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The pounding on his door breaks Buck out of his trance. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here in his kitchen, but the sun is starting to rise through the loft windows. That observation on its own does nothing to help him re-orient himself in space and time. He has no idea when exactly it was that Maddie brought him home last night, depositing him into this chair after wiping the worst of the grime off of his skin and leaving to cover another half-shift of crisis dispatch calls at his insistence.
He’s not sure if he’s awake or asleep, or for that matter alive or dead. Every time he closes his eyes the water comes rushing back, but this many hours fighting against the current of consciousness have left him feeling underwater as a permanent state. He doesn’t remember getting up to walk across the room, but here his hand sure is on the doorknob.
The frantic knocking hasn’t stopped, and it should probably be causing him some alarm. But his brain closed off that kind of function after the second time he watched Christopher slip below the surface of raging waters. He gives no thought to who might be on the other side before he opens the door to a wrecked looking Eddie. He’s holding Chris with one arm; the weight balanced between his chest and hip. There’s a large backpack over the opposite shoulder and a pair of red crutches tucked under the arm he’s been using to knock.
And god, Buck can’t bear to meet his eyes. He’d thought the look on his best friend’s face last night as Buck was forced to admit his son was missing had been the worst thing he could possibly see. But even with Chris safe in his arms, Eddie somehow looks worse. He looks mad. Like maybe he dragged his kid all the way over here at dawn just to yell at Buck. And yeah, Buck deserves that.
“I called you a dozen times before I realized your phone is in the ocean,” Eddie grinds out, like the words are cutting his mouth.
He seems to understand that Buck is just going to keep standing in the doorway staring like he’s seen a ghost, and eventually just pushes past Buck into the loft.
“Couch,” he directs. And Buck can’t think enough to disagree with him, so he goes.
Buck’s barely sat down when Eddie urgently lowers Christopher into his arms. He’s wrapped in one of Eddie’s LAFD hoodies, the sleeves rolled up but still falling over his tiny hands. Underneath, Buck can see his rocket-patterned pajamas. With Chris this close, in his own lap now, he can tell that what he’d taken for the vague grumbling of a scared and tired child is actually one hoarse-whispered word repeated over and over.
Buck. He’s crying ‘Buck’ nonstop.
Eddie is leaning down, still wild-eyed.
“Buck’s right here, Chris. We found him, buddy,” he tells his son.
Buck is still locked out of his brain, but he thinks from a distance that his moment might just be breaking his heart. The moment Christopher processes his dad’s words, looks up, and recognizes just who is currently holding him. He sits up instantly, throwing his little body at Buck’s chest and wailing in earnest. Buck’s arms close around him automatically and he feels perversely grateful for the force of it, shocking him back into his body like the memory of cold water. He’s been instinctually mourning this exact weight in his arms like a phantom limb.
Around them, Buck is vaguely aware of sounds. Eddie moves, setting down his bags and leaning the crutches up against the wall beside the couch. Buck is consumed by the feeling of his heartbeat in his throat, of Chris breathing and alive and sobbing in his arms. He flinches when he feels Eddie’s hand on his shoulder, opening his eyes and looking up from where his face has been buried in Christopher’s hair.
“Is he-”
“What’s wr-”
“Why are you-”
He starts several sentences without the breath or cognition to finish any of them, just looking up at Eddie for any explanation at all. His throat is raw from the saltwater and the screaming, but the difficulty getting words out of his mouth feels deeper than that.
“We’re here,” Eddie says in a tone that’s apparently the gentlest he can manage, “because the last time we saw you was when you collapsed in exhaustion. Because you left the hospital without treatment before either of us could see for ourselves you were alive.”
Then, kinder and more defeated, “it was a rough night in our house, and I thought it probably was here, too.”
Buck’s still searching his face for a fight he knows is coming, unable to reconcile the hurt and anger and grief swirling through Eddie’s expression with the vital, alive boy in his arms.
Eddie breaks eye contact first, squeezing Buck’s shoulder with a shuddering breath before letting go.
“I’m gonna go make some coffee,” he says as he departs.
Buck turns his attention back fully to Christopher, now quiet but still clutching at Buck with a desperation he would not have understood before yesterday. Before Buck learned how it hurts to have a child torn from the safety of his arms over and over again.
“I’m so sorry, Chris,” he whispers. His voice is on the verge of cracking, even still. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m so sorry I lost you. I’m so sorry.”
The response is hard to make out, with his face still tucked against Buck’s chest.
“You saved me, Buck.”
He doesn’t have an answer for that. He knows it’s his fault, but there’s no point trying to convince Chris of that. Especially not in his moment, when Buck should be doing everything he can to comfort him.
Eddie returns with two cups of coffee, setting them on the table before reaching out to adjust Christopher who has started to doze off. Buck is mentally steeling himself to lose Chris from his grasp yet again, knowing that there’s no reason for Eddie to trust Buck with him after this. Christopher panics too, reflexively reaching out to latch on to Buck.
“We’re not leaving, bud,” Eddie reassures. “Just laying you down so you can sleep. Buck isn’t going anywhere.”
The last line is said with a glance, like Eddie is begging Buck not to make him a liar.
