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After the lightning strike, Buck can’t sleep.
While he’s still at the hospital, he blames it on the noise— the constant rhythmic beep of the heart monitor and the distant echo of alarms. The painkillers he’s on makes him groggy and nauseated, and he’s too uncomfortable to do more than doze in snatches between the next round of tests of vitals.
Buck lets his parents bundle him into their car, too tired to argue that he doesn’t need them to stay with him. It’s not worth the energy anyway. They’ll probably get sick of him soon enough. They always do.
Shuffling into the apartment, Buck lets Maddie nudge him towards the single armchair in the middle of the room.
“God, this apartment. Such a bachelor pad,” his mom laughs. “You don’t even have a couch. We’ll have to go shopping.”
The words are spoken like a joke but Buck can read between the lines. Notgoodenoughnotgoodenoughnotgoodenough. He nods along anyway, sagging against Maddie when she perches on the arm of the chair.
“Are you hungry?” his mom asks, poking her nose into his kitchen cupboards. “I’ll make you something.”
“Not really.”
“Mom, leave him alone.” Maddie runs her fingers through his hair just like she did when he was a kid. “Buck, why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a while.”
Buck reaches for his sister's hand and gives it a grateful squeeze before slowly easing himself back out of the chair.
“You guys don’t have to say,” he says, his words falling on deaf ears. “I’m probably just going to sleep.”
“Nonsense,” his mom tuts at him, her hands on her waist. “We want to be here, Evan. Oh, I know. I’ll cook you something to eat when you wake up.”
“Uh—” Buck falters, unused to the attention. “Okay.” He glances at Maddie, eyes wide, begging for help.
“There’s a grocery store down the street,” Maddie says, picking up the hint and herding their parents towards the front door. “I’ll stay with Buck while you go get some things for lunch.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Maddie,” their mom collects her handbag from the counter. “Oh, Philip, we could look at furniture while we’re out.”
The door swings shut and Buck sags against the side of the armchair.
‘Thank you.”
Maddie grins. “That will buy you at least an hour.”
Buck slowly shuffles over to the foot of their stairs. God, were they always that high?
“It’s not too late to come back to my place,” Maddie tells him gently. “Or Bobby’s, I know he offered. I bet Eddie offered too.”
They did, and Buck turned them all down.
“I just want to sleep in my own bed, Maddie.”
“Okay.” She raises her hands in surrender. “But at least let me help you upstairs.”
It’s slow going, and Buck’s almost regretting his decision by the time he makes it to his bed. He’s out of breath, legs shaking from a trip he normally does without thinking, and he refuses to think about how he’s going to get back down again.
But that’s a problem for future Buck.
He doesn’t bother changing (he’s already wearing sweatpants and an old t-shirt that may or may not actually belong to Eddie. He’s not sure how it got into his things but he’s not complaining) Buck just toes off his sneakers and sinks into bed.
After spending so much time in the hospital, his own bed feels heavenly. He can almost ignore all the other aches and pains that have followed him home.
Buck closes his eyes and lets himself drift.
He can hear Maddie moving around downstairs. Outside, a siren echoes in the distance.
A dog barks.
A car backfires.
Buck’s eyes shoot open.
He’s not sure how long he lies there. At some point he hears his parents return, his mom’s voice echoing through the open plan apartment. There’s a scrape of furniture being dragged and more voices.
Giving up on sleep, Buck reaches for his phone. The movement aggravates his aching ribs, the burning sensation helping chase away some of the grogginess. His hands shake— a lingering side effect of the strike— as he unlocks his phone to scroll through the recent notifications.
His phone chips as a new message comes through.
Eddie: Hope you’re settling in ok. Let me know if you need anything.
Buck hits the call icon before he can give himself the chance to overthink it.
“Hey.” Eddie’s voice is low and slightly tinny over the connection. “How’d everything go this morning?”
“It was fine,” Buck says, dragging a hand down his face. “I think Mom’s already redecorating the apartment.”
“She’s what?”
“She doesn’t like my furniture.” Buck drops his voice to a whisper to prevent being overheard.
“She doesn’t have to like it, ” Eddie says. “It’s not her furniture.”
Eddie’s made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t like Buck’s parents. Buck doesn’t blame him. Eddie’s only seen the bed. They really seem to be trying though, doesn’t Buck owe it to them to give them a chance?
He can already imagine Eddie’s response to that.
