Archive of Our Own

”I don’t need you, either.”

Buck regrets the words as soon as they leave his lips, but his pride clings to the last thin strings of dignity he tries to keep. He doesn’t withdraw them out loud, swallows them only in his mind.

Deep down, he knows Eddie won’t believe in them. But still. What a terrible thing to say to someone to make them stay. What a terrible thing to say to anyone.

They somehow spilled out of him – just a spur of a moment, he didn’t get to think them through. So where did they really come from? If Buck didn’t plan it, didn’t craft the exact sentence he’d know would hurt Eddie, then didn’t it make it all a truth? When Buck stated it like a fact, not considering the output twice, no need to search for words – doesn’t that make it his subconscious belief? He really thought this at that moment, he meant it. In the rush of anguish, he felt it. He believed he doesn’t need him, either.

But it’s not true, he knows it. He knew it all along, even in the exact split second the words were rolling down his tongue. He regretted them even before they were fully formed, Buck regrets a lot of his decision before he even considers them, and this one–

Blaring alarm yanks him out of his spiraling. He comes to by blinking repeatedly until he gets a less blurry sight of the wall he’s been staring at for the last… he has no idea how long.

His mind works on autopilot, taking him down the stairs and to the backseat of the engine. His thoughts keep at distance, stalling in that one second of their conversation. At this point he can barely recall anything else that was said between them today – his mind keeps pounding with I don’t need you, don’t need you, don’t need–, I don’t–, need you, either.

It's one of the almost routine calls – a several-story building fire, more important because of the amount of people to evacuate than because of the size of the fire. It's a school, he realizes as they arrive at the scene, a long building, kids scattered in front of it.

There are reports of kids missing, so Bobby sends him and Eddie to check the fourth floor together. As much as Buck would want to feel surprised, of course they're still partners in the field, not everyone's world has crumbled down with Buck’s careless words.

They climb up the stairs, and end up in the middle of a long corridor. There's no fire within their sight, just clouds of smoke. The source of ignition was reported somewhere within the basements, so they are walking over it like on top of a roof, safe until it doesn’t spread.

“I'll go this way, you go check there,” Buck says through his mask, motioning himself to the Delta side, while sending Eddie to the Bravo one. There’s a fair amount of rooms to check on either of them, so it’s only logical they split.

Eddie makes a move as if he wanted to say something, but gives it up. Buck can’t see his face clearly through the masks, so instead of asking, he proceeds, turning to his left. He bangs at the first door, calls for potential people inside, and pushes the classroom open. It’s empty, so he moves to the next one, which also turns out empty, like the next one, and another. It seems like there’s no more casualties on Eddie’s end, too, Buck notices with the occasional glances he sends that way.

At some point he realizes he’s let his thoughts wander again. As the job got somehow monotonous, robotic movements that he learned into his instincts takes over his body, and his mind is free to start going rounds from one corner of his brain to the other, returning to the same topics over and over. He thinks about the way Eddie didn’t talk back to him, the meaning behind it. Are they really in the phase of ignoring each other like offended teenagers now? Or did Eddie actually believe his words and he lets Buck do things on his own? He’s getting him ready for the Eddie-shaped absence, because Buck couldn’t really succeed in making him stay.

A new idea hits him as he closes another empty classroom behind himself. There’s a curve in the layout of the corridor nearing and he needs to lose Eddie from his sight to go check the three remaining rooms.

Maybe he found the blown-out I don’t need you reaction reasonable because he knew how the conventionally appropriate things ended up working in his past. Not a single time when he tried to make someone stay by doing the right things did it work out in the end. His mind must’ve interpreted it as a permission to the exact opposite – it might end up hurting Eddie, make him hate Buck, but it’ll make him stay.

“Buck, Eddie,” sounds Bobby’s voice from the radio on his shoulder. “There’s a kid in the bathroom on the Beta side of the fourth floor. Probably a sprained ankle, and a panic attack. Dispatcher is talking him through, right now.”

“Copy,” Buck answers, and hears the same word coming from Eddie’s end of the line. As he emerges from behind the corner back to the main corridor, their eyes lock briefly, but Eddie doesn’t waste time before heading to the bathrooms at the very end of the building.

Buck follows along, because there’s nothing else to check on this floor anyway. They find the boy in one of the stalls, sitting on the floor, with his knees to his chest and the phone pressed tightly to his ear. He can’t be more than twelve, his hair is ruffled as if he took a big tumble on his way, and one of his legs bounces nervously.

“They’re here,” he says to the person in his phone. Buck observes how Eddie crouches by his side, and gains his trust with gentle words. He stabilizes his ankle and helps him up, leaning down to let him stand on the good leg while propping the other side on his arm.

“Buck, Eddie, status?”

Buck reaches to his radio as Eddie hands him the boy to collect his bag in the meantime. “Got the kid, we’re leaving now.”

“The fire’s spreading, we’re waiting for backup,” Bobby warns. Buck sends Eddie a short glance before turning straight for the stairs. “So you better hurry up.”

“Copy that, Cap.”

Buck hauls the boy up into his arms to make the descent faster, another quick check over his shoulder if Eddie’s behind him. He’s right there.

They make it three flights down, when Buck feels a sharp movement of air behind himself. He turns to see Eddie stopped in his tracks, looking for something in the corridor they're passing. This one is far more smoky and flames lick at some of the walls, so there’s really no better thing for them to do than leave it as soon as possible.

“Eddie!” He hurries him, because there’s not much time left before they won’t have a way out, and the boy on his shoulder needs clear air beside the mask, too.

“I think I heard something!” comes an answer, and Eddie doesn’t seem willing to budge. “You get the kid out, I'll check this.”

Eddie’s already moving away, stepping into thicker clouds of smoke and ash. Before he can completely disappear, Buck yells after him, “We’re not supposed to split!”

“I'll be fine!”

And then he's gone. Buck needs to think quickly, looking between the kid and the place where Eddie stood just seconds ago, but his stubborn thoughts come back to his words again, tainting his mind, keeping him from taking rational decisions. He can’t go after Eddie with a kid on his shoulder, he can’t leave him here, but he can’t leave him, either.

He hugs the kid closer and runs down the stairs, three steps at time, not tripping purely thanks to some divine intervention. He tumbles out of the building and heads straight to Hen to hand her the boy.

“Where’s Eddie?” he hears a shout after himself, but he's already on his way back. He can hope it's an answer enough.

He’s back on the first floor, where the flames took over most of the doors within his sight. He looks around in panic, but Eddie’s right there, emerging from the room to his left, another kid over his shoulder. Buck rushes in his direction, because even if nothing happened, that’s where he belongs – by Eddie’s side. Eddie doesn’t seem to expect him there, though.

“Buck! Wait!” he shouts, but the actual words register in Buck’s mind only several moments later. At first it's just a blur, blended together with all the other things that happen too quickly.

Buck comes to, and his head screams at him with all the sounds he just heard – Eddie’s shout, a terrible crunch coming from every side, someone’s surprised yelp, a thud that sounds like it comes from inside his own head, and then a bone-deep silence.

He lifts his head to take in his surroundings, and that’s when he realizes he’s lying on his back. The fire still roars around, but that’s not the sound that Buck hopes to regain. It’s not enough.

“Eddie?” he tries, but it's just a weak croak, muffled even more by the mask that got crooked over his face with the fall.

A response comes in the form of a groan by his side. Buck turns this way, making his own head spinning, but the face he’s met with isn’t the one he expected. It’s a kid – must be the one Eddie was carrying out – and he seems completely fine, save for the mask that slipped off his face, too. In instinct, Buck reaches to fix it, as the kid lifts himself to sitting.

The radio crackles and Buck hears Bobby’s short but more worried, “Buck, Eddie, status?”

Buck forces himself to get up, too, and reaches to his shoulder to answer, but he notices the way the kid's eyes stop over one point in front of him, and it makes Buck freeze, too. There’s a hole in the floor – not even a hole anymore, just a big part of the pavement is gone – right where Buck was standing just seconds ago.

No.

“Eddie!”

He must’ve pushed Buck and the kid out of the dangerous zone. Buck’s head turns around panickedly, searching for signs that somehow Eddie managed to stay on this floor, too.