“Yeah,” Buck confirms, catching up as Christopher is laid across his lap. “I’m right here.”
His hands settle back into tangled curls automatically, as if holding on now can erase the time they let go. He has no idea what else to do in this moment, with Eddie finally sitting beside him. There aren’t any words for the conversation they need to have. Buck has no sense of where he is within his own mind, much less how to be what anyone else needs. But he can hold onto Chris and not let go.
Eddie shifts beside him, and Buck automatically tenses as he sees Eddie’s hand enter his peripheral vision. They both freeze, and Eddie looks devastated.
“I just…” he says after a moment, bringing his hand so slowly to Buck’s face, cupping his chin with a gentleness Buck cannot comprehend. “You’re hurt. I just needed to see.”
Buck nods wordlessly, unsure quite what he’s agreeing to, but allowing Eddie’s calloused fingers to press on his skull, graze the scratches on his face, and feel gently around the edges of the bandage on his arm. Seemingly satisfied that Buck isn’t hiding a mortal wound, he eventually relinquishes and settles back into the couch, picking up his coffee.
“I’m so sorry, Eddie,” Buck says, only because it seems like the place they need to start.
Eddie just looks at him, face unreadable.
“I lost him. You trusted me with him and I lost him.”
“That’s not how he remembers it,” Eddie says softly, looking down to check that Christopher is still asleep.
“There’s a lot I don’t know yet, about what he went through yesterday,” Eddie continues. “What you both went through. But, Buck, he told me he knew what the wave looked like because you were at the end of the pier when it hit.”
Buck nods, mind flashing back to throwing Chris over his shoulder, running, the force of the water shoving him against the planks of the boardwalk.
“Buck, do you know how many people survived from the end of the pier?”
“In a whole day pulling people out of the water,” Eddie says, not letting him answer, “I met one. She told me she only made it because she was rescued by an off-duty firefighter and his son.”
“I’ve never- I wouldn’t call him that,” Buck rushes to clarify.
Eddie just looks at him like he’s missing the point.
“That’s the least important part of that story. I just meant, sure, you got separated. Buck, a natural disaster happened. But at the end of the day, he’s alive.”
They’re both staring at Christopher now, watching the rise and fall of his chest like a meditation.
“I lost him, Eddie.” Buck’s aware he’s not adding anything new to the conversation, but there’s nothing else he can say.
“You didn’t do it alone, but you saved him. You did,” Eddie reiterates. “You know why he loves the pier? Because I took him there with Pepa, our first week in LA. If she’d had him yesterday…” he trails off, and Buck’s hands still over Christopher, hating even the act of finishing that thought.
“If he’d been out there with anyone but you, Buck, I would have lost everything. He wouldn’t have survived the first five minutes without you, much less the whole day.”
“Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“How could I be?” Eddie pleads. “He’s my life, and you saved him. I talked to Abuela last night, just quickly so she’d know we were safe. And Buck, she mentioned writing to the church to have you put in as a saint. I don’t think she was kidding.”
“I just did what anyone would,” Buck deflects, fully uncomfortable with the turn this is taking.
“My family loves you more than they’ve ever loved anyone not named Diaz, bud. They’re not ever going to stop thanking you.”
“Oh,” Buck says quietly, staring straight ahead. Eddie presses Buck’s mug into his hand and Buck is thankful for the excuse to stop talking.
They sit in silence for several minutes, while Buck works up to the question he’s been most afraid of.
“Is he? I mean, of course he’s not okay. But how bad is it?”
Eddie exhales loudly, bringing a hand up to stroke Christopher’s forehead.
“Mentally, I have no idea. It’s going to take a while. I’ll find him a therapist. But right now he mostly needs you.”
Buck has no idea what that means.
“You’re his dad. He needs you most, I just tried to keep him safe. To get him back to you.”
“You kept him safe. You nearly died doing it. You two went through something horrible, together. And then you were gone. He cried for you all night, you know.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t know. I couldn’t stay there. I thought, Eddie, I thought he was gone, and it was my fault.” Buck’s babbling now, but it’s the first time he hasn’t had to fight to get words out. “And then he was safe, and he had you, so it didn’t matter what happened to me. He survived, and that’s what mattered, so I left.”
Eddie’s looking at him like that’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.
“Buck, if I lost you. If we lost you, it would devastate me for the rest of my life. Chris cried for you because he thought he might be losing you, too. Because you looked like you were on the verge of death, honestly. He didn’t trust me when I said you were alive. I don’t know if I trusted it either.”
Buck has no way of processing any of those thoughts, so his mind desperately backtracks for something to hold on to.
“You said mentally. What about -- is he hurt? I tried, Eddie, but after, I don’t know what happened.”
Eddie very graciously lets him avoid the elephant, although he looks a bit exasperated.
“You nearly died, man. There’s barely a scratch on him. It’s not hard to tell that you sacrificed to keep him safe. And I know you didn’t do it by yourself, but really, Buck. I’m not going to blame you. He’s a little scraped, and he’s going to be in some pain for a few days.”
Buck fully panics. If there weren’t a sleeping kid on his lap, he’d be running for the door already.
“Pain? Does he need to go back to the hospital? Eddie, what’s wrong with him?”
