Chapter Text
El Paso, Texas - 2011
Eddie was freaking out. He had never known panic so visceral and yet it was overlain with pure joy as the sound of a baby’s cries cut through the air and the nurse wrapped his son ( HIS SON!!! ) in a blanket.
“It's a boy!” the nurse announced, moving to place a crying baby in Shannon’s arms. She released Eddie’s hand from her death grip to open her arms weakly. He didn’t even feel his hand ache as he watched in disbelief the small, red baby loosely wrapped in a blanket and handed to his wife.
“I have a son?” he breathed, getting a better look at the baby. It was joy, unlike anything he’d ever felt before, looking at the small creature. He was so tiny, innocent, and helpless. He knew then that he would do anything to protect this child from all the bad things in the world.
His life was realigning, the centre of his universe shifting. His number one priority was and would be for the rest of his life, this boy right in front of him.
“He’s beautiful,” Shannon cried, holding him against her chest.
Eddie kissed her sweaty forehead thinking yes. This felt like the purpose he had been seeking. “Just like his mama,” he told her.
The nurse clamped the umbilical cord and held out a pair of sterile scissors to him.
“Would you like to cut the umbilical cord, Mr Diaz?” she asked.
The panic was back. He logically knew it wouldn’t hurt him, that it was something that had to be done, but it still freaked him out. “Oh, no. That's okay, you go ahead.”
“You’re a combat medic, but this makes you squeamish?” Shannon clocked him.
“C’mon Dad,” the nurse, who had probably heard variations of this exchange hundreds of times, encouraged him. “You won’t hurt him, trust me.”
“Yeah,” Shannon breathed, smiling wide, “ Dad. ”
He smiled too at his small family and accepted the scissors. “I like the sound of that,” he said with tears of joy in his eyes. He never thought he would be the one who cried at seeing his son born, but now that he was in the moment, he had no clue how he thought he would keep his cool. This was the biggest moment of his life.
He clipped the cord.
Hours later after Shannon had been cleaned up and the baby had been through all the post-birth testing, they were allowed visitors. Eddie was telling his parents about how well the birth had gone. Apparently, in a predictable manner, his father had never been there for the birth of any of his children, though Eddie was unclear how it had taken 20 years and the birth of his son to find that out.
“I always made it back in time for the good part,” Ramon said, accepting the baby from Shannon. “This part! Let me see this guy. Oh! Look at you big guy,” he cooed and Eddie didn’t think he’d ever heard his father so soft. Helena peered over her husband’s shoulder reaching out to touch the baby as well.
The hospital door opened letting in a new visitor.
“Mom?!” Shannon exclaimed.
“Hey!” Eddie called, wrapping the woman in a hug.
Shannon was next to get a hug. “You're here?” she said in surprise.
“Like I’d miss this,” she said, pulling away from her daughter. “My baby had a baby. Honey, I couldn’t get here fast enough.”
The room was all smiles and warmth.
“You look good,” Helena commented, sapping some of that warm atmosphere. “How are you feeling?”
Jamie waved her off. “Oh, I couldn’t be better. I’ve got a clean bill of health and a new set of boobs. Call me ‘hot granny’!” she joked, never one to let the Diaz parents get to her.
“Mom!” Shannon exclaimed in the scandalized room. She had been trying for years to earn the Diaz’s approval but had never quite managed. She did hope, though that the birth of their first grandbaby would broker some peace between them. That didn’t look to be happening.
Eddie laughed awkwardly to diffuse the tension.
Jamie, never one to care for the uptight judgement of Eddie’s parents, easily ignored them. “And what are we calling this little darling,” she asked, turning the attention back to the reason they were all there.
“Christopher,” Eddie revealed, smiling at the little bundle of joy that was passed back to Shannon. They had been keeping the name a secret for weeks, unwilling to hear any critiques.
Shannon in turn passed him to her mother. “You can hold him, Jamie.”
Eddie reached around the woman to trail a hand over his son’s forehead, savouring every second he got with him. Every moment was precious, especially when he was this small. He was determined to imprint every second of this pure joy behind his eyelids, a pocket of peace to hold onto when it felt like his life was in constant turmoil. He knew that if he’d ever done anything right, it was this right here. He knew Christopher was meant to be here.
“How long you gonna be here for, Eddie?” Jamie asked.
His demeanour soured, not wanting to think of how little time he got with his new family. He looked fixedly at Chris’s tiny face, not sure how he was meant to leave.
“He’s back to Afghanistan next week,” Shannon said in a manner that meant she’d rather think of anything else. They’d been fighting about it all week leading up to the birth. Shannon was scared. He understood that, but he really didn’t have much say over his schedule.
Eddie sighed. “The sooner I go, the sooner I get to come back home for good,” he said. It was what he kept telling himself whenever he looked at Christopher and had to face the reality he would be missing so many of the boy’s firsts. It hurt like a knife to the chest.
Shannon looked up at him. “I’m holding you to that. We both are.”
Perhaps sensing the tense, melancholic atmosphere, Christopher started fussing.
“Oh, it's okay mijo,” Eddie cooed, accepting the baby from Jamie and rocking gently to soothe him. It felt like holding his world in his arms. He just wanted these little moments to last a lifetime.
When he looked up at Shannon, she was holding a jewellery box up to him. Inside was a patron saint pendant.
“What's this?” he asked, leaning forward to get a better look. “Saint Christopher.” The small medallion shone silver in the stark hospital lighting, with a ring of gold that read ‘St Christopher protect us’. His heart felt so full of love he wasn’t sure how it still beat.
“Patron saint of travellers,” Shannon explained. “To protect you and keep you safe. And to remind you that you have a family to come home to.”
Eddie wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he did believe in family. He believed they could be happy together. He just had to make it home in one piece, not let war chip away too much so that he couldn’t feel the peace and safety of home, love, and family.
He smiled softly down at her and then at Christopher. “I love you,” he said, placing a soft kiss on her forehead and then on Christopher’s. “No matter what happens, I’m always going to fight to come home to my family,” he vowed.
Los Angeles, California - Current Day
It was dark, the dank smell of earth cloying, almost choking him as he blinked back to consciousness in the cool dim light of his headlamp. The sound of rushing water was all around him, soaking him to the bone. He groaned at the chilled ache of his body and the pounding in his head, reaching for his radio. It was missing.
