Chapter Text
Buck walks slowly towards the closed door… stops just shy of it, and lets out the breath he’s been holding since he got the news that led him to the dreary, too familiar halls of Presbyterian.
What if they won’t let him in, he thinks, solemnly staring at the door. What has he done to earn entry? To earn visitation. To earn just one more chance…
Nothing.
Bobby had died, and with his loss came an emptiness Buck tried to fill with his family. With the traditions and memories that had shaped them; shaped him. Loss eats away what was. Things will never be the same. So Buck and the 118 gathered the crumbs they were left with and moved forward.
Months passed. He never did call Tommy.
Today he considered changing that, and for once he didn’t seek out a second opinion. He picked up the phone and called, but Tommy didn’t pick up.
Sal’s voice sounded tired in his ear as he told Buck about the accident. About how Tommy got the call saying his dad had died, so he’d headed out to sign the required paperwork. How the loss of someone he wasn’t even that close to still affected him in a way Sal had never seen before. “This is always a tough time of the year for him anyway, you know,” Sal said with an odd certainty like Buck should know. Buck was quiet. “His mom...” Sal continued, with an added hint of annoyance in his voice now.
Oh. Oh…
Buck did know what he was talking about. It was one of the very few glimpses Tommy gave Buck into his life. A moment where he pulled back the bandaid to reveal a wound that even after 30 plus years clearly hasn’t even begun to scab… much less heal.
On the day they laid Billy Boils to rest, Tommy asked to stop by another cemetery before they headed back to LA. An hours drive out of the way and they were standing at the foot of another grave with a fresh bouquet of wildflowers Tommy gingerly situated in the vase. Marie Kinard engraved on the tombstone. 1958 - 1994. She was so young.
“She was so beautiful,” Tommy said as tears quickly filled his eyes after he’d told her story. But cancer doesn’t care about your age, or your looks… It doesn’t care if you have kids who need you, or a husband who won’t know how to navigate his grief without you… and so his grief turns to anger, and there’s only one person there to unleash all that anger on.
***
Buck didn’t ask permission to come to the hospital to see Tommy, nor was he offered the privilege for that matter. He came anyway. The welcome was what he’d expected, but regardless he was allowed to sit with Tommy until visiting hours were over.
Reluctantly he laid the limp hand back beside the unconscious body— he looked like he was just sleeping… his injuries hidden beneath his gown— and quietly exited the room. He didn’t go home, though. He sat in the lobby for hours, speaking to those who spoke to him— not many did. Then an itch he couldn’t quite understand (he was not a praying man after all) but it was one he couldn’t quite ignore, led him to the closed door in front of him.
He looks up at the sign above: Church Chapel. He sighs, and walks inside.
It’s cold, dark, and empty… which feels eerily familiar to his life lately. The pews are stiff and unforgiving; odd being this is where people run for solace from whatever reasons they are at the hospital for. "How the hell do people sit on these things for hours—” Buck bitterly thinks out loud just as he bows his head.
“It’s not about comfort Buck,” a voice so achingly familiar Buck's initial reaction is relief at hearing it… until the realization catches up he should not be hearing it. He keeps his eyes closed; thinks he must have just imagined it. He is very aware, however, if that is the case… then he is also imagining the footsteps walking towards him. He is imagining the soft thud of a body sitting down beside him.
He is imagining— he has to be— the scent of Bobby’s cologne, and in the same vein, his voice again— “Hey kid, you gonna keep telling yourself this can’t be real, or are you gonna look at me?”
That’s all the push Buck needs to open his eyes and look at the— whatever is beside him. He is not left disappointed as it really is Bobby. “Oh… oh my—” his fingers twitch and he begins to lift his arms, but… can you even touch a ghost. Bobby answers that question for him by reaching out and pulling him into a hug. Buck thinks for a moment if his grief has finally caused him to go insane… he thinks this is worth it.
Bobby squeezes him tight then pulls away. “Alright kid, I don’t have much time, so I’m cutting right to the chase— The reason I’m here… is Tommy.”
Somehow the air in the room gets colder. Buck lets out a choked off noise.
Bobby lifts his hand before Buck can spiral. “Not for that. He’s not dying… But he’s not living, either… not really, not anymore. This—” his fathers death, and the accident, Buck assumes. “Well it didn’t help.” Buck feels his lips tugging downward, he’d say he feels the same… he doesn’t want to make this about him. Bobby shifts beside him. “You could help him, Buck.”
“H- How… I can’t— I can’t just take all this trauma away.” Buck says, sadly. “Trust me. If I could… I would. In a heartbeat.”
Bobby sighs. A look quickly flashes across his face. That look he would often give Buck before scolding him about doing something he shouldn’t. He sighs again. “What if… there was a way you could.”
“A- A way I could…” Buck repeats and Bobby nods. “Could what? Take away his trauma.” Another nod. “Th- Then of course I would.”
Bobby stares at him, his eyes searching Buck’s like he’s trying to gauge his sincerity. He hums… it almost sounds disappointed. “You see that door over there,” Bobby asks, pointing behind them without looking, but Buck does.
“You mean the door out of the chapel.”
“Is it?”
“Is— Is it… not?”
Buck squints in the direction, the lights are dim but he can still see the door. Although—
Although he doesn’t remember it looking quite like it does now. It appears larger. The design is far more elegant than a standard entry door. It’s clearly made with sturdy solid wood, with designs carved into it.
But the most distinguishing feature: it was a vibrant Barbie pink.