Eddie’s hand is back on his shoulder, thumb pressing into Buck’s collarbone. It’s the only thing holding him together.
“He did more walking and a lot more swimming yesterday than he can really handle. It’s no one’s fault --” he cuts off Buck’s apology, “but his muscles stiffen up. He doesn’t need a hospital. Honestly, even if they weren’t still overwhelmed there’s not much they can do that we can’t handle at home. There’s some things I’ll need to walk you through for today, but you’ll be fine. I know it.”
“What do you mean ‘for today’ Eddie?” None of this makes any sense in his brain right now.
“I told Bobby I’d be in around an hour from now,” Eddie says, checking his watch.
“You want me to watch Christopher?”
“It’s easy, he’s not very fast.”
Eddie must sense that Buck is only slipping closer to a spiral, and he pauses to force eye contact before he continues.
“Buck, there’s nobody in this world I trust with my son more than you. Especially after yesterday. Look, right now? He needs the same things you do: food, fluids, and rest.”
“Bobby would understand, he needs you,” Buck argues, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I asked him over and over what he wanted, and he always picked you. This is going to be a marathon. He’ll need me every day, but every station in the city is recalling people right now and you can help him more than you think.”
Buck is back to staring down at Chris, as if he could hold him in a way that would erase the pain.
“I don’t want him to hurt,” he says quietly.
“Of course you don’t. But the only thing worse than watching your kid go through pain you can’t cure is being a kid in pain. When he has days like this we give him whatever he wants. And Buck, I need you to understand that he wants you. He asked to be here with you. You love him enough to not give up. You can do this.”
Buck nods, his bones having made the commitment even if his mind hasn’t caught up.
“Okay. What do I do?”
Eddie pulls the backpack towards him, unpacking for the day Buck is accepting he’s been signed up to.
“Mostly, the goal is to get him through it. Make time pass. Distractions. I brought backup crutches but honestly he shouldn’t be walking at all if you can manage it. I would’ve brought his wheelchair but it’s a lot to maneuver with the front entrance stairs. Whatever you can do to make a day stuck on the couch less boring. There’s a bunch of snacks in here, plus coloring books and legos. Between us, he’s never built anything that kinda looks like anything. He just likes sticking things together. The last time it was bad like this he watched the entire Cars franchise three times, but I think even he’s sick of those by now.”
“Okay, okay,” Buck repeats, still trying to talk himself into confidence. He’s watching Christopher, who despite the horrors looks peaceful in his sleep. “Is he, he’s really hurting?”
“Right now, hopefully that’s the medication working,” Eddie says, pulling the small orange bottle from his bag.
“It’s a muscle relaxer,” he continues, “it helps a lot, mostly to let him sleep through some of it. I gave him a dose at home, so I could get him over here. I wrote it down; he can have a pill every six hours. And tylenol halfway in between. He’s going to hurt more when it starts to wear off, but I know you can handle it.”
Buck does not know that he can handle it, but the least he owes Eddie (and Chris) right now is to not say that.
“Is it safe? For him to have a drug that strong?”
“I know, it used to worry me too. It’ll be fine if you stick to the schedule. He doesn’t need it very often, thank god, but when he does it really helps.”
“What about side effects? Can’t that cause-”
“Respiratory depression, yeah. But I’m telling you, Buck, he’s taken this dose for years, even when he was much smaller, and we’ve never had a problem. Watch his breathing, and I promise he’ll be fine.”
“I don’t have a phone,” Buck says to himself as much as anyone. “What if something goes wrong, how would I-”
But there’s Eddie, pulling a tablet in a childproof case out of his never-ending backpack.
“I brought you this,” he says, pointing to the screen. “There’s a messaging app with my number saved in it. And if you really need it, you know your way around 9-1-1.”
Buck can’t argue with that, he supposes.
“There’s money for lunch,” Eddie goes on, as if any of this is normal. “Whatever you get, eat an extra portion for me? You look like you’re wasting away to nothing.”
Buck gestures dismissively, like it doesn’t matter. Like he has any grasp on what matters right now.
“I’m serious, Buck,” Eddie says. “You can do this. Just be with him. That’s what he needs right now, and I think you might need it too. I just, I need to know he has you. I need to know the two of you are safe here.”
The dad adrenaline he’s been operating on is starting to wane, and Buck sees shades of the raw vulnerability Eddie had at the field hospital last night. He can do this for Eddie, even if he doesn’t think he can do it for himself.
“He’s safe. Eddie, I’ve got him.”
“I know you do, bud.” It’s soft. Fond. An intoxicating amount of sincerity.
Eddie’s moving slightly, organizing the things he’d unpacked from his bag like he’s preparing to leave. The motion wakes Christopher, who calls out in reflex. Instantly, both Eddie and Buck are on him with reassurance.
“I’m not leaving just yet, Chris,” Eddie promises. “I’ll say goodbye before I go, and Buck is staying with you, remember?”
Chris nods, still sleepy and emotionally wrung out.
“Can you help me with something?” Eddie asks. Chris nods, serious despite the smile still creeping up the corners of his mouth.
“I need you to make sure Buck gets some sleep today, alright?”
Buck turns to Eddie in quiet disagreement.