He looked around confused, for a moment finding nothing but mud—mud dark and solid and confining. The murky water was rising around him.
When he finally spotted it, it crackled in a way that made him doubtful it was connected to anything. Not that it had really worked before he was buried.
“It's Diaz,” he said into it anyway. “Does anybody copy?”
No response. The water was rising. His heart pounded against his ribs.
“This is Eddie. I’m still-” his head throbbed. “I’m alive.”
The cold was setting in, the darkness encroaching. Something dark clawed at his chest.
“I’m still alive down here!” he yelled, pounding against the mud, panic clutching at him, colder than the water. He felt the icy grip of death around his heart.
He pleaded with God, the saints, the universe for a reply. His hand shook around his white-knuckle grip on the radio.
“I’m still alive down here!” he screamed. The Earth swallowed the echo and him along with it.
The radio was dead. There was mud all around him in an unstable pocket that was rapidly filling with water. His heart stuttered, dropping out of his chest as a new sort of icy realisation. He’d been buried alive. This was going to be his grave. There was no help coming for him.
“Anyone?” God?
Los Angeles, California - 12 Hours Ago
“Firefighter Diaz, do you copy?” Cap called over the radio.
Eddie, who was hanging up the hoses paused to answer, “five-five-five Cap, over.”
The day was going well enough. After a small radio malfunction, though on the last call, Cap had them doing radio checks. Eddie pulled another loop of hose over the bar holding it up.
“Chimney, report,” Bobby called once again over the radio.
Chimney paused his inventory restock of the ambulance. “Read you loud and clear. I’ve got eyes on Hen, who I can already tell screwed up my coffee.”
Hen laughed at him, meeting him outside the ambulance with four coffee cups in a cup holder and another in her hand.
“Like hell,” she said into her radio. “One cinnamon coconut macchiato with a quad shot, half pump of vanilla.” She handed him the monstrosity of a drink. Honestly, how Chimney had the coffee order of a white girl, Eddie would never understand. Adding all that extra stuff just seemed superfluous.
“And yes my radio’s working just fine,” she told them.
Chimney took a sip of his coffee and pondered for a moment, Hen walking away. “There’s no cinnamon!” he called after her.
Eddie rolled his eyes and snorted, accepting his large dark roast coffee, three sugars from Hen with a grateful nod as she headed off to deliver Cap’s.
“Buck, sound off”
“We have visitors, Cap,” Buck declared, looking over the railing of the loft and, notably, not using his radio.
Bobby sighed. “Buck! The whole point of the test is to say it into the radio .” Sometimes, Bobby seemed to hate the whole ‘parenting a fire station’ thing.
Buck made direct eye contact with Bobby like the little shit he was and said into the radio, “We have visitors, Cap. Do I pass now? Over.”
“Close enough,” Bobby relented.
Said visitors were now inside the station. “Dad! Bucky!” Christopher cried being shepherded in by Carla.
“Hey guys,” Eddie headed over while Buck jogged down the stairs to join them. He looked at Carla in confusion. It was definitely almost 08:00 and as far as Eddie was concerned, that meant Chris and Carla should be on their way to school.
“Five-alarm school emergency,” Carla explained. “Chris is supposed to tell Miss Flores today what he’s presenting for Show ‘n Tell on Friday.”
Eddie looked down at his son who smiled deviously and adorably. “So he suckered you into stopping on the way,” he assumed. His son had everyone wrapped around his little finger. It was too cute for him to resent.
“You know I can’t resist a cute face,” Carla defended, running a hand over Chris’s hair.
“Okay, Show ‘n Tell,” Eddie thought.
Buck appeared over his shoulder. “I thought you were bringin’ in your new hamster,” he said.
Chris shook his head stubbornly.
Carla snorted and waved them off. “Oh, the new hamster is old news,” she told them. Then she pulled out two very familiar cases from her purse and handed them over. “Somebody was snooping in your closet.”
Eddie took the cases, automatically handing Buck’s to him. He already knew what it was; didn’t want to open it up like the boxes in his mind he kept the associated memories squared away in. He did anyway, the Silver Star medal shining up at him.
“Why do we keep these in the same place?” Buck lamented, looking at his own Navy Cross.
Eddie snapped the case shut, taking Buck’s from him and doing the same, effectively shutting out the sound of helicopter blades. “I don’t know.”
He could see the haunted look behind Buck’s eyes and knew he probably looked much the same.
“What are those?” Chimney asked, wandering over.
Chris looked up at them innocently. “They’re special medals ‘cause my dads are heroes.”
Chimney raised his eyebrows. “The famed Silver Star?”
“We don’t need jewellery to know that,” Carla said to Chris, accepting the cases back from Eddie before Chimney could swipe them.
The man had missed most of the context of the conversation (luckily) and asked, “I thought you just had the one Silver Star?”
Eddie shrugged, not wanting to out his husband unnecessarily. Hen, ever the socially aware angel, swooped in calling for Chimney’s assistance from the ambulance.
“Pause that. I’m still curious though,” Chimney said, hurrying off.
Turning back to Chris, Eddie asked, “Are you sure this is what you want to bring to school on Friday? You know you can only bring one thing?”
Eddie was kicking himself for not hiding things higher up in the closet because he was very bad at telling Chris no, especially when he couldn’t give a reason. But if one of their medals was going to Chris’ class, he would rather take that bullet than Buck. His story is, at the very least, shorter than Bucks. And a little less classified.
Buck looked at him, making sure Eddie was okay putting himself out there like that. He wasn’t but he didn’t know how to talk himself out of it without feeling like he was letting their son down.
“And you, too, so you could tell the story,” Chris added.
Buck studied Eddie, neither man looking very alright right now. “How are you gonna sanitise that to 4th grade standards?” he asked, telling him that he would rather not tell his own story.
“No clue,” Eddie mumbled, grateful for the supportive, grounding hand his husband placed on the small of his back.
“Please, Dad, please?” Christopher begged with his best puppy dog eyes, the same ones he swore he got from Buck and he was useless to say no. Even when it concerned rehashing his own trauma, apparently.
He sighed. “Okay. I'll figure something out.”
“I can do it,” Buck offered in a tone so low, that only Eddie could hear him.
Eddie shook his head at him. “No, it's fine.” He wasn’t going to make Buck do this. It was his own grave he was digging.
“You promise?” Chris asked.
