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Blue. All Buck sees is blue. Blue lab, blue lights, blue fire. Then Bobby. Decidedly not blue—but shaking him.
“Buck! Come on, don’t fall asleep on us. Stay with me.” Bobby has a tight hand on Buck’s shoulder, he’s worried.
Buck tries to give a thumbs up. His heart aches to see Hen and Ravi watching through their oxygen masks, troubled, as he walks the line once again. This is only, what—his hundredth near death experience? This is just another call, he hopes. Maybe Buck should stop playing with fire.
He can already feel the virus taking hold beneath his skin, snaking, squeezing, and icicle cold. How much time does he have? Everything is fuzzy; the explosion, and Chim’s strained 118, sound off from behind the glass, and something Maddie said about the virus having been accelerated by 90 minutes.
Buck doesn’t know if he can last 90 minutes.
Ravi ducks down to his line of sight, suddenly, and gently drops a furry thing into his lap—the lab rat from earlier. “I thought he might keep you company,” Ravi says. Smile lines crinkle around his eyes.
Buck lights up. “Thanks, Ravi. I’ll take care of him.”
This little guy is a miracle, Buck thinks, petting the rat in small circles. Bobby still hasn’t let go of him, nor does Buck want him to. They both find comfort in the touch. Neither of them say anything as Buck’s blood stains the rat’s white fur red.
A cough jolts Buck back to the present. He keeps fading in and out of consciousness since he reminded everyone he should technically be quarantined. They didn’t care—least of all Cap. No, Bobby sticks right by his side. Whether Bobby knows he doesn’t want to be left alone, Buck isn’t sure, but he appreciates it.
Maybe it’s the delirium, but Buck’s heart stops. Okay. Not literally. (Not yet.)
“Eddie,” he murmurs. Only Bobby hears.
Bobby’s answer is immediate. “We can call him.”
Buck isn’t sure he’s ready for that yet. He doesn’t want to worry Eddie, either. What could he even say? How would it even go—a quick, routine FaceTime call, and by the way, I’ll be dead in an hour?
Facing Eddie means saying goodbye.
“No. No, Bobby,” Buck says with a burst of energy, intense. “Will you tell him I’m sorry?”
“Buck, you have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I was supposed to take care of Chris, you know, be—be his guardian if anything happened to Eddie. And now…” Buck gestures at the air, as if that fixes everything.
Bobby leans back, only for a moment, but Buck sees his pained expression. Buck wonders how differently today would have gone if Eddie were here. He wonders if seeing Eddie’s face, here, would help. He wonders if Eddie will come back home, after.
“I’m sure Eddie understands,” Bobby says. “He’s a good father—looks out for his kid.”
“I love him.”
Bobby seems to realize who Buck is actually talking about before he does. “I know you do.”
For a second, Buck forgets where he is—and the whole deadly virus situation—instead giving into a wave of incredulity. Bobby knew?
“I don’t think he knows,” Buck says, miserable.
Bobby laughs fondly, a bright sound that pierces the static; the blueness of the lab becomes lighter, indigo. “He does, Buck. He does.”
Shivers, or shakes, or sweat, Buck can no longer tell the difference. He barely registers Bobby handing him a phone, telling him Maddie’s on the line.
“Buck? Are you there? How are you feeling?” Maddie asks.
He can hear the tremble to her voice, the tears she’s trying to push away, for his sake. Buck doesn’t want Maddie to cry—not before the day is out. Or Buck’s 90 minute clock, whichever comes first.
So, he tries to put on a cheery voice. Be brave, like Maddie taught him. “Yeah, still here! Never been better. You think they’ll give me more blood thinners for this?”
Unfortunately—Buck’s voice comes out weak, strained. Not the effect he was hoping for.
Maddie’s relief is almost audible. “Just hang in there, okay? And I’ve got good news, help is on the way—”
“Hey, hey! Let me tell it!” Another voice pops into the call.
“Chim?” Buck grins, he would recognize the voice of his brother-in-law anywhere.
“Buckaroo! Guess where Athena and me are. In a helicopter, heading to you live with the one and only cure. All we had to do was ask your boyfriend for a ride.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Buck and Maddie correct.
“Ex-boyfriend. Sorry,” Chim says. “But seriously, I think we’re in a high-speed helicopter chase. I feel like I’m in Blue Thunder. ‘Who cares,’ right?”
As if by some universal irony, blood starts pouring from Buck’s nose at that exact second. Ravi and Bobby rush to get him gauze, anything to block the flow.
But Buck, with his face drenched in the world’s worst bloody nose, can only chant the 118’s motto in solidarity. “Who cares!”
A whole lot of paper crammed up his nostrils later, with the blood flow relatively under control, Buck decides to take advantage of his current state.
“Maddie,” he says, purposely hamming up the sickliness. He doesn’t have to fake the cough, though. “I know what you should name the baby.”
Maddie humors him. “And what would that be?”
“Buck, Buck, or…”
“Buck?” she tries, giving a wet laugh.
“You guessed it. Make sure you tell him the totally heroic guy he was named after.”
Bobby checks his pulse, then shares a knowing glance with Hen. “Tell him yourself,” Bobby says.
It’s only now—right before Buck’s body betrays him again—that he notices Bobby has a nosebleed of his own.
Chim’s at the airlock door.
And the ‘miracle cure’ pokes into him through a blue tube.
Buck snaps awake, faintly aware of being rolled on a gurney. Next he’s hopping off it, powered by some renewed spark down the rumpled tunnel, screaming for Cap.
He spots him in the blue haze—taking off his mask.
“Cap! No, no, stop, hey! What are you doing?”
The door thuds to a close between them; a wall of unbreakable glass, separating past tense memories, pulses.
“Bobby, hey, hey! Bobby! Why—please—why are you—”
Buck pounds at the glass, even if it’s pointless because his fists lack their usual punch. He calls for Athena over the radio, his throat like rocks as he tells her she needs to come in.
Bobby finally speaks. “You’re going to be okay, Buck. Remember that.”
You’re leaving me, too?
“They’re going to need you. I love you, kid.”
A beat, and Buck’s breathless. “You knew. You knew you were sick!”
“There was only one dose,” Bobby says. Buck can’t believe how calm he is.
“No, you knew. How could you do that?” Buck imagines Athena, probably pulling on a hazmat suit as they speak. “You—you're building a house.”
Bobby’s eyes shine, his mouth shuts. He begins to turn away. Buck beats on the glass again. Maybe he hopes he can still break it. “Bobby, wait! Stay, please stay.”
“If I could choose, I would stay with you, with Athena, everybody,” Bobby says. “Always. Of course I would—I would never leave my family.”
Buck knows it’s naive, impossible, but he still begs, “Don’t leave us, then. Don’t leave me.”
“Buck.”
No, no, no. This feels like drowning, suffocating in layers and layers of blue-tinted tsunami.
He calls for the others. “Athena! Chim! Hen!”
“Buck—Buck!” Bobby tries to reign in his focus. “If this was between you and me?”
They lock eyes, an ocean between them where words fail. A thank you and a goodbye rolled into one. And love—the love between a captain and his team. A father and his son.
“It’s no choice at all.”