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Buck wakes up.
He can’t move. He can’t even open his eyes.
He tries to wiggle his toes, his fingers, anything at all, but nothing moves. Then, he tries calling out for help – his mouth remains shut and no sound escapes his throat.
For what feels like forever, he tries.
At some point, he falls back asleep.
The next time he wakes up, he can open his eyes but barely. If anyone looked at him right now, they might not even been able to notice it. Having his eyes open does not help him much – the bright light of wherever he is blinds him. He can only make out a few rough shapes.
Where is he? What’s happened to him?
He can’t move, he can’t really see, but he focuses on what he can. He is laying down on his back, there is the feel of fresh sheets on his legs and arms. The smell of cleaning products is almost aggressive, too sterile and intense. Machines are beeping around him, a constant noise that he’d recognize anywhere.
The hospital, then.
There is a cannula around his face as well as an IV in his arm.
Did he get hurt on the job? Are the others okay? He needs to know but he can’t ask. He can’t do anything at all because his body refuses to obey him.
He is powerless, useless.
He can feel panic rise in his chest and he wants to yell, to trash around. Anything but this impossible slumber. Buck has always been vibrant with energy, all his life he has only been told to slow down, to relax, to pay attention. Being prisoner of his own body feels like a punishment tailored to make him suffer all the more.
A single tear spills out his eye.
“Oh my God, Buck?” He feels hands on his forearm, on his face, wiping the tear away. “Can you hear me?”
It’s Maddie. It’s his sister talking to him.
He isn’t alone.
“Evan, please. Open your eyes for me.” She takes his hand. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
He does try. He tries so hard. All his focus is on making the slightest move, the smallest indication that he is there, conscious. He is awake and he can hear her. He tries and he tries and he tries, but he can’t.
It’s like his body does not belong to him anymore.
Maddie does not move either, she keeps his hand in hers, keeps her hand on his cheek. He keeps trying to do anything. It’s maddening but he refuses to give up.
After a while, she sighs. She gets up.
He is alone again.
Buck can’t tell how much time passes. He wonders what day it is and how long he’s been laying in the hospital bed.
He wonders if he’ll ever be free of his body.
Locked-In Syndrome. That’s what this is. He is a a pseudocoma, he remembers reading about it a while ago. His body is not answering to him, he is just not sure if it’s a psychological or physiological response.
Some people have spent months, years even, before anyone noticed that they were conscious.
How long will it take for Buck?
Nurses come and go, they talk between themselves but rarely at Buck. Their hands on his skin, washing him, moving him, not gentle but not harsh either, feel like a violation even though he understands why they have to do it.
He wants to scream at them – Look at me, look at me. I’m here, I’m alive. Look at me.
They never do.
His next visitor is Bobby. He is only made aware of that fact when his captain starts talking. He hasn’t been able to open his eyes much more than when Maddie was there, but he’s gotten accustomed to the light at least.
Even the simple act of moving his eyes takes a lot. Alone in his room, he has had ample time to figure what he can and can’t do. He can open his eyes, just a slight window into the world, not enough to get the full picture, but something at least. Then he can move his eyes up and down.
And that’s about it.
He can’t move his eyes side-way, nor can he open them fully.
Visitors sit on the chair next to his bed, on his right. He can’t see them. He can only listen to them.
“Hey, Buckaroo.”
Bobby is silent for a long time, so much so that Buck wonders if he will say anything at all after that. He wonders what Bobby is thinking. He wishes he could remember why he is in the hospital in the first place.
“I don’t know if you can hear me.”
I can, Bobby, I can.
“The station isn’t the same without you. It’s different from the other times you’ve been hurt, because every time we knew you’d come back at some point.”
Bobby takes a shuddering breath.
“I’m not sure you’ll come back from this.”
Oh.
“I want to believe but God, I know what this looks like. People don’t come wake up from a coma like this. The doctor said you’re brain-dead.”
No, it can’t be. Buck is conscious, he just can’t move. There has been a mistake and he needs to shout it. He needs to tell people not to give up on him, he is still there, he is still fighting.