The kid really needed to be getting to school. Speaking of, the bell started ringing. Buck squeezed Eddie’s hip and kissed Chris on the forehead and Carla on the cheek before running off.
“Yes,” Eddie hurried out. “Yes. You and me, Friday morning, telling appropriate-for-fourth-grader war stories,” he surmised, running off to the engine. “Love you!” he called.
“Love you, too!” Chris responded as Eddie pulled himself into the engine.
Eddie settled next to Buck
“You’re really okay with this?” Buck checked, knocking his knee against Eddie’s as they pulled away.
Eddie’s body language said no, but what came out of his mouth was, “I’ll figure something out.”
Jalalabad, Afghanistan - 2015
Buck covered Jason’s six as they followed the target inside the house. The mission was as simple as it was short: get Nouri Halani and get out. It got a bit more complicated when the man had a bunch of body doubles escaping the compound in various directions.
Rushing inside, Trent, in the lead of their three-man team, hit the man from behind. He stumbled, hitting the closed door in front of him and fell back. Jason was on him immediately getting the man pinned on the ground.
“TOC, this is Bravo 2. Negative ID on our end,” Ray reported from where he’d tracked down a different squirter.
They got the target rolled over Buck pinning his shoulders while Trent had his legs. The man was useless to struggle against their combined force. Jason checked it against the photo of the HVT he had on his QB sleeve. They looked to be a match.
“Yeah, Jackpot,” Jason confirmed. “TOC, this is Bravo 1. I pass Camaro,” he confirmed. Then he pulled out the phone to take a picture of the man, Nouri Halani, to send for facial recognition confirmation.
It was a minute when they received the message, “Bravo 1, confirming positive ID on Nouri Halani.”
They got the man up forcefully and secured him. They walked him out of the building moving towards exfil. Buck kept his eyes up, head on a swivel. They were already in risky territory, doing a daytime op in Taliban country. It made Buck on edge. Everyone here was on the Halani’s payroll. The faster they got out, the better.
“TOC, this is Bravo 1. Passing El Dorado,” Jason said as they headed out of the compound. “Compound secure.”
“Roger, 1,” Blackburn responded over coms. “Exfil helos are en route, on the ‘X’ in five,” he informed them.
They walked through the village on high alert in formation. Trent had hands on Halani the entire time and Jason stood just to their left, Clay to their right, Buck and Sonny flanking them with Alpha team split on their six and twelve, and Ray and Brock up ahead. Buck was tense, but his hands were steady.
As they walked, Halani mumbled something in Pashto that had Jason slamming him up against a neighbouring car, hard.
“What did he say?” he growled.
Jason had been on edge the whole mission—the whole deployment, really. After they’d been deployed early due to their counterpart team, Echo, all being taken out in a targeted hit, everyone had been on edge. They wanted justice and they wanted revenge. This man, Nouri Halani, was the one responsible for that hit; no one batted an eye at Jason’s violence.
“Hey! What did you say? What’d he say?” he looked between the captive and Clay.
“Says he ‘hopes we turn into black dust’,” Clay translated.
Halani glared at Jason “May God make this your day of judgement,” Halani hissed in his face.
Jason gripped the man’s lapels tight, giving him a little shake. “Echo team. Echo team! You took out six of my guys.” He kneed him in the gut for emphasis. “Six of my brothers!”
No one on Bravo stepped in to stop the confrontation, satisfied to let it play out. Buck wasn’t happy about it—didn’t think this was the best way to get information, but he wasn’t about to challenge Bravo 1. He didn’t feel bad for Halani, though. Consequences of his actions and whatnot. Don’t want to get beat up by a frogman? Don’t commit terrorism. Easy.
“What is Echo team?” Halani asked.
“You put a hit on them in Jalalabad, two months ago,” Jason explained, trying to jog his memory of the lives he had orchestrated the taking of. “Echo team.” He hit him again.
Ray and Buck exchanged glances from where they flanked Jason. If this went any further they would have to step in. Mainly because they were wasting time—sitting ducks in the middle of the street. They could let Jason have his interrogation moment, but every minute spent delaying exfil was a minute longer they were in serious danger, a minute longer for someone to find them and cause trouble.
“Your deaths,” Halani choked out, “are always welcome.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, shaking him again, pushing him further back into the car. “Tell me about Cutter.”
That was an interesting question because as far as Buck knew, the private contractor had nothing to do with the Echo Team hit. What did Jason know? What was he keeping from the team?
Halani, too, was surprised by the question. “The Englishman?”
“Yeah, the Englishman. Cutter!” He kneed him again.
Halani changed the subject. Or tried to. “How did you know I was here?”
“How do you know about Cutter?” Jason asked again. “How do you know about Cutter?!”
Halani looked down at Jason’s QB sleeve which was still open, showing the headshot of him and some translated Pashto phrases. “My brother, Abad,” he answered his own question. “He must have told you where to find me. He said he was sick.”
Jason was getting nowhere with further questioning and time was of the essence. He threw Halani away from him, back into the car and rocked back, stepping away. Trent stepped back in, once again grabbing their prisoner.
“Bravo 1, be advised, you’ve got several dozen hostiles approaching at speed from the northeast; a hundred, 200 metres,” Lisa informed them over the coms.
Air evac was approaching, the sound of helicopter blades whirring becoming louder against the morning quiet of the village. Their group was back on the move, heading away from the hostiles towards their exfil point.
“Copy, TOC. Exfilling,” Jason responded.
Buck was anxious to be in the air again. “Helos coming in!” Buck called out as he spotted the two Black Hawks.
They picked up their pace, Ray letting them know, “ISR spots guys movin’ on our six.”
“Smoke ‘em” Jason commanded.
Buck, Clay, and Sonny followed orders, pulling out their smoke grenades and tossing them back for cover, hearing the hiss as the white smoke clouded the view behind them.
“Moving up quick! Let’s go!” Jason urged as the group broke into a light jog. They exited the village, running once they hit open space. The Black Hawks were touching ground outside the village where there was room to land. They ran forward against the wind being whipped up by the spinning blades, pushing Halani forward with them.
They split into two groups, Buck with Trent, Jason, Clay, Halani, and two guys from Alpha team, the rest in the other helo. The soldiers loaded up and got secured among the flight crew just as the hostiles rounded the hill.
