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Losing Red hit Buck harder than anyone could’ve expected. Only Maddie really knew why the loss had impacted him so deeply. He saw himself in the retired firefighter. When he looked into Red’s eyes, he saw a man whose career became his entire identity and when other people moved on with their lives, they left him behind. That was Buck’s future, he was sure of it. After the day Red died, Evan came to a conclusion. He, Evan Buckley, was destined to lonely. He loved too strongly, cared to passionately, it should be no surprise that no-one would reciprocate his intense feelings. He made a decision when the extent of his loneliness finally hit him. It was time he put some distance between himself and the ones he loved.
It probably sounded like a rather rash decision, but to Buck it was the only option he had. If he wanted to avoid the pain of watching everyone leave, then he needed to stop caring for them more than they cared for him. He wasn’t as important in his friends lives as they were in his and it was only going to get him hurt… again. So he stopped texting, stopped calling, stopped dropping by when he was bored. No one said anything and he figured it was because they were glad that he was no longer being a bother. Even at work he managed to avoid spending too much time with his co-workers, reminding himself every day of the words Bobby spoke to him during his first few months at the 118. “This is not a family.” It became a weird, messed up mantra of sorts. He repeated it over and over again, hoping it would lessen the agony of building his walls higher.
Abby returning only made things worse. Seeing her, moved on and happy without him, just solidified his opinion. Everyone leaves him eventually. She didn’t love him the way he loved her. Hell, she didn’t even seem to reciprocate his desire for her to happy. Maybe he didn’t deserve to find love, to find a home, a family. Back when she left him, his clinging to the remains of their relationship, prolonged the ache of her departure. Waiting around in her apartment, expecting her to comeback made him more and more depressed, but he didn’t want to give up on her. He’d been left before her and he didn’t want Abby coming home to nothing. He knew that feeling too well. Then he realised she was never coming home. It was just him, and it always would be. He was alone again.
He’d promised something to Red before he died. Red had no one and the last thing he wanted was some stranger taking apart his home and disposing of his belongings. It would just make his life seem like it truly meant nothing, like he was a nobody, someone not worth remembering. So Buck agreed to empty the retired firefighter’s house upon his passing. It was going to be tough, but he wasn’t about to let Red down. That’s how he ended up spending his day off clearing out a house that wasn’t his. Things started off easy enough. He boxed up the kitchen, throwing out broken plates and damaged cutlery and emptied the bathroom of its out of date products. It was the living room that made things hard.
He didn’t know where to start. There were photo’s everywhere, pictures of people who meant the world to Red yet practically forgot he existed. He took the photographs carefully from their frames, placing them on the coffee table, not wanting to throw them away. These weren’t just snapshots of time, they were memories, feelings, they were the only proof of the life Red had lived. Evan crumbled to the floor, tears staining the picture in his hands. It was Red’s old team, the people he called his family. Buck could see the 118 so clearly in the photo. Though physically it wasn’t them, their existence was echoed in the eyes of the old firefighters. Here this team was, smiling at each other, enjoying being in each other’s presence, not knowing how easily they would all drift apart. It hit buck to close to home. The picture was exactly how the 118 was now. A family that loved spending time together, which meant they would end up the same way Red’s team did. Everyone would move on, not just from the job but from the people that came with it, leaving one behind, stuck reliving the good old days. There was no doubt that individual would be Buck. He was the only one without a family of his own, and chances are he would never find one.
Buck was so caught up in his heartache, he didn’t hear the knock on the door, or the turning of the knob. He didn’t see Maddie, Chimney, Hen, Athena, Bobby and Eddie make their way into the living room. It took his sister placing her hand softly on his shoulder, for him to realise he was no longer alone in the ghost house. He fell into Maddie’s arms, excruciating sobs escaping his mouth uncontrollably. No one knew what to do, they couldn’t just stand there and watch the youngest firefighter break down. Instead, they chose to join the siblings on the floor of the stranger’s house, initiating a bone-crushing group hug.
Not a single one of them was sure how long they’d been sat there, the only reason they pulled away was because their legs were beginning to go numb. They spread themselves around the room, sitting on couches and dining room chairs, not wanting to be too far from the young man who still had silently tears rolling down his cheeks. Athena was the first to break the silence.
“What’s going on Buckaroo? We’re worried about you, sweetheart.”
Buck bit the inside of his cheek, unsure of what to do. If he told them the truth, they’d probably laugh or baby him with a pitying look in their eyes. However, if he continued his mission to put space between them, he could be speeding up their decision to leave him. He was thinking so hard, it’s surprising no one could hear the cogs in his brain turning. He didn’t know what to do.
“Help us out here, Buck.” Hen spoke up from beside Chimney, her need to comfort Evan outweighing her desire to let him take his time. “You barely knew Red. Losing anyone is hard, we just don’t understand what about Red’s death is hurting you so much.”
“They were like us.” Everyone exchanged confused glances at Buck’s ambiguous statement, waiting for him to continue.
