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Lately, sleep had been difficult to attain for Judd. While Grace did wonders in settling and soothing him to a point where he didn’t fear closing his eyes any longer, he could admit that he’d grown dependent on it in the months of medical leave following the factory explosion.
Since returning to work, overnight shifts had been a struggle. Especially in the beginning, he had resigned himself to two, maybe three hours of uninterrupted sleep before a flash of heat startled him into alertness. The longer he’d attended therapy and the more he’d opened up to Grace, the better his unattended rests had become, but they still weren’t perfect.
That, coupled with a firefighter’s learned response to wake on command at loud noises, led to an inherent inability to sleep through certain sounds.
Apparently, Evan Buckley startling into alertness and filling the bunk room with panicked, rapid breathing was one of the things that could rouse Judd from sleep.
Judd waited a moment to see what Buck would do. He could try to calm himself enough to roll over and go back to sleep, he could lie still on his bunk and wait for a call or for people to rouse from sleep around him, he could remove himself from the bunks—
Option C seemed to be Buck’s plan of action as he ripped the blanket off himself and after pausing for a moment for what Judd assumed was a check to see if anyone else had woken up—ha—he stood and left the bunk room in a hurry.
When the door closed behind him, Judd sat up in bed, giving the room a once over to see if anyone else had woken up and had waited like him to see what Buck would do. The room appeared silent, however, so Judd pulled his own blanket off, got up, and left the bunk room as quietly as he could manage.
Judd found Buck in the breakroom area, his head held in both hands with his elbows propped up on the table as he still struggled to regulate his breathing.
“Want something to drink?” Judd asked, announcing himself.
Buck startled, sucking in a sharp breath as his gaze shot up to meet Judd’s. The latent panic and pain in his eyes felt like a sucker punch to Judd’s gut. Judd waited patiently, not making a move towards Buck and letting the kid breathe and center himself before answering.
“Uh, sure,” Buck said, voice shaky. He cleared his throat and when he spoke next, it was slightly more even. “Is it too early for coffee?”
Judd scoffed with a smirk. “No such thing,” he said, making his way over to the fancy espresso machine. “Have you programmed your preferred drink in here yet?”
Buck huffed. “Honestly, I usually go for something a bit more bitter than my usual after...” Buck waved his hand idly, as if to gesture ‘this whole situation.’
“After a nightmare?” Judd asked, knowing he was toeing a line.
Buck swallowed, averting his gaze. “Yeah,” Buck croaked eventually.
Judd kept his gaze on the machine as it finished Buck’s drink—he’d just run his own programmed beverage twice, it seemed close enough to what Buck was going for. He’d just leave his own preferred amount of sugar out of the equation and let Buck add what he wanted later.
Buck still hadn’t said anything by the time the coffee was ready, but Judd wasn’t hard-pressed to push him. Nothing gave him the right to Buck’s privacy if he didn’t want to share it, as much as Judd was curious about what the kid had gone through. It was clear something had happened to Buck on a personal level to drive him towards Austin in the first place, but it wasn’t like the kid didn’t already have trauma to pull from. The ladder truck bombing came to mind immediately, and Judd wouldn’t be surprised if that incident hadn’t left him with a series of nightmares to work though.
Judd wouldn’t admit it to Buck as it felt a bit too much like making Buck’s trauma about himself, but he’d had his own nightmare about that bombing coupled with his own experience with the factory explosion. The explosion happened the same as it always did, but instead of what happened, the explosion had launched one of the trucks and it landed on him, and—
Judd took a sip of his coffee. He didn’t need to revisit that nightmare right now.
Buck eyed him, cupping his coffee with both hands. Judd wondered what he saw.
“You’re not gonna ask?” Buck asked finally.
“I probably will eventually,” Judd shrugged. “That doesn’t mean you have to answer when I do.”
Buck nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. For a while, the silence was comfortable, and Judd took a seat at the table far enough away from Buck so he wouldn’t feel crowded. But eventually Judd’s curiosity began to eat at him, so he filled the silence with idle conversation to try and delay himself from poking the bear.
“I gotta admit, when I heard we were getting a hotshot cityslicker from LA, I was expecting someone...a bit different than you.” Judd let the comment hang in the air, waiting to see Buck’s response.
Rather than smile at the compliment as was intended, Buck’s face shuttered and somehow that tall bulk of muscle retreated in on itself and made Buck appear tinier than Marjan. Buck averted his eyes to an empty corner of the room and chewed his lip.
“I’m sorry I’m not what you expected me to be,” Buck muttered, rubbing at his biceps self-consciously.
