallen asleep where he sat. But he looked up and smiled when Eddie knocked lightly on the doorframe, a soft and sleepy smile that tugged at Eddie’s heart.
He tossed the toothbrush at Buck who tried to catch it but fumbled and let it drop to the floor instead. “Man, I’m so glad we don’t have to go in tomorrow. I’d be useless.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever been useless, Buck.” Eddie walked over to the bed and shooed Buck away – he slept by the door thank you very much – grabbing the toothbrush off the floor and pressing it into Buck’s hand as he stood up.
Buck ducked his head and rubbed his neck, a nervous tick Eddie had seen a few times before. “You don’t know what I used to be like,” he confessed, his voice quiet, like he didn’t really want Eddie to hear him.
“Making bad choices and being useless are completely different things, Buck. Go brush your teeth.” He chose not to comment on Buck’s blush as he made a hasty retreat.
Buck came back to the room after a few minutes, turning off the light and stumbling blindly to the other side of the bed. (It’s Eddie’s own fault he ended up with an elbow in his ribs, he could have just slept by the window for once.)
They lay there in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of their breathing filling the room. Buck wiggled, always a little restless, but Eddie could tell he was trying not to, trying to dampen his usual energy for Eddie’s sake.
Now was as good a time as any, Eddie thought. There was no way he was going to get to sleep with his mind wondering about the bright place and what had happened there.
“Hey, Buck?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you… do you know about the bright place?”
“The Bright Place? Is that a club or something? You don’t exactly strike me as the clubbing type.”
Eddie chuckled and turned so he was facing Buck. “I’m not.” Maybe Chris was wrong about the bright place. Maybe it was just a dream induced by the trauma of nearly dying. Or maybe Buck didn’t remember. People had near death experiences all the time - they dealt with it on nearly a daily basis at their job - and he hadn’t ever heard someone describe it the way Chris had. Maybe people who went to the bright place weren’t meant to remember.
“Can I ask you a weird question?”
“Shoot.”
“You almost died once. Right?”
“Oh. Uh… yeah.” Buck finally turned to face Eddie too. They were intimately close in the dark now and Eddie resisted the urge to move closer. “A few months ago. Why?”
“What… day? Do you remember what day?” This was weird. Who asked questions like that? Buck was going to think he was weird and then he’d leave and Eddie would be all alone exactly like he didn’t want to be.
“Yeah, it was March 14th," Buck offered easily, like it was no big deal. "I remember because Bobby yelled at me, because it had been exactly one month since the other time I had almost died. Valentine’s Day, on my first date with Abby. He said I wasn’t allowed to almost die again. Said everyone only gets one and I had used too many.”
Buck was giving Eddie a cheeky grin in the dark – Eddie could just make out his smile shining in the dim light from the window - but Eddie didn’t feel like laughing. He wasn’t sure what he felt right now. March 14th was the date of Christopher’s last surgery. The day he had almost…
“Did you know Christopher almost died?” he blurted out.
“What? Eddie, that must have been so terrifying. He’s okay now, right? When did it happen?” The genuine concern in Buck’s voice broke Eddie’s heart. Buck had known his son for less than an hour, how could he care so much? Other people weren’t like that. Other people didn’t give their hearts away like that.
Eddie didn’t want to answer Buck. Saying it would make it real. Saying it meant that what Christopher had seen that day was real, and that Buck…
That Buck had been willing to give up his chance to come back to life for a child he had never even met before.
‘I didn’t want you to be sad,’ Chris had said when he had recovered enough to talk about what he had seen. ‘He didn’t want you to be sad either.’
That day, almost losing Christopher, had been what had finally made him leave Texas, what had made him uproot their lives and move halfway across the country. Chris almost dying had made Eddie realize they both needed a change. It was what had brought him here to L.A. and ultimately to the 118. And to Buck.
“I’m glad you didn’t die,” he whispered into the dark, staring up at the ceiling to get away from Buck and his big eyes and genuine heart.
“I’m glad Christopher didn’t die,” Buck said. “He’s a great kid, Eddie. You’re doing amazing with him.”
“Yeah, well… I’ve had a lot of help along the way.” Like a family that loved him more than anything. Principles that would watch over him because they’re dedicated to their job and the kids they took care of. And strangers that were willing to give up everything to save him.
Eddie closed his eyes and concentrated on the quiet sound of their breathing in the dark, on the warmth of Buck laying so close to him.
Buck wasn’t an angel, Eddie knows that. He’s just a man. A good man who cared too much for his own good. Eddie would just have to be there to make sure neither of them almost died again.