“Red’s old team, they were a family. They would spend time off together, talk all the time, be there for every moment no matter how small. Then, one by one, they all moved on. They just left him behind, like he never mattered to them. Every single one of them went home after their shifts to a family, they always had someone waiting for them. Wives, girlfriends, kids, they all had someone. Except Red. Red had no one. They were like us which means we are going to end up like them. You’ll all move on eventually. Bobby and Athena will retire. Hen’s gonna become a doctor, move on to better things. Chim and Maddie will get married have a family of their own. Eddie will meet someone new that Chris will love and neither of you will need me anymore. I’ll be the one that gets left behind, abandoned, spending every fucking day remembering the glory days, because I never could move on. And then I’ll die alone, and someone will be clearing out my home, getting rid of my memories because I’ll have no one to leave everything to.” Once again, Evans ability to hold back his tears collapsed. Maddie held him as everything he’d been feeling for weeks was finally allowed to be free. He didn’t realise that everyone in the room was crying along with him. They had no idea how much misery Buck had been in and they were mad at themselves for not detecting it sooner.
Bobby returned to the floor, pulling Buck out of Maddie’s arms and into his own. The kid was like a son to him, he was family and Bobby would do anything to help him be okay again.
“I promise you, son, you will never be alone. We love you so much Buck, our lives would be missing something if we didn’t have you and there is nothing that could replace you. No other job or new relationship will ever change how much we love you.” The sobbing increased, everything Buck had been feeling since the truck exploded, pinning him beneath it, was forced into the open. He wanted so badly to believe Bobby when he said Buck wouldn’t be left behind but so many things were pointing to the opposite.
“You weren’t there though. When Chim was in the hospital, everyone stuck around until he was awake. But when I was there, I woke up with Carla and none of you were anywhere to be seen. I needed you and you weren’t there. Then you just kept pushing me further away, stopping me from working and replacing me. You can say that you’ll be there when I need you, that you aren’t going to abandon me, but it doesn’t mean anything. At the end of the day, you all have somewhere you’d rather be and someone you’d rather be with. I’m not that for anyone. No one spends their day waiting to come home and spend time with me.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding us?” Eddie’s question was surprising. Not because of what he was asking, but rather the tone of his voice. It was rare to here Eddie Diaz speak with such raw emotion. “You’re putting distance between us so you can prepare for if we ever left.”
“Not if, when. When you leave. It’s gonna happen, there’s no if about it.”
The room was in complete silence. No one knew what to say next.
“I’m gonna go for a walk, I’ll be back in a minute.” Before anyone could object, Evan had grabbed his phone and was out of the door. What were they supposed to do now?
“We screwed up, big time.”
“Yeah, Chim, we did.” Bobby took a deep breath, trying to gather his thoughts. “I think I know what we need to do.”
When Buck returned to Red’s house an hour later, everything looked different. His friends had finished the job for him, each taking a room and organising things into boxes as well as they could. Evan didn’t know if he should be relieved or pissed. He promised Red that he would do it, but if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t have the strength in him to finish the job.
“Hey baby brother! So, we packed everything up. Don’t worry we didn’t throw anything out. Athena has a storage locker and the others are taking everything down there now. You don’t need to go through it all today.”
“Thanks, Mads. I guess you’re gonna want to talk about all this huh?”
“Not today, I think we’re all too exhausted to do that now. But there is something I want to say. I’m worried about you, that part is obvious I know. You’ve been through so much the past year, there’s not a doubt in my mind you probably have PTSD or, at the least, anxiety from everything life’s thrown at you. I’m not going to lecture you on getting help or talking to someone because now is not the time for that. However, I don’t want you to be going through this on your own, I think it would be the worst thing for you right now. We have a plan and I just need you trust us. None of us can even begin to imagine a life without you in it, so we’re gonna make damn sure we prove that to you. Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Okay, get in the car, I’m driving.”
Buck didn’t bother arguing with his sister, he knew that when she’d made up her mind, there was no messing with her. He handed over the keys after locking up Red’s home and hopped into the car. They drove in a comfortable silence, not feeling the need to talk. He was so focused on the music playing he didn’t notice that Maddie had driven right by his apartment building. It was only when she pulled up outside Bobby and Athena’s house that he realised she wasn’t taking him home. Maddie turned to him as she put the car into park.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen Evan. Like I said, you shouldn’t have to be alone, ever, and it’s killing you going back to an empty apartment every day. Athena was able to make a deal with your landlord and he agreed to let you out of your lease at the end of the month. We’ll sort out your stuff, put it into storage or sell it whatever you choose, and for now this is your new home.” Buck looked to her in confusion, but she wasn’t going to let him overthink this too much.
“Get out the car Buck, you have a family waiting for you in there.”
For the next year Buck lived in the Grant-Nash household. It took a while for him to believe his family when they told him they were here to stay but at last, he no longer needed the constant reminder that he wasn’t alone. Coming home to the people who treated him like a son, filled him with a love he hadn’t felt since Maddie left him when he was a kid. He had a family, a home. They weren’t going anywhere without him.