“Damn, Buck, that’s not—” Judd paused, wiping down his mouth as he tried to collect his thoughts. Clearly, just speaking his mind without a filter hadn’t worked out as intended the first time. He needed to slow down and make sure his words reflected what he needed Buck to hear from them. “That’s not a bad thing. I don’t know what I expected, but I’m glad we got you.”
Buck looked up hesitantly, gaze far too guarded for Judd’s comfort. Someone had done a number on the kid’s self-confidence, likely multiple someones over a long period of time if the deep hurt in Buck’s eyes meant anything.
“I’m glad I came,” Buck said quietly. “I wasn’t...it hurt like hell to leave, but it was hurting me more to stay.”
“Takes a lot to recognize that you’re in a bad situation,” Judd acknowledged. “Takes a hell of a lot more to do something about it. I’m proud of you, kid.”
Buck flushed, and he tried to hide a slight smile as he ducked his head down for another sip of coffee. It wasn’t long before the smile faded into a contemplative frown, and then into something more trepid. Buck swirled the coffee a little as if to stall as he chewed on his lip, then sighed and placed the cup on the table, hands still wrapped around it. His eyes hovered somewhere to the side, almost out of focus.
“Do you, uh, do you care if I dump this on you?”
“I care about you,” Judd said, and when Buck’s startled gaze snapped up to meet his, Judd made sure to hold eye contact with him to drive the point home. “If you wanna tell me something, I wanna listen.”
Buck swallowed thickly. “I, uh...”
Buck paused, and Judd let him take the moment to collect himself. He didn’t know what part of Buck’s past he was about to get, but he knew it would be heavy. But no matter how heavy it was, Judd reckoned it would be a lot lighter to share the load between them rather than let Buck struggle under it alone.
“Before coming here, I had a pretty shitty few months. Starting with a fire truck landing on my leg.”
“I remember,” Judd said, and Buck looked at him curiously. “It hit national news, I’d bet most firefighters heard about it at least, even if they don’t necessarily know it was you.”
Buck shrugged, ducking his head to scratch the back of his neck. “I wish I didn’t remember it, most days. I tell people I was mostly out of it the whole time. And I mean, yeah, in the moment I couldn’t really process anything beyond how much it hurt. But...I remember the kid, he was talking to me, and no one...no one was doing anything.”
Buck’s eyes were bright as his jaw worked, and Judd stayed silent, waiting to see if Buck would break himself out of the moment on his own. His hands slipped from the table to hide in his lap.
“I knew why. I mean, no one could do anything with another bomb in play, but the waiting really sucked. And getting the truck off was worse—” Buck grimaced and leaned forward a bit, and Judd knew that if the table were transparent, he’d see Buck gripping the very same leg. Phantom pains were a bitch and a half.
“No one really thought I’d ever go back to work. They didn’t outright say that, obviously. They were so dead set on reassuring me that I’d walk again, but that—it wasn’t enough. Firefighting was the first thing I ever felt like I was supposed to do. And I wasn’t ready to be confronted with a future where I couldn’t do that anymore.
“Everyone thought I was crazy for pushing myself as hard as I did to get back to work. And maybe I was; I was back in form in four months.”
Judd choked on his coffee. “I thought you were cleared after five months, not four!”
Judd was halfway expecting to see a flush on Buck’s face as was customary after being praised, but instead Buck simply looked sullen. “Well, I guess people were right, because I ended up having a pulmonary embolism at my welcome back party. Vomited blood on my captain’s back patio.”
“Christ, kid.”
“To a point, they were...they were right about me pushing myself too hard. I’d—my leg had been hurting for a day, but I’d just run my recertification courses. I thought it was just my leg being sore and overworked or something. It’s not like I’d ever had a blood clot to compare it to before.”
“Well, I can see that,” Judd said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. When Buck’s face fell further, Judd rushed to explain himself. He didn’t need the kid thinking he agreed the embolism was his fault. “Blood clot symptoms are easy to overlook, especially in the leg. With what your leg has gone through, it’s an easy mistake to make. That’s not on you.”
Buck scowled, but the self-loathing that had been present in his features earlier had melted away slightly. “Yeah, well, you’re the first person to say that. Everyone else berated me for not taking care of myself.”
“That’s bullshit,” Judd said frankly, setting his coffee down heavily. “No one knows your body better than you, and it’s easy for anyone to say their piece after the fact. I mean, damn, you’d think people would give you a break after the truck and then nearly choking on blood.”
“But wait, there’s more!” Buck joked, but his voice was devoid of humor.
Judd folded his arms expectantly. He knew realistically there had to be more; after all, these events had already happened when Owen first extended an offer to join the 126. Something had to have changed between then and Buck’s actual transfer.