Shifting, Buck tries to get comfortable. His meds are wearing off, and the ache in his ribs is beginning to thrum in time with his heart beat. It’s weird to think that for a long six minutes, his heart didn’t beat at all… so he doesn’t think about it.
“You still there?” Eddie asks, breaking the silence.
“Yeah.”
“How are you doing?” There’s a beat, then, “be honest.”
Buck sighs. “I’m tired.”
“Still not sleeping well?”
“Everything’s just— it’s a lot.” His dreams feel too real, but he doesn’t say that part out loud.
“The offer still stands,” Eddie says. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
Buck smiles. Eddie lives a good half hour away.
“You think staying with you and Chris will be quieter?”
“Probably not. ” Buck can hear the amusement in his voice. “But we promise not to rearrange your furniture. So…?”
Yes, he thinks.
“I can’t,” he says.
Eddie’s quiet long enough that Buck has to check he hasn’t disconnected the calls.
“Okay,” Eddie says, finally. “But if you change your mind, call me.”
He ends the call and Buck can’t help but feel like he’s lost something.
His parents leave.
It doesn’t come as a surprise when they tell him two days after he’s out of the hospital that it’s time to go home. The surprise is that they lasted this long.
There’s disappointment, sure. Buck had really thought that things were changing. He’d really thought that maybe, finally, his parents wanted to be around.
There’s also relief, because he finally has his apartment to himself again.
Finally it’s quiet.
Finally he can sleep.
Except that he doesn’t. Or, when he does, it’s in snatches, dreaming of those he couldn’t save.
He spends his first night alone sleeping on the new couch. He’d tried to climb the stairs on his own and been so out of breath that he’d had to sit down halfway up. His legs had been shaking so bad he wasn’t sure he’d get himself down again.
He doesn’t try the stairs again, resigning himself to spending at least a few days on the uncomfortable couch his mom had insisted on buying.
(He hasn’t been this grateful to have a downstairs toilet since he obliterated his leg.)
On top of that, people keep coming over.
It starts with Bobby.
“Jeez, you’re supposed to look better when you get out of the hospital, kid,” Bobby remarks when Buck opens the door. “Not worse.”
“What are you doing here?” It comes out much harsher than intended but Buck doesn’t have the energy to correct himself. There’s a headache that’s been building behind his eyes since the early hours of the morning, and he’s so tired he can barely think straight let alone hold a conversation.
“I heard you were on your own.” Bobby steps past Buck to set his bags down in the kitchen. He turns to look Buck over. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You only got out of the hospital a few days ago.”
“Yeah, well Maddie had to go back to work,” Buck shrugs, easing down onto a stool by the counter. Everything aches today, and he can’t remember if he took his meds this morning or if that hazy memory is from yesterday. All the days seem to blur into one.
“I thought your parents were staying with you.”
“They left.” Buck props his head on his hands, watching Bobby pull different ingredients from his bag.
“What about appointments?” Bobby asks, frowning. “Don’t you have a bunch of follow-ups this week? You’re not cleared to drive.”
He’s not cleared for a lot of things.
Can’t drive. Can’t exercise. Can’t sleep. God, he wants to sleep.
“Uh—” Buck tears his eyes away from the little gathering of condiments to glance at Bobby. “Sorry, I missed—”
“When was the last time you slept?”
Buck frowns.
“This morning?” He thinks it was this morning. “I had a nap.” And he’d woken gasping for breath, the ghost of his brother standing over him ( “Spare parts and they were defective”).
“When was the last time you got proper, actual sleep, Buck?”
Buck scrubs a hand through his hair. The headache that had just been annoying before flares, bringing with it a wave of nausea that Buck swallows.
“What do you want me to tell you, Bobby?”
“The truth.” Bobby sets down his knife. “Asking for help is not a weakness. You don’t have to do this on your own.”
Buck’s eyes burn. “I’m fine.”
Bobby watches him for a long time as the silence stretches between them, and Buck shifts, fidgeting under the heavy weight of Bobby’s gaze ( “Bobby Nash is dead” ).
“This’ll probably take a while,” Bobby says, finally, and he nods towards the food he’s prepping. “Why don’t you take another nap while I make us some lunch.”
And like a coward, Buck takes the out.
Buck goes through his days on autopilot.
Maddie visits around her shifts. Hen and Chimney drop in. Buck spends more than one night picking at Bobby’s cooking.
They fuss over him and he hates it.
He turns down their offers of assistance and gets himself to his follow-up appointments where the cardiologist, pulmonologist and neurologist who all go on about how lucky he is to be alive and how well he’s continuing to improve.