With his hand still on the button of the radio, Buck scrambles off the floor in graceless movements, his head spinning. He’s nearing the side of the hole, and barely pays any mind to the way the floor sags under him, as if it was ready to give out once more. No, no, no, chants in his head, and he’s not sure he’s not saying it out loud. He pears down, and squints under the intensity of the light from all the fire – it’s much worse in the basement, no wonder the floor gave up. When his eyes get more used to the brightness, he can see another shape in between. It’s contrastingly still against the ever moving and ever growing flames.

“Eddie!” he yells, when he realizes what he’s looking at.

No reaction. The shape doesn’t even budge, not one weak attempt at moving.

Buck blinks rapidly to get rid of the spots dancing in front of his sight, either from the way he’s staring right into the flames or from the fall that still keeps his head spinning. Every detail he manages to make out only deepens the pit in his stomach, and raises the knot in his throat, and fills up his mind with cotton, because as much as he sees, he refuses to process.

Eddie’s lying on his back, his helmet crooked almost off his head. His right arm is bowed at an angle that brings acid to Buck’s mouth, while his right leg seems a little too straight. In the glowy darkness Buck can’t spot any blood, but that doesn’t manage to calm him down.

“Buck!” Another crackle from the radio. “What’s happening there?”

Buck’s head snaps back and forth in between the bottom of the basement, and the kid he left where they landed, as he tries to catch his breath.

“We got another kid,” he says at last. “He’s fine. But Eddie–, Eddie–”

Every next attempt at forming a sentence gets choked into a sob.

“Buck! Get the kid out. We’ll take care of Eddie.” Bobby’s voice is stern, and Buck feels angry at him for that. Or maybe at himself, for not being able to voice out the weight of what happened.

“I can’t leave!” he shouts back, but it’s sounding more and more like wailing. “I could get down there–”

“Buck, I’m not asking.”

“He’s–” A choked hiccup interrupts him. “He’s not moving!”

“Buck, get the hell out there, right now.” Bobby’s voice becomes rushed, more and more worry coming out. “You can’t help him.”

Another helpless glance down the hole, another broken scream of, “Eddie!”, another lack of reaction, another round of stabbings through Buck’s heart.

“Buck!” He tries to tune out Bobby’s shouts, to focus and find a way to fix it. Until something breaks through, “...your location?”

His head snaps around. He doesn’t even remember where he is, how he got there. He tries to take a deep breath, but the panic in his throat forbids him.

“What’s your location, Buck?”

“First floor… near the staircase,” he says at last, chokes out. Then he remembers the more important part. “Eddie’s down there. In the– In the basement.” He swallows down another sob. “More to the Bravo side.”

“We’ll get him,” Bobby assures, but his voice is still orderly. “You get the kid and let us take care of Eddie.”

Buck listens, but refuses to answer, letting go of the radio. He looks down the basement again, desperately searching for any signs of movements. The flames are closing in, and their shadows create millions of illusions, but Buck swears that he catches something. A nudge, just the smallest motion, but it only makes him stare harder. He doesn’t let himself blink anymore, even though his vision is blurred, and the mask in front of his eyes is covered with ash.

“Eddie!” he tries again, because he doesn’t know any other words at the moment. There it is again. A minimal twitch of Eddie’s left arm. He’s there. He’s still there. Hanging on. He’s alive. “Eddie!”

And then there are vice-grips on his shoulders, and suddenly he doesn’t see Eddie anymore. Buck screams – at least tries to, it comes out more like a weak wail.

“Come on, Buck,” someone says over his head, and deep down he knows the voice, but doesn’t feel like acknowledging it. That’d mean admitting a defeat, letting himself get dragged away, and knowing that it is, in fact, for his own good. But his own good isn’t that important right now.

He needs to keep his eyes on Eddie, to count each of his moves until it’s not breaths. Every second he spends not seeing him stabs his heart with guilt again and again, as if it was the immediate source of everything that happened.

He claws at the hands on his shoulder, but he’s basically cushioned with his gloves. He still wriggles, because he’s not leaving, and desperately tries to come back to the edge of a make-shift cliff. He needs to see Eddie, he needs to help him, needs to keep him awake. He needs to make sure Eddie’s gonna be okay. He needs Eddie to be okay.

Oh God. How much Buck needs Eddie.

The words come back to him again, and he starts trembling violently with all the sobs wracking through his body, because he doesn’t have enough strength to hold them back anymore.

He collapses to his knees, no fight left in him. Bobby’s there for him, as expected, but it’s not enough. “Hen and Chim’ll get him,” Bobby says, but it’s not enough. “He’s in good hands,” he says, but none of this is enough. Buck wants to scream until he can’t breathe anymore, rip his own heart out because he’d rather not feel anything than feel it all.

The feeling of guilt overcomes him so quickly that he thinks he doesn’t feel his legs anymore – everything becomes so numb, so indifferent, and so helpless as soon as Eddie’s out of his sight. He’s so far away, down there, dying, and Buck can’t do anything, can’t fix it, can’t tell him that those shouldn’t be the last words he said to him.

Because the guilt has three arms and each hand squeezes his throat tighter and tighter: the first one, the one he could still breathe through, carries the weight of his words, the constant cacophony of I don’t need you, reminding about its memory in the worst moments; the next one that had him desperately gasping for air comes with the burden he always bears – helplessness, inability to simply… fix it – and it only gets heavier when it involves that one person he never wanted to let down, the back that he was supposed to have.

The third hand, the final and fatal grip that not only takes away his breath, but also all the will to fight for it, is the thought of all the reasons behind the accident lying on his shoulders – if it wasn’t for Buck and his words and the energy he’s been emitting those past days, Eddie wouldn’t go alone; if it wasn’t for Buck’s distraction, Eddie wouldn’t need to sweep him away from the collapsing floor. If it wasn’t for Buck, Eddie wouldn’t be dying right now.

“Come on, come on. I got him!” Hen’s voice breaks through the cotton in his ears, though she’s still mostly muffled.

As Buck regains some of the feeling in his body, he realizes he’s even further away from the scene now. He didn’t realize when Bobby started dragging him down the stairs. He tries to trash again, but he’s still mostly numb, and it finishes at a mere tilt of his head and a nudge into Bobby’s shoulder.

He hears words, but doesn’t catch their meaning, everything blurs together until he’s out of the suffocating building. It doesn’t ease his breath, though, maybe even makes it all worse, but when Bobby lets go of him, Buck gives up another attempt to return inside. He leans heavily against the fire engine and peels off his helmet and the oxygen mask, as if he could erase the last hour all together with his gear. He notices his hands are still trembling by the way his helmet slips out and tumbles to the pavement. Buck doesn’t make a move to collect it, lets it lay on the soaked ground – it’s not like he needs it now.

There are so many voices around, so much noise coming from the people oblivious to the tragedy unfolding just meters away from them. The urge to yell out, to shut the whole world up, gnaws at the back of Buck’s head again, but his throat itches at the mere thought – an aftermath of all the sobs and screams that already passed through him tonight.

He looks around, searching somewhere to place his helpless anger. But wherever he turns, besides the first responders, there are only bunches of kids – most of them still stressed out, but a lot of them seem already relieved, like after an exciting adventure, because none of their worlds ended tonight.

None of them will care if one of the firefighters died in their school, they probably won’t even know unless any of them purposefully seeks that information. Barely a few must’ve noticed how many of them entered the building, but after all that time no one will pay attention to the way there’s one less leaving – at least, by his own bootstraps. Not really remarkable faces – theirs behind the heavy oxygen masks. They are used to seeing one another like that enough to just recognize each of their teammates by the mannerism, by their steps or by the different ways their gear lies on their forms. For outsiders to differentiate one firefighter in a full gear from another firefighter in a full gear it’d take at least a longer moment close enough to memorize the look in the eyes behind the mask.

The thought hits Buck like another shove to his chest. The two kids they’ve gone to carry out of the building.

Buck looks around once again, this time searching for a triage zone or an ambulance that could house their two rescues. The first one must be fine, he carried him out himself, made sure he got the best care in the form of Hen’s hands. Buck has no idea what happened with the other one – doesn’t know if and how and who took him, saved him when Buck was busy letting one person after another.

He couldn’t care less about the boy while they were still inside, so close to where Eddie was lying and bleeding out, wobbling in between the consciousness and the lack of it. But now– Now, Buck feels dread at the idea that the kid may not be perfectly alright. Not only would he be the second person coming into account of who Eddie saved while sacrificing himself, but also he can become the second person that Buck’s actions kill tonight.