“A little more than a week after the embolism, I went to the Santa Monica Pier with my—” Buck’s face twisted slightly, “—with my best friend’s kid.”
Judd’s gut clenched, the timeline snapping into place in his mind. After all, the Santa Monica Pier had been in the news a couple months ago for a very monumental reason—
“You were on the pier during the tsunami,” Judd said, rubbing at his jaw in slack horror.
“We started on the pier,” Buck said, slumping in his chair. “We ended up somewhere on Colorado Avenue. Listen—” Buck’s gaze darted up to Judd’s, and Judd watched as a surge of emotions pounded against Buck’s tired eyes. “The tsunami is a story in and of itself, I don’t think I can do that tonight.”
“You don’t have to give anything you don’t want to,” Judd assured quickly. “This is about what you need to get off your chest. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Thanks,” Buck breathed, clearly relieved. Buck’s eyes drifted to his coffee again, looking almost confused as if he didn’t know where to restart his story. “Christopher and I were on the pier in the first place because I was kinda in a funk. I’d just been told that because of my embolism and the blood thinners I had to be put on, I would no longer be cleared for duty despite breaking records to get back to the job. And I was told they’d re-evaluate in a few weeks before they’d put me on light duty. And that just—it wasn’t an option for me.”
“They made you wait weeks just to put you on light duty? Because of the blood thinners?” Judd asked incredulously. “What were they worried about, paper cuts?”
Buck snorted, and Judd relished in being able to provide the kid with some humor, even if only for a moment.
“Hell if I know,” Buck said, the corner of his mouth pulling into a small smirk. Unfortunately, it abruptly melted away. “Bobby—my captain—told me light duty was the only thing I could really expect to get while on blood thinners. So I quit, and slept in a bed of depression for a week until Eddie gave me his kid and told me to get out of the house. I doubt a tsunami was what he was expecting.”
Eddie, the best friend that Buck had stumbled over calling as such just a couple minutes earlier. Judd made a note of it but left his thoughts on the matter for later.
“Somehow, we both got through the tsunami, and I did it even while on blood thinners. I—I saved people even if—if I—even though I lost—” Buck’s face crumpled and he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he worked to regulate his breathing.
Buck was hovering dangerously on the line of a panic attack, but Judd waited to see where Buck would go. Selfishly, he didn’t want to interrupt this dump of information because who knew when Buck would feel like sharing again? At the same time, he knew it would help Buck in the long run to get this off his chest, and the sooner they could drain the infection, the better. That being said, Judd wouldn’t hesitate to step in if it looked like Buck needed it.
Judd sipped his cooling coffee as Buck’s breathing evened out, and he watched Buck calmly as he lifted his head out of his hands. Buck gave himself a little nod but still didn’t bring his gaze up to meet Judd’s when he began to speak again.
“If-if I could do that, then what was stopping me from returning to work in a full capacity? I’d been cleared by my doctors, I was willing to sign waivers, I was willing to take on the risk and absolve the department of fault if something happened, but I kept getting roadblocked. At first, I thought it was the department itself holding me back, so I went to my captain to ask for his help.”
Buck chuckled humorlessly then, eyes dimming. “Turns out it was him all along that was holding me back. He lied to me, made me think it was the department. But no, he was the one telling them I wasn’t ready to return.”
Judd’s cup crinkled in his hand and he hurried to place it on the table as he threatened to destroy the cup and spill the remaining contents everywhere. A fire captain was meant to have their team’s backs; the relationship between a fire captain and a firefighter was built on trust because if you didn’t trust each other, then people would get hurt or die in the field. Fire captains had to trust their firefighters to perform their jobs up to par, to keep themselves fit and capable and to know their own limits. And firefighters had to trust their captains to put them where they needed to be, to utilize their skills in the best and most efficient way possible, and to act as a guide when getting close to reaching their limits.
This was the part of the captain/firefighter relationship that seemed to be poisoned between Buck and his captain. Buck knew his limits and it was his responsibility to keep to those limits. It was his captain’s responsibility to let Buck set and communicate those limits, and hold him accountable to them should he falter. It was not the right of the captain to impose limits on Buck. That’s what regulation and certification was for.
And if Buck thought his captain didn’t trust him, that was the end of their relationship right there. Because Buck could not safely function as a firefighter if his captain didn’t trust him, and more importantly, if Buck didn’t trust his captain.
Lying to Buck about his own life and career and future...that was inexcusable.
“I...I get it,” Buck whispered, and Judd scowled. Judd hadn’t known Buck for long, but it seemed very in character for Buck to absolve people of blame when they didn’t deserve it, and Judd didn’t like it. “I mean, he’s always treated me differently, y’know? We’ve...he’s always been kinda like my dad, or like...what I thought a dad should be like. Mine wasn’t...the best example,” Buck muttered, pursing his lips.