Damn. Buck had hoped they would have outrun them. Apparently not. They exchanged fire as the Black Hawks took off again. Rounds deflected off the sides of the helos with a sharp noise. Buck focused on countering the rock and motion of the Black Hawk and the kick of recoil of his HK416 into his right shoulder.
He watched some of the men fall, becoming smaller and smaller as the helo rose out of range until they were essentially home-free. Buck couldn’t relax yet, but he did marvel at the view of the land passing below.
Los Angeles, California - 11 Hours Ago
The place they had been called out to was an old farm. Athena met Bobby as they poured out of the engine.
“What do we got?” he asked her.
“Missing boy.” She led them up the front steps to the house, explaining, “Two kids, playing in an open field. Mom calls them home, only one boy shows up. Sounded like maybe an abduction. Road’s not far away, made sense. But then, I’m interviewing the mother, asking the usual questions.” She led them inside the house towards a small table of photos. “And I saw this.”
She handed Bobby a specific black and white photo of the old farm they were at. In the photo there was a man standing by his truck, but behind it was an old windmill.
“Photo came with the house,” she told them.
Bobby examined the photo. “I didn’t see a windmill when we pulled up.” Eddie hadn’t either.
“Yeah, torn down years ago. It used to power a water pump.”
“There’s an abandoned well on the property,” he followed her thought process.
Bobby splits them up, and has them fan out to search the property for the missing boy, Hayden, and potentially the abandoned well. The old farm property is a couple of acres of mostly flat fields. The sun warms the autumn chill, bright against the golden grass.
Eddie wandered from the house, noticing the gate in the white picket fence that blocks off the garden area is open. Abandoned in the dirt between the flower beds just inside is a toy tank. Potentially, he thinks this area may not have been searched in the first go around because the kids weren’t supposed to be playing in there in the first place. Or because the cops were looking for an abduction, not an accident.
“Hayden?” he called out.
He moved beyond the fenced garden to where some water barrels and various old farm equipment were stored out in the open. Some wooden boards are lying around and on one is a muddy shoe print, small enough to be a child’s.
“Hey, guys, over here!” Eddie yelled, certain he had something. He started clearing away the junk. Buck was the first one to him, Chim and Hen hot on his heels. “Give me a hand,” he demanded, moving some plywood.
They helped him clear away the things to reveal the mouth of a rusty old pipe.
“Hey, Cap. We’ve got something,” Chim radioed once the pipe was uncovered. It looked so narrow, so deep that Eddie couldn’t see the bottom of it.
“Hayden?” Eddie yelled down. “Hayden, can you hear me?”
It was a small pipe. Hayden would have to be such a small child to fit down it, no bigger than Christopher. It would be a hard thing to end up going down accidentally. But maybe they didn’t know how deep it went. And either way, it didn’t matter how he got down there, it just mattered that they found him, that they got him out.
Bobby and Athena walked up as the team stared into the pipe. It was too dark and too deep to confirm whether or not Hayden was actually down there.
“We’re gonna need a visual,” Bobby concluded, sending Buck and Eddie off to grab the equipment.
Buck fed the camera down the pipe while Chimney called out the depth. The rest of the crew was watching the feed intently.
“30 feet,” Chimney called out. “35 feet.”
With every depth called out, Eddie’s worry mounted.
Still, Buck fed the camera line. “How far down does this thing go?” he questioned.
“We’re at 40 feet, Cap, and we got 50 feet of cable,” Chim warned as they were nearing the end of their rope.
Athena voiced concern, “Can a boy even survive a fall that far?”
“Well, the well’s narrow,” Hen pointed out. “So there's lots of friction to slow the fall.” It would have hurt like hell and Hayden was most definitely worse for wear, but if he was down the well, chances were he was alive. “But if he’s really down there…”
Eddie still didn't like the thought of a kid falling that far. He must be so scared, trapped and alone.
“There,” Eddie called. The top of a head came into view on the camera. “Right there.”
Hayden looked up at the camera. “Yeah, he’s alive,” Buck exclaimed in a mixture of relief and deep concern. He was dirty but definitely alive.
“Look at the way he’s pinned,” Hen pondered, paramedic brain whirring into action. “Arm’s forward, chest constricted, shallow breath.”
“45 feet. At that depth, oxygen’s an issue,” Chimney called out. “Cap, we’ve gotta get a line of compressed air down there ASAP.”
“Alright,” Bobby agreed.
The mother was sprinting towards them from the house. “You- you found him?” she asked frantically. Eddie’s heart went out to her. Her kids were just out playing in the yard, something they’d no doubt done hundreds of times before and suddenly one of them was gone without hide nor hair.
“Is he-” her voice broke.
“Okay,” Athena immediately filled in, curbing her panic. “He’s alive.” Okay was a relative term. “He’s alive.”
That seemed more accurate. Down 45 feet of an old well, but his heart was still beating. They needed to figure out how to get that kid out safely. It was going to be no easy task.
“Oh, my baby,” the mother cried, looking at the camera feed of Hayden crammed down the pipe, but moving, awake and aware.
Jalalabad, Afghanistan - 2015
They were practically home free, the Black Hawks pulling out of ground weapon’s range. A moment's peace where they all exchanged looks, let the guard down for a moment, took a breath.
Then they heard it. “Missile lock!” the pilot warned. “Countermeasures! Brace!”
They dropped flares seconds, a mere moment before impact. Buck only had a flash of panic before the world exploded in heat and pain, the missile making contact. They spiralled, Buck, scrambling for hold as alarms went off. They were spiralling in a slowed fall, the ground rushing up to greet them as the pilot fought to maintain some semblance of control.
Jason slid into his side then the direction changed and it was Trent’s weight solidly against his side. Buck was grateful they were all secured inside the bird else they would have fallen out the open sides.
Jason gripped Halani tightly. Buck had a white knuckle grip on where he was strapped in. Air whipped past them and he became dizzy with their spinning descent. They were going down, the force of gravity the strongest force of God against them. The alarm was still blaring at the rate of his panicked heartbeat. And then it was pain and darkness.
When Buck came to it was to intense pain in his right leg. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. That and the rest of his body. The entire helicopter was at an angle, propped up on half-crushed blades.
Looking down, he saw he was bleeding from right above his left hip and his right foot was lodged under the pilot’s seat at a strange angle and though he couldn’t see it, he was pretty sure his knee was at least a little fucked too. He groaned, sitting up. He felt like he’d been run through the spin cycle and was incredibly grateful for his helmet.
