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It’s long past midnight by the time the hospital waiting area quiets down a bit. Eddie has gotten unexpected visitors from Texas and had to run out to deal with that situation. Hen went home to Denny and Karen two hours ago, Maddie and Jee left shortly after that. May took Harry back to her place for the night and Tommy was called into work around 1:30. Chimney is still sitting half asleep in one of the chairs, neck tilted at an angle that will hurt like hell once he wakes up, but Buck doesn’t wake him. They can’t really do anything right now, Athena fell back asleep a while ago and they’re not allowed to see Bobby yet. So why wake the man? Buck sighs and stretches his legs. Maybe he should check on Athena again anyway. The nurse had rushed Hen and Maddie out of her room earlier, but surely nobody will mind if Buck just sits with her for a few minutes. He shoots Chim a quick text so he knows where to find him should he not be back by the time he wakes up and makes his way down the corridor.
The hallway is almost completely deserted at this time of night and Buck thanks the universe for it. No nurse stops him as he reaches Athena’s room and lets himself in. To his surprise, Athena is already awake.
“Hey Buckaroo”, she greets him and smiles weakly: “What brings you here?”
He sighs and sits down in the plastic chair next to her bed. “Err, nothing much. Chimney fell asleep a half hour ago and everyone else had to go home. I figured I might as well sit with you a little. How are you holding up?” He tilts his head a little while eyeing up the woman in the hospital bed. Athena had always been a force to be reckoned with. Fiercely protective and not very tolerant of any kind of bullshit. His first year on the job, before she and Bobby really became a thing, Buck had been somewhat scared of her and his respect for her has only grown since. Now though she looks tired. Her body seems smaller than usual between the white hospital sheets and her face looks hollow.
“Do you have any news on Bobby yet?”, she asks without answering his question. No answer is also an answer in this case he supposes. Buck doesn’t know when Bobby put his name on the paperwork, but apparently Athena is not the only emergency contact the doctors are allowed to talk to.
“Nothing yet”, he says and sighs again: “Last I heard they’d put him on ventilation and were still treating some burns on his arms. It’ll probably be another hour before he’ll be transferred to a room.” Athena nods without meeting his eyes. She really looks tired. “You can go back to sleep if you want. I can wake you up as soon as there’s any news.”
“Oh, believe me I’ve tried”, she scoffs bitterly: “I only drift of a little and when I wake up I find out that it’s only been a couple minutes. Not exactly restful, if you know what I mean.”
Buck hums in agreement. “I can’t sleep either. Don’t know how Chimney does it, my neck hurt just from looking at him.” Athena chuckles and Buck takes it as a win. They sit in companionable silence for a while. “It’s weird, you know”, he says eventually: “At- at the firehouse the other night Bobby talked to me. Nothing bad, it was a good conversation. He basically told me he was proud of how far I have come and he had me cook for the team that day, too. Something felt off about it, but then- then Eddie had this thing going on and I got distracted. Looking back now it almost seems like Bobby knew something big was coming.” Buck laughs. “He said his job here was done. I don’t know what he was thinking. As if I could ever get by without his guidance.”
He looks up at Athena, expecting her to smile or join in on the joke. He doesn’t mind being the punchline if it helps her feel better. But to his shock she starts sobbing instead. Force of nature or not, Buck has seen Athena cry once or twice before. He has just never seen her so completely overpowered by emotion. Her shoulder are shaking and she’s struggling to control her breathing. He doesn’t know if it was something he said or if the events of the day are just starting to catch up to her, but it scares him.
“Athena?” He scoots closer to her and reaches for her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” She grabs onto his hand, small fingers in a tight grip, and shakes her head. Buck snaps his mouth shut and lets her cry a little more. He doesn’t let go of her hand. Eventually her breath evens out again and he hands her a tissue from the bedside table which she takes with a shaky hand. He waits patiently until she’s collected herself a bit more. “Better?”, he asks hesitantly. He doesn’t want to make her cry again.
She nods, determination written all over her face. “Yes. Thank you, Buck. It’s just…” She stops then looks at him with something like resignation in her eyes. “I think he has been in a bad place lately. Ever since that man from Minnesota showed up he has been struggling. He’s been closed off, distant. Then he started acting impulsively and started talking about retiring. Said he was tired. He started preparing for the goodbye from the 118 and at some point I started to worry that he didn’t just want to retire from work.” There are tears in her eyes again, but this time they don’t fall.
“He wanted to retire?” Athena nods and Buck feels sick to his stomach. How had none of them noticed that? Then he remembers the prayer book Eddie had shown him. “Erratic behaviour. Self-isolation. Giving away important personal belongings”, he lists the symptoms almost mechanically. “I looked into this around the time Eddie was struggling with his PTSD and Maddie came back from Boston. I didn’t want to miss the signs again”, he explains.
Athena squeezes his hand in support or maybe understanding. “Bobby told me about this notebook he used to keep. That was before we got together, but he used to have this list-”
“One hundred and forty-eight”, Buck says: “The people that died in the apartment fire.” Athena raises her eyebrows clearly surprised Buck knows about this. “I stole his notebook once”, he admits sheepishly.
“Of course you did.” She looks almost amused at the thought. “You really used to drive him crazy, you know. Not so much in these last couple of years, but in the beginning… You were a menace.”