Buck’s knees shake under him as he paces through the narrow spaces in between next engines and trucks and ambulances, until he spots the familiar face near a truck with number 133 stuck on its side. There’s a paramedic in front of the kid, but otherwise he seems fine, his face and curls covered in ashes, a mask helping him regain his breath, but he sits upright, and there’s no bandages visible beside one wrap around his wrist. It may be a result of their joint fall to the floor after Eddie’s shove, Buck thinks, as he observes the paramedic’s last touches and a ruffle she gives to the kid’s hair.

Only when she leaves the boy alone, does he look up from his knees high enough to spot Buck standing nearby, leaning on the side of another ambulance. The kid’s eyes widen in recognition, and Buck can’t decide if it’s the better or the worse option.

“Hi,” he offers, and winces at the tremble in his own voice. “How you feeling?”

The kid presses his lips together in a shadow of a smile. “I’m fine,” he says, and nods his head, beckoning Buck to come closer. When Buck takes a few steps in his direction, the kid asks, “Will he be okay? Your… friend?”

Buck looks away, because his eyes haven’t fully dried yet and they’re starting to sting again.

“Yeah,” he tries to say, but it comes out so croaky that it’s barely a word anymore. He clears his throat. “Yeah. He will be. He’s strong.”

It’s wishful thinking, a manifestation, but Buck’s not going to drop his own horrors on a kid’s head. He doesn’t need to know, he'll forget about it in a week.

“That’s good.” The kid nods, but the edge in his voice tells Buck that he doesn’t fully believe him. “I wouldn’t want to be the reason for… um, you know.”

Buck’s head snaps back up to the kid’s face, to the way his eyes jump from place to place and he wrings his hands in nervous motions. To see guilt overcoming such a young soul, it squeezes at Buck’s heart, because not only does he know how it feels, but also he personally knows how misplaced it is right now.

“It’s not your fault,” he assures quickly, and finds steadiness in his voice for the first time in a while. “None of this is. It’s our job. Whatever stupid thing you’d get yourself into, we’re supposed to save you. The prize doesn’t always matter.”

“But you are blaming yourself,” the kid points out. It catches Buck by his throat. He wasn't really trying too hard to act nonchalant, but he’s also not really used to being perceived so closely by people he doesn’t know.

“It’s not the same,” and his voice shakes again. “I'm another firefighter. I should be saving, too. Not be saved.”

Next words today that Buck regrets as soon as they leave his mouth. He was supposed to not trauma dump the kid that just survived a school fire of this size.

“Sorry,” he reflects quickly, taking a step back. “It’ll be alright. He'll be fine. Everything’s fine.”

The kid just looks at him – through him, even – with a little pout. The weight of being perceived – Buck realizes what it reminds him about. It makes him think of Chris, of the last time a kid looked at him so thoughtfully and knew what Buck was feeling even better than Buck did. Half a year since the last time he witnessed that.

And as soon as he thinks about Chris, he can’t hold his thoughts away from Eddie for much longer. For a moment Buck almost forgot – forced himself to forget about everything that’s going on just a couple steps away from where he’s standing.

Another reminder arrives as if summoned; the ever present shouts intensify, getting closer and more urgent. Somewhere along the orders and information, Buck catches his own name, recognizes the familiar voices.

“It’ll be okay,” the kid says, noticing the way Buck’s whole body turned at the sound of hope. Buck hates the way he made a kid worry about him, cheering him up, but it’s too late to argue. So he only nods stiffly, and in the next second he’s already two engines away.

It takes him mere moments to spot the red of Bobby’s helmet, and Buck follows it like an anchor. There’s no way he’s leaving Eddie’s side if they got him out, so that’s Buck’s best trace. He stumbles over his own feet once or twice or even more, bouncing off the trucks, before he reaches the open space in front of the school. Since they were the first firehouse to answer the call, that’s where their ambulance is parked. And that’s where Buck’s eyes get easily directed to end up on the gurney being loaded through the back door.

“Buck!” Chimney waves to him as soon as his hands are free, in case Buck hasn’t spotted them yet. As if Buck’s soul wasn’t drawn automatically to the feeling of Eddie.

He runs that way, and jumps into the ambulance before they can even invite him inside. The door closes behind him, and they start off to the hospital, but none of that bothers Buck. His eyes, his hands, his all thoughts are on Eddie as soon as they’re allowed.

“Eddie,” he calls out, and for the first time in a while it’s not a broken scream. It’s a defeated sigh of relief; a prayer scratched from the sides of his throat.

His eyes are open – Eddie’s eyes are open, and he’s looking at Buck, though a little bleary, glassy, unfocused.

“Buck,” he breathes, and Buck stops breathing in return. The c-collar limits Eddie’s movements about as much as the pain in his whole body does, but with the motion of his eyes he basically turns fully in Buck’s direction. As if there was no one else in the world. “You… alright?”

There’s a faint gurgling at the back of his voice, and Buck doesn’t need to be a medical expert to know it’s not good. But it’s still Eddie’s voice, and Buck’s shoulders ease a bit, sore from tensing for hours now, and he almost chuckles at the ridiculous question. He squeezes Eddie’s hand, moves a bit closer on the bench.

“One to be asking,” he says, twisting his lips in something that could be a smile, if he wasn’t seeing the state Eddie’s in right now. “I think there’s a line of people who’d kill me if I weren’t alright after what you pulled out there.”

Eddie laughs at that – tries to, really – it’s just a cough, so violent that it startles Buck, almost raising him to his feet. He doesn’t manage to stand, though, falling right back onto the bench as soon as his knees buckle. Eddie seems to move on fine, lying still again, his eyes a constant weight on Buck’s face.

“How is he, actually?” Buck looks up at Hen, who’s sitting on the other side of Eddie.

Hen drops her gaze to the vial in her hand. “I’ll tell you later,” she says, making Buck’s eyebrows knit together. It’s not really a subtle way of saying it’s bad. “Don’t want him to have to listen to it once again.”

Eddie huffs out something akin to an irritated sigh, if it wasn’t for his significant trouble with breathing. “You forgetting… I work with you?” he tries to joke, and Buck swears the gurgling got worse. “I hear stuff like– that… all the– time.”

Every pause in his words catches Buck by his throat, barely holding him back from yelling at him to stop talking so much, if it’s that exhausting.

“Man, stop talking,” Chimney beats him to it, and Buck’s gaze rises to the other worried face sitting opposite him. He doesn’t get to ask once again, before he spots a sudden change in Chimney’s expression, making Buck’s eyes snap back to Eddie’s face.

“Eddie?”

Eddie doesn’t look at him anymore, his gaze, glassier now, is fixed on the ceiling of the ambulance. It lasts for a split second – a time just enough for Buck to call out his name once more – before his eyes roll to the back of his head, and his eyelids slip shut.

“Eddie!”

The lifepak screeches, exploding in Buck’s ears, aggressive beeping falling somewhere in between the shouts of three still breathing people in the back of the ambulance.

“BP’s dropping!”

“He’s in shock.”

“A norepinephrine line!”

The lifepak beeps once more and flatlines.

“Wait, he’s coding!”

“Pass me the other bag.”

“Starting compressions!”

“How far to the hospital?!”

Buck doesn’t even know which voice is his anymore. There are words, there are sounds, there are orders, and numbers that’s either too low or too long for him to believe in.

“Eddie!”

“Come on, Eddie, come on.”

“The puncture to the lung must be bigger than we thought,” Chimney says, and he sounds like he regrets saying the words right away.

Hen doesn’t give up the compressions for a moment longer, before Chimney changes her.

Buck watches the scene as if he was behind a glass wall. He yells to the driver for another confirmation of time, but barely registers the answer. He doesn’t look away from Eddie, from the lifeless face lying right by his knees – he did twice and it never ended well. He can’t risk anything more. His hand is still tangled in Eddie’s, the only difference being the lack of strength on the other end. Doesn’t matter, Buck doesn’t let go. He repeats Eddie’s name without noticing, quieter, knowing that Eddie won’t hear him anyway. But he doesn’t stop, because there’s still so much he was supposed to say to him.

“You need to hang on, okay?” he says to Eddie’s closed eyes, to his limp face that’s still free of the tube. His voice is steady, he’s performing. “I need you to hang on.”