Buck looked a bit contrite now, scratching the back of his neck. “I admittedly didn’t think this through, but I was so mad at Bobby for keeping me from the job that I reached out to this lawyer I’d met and he convinced me to sue the department, the city, and Bobby for wrongful termination.” Buck rolled his eyes with a self-deprecating sigh. “I know I should’ve gone to the union, I was an idiot. But I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”
Judd hummed; he wondered if the look on his face had been broadcasting a bit too clearly for Buck to defensively bring up the union comment so fast.
“The lawsuit was... awful.” Buck’s posture had abruptly dropped again. “My lawyer had me tell him all this...dirt on my team. He promised me it wouldn’t be used in court, so I...I told him everything. Really personal shit that I never should’ve—I told him way more than I should’ve.”
Buck scoffed. “Joke’s on me, because Mackey never intended for the lawsuit to even get to court. He told me like the day before that there would be an arbitration hearing, just ‘a preliminary run through of my case.’” Buck dropped his head again, both hands fisting into his hair. “My team got called in one by one and Mackey used everything against them. And they—they were rightfully furious with me after, I mean—I betrayed their trust, I said so much—”
Buck cut himself off, then turned a pleading look on Judd. “Am I an idiot? For trusting him? For being misled like that—?”
“Nah kid,” Judd said quickly. Buck had clearly been beating himself up about this for a long time and Judd refused to let it go on longer than it needed to. “You’re supposed to be able to trust your lawyer. Are apologies necessary for spilling your team’s secrets? Maybe. But it’s not your fault your lawyer manipulated you when he should’ve had your best interests at heart.”
“I told him I just wanted my job back,” Buck whispered. “I just wanted to be with my family again. He said he got that. But really he just wanted the settlement money and used me to get it. Or tried to, at least.” Buck quirked his lips. “I turned down the settlement offer, Mackey lost it on me. Not much he could do other than gripe really, but serves him right. Chief Alonzo agreed to give me my job back so long as I dropped the lawsuit, and that’s all I wanted in the first place, so I agreed. I thought that’d be the end of it.”
“But you still had to face your team,” Judd prodded when Buck didn’t look like he would continue on his own any time soon.
“Yeah,” Buck breathed. “I...I knew they’d be mad. I just thought...I just figured that after a while they’d forgive me. That’s what family is supposed to do, right? Maybe I just forgive people too easily and expect it in return—”
“Hey now, did you do anything that would permanently hurt them?” Judd asked sharply.
Buck grimaced. “No. I don’t...I don’t think so. Maybe? I brought up some pretty personal stuff. But no one got fired or suspended or anything? Emotionally though...I could see it, yeah. But I hope I didn’t. I dunno...”
Buck was well on his way into rambling now, but Judd was hesitant to pry into whatever it was Buck had divulged about his team. As curious as he was, he recognized that part of Buck’s trauma in the situation was sharing more about his team’s personal lives than he should have; the last thing Judd wanted to do was to have Buck share that info again to someone who really didn’t need to know it.
“So they let you back on the job?” Judd interrupted when Buck started tripping over repeated words. Buck looked mildly grateful to be rid of the word vomit.
“If you call passing out smoke detectors to kids, then yeah, back on the job,” Buck scowled. “I was kept on light duty for a while,” Buck elaborated at Judd’s raised eyebrow. “And then when Bobby eventually did let me back in the field, everything I did was criticized. And like...I know I’m a good—I’m a capable firefighter, right?” Judd nodded even though Buck wasn’t necessarily looking for an answer there.
“I felt like I was back in the Academy being graded on every step I took. Even when I was a probie, Bobby trusted me to do tough jobs even if he had to reign me in once in a while; deservedly so. But this...it was degrading. I even had a couple victims start looking at me like I couldn’t do my job because they’d overhear someone on the team correcting me and they’d request someone else. I started really second guessing myself, and that’s when I knew I couldn’t continue on like that. Hesitation means lost lives on this job, and I couldn’t risk anyone like that.”
“So you reached out to Owen.”
Buck nodded. “He tried to recruit me before, but I thought I still had a chance with the 118. They’re...they were the only family I’ve ever really known beyond my sister, but even she only came back into my life last year. I didn’t want to give that up. They’ve all been there for me through...”
“Through what?” Judd snapped when Buck seemed unable to actually form words to describe how they’d acted like a family, unable to keep his disdain to himself. “From the sounds of it, they haven’t been there for you at all.”