He’s breezing through the tests and no one suspects a thing—
“Before you go, I just wanted to ask, have you thought about talking to someone?”
“Uh—” Buck falters, the pathway between his mouth and his brain just completely shutting down. “I don’t— it’s not—”
“What you went through was traumatic,” the cardiologist continues, “for anyone. And a lot of my patients find it really helpful in processing what happened.”
“I— I see stuff like this all the time,” Buck stammers. “I don’t—”
His doctor shrugs. “Seeing it is one thing, experiencing it is another thing entirely.”
“I’m fine.” Maybe if he says it enough times it’ll stick. I’mfineI’mfineI’mfine.
He escapes back out into the waiting room and pulls out his phone to call an UBER back to his apartment.
“Hey, wake up. We’re here.”
Buck digs his palms into his eyes until his vision goes white and the image behind his eyelids fades. Blinking to clear the spots, he stares out the window.
“This isn’t my place.”
“Well this is the address you gave me.”
Buck pulls his phone out of his pocket to check, and yeah, this is the address he’d booked the UBER for, but he doesn’t remember typing it.
“C’mon man, I can’t sit here all day.”
“Right, uh— sorry.” Buck climbs out of the car and makes the short walk up the driveway only to hesitate by the front door.
This is stupid.
He should just call another UBER and go back to his apartment.
He should—
“Buck?” The door swings open. “What are you doing here?”
“I, uh—” he fidgets with the strings of his hoodie. “I didn’t mean to,” he starts. “I just— I didn’t—” Buck blows out a long breath. “Is your offer still open?”
“Always.” Eddie smiles, stepping aside so Buck can enter. “I’m just making lunch but you can hang out with Chris while I finish up.”
Wordlessly, Buck follows Eddie through to the living room on legs that suddenly feel shaky.
“Hey Buck.” Chris glances up from the game he’s playing on the TV.
“Hey.” The word comes out in a choked breath because they’re here. They’re right here.
And logically, Buck knows they were never gone but every time he closes his eyes he hears the echoes of another life.
(“You’d be angry too if you lost your kid”.)
(“Can you help me find my dad?”)
“You wanna play?” Chris holds up the spare controller.
“Why don’t you put a movie on?” Eddie suggests, and Chris grumbles that he just started the campaign.
“s’fine.” Buck waves them both off, easing down into his usual spot on the couch and sighing as he sinks into the cushions.
He lets his eyes fall closed, feeling the couch shift as Chris resumes his game and the soft footfalls of Eddie returning to the kitchen. The soft sounds wrap around him, comforting and familiar, and it’s reassuring to know that Buck could call his name and Eddie would be there.
“Buck, come on. You can’t sleep here.”
There’s a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake and Buck groans. God, he’d been so close.
“I know.” The hand on his shoulder skates down his arm, fingers curling around his wrist. “But your ribs will thank me later.”
The hand on his wrists tug, but Buck doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to wake from this new dream— he never dreams about Eddie anymore, he’s always gone.
“I’m right here.”
He’s on his feet and there’s a hand on the small of his back, guiding.
“Sit.”
He’ll do anything to keep Eddie from disappearing again (“I’m not going anywhere”) so he sits, and his shoes are tugged off his feet.
The sheets smell like Eddie.
“Good night Buck.”
Finally, Buck sleeps.
He doesn’t dream.
At one point Buck thinks he hears Eddie.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he’s sick, he doesn’t have a fever.”
A hand sweeps across his forehead, and into his hair before retreating.
“Yeah, I don’t think he’s been sleeping.”
Buck doesn’t catch the response, already sinking back into the depths of sleep.
“Thanks Maddie. I’ll let you know.”
Buck has no idea where he is.
He blinks up at the unfamiliar ceiling, mentally trying to retrace his steps but the last week is a blur of people and places— some real and some imagined.
He stretched, biting back a low groan. When was the last time he took his meds?
Buck feels like he’s been hit by a bus, still groggy with sleep and aching from lying in the same position for so long. It would be so easy to just go back to sleep, but his bladder is demanding his attention so he eases up to look around the room.
Eddie’s room.
Oh.
The bathroom is his first stop on his slow shuffle out of the room. He’s finishing up, washing his hands in the sink when he catches his reflection in the mirror.
He stands there for a long time, scrubbing at his face like he can rinse away the dark smudges beneath his eyes.
God, no wonder everyone keeps asking if he’s okay.