“Buck. If there’s any part of you that can hear me, you have to fight your way back. I’ve already lost two kids, don’t make me go through that grief again.”
Buck would sob if he could. His body won’t even allow that relief. Instead he lies as still as a lifeless corpse while his mind is screaming, only heard by him.
Bobby leaves.
He does not dream.
It’s a strange thought to have, but he misses dreaming. From as long as he can remember, his nights have always been filled with colors and sounds and energy. Now everything is darkness around him.
Days could have passed, months even maybe. Or maybe hours.
He is not sure of anything anymore.
The only thing he knows is this inertness.
Eddie does not have to speak for Buck to know he is here. Somehow, he just knows.
“Christopher keeps asking about you,” is the first thing Eddie says.
Buck’s heart throbs in silence. He does not remember the last time he has spoken out loud. It was probably nothing important – a joke maybe, right before a tragedy. He wishes he had last words that mattered.
“I told him you’re sleeping. He told me to just wake you up because he misses you.”
Eddie laughs. It sounds wistful.
“If only it was that easy. But nothing is ever easy with you, huh? You have a knack for drama.”
I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.
“Wake up, Buck. You need to wake up. I – I can’t do this without you. I need you. Christopher needs you. Hell, the whole team needs you. You can’t leave us.”
I don’t want to. I want to stay. I want to come back.
Eddie reaches and grasps onto his hand. He bows his head down, putting their intertwined hands to his mouth, his lips against Buck’s thumb. He is holding onto him so hard he is almost crushing his bones.
It hurts, but not as much as the feel of tears dropping onto Buck’s skin.
“You can’t die, Buck,” Eddie rasps, voice heavy and broken. “You can’t leave me.”
Buck aches with the need to touch him. Eddie should never sound so beaten. Eddie is a fighter, and Buck can be too, he will fight.
“I love you,” Eddie whispers. “And I think you love me too, but I was just too scared to say it. Now the only thing I’m scared of is that you’ll die before I have a proper chance to tell you.”
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Buck is silent, but his mind is racing. He feels like he is losing the last shred of his sanity. This is everything that he has wanted for months on end, and he can’t do anything about it.
Eddie loves him. Eddie loves him.
There is a storm raging inside him, banging against the walls of his skull. Every cell in his body is fighting to move, to react. It’s a battle, it’s a war, and he is losing. His body won’t listen. His mind has been left in the shell of who he used to be.
How long can he stay like this before he goes insane?
If the coma does not kill him, the helplessness and the heartbreak will.
“So, you have to wake up, okay?” Eddie continues, oblivious to Buck’s turmoil. “You have to come back to me.”
If there is even the smallest odds that he can, then Buck will.
Because Eddie loves him back, and they will have their chance at happiness. Buck has to stay strong, not only for himself, but for them, for Christopher, and for their future together as a family. He has to keep the panic away, he has to keep on hoping this will not be forever like this.
Eddie stays a long time. He reads to Buck, and the sound of his voice lull him to sleep.
Maddie is back, and this time, Chimney is with her.
They are talking between them, or rather Chim is trying to talk at her but she remains mostly silent. Buck wishes again that he could reach to her and comfort her.
“Doctor Baker asked me to consider the option of taking Buck off life support.”
Buck feels like he has been slapped.
No, he can’t go like this. This can’t be how he ends. He still has it in him to fight, he can find his way back to them. He knows he can.
Maddie, don’t do it, he wants to yell.
“What did you say?” Chim asks, barely above a whisper.
“I told him no. No way. He doesn’t know Buck.”
Buck cries one tear, then another, but neither Chim or Maddie see it. Oh that he wishes that he could get up, run to his sister, and hug her, hug her until his arms hurt, hug her until he cried every single tear in his body.
“You were right,” Chim reassures her. “Buck is strong. We all know that. It hasn’t even been a week yet, they can’t tell you that already. If anyone can come back from a coma like that, it’s him. That man is the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. Look at all he’s survived, this is nothing for him. He is going to be up and kicking and whining to get back on the job in no time.”
