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You okay?” Hen drops onto the couch next to him and hands off a cup of tea. He wants something stronger, anything to drown himself in and not have to keep his eyes glued to the news unfolding on the TV in front of him. But, options are limited right now. They're still on shift after all, even if Bobby had taken them offline when he heard the news.
“I should be there.” Buck takes a sip of the cup that had been offered to him. Peppermint. Hen’s specialty. He knows she's worried about him. Between the concerned gaze when the news dropped and now the tea she doesn't share with anyone? This is stage 5 type of worry and Buck hates that it's directed at him. “I should have gone.”
Hen just sighs. “They asked for one volunteer each, Buck. One firefighter, one paramedic per station. Chim went because Karen and I are dealing with the adoption stuff and you know Eddie. He's struggling at home, he needs the overtime. Plus the medic training basically makes him a two for one. No offense, but between the two of you they were going to pick him even if you had wanted to go instead.”
“It doesn't matter. I've never not been there.”
“I'm not always there when Chim gets hurt. Sometimes we can't protect them. Being a partner in this career is knowing that you can't always be there, but when you are, you're gonna try your damnedest to make sure they make it home safe. We help them make it home to their loved ones and they help us too. But, we can't be there all the time, it's not possible.”
Buck places the cup on the coffee table in front of him with a clunk. “No.” He states it so matter of factly that even he recoils at his own voice. “I'm always there, Hen. Every single time. Not being there? That's not an option.”
“I know.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes, eyes trained to the news in front of them. Hen speaks again after a particularly graphic air shot of the burning inferno that used to be a passenger plane. “They're just out of comms, you know that right? They don't know if anything is wrong and as far as they're aware no one's PASS went off. They just lost signal.”
Buck scoffs, “when has it ever been that easy?”
“Never,” Hen agrees. “But, it could be and we have to focus on that.”
Another tense silence overtakes them. Buck becomes restless in it quickly, tapping against the mug in front of him; his gaze flipping between the news station giving updates and Hen. He takes a deep breath and then lets the secret spill past his lips. “I get Chris.”
Hen cocks her head and takes a sip of her tea, waiting for Buck to elaborate.
“He uh– he put me in his will. Back after the well,” he shrugs in a desperate attempt at nonchalance. “If anything happens I– I have to– Hen.” He knows his voice sounds broken. He can't quite figure out what it is that's causing the intense grief. Whether it's the idea of Eddie being out there, being gone and Buck being stuck at the station, mourning in the unknown . Or if it's the thought of Christopher, all the way in El Paso and how Buck can't fathom the idea of having to tell him over the phone that his father, his last living parent, is now dead.
“He didn't tell me until the shooting.” Buck toys with the handle of the mug instead of meeting Hen's eyes. “I uh– I said it would have been better if I got shot and he told–h–he said that wasn't true.” Buck barks out a hollow laugh. “He had a speech and everything.”
He can feel Hen’s eyes on him but he doesn't look up, he can't. He knows she'll be far too sympathetic, her eyes too soft. She has someone to worry about too, someone to mourn. But he knows it's not the same. Hen losing Chim is awful and devastating, but Buck losing Eddie? That's almost unfathomable to him. He loses Eddie more, it's always just more than everyone else somehow.
Hen coughs slightly and sets her mug down next to Buck's, the ceramic clinking together. “I remember the well,” she says as if they're just talking about any other call. “Buck, have you ever seen yourself from that day?”
Buck shakes his head slowly. He knows that there's a video somewhere. Every local and national news station had been there. They'd all filmed what Buck thought was Eddie's death, Eddie's grave. He'd never looked it up though, never wanted to see if he looked as desperate as he felt in that moment.
“Here,” Hen hands him her phone, a YouTube video already queued up. He hits play with shaky fingers and watches. Despite knowing the day intimately, he still breathes deeply when the truck collapses and the ground caves in. He cringes as he watches himself ignore any prospect of danger to dig through the mud. No, that's not right. He wasn't just digging. He was completely and utterly broken, clawing at the mud and screaming himself hoarse. The camera stays on him, capturing the physical outpour of grief until he collapses into Bobby's open arms. He ends the video there, tossing Hen back her phone.
“What was the point of that?” He spits the question with more venom than he intends. But, this is revealing in a way he doesn't want to face, not right now Hen doesn't seem to be phased by it.
“Because you don't react like that anymore,” she states matter of factley. “You still feel like that though don't you? You get better at handling it everytime, but inside? Inside you're still that 20 something version of yourself digging through mud. Right?”
Buck sighs again, deep and concerned. “How do I?” His voice breaks. “How do I keep going after this?”
“Like the rest of us do. It's one step at a time.”
Buck shakes his head. “No. Like…” he pauses. He knows what the next sentence is going to sound like and he toys with the idea of changing the subject. It's more revealing than anything else he's admitted out loud. But, he can't stop. Hen is safe. Hen won't judge him. “How would you keep going if something happened to Karen? How do you keep going even with Denny and Mara next to you?”
“ Oh.” With all her motherly instincts, Hen does exactly what Buck was worried about. She ignores the question and goes right to the heart of it. “You and Eddie. When did you finally figure it out?”
Buck scrunches his nose at her. “I realized what it was a couple weeks ago. We had a movie night and it was the first time he'd looked really happy since Chris left. I looked over and I just–” he pauses. “When I had my first crush I told Maddie it felt like I'd eaten soap bubbles,” he laughs softly. “I told her I felt ‘floaty.’”
“That sounds exactly like what i'd imagine you'd say.” Hen laughs as she shoulders Buck.
“I looked over at Eddie and it felt like that ya know?”
“Floaty?”
Buck smiles, “floaty.” He pauses for a moment before deciding to continue. “I've known a lot longer I think, that was just me finally understanding it. Like, back the first year we met, a little after the lawsuit?”
Hen nods.
“There was the minute where Chris was out of the room and I really thought– there was a moment I thought he was gonna kiss me.” He chances a look at Hen who gives away nothing except for the slight raise of her eyebrows that tells Buck she's invested and a little surprised.
“We were just hanging out and then we were so close and I just– nothing happened obviously but I really thought– I thought I was crazy, but maybe I wasn't.”
Hen lays a hand on his shoulder gently. “You two did share a bed during, like, all of quarantine.”
“That was an unfortunate necessity of the time!” Buck tries to defend himself, but she's right. There were other options they could have made work, but he hadn't wanted to. Neither had Eddie apparently. Buck just knows that those quiet mornings where they woke up having cuddles into each other over night have been some of his fondest memories, a bright spot in the middle of the darkness that was the pandemic. God, he's an idiot. He's loved Eddie for years, how had he basically just figured it out?
“I love him.” He says it straight faced while looking directly in Hen's eyes for the first time the entire conversation. “I love him and I'm not going to be there to save his life this time.”
Hen's only response is to move over until she can wrap an arm around Buck's shoulders and hold him close. “He's not going to die, Buck. No one is going to give up on him or on Chim.”
Buck can do nothing but hope she's right.