“I have been called that before”, Buck agrees solemnly. “Hey, did I ever tell you about my coma dream?” He suddenly remembers a detail, an interaction he had had with dream-Bobby. “After I- after I got hit by lightning I had this really weird dream. Like, like I was in a sort of parallel universe. Some things were better over there, some things were just different and others… Others were simply unacceptable. Which is why I left that place and came back. Eddie wasn’t there and Maddie was still married to Doug, Christopher was living with his grandparents and Bobby- Bobby was dead over there. Drank himself to death after that plane crash seven years ago. What really happened – in this universe, our universe – is that- Well, he was in a really bad place at the time, that much checks out, but I kinda drove him mad and he acted out, so Hen and I worried and went to check on him. He let us help him. And then I just continued to make him angry and mad and- Well, you said it. I was a menace. And I think he spent so much time worrying about keeping me in line that he didn’t have enough time to get lost in his own head anymore.”
“Hm. That actually sounds quite plausible. You can be a handful, Buckley.” She pauses and lets her gaze wander. “I didn’t know it was that bad back then. I knew it wasn’t good, but I didn’t know he was suicidal. I didn’t know about his notebook and his plan to make amends. He told me he threw that book away when we first started dating, but then the whole thing with Amir brought back all these old feelings. Said he had never bothered to count the survivors, the people he hurt who were still alive. All the guilt and the regret came crashing down on him again and I could see how much he struggled with the weight of it. And that was before he announced he wanted to retire.”
Buck nods. “He always had trouble asking for help and tried to carry his cross by himself, I remember that. I still don’t know where he got the idea that we don’t need him anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever not need him.” His thoughts drift away a little. Bobby has been such a constant in his life these past few years. More than anyone else. Even when Eddie was isolating himself and when Maddie and Chimney were gone and when Hen was busy juggling work and med school and her family – Bobby was there. Always.
“I think that’s why the two of you clicked like you did”, Athena muses: “You needed each other. You might not have known or liked it, but you needed each other. It was similar for us. We just balance each other out. He’s calm where I’m emotional and I’m disciplined where he’s impulsive. We both came into this relationship with so much baggage and god knows we make our mistakes, but in the end we always try to meet the other where they’re at. Also he tried to stand up to my mother on several occasions which is both the bravest and most stupid thing he ever tried.”
Buck laughs. “Really? I don’t think I ever met her, but if she’s anything like you I can imagine.” She raises her eyebrow at him and he realises that his words may not be the compliment he thought they were. “In- In a good way!”, he adds quickly: “Just. I still have the greatest respect for May’s boyfriend. She said he survived dinner at your house without a scratch. You- You’re a badass, you know. I wouldn’t want to mess with you.”
“Hm. Smart choice, Buckaroo. Speaking of dinner, you still haven’t brought your boyfriend around either. I know Bobby already knows him quite well and I’ve met Tommy before, too. But that doesn’t mean he can perpetually skip family dinner. Already ran a background check, I still need to give him the shovel talk at some point though.”
“You want me to bring Tommy around for family dinner so you can give him the shovel talk?”, Buck asks. He’s confused. Athena had never wanted to have any of his girlfriends over for dinner.
“Well seeing as our house just burned down you might have to host this time. But yes. We like Tommy for you, we want him to stick around, so he should know what he’s in for. Besides, you’re Bobby’s kid and he’s my husband. He’s basically family already.” Athena sounds so sure of herself that it leaves no room for arguments.
Not that she’s wrong, the 118 is a family. Athena is a part of that, too. He loves each and every member of their group. But family has been a somewhat complicated topic for Buck lately and he’s still trying to navigate that situation. “I really need Bobby to be okay”, he whispers eventually: “His work is very much not done here. If he really wants to retire then that’s fine, but I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I couldn’t at least call him anymore.”
“Me too”, Athena says softly and watches him as he fiddles with his hoodie sleeves: “But I feel like you’ve got something specific on that mind of yours. Come on then, spill.”
He looks at her and sighs. “It might be nothing. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. I, uhm. I just haven’t heard from my parents since the wedding. We- We didn’t really get a chance to talk at the hospital before they took Jee home and I had a shift the next day. So we didn’t see each other before they flew back to Hershey. I tried to call them, ask if they got home okay, but they didn’t pick up. I got a text from my mom the next day and she said everything was fine. Except my mom hates texting, she always calls. Even when she knows I’m on shift and can’t answer. Then a couple of week later I tried again because it was mother’s day. I ended up leaving a message. Same with my dad on his birthday. I figured it might’ve just been bad timing and I think the wedding debacle stressed them both out, too. But then I was over at Maddie’s house and she mentioned that she had facetimed at least two or three times with them. So I guess they’re avoiding me and the only reason I can come up with is- is Tommy. I don’t know. I just don’t think they are too keen on having family dinner with us any time soon.” He smiles self-deprecatingly to ease the tension.
“Maybe I should have a shovel talk with them instead”, Athena mutters under her breath before she asks: “Have you talked to Maddie about this? Or Tommy? This feels like something they might want to know.”
“I don’t want to ruin anything by overreacting. Maddie has worked really hard on rebuilding her relationship with them, for herself and for Jee. And Tommy… He is always so… considerate. He knows that a lot of this is new for me and he is so careful not to put any pressure on me about anything. I don’t want to worry anyone before I know for sure there’s even anything to worry about. It’s not like my parents have officially disowned me, they just haven’t called me back in a while. That’s hardly new.”
“Sounds like you’re not asking for help and instead decided to try and carry the weight on your own”, Athena replies dryly and smiles at him: “Buck, I love Bobby. I do, I really do. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for that man, but in this one regard – don’t be like him. Talk about it before the problem becomes serious, yeah?”
“I mean, I kinda did just talk about it. With you.” He shrugs and doesn’t even try to hide the small cheeky grin. She lightly slaps his arm and shakes her head, but the smile lingers. She still looks tired, but Buck thinks that he can see the spark that makes her Athena a little clearer and he himself can breathe a little easier, too. And that has to be enough to get them through the night.