He wants to cradle Eddie’s hand closer to his face, but in the last strings of clear mind he remembers the way his arm looked when he fell. Buck probably shouldn’t even be holding it right now, but he can’t bring himself to let go – what if once he does, Eddie shatters into so many pieces that Buck’s arms will never be enough to gather them all? Eddie won’t die because of a broken arm. He might hate him later, when it’ll have trouble setting, but Buck’ll take it. He’ll take whatever if it means Eddie being alive. If it means another chance to say the proper words for the goodbye.

It takes them long, long minutes to reach the hospital.

Eddie’s pulse is back, but it doesn’t change much. Hen and Chim stand up first to roll the gurney out, and Buck can only sit back, and watch how Eddie’s hand slips out of his. He knows he can’t go any further, so he can just stay here as well. Not standing will do good for his trembling limbs, and for the way his head keeps spinning with his world being tilted to one side then the other by rotation.

He hears the hospital personnel meeting them halfway, hears singular words out of the injuries Hen lists for the doctors to work with. Each one stabs him and turns the knife of guilt in his heart.

“... lung contusion and puncture… liver rupture… extensive internal bleeding… hypovolemic shock…”

Buck closes his eyes, because there’s nothing left for him to do. He’s useless once again. He hears a thump resonating through his skull when he leans his head heavily against the wall behind him. He does it once again, using even more force, because the feeling reminds him of something, and the sound manages to silence all his thoughts for a moment. Then once more, because it quickly becomes addictive.

“You okay?”

Buck doesn’t open his eyes, hearing Hen’s voice. There’s a genuine question in her tone, as if she expected an honest answer.

“I'm fine,” he says, and can’t tell himself if it's more an attempt to convince her or a sarcastic snort.

The ambulance tilts slightly, when she gets inside.

“No, I know,” she says, sitting by his side. “I see how great you’re doing mentally. I meant, if you got any injuries out there, too.”

At last, Buck opens his eyes to look her in the face. If he looks close enough, he notices the way her gaze shakes, too. He doesn’t comment on that.

“No, nothing,” he shrugs, light. It’s still a performance. “He, uh– Eddie pushed me off the way. Otherwise, we'd– we’d both end up–”

Something in the way he says all those words seems to still not satisfy Hen’s worry. Instead, it wrinkles her forehead, and her expression cuts Buck off. He watches as her gaze jumps from one of his eyes to the other and back, and once more.

She reaches to the pocket in her turnout. “Can I?”

The question doesn’t make sense in Buck’s mind, until he spots a little flashlight in Hen’s hand. He doesn’t answer, but lifts his chin obediently.

“You know what day it is?” she asks casually, like an attempt in distraction from the beam in front of his eyes.

“March 6th,” he says quickly, because he knows it’ll calm her down. He realizes his mistake as soon as she raises an eyebrow at him. “7th,” he corrects hurriedly, shaking his head. “Didn’t get to check the calendar today yet.”

Hen smiles at that and drops the flashlight. “Still, they should check you.”

“Not like I planned to leave the hospital today anyway.”

Hen responds by putting her hand on his shoulder and silently staring into his eyes until she finds something to feel sure enough to let go of him. She nods, and Buck returns the gesture, sending his head spinning.

“Call us if anything happens,” she says as she helps him out of the ambulance. It’s a loaded request. If anything happens with you; if anything happens with Eddie; if nothing happens; if the worst happens; either way Buck will be the wielder of the bad news. “We’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Sure,” he murmurs, and heads straight for the hospital door. Hen accompanies him this far, but when he’s inside, out of her earshot, he doesn’t bother to inform the approached nurse of his potential injuries. Instead he asks her for the direction where they took Eddie and how much time would it take for them to… know.

“This type of surgery usually lasts at least 90 minutes,” she says with all the composure in the world. As if the mere second in Buck’s presence were enough for her to pick up at his uneasiness. “But it can take up to three hours, and it still may be nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, thank you,” he says as he’s already turning around.

He takes the seat as close to the indicated surgery room as possible, not a chance for any change to go unnoticed.

He thinks about them again – about the words, about the lies.

The lines of the needs and wants blurred a while ago, but now they’re coming clear into his vision, lightning up with different colors. What he wants is for his conscience to quiet down. What he needs is for Eddie to be alright, even if angry at him.

The sentence bouncing off the inside of his skull makes him wonder further down. Did his words even touch Eddie? Was he bothered by the indication of not being needed or did Buck just channel his own deep fears into an attempt of hurting someone else? Because, if Buck was to hear that someone didn’t need him, either, it would be one of those things only the closest and the meanest people could say to him. Was it the same for Eddie? Or was he relieved to hear that Buck was ready to let him go? Maybe he’s been waiting for the moment Buck becomes independent enough to leave him. No ties here, right?

Eddie doesn’t need him, that’s a fact. No one ever needs him. Probably Eddie’d be even better without him. He wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now. But the realization doesn’t make it any easier to let Eddie go. Because it’s Buck who needs him like life-support equipment, and he’s still not ready to breathe on his own.

He needs Eddie to wake up, to tell him that he didn’t mean any of this. Even if it doesn’t change a thing.

His eyes don’t stray from the door Eddie has disappeared behind, because even now he’s not letting him out of his sight, at least as far as he’s allowed. He’d enter the surgery room if that was possible, watch every movement of the doctors’ hands to make sure they’re doing everything they can. He’d help them if he could, lend his hands or his blood, or his lungs if that was necessary.

A warm paper cup of coffee nudges his hand where it embraces his own head, covering his ears, tuning out the world. He lets go and looks up to meet Athena’s soft gaze.

“I heard what happened,” she says, taking a seat by his side. He takes the cup from her, but doesn’t make a move to drink it. Instead he wonders how much time has passed. “How are you holding up?”

By now, Buck knows no one expects an honest answer from him. Everyone knows how he’s holding up. Terribly.

“Could be worse,” he mumbles, staring into the rim of a faint foam on his coffee.

Athena puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s warm from the cups she’s been holding. “He’s strong,” she says, as if Buck didn’t know that.

“I know,” he says, holding back a scowl. “If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have managed to push me out the way.”

Athena’s hand moves on his shoulder, a soothing attempt, but Buck’s too numb to appreciate it.

“It’s not your fault, you know?”

Buck wants to laugh, because there is no scenario, no explanation where he’s not at fault. His throat constricts around the chuckle anyway.

Avoiding another lie, he takes the cup to his lips. The coffee is too sweet, the way only unsweetened coffees from the vending machines can be.

“Do you know when they’ll get here?” he asks after a moment that it takes to swallow down around the heart in his throat.

“They’re wrapping up the school,” Athena says, ready for this question. Then it couldn’t be that long since he sat down here, and started waiting for the information that the end of the world was a false alarm. Maybe an hour, maybe half. “Should be here soon.”

Buck only nods with a hum that never manages to leave his mouth. They stay in silence from then and Buck feels the urge to cover his ears again, because they’re ringing with the sounds of wood snapping, breaking, so similar to bones.

In the next minutes the hospital hall gets filled with the incoming people. It’s Bobby first, the rest of 118 following close behind him. He greets Athena, then takes the seat on the other side of Buck, grabs his shoulder in such a similar way, and asks another meaningless, “How you doing?” Buck just shakes his head in response.

The three others sit on the chairs opposite to him, four eyes staying on his face, while Hen’s wander to the door of the surgery room.

“How long has it been?” she asks.

It takes Buck a long moment to realize he’s supposed to have an answer.

“No idea,” he says, not sparring one glance at the clock. The conversation dies with that.

The next to arrive is Maddie. When spotted, Athena gives up her seat to make a room for her, and asks for more orders of coffee. Buck stays silent, there’s still something swimming in the bottom of his cup.

Maddie doesn’t ask him how he’s doing. Maddie cradles him into a hug instead, a tight fit, sitting in the low hospital chairs, but Buck returns it anyway. There are no words, just gentle pats on the back, and even breaths beside his ear and a familiar smell that’s not ash that manage to finally calm him down.

“He was supposed to leave for El Paso in two days,” he mumbles over her shoulder after a moment, and for the first time today he’s confident enough that his voice won’t break. “How’s he gonna recover till then?”

He can feel Maddie’s smile in the way her jaw moves where she’s propped against his shoulder. “He’ll have to wait a bit more then.”

“Wait.” He leans away to look at her, then at the other faces in the room. “I don’t know if Chris knows he’s moving. Do you think we should tell him? Maybe I should call him.”

Chimney puts his hand on Buck’s shoulder right beside Maddie’s, a calming attempt. “I think we should see what doctors have to say first.”