“I can’t fall asleep, I’ve got to watch him!” he hisses.
“He’ll be asleep for most of it, too. Hopefully,” Eddie says. Then, louder, “hey Chris, if you needed something but Buck was asleep, what would you do?”
“Poke him with my elbow!” Christopher yells triumphantly, brandishing one arm in demonstration.
“And what if he was still asleep?”
“Poke him with two elbows!”
“Trust me,” Eddie says to Buck, “those elbows are weapons. You’ll be fine.”
With Christopher awake already Eddie gets up from the couch, picking him up and carrying him to the bathroom. Buck busies himself with taking their empty coffee cups back to the kitchen, staring at the pile of discarded takeout boxes and beer bottles he’d accumulated before Eddie dragged him out of bed yesterday and drastically changed his life trajectory. It seems foreign and far away, that reality in which his despair about his job was the biggest concern he had.
It’s easy enough to clear that detritus into the trash can, easier certainly than dislodging the fear that’s resettled in his mind. Buck has no idea what yesterday means for his chances of going back to firefighting. He thought he knew what he was meant to do with his life, and then the ocean washed every thought out of his head but survival.
He can’t linger too long in this daze, because Eddie is back and propping Christopher up against the arm of the couch with throw pillows. Buck hears snippets of “love you, kid” and “will come back if you need me” as Eddie pulls him into a crushing, full-body embrace. How he can ever again set his kid down and walk out a door, Buck doesn’t understand.
Eddie stops Buck before he gets back to the couch, speaking quietly with a grounding hand on Buck’s shoulder.
“Ask him if he needs the bathroom, periodically. The meds can make him forget. There’s an extra set of pajamas if you need them.”
Buck nods in understanding, and then Eddie is hugging him with a trust that feels too strong to think about just now.
“I’ll check in when I can,” he says. “But Buck, I need you to know that I trust you completely.”
“Okay,” Buck says with his collected scraps of confidence, clapping Eddie on the back as he gathers his things to leave.
“Love ya, have fun!” Eddie calls to Chris, and then he’s gone.
It’s just the two of them. And everything they can’t say.
Buck settles next to Christopher on the couch, stretching out his aching legs on the coffee table.
“So,” he says, looking down at Chris, who is exhausted, traumatized, and somehow grinning, “what are we going to do today?”
Chris pats gently at the bit of Buck’s arm he can reach. “You’re gonna be okay, kid.”
They put on cartoons, volume low enough to be white noise. Buck just stares at Christopher, counting his breaths as he watches the TV. He’s mesmerized by the gentle rise and fall of that tiny chest as he sinks deeper into his pillow and blanket den and the way his fidgeting quiets as Chris eventually drifts back to sleep.
The hammering in his own chest can’t seem yet to reconcile the warm, sleeping boy beside him with the one thrashing through the raging current every time he closes his eyes. He wraps his hand around Christopher’s little foot because it’s the closest part of him and also so he can keep his fingers attached to the pulse point there. It slows, as Chris falls asleep, but it never stops.
Buck tells himself he won’t sleep, but at some point his body makes the decision for him. The fragile, stable rhythm of Christopher’s breathing pulls him under and blessedly, he does not dream.
He wakes with a start, an entirely unknown length of time later. His brain tells him he just closed his eyes for a second, that no time at all has elapsed, but the sun is streaming through a different set of the loft’s windows than it was the last time he looked up. The jolt back into his body has him reflexively scrambling for the familiar weight of an endangered child, which he supposes will just be how he wakes up for a while. It’s hard to calm down when Chris still feels missing.
But then, perhaps within the same second he’s completed this anxiety checklist, there’s a giggling sound from the end of the couch. Relief floods back into Buck alongside remembrance, but it isn’t until he turns his head and matches the sound to the little face consumed by its own smile that he truly believes what he’s hearing. His hands and eyes automatically check Christopher over, finding him warm and ticklish but in no acute distress.
“What’s so funny?” Buck asks, his voice still raspy.
“You were snoring so loud!” Chris says, only getting one word out between each laugh.
When they’re both calm enough to breathe again, there’s a trip to the bathroom, a trip to the kitchen for refills on water (Buck) and juice boxes (Chris, who insists Buck break one open too), and a reorganization of support pillows to allow for coloring. Buck consults the schedule Eddie left and doles out tylenol, very much hoping he can keep the bulk of Christopher’s pain at bay. Chris laments that they’re chewable tablets since he’s grown up enough to swallow pills, and Buck tries not to think about all the ways Chris has been forced to grow up beyond his age before it breaks his heart.
Nominally, they’re both drawing. But Buck keeps getting distracted, staring down at Christopher or off into the middle distance. He doesn’t know how long he would have ignored the sound of knocking at the door if not for Christopher nudging him to point it out. Maybe Eddie was right about the elbows.
By the time Buck gets to the door, it’s already opening. Maddie has used her spare key, and from the look on her face she’s worried about what state she’s about to find Buck in on the other side. He’s glad at least that he can meet her eyes, their shared look of relief to still be alive something they’ve had a lot of practice in. She holds the bags she’s carrying to the side to allow Buck to hug her, squeezing tight with her free arm in a way that’s both comforting and assessing.