In that moment, Buck promises himself that if – no, when – he wakes from this living nightmare, he will do something nice for Chim. He has no idea what yet, but he will. Even if it just means that he will stop writing Chim's number on bathroom stalls in bars.
Buck focuses on his own joke, tries to cling to that short moment of humor, and does his best to tune out Maddie's soft cries and Chimney's gentle whispering.
Hen sits at the front of his bed and Buck is grateful for it. At least this way, he can make out her shape, her glasses almost shine under the harsh hospital light.
“It’s so strange seeing him like this,” Karen says from the side. He can’t see her. “Just – so still.”
“Yeah,” Hen replies, hoarse. “I hate it.”
Buck sees Karen put a hand on Hen’s in a silent gesture of support.
“I can’t believe he’s gone.”
No. I’m not. I’m still here.
“He’s not gone,” Karen says. “He is still alive.”
“It’s just his body.” Hen sounds like she is trying hard not to cry, and Buck suddenly feels nothing but shame and guilt.
Why can’t his body obey him? Why must he make his friends suffer?
“He’s brain-dead. He’s gone. There’s nothing left of him but his body. And it’s my fault,” her voice breaks. “I should have reacted faster, I should have – ”
“Don’t say that,” Karen interrupts. “None of this is your fault. Buck was hit by a car, there’s nothing that you could have done to prevent it.”
He was hit by a car? He thinks he remembers a flash of blue, the sound of crushing metal. Or maybe his brain is supplying a fabricated memory to fill in the blanks.
“I need to say goodbye to him.”
No! No!
“Do you want me to stay?” Karen asks, so very softly.
“Thank you but no, I’ll meet you outside in a minute. It’s just – ”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Karen gets up, presses a kiss on her wife’s lips, then presses a tender kiss on Buck’s cheek. From here, he can see her hair, smell her shampoo. She stays there for a long second, he is hurting with the gentleness of it. It’s not right, it’s not fair.
“Goodbye, Buck,” she whispers. “I will miss you. You have been nothing but a great friend to us. Be at peace.”
How could he? How could he ever find peace when he is still alive and alert? He is not dead, he is not gone. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He wants to scream, needs to, and he knows that the scream he has been trying to let out for so long would be so powerful, so loud, that it would shatter glass and stone.
Did something happen for the two women to tell him their goodbyes? Did Maddie change her mind? Would he die if he were taken off life support?
No, no, no, no, this cannot be.
Hell, why can’t he move?
“Buckaroo,” Hen breathes out. “I don’t even know what to say.”
Say nothing at all. This isn’t the time for goodbyes. Look at me, Hen, see that I’m still in here.
“You’ve been a pain in the ass, you know that.” She laughs, a wet sound. “Ever since you first day at the 118, you’ve been nothing but brash and bold and stubborn. But you’re also caring, brave, loyal, and, fuck – ”
She pauses. He can’t see her anymore through his own tears that refuse to fall, but he knows that she is crying.
“I’m so grateful to have known you. I just wish we had more time. Nia would have loved her Uncle Buck, like Denny does. I – I will miss you, Buckaroo.”
Helpless – Buck has never felt so helpless. He barely registers as Hen pats his cheek, saying goodbye through an aborted sob – then leaves.
He barely registers the silence of the room, or the cold feel of his own tears finally falling down.
Suddenly he is terrified that there is no way out for this. This might be his end, people he loves saying goodbye to him as he listens to them, unable to answer, unable to do anything but lie down, his body broken, his mind spiraling into despair.
“Oh, Buckaroo.”
The only reason Buck does not startle at the sound of Athena’s voice is because he physically can’t. She sounds heartbroken, and he hates that he is the reason for it.
“Why do you always find yourself in the hospital? Even for a firefighter, that must be a record.”
She comes to stand at the food of his bed, and he sees her. She is wearing her police uniform and she is staring down sadly at his immobile form.
“The nurses keep telling us you can’t hear us, but I wanted to tell you something anyway. Bobby wants to come see you again, but it’s been hard on him. He is afraid he is going to lose you too, and I know he’s terrified of seeing you go.”