Buck has already started to doubt that the door can be moved at all, but now, as if summoned, it opens to reveal two nurses leaving, followed by the doctor. Buck almost jumps to his feet, but Maddie’s arms prevent him from it.

“The surgery was a success,” the doctor announces, not a second of hesitation. Buck is ready to burst. “We managed to suture both the liver and the lung, but he lost a lot of blood. He’s still unconscious and it might take a while for him to be able to breathe on his own. For now it looks really promising.”

“Can we see him now?” Hen asks, because Buck has his heart beating inside his throat.

The doctor presses his lips together in a face that could resemble a smile, if it wasn’t for the reserve in his eyes.

“Won’t be necessarily a nice sight,” he says, and Buck can’t tell if he’s joking. As if Eddie with his chest raising evenly in breathing wasn’t the most beautiful sight that Buck could’ve dreamed of. “You can go, but one person at a time, and not too long.”

Buck feels several pairs of eyes on himself, even before he hears Hen’s beckoning, “You should go first.” He looks to her, making sure, but she’s already nodding him to the open door behind the doctor’s back.

He answers with a sigh, because there’s no sounds left in his throat, no words in his mind. The only thing he still has is hope. And the need.

His steps towards the room are so slow that they’re almost wobbly, his knees shaking at the thought that he’s not ready at all to see what’s behind the door. There's a passing idea in his mind that it’s all a sick joke the doctor’s playing on him – saying that it’s better, while what awaits Buck is a black bag covering a lifeless body on a table.

He wants to shake his head at this thought, but it’s still spinning on its own, so he forgoes putting any more vibrations to it.

Entering the room, he closes the door behind himself carefully, softly, as if the click could wake Eddie up. It gives him an additional second of avoiding looking in the direction where he supposes the bed stands.

When Buck turns around, he nearly collapses to the floor.

Eddie’s here, lying, barely moving, but his chest is rising, and Buck doesn’t even care that it’s because of the ventilator. It’s still much more than he had two hours ago.

He approaches the bed, one step at a time, as if a stumble could erase the fantasy, wiping it from in front of his eyes.

Eddie’s pale as a ghost, but he’s here. The tube covers half his face, but there is no world where it could stop Buck from recognizing him. The machine he’s connected to beeps regularly and it’s a music to Buck’s ears.

He doesn’t drag a chair close, opts for a spot by the wall instead, keeping his distance. His back leans over some cabinet and he just looks. Stares at Eddie, at the constant move of his chest, all the words fleeting his mind at the sight. There’s nothing to say now, he realizes, as nothing really matters in the face of a possible death.

Buck doesn’t even realize when the tears start rolling down his cheeks, but he does nothing to stop them. They’re not sad, rather relieved, a whole load of emotions he bore for days now spilling out of him, because it ran out of the space to take. His sight blears, but his gaze doesn’t leave Eddie.

“I think you can hear me, that’s why I don’t want to say too much,” he says at last, his voice shaking and quiet.

His only answer remains in the form of steady beeping.

“I still have a proper goodbye to say,” he adds, leaning closer, sharing a secret. “That’s not the way we were supposed to part.”

Buck takes a deep breath to tune the beeps out for a second. The tears gathering in his throat refract his voice.

“That’s not the way our friendship was supposed to end.”

The sentence gets finished by an ugly, choked out sob, and Buck needs to brace himself against the cabinet so as not to fall to his knees with its force.

“I always thought I’d–,” he continues through the tears, because he’s already talking, so he might as well spill his whole heart out. Eddie might need one. “I’d be the one to end it, but not this way. I–”

The next words die on his tongue as a screech tunes out all the other sounds in the room, and the machine starts beeping rapidly before it flatlines. Buck’s eyes widen in panic, as he scrambles up, unsure what to do. He looks around, as if he could bring Eddie’s life back with his own hands, but nurses come in right away, the alarm alerting probably many more people. He’s shoved away to make room for them to work – it’s just a careful tap, but his knees are too wobbly, and his head is too spinning, and the panic is coursing through him too fast.

He sees several hands, he sees machines that he usually knows the meaning of, but now they’re nothing to him. He has no idea what is going on. They said the surgery went well, so what happened now? Is it his fault again?

There are words, but they stopped making sense to him, too. Any condition, any order, any medicine that he hears about – it’s just gibberish in his cotton-filled ears.

Then they’re leaving, taking Eddie away from him, again. He tries to reach out, but he’s out of control over his body; he’s standing somewhere by its side, watching himself, not even seeing.

He’s standing there for a moment longer, because he doesn’t know what to do. He has nowhere to be at the moment, his words swim in his mind again, and he doesn’t know which ones he said out loud and which he only thought about.

Chimney comes to collect him after a long moment – the potential ruckus of seeing Eddie being wheeled out of the room must’ve distracted the rest for long enough to forget where Buck was supposed to be. He kind of didn’t care, either, anyway.

“They said his lung bursted out again and he needs another operation,” Chimney tells him, and Buck doesn’t bother to react. Everything’s the same.

When he returns to the waiting room, he plops down back to the exact same chair as if he assigned it to himself by today. Before he can hide his face back into his hands, he notices – more than minutes ago – the weight of the worried stares at him.

“It’s gonna take hours again,” Chimney says from where he’s been following him since they left Eddie’s room. Buck squints at him, too shaken to understand the implication. “You should go home and rest. Take a shower and some aspirin. We’ll call you when we know anything.”

Buck’s first instinct is to fight, but he can’t find any words, any arguments. His mind emptied completely as soon as his vicinity got emptied of Eddie’s presence. He just sits in silence, staring Chimney in the eyes, as if it could be enough to convince him to change his mind. But Chim is as insistent, and not saying a word, he makes a statement that the order is final and not up for discussion. Still, his gaze is more soft than stern, and Buck doesn’t want to upset people that are all basically in the same situation he is.

“Yeah, right.” He stands up, but halts as if unsure what should be his next step.

“I’ll give you a lift,” Athena proposes, and as if sensing that he wants to refuse, she adds, “I have to go back to work anyway.”

Buck nods, and hopes there’s some gratitude visible in the tight gesture.

The drive passes in silence and numbness, and Buck barely notices when he’s in front of his loft’s door. Athena accompanies him long enough to make sure he enters inside, but that’s when she deems it safe to leave him alone, ordering one last reminder to call anyone if something’s wrong.

Buck thanks her, closes the door behind her and heads for the shower, taking his time to make sure she’s gone. He does the bare minimum of changing, because the tired working clothes have become quite uncomfortable in the course of the day, and he’s ready to leave again. His car is still at the firehouse, so if he wants to get anywhere, he’ll have to walk, but that doesn’t stop him.

As soon as he steps onto the sidewalk, he hears a grunt behind himself and recognizes it easily.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

He turns on his heel, meeting Hen with her arms crossed and the scolding look on her face.

“I wanted to, uh, do something useful.” His eyes stray everywhere, not to meet hers. He’s not even surprised by being caught. Nothing goes his way today. “I was supposed to help Eddie pack and, um, now he doesn’t really have that in mind, I guess, so I thought I’d start for him. So he doesn’t come back to that mess.”

Hen eyes him carefully, weighting the possibilities of his truthful words, before she nods.

“Okay,” she says and gestures to the car parked nearby. “Get in. We won’t walk all that way.”

Buck doesn’t bother protesting, he might make use of drive as well.

His fingers are thrumming against his knee, but he can last only this long in thought-filled silence. “How’d you know?” he asks, staring through the windshield. “To go check on me?”

“Because I know you,” she replies, not looking at him, either, giving him the chance to grimace as much as he wants. “And Athena called to say that you definitely didn’t look like you’re ready to sit idly.”

Buck just sighs at that, and props his elbow against the window, to lean his chin over his hand. It’s not a long drive from his loft, and they’re at Eddie’s door in no time. Hen doesn’t question why and for how long he has keys to it, she just follows him in silence, emanating with worry, but Buck tries his best to ignore it.

Eddie’s house smells familiar, and Buck stops in his tracks as if he got hit with it. He kind of expects Hen to bump into him at the sudden change of tempo, but she must’ve foreseen Buck’s reaction faster.

“I'll go start in the bedroom,” he says, voice stiff and low. Hen nods her acknowledgement and motions herself to Eddie’s kitchen, offering to make them both coffee that's actually drinkable.

