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Getting Eddie to actually go to physical therapy was difficult enough even without the pandemic making them jump through a million hoops just to schedule an appointment. Buck didn’t even want to think about how much of a mess it must’ve been the first time around after Eddie got back from Afghanistan if he was this uncooperative after already having been through this once before.
He hated the pandemic for plenty of reasons, but at the moment the number one thing Buck absolutely despised about 2020 was that stupid hospital restrictions meant that Eddie was stuck going through physical therapy all alone. The entire building was so overcrowded with COVID patients that the ICU had expanded to fill up any available treatment room that wasn’t urgently necessary for patients with unrelated illnesses, making it virtually impossible to get approved as a visitor for any reason.
And so, Buck became a glorified Uber driver, picking up his best friend just to drop him off for PT and sit outside in the hospital courtyard.
He knew that, after the shooting, Eddie had been avoiding going outside at all. It wasn’t something the older man had necessarily been televising, but when it was Buck’s job to read him, it became undeniable. Large open spaces might as well have been an active war zone and, considering his own anxieties, Buck really couldn’t blame him. If he was terrified at the thought of Eddie being out in the open, he could only imagine what Eddie was feeling.
So if the closest thing he could get to being there to support his best friend was to sit on a cold concrete bench outside the hospital and wait, then he’d be happy to do it. He wasn’t letting Eddie go through any step of his recovery alone, not if he could manage it.
“You’ll…you’ll be right outside, right?” Eddie asked him as they stood outside the entrance, backed against the side of the building so that Eddie could properly scan the space around them. The fact that just a few months prior, Eddie would’ve never
With a book in hand, he found the closest bench to the entrance and prepared himself to hunker down for the next hour.
All he had to do was just…try not to think about anything but his book. A biography about an engineer behind some of the world’s first amusement park rides was a pretty good distraction, he supposed, even if he’d probably have to force himself to focus on it. Ever since his middle school had introduced a new robotics club, Christopher had been obsessed with all things tech and engineering.
And yet, he couldn’t help himself from glancing at his watch every time the pace of the book happened to lull. And every time someone opened the doors to the hospital entrance. Or really any time his thoughts wandered back to Eddie, which happened to be at least every three minutes.
Once his phone finally vibrated in his pocket, it was a welcome distraction.
A few texts from Carla, who was currently at the beach chaperoning Chris’ surf lesson, were checking in with him.
Carla: How’s our boy doing?
Carla: Think he’d be up for being dad of the year tonight? Like I told you earlier, I’m happy to watch Chris for the night if you boys need a night to decompress.
Leave it to Carla to always be on the lookout for all three of them, not just Chris. If he’d known referring her to the Diazes would lead to Carla becoming such a big part of his own life, he would’ve hired her himself.
Buck: Wouldn’t know. New hospital policy says no visitors for non-critical patients.
Buck: But I’ll let you know how he’s feeling once I finally bust him out of here.
He couldn’t help but smile at the message. Eddie being referred to as his seemed to always make his heart flutter even more than usual.
Carla: I’m sorry to hear that, honey. You’d think with all the time you two spend in hospitals, they know better than to keep you boys apart.
If only it were that easy.
Buck: Trust me, when hospitals go back to their old rules, I’ll be the first in line to take advantage of it.
Well, hopefully he wouldn’t have to, but knowing the luck his family tended to have, he just hoped that the next person to take a trip to the hospital wouldn’t be forced into staying there alone.
Carla: Here’s to hoping either the change comes soon or our boy’s out of the hospital by then. Sending both of you my love.
He returned the sentiment in kind, glancing at the time once more before sliding his phone back into his pocket.
Huh. Only ten minutes until the end of Eddie’s scheduled session and not once had he texted to check in.
He distinctly remembered Eddie promising to let him know how it was going as soon as he took a water break. It was the only way Eddie had been able to make it into the building without Buck finding some way to sneak in.
But maybe…maybe he just forgot.
Maybe he just got tired and forgot that Buck was sitting outside worried out of his mind about Eddie being in there all alone.
Maybe…
Surely it was just an accident.
He pulled out his phone and sent Eddie a quick message.
Buck: how’s it going??
Not too accusatory, not too eager. Just…well, just typical Buck.
He kept glancing back and forth between his phone and the doors as if one of them would give him an answer, but nothing came. Not wanting to disrupt anything just in case, he elected to sit there and wait until the actual scheduled time that the appointment was supposed to end, trying to convince himself that maybe the session was just going so well that Eddie hadn’t taken a break. Or maybe…maybe it was going so well that he extended the session!