God, he hates everything about this situation.
“So if you’re wondering why he isn’t there, it’s only because he cares about you so much. But don’t worry, I know that man. He just needs a minute, he will be back here soon.”
If Buck was less selfish, he’d hope that Bobby wouldn't come back.
“As for me, I have an hour before my shift starts, and I thought I might spend it with you. Let me tell you about some of the strangest things I’ve encountered on the job, I think you're going to like it.”
Athena is a good storyteller, and he knows that he would be laughing hard if he could. Some of her stories are indeed wild.
He is glad for the humor. It takes his mind off his situation for a while. He can almost pretend he is back at the station, sharing his a meal with his team, as Athena talks to them about her day. He can almost pretend that he is laughing as hard as he wants to be, almost feel the way his body would shake with it.
Almost.
“Hi, Buck.”
No.
Christopher.
Christopher shouldn’t be seeing him like this.
No, please, no, he begs – anyone that could listen, the sky, the universe, a god, anyone – please, don’t make him listen to Christopher say goodbye to him. He couldn’t stand it. It’d hurt too much.
He can’t do this. He can’t, he just can’t.
Either let him go or let him wake up.
This limbo hurts too much – it’s hurting the people he loves, and he can’t stand it anymore. He can't stand to be the reason for their suffering.
“Can he hear me, Dad?” Christopher asks, low and sad.
“I’m not sure, buddy,” Eddie answers. He keeps his voice gentle and hopeful, but Buck knows it’s only pretend. He is trying to keep it together for his son. “It can’t hurt to talk to him though, right? Maybe he’ll wake up if he hears his favorite buddy is there.”
Oh, if only. Buck would if he could.
He never stops trying as Christopher tells him about his day and his drawings and the shenanigans he got in at school. He does not stop trying as Christopher asks to lie down next to his Buck, hugging him with all his strength, whispering at him to please, wake up, I miss you.
He only stops trying when they leave, exhausted with the futile effort.
Time passes. Buck has no sense of it. Sometimes he thinks he has been prisoner of his own flesh for years, he wonders if he is imagining the people visiting him, if he is imagining the life he had before, for surely it has always been like this.
He can’t remember how it feels to move. There is only the slight movement of his eyes, from right to left, only just open to reveal shapes and lights.
There is nothing else at all.
There is someone in the room with him but he does not know who. They stay in the chair for a long time, not moving, not talking.
Buck tries to get a look at them, it’s pointless. Whoever it is, is sitting in one of his many blind spots.
At some point, they take his hand.
“You have to wake up, Buckaroo,” Chimney whispers. “I’m not burying another brother.”
Chim keeps silent after that.
Buck cries. It’s a single tear, and Chim wipes it away. He does not say anything, and Buck knows that he probably thinks it’s nothing.
People sometimes cry in coma.
Chim must be seeing it as a paramedic, because he makes no comment at all.
Buck has not in his life ever felt so crushed, so lonely.
The next time he wakes up, Buck feels different.
He has never been able to open his eyes so much. They are almost fully open – it’s exhilarating. The room unveils itself, it’s a hospital room like any other but it’s the most beautiful thing Buck has ever seen. He stares for the longest time at the flowers and cards filling up the space, the tangible proof that there are people that love him, that care about him, that want to see him well.
He keeps his eyes open, does not even dare to blink too much, fearing that they will shut themselves forever if he does.
Voices are getting closer and he wants to weep with joy. He knows these voices, he loves them.
Maddie gasps. Suddenly she is right in his face and for the first time in forever, his gaze meets someone else’s. He tries to pour everything that he can’t say in it, and hopes with all that he has that she can read it.
“Athena, look,” Maddie calls, her voice almost spilling with barely contained hope. “His eyes are open, oh my God.”
“Buck?” Athena asks. He keeps his eyes on Maddie, blinking at her, trying to make her understand. “Can you hear us? Can you say something?”
He does not move. He does not speak. Maddie hasn’t torn her eyes away. He can see them widen with understanding, see the way her breath shudders. She gets closer, her hands on his shoulders, and, at last, says the words he has been waiting for.