He doesn’t know where to start, this topic they haven’t yet broached in the harsh light of day. Not that they talked much about it last night, either. But it felt safer, in the dark. It turns out he doesn’t have to, because Christopher does it for him.
“Buck!” comes the cry from the couch, Chris being as loud as he can and still, adorably, pretty quiet. “Who is it?”
Maddie immediately steps forward into the loft until she can see the couch, and she looks as delighted and confused to see Chris as Buck had a few hours prior.
“Is Eddie here?”
“No, he’s at work.”
“He left Christopher with you again?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, dragging a hand down his face, “I’m still figuring it out, too.”
“Is he alright?” Maddie asks, quietly enough that hopefully Chris can’t hear. “I didn’t hear much last night besides that they found him.”
“Pretty much. Sore, and he’s got meds for that. But I’m worried about how much it’s hurting him, what I’m missing.”
Buck’s sure he’ll never stop worrying, not after all the deals with the devil he tried to make while desperately wandering the streets yesterday. He’d move into Eddie’s house, never take his eyes off Chris if that’s what the universe wants in exchange for a stranger pulling him safely from the water. He owes an unpayable debt to everyone and everything.
“Okay,” Maddie says, clearly thinking through the multiple sets of priorities she’s juggling. “Why don’t we sit? I brought coffee and pastries from the cafe down the street.”
Buck grabs plates, and it’s quick work to cut up the scones to share between the three of them. Maddie is immediately chatting up a storm with Christopher on a litany of topics Buck can’t hope to keep track of. Having another adult to keep eyes on Chris and his second cup of coffee of the day are doing a lot to make him less panicked and more present in his body, but he still can’t shake the low-level hum of fear that lodged in his chest the moment he saw the water withdraw from the shore yesterday. It might well have tattooed itself to his ribcage as a new permanent fixture.
When they’ve cleared up the food and Chris is hard at work on a new drawing for Maddie, they retreat to the kitchen for the primary reason for her visit this morning.
“Unsurprisingly I guess, the store was packed,” she says, pulling the unopened shopping bag toward her. “Lots of people with lost and drowned phones, and we’re all stranded without them these days. They said everything that was in the cloud from your old one should have transferred automatically, but some things might be lost depending on when they backed up.”
“Thanks, Maddie,” Buck says sincerely, as he opens the box and pulls out the very new and unblemished phone. “I really don’t have it in me to stand in a line right now.”
“Speaking of,” she says, nudging him to put the phone aside, “let me check your injuries before I have to leave for work. How much worse does it hurt today?”
She rebandages his arm right there at the kitchen table, peering suspiciously at the wound as if it might dare harbor an infection and issues a directive to stay off his leg that even she seems to know isn’t going to be observed. Buck talks her into checking Christopher over as well, and talks him into allowing it.
“You’re an EMT, Buck! You know how to take vitals just as well as I do, and unlike me you still do it every day,” she says while feeling the forehead of a very wiggly Chris, but there’s no malice in it.
She heard how hard Buck hit rock bottom over this kid. She knows he’s not going to get over it any time soon. Maddie declares Christopher to have a very healthy pulse, and he pays her for her services with a drawing Buck could not decipher in a million guesses.
“It’s your job!” he says triumphantly when she asks. “You help people when they call 9-1-1. You tell the firetrucks where to drive!”
And yeah, Buck can maybe see that the stick figure is holding a phone, and that the red blob in the background might be a quite round engine. Maddie looks to be on the verge of tears as she thanks him, and Buck knows her day yesterday was no less exhausting than his own. It makes Christopher beam when she carefully tucks it into her purse and promises to show the other dispatchers.
And then she’s gone, and it’s once again the two of them alone, the focus ever threatening to shift back to the apologies Buck can’t find the words to make.
He keeps himself busy with cleaning up, constantly reorganizing the coffee table to make sure Christopher can reach what he needs without stretching too far. He consults the medication schedule like it might give him the answers he really needs. What it does help him figure out is that they should put in an early lunch order, so that he can get some of it into Chris before the muscle relaxers make him fall asleep.
Chris picks pizza, and they kill a fair amount of time perusing the menu on Buck’s new phone. In the end it’s a small pie each, classic pepperoni for Christopher and what he deems “boring grownup pizza” (chicken and broccoli) for Buck. Eddie was also right about the wasting away, and whatever Buck’s future with the department might be, it doesn’t hurt to start the bulk up now.
He’s checked in with Eddie from the tablet a few times throughout the morning. As much as Buck yearns to be back in his turnouts he does not envy this particular shift. It’s going to be a long recovery for all the affected areas, and he can imagine there are a lot of rescue and medical calls still being answered from the flood. Eddie confirms as much, saying the team is assigned to spend much of the day in the flood zone.
The first photo Buck takes on his new phone is immediately sent to Eddie. They’ve carefully relocated to the balcony and Christopher is sitting on a cushion to boost him up, with more around him for support. The tarp of paper napkins draped across him is just barely fluttering in the breeze as he grins over a slice of pizza wider than his own head.
