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In the aftermath of everything, of the bombing and the fire truck landing on his leg and the panicked drive to the hospital and him coding in the ambulance, it was expected that some things would just… slip through the cracks. Not everything, of course. But, at least one little thing.
When Hen came over, she still took his vitals, even if he had just returned from whatever medical appointment he’d been at. She had been driving when he flatlined halfway to the hospital, which meant she couldn’t help Chim and Eddie bring him back. Now, every time she came, she had to double check. It helped her nightmares.
For Eddie, his way of coping was sitting in on just about every physical therapy appointment that Buck had, especially if it meant that he could take him home afterwards. Christopher had seen the news report and recognized Buck and panicked, leading to a tearful few minutes at the hospital after his last major surgery. Now, whenever he could, Eddie brought the boys together.
Bobby did his best to stay involved in other ways, including cooking and meal prepping for Buck on his four days off. The cooking lessons had stalled for a bit, but that was understandable. Buck was unsteady on his feet on a good day. Add in crutches, it was a recipe for disaster.
But it was Chim that realized that not all was well. While he didn’t visit all that often, he noticed some things. Buck was leaving himself notes, things that he could have remembered without a problem. On one of his visits with Maddie, Chim happened to overhear that Buck was having bad headaches, which explained why he was avoiding using his phone or laptop. He also had caught him wincing during an early morning gathering, almost as if the noise was bothering him.
It took a few days before Chim had a chance to pull Buck away and talk to him. It wasn’t easy, between Eddie, Maddie, and Bobby, Buck was rarely alone for more than an hour, even overnight. But he made it work, finally sending Maddie out to get breakfast for the three of them in a ruse to talk to the man alone.
Chim had stayed away from much of the medical discussions, in an attempt to give Buck a bit of privacy to make his own decisions. But when he’d walked in that morning and saw Buck wincing at the light, he had to say something.
Buck wasn’t immediately forthcoming. He tried to keep passing it off as just being up early, which didn’t fly because he was normally up for physical therapy over an hour earlier. Chim let him get about five excuses out before he finally just shut down the complaints.
“How bad was the head trauma?” He finally asked. Chim laid out all the evidence, the headaches, the notes, the sensitivity to sound and light. The younger man looked chastised by the end of it.
Buck simply pointed over to the stack of medical documents that now lived on one side of his counter. Everything was there, from the initial notes from his surgeons to his discharge notes, to warnings and medications and things that even made Chim’s head spin a little. It only took a moment to find the notes regarding Buck’s head trauma from that night, something that had been mostly overlooked beyond quickly bandaging the gash. But the man had suffered a skull fracture, one that the notes said to keep an eye on. All the warning signs were there.
Chim skimmed the rest of the page summaries, making mental notes for when to come back later to look further. He absentmindedly noted that there was no mention of blood clots, but that was a concern for another day.
As soon as Maddie returned, Chim showed her what he’d discovered. Buck tried to get a word in edgewise, something that was quickly ignored in favor of at least emailing his care team regarding possible issues and continued treatments.
Chim and Buck may not always get along, but Buck was his little brother. He wasn’t going to let something important like this slip through the cracks.