Buck realizes his mistake as soon as he steps inside Eddie’s room. If Eddie’s presence – or the lack of it – was prominent in the hall, it’s thousands times worse here. Everything smells like Eddie, and everything looks like Eddie, and it's easy to tell that Eddie left the room in a hurry this morning, with no idea that he could never return.

Buck’s attempts to do anything get cut short quickly. He basically bounces off the wardrobes and the walls, lost within the space empty of Eddie. He’s in everything, he’s everywhere, yet there’s not enough of him to satiate Buck’s conscience. There are shattered parts of Eddie in every corner of his room, of his house, but there is no Eddie here anymore, and he might never be again.

A strangled noise, something between a whine and a scream, wracks through his whole body, seizing his muscles, taking away his breath, and Buck doesn’t even realize he’s falling until his knees meet harshly with the floor. His hand clutches at his chest, as if it could ease the pain, but he doesn’t suppress any sounds anymore. He lets the tears flow freely while his body trembles with sobs, the hard floor digging into his knees, his wrist hurting with the grip he has on his own hoodie.

He stays like this for long moments, counted by the sharp and shaky breaths, maybe even for hours, but he can’t seem to be calming down. He’s hanging in some sphere in between the worlds, time slowing and picking up the pace again, everything around shaking with each of his heartbeat, until he senses a comforting hand put carefully on his shoulder.

He barely notices it at first, but a grounding grip brings him slowly back to the present, to the place that’s never going to be the same.

He looks up at Hen, even though he can’t really see her through the glass in his eyes. He knows the face she probably makes at him right now, and he’s kind of glad he doesn’t experience it fully. He can’t bear any more pity for today.

“Any news– from the hospital?” he asks – tries to, really, but there’s no word his voice doesn’t break on.

“No. He’s probably still in surgery.” Hen shakes her head and takes her hand off his shoulder, but before Buck can float away again, she reaches it out to him, an offer of help. “We can go back, though. If that’s what you want.”

Buck stays silent for another moment, his breath still sped up from crying. Does it really matter what he wants right now? Does he even know that?

“Not really,” he answers at last.

“We can stay here, too,” she offers then, grabbing the hand he let go of his heart with. “You don’t need to do all that. Eddie won’t be angry at you for it.”

The mention of his name in Hen’s soft voice squeezes Buck’s heart again, physical pain bursting in the middle of his chest. He stops breathing for another second.

“I think–” he chokes out eventually, grabs Hen’s hand for leverage. “I should’ve stayed at mine.”

Hen helps him to his feet, and smiles faintly as her eyes sweep his face. “Then we go to yours. Come on.”

The colors and sounds of the world are still a blur around Buck. The only thing he recognizes is the touch of Eddie’s house’s keys in his palm as he hands them to Hen, because he’s shaking too much to lock the door properly; and then minutes later, a sound of Hen’s words as someone calls her while they’re riding to his loft. He knows she wouldn’t even bother picking it up if it wasn’t from the hospital, and his hearing focuses a little better at the thought. He still can’t hear what the person on the other side is saying, but the reactions he spots on Hen’s face are enough to know it’s breaking news. Not sure yet if good or bad, but that’s something. Something to distract him, push him a little further through.

As soon as Hen hangs up, she changes the lane and takes an U-turn, heading in the hospital’s direction.

“He’s out of surgery,” she announces shortly, and Buck doesn’t need any more details for now. Hen seems to know that, the rest of the drive passing in tense silence between the two of them.

When they enter the waiting room, almost everyone’s standing in alerted stances, bad news written clearly on their faces. Buck runs a hand over his cheeks, remembering the emotional state he left Eddie’s house in, something he wouldn’t want the rest to see on him.

The doctor’s among them, centre of the makeshift, boxy circle. Faces turn at their sight, and they make room for two more corners in the ring. Bobby gestures to the doctor to repeat what they all probably already heard. Buck’s heartbeat is inside his ears.

“We managed to stop the bleeding again,” he starts explaining. “But he went into cardiac arrest, and his heart wasn’t beating for almost five minutes, before we restored it. We had to put him in a coma, because with so many organs trying to heal themselves at the same time, it seemed to be too much activity for his brain.”

Buck doesn’t remember when he stopped breathing, but he doubts it’s necessary for him anymore. He might just curl into himself as well, tear at his hair and scream at the universe, because that’s not how it was supposed to go. It’s unfair, so unfair.

“We can see him, though.” Hen asks by his side, voicing his thoughts once again. “Right?”

“Sure.” The doctor nods. “It’s even more safe now. Less chances he’s going to get worse suddenly.”

It doesn’t sound as reassuring as he probably meant, but there are acknowledging hums seeing him off.

“Are you okay with going again?” Hen asks, and Buck realizes all eyes are on him.

He bites on the inside of his cheek, chews at it for a moment, and swallows thickly. “Someone else can go first,” he says. “I’ll just–” He sits down on the familiar, terrible hospital chair again. “I’ll wait some more.”

Chimney casts a side glance at Bobby, but they don’t say anything. Hen nods at him with her lips pressed together.

“Chim?” she asks, motioning her head to Eddie’s room.

Chimney looks between her, the door and Buck, and shakes his head. “You go first,” he says.

Hen doesn’t ask further and disappears in the room. Chimney takes a seat to Buck’s right, and puts his hand on Buck’s knee to catch his attention.

“I think you’ve been right,” he says, observing Buck’s face carefully. “You should call Christopher. Not sure how it works, but I think a coma is one of those cases that might affect his guardianship.”

Buck fiddles with the edges of his sleeves. “What am I even supposed to say to him?” he asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Chimney admits. He pats his knee. “But I know you’ll come up with something. You know him better than any of us.”

Because Eddie’s not the part of us right now, Buck thinks bitterly.

“Okay.” He nods, because he has no other choice, really. If he’s already bringing pain to everyone today, he might as well carry the bad news. “I’ll take care of that. But after I see Eddie.”

Chimney sends him a tight smile at that, and gets up to take a walk across the waiting room. When Hen returns to them, with her eyes red-rimmed and a hand sweeping at her cheeks, Chimney goes next. He has asked Buck if he’d changed his mind, but Buck keeps refusing, taking his time to process the situation and the weight of his own words, whether they’re heard or not.

But no matter how much processing he tries to do, he’s still not ready for the emotions that flood him as soon as he sees Eddie’s on the hospital bed again, with that annoying machine beeping by his side, and that stupid tube covering half his face, and that ugly cast on his right arm that unreasonably makes Buck think about the time he’s been shot.

He still refuses to come too close to the bed, holding his distance like a grudge.

Buck knows what the comas are like. He knows how important what the person hears is. Still, saying regretful words has become a habit of his after today.

“Wake up, you coward,” he says through gritted teeth. “Tell it to my face yourself if you’re tired of me.”

He’s angry; at himself mostly. The urge to kick something is strong, but he ends up repetitively tapping at his own ankle.

“You don’t have to wake up for me,” he adds. “But Chris is waiting for you. I mean, I don’t know if he is. If not then I’m… about to crash your surprise, if you don’t wake up at this very moment.”

Only steady beeping replies to him. Not one flinch on Eddie’s body.

“Alright,” Buck huffs, and wipes the tears off his face. “Your loss.”

He leaves the room with one last glance over his shoulder. If you could, he’d stay there the whole night and the next few days, bullying Eddie into waking up, but he has another important thing to do. He has to crash the surprise. Probably break a heart in the process.

As determined as he is, it takes him a full day of absentmindedly staring at his phone to gather enough courage to dial the right number. He hesitates with his finger over a green icon, and distantly remembers that he should’ve checked the time zone differences before he calls. Then he deems it a bad moment – late evening in the middle of a school week, decides to wait till the morning, and another bunch of hours passes without Buck taking a step into either of his possible directions – he’s not visiting Eddie, because he needs to call Chris, he’s not calling Chris, because Eddie’s presence keeps him distracted.

It takes him twelve more hours to become frustrated with himself enough to force himself to click the button the next time he takes the phone into his hand. He holds back his breath, counting the signals.

“Buck?” is Chris’s greeting, and the revelation that he still has his number saved catches at Buck’s heart.

“Hi, bu–”

Buck cuts himself off, when he hears loud rustling on the other side. Chris’s surprised tone gets replaced by a higher and colder one.

“Who’s this?”