Buck’s phone goes back into his pocket once he’s sent it, helping cut up the giant slice to be more manageable. It’s nice out here, the two of them in the fresh air. It’s still cool enough in the shade that Buck can imagine this as any other time he’s had lunch with Chris. The scorching afternoon he spent sweating, dragging himself down streets flooded with garbage feels years in the distance.
They largely eat in silence, but when Buck checks his phone again he can’t help but laugh.
Eddie
This made Chimney so jealous he’s threatening to blow up a ladder truck and take your place
(we haven’t had lunch yet)
He shows Chris the picture of Eddie grinning with Chimney pouting over his shoulder. They’re clearly gathered around the engine, but there’s piled up debris in every direction behind them. From the sweat and grime on their faces it looks to be a grueling shift. Buck doesn’t dare say it right now, but the fear deep in his heart that he’ll never be a firefighter again has him itching to take Chim up on that trade.
The next dose of meds does its job and Christopher falls asleep on the couch a few minutes into Frozen. Buck stays there beside him, sitting on the floor in front of the couch with his legs stretched out, for ages. He could happily listen to Chris breathe all day, until his phone vibrates with a text.
Eddie
We’re on a break now, can I call?
Buck stands as quietly as his exhausted body will allow, carefully hobbling out to the kitchen before he responds. It’s such a relief to see Eddie, to hear his voice over facetime. It can’t have been just that morning Eddie was here in person. He holds the phone up to show him Chris tucked into his blankets and then sinks back down into his chair. Eddie picks up on his grimace of pain, because of course he does.
“He wearin’ you out?”
Buck shakes his head. “No, just… I’ve been doing a lot of sitting around this place the last few months, but I’ve never needed it as much as I do today I guess.”
“But seriously though, are you two hanging in there?”
“Yeah, Eddie, he’s… he’s so great. I don’t understand how he doesn’t hate my guts right now, but I don’t know. Maybe he has to work up to that.”
“Neither of us hate you, man. Don’t know how many times you need to hear it, but it’ll keep being true.”
Buck doesn’t believe him, but his guard is lowering the longer they chat. Eventually Eddie gets called back to the team and Buck stays in his seat long after they hang up, in an echo of his dissociation from last night.
This time, what pulls him from the table before his brain can catch up is a whimpered cry from the couch. Chris is calling out for him, little legs thrashing against the blankets wrapped around them. In an instant Buck is there, kneeling in front of the couch and pulling Chris into his arms. He doesn’t even notice the pain in his knees until after the nightmare cries turn to wakened sobs. The sound is short-circuiting Buck’s brain and he knows he will never not feel responsible for this hurt.
It takes five minutes to convince Chris he’s safe and calm his ragged breathing. It takes two packets of fruit snacks and a goofy picture for Eddie to settle him until he’s curled up on Buck’s chest. It takes an hour after Christopher is definitely asleep for Buck to breathe without actively forcing every inhalation and exhalation.
The afternoon passes largely without major incident, but he can tell that although Christopher is far happier than Buck has any right to expect, the pain and exhaustion are wearing closer to the surface of that perfect little smile over time.
The breaking point comes inevitably, when the cycle of sleep, TV, and coloring isn’t enough to keep the frustration at bay. Chris has been tossing and turning with increased frequency for a while, trying to find a comfort that is out of reach.
“Buck!” he calls out pitifully, “it hurts!”
“I know, bud,” Buck says, brushing his hand over Christopher’s forehead in an attempt at soothing. “If I could make it go away, I would. I promise.”
Chris bursts into tears, and Buck loses his goddamn mind in panic. No amount of rocking or cuddling is going to fix this. Suddenly he’s standing with Chris in his arms and he has no idea what his plan is. He wants to run. He needs to run. But where? For the door? To go where? His car isn’t here, he doesn’t even know yet if it’s wrecked or just stuck in the impassable flood zone. He can’t run with Chris to a hospital or the firehouse, and what could they do to help if he did?
The pain in his own legs is the least of his concerns right now but he is confronting for the first time that he really is stuck. This is a problem he can’t solve by fleeing. Christopher’s cries are drilling right into his soul and every second of his pain is hurting them both. Working purely on panicked, basic instinct Buck is twirling around the loft, spinning like the centrifugal force might locate the hidden skills he needs in this moment.
Amazingly, it works. Chris has quieted enough to breathe again, and Buck continues to dance through the kitchen, dipping him dramatically until the sound is replaced by glorious giggles. When they are both well and truly worn out, he carefully lowers Chris to the floor and flops down next to him with exaggerated clumsiness.
Buck catches his breath, gathers his courage, and scoots up on his side until he can look Christopher in the eye. He wipes drying tears with a shaking thumb, then leaves his hand to cup his face gently.
“I’m so sorry it hurts, Chris. Really. And I want you to know that it’s okay to cry if you need to. Always.”
Chris nods in understanding, and his composure even in a state of breakdown makes him seem so much older than he is. This can’t be the same kid Buck first met at the hospital a year ago.
“Now,” Buck says with more confidence as he checks his watch, “we’ve got about an hour until I can give you more medicine. And I bet, if we work together, we can make an hour go by pretty fast. What do you think?”
“We’re a good team,” Chris says with determination Buck can only pretend to share.