With a long sigh, Buck lets his hands drop. It’s not like Eddie hasn’t already seen him at his worst— though this feels like a new low point.
He follows the sounds echoing down the hall to find Eddie in the kitchen, packing Chris’ lunch.
“I thought I heard you moving around,” Eddie says, looking up. “You sleep well?”
Nodding, Buck leans against the counter. “What time is it?”
“Uh, seven.” Eddie glances over at the clock on the wall. “You missed dinner, but I saved you some in the fridge.”
“I slept all afternoon?”
“And some,” Eddie tells him. “You’ve been here since yesterday.”
“I slept a whole day? ”
“You looked like you needed it.” Eddie sets down the sandwich he’s making to face Buck. “You still look like you need it.”
Buck lowers himself gingerly onto one of the bar stools. He can’t remember the last time he slept through the night, let alone an entire day.
“Maddie drops off some of your things. Meds, a change of clothes.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, hang on.”
Eddie leaves the kitchen, returning a moment later with a bottle that rattles as he sets it down on the counter.
“I’ll heat some leftovers so you’re not taking them on an empty stomach.”
Buck opens his mouth to say he’s not really hungry, but then his stomach rumbles and for the first time in days, he actually kind of is.
Eddie sets the plate on the counter with a glass of water. He doesn’t hover, which Buck appreciates. He finishes packing Chris’ lunch and moves on to cleaning up the kitchen while Buck slowly eats.
It’s not until he’s finished and his plate is in the dishwasher that Eddie turns to Buck and asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Buck swallows and looks away. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
From the corner of his eye he watches Eddie nod and lean back against the sink, folding his arms across his chest.
“Last year,” Eddie starts slowly, like he’s choosing his words carefully, “when things got bad, I kept telling everyone - and myself - that I was fine. The worse things got, the more I pushed those feelings down until they had nowhere else to go.”
Buck can’t help himself. He glances up, looking right into Eddie’s watching gaze.
“And well, you saw how spectacularly that blew up.”
And Buck had been there for the fall out, spending days camped out on the couch in case Eddie or Chris needed him. He still gets chills remembering Chris’ panicked phone call, and the fear of not knowing what he might find on the other side of Eddie’s bedroom door.
And maybe, of all people, Eddie understands.
“You haven’t been okay for months,” Eddie continues. “Talk to me.”
Buck chews on his lip, his stomach churning.
“Do you remember anything?” he asks, hiding his shaking hands in his lap. “From when you were shot?”
“Not really,” Eddie shrugs. “I remember going to work, going out to see that kid—“
“I remember all of it,” Buck cuts in. “I remember your blood on my face. I remember crawling under the truck and not knowing if you were alive. I remember you bleeding out and you were asking me if I was okay.” He laughs, still unable to believe it. “I remember thinking I was going to lose you.”
He wipes his face, surprised by the wetness on his hands.
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Buck agrees. “But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about the what ifs. It doesn’t stop me from running the worst case scenarios over and over in my head.”
“Buck—”
“And I keep having this dream,” Buck tells him, the words spilling from him in a torrent that can’t be stopped. “Daniels alive, and Bobby’s dead and Maddie’s there but she’s still with Doug. And you—”
“Where am I?”
“You’re not in it.” Buck wipes his face again. “You just— you’re not there and you lost Chris and I— I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t save anyone.”
“Buck—“
“And I know it’s not real. I’m not that full of myself to think you’d have lost Chris if I hadn’t introduced you to Carla.”
“ Buck. ” Eddie moves around the counter to stand directly in front of him, his hand on Buck’s shoulder, pulling him back from the brink. “I’m sorry.”
“I feel like I lose you every time I close my eyes.”
Eddie sighs, so close Buck can feel it in his hair. It sends a shiver down his spine.
“I don’t remember being shot,” Eddie says. “But I’ll never forget the night you died.”
Buck’s next breath catches in his throat.
“And you did save us,” Eddie insists, crowding in closer. “You saved Chris in the tsunami. You saved me from myself and you were there when I needed you.” His voice drops low. “You were always there, and I didn’t even see it until I lost you for three minutes and seventeen seconds.”
“I came back.” Buck lets out a shuddering breath. “But I don’t know what to do next.”
“You keep living,” Eddie tells him softly. “But first, you take another nap.” Lips twitching, he reaches a hand to smooth away the dark smudges beneath Buck’s eyes. It feels nice and Buck finds himself leaning into the touch. “And then tomorrow we can figure out the rest.”