It takes his tired mind a good second to place the voice to the memory, to recognize it through the phone. But as soon as he does, there are waves of countless emotions wracking right through him with every thought. They’re high and strong, and it’s only worse that Buck associates waves with Chris, too. There’s so many words he’d like to say at the moment, that they all get blocked in the passage of his throat. He considers hanging up, as if the phone burned him, as if got caught doing something wrong. His hand is already straying from his ear, but a nurse entering Eddie’s room reminds Buck who he’s doing it for. It’s not about him this time, not even that much about Eddie. It’s about Christopher.

“It’s, um,” He finally gathers enough courage, but his voice doesn’t catch up. He clears his throat. “Buck. Evan Buckley, from the LA fi– I work with Eddie.”

He lets the words linger, as if they could be enough. Helena Diaz remains silent for a long moment.

Buck opens his mouth to add something, when he finally gets a stiff, “And what do you want from our Christopher?”

He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek, and then also on his bottom lip. There’s so many emotions, so many accusations, so many words coursing through his veins and collecting at the bottom of his heart. There are things he’d rather say to Chris first, and to the devils later, but there are also things he’d rather avoid while fighting with splitting headache, grief and tears in his eyes – and one of them is arguing with Eddie’s parents.

“There’s been an accident…” he starts carefully, not really sure how she might react. Would she be angry to find out the reason behind Eddie’s injuries? Would she even care? “A bad fall,” he calls it, choosing one name among all the other words pooling in his mind. A sacrifice. A revenge of the unfairest of the gods. The utmost act of love. The collapse of the world. “He’s been, uh, through two surgeries by now, but he’s still– still breathing with the ventilator…” He squeezes his eyes tight shut, hiding from his own words, because saying them out loud makes them too real. “The doctors say there’s a chance, but– but–”

“But you still don’t know if he’ll make it,” Helena finishes the sentence for him, but it’s not what he wanted to say, and it’s not in a soft, worried tone you’d expect from a mother, and it’s not even tainted by care or even any emotion, and anger is overcoming Buck’s thoughts, his mind, the words that almost roll of his tongue, before he bites at it, too. For Chris’s sake, he puts his whole willpower into not screaming at Eddie’s mother before they get to talk.

“We’re still waiting for any news,” he opts for a safer option. His phone-less hand balls into a tight fist. “But I–”

“So what did you want from Christopher?” she interrupts, her voice sharp, as if nothing he just said mattered. “Why’d you call him first and not us?”

It almost persuades Buck to start wondering, but deep down he always knew. The reason behind most of his actions related to Eddie’s parents were etched into the bottom of his soul with every vague story he heard, and every emotion he noticed in Eddie’s eyes through the last seven years. He doesn’t need to know all the details to know the basic difference. He’d call Chris first, because he’d care.

“I just thought…” he searches for the least offensive way of saying it, but his head is spinning, his ears start ringing, and there’s still no new notice about Eddie’s state, and he might be very much dying right now, and among it all Buck’s expected to keep his calm and not scream at the woman that should care at least a bit. “It concerns him the most if– Eddie doesn’t–” He swallows around the bile in his throat. “Make it.”

“You can just text me, when you’re sure,” she says, and Buck can’t believe his ears. Maybe he’s starting to hallucinate, hear voices. “I’ll give you my number, so you don’t bother the poor kid anymore.”

Buck blinks at the wall in front of himself. What the hell is she talking about?

“You want me… to text you if Eddie’s–” Another hard swallow. Buck’s doing everything not to put those words into the universe. “Dead?”

“Wouldn’t want Christopher to overhear you,” she clarifies, as if anything could clarify whatever she means. “He’s here with us anyway. It won’t be that much of a change. He won’t even notice.”

He won’t even notice.

He won’t even, fucking, notice.

“He won’t notice?” he repeats, his voice raised more than he’d like, but the thought is pushed to the back of his mind. “That’s his dad.”

“I know,” she replies, but she doesn’t know. She has no idea. “But we need to think what’s best for Christopher. And it’ll be better if he doesn’t know.”

“If he doesn’t know?”

“Eddie wasn’t around here anyway,” she states, and everything within Buck boils. “It won’t change that much.”

“With all due respect,” he says, but it doesn’t mean anything. He just needs a moment to take a deep breath, before he says too much. “You think Eddie’s– um, death won’t change anything? For his son? Who’s still a teenager? And doesn’t have any other parents left?”

“We’re here,” she repeats like a broken record, like it was possible for Buck to forget during the last five seconds. “We’ll take care of him just fine.”

Buck tightens his grip on the phone, as if he could strangle someone through it. Before he can say something else, there’s a flash of red lighting up in his mind, a reminder, a warning. It hits him like a baseball bat to the back of his skull – the memory unvisited for so long, forgotten under the piles of other worries, shared only between two people. From which only one is still breathing on his own.

“If it comes to– that,” he says at last, not sure if Helena’s even listening anymore. “The only right way to do that is to, uh, follow Eddie’s– last will.”

With the lack of reaction on the other side Buck can only guess that Eddie’s parents were never informed about its unusualness, about the changes.

Helena’s silent for a moment, as if she’s trying to decipher a trap in Buck’s words. “Yeah, sure, we can do that, no problem,” she assures, and if it wasn’t for all the terrible circumstances, Buck’d maybe even smile. “It still doesn’t mean we should tell Christopher.”

“It kinda does.”

Helena’s irritated protest or a demand for explanation or any other words she wanted to say gets tuned out with the sudden stir of doctors and nurses entering and leaving Eddie’s room. Buck almost drops his phone, completely forgetting about anything that’s not Eddie.

“What’s going on?” he asks a nurse caught halfway to the opened door, but doesn’t get an answer.

Repetitive calls ringing basically from inside his ear remind him that he hasn’t hung up, so he calms down just for a moment longer, gathering every ounce of self-discipline his body possesses. He ignores the questions of “are you there?” and goes straight for, “Thank you for your time, but I have to go now. If you don’t want to tell Chris, I’ll do it myself, we’ll have enough time for that.”

Not wanting for her response, Buck hangs up. He knows the next words that’d come out of his mouth would be broken. He held himself together for longer than he would expect anyway – he knew how the hard conversations usually go for him, definitely not getting easier through the phone. But he prepared himself for breaking the news to Chris, not to the uncaring and indifferent and selfish and blood-boiling Helena Diaz.

He rubs at his eyes with the bases of his hands, erasing the images Helena’s words put into his mind. He feels a twinge in his left wrist he hasn’t noticed before, but he quickly lets it fall forgotten, when a doctor leaves Eddie’s room – no rush in his motions anymore. There are only two finish lines it can go if he sees a doctor this calm. Dread freezes Buck’s veins again.

The doctor looks around, as if he needed to search for people interested in what he has to say. As if it didn’t mean everyone within the hospital hall radius.

Buck’s on his feet as soon as he lets go of his phone. Hen stands up, too, while the rest straightens up in their seats.

“His heart stopped again,” the doctor starts. Buck feels his own heart mirroring the description. “But we managed to restore it. It might be a good sign, actually. We’re still checking some tests, but we may think about trying to start reducing the medication and gradually waking him up later today.”

Buck breathes. He breathes like he hasn’t breathed for the past three days at least. He feels a physical need to gasp, to gather as much oxygen into his lungs, because he forgot to do that in a while. He’s staring at the doctor, unable to react in any way, thankful for Hen who carries the conversation, asking questions, thanking or whatever. Buck doesn’t hear any of her words, the world hums around him, every light and every sound swimming, engulfing him, putting weight on his shoulders. It’s good. A good burden, a desired one. The thought of having – being able – to talk to Eddie again, to explain himself, to get scolded, screamed at, to get a proper closure, before they separate for good. It’s good.

He doesn’t even notice when he’s back on the seat, flopped across it somewhere in between Hen’s words, the weight of the world crushing him, but at least it means he’s not numb anymore.

The next hours blend together with the colors of the same faces returning to Eddie’s room. Buck’s heart grows with hope with every new person entering the room, and deflates back after they leave without any new notices for him.

It gets briefly interrupted when Buck gets a message from an unknown number, reading: it’s chris, borrowed phone from a friend. you wanted to tell me smth?

And for the first time in days, Buck lets his lips curl into a faint smile. His fingers hover over the letters for a moment, considering all the potential outcomes of today, and eventually types a simple: Not that important anymore. But you should call your dad tomorrow, if you get a moment, and comes back to watching the repetitive rotations of medical personnel.