“Yeah, Chris. I think you might be the best teammate I’ve ever had.”
They stay on the floor, talking through their options between tickles, giggles, and a few more tired tears.
As it turns out, even an exhausted Christopher Diaz can happily spend half an hour trying to throw cheerios into Buck’s open mouth. They count down the final minutes on the clock together, and the high five after Chris swallows that pill is a greater relief than Buck has experienced in saving literal lives.
Eddie
Shift should be wrapping up in about an hour
How’s it going?
Buck
07724
code for the back entrance, in case you want to bring his chair in the future
sorry I didn’t give it to you before
if you have your key, don’t bother knocking
he’s asleep on me
Eddie lets himself in quietly some time later. Buck has been dozing on and off with Chris as a wriggly weighted blanket and Eddie finds them still sprawled on the couch surrounded by the mess of the day. He’s pushing a little black and red wheelchair with bags piled on the seat cushion, and he looks as tired as Buck feels.
“Hey,” he says quietly, catching Buck’s eye.
Buck nods wordlessly, afraid that if he opens his mouth he might just start crying in relief.
Eddie’s eyes widen in recognition, and he sets aside his things to sit on the coffee table beside them.
“That bad?”
“It got rough,” Buck says slowly. “But we got through it. He got me through it.”
“I knew you could,” Eddie says. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“Chris had his leftover pizza a few hours ago.”
“And you?”
Buck shakes his head gently. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good thing Bobby made you an extra mac and cheese, then. I’ll put it in the oven.”
Buck didn’t think he was hungry and apparently, he was wrong.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice breaking.
Eddie pats his shoulder and then graciously heads to the kitchen while Buck collects himself. When he returns, Chris is starting to wake groggily. The full-watt beam that breaks across his face when he sees that Eddie is back could power all of LA.
“Dad!”
Eddie helps shift him off of Buck’s chest and once Chris is safely in Eddie’s arms, Buck pulls himself off the couch to give them a minute. His legs ache as he stretches them on his way to the bathroom. He hears Eddie ask Chris about his day, and the sleepy response undoes another rung of Buck’s fear.
“We’re a good team, Dad.”
At no point since the wave hit did Buck imagine he’d be sitting around a dinner table with this little family. Not when he clutched a shivering Christopher on top of the firetruck, or in his hours desperately roaming the streets, or as he collapsed outside the field hospital seeing the bewildered look on Eddie’s face as he hugged his son. But here he is, serving up a casserole dish of Bobby’s mac and cheese to an exhausted Eddie and a newly energized Chris, carefully propped in his wheelchair.
Their dinner conversation doesn’t have much substance, but the company is nourishing in a way Buck didn’t know he was missing. Meals around the station table have been such a staple of his life for so many years, and months without them have left him longing for the quiet companionship of a team that’s fought and labored and hurt together day in and day out.
Quietly, just for Buck’s ears, Eddie leans in to say, “if it’s too much you can kick us out, but I think we should stay tonight.”
It’s not too much. It’s a gift Buck didn’t know he wanted. He nods.
“Bed’s yours. It’ll be easier to move him in the morning, yeah?”
“We’re all taking the bed, Buck. I’m not making you sleep on your own couch any longer than you already have. And in the morning you’re coming to the house with us. I don’t want you moping around this place alone when we could be feeding you. My family’s been filling up my fridge today and we need your help to get through it all.”
“Really?”
Eddie smiles and turns to get Christopher’s attention.
“What do you think, Chris? Should we have a sleepover? Think we can all fit in Buck’s big bed?”
Chris nods so enthusiastically he drops his forkful of macaroni.
“Yes!”
Christopher’s burst of energy is short-lived and together Eddie and Buck get him upstairs and bundled into the center of the bed. They change, sticking close to him but not ready to sleep yet themselves. There’s far too much left unsaid for that.
Sitting on one side of a blissfully sleeping Christopher in a fresh pair of sweats, Buck is extremely aware of the apprehension still embedded in his chest. It helps to have Chris asleep beside him -- he doesn’t think he would cope well if after the day they’ve had together he was just suddenly gone. But everything has happened too fast since the wave. He hasn’t had the time to think about where things go from here.
“There was this moment, earlier. He was crying, and it just broke something in me. It made me panic in a way I don’t think I ever have. And it made me wonder if that’s how you feel about him all the time.”
The thought falls out of him without his full awareness. He’s looking straight ahead at the wall, like it would cost too much courage to say any of this to Eddie’s face.
“Mhmm. The reply is soft and deep. “He’s my heart. My whole life. But the way it hurts when I worry about him, it’s not like anything else. I remember when he was little, when I first got back. He would cry and I couldn’t think. I would have done anything to make it stop hurting.”
“I just spun him around in circles,” Buck says sheepishly.
“Did it work?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well then, I’ll have to remember that one.”
“There’s…” Buck clears his throat before trying again. “Maddie came by, brought me a new phone. From what I can tell everything transferred from the old one. Eddie, there’s pictures from the morning. From before.”
He looks up now, waiting for the understanding to dawn on Eddie’s face.
“Can I see?”
Buck nods, pulling up the first photo and handing over the phone. Eddie’s already seen this one, Buck and Christopher grinning over an elaborate pancake breakfast.