He heard voices outside the downed helo that had a shot of adrenaline running straight through him. He smelt smoke. He didn’t even stop to think about the pain as he yanked his foot out from under the seat, crying out with pain.
Buck looked around to orient himself. Trent was slumped across from Buck looking mostly fine. Jason was slumped over on Buck’s right hanging half out the side. Medders was slumped next to Trent. Everyone else was gone.
He unclipped himself and groaned as he tried to stand, still dizzy. It took a half-failed attempt where his right leg gave out beneath him, unable to bend it. He felt around his knee and felt the bump of his kneecap where it definitely shouldn't have been—basically turned so it was on the outside of his leg.
He gritted his teeth and pushed it back to the middle, grunting at the new shock of pain that erupted when he did as such. He bent his leg experimentally and though it hurt like hell, he had some range of motion back. Fuck, this was going to suck ass.
He leaned over the pilot’s seat and checked for a pulse. There was none, blood dripping from a concave den in the man’s helmet. Fuck.
He grabbed the helo’s emergency radio as it should have a stronger signal than their personal coms. “TOC this is Bravo 7. Come in,” he called into the sat com. No response. “Repeat: this is Bravo 7. Come in.”
He checked the co-pilot for a pulse. It was quick under his fingertips, but the man’s breaths were shallow. He worked on unstrapping the man, then pulled him to the back of the helo.
“Trent!” he called. His teammate was coming round. “Trent!” he tried again. His eyes snapped open. “Check Jason,” he demanded as he dragged the copilot from the wreckage, limping along. Carrying more than his own weight on his destroyed ankle and busted knee was a new kind of hell. He was damn sure the only thing allowing him to walk was the fact his boot did a passable job at bracing his ankle. He felt the heat of more blood soaking his left side.
“Jason!” Trent assessed the man who was unconscious, blood coating his right temple.
Buck dropped the copilot, ripped open his kit and pulled out the hemostatic dressing. Ripping it open with his teeth, he applied it to his side. He held pressure with his elbow while dropping down to assess the copilot. It seemed that his ribs were broken, probably hitting his lungs. Nothing Buck could do, he returned to the helo.
He pulled himself inside and tried the radio again.“TOC this is Bravo 7. Come in,” he called into the satcom. No response. “Repeat: this is Bravo 7. Come in.”
Crickets. Not even crackles. Fuck. Hopefully, they had eyes on them, but there was no communication with Base. He tried his personal coms.
“TOC this is Bravo 7. Come in,” he tried.
“I hear you,” Trent told him, rousing Medders. That meant their intra-team communication was fine, which was a good sign.
Trent tried this time over the satcoms. “Avenger 2-6 this is Bravo 4. Come in.” Still nothing.
Buck pulled Jason out of the wreck and turned back. Fuck. He spotted Clay partially under a disconnected piece of the tail boom. Buck hurried over to him. He was conscious and struggling.
“A little help?” Clay asked, trying with one arm to move out from under the metal. His other arm was at a strange angle.
“Fucking hell,” Buck swore as he dragged the metal off him and saw the crooked bend of his leg. “You couldn’t do this by halves could you?” he grumbled, grabbing Clay by the shoulder and left wrist.
Clay winced. “Never.” He let out a string of expletives as Buck yanked his shoulder back into the socket with a snap.
“Buckley, a hand in here?” Trent called. Buck pulled himself back inside and helped Trent manoeuvre the pilot out of his seat and out of the wreckage.
Trent moved to assess Clay who tried to wave him off and Buck spotted Greggs sprawled out a few yards away. He moved towards him.
“We need to get everyone away from this bird in case it blows. We’re sitting ducks here. I think I saw a farmhouse ‘boutta hundred metres west,” Buck called. “Derek, can you scout it?”
“Copy,” he said, splitting off from the group.
Jason groaned and tried to stand up from where he’d been moved to the dirt. Greggs was breathing fine and had a strong pulse.
“I’ve got him,” Buck called to Trent, who had deemed Clay not in immediate danger and was working on moving the body of one of the Alpha team guys from the wreckage.
In total, there had been thirteen bodies on the helo. Three were killed on impact, Halani was unaccounted for, and only Trent, Derek, Greggs and Medders were basically unharmed. Clay was out of commission but conscious. Trent was checking out Shawford. The copilot was the most gravely injured and Buck didn’t think he would even make it to a field hospital. Especially if Base had yet to call for medevac or activate QRF.
“Jason!” Buck called as he approached. “Jason, are you okay? Can you hear me?” He grabbed the man by the shoulders, steadying him where he wavered, unsteady on his feet.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Trent climbing back into the shell of the helicopter.
“What's going on?” he asked, not a good sign.
Buck eyed the blood on the leader’s temple. “We got shot down, man,” Buck told him as he fell to one knee. “You hit your head. Hey!” He collapsed to the ground, Buck slowing his descent. “Hey, Jace!”
The man groaned.
“We’ve lost the satcom. We’ve got no communication with TOC,” Trent finally concluded after trying to send out an SOS a few more times.
“Hopefully, TOC’s got eyes on us,” Clay said from where he was watching Buck and Jason with concern. Head back in the game, he looked around assessing the situation. “What's our sit-rep?”
Buck looked over everything “Pilot’s dead. Co-pilot’s fading fast. Jason took a hard hit to the head. Derek’s scouting a CCP,” he rattled off, eyes scanning the area around them. “We’ve stabilised the wounded so we’ll push to an LZ, wait for the QRF to get us the hell out of here. That sound good, y’all?”
“Good,” Clay grunted.
“Roger,” Trent responded.
There was movement from inside the wreckage. Only one person besides Trent was still in there. “Medders!” Buck called to the man as he stumbled out, looking lost. “Hey, you all right?”
Medders nodded, unsteady on his feet. He looked thoroughly shaken.
“Yeah?” Buck echoed, needing a verbal response.
“Yeah,” the man muttered, obviously shaken up.
Buck didn’t have time to fret over him when Derek still hadn’t returned so he took the kid at his word.
Jason was doubled over, not saying anything which was out of character in an emergency situation. “Hey, you good?” he checked.
“I’m good,” Jason claimed.
“You're good?”