“It’s not,” Bobby says, far too serious for how ridiculous this entire situation truly feels. “Buck, what if I told you that if you walked through that door, all of Tommy’s trauma would go away… What would you do?”
Buck wants to say he’d tell Bobby it was a nice thought, but he was sure it’s not that simple. He wants to say that… but the realization that he is sitting here talking to his dead captain hits him. “E- Easy… I would walk through the door.”
Bobby gives an unsurprised hum. “Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
“You’re not even curious if there’s a catch.”
Buck snorts. “Of course there’s a catch,” he grumbles. “There’s always a catch…”
“Unfortunately so,” Bobby says with a soft smile.
They stare at each other a moment, and Buck sighs. “Okay I’ll bite, what’s the catch? I have to take on the trauma?” He’s sure it would be something impossible like that. Buck might not be particularly close to his parents… but he couldn’t kill them, either.
“No,” Bobby says quietly. He looks hesitant to reveal the truth. Buck impatiently goads him to go on. “You walk through that door, and all of Tommy’s trauma will have never happened, but he will also have never met you.”
Buck blinks. He waits. Bobby doesn’t speak. “That’s it?”
Bobby sighs “That’s it,” he replies.
Buck looks towards the door, thinking of Tommy lying in that bed. Bloodied and bruised. He doesn’t deserve that. Buck knows accidents happen, but he can’t help but put the root of it on Tommy’s fractured mental state which revolves heavily around his past. If he could fix Tommy’s past, maybe… just— just maybe it could fix Tommy’s present. Losing their relationship is such a small price to pay. Especially when their relationship ended anyway… Especially if it’s only him who will have to be affected by it.
“I’ll do it.”
“You’re absolutely certain—”
“Yes.”
Bobby sighs. Buck hates that even in death Bobby can’t escape how exhausting one Evan Buckley seems to always be. But in true Bobby fashion he doesn’t point this out. “Alright,” he says and pulls his lips back into a saddened smile. “I’ll see you around, kid…” he says and then he fades away.
Buck stares at the spot beside him. That ache he has worked so hard to keep at bay begins to creep back in, only to be pushed away by a slow creaking behind him. He turns to see the door slowly swing open. The space beyond it is not the bright halls of the hospital, but instead a dark void.
Walk through the door, and all Tommy’s trauma will have never happened.
Buck walks over and looks into the darkness. Just like that? Yeah, right… He takes a deep breath, and steps through— steps into Tommy’s hospital room.
Tommy is laid out on the hospital bed, eyes still closed, body still bandaged and bruised just like when Buck left him. Clearly nothing has changed.
Buck walks over, grabbing the stiff little chair all his visitors have been using and dragging it with him to the bedside. “I— heh— I guess you were right when you said I really needed to lay off the energy drinks.” Buck reaches for Tommy’s hand, hesitates, then follows through with picking it up. “So much for—”
Tommy groans, and stirs. Buck’s head shoots up just as steel blue eyes open and lock onto him— just before they go wide, then angry. He snatches his hand out of Buck’s. “What the— Who the fuck are you?!”
Buck reels back. He’s not sure if Tommy has ever so much as raised his voice to him… much less our right yelled. “I- I— uh, I’m—”
“Hey! Someone! Nurse!”
“W- W- Whoa, uhm…” Buck throws his hands up, and takes a step back. He’s clearly got amnesia. “Okay. Okay, calm down! You— you’re gonna hurt yourself!”
Tommy looks at him confused. “Hurt myself? You sneak into my room… touch me while I’m sleeping… and you’re worried I might hurt myself?!”
“Yes,” Buck states simply. “With— With your injuries, you really shouldn’t be—”
“What injuries?”
“F- From your accident.”
Tommy stares at him confused. “I wasn’t in an accident.”
“You were. A helicopter accident.I just don’t think you remember.”
“I think I would remember perfectly if my bird went down,” Tommy scoffs.
“It’s true,” Buck presses. “Your team was assisting a massive department fire, and your helicopter—”
“Why the hell would my team be playing firefighter…”
Oh god… Buck feels a bit of bile rise up his throat. He doesn’t remember being a firefighter. “You— you are a firefighter, Tommy.”
With that Tommy seems to relax. His pinched up pissed off expression softens, just a little. “Look kid, I don’t know what kind of head injury they’re treating you here for— if you got amnesia or something— but who it is you think I am. You're wrong.”
“Knock, knock!” The intense and confused staring match the two men were having is interrupted by a nurse. “Time for some PT and pain meds— oh!” She looks at Buck confused. “Hello.”
“Uh, h- hi!”
“Sorry, he was just leaving,” Tommy says matter-of-factly, before throwing the sheets off his legs, revealing his right knee (his bad knee) wrapped tightly in gauze.
“That looks like you had a— ”
“Replacement surgery?” Tommy finishes, then laughs at Buck’s slow nod. “Probably because I did. Why else would I be here?”
“B- But the injuries from— ” Buck looks Tommy over. He had looked like he was just sleeping, his injuries hidden beneath his gown. Without even thinking he grabs a handful and tries to lift it, only to be shoved back by Tommy.
He glares at Buck, and it’s clear… he really doesn’t know who he is. “Look,” he says coldly. “I don’t work for LAFD or CalFire or whatever other departments they have out here. I didn’t put the last 20 plus years of my life into the military to get my WO5 rank, to be mistaken for some firefighter pilot. You have got the wrong guy.”