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It was a call to support a five alarm fire right in the middle of the 118’s zone of responsibility.
It wasn’t often that Harbor went out to work a call with the 118. The seven years it took for him to meet Buck was evidence of that.
But it seemed like tonight would be that night.
Five truck companies had already been called to put out a fire at a high rise condo building before they were called to pick up two people in need of a medevac transport.
“Harbor 17 to IC,” Tommy spoke into the headset as they approached the site in the helicopter. “We’re about two minutes away from you.”
“ Incident Command to Harbor 17 , Copy that,” a familiar voice came through to Tommy’s headset in response.
That was Bobby’s voice. So the 118 were here.
Cool, cool. That was all great.
He and Buck hadn’t been on a scene together since… (not counting the cruise ship fiasco)... ever.
“Was that Nash?” Nate, one of their slight medics on this chopper tonight, asked.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. He adjusted some of the controls, descending slightly as he began to look for an open area to set down so the patients could be loaded on board.
“Isn’t your boyfriend on his crew?” Nate then asked, to the groans of the rest of the crew. If there was one thing that Nate was great at, it was distracting people.
“Can we talk about this later?” Tommy asked. “This isn’t a vacation flight.”
Eleven though he couldn’t see the other man’s face, Tommy could feel him roll his eyes.
Then another message came over the radio. “ Buck, do you copy? ” Tommy overheard Bobby’s voice call out through the radio.
At first Tommy didn’t think anything of it. Although certainly not ideal and against how the training plans always went, firefighters occasionally got separated from each other. Tommy continued on with what he was doing, trying to find a place to touch down to pick up the two medevac patients that needed to be transported.
“ Buck, do you copy? ” Bobby’s voice sounded out, again, through the radio, sounding more strained and anxious this time. Tommy picked up on it immediately that time.
Five… Ten… Twenty seconds went by and neither Buck or anyone else spoke through the radio.
Come on Buck, Tommy thought to himself. What’s taking so long?
“Kinard, over there,” Jack, his co-pilot said from the seat next to his. “Just ahead of the parking lot, the area is open.”
Tommy looked up and to the right and saw the area the other man was pointing to, moving the controls to start to head in that direction.
It only took them about two minutes to get to the open area by the parking lot, three minutes to load the patients in the back, and another two minutes getting in the air.
The entire time, Tommy was mostly zoned out of what was happening around him, having done this hundreds if not thousands of times before. He was just trying to pay attention to the radio, to wait and hear if Buck would respond, to know that he was safe, unhurt, -
“Buckley, I say again, come in,” Bobby’s voice sounded again into the radio.
Two seconds, five seconds, ten… still no response from Buck.
As they ascended in the air, turning in the direction of the hospital to deliver the patients, Jack reached up to the radio, intending on changing the channel back to the regular air traffic control. Tommy sprung his hand out, stopping him.
“Tommy,” Jack said softly, “We need to get back online with the tower. We're about to leave the airspace, we won’t be able to hear them anyway.”
Tommy knew the other man was right. It was standard procedure. But at the same time, he wanted, no he needed, to know if Buck came back in. He needed to know that Buck was alright.
Jack held eye contact with Tommy for a long moment, and Tommy couldn’t bare to be subject to that sympathetic look for longer than necessary, as if Jack knew something that Tommy didn’t.
Tommy let go of his hand and turned his head back towards the front. Seconds later the radio channel switched over to the main for air traffic.
Tommy still hadn’t heard Buck come back in.
🚁 🚁 🚁 🚁 🚁
An hour later, as Tommy landed the helicopter right outside of the hangar, he got out and immediately went inside, intending on going directly towards where they kept the radios that were connected to the main dispatch channels and all of the other fire stations in the northern half of the city. They should have enough reach to tap into whatever channel it was that the 118 were working on. All Tommy had to do was hear Buck’s voice.
“Tommy!” Jack called out after him.
“What?” Tommy nearly snapped out at the other man.
Jack stopped, taking a half second to catch his breath after running after him. Tommy almost turned around to continue to where he was going when Jack spoke up. “Just take a second man,” he said. “Take a second to breathe before you do some-”
“I was just going to check the radio,” Tommy said as he turned around and continued walking, just missing Jack mumble something along the lines of ‘as you murder everyone in the way to do it.’
Checking over the main radio, it seemed like the scene they were at had mostly been cleaned up, surprising from what Tommy oversaw there only an hour ago. The guys with the 118 were already on their way back to their station - if they weren’t already there.
As Tommy picked up a radio, intending on calling them, he felt his phone in his pocket vibrate. Quickly checking it, he lifted an eyebrow when he saw it was a text from Buck. Tommy didn’t wait to read it as he automatically went to call the other man.
Buck must have still been on his phone, as he picked up with less than one ring.
“ Hey Tommy, what’s up? We just got back from a call,” Buck greeted him.
“Y- yeah,” Tommy said, slightly caught off guard from what he had been thinking of less than thirty seconds ago. “I was in one of the choppers that flew by. Just wanted to check and make sure you were okay.”
“Oh yeah,” Buck said, and Tommy could hear the smile in his voice. “ It was pretty big over there, I’m sure you saw it from outside. But no major injuries - although I think Eddie might’ve messed his ankle up again.”
“Yeah, just wanted to make sure,” Tommy said. “We were on the same radio channel for a while, I could overhear Bobby trying to get ahold of you. You weren’t really responding.”
“ Oh yeah, you overheard that? ” Buck asked, as he let out a little laugh. “ It was some type of radio malfunction. ”
“A radio malfunction?” Tommy asked.
“ Yeah, ” Buck said. “ Something went wrong with the transponder or something, I don’t know… I was trying to call into Bobby each time he called my name over the radio. Honestly, it wasn't until I got out of the building that I realized it was only me he was calling out to and that he hadn’t heard anything I was saying.”
Tommy let out a breath upon hearing that. All of that worry - for a radio malfunction.
Getting off the phone with Buck, Tommy let out a long breath, his shoulders falling in relaxation, nearly every muscle in his body releasing a tension he hadn’t realized he had been holding.
Buck was going to be alright. Buck was alright.
The entire time Tommy had been having an almost anxiety attack over what danger Buck might have gotten into while going through a high rise fire, it was just a faulty radio.
It almost made Tommy laugh when he thought it all over.
For the next month, the first thing he did at the start of each shift was make sure all of their radios were properly working…
And calling Buck to make sure the 118’s were to.