“I’m good.” He had to take him at his word. That was part of Bravo. He still stood by him as he did a head count. There was still one person missing in this mess. “Hey, where's Nouri?”
Trent jumped down from the wreckage to start getting them ready to move. “He got tossed out prior to impact,” Trent answered. “We didn’t strap him down.” So he was as good as gone and likely dead. That whole mission for nothing. Well, not nothing. A dead HVT.
Buck grumbled, moving to pull Jason up. “It's fine, we got bigger issues right now. Let’s get to that farmhouse, okay? We’ll set up a CCP,” he said, trying to get Jason to cooperate with being helped to move. He did not want to cooperate.
“Roger,” Trent said as Derek came back over the ridge, hurrying towards them.
“The house is secure,” he reported, moving to help Greggs move Shawford.
“I’ve got Jason,” Buck called to Trent. “You move Clay, we’ll come back for the others,” he concluded. He pulled Jason to his feet with the other man’s help, ignoring the excruciating pain shooting through his ankle and buckling his knee. Pain shot through him where Jason hit his left hip. He only stumbled slightly under Jason’s unsteady weight.
“You good to walk?” he asked once they were stable. Like Jason wasn’t hard-headed enough to insist he was fine at all times when he was clearly not fine.
“Yeah,” Jason predictably grunted, taking a few steps.
“Alright,” Buck hauled them towards the farmhouse. “Let's go, bother. Come on.” They made it a dozen steps before Jason stumbled, going down again with a grunt and bringing Buck right down with him.
Buck ignored his own pain. “Hey, hey,” Buck called, turning Jason so he was on his back.
Trent passed them with Clay slung over his shoulders. “You good?”
“All good. Get him to safety,” he called, his attention back on Jason.
“My leg,” Jason panted. “My leg’s burning up. Morphine. Gimme the morphine.” Buck dug the morphine from the leader’s med pack.
“I got you, I got you,” Buck responded, uncapping the injector.
“Morphine, come on!” Jason demanded, pain in his voice. Damn, he was working on it.
“I got you,” Buck repeated and stabbed the IM drug into his thigh. Medders watched on from feet away with wide eyes as Buck helped Jason. He sighed as the man finally relaxed under the pain relief.
The pop of gunfire cracked through the air. Their attackers appeared just over the ridge line with a clear line of fire straight for them. They were at a wild disadvantage from their position out in the open.
Clay was already at the farmhouse along with Greggs, Derek, and Shawford. The co-pilot was covered by the body of the helo. Buck and Jason were on the ground but Medders was still standing straight watching them. Buck shifted Jason off of him, grabbing his gun.
“Medders move your ass!” Buck called urgently as the private was frozen like a deer in headlights. He watched the way his yell shook the other man from his shock and he slowly moved to action running towards them.
He and Jason watched in horror as the man took two bullets to the back and dropped face-first to the ground, dead.
Trent had just jogged back through the valley from the farmhouse, ducked to the side behind the cover of the detached tail boom as bullets rained on them. He fired back.
Who the hell were these guys? Potentially they were the people responsible for the helo going down in the first place, coming to finish off any survivors. Or they were more of Halani’s men. The whole area they were in was no doubt Taliban territory.
“Trent, cover me!” Buck demanded as he covered Jason and ran to check out Medders and reposition to return fire at their attackers.
Greggs returned from behind, providing more cover fire as he pushed up to perch by Trent.
Buck reached Medders and rolled him over, checking for a pulse as he sent a round of shots, taking out two of the combatants. Medders was gurgling under him. He’d taken two shots to the lungs. If he wasn’t dead yet, he would be in minutes and there was nothing Buck could do, but make sure his family had a body to bury. He spared half a thought to how young he looked, no older than 21.
From above came the sound of a familiar Black Hawk and friendly fire. The other helo had circled back around for them. Their attackers dropped like stones under the two-sided fire.
Buck laid down fire, protecting Medder’s body and giving Jason time to react. Jason wasn’t reacting, still disoriented.
Greggs cried out as he took a hit.
Buck dropped his mag and reloaded in a mindless motion, taking out 1, 2, 3 men. He had his sights on a man who was about to launch an RPG directly at Jason. “Jace, stay down,” he warned, taking the shot a millisecond too late as the enemy launched the RPG.
It hit feet away from Jason, sending dust and rocks raining down.
Buck sprinted over. “Jace!” the man rolled on the ground, groaning. Fresh blood spilt from his head wound. “Come on! We gotta move,” he told him, wrapping his arms under the man’s shoulders. He wouldn’t be able to move the larger man by himself seeing as Jason was no longer cooperating, too discombobulated.
“Trent, Jason!” he called. Trent raced to his side, taking his other side and helping haul him up. “Go, go, go,” he yelled as they half dragged, half carried Jason inside the farmhouse.
They got him inside the small barrier wall that partially wrapped around the front door. Buck dropped him and ran back. “I’m going back for the others,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Yeah, go,” Trent coughed, covering him.
Buck made it back to where Derek and Greggs were pinned down. Greggs was looking worse for wear, blood soaking his shirt.
Buck laid down fire, taking out two more guys with well-placed shots. “Move, move!” he yelled at them. He laid down more cover fire as the two grabbed Kobayashi’s body and hauled him back with them. That just left Medders.
Buck sprinted as fast as he could, regardless of the excruciating pain it caused and grabbed Medders’ smaller frame by the strap at the back of his vest. He hauled him all the way back to the house, bullets striking the dirt around him as he retreated.
The Black Hawk that had been circling above was forced to retreat, pulling away for reasons unknown to the ground crew. The lack of communication was infuriating.
Derek took up Medder’s legs in the entryway, helping him carry the body inside. They set him down in the back room next to Jason.
Jason was seriously out of it. Buck felt his level of concern rise exponentially for the man as he saw him struggle to focus his eyes on their surroundings, almost completely lost in time and space. Head injuries were serious. For all they could tell at this point, Jason could have a slow brain bleed that would kill him if they didn’t get rescued.
Bucks’ leg was in excruciating pain, shaking under any amount of weight he tried to put on it. He slumped against the dividing wall of the two-room farmhouse—though calling it anything more than a shack was being generous—and used it as leverage to lower himself to the ground.
“You good?” Derek came and checked on him.
