Chapter Text
Maddie enters the hospital room with a clap of her hands, announcing, “Okay, mom and dad are bringing the car to the front.” She pulls up short and tosses her hands out to her sides. “Why are you still in bed?”
Buck squints from his seated position on the edge of the stiff cot. “I’m not in bed.”
“You don’t have your shoes on,” Maddie says with a pointed look at his socked feet.
Jee-Yun races through the doorway with a giggle, Chim trailing her, arms outstretched like he’s about to grab. Jee skips all the way across the room, turns, and slams her back into the side of Buck’s bed, near his dangling legs. She laughs at Chim, then her attention snags on Buck’s feet.
Jee gestures stiffly at Buck’s socks. “Shoes on!”
Buck raises his eyebrows, feeling a swell of that knee-jerk reaction to applaud everything every kid ever does. But it huffs out of him just as quickly, like he’s landed hard on his back after a five-story fall. There’s no way to get air. There might not be any air in the entire room. There’s just nothing inside him at all.
Buck’s vision gets spotty. He braces a trembling hand on the edge of the bed—
“Okay, okay—” Maddie soothes, closing the distance to him.
Chim moves forward too to swing Jee into his arms. Maddie takes Jee’s place at the side of the bed, a hand on Buck’s shoulder, pressing against his body’s desire to slump toward the floor.
“I gotcha.”
After a second, the weak sensation passes. Buck feels like he can breathe again. He sits up a little straighter.
“I’m fine,” Buck croaks, shrugging off Maddie’s hand.
Maddie allows her grip to fall from Buck’s shoulder, but she keeps it on one of his knees as she bends over to slip Buck’s shoes onto his feet.
Buck almost feels frustrated at his own uselessness, but the sliver of emotion slips away on his next exhale. It’s like he can’t feel anything, can’t hold onto anything, even in his own head. And when the nurse rolls in a wheelchair to finish Buck’s discharge, Buck wants to hate the fact that he can’t rally any frustration at the mere thought of that ride of shame. Except he can’t hate it, because he can’t hold onto hate either.
“That’s what the wheelchair is for,” Chim pipes up, dodging the wheelchair as it enters. “It’s for fine people. People who can put on their own shoes.”
“I put on my shoes,” Jee asserts in a disjointed, unmelodic way.
Chim disagrees enthusiastically but dances her around the room anyway. Then Jee wriggles to get down and Chim obliges.
Maddie hovers at Buck’s side as the nurse helps Buck move from the bed to the wheelchair.
“This is stupid,” Buck mutters, staggering into the chair. But his voice is so strained, his muscles are already so fatigued, that there’s no bite in the tone.
Chim and Maddie scoff in sync.
Buck tries to adjust himself in the chair, to sit up a little straighter, but when he puts his hands on the armrests, he doesn’t have the strength to lock his elbows straight and push. He’s even panting a little with the effort of trying.
Maddie nods in sarcastic agreement. “Stupid.”
Buck rolls his eyes so hard that his head tilts back. He audibly groans. But then little hands clap onto his knees and a little foot lands on top of one of his. Buck straightens, reaching forward and inhaling slowly to control his movements. He tries to pull Jee up like he’s used to doing, but his arms are so weak that the best he can manage is to guide Jee as she clambers onto his lap.
Buck tries not to pass out. He’s too aware of Maddie’s and Chim’s judgmental gazes.
The toddler is oblivious, of course, and making herself comfortable on Uncle Buck’s legs.
The nurse starts to push on the wheelchair handles, leading the procession from Buck’s room.
“I’m not going to your house,” Buck announces when their group enters the elevator going down.
Jee turns on Buck’s thighs and stands and smooshes into his chest for a hug, wrapping her arms around his neck. He lets out an exaggerated “oof” that makes her giggle.
Buck pulls his face out of Jee’s hair and tells Maddie, “You can drop me off at the loft.”
“We are taking you to the loft,” Maddie responds readily.
Buck twists in his chair to look at her, keeping his arms on Jee. “Really?”
“Not for nothing,” Chim interrupts suggestively, “but I expected Eddie to fight us on that too.”
“What do you mean, not for nothing?” Buck asks, eyes on Maddie.
Maddie tries to make her expression small, stays looking forward. Buck doesn’t understand why. Maddie inhales slowly. When the elevator doors open, she exits and exhales in a rush, “Well, he’s barely been around, so.”
Buck frowns at the tone, jolting a little as his nurse pushes the wheelchair out of the elevator. He feels a twinge in his right shoulder, but it’s just a tick, so he ignores it.
“He doesn’t like hospitals,” Buck explains belatedly.
Jee abruptly lets go of Buck’s neck and plops back down onto his legs. There’s another twinge in his shoulder.
Maddie rolls her eyes, a gesture that surprises Buck. “Nobody likes hospitals,” she argues, peering back to look at him. “We like you. We come to see you.”
They follow the hallway, turning a couple times. Buck is quiet the whole way, sorting through whether Maddie’s comment sounds like déjà vu, everything he’s ever wanted to hear, or an echo of his coma dream. When their group hits the hospital lobby, Buck’s shoulder twinges again, this time like a tap, tap, tap, and then the whole joint is twitching. Again.
“Great,” Buck groans, tempted to hold onto his spasming muscle with his left hand, but then there wouldn’t be any guardrail for Jee, so he doesn’t move.
Fortunately, Chim notices the spasm at the same time and scoops Jee off of Buck’s lap. Buck doesn’t even say thank you, just drags his left hand up to his right arm to try to soothe the jerking motion. He squeezes and pulls and even flexes his shoulder from the inside to try to get the nerves to stop firing, but nothing helps. His shoulder just moves in pulses, up and down, in that infuriating way that Buck can’t determine where it’s coming from: his own brain or something further down the line.
After a moment, Buck realizes the wheelchair has paused in the middle of the lobby. The nurse is reaching out to take Buck’s pulse in his right wrist, watching Buck’s spasming shoulder carefully.
“Are you okay?” the nurse prompts. “Buck?”
Buck grits his teeth. “Still here. It’s just… It’s just doing this. Like before.”
The nurse shines a penlight in Buck’s eyes. Buck is sure his pupils react like they should, because they did last time too. The group waits anyway, gives Buck a minute in the middle of the lobby, and for no reason at all, the twitching gets sparser until it completely stops.
“That’s going to be normal,” the nurse confirms, returning to their spot behind the wheelchair handles. They resume pushing. “Not a seizure, so nothing to worry about.”
“Might fade over time,” Buck recites, “might spread, might be permanent. I know.”
Maddie pats her bag, where the discharge papers are folded in half and tucked inside. “The info packet was very helpful. We’ll go over it again at home.”
Buck leans forward in his chair, confirming, “I am going home? To the loft?”
“Yes.”
An inkling of relief tickles Buck’s chest at the sound of that.
The hospital’s automatic sliding doors open. Maddie steps through, turning onto the sidewalk where the Buckleys’ car is idling. Everyone follows. When the car doors pop open, Maddie helps Buck stand.
Then she drops the bomb: “Mom and dad are staying with you.”
And the relief Buck almost felt fizzles lamely out. Or sharpens. Or something.
Buck’s mind is torn between coordinating stepping into the car and trying to puzzle out his feelings about his parents looking after him. Some warmth should be there, or vindication, or something that makes him whole. But none of those things surface. If anything, there’s just confusion.