Buck’s lower lip trembled, but he sucked it into his mouth quickly to hide it. “They were all I had, I didn’t...everyone always leaves but at least they stayed. They were still there even if they were treating me like...”
“Like you were less than.”
“It used to be better,” Buck insisted, turning an earnest look on Judd. “I mean, I went to a Springstein concert with Bobby while I was a probie. Chimney helped me track down a guy who’d stolen my identity to catfish women. Hen was always like my big sister, especially before Maddie came back. Eddie—” Buck’s face crumpled. “Eddie was my best friend. I’d never been that close with anyone my whole life, we knew each other better than the back of our hands. But even he—”
Buck dropped his face to dig the heel of his palms into his eyes again. “If the person who knows me best thinks I’m exhausting and too much to deal with, then what hope do I have for anyone else to give a shit?”
“You think I’d be sitting at this table with you at three in the morning during a twenty-four if I didn’t give a shit?” Judd said sharply. Buck’s gaze snapped up to meet his again. “I mean it, kid, whatever those assholes put you through, you’re not gonna get that here. The 126 is a family, and we’ve got your back. That’s it, end of.”
“Bobby told me once,” Buck whispered, averting eye contact. “That the 118 wasn’t a family. But that was early on, and we all became closer and it felt like one...then after the lawsuit he said it again, and I felt...emotionally betrayed?”
Judd nodded but this time didn’t offer Buck any words.
“Owen was able to handle the paperwork on the Austin side so that I didn’t technically need to get Bobby’s approval for the transfer, I could’ve just filed something with HR since the receiving department had agreed to the move, but I wanted to tell him in person. I don’t know how I expected him to take it. Maybe with anger, or just that cold indifference he’d been showing me recently? He started crying.
“He said...he blamed himself for my injury and he was trying to keep me from getting hurt again. He...he couldn’t stand to see someone else he cared about getting hurt. I think he wanted to call me his son, but...I dunno, I’m kinda glad he didn’t at this point.”
“You’ve seen Owen and TK,” Judd said when Buck didn’t continue right away. “Owen is TK’s captain and father, and as much as I worried about it at first, Owen does a damn good job separating the two, while also being both. Owen supports TK on the job, he doesn’t keep him away from dangerous rescues, and he trusts him to get the job done. Regardless of what your captain felt about you outside of the job, that shouldn’t have kept him from doing his job as your captain. He failed you, kid.”
Buck swallowed, nodding his head slightly. “Yeah...” he breathed, looking far away in thought. “When I...when I first got here, I was still kinda giving Bobby that out, but...seeing Owen and TK interact at work kinda threw that on its side.”
Buck hunched over again, and it was a wonder the man didn’t have scoliosis with how often he curved his spine to duck away from whatever emotion he was feeling. Buck chewed his lip, staring into the cup of coffee he hadn’t taken much of a drink of throughout his story. At this point it would probably be horribly cold if Buck decided a sip was necessary. It was his longest silence thus far and Judd waited him out, keeping an ear out to make sure they wouldn’t be prematurely interrupted. Judd typically didn’t want to tempt Murphy’s Law, but he hoped beyond anything that they wouldn’t get a call now (or in however long it would take for Buck to level out from this emotional upheaval).
“My nightmare tonight...” Buck said softly, and Judd unconsciously leaned forward to hear him. “I was back under the ladder truck. But instead of anyone coming to help, my team, they just...they just stood there and watched me even after Freddie was disarmed. I—I cried, I screamed, I begged for them to help me, and they just turned and walked away and I—I—”
The panic attack that had been slowly festering as the night went on finally broke through, and Judd slid from his chair and made his way to Buck. Judd eased his hand onto Buck’s shoulder and kneaded it and waited, waiting for Buck to invite further contact if he wanted it.
It took a moment, but Buck twisted and pressed his face into Judd’s chest, and Judd took the invitation to wind his arms tightly around Buck and pull him close. He tucked his chin over Buck’s head and held him, rocking him slightly when Buck’s hands rose to grip tightly at the back of Judd’s shirt. Buck’s breath panted harshly into Judd’s chest and it wasn’t long before tears began to dampen his shirt.
For too long, Buck hadn’t had anyone support him in a way that would help him heal from all of his recent trauma. From a bombing and crushed leg to a pulmonary embolism, to a tsunami, to the ostracization from his firehouse family, and finally the degradation, it was a wonder Buck was sitting with him tonight. Regardless of the circumstances that led him to each of those traumas, they were still something Buck had to live through.
Buck was the strongest person Judd had ever met.
And Judd would do everything in his power to make sure further trauma wouldn’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Because even Atlas couldn’t hold the world up forever.