His entire leg throbbed and his ankle felt like he would rather it not be connected to his body anymore. Buck reminded himself that this wasn’t the worst pain he’d felt. That he was fine.
“All good,” Buck assured him, accepting an offered hand and was pulled to his feet. He gritted his teeth against the new wave of pain, but else didn’t show it. He had to keep pushing. They weren’t safe.
Combatants were rapidly converging on their position, the farmhouse shielded only by the low wall around the entrance. They didn’t have air support from the other helo anymore. Buck assumed they pulled out to avoid the same fate their chopper had befallen.
“Okay,” Greggs said as the copilot was set on the table and turned to the group. “The wounded are all secure in the house.”
“Seems like we’re starting to push them back a little bit,” Trent commented on the diminishing number of men.
An explosion way too close rocked the unstable structure and rained rocks down on them. Buck shot him a look. Did people ever learn not to tempt God?
“You were saying?” Buck sassed. They ducked as another blast came, kicking more dust into the air. The shots were getting closer. “Let’s go,” he commanded, leading Trent and Derek back out of the farmhouse.
They took up in the corners of the entryway and exchanged fire with the enemy. Buck knelt behind the right corner, focusing on quality shots.
He ducked down as a barrage of bullets narrowly missed him. He popped back up as soon as they paused to fire off a burst of his own. He aimed specifically for the man with the RPG launcher. Two shots and he went down.
“Got him! Got him!” Buck yelled over the noise. A few more rounds were exchanged.
“I’ve got two fighters retreating over the hill into dead space,” Tent yelled from somewhere around Buck’s eight o’clock.
Buck made a split-second decision and called it out, “Alright, we’re gonna Alamo up! Let's go!” They needed to regroup. Check their wounded, and hold position. They had too many lives depending on them to lose this position.
“Roger that,” came the responses of Trent and Derek.
Buck led them back inside. “So it looks like Ray’s helo couldn’t touch down near us, okay, so we’re gonna have to wait for the boys to come get us. We’re gonna hold out ‘til then,” he told the room of wounded soldiers as Trent checked the co-pilot was still breathing and Derek checked Greggs who was slumped against the wall.
He really hoped that the boys were coming for them because if not they were absolutely dead in the water. Buck couldn’t think in any uncertain terms, though right now. Too many people were depending on him to make the right call.
He turned back to Trent and Derek. “How are you guys doing on ammo?”
Derek checked, “I got three mags left.”
“Down to my last mag, then I’m Winchester,” Trent responded.
Buck looked to the back room where Jason was staring at the ceiling, loopy on the head injury and morphine and Clay was only half-conscious in pain and blood loss.
“Okay,” Buck said, thinking. He himself was down to two mags after the fire exchange and the op. If they were to hold down, they needed more ammo if assaults like that were to keep coming. “Let's get some ammo and weapons off the wounded, alright?” he concluded.
He didn’t particularly want to leave his brothers unarmed, but they could protect them. This was the kind of difficult decision he had taken up the authority to make at the moment.
They would still need more ammo. Who knew how long it would be before their brothers came and got them and longer still before QRF arrived? They could be spending the better part of the day holed up there.
He knew there were more weapons and ammo in the wreckage. He tried to remember what they’d bright with them.
Buck turned to Derek. “Hey, hey, that Huey’s got that M240 on board right?” he asked. A machine gun would be helpful if there were more men from where the last came from.
“Yeah,” Derek responded, mainly focused on packing Greggs’ wound.
“Okay,” Buck nodded, more of a plan taking shape. “We’re gonna use that to fortify our position here. You take care of the wounded guys, Trent and I are gonna go resupply, alright?”
“Okay, grab the aid bag while you're at it,” Derek requested as Trent and he moved to the doorway.
“Check,” he replied.
As they ducked out the door, Jason started speaking, stopping them in their tracks.
“TOC. TOC, this is 1. TOC this is 1.” he said, pressing his radio. “Do we have eyes on Nouri?” He didn’t even have his headset on, his helmet lost in the fall. He wasn’t aware of the time or place, not really. He was probably A&Ox1 right now.
Shit, Jason was probably more fucked up than they thought. Buck had known it was bad when he requested morphine when he wasn’t with it enough to help in the firefight. Head injuries were such a tricky thing.
“Jason knows TOC can’t hear us, right?” Trent asked.
There was nothing they could do for him right now except make sure he made it back to base.
“Yeah,” Buck sighed, having already been dealing with him earlier in the field. “The concussions got him loopy. We have to cut the guy some slack.”
Jason kept mumbling about TOC and Nouri. Buck wandered back, but there was nothing to do but go back to the helo and restock. He led Trent out of the farmhouse in a quick crouch, guns up, heads on swivels.
Los Angeles, California - 6 Hours Ago
Dusk had fallen by the time they were getting something of a concrete plan in place on how to get Hayden out. They needed to contact everyone from gas and oil companies to the city’s aqueduct management, and even the Commissioner. It had taken the better part of the day.
The whole time, the team’s worry for the boy’s well-being mounted. They were all anxious to put something into motion.
They were in the family’s home, using the coffee table for the map of the area the Commissioner had brought up.
“Okay, what are we working with?” Bobby asked.
The man pointed to something on the map. “The well sits on a water reservoir that's about 50 feet down. It's fed by a reservoir here that's about a half-mile over”
Well, that's not good.
“Right now, that boy is trapped at 45 feet,” Bobby informed the man.
The Commissioner raised a brow. “Well, he falls another 5 feet, he drowns.”
Eddie was thinking hard. How did they get this child out? The more they learned, the more danger the boy was in. “Can’t pull him out from above. No way to access him from the side of the reservoir,” he pondered aloud.
Buck looked like he was thinking something too, while Bobby waited for one of them to have a genius idea.
“There could be some intersecting feeder pipes down there, maybe some drainage tunnels, but frankly, this system predated our maps. We have no way to know,” the Commissioner admitted solemnly. He didn’t have any bright ideas, but he didn’t seem like a very bright man.
“What if we get a dive team, go through the reservoir? Get Hayden out that way?” Buck suggested.
That was wildly dangerous and would require them to put dive equipment on Hayden underwater, assuming he knew how to swim in the first place. It was too risky, and had too many ways it could go horribly wrong.
“No, there are too many variables” Eddie shot him down. He knew Buck would argue if he really thought there was no other option, but Buck just gestured at him to take the floor, like he had some better plan.