“This feels like a year ago,” Eddie says, still staring at the screen. “I remember I thought for most of the day your biggest problem would be a sugar crash.”
“That would have been nice.”
Eddie keeps scrolling through the pictures: Christopher triumphantly balancing against the sign proving he’s tall enough for the ride, the two of them tucked in and waiting for the tilt-a-whirl to start, a hilariously lop-sided photo of the ocean and boats on the horizon.
“He took that one,” Buck clarifies unnecessarily.
Buck knows without looking when Eddie reaches the last picture by his sudden gasp. Christopher in profile, from below. His red glasses, yellow shirt, and golden curls stand out in contrast to the grey-blue background of the sky and water behind him. He’s looking out to sea, one arm raised in excitement. It was difficult to balance holding Chris steady on the bench and getting the angle right, but Buck remembers the look of wonder and joy on his face and how deeply he had felt the need to document it in the moment.
When he turns back to look, Eddie is still frozen with his fingers held up to the screen like he’s touching the past. In between them, it is an unbelievable miracle that this boy is safe. Eddie looks up, finally, and Buck can see his glistening eyes even in the low light.
“Can you send me these?” Eddie asks in a rough voice.
Buck nods.
“It might take a while for the memory to hurt less,” Eddie says, “but I think we need this one framed.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. This… Buck, this is why I trust him with you. Because you see him like this. Like I do.”
Buck swallows thickly, the sentiment too much to bear.
“I kept thinking. If, if we hadn’t… if things ended… differently. These would be the last pictures of us, and they’d be out there in the cloud without anyone knowing.”
He’s worried that might be both too dark and too vulnerable a thing to say, but when he blinks out of his daze Eddie is standing at the bedside in front of him. Chris is still asleep, a pillow moved in Eddie’s absence to keep him from rolling off the bed in his blanket burrito. Eddie pulls him to his feet and into a crushing hug. Buck doesn’t know he’s crying until he feels the wet fabric of Eddie’s shirt against his face. He tries to pull away in apology but Eddie only clings tighter.
“Thank you for saving him, Buck,” Eddie says into Buck’s hair.
Eddie walks him toward the bathroom and comes back with a damp washcloth. He wipes Buck’s face clean so carefully, touch gentle against the many scrapes. Buck can just see the tip of Eddie’s tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrates and it’s endearing in a way he doesn’t know what to do with.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Buck asks.
“Because, Evan,” Eddie says with a kind firmness he hasn’t taken with Buck since their first shift together -- since before the grenade in the ambulance, “this morning you said it would be fine if you died as long as Christopher survived. You act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.”
Buck meets his eyes in the lamplight, unsure how to decipher what he finds there.
“I would die for my son. And I wouldn’t ask you to, but I know you would do anything to save him. I know it because I saw it, Buck. You were dead on your feet and still you never stopped to help yourself.”
“He was still out there. I couldn’t.”
“I know. I know. I couldn’t ask that of you, and you did it anyway. But I need you to know that as grateful as I am to have him back safe, I need you -- we need you -- too. You’re important to us, Buck. To me, to Christopher, to all of us.”
“There are all these makeshift memorials popping up today,” Eddie continues. “We kept seeing more and more, and they’re covered in pictures of people who are missing. Or gone. Every wall we passed, I thought I saw his face in the fliers. Or yours. And all I know is that this has really fucked us all up, and I don’t know how to get him through it without you. You’re coming to the house with us tomorrow. I don’t know how long it will take for things to feel okay, but I know we need you around.”
Buck wants so strongly to lean into Eddie’s hands holding him upright, to give in not to the force of the ocean but to this soft, caring strength. He’s still standing, but against his will he feels his entire body start to deflate from the cumulative exhaustion of the past thirty-six hours.
Eddie must see it too because he claps his hand on the back of Buck’s neck in a way that leaves no room for disagreement and walks him back across the floor. As they near the bed, Eddie turns to Buck, shaking him a bit for emphasis.
“Get in the middle, Buckley. There’s too much sad shit for one day, but none of us are doing this alone.”
He seems to be serious, leaving Buck confused next to the bed while he carefully rolls Christopher’s blanket-wrapped little body towards the pillow barriers. Buck gets in so cautiously, afraid his shaky limbs will trip him up or jostle Chris. It takes some maneuvering, but then he’s tucked in securely between a still-snoring Chris and Eddie, who settles back into the bed only after he’s reached across to press his hand to Christopher’s forehead, and then Buck’s.
The constant, reassuring presence of two warm bodies beside him might be the only thing to calm Buck’s over-tired, strung-out nervous system enough to sleep. He only has to listen to the symphony of breaths for a minute before his eyes are pulling themselves closed and his body is finally going limp. The relief as his arms fall against the soft bed feels just like the moment he locked eyes with Eddie over Christopher’s head last night. The moment he hit the ground and knew Chris was alive. The moment his job was done and he surrendered his body to death or whatever may come.
Buck sinks into sleep gently, feeling an unfamiliar contentment. The feel of Eddie’s fingers resting over his pulse point is so light he’s afraid he might be imagining it, but he latches on to that comfort like an anchor and lets it take him down.