“Buck, blink twice if you can hear me.”
Yes, yes. I’m here, Mads. You’re getting it.
Buck blinks, slowly. Once, twice.
“Good God. He’s hearing us.” Athena puts her hand on his. “Can you look at me?”
He tries, but she’s on the side and, as he has found out early on, he can only move his eyes up and down, not side-way.
He blinks once.
“It’s okay, Buckaroo. You’re doing such a great job.”
Tears escape his eyes again. This time, they’re tears of joy.
He has been found. He is not alone anymore.
Everything goes fast after that.
They tell him it has only been five days since he has been in the accident. It’s strange. He could have believed that he’d been stuck like that for weeks and weeks, but then at the same time it feels like it’s only been a few minutes. Like a dream, no – a nightmare.
Buck barely gets the chance to see his family. Doctors come to his room, asking him questions he can only answer through blinking, and then whisking him on endless tests and examinations.
He is glad beyond words that he is no longer kept from his own life anymore, and that the risk of getting taken off life support has been banished. Yet he can’t help but worry. What if there is no cure for his condition?
Hours after Maddie has noticed he was alert, a doctor tells him something about brain injury and too much pressure on some part of his brain and operation to reduce the swelling, and frankly he doesn’t care.
Buck can only blink his consent.
He will take any chance he can get.
Buck wakes up, like any other time he has in the past week.
Well, not quite.
He feels groggy and itchy like he hasn’t yet.
He opens his eyes. The room is bright, and he isn’t alone.
It takes him a moment to realize he has moved his head.
He’s moved.
He can move, he can move again.
Buck meets Maddie’s tearful eyes, and he breaks into a smile.
He is free.
Despite having been in a coma of sorts for five days, Buck is quick to get back on his feet. He has lost weight and muscle mass, but he knows from experience after the firetruck incident, that it will get back to normal soon enough.
Even the simple gesture of wiggling his fingers bring him a limitless amount of joy. He won’t ever tire of it, of this freedom that he has always taken for granted.
He is out of the hospital a week after the surgery. All in all, it’s a very quiet end to such a tumultuous affair.
Often, he wakes up, terrified that he can’t move and that it’s all been a wishful dream. The weight of Eddie’s arm on his torso is quick to reassure him that it’s all real. He has made it out.
Eddie is the only person Buck has told that he was conscious throughout his whole hospital stay. He is not sure why he isn’t telling anyone else. He wants to, he wants to comfort them, but he does not know what to say.
Three days after Buck is out of the hospital, Eddie organizes a small get-together at his house, as a way to celebrate Buck’s miracle recovery with the people he loves – his family.
It’s joyous but there’s this almost imperceptible air of hesitation around him. Movements are aborted, jokes are cut short. They look at him like he is going to disappear any minute. He has caught many stares of awe in his direction, and his skin burns with them. He allows the awkwardness, the walking on eggshell, because he knows that they thought they would never have this again.
He looks at them, these people that he cares so much about, and he just knows. He needs to tell them. He wasn’t the only one who suffered while he was in a coma. He knows that they did too, he heard it in their voice.
“I need to tell you something,” Buck says.
They quiet down. Buck clenches his fingers, just because he can.
“I was alert the whole time. I could hear everything, I just couldn’t do anything.”
He is not looking at them but at his own hands – his hands that move, that obey him again.
“I’m sorry I put you all through this. But I swear, I never stopped trying. You need to know that.”
“Buck, are you seriously apologizing for being in a freaking coma?” Hen says, dumbfounded. “If anything, I should be the one to apologize. I gave up on you.”
“No,” he rushes to say. “It’s okay. You couldn’t know. It’s – look, I don’t know what I’m trying to say, but I want to thank all of you. Because I thought I was going to lose it back there, I was so scared that I was going to remain paralyzed like this forever and that no one would ever notice, but hearing all of you, it kept me sane. It kept me going.”
Surrounded by people who loves him as much as he loves them, Buck knows that he can do anything, even prove science wrong and come back from the dead.
Freedom tastes all the sweeter when one shares it with family.