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If someone were to ask him, Buck would say that he should have had a crisis a long time ago. Over the years, between his childhood and his arrival in Los Angeles, some things had changed for him but all other things remained the same.
His bad luck in life, for example, was something he could not change.
His first disappointment came when he was standing in the hallway of that hospital reading his sister's letter leaving him to his fate, since then things had only gotten worse. There was a moment between the SEAL's and Peru where Buck almost gave up, finding purpose in life was harder than people made him out to be. Sure, most of those people had a prearranged life, parents who loved them, friends to keep them company, a steady job, a home.
Disappointments followed, Buck lost the list of what had happened to him over the years, before Abby the memories were jumbled together and most of them had actually faded from his memory. After Abby it was pretty much the same until he was able to find a thread again that helped keep him steady, between his sister, 118 and his new friendship with Eddie, Buck was on a good path again.
Now, sitting on his bed with the white sheet wrapped around his legs and a massive headache, Buck rethought all the decisions that had brought him to this moment, sitting in his loft all alone with the rumble of any sound because the place was a creepy, hollow safe that kept him there most of his days.
***
The first approach to a crisis was after his leg was trapped under the truck, in the period between his stroke and the lawsuit, the loneliness around him ate at him every day and Buck kept repeating to himself that it was a passing thing, that he would soon get back to work with his family and recover from all the bad stuff, but that didn't happen, Bobby had made a decision and Buck made another decision accordingly. Of course, things had only gotten worse from there.
Not being able to talk to any of his friends hadn't helped, in fact nothing had helped Buck at the time, he vaguely remembers nights lying in the shower turning on the warm water to soothe the throbbing pain in his leg, wanting to dial Hen or Eddie's number and knowing he couldn't do it, it was no longer because of the lawsuit but because of how his friends were upset with him to begin with.
Then they made up and all went well for a few weeks, things had improved between everyone, Buck could breathe again without feeling a ball squeezing his throat every time he opened his mouth and, in general, things stayed calm.
But he was Evan - fucked - Buckley and happiness in this life was not something for him.
Then the tsunami occurred.
No one knows, not even his best friend, but even after years Buck wakes up at night panting and drenched in sweat screaming Christopher's name. Those nights he just sits in his bed -similar to how he is now- and starts crying until his body gives up on its own and he goes back to sleep, most of the time he is haunted again by memories but the other times his brain, as tired as he is, just leaves his mind blank.
After the tsunami Buck used to whisper encouraging words to himself in the darkness of his loft, wishing he was in the arms of anyone else who would keep him safe, similar to how he kept Chris safe until that wave took him from Buck. But in that darkness there was no one but him alone.
Buck knew why all these things hurt him more than they should, it was something between the way he had to deal with everything on his own and the way everyone around him criticized him for handling everything himself. There was no middle ground, no middle man, no one or something to say "Do this" "Don't say that", there was only him.
After the tsunami came other moments that kept him alert most nights, memories that caused Buck to arrive at the station after a 48-hour break without any sleep at all. He had almost lost his best friend, twice, within a very short time of each other.
He had other girlfriends after Abby, but none of the relationships had worked out, Buck kept trying anyway, believing that at some point someone would help him fill the void.
He understood, of course he did, that the emptiness was not from the lack of a person but from the lack of himself, because somewhere between the tsunami and the shooting of Eddie, Buck had stopped being afraid. There was no longer anything to frighten him.
And that was what scared him.
His inability to feel and want anything else, the way his suffering had stopped internally, things around him kept happening, misfortunes and accidents, and Buck had somehow become a very good actor, but inside he was empty.
"Should he blame anyone? Was the blame on his parents, his siblings, or anyone else? Or was it surrender that he felt?"
Buck lived with that constant question, telling himself that there would come a day when he would get an answer.
***
But the answer never came, instead he received a lightning bolt passing through his body and sending him into a coma that seemed like his ideal dream.
"Was it a dream?"
It seemed so, first he had a perfect family and his brother was alive.
But then everything changed, Bobby being an alcoholic, Maddie with Doug, Eddie being someone else but the person Buck knows. Then Buck struggled to get out of that dream and after much effort he succeeded.
As he lay in the hospital with all the people who loved him hugging him and crying to have him back, Buck was confused as he smiled back at them all and was happy while inside his brain was once again a badly jumbled mass that was torturing him.
Buck had felt empty for so many years that the feeling of happiness confused him, he no longer recognized it.
He didn't recognize it in the way his sister hugged him like when they were little, nor in the way Athena and Bobby looked at him with that fatherly affection, nor in the smiling faces of Chim and Hen, hell, he could barely feel the enormous happiness of always receiving a hug from Chris.
Buck was really exhausted.
***
Buck swung his legs out of bed and walked gingerly to the bathroom, the light making his eyes sting for a few moments before focusing on his own reflection. There, seeing how miserable he was even when he had everything, Buck wondered, how many deaths would it take him to experience for survival to be an accomplishment?
He wasn't sure how much more he could take, how much more he could give.
He had nothing left, the first time he died a little inside, under that truck, Buck had felt alone and scared, by the time that lightning bolt went through him, Buck knew what to expect next.
Staring at his reflection in the mirror, with black bags under his eyes and his lips chapped, Buck wondered when he would be able to feel again, no matter how much it hurt.
He no longer wanted to not be afraid of the things that were happening to him. He wanted to feel again.