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The worst thing is that Buck gets it.
Honestly, he 100% understands where Eddie is coming from. Christopher, at the horrifically young age of 10, had already dealt with the death of a parent, a natural disaster or two, and then another near-death of a parent. It’s right that he’s scared of losing Eddie, and Buck knows that he would have done the same thing if it was him.
It still hurts.
It hurts like a wound that never really got the chance to heal, like spraining your ankle over and over again so that it gets better but it’s never what it was. Maybe the wound started with Maddie, with Chim taking Jee-Yun away with him. Maybe it started when Abby said goodbye at the airport and knew she wasn’t coming back until she was engaged and settled into a life she never saw with Buck.
It doesn’t really matter when it started. The point is that people keep walking away from Buck like he’s their 1st grade teacher. Sure, they had fun with him, enjoyed being around him, maybe even loved him. But then they leave and he’s forgotten, except for a fleeting memory told in a funny story years and years later. He’s made to be temporary. He just never thought Eddie would think so too.
Later, when he looks back on it, he’ll feel bad about his reaction. Hen had grabbed his hand, like she knew, like she was anchoring him to her. Trying to keep them together. In his blind shock, he’d ripped it away, stalking across the road and off to nowhere. His phone was in the hands of a kid who’d wanted to play his games and his car was where he’d parked it when he got there, before all of this. He leaves them.
He walks for a indiscernible amount of time, completely blind to direction, or traffic, or pedestrians. He walks until he walks into a diner. There’s some stools at the bar that are empty. He orders coffee, thankful that he still has his wallet, and asks for the time. The waitress, a kid who can’t be more than 19 and is apparently called Gracie, tells him that it’s 7pm and fills his mug right to the top.
Dr. Copeland would class the last few hours of his life as a dissociative state. They’d briefly talked about it last time he’d seen her, but that was months ago. Before there were snipers in LA and blood on his favourite shirt. He drinks his coffee in one go and thanks Gracie when she immediately refills the mug.
He stays there for hours. Buck knows that it’s a bad idea, but he’s not feeling in the mindset for good ideas right now. Plus, it’s probably better for him to drink his body weight in coffee than wonder into traffic because his brain disconnected again.
Distantly, he’s aware that he’s probably caused a panic. He shelves it for later.
It’s in the bleak 4am fuzz that he realises what he probably should have realised long ago.
Buck isn’t doing okay. Not at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. Skipped therapy, skipped meals, lies about how much he’s slept, fake smiles that hurt his face, a deep hunger for something that isn’t food. He kind of wants to disappear into this mug and never come back out.
Gracie leaves at 6am. Buck waves goodbye, wishes her luck with her girlfriend. Drinks another mug of coffee. He’s been gone for most of a day now. Spent most of his christmas in a diner somewhere in LA, giving relationship advice to a waitress. Rock bottom, it turns out, feels like a leather diner chair.
When it gets to 10am, Buck knows that he should probably leave. He’s had his moment, he’s made his fuss, it’s time to deal with it. Except, he can’t make himself leave. He’s created a bubble here where he’s lost no-one. It’s a place where he can pretend because the people here don’t see him and he doesn’t seem them. They just exist side by side while they sit and sip coffee. He thinks that maybe they’ll find him before he has to leave, though he’s not sure who would even be looking anymore.
Hen sits down next to him at 11am. Orders them both breakfast. She gets a coffee but he only gets water, probably because he’s been shaking for hours. Hen clears her plate while Buck empties his glass. Surprisingly, the bubble doesn’t pop when she speaks.
“Should I be taking you somewhere with more medical professionals and worse coffee?” She worries about him like a sister sometimes, staring at him as if she could see into his head.
He shrugs in response. Honestly, he’s been numb since he’d untethered himself from her hours earlier. He doesn’t remember walking here and he still hasn’t eaten anything.
“Buckaroo?” She calls softly, stilling his hands with her own. She always knows him, she’s always got him. He squeezes her hands tightly.
“I think I need to see someone.” He looks at Hen, knows she understands what he means. She lets go of his hands, places cutlery in them.
“Eat your breakfast. Karen made up the spare room for you.”
He nods, eats his breakfast. He sleeps in Hen’s spare room while she bats people away from the door. He hears the end of a phone call with Chim, where she’s decided today that she’s had enough.
Karen comes and watches a documentary with him, entertains all of his theories about space with her own knowledge. Hen takes up his other side during his emergency call with Dr. Copeland. She wants to see him in person, she’s glad that he called, she knew that he was hiding. It’s still progress, she tells him. It just takes time.
Buck sleeps some more, then checks his phone that sits now fully charged on the bed. Messages from Bobby, Athena, May. A missed call from Chim. A FaceTime request from Albert, and from Christopher. A voicemail from Eddie, followed by 16 long text messages.
Bobby wants to talk to him, gives him time off. Athena threatens to install a tracker in his arm and May invites him to ice cream night at her place. Chim didn’t leave a message but he called. It’s more than he expected. He texts Albert back, and sends Christopher a promise that he’s sorry he missed this call, but he’ll never miss one again.
He listens to Eddie’s voicemail, full of anger mixed with worry and doubt. He doesn’t know how they got here, when they stopped being able to see each other, but he’s tired of it. Eddie’s messages are all explanation, all rational reasoning and rambling runs of worry.
He doesn’t know how to say it. The words are typed and re-typed over and over. He settles on simple. Buck asks if they can talk. In person, about everything from the last few months. No lies, no hiding.
The text back is instant. The wound starts to heal.