Bobby was the one with the answer though. “We dig.”
“Excuse me?” the Commissioner asked.
Bobby pointed to the well on the map. “We can’t go from above, we can’t feasibly hit it from below, so we hit it from the side. To do that—we dig. We set up a drill rig south of the well, here,” he indicated an area of the map, “We use it to dig a parallel tunnel, wider, slightly deeper, then we go down. Punch across by hand to access the well. Hopefully, we can pull the boy out.”
“Punch across by hand?” Buck repeated. “You’ve gotta be close to manage that, otherwise that's a lot of distance to cover 40-odd feet underground.”
The Commissioner shook his head. “You'll have to be at least 10 yards away. We drill our tunnel any closer, and we risk compromising the integrity of the well pipe.” It was already old and being eaten away by the Earth. It was likely to be structurally unsound.
Bobby made a face. “If it cracks, the whole thing could collapse.”
“Right on top of the kid,” Eddie added. The kid may have survived the fall, but he wouldn’t survive being buried alone like that. Whoever went down the whole would be taking the same risk
It took another few hours to get a heavy-duty dig crew out there and by then, night had truly fallen. It was dark, even the moon was blotted out by the thick cloud cover. A storm was brewing, Eddie could smell it in the air.
The crew got the large drill set up as close to the well as they safely could place it. The Commissioner and dig site manager were collaborating on getting everything set up and done safely. Bobby watched the crew and kept an eye on the camera feed of Hayden. Hayden who had begun shivering shortly after sunset. Without the sun warming the rusted iron, the cool metal had leech the heat from the small body. Hen and Chim had voiced their concerns about hypothermia and as such, the compressed air being fed down the pipe was now warm, just to buy them more time.
News of their rescue operation had spread when the commissioner and Bobby had put out the word they were searching for a drill rig and crew to come out to the farm ASAP. As such, news crews had begun to roll in.
Eddie hated it. The publicity, his face on TV was one of his least favourite parts of firefighting. It increased the chances of Christopher seeing something happen to him or Buck. It was the dangerous calls that got the most attention, showing the highest risk for an equally high reward. Great for ratings and viewership, not for his peace of mind. The chances were too high that a camera could catch a rescue turn into a tragedy. The kid didn’t need more trauma.
The first clap of thunder overhead felt like a warning. Eddie tried not to believe in signs from the universe, but his family was as superstitious as they come. The storm raised the hair on the back of his neck. Like an animal instinct, he felt the looming sense of dread. He refused to believe the storm was an omen, but luck wasn’t oft to favour him.
It wasn’t long before the weather system rolled into the area, the first few drops of rain giving way to a steady fall. It turned the dirt into mud, softening the earth and only increasing the hazard risks and shortening their timeline.
“Eds, can you give me a hand?” Buck asked.
Eddie moved to his side by the well opening. He handed Eddie a radio attached to the end of a long cable. Buck began winding the cord, putting depth markers every so often while Eddie fed him the cable so it didn’t get tangled or kinked. They worked in silence listening to the storm, the dig crew, and Hen and Chim who were monitoring Hayden on the live feed hooked up to a monitor on the truck.
“Okay, rig is ready to drill,” Bobby announced, marching past them to Hen and Chimney. “How’s Hayden doing?”
“Hasn’t moved in a while. Could’ve fallen asleep down there,” Chim told him.
Buck secured the line and got up to join the group by the truck. “We’re ready to put the radio down,” Buck confirmed. “But, uh, how far down do you think before we lose the signal?”
“No way to know. Go down 40 feet and we’ll see what happens,” Bobby directed.
“Copy,” Buck and Eddie echoed. Buck returned to Eddie’s side while Eddie lowered the radio down the well.
Hayden’s mother approached the group by the truck. “So I’ll be able to talk to him?” she asked, her voice weak from crying.
Hen nodded. “Well, you might not be able to hear him, but hopefully he’ll hear you. Just let him know you’re here and help is on the way,” she explained.
They wanted the mother, a familiar voice to Hayden, to be the one to give him the news. Hopefully, it would be of comfort to the small boy.
Eddie joined the group, leaving Buck to adjust the radio’s depth as needed. He did not envy the mother’s position in all of this. All he could think was ‘What if it was Chris?’ and his heart bled for the woman. He stood behind Joy, a sentinel of silent support.
Chimney handed the mother the radio.
“Radio’s at 40 feet, Cap,” Buck called out.
“Okay, let's do this. Everybody off all channels,” Bobby directed. They all reached up, flicking off their radios.
At Cap’s go-ahead, Joy pressed the talk button on her radio. “Hayden? It's Mommy.” She sniffed, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over when Hayden failed to react.
“Raise the radio,” Bobby called over his shoulder to Buck. “There’s no signal.” Buck complied.
“Hayden, can you hear me?” she tried again. No movement. “Hayden. Hayden, please! Please look up.”
Finally, Hayden lifted his head, looking up at the inky black sky through the small mouth of the well.
Tears fell down Joy’s face in relief as Bobby called, “Okay, he can hear us now.” Buck secured the radio line at-depth and joined the group at Eddie’s side.
“I know it's scary right now down there by yourself, but it's gonna be okay,” she choked out. “They’re coming to get you.” Eddie was concerned that the boy wouldn’t be able to understand her, that she hadn’t made it clear enough that help was coming before she broke down into sobs, the fear and anxiety taking over.
Hayden was yelling, they could tell from the movement of his mouth on the camera, but they couldn’t hear him. They couldn’t hear him and Hayden had no way of knowing that. He must be so cold, so scared.
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” Joy cried. “I’m so sorry. I can’t do this.”
None of this was her fault. It didn’t change the fact that as a parent, you delt responsible every time your kid was in danger.
Eddie stepped forward, taking the radio from her and passing her off to Hen to be comforted. “I got this,” he reassured.
“Hey, Hayden. My name is Eddie. I’m a firefighter. I’m here with your mother and a whole lotta other people. We’re all working to get you out of there. Just stay calm, Hayden, okay?” He was doing his best to soothe and prepare the boy. “It might get a little noisy. Don’t be scared. We’ll be there soon.”
“Thank you,” Joy whimpered when Eddie turned around. Buck squeezed his wrist, a show of comfort.
Thunder rumbled overhead. “Thank us later,” he told her. “When we give you back your son.”