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Hiccups. That’s what shocks Buck out of his trance. Unstoppable hiccups. He looks up and sees many tubes coming in and out of Eddie. Too many tubes.
His arms and legs won’t respond to his commands. He’s lying on a chair and there’s a heaviness on his chest that he can’t shake off. He shudders under the weight of reality.
"I don't remember the first time I told him I loved him."
"Do you remember the last?" There’s a calmness in Maddie’s voice that he can’t stand. He’s broken and his sister is trying to keep the pieces together. He stands up and walks to the window, his legs wobbling with every step he takes.
"Yes, I think-” A sob followed by even more hiccups interrupt him. “It was right before we- we left home."
"Then the first time is irrelevant. You've been together forever. Some milestones are bound to be forgotten. Or even better, replaced. It happens. You just have to make a point to build things up from there."
"Given the circumstances, I don't think-" a sob escapes him. "What if there’s no building things up, Mads? What if this was it? All I got with him was-” Buck collapses on his chair again.
“You can’t think like that, I know it’s hard and you’re going through something terrible right now, but you can’t think like that, Buck.”
“I don’t know how to do this. I’m not- I’m not strong enough,” he yells but his voice breaks. He lowers his head and his fingers run through his hair. “I’m not strong enough, Maddie. It’s been days. It’s purgatory. Days of this- this limbo. Christopher wants answers I can’t give to him. And Ramon and Helena want answers I can’t give to them. And I’m here, I’m here and he-” he chokes when Maddie’s hand squeeze his shoulder.
“I’m here and he is not.”
“Buck… He’s fighting like hell to come back, you know this.”
“Yeah.”
“So you fight too, right?”
He nods.
“And we will be here, fighting beside you two, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” But it’s not okay. Nothing had been okay since Eddie’d fallen from that building a week ago and all Buck had been able to do was staring in defeat as the love of his life plummeted to a sure death.
The thing is Eddie hadn’t died. He’d survived, as Eddie does.
Even if he’s now connected to a million tubes that help him keep up with his many bodily functions, Eddie’s alive.
The first day in the hospital Buck had lost himself in what-ifs.
The second day he had cried for almost 24 hours straight. The guilt overwhelming him, he had felt ashamed of himself. Christopher had visited and his presence had broken Buck even further.
By the fourth day, his search history had become an unending list of articles about head trauma, coma’s prognosis, and memory loss.
And now? Maybe now Buck begins to understand there’s nothing much he can do. It's just a matter of time. And patience, one of the things he normally doesn't excel at.
But for Eddie, he can gather all the patience in the universe and force it to stay within himself. He can be there and hold his hand while he recovers.
So that’s what he does; he takes Eddie’s hand in his and rubs circles on his palm.
“Come back to me, please. Come back to us. We’re here, we’ll always be here for you, but you need to come back to us,” he murmurs, voice muffled by the blanket. He kisses Eddie’s knuckles and lets his head rest on the bed, closing his eyes. Tears pool hot under his temple. “You come back to me and our son, Edmundo Diaz, or so help me god...”
A cough.
Buck’s startled and he jerks his body up. He looks around trying to find the source of the cough. He’s supposed to be alone. He is alone. So where the fuck is the cough coming from?
He walks to the door and peaks outside. Another cough, but there’s no one there.
When he re-enters the room, he looks down, he stares at the bed and beyond, but when he reaches Eddie's eyes, they are-
Wide open.