Until the pattern’s broken. It’s late in the evening, the world behind the windows completely black and devoiding of any other sights Buck could focus on. A young nurse Buck has seen thousands of times through the last days stops as soon as she steps out of Eddie’s room, attracting the attention of everyone, and announces with a tight smile, “We’re going to try now.”

There are no more details needed, they all know what she means. They know there could be a person present during the attempt to make the experience of coming back to the world a little less foreign. They know it’s usually the people closest to the patient that get chosen, but Chris is states away, and Eddie’s parents think it wouldn’t change anything, so Buck goes.

He keeps his distance away, not to jinx the procedure with his own presence – Buck and the hospitals have been through too much together to remain gentle with each other. But when the doctor removes the tube from Eddie’s mouth, it becomes impossible for Buck to think about himself. He can’t even think to breathe, staying completely still for the next long seconds, not wanting to steal any oxygen from the room.

A moment passes, then another. Buck measures the time in rhythm of his heart pounding inside his ears. And then everything comes to a halt.

Gasp.

Beep.

Beep.

Eddie’s breathing. His heart is beating. On its own.

Buck exhales. The relief that overcomes his senses is so strong that it almost sweeps him off his feet; he needs to crouch down not to collapse.

The doctors and nurses nod in satisfaction, too, and Buck knows there’s nothing that can go wrong from now on. They run some last tests, and after a moment they leave the two of them alone in the room. This time Buck isn’t afraid to take a seat by the side of Eddie’s bed. He does it as soon as possible, as if scared that Eddie will regain consciousness in the meantime of mere seconds and will find no one to wake up to. That’s one way of making himself needed.

He sits down and his hands tingle with the way he doesn’t know what to do with them. As his mind still hasn’t really cleared up, the most reasonable decision he can come up with at the moment is to grab Eddie’s palm into his own. The outside impulses help people wake up from coma, if to believe what Buck has known. So he hesitates only a second longer, before he cradles Eddie’s limp hand into both of his, squeezes gently, rubs his thumb over its back, and enjoys the way it’s not as cold as he expected from the sight.

“You won’t want to listen to it when you’re awake, so I, uh, I’ll use those last moments of peace,” he says with a pout on his face. “And I don’t care that you disagree, and that you hear me, and that you’re gonna try to change my mind later, but I need to say it out loud: it’s my fault and I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry for everything that I said before, and for everything that I’ve done that brought us here, and for the way I made everyone worry about me when it should be all about you, and for being so scared that I couldn’t call Christopher, and for the way that I fought with your mother, because what the hell did she mean–”

The next words die when he looks up, and sees Eddie staring back at him.

Buck’s eyes widen in shock, his jaw working around the sounds that don’t make any sense anymore. Eddie’s looking at him, but his face is completely blank, as if not fully present yet. Buck’s stopped breathing at this point, waiting for Eddie’s reaction, because he’s already said too much. Eddie’s eyes sweep from one side of Buck’s face to another, searching for something. Maybe he’s waiting for his vocal cords to wake up, too.

Long minutes pass in Buck’s panicked mind, but it’s still too soon, when Eddie finally speaks up.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Buck goes completely still. He stares at Eddie’s face, not believing that he heard it right. Maybe it’s the ringing in his ears coming back after a day of break.

He shakes his head, words unable to form in his throat. That’s not how it was supposed to go. They were not supposed to talk about it. Buck planned to avoid any mentions of his feelings, he was supposed not to create any more obstacles for Eddie to leave him freely.

So why is Eddie not acting according to the plan?

Buck’s jaw works around the words that he wanted to say a moment ago, but none of them are in the room anymore. He watches Eddie, his eyes jump across his face, searching for a hint that it’s all a dream, a nightmare.

“I–” he tries to protest, but can’t help the way his heart grows and sends warmth all across his chest. “You think?”

A gentle, slow smile spills onto Eddie’s face, curling it into a soft look Buck hasn’t seen before. “Yeah, yeah. I do.”

Buck’s silent for another moment, but Eddie doesn’t seem bothered by that. He just stares back, his eyelids drooping slightly, the prolonged blinks making him look adorable. And as much as Buck would love to stop himself and hold the feelings back from the tip of his tongue, it’s impossible with all the other emotions mixing and meddling his mind.

“I think I am, too,” he says. He realizes he’s been fiddling with Eddie’s hand all this time, makes a move to withdraw, but Eddie stops him with a weak squeeze. Buck looks up at his face again. “But not in a I tell you this to stop you from leaving way, I swear,” he adds.

“I know. I'm not telling you in a I can stay now way, either,” Eddie says. The pang in Buck’s heart doesn’t even register in his mind, because there are too many other emotions swimming around him. “Unless you did crash my surprise, like you promised.”

It sends a smile onto Buck’s tense face. “I did not.”

The lamp flickers over their heads, casting new shadows onto Eddie’s face. There’s a different look in his eyes because of it, or just Eddie’s features hardened in the split second. It’s like he’s trying to tell him something, send a signal, beckon him to something. But Buck’s foggy, full of love and relief, mind can process only this much.

“Good,” Eddie says. “Because I heard now there’s a line of people wanting you dead.”

“No death jokes for at least a week.” Buck pouts. “I’m sensitive now.”

Eddie sighs, an imitation of laughter that’d probably hurt too much. Buck can’t keep his eyes off him.

“I should go tell the rest that you’re awake.” He stands up after a minute, and Eddie seems not to have recovered enough strength yet to stop his hand from slipping out of his grasp.

“Can you do something for me before you go?” Eddie calls after him.

Buck turns immediately. “Of course. Anything.”

Eddie smiles with this upside down smile of his. He tilts his head further into the pillow, and says, “Kiss me?”

And how is he supposed to deny him anything? This might break him a little, to think that it’s their first and last kiss at the same time, but he doesn’t let the thought stop him from indulging Eddie.

He approaches the bed again, and cups Eddie’s cheek into his hand, the stubble grazing the inside of his palm. Buck looks into his face once more, as if making sure that he hasn’t changed his mind, but Buck doubts he could back down now. So he leans closer, closes his eyes, tilts his head to the right side and goes for it.

He senses that Eddie wants to meet him halfway, but his motions are limited, so the best he can do is move his lips. It’s a chaste kiss, Eddie’s lips are pretty cold, and probably still quite numb, but their close presence is enough after all these days of switching worlds and almost ending up on the opposite sides of life. That’s enough for now. For a little longer.

When they part, Buck moves away only far enough to look Eddie into eyes again, his hand still lingering on the side of Eddie’s face. Eddie’s gaze is so full of everything, and Buck likes to imagine that there are as many thoughts passing through his mind as there are in Buck’s. He sits down again, this time on the edge of Eddie’s bed, forgetting about the plan of informing the others. When Eddie doesn’t say anything for another moment, Buck can’t help but lean down again, placing a kiss on his forehead this time.

Eddie’s whole face twists with the smile that spills onto it, and Buck feels the motions of Eddie’s fingers against his own hand where they meet again.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” Eddie asks after another minute of warm silence. “You weren’t really spreading love in our last talks.”

Buck makes a move as if he was to elbow him in the ribs, and stops right before the contact.

“Well, you didn’t protest then,” he says.

Eddie rolls his eyes at him, and Buck can’t pull the corners of his lips down.

Whatever the words Eddie wants to hear from him, Buck decides to reserve for later, for when they have days of time, and nothing to talk about, and just boredom as a direct company. For now, he goes for, “I love you. In a I’ll wait for you way.”

At some point during the long days in the hospital waiting room Buck started thinking about the kids from the burning school again. About the second kid in particular. Associating him with Christopher shed some new light on this whole mess between him and Eddie. There is no world where Eddie could have both Buck and his son and save himself. He has to choose, to go after someone first – just the way Buck saved the other kid first before he came back for Eddie. Eddie needs to choose Chris first, keeping Buck only as an eventual option, coming for him only when he’s sure he’s not in danger of falling again.

So Buck lets go of him, doesn’t drag him back into flames after himself. He’ll wait in this burning building for as long as it takes to make sure Eddie’s safe first.

“I love you,” Eddie replies, rubbing the inner side of Buck’s palm with his thumb. “In a I promise to come back way.”

And when one day Eddie comes home, with Chris by his side, new confidence and strength in his mind, Buck welcomes him as if no time passed. The fire around him gets put out within seconds, his injuries will heal eventually, too. Because now, he has everything he needs.