Right, as if Eddie wanted to spend a single second longer in a hospital than he absolutely had to.
Clearly he needed someone to tell him he was worried for nothing before he had an actual conniption. He called Bobby.
“Buck? How are you, kid?”
Just the sound of his captain’s voice soothed a little bit of that restlessness, his leg bouncing as he sat.
“Hey,” he exhaled in a rush. “I, um…I’m at the hospital—Eddie’s got his first day of PT.”
He quickly followed up his mention of the hospital with clarification, not wanting to worry the older man.
“Oh, that’s right. How is he? I’m not supposed to start PT for another week, but I’m getting pretty stir crazy myself,” Bobby answered. “I might have you come pick up some food, we’re starting to run out of room in the fridge and there’s not much else I can do here but cook.”
He couldn’t help but smile, relieved that his father figure was healing nicely as well. With a smaller caliber bullet wound, the damage hadn’t been nearly as bad as the sniper bullet had been for Eddie, but he was still worried nonetheless.
“Actually, I, um…I’m waiting outside and he hasn’t come out yet,” he answered, immediately wincing at how stupidly irrational it sounded coming out of his mouth. “He—he promised he’d text me an update once he took a break but his session was supposed to end like five minutes ago and he never said anything. He hasn’t come outside yet and…and I don’t know what to do.”
Bobby didn’t answer for a few moments, giving Buck plenty of time to stew in his anxiety.
“It’s stupid, right? I’m…I’m probably worried for no reason it’s just…”
“Kid, I’d be more concerned if you weren’t worried,” Bobby huffed with a fond chuckle. “As for Eddie…maybe just give him a few more minutes. There could be a long line for the elevators, or maybe his phone just died and he’s running late.”
Right.
Yes.
Normal explanations for things.
But…
“I just…” he paused, heart lodged in his throat. “I have a bad feeling and I know that doesn’t really mean much and it’s probably nothing, but…if something’s wrong, I have no way to get to him, Bobby. The hospital’s not allowing visitors and I already couldn’t go with him to PT.”
Jesus, he was sure he sounded so pathetically codependent, but after what they’d all just gone through, he couldn’t care less about being called codependent. He’d almost lost his best friend, of course he was going to be a little clingy for a while.
“Try calling reception for the physical therapy wing. They’ll let you know if there’s a deny and his appointment’s just running behind,” Bobby suggested, once again swooping in to provide a perfectly reasonable explanation for his jumping to ridiculous conclusions. “Besides, he’s already at the hospital. If anything did go wrong, he’s surrounded by medical professionals.”
Still, that did nothing to ease that little nagging feeling in his gut that told him he was missing something.
“Yeah, I…I’ll do that. Thanks Bobby,” he spoke hurriedly, desperate for answers.
“No problem. Good to hear from you, kid.”
They said their goodbyes and, before he knew it, Buck was making another call. Just…not the one he thought he’d be making.
He’d been scrolling through the hospital directory looking for the right phone number for the reception when, out of nowhere, his phone rang with the caller ID for Eddie’s tía Pepa. There was no logical explanation for the way chills ran down his spine, but surely it couldn’t be a coincidence.
Buck accepted the call without another moment of hesitation.
“Pepa?” He answered, hoping if it was just a casual call, he wouldn’t freak her out with his panicked tone.
“Buck, what’s going on with my nieto?” She asked, matching his tone of voice. “I…I just got off the phone with the hospital, what’s going on?”
Oh god.
Oh christ, he didn’t actually want to be right.
“The hospital called you?” He echoed, terrified. “A—about what?”
“Something about emergency surgery, she didn’t go into detail,” Pepa explained. “You must know, yes? Something…something happened at work?”
He shook his head out of instinct before realizing.
“No, he—“ Buck cleared his throat, panic rising. “I took him to the hospital just an hour ago, he’s supposed to be having physical therapy for his shoulder. I don’t…his appointment was supposed to end at the hour, I…I figured he was just running late.”
His voice broke, doing nothing to quell the older woman’s panic.
“But if he’s…mijo, you have to go to him,” she pleaded. “I’ll leave work and get there as quickly as I can.”
“Yeah,” he choked out frantically shaking as he paced around the courtyard, watching the door. “Yeah, I—I’ll find out what happened. I’ll call you as soon as I have news.”
