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“What’s the latest information?” Buck practically tears past the barricades into the command centre, eyeing the skyscraper fearfully. Seventy floors straight up, the tallest building in the city, and it almost seems to sway against the night sky; pillars of grey smoke climb in rickety towers toward the sky, the smell flooding the streets below.
“Buckley,” Captain Murphy practically breathes his name, stepping forward to shake his hand. “It’s good to see you, but I wish it were under better conditions. Look, there’s a dozen crews on site, the Chief is on his way… we’re doing everything that we can. Right now our priority is full evac.”
Buck lets his hand fall into her own, but a sound almost like a scoff escapes him. “Thanks, Aria, but that doesn’t really answer my question. I’ve got three kids sitting in the dispatch break-room with my sister waiting to hear if their father is dead or alive, so I need more than we’re doing what we can. ”
Eyeing him carefully, Captain Murphy lets out a long sigh, leading him over to the setup for command. She’s got three iPads laid out; one is displaying registered movements of crews in the stairwells, the second is a roster of who’s tagged out for a break, and who is yet to take one – and the third, the one she picks up from the trestle table someone had set up, is open to the radio records.
“This is the last thing we got from Tommy, now thirty-six minutes ago. Right before I phoned you.” Aria explains, plugging in a pair of wired earphones and handing the earpieces to Buck. “Fifty-fifth through fifty-eighth floors lost integrity and Donato witnessed him fall through. She called a Mayday, but then we got this.”
She clicks on the play button with something of a flourish, and there’s a brief crackle before Tommy’s voice floods into the earphones, accented with a layer of static. This is Firefighter Kinard with the 217 ground crew, the– the floor fell through, I don’t have eyes on Donato, there’s a heavy breath. I’ve got, um, something’s wrong with my leg. There’s a lot of blood, I need– I need assistance. I need assistance to– fuck, I don’t know where I am. The floor fell through, I can’t find Donato.
Tapping the screen, Aria pulls the iPad away and rolls up the earphones, tossing them onto the table. “You hear the slur in his words, and he was talking in circles a little? He seemed to know what he was saying, but it took him a minute to respond and I’m worried about a head injury.”
“I’m worried about blood loss. In that state, he might not remember what to do with his injuries.” Buck offers, brow furrowed in concentration. “Tommy’s smart, but he can’t get himself out of this one. Where was the end point for the collapsed floors?”
“That’s the thing,” Captain Murphy says slowly. “Kinard and Donato were on fifty-eight, and it only fell through to fifty-five, which we’ve searched. He’s not in there, he’s not anywhere .”
The world zeroes in, spinning on it’s axis but still focussed on Buck’s panic, and he can taste bile in the back of his throat. Aria is a smart woman, and more than capable – but she has to be wrong.
She has to be wrong, because Tommy is okay.
He has to be.
And that’s how Buck ends up in a set of turnouts, another fifteen minutes later, preparing with Lucy to go on a rescue mission. The rest of the 217 were assigned to higher priority evacuations, and Buck understands that – but Aria doesn’t want anyone going in after Tommy, including Donato – and including Buck.
They negotiate. Or argue, although Buck prefers the word negotiate – it sounds more like a constructed debate than the reality of two exasperated people, both pleading with the other for the sake of what they think to be right. The main problem Buck has, right now, is that all of Aria’s arguments are serving valid points.
“You’ve got three kids at home, Buck,” Aria says quickly. She handballed incident command off to the captain from the 133, and has been berating him since, trying to discourage this latest wave of what everyone recognises as his impulsiveness. “They need you. And they cannot afford to lose two parents in one fell swoop.”
“They’re not going to lose one, ” Buck hisses. “He radioed, right? That means he’s alive, which means he needs our help. Look, Aria, I understand that you can’t send your team in. But Donato and I, we’re doing this. We’re doing everything that we have to do to make sure Tommy comes home alive.”
“Buckley, I’m going to say it one more time. I don’t think you should be going in there,” Captain Murphy’s tone is filled with no-nonsense warnings, and the sort of concern that comes with their deeper friendship. “And if something goes wrong, then you’re leaving three kids on their own. Three kids who have already lost far too much.”
“I know.” Buck says firmly, lacing up the spare boots he was lent from the storage in the engine. “But I’ve got to go in there. I have to try. ”
A gasping voice, heavy and thick with phlegm, starts behind him. “I’d really– I’d really rather you didn’t do that.”
At the sound of his husband, voice thin, brittle and weak, Buck hurls around. Tommy’s being held semi-upright by a paramedic, soot clinging to his entire body. A gash across his face is bleeding fairly heavily, and one arm of his turnout coat is ripped half to shreds. The paramedic is holding a broad gauze pad to his torso, pressing down firmly and insisting, all the while, that Tommy needs to sit down.
Evan takes a few steps, careful not to crash into the broad wound on Tommy’s torso. He grips the man’s neck, pulling him in and tucking his head into Tommy’s shoulder. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Tom.”
Wincing, Tommy laughs a little as the paramedic and Evan lower him onto the back step of the 217 ambulance. “I don’t really want to, that whole experience was shit. Absolutely shit, I’ll be complaining for weeks.”
“Kinard,” Captain Murphy nods; there’s a little more emotion in it than anyone dares to admit, and when Tommy nods back, it’s in recognition. Of her fear, yes – but also, more hopefully, of survival. Of the fact that his heart is still beating, that he’s still here.
That missing turned to found, rather than dead.
“For the record,” Buck murmurs, stepping back and cradling Tommy’s hand in his own. The paramedic works around them, clicking his tongue disapprovingly at Tommy’s wounds. “If you weren’t covered in your own blood and halfway to an infection from that debris, I’d slap you right now.”
Tommy gasps, faux-offended, giving a sharp hiss of genuine pain when the paramedic presses gauze to the wound on his face, instructing him to hold it there. “You ready for me to look like a werewolf?”
“Oh, that’ll be so hot. The scars are the perks,” Buck jokes, before turning a little more solemn. His voice drops lower, and the paramedic ducks away, giving them some pretense of privacy before he loads the ambulance. “I’m serious, though, Tom, I need you. The kids were freaking out.”
“Just the kids?” Tommy murmurs.
“And me.” Evan concedes. “I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you anymore.”
“That’s not going to happen.” Tommy promises. He can still feel the skepticism radiating off Evan– and it isn’t unwarranted, not considering all that’s happened. Not considering that this fate he’s promising against had a very real chance of occurring, and still does in their line of work.. He can feel the skepticism, but he knows, too, that Evan understands.
That Tommy will do whatever it takes, whatever he has to, to come home.
To be found.