He just needed to be there. How could he not have been there? Eddie needed him and he wasn’t there. He wasn’t there.
He ended the call with a shaking hand, looping the mask over his face and around his ears with practiced ease and ran into the building.
No one seemed to know who he was talking about. He stopped at every administration desk he saw, asking for any information, but not a single person even seemed to know who he was talking about.
The whole hospital was a maze. He’d been there before, in years past, and never once had he felt so out of his depth. Every time he turned a corner, it somehow felt like he was getting simultaneously closer and farther from Eddie. Even when he finally found his way to the physical therapy wing, it didn’t feel right.
He was sure that the woman who was unfortunate enough to be working behind the desk in the physical therapy wing was hoping he wouldn’t be coming up to her looking as absolutely haggard and ridiculous as he did, but he was too desperate to care.
“I’m—I’m looking for an Edmundo Diaz? He…he was here for a…physical therapy earlier but—“ he swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat. “His aunt—she’s his emergency contact—she got a call that said he…he was taken to surgery?”
God, the way his voice broke was so painfully heartbroken, no-doubt making the woman behind the desk think he was Eddie’s terrified partner, rather than, well…the actual kind of partner that he was.
The nurse gave him a sympathetic look, typing away on her computer.
“Let me see here,” she trailed off. “Now, I can’t disclose patient information to you, but if you have some form of identification, I can check whether you’re in his file as an acceptable form of contact.”
He nodded frantically, fumbling around in his pockets as he pulled out his wallet, holding out his drivers license with trembling hands.
“H-here,” Buck could practically hear his heart pounding in his ears, threatening to drown out the woman’s response. “I’m—I think I’m his power of attorney, but I’m not…I’m not sure.”
She clicked around a few times before apparently finding what she was looking for.
“Ah, here you are. Yes, it seems he was taken to our emergency trauma suite for…” her brow furrowed as she paused. “It says here he was treated just 2 weeks ago for a gunshot wound?” Buck nodded again. “I’m not seeing any notes here as to what happened during his session this morning, but I can help you track down his physical therapist, he’ll probably know.”
Some amalgamation of thanks tumbled out of his mouth, but he was almost certain none of it amounted to any actual English sentences. All he could focus on were the words echoing in his head, the potential explanations and worst-case-scenarios drowning out his own voice.
“Right through here, he was working with one of our med student residents, Terrence,” the kind nurse directed him, pointing out a man hastily waving for a custodian to follow him.
A man with bloodstains on his scrubs.
“I…I don’t why he…” clearly she was just as startled by the blood as Buck, but the moment Terrence noticed her standing there, he raced over to her side.
“Steph—“ he gasped out. “My…my eleven-thirty appointment, he…”
The nurse, Steph apparently, glanced at Buck and then back at Terrence, cutting him off sharply.
“This is Evan, he’s Mr. Diaz’s POA,” she explained, making the other man go white like a sheet. “What happened to you?”
He shook his head.
“It’s…sir, your…”
“Partner,” Buck blurted before he could think twice about it.
Somehow, if Terrence could’ve looked any more panicked, he did.
“Your partner, he…he suffered a pulmonary embolism. We have reason to believe his recent injury and the subsequent surgery are likely the cause,” Terrence explained hesitantly. “He’s in good hands, we were able to intervene almost immediately and it’s a very routine surgery. Only slightly invasive, usually doesn’t take more than about two hours to resolve the clot, but I can take you down to the trauma surgery waiting room?”
He…he couldn’t…
“Sir? Are you alright?”
Not Eddie…anyone but Eddie, please god…
“An—an embolism?” He asked, voice tiny and terrified. “My Eddie?”
He must’ve looked about ready to keel over considering Steph gently placed a hand on his back, guiding him over to the nearby wall so he could hold himself up.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Terrence repeated. “But if you’d just come with me, I can take you down t—“
The man stopped, startled as Buck slapped a hand over his mouth, a gut-wrenching sob nearly taking him out at the knees as he stumbled into the wall.
No.
No, it couldn’t be.
He…it was just supposed to be recovery. He was in physical therapy.
God, it was bad enough that he’d been shot in the middle of trying to help a young boy, but for Eddie to be struck with the absolute worst luck while he was trying to heal? It just wasn’t fair.
At least when Buck had his own embolism, he’d had his entire family around him, but Eddie…Eddie had been all alone.
And yet again, Buck was being kept away from him when all he wanted was to just…be close.
Why did the universe keep trying to take him away?