Chapter Text
Buck’s morning started the way most of his mornings did with the soft, familiar chaos of the 118 and the faint feeling that the universe was watching him like Sylvester watched Tweetie Butd. He woke up before his alarm, staring at the ceiling of his apartment, listening to the quiet like it was a trick. His leg ached from the old truck bombing injury, old memories and his phone buzzed with a message from Maddie.
Maddie: u up? pls say yes bc i need to make sure you are ok.
Buck smiled into his pillow.
Buck: Unfortunately. Hit me.
Maddie: I had a dream you got hurt and I’m mad at you in advance
Buck: That’s fair. I’ll try not to get injured today to preserve your emotional stability
Maddie: THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. Also—coffee or dinner later?
Buck stared at the screen a beat too long. Maddie’s dreams had been… weirdly accurate before. He hated that he’d started noticing.
Buck: Coffee. I’m off at 7am tomorrow. I’ll come by what about 9?
Maddie: bring pastries. i’m pregnant and need the carbs.
Buck: Copy that. Pastries acquired. Brother duty engaged.
He set the phone down and lay there for another minute, letting the quiet settle into his bones. He was restless lately. Not in the I need to run way. In the something’s about to happen way. He chalked it up to nothing. He always did.
⸻
At the station, the air smelled like bacon and bleach and half-suppressed arguments. Chim was at the stove, flipping pancakes with the intensity of a man conducting an orchestra. Hen was perched at the table, scrolling her phone and narrating her disgust out loud.
“Why are people like this?” Hen demanded at nobody.
Chim didn’t look up. “Because they were raised by wolves who learned manners from reality television.”
Eddie was at the sink, rinsing his mug, posture tight in that way Buck had learned meant I’m thinking too hard or worrying about Chris.
Buck walked in and immediately got hit by three simultaneous greetings.
“Buck!” Chim’s spatula wagged like a weapon. “You’re late. I was about to file a missing person report. Again.”
Hen glanced up. “He’s not late. He is just really early for Thursday’s shift.”
Eddie’s eyes flicked over Buck. “Morning.”
Bobby came out of his office with a calm that always made Buck feel like he’d walked into a place that would always be safe as there were people who had his back. “Morning. Gear check in ten or whenever the pancakes are done.”
Buck tossed his bag down and slid into the rhythm like it was muscle memory. Gear. Coffee. Teasing. A kind of normal that kept him from thinking about Maddie’s dream. Chim plated pancakes with a flourish and slapped one down in front of Buck. “Eat. You look like you were up doom-scrolling until 2am.”
“I wasn’t doom-scrolling,” Buck said, then paused. “Okay, I was doom-scrolling. But about… home repairs. Cause you know I’m a responsible adult now that fixes things himself.”
Hen snorted. “Home repairs, is that what the kids are calling it now-a-days.”
Eddie sat across from him, taking a bite and watching Buck over the rim of his coffee. “You okay?”
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even pointed. It was just Eddie, catching the small stuff.
Buck shrugged. “Yeah. Just… weird vibe today. Like foreboding”
Eddie’s brow twitched. “Like what?”
Buck wanted to laugh it off. He wanted to make a joke. Instead he found himself saying, “Like the universe is lining up a punchline.”
Chim groaned. “Please don’t say things like that at breakfast. It’s almost as bad as the Q word”
Bobby’s voice cut in from the counter. “We don’t borrow trouble.”
Hen pointed her fork at Buck. “But we do carry insurance and protection.”
Buck put on his bright grin like a shield. “Relax. I’m not planning on dying today.”
A beat of silence.
Eddie’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t say that.”
Buck blinked. “It’s— it’s a figure of speech.”
Eddie’s jaw tensed, and then he looked away like he’d caught himself caring too obviously. “Still. If things go wrong today we all know Buck jinxed it.”
Hen, mercifully, changed the subject. “Can we talk about the fact that dispatch is calling us to the dumbest things lately? Like, I swear, last shift we got a call because a man got ‘stuck’ in a bathroom stall because he decided he was a cat and they don’t have thumbs to undo the lock.”
Chim brightened. “Oh yeah. That guy. He was committed to the bit.”
Bobby clapped his hands once. “Gear check.”
The rhythm snapped back into place. Buck stood, pulled his shoulders back, and told himself this was just a day like any other. Except it wasn’t, he could feel it.
⸻
Their first call was easy—well, “easy” by their standards. A car accident, two vehicles, minor injuries, one driver more shaken than hurt. Buck moved like he always did with quick hands, steady voice and eyes always scanning for danger or passerbys who would make their rescue more difficult.
He braced a woman’s neck as Hen assessed her, murmuring reassurance.
“You’re doing great,” Buck told her. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
The woman’s eyes locked onto his. “Are you sure?”
Buck didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
As he said it, he felt a flicker in his chest like static.
He told himself it was adrenaline. That’s all. That’s all.
Back in the rig, Chim tossed him a bottle of water. “You’ve been weird today.”
Buck popped the cap. “Define weird.”
“Less talking. More staring into the middle distance like you’re in a music video.”
Hen, in the passenger seat, twisted to look back. “Yeah! He’s pensive.”
“Pensive is for poets,” Chim said. “We’re first responders. We do ‘tired’ and ‘sarcastic,’ not ‘pensive.’”
Buck took a drink. “Maybe I’m evolving into a moody poet. The LA creative vibes are rubbing off on me”
Eddie, riding back with them, snorted. “God help us.”
Buck caught Eddie looking at him again, like he was checking Buck was real. It made Buck’s stomach twist in a way he didn’t know what to do with.
⸻
Around midday, they got a lull. Not long—there were never long but long enough to read a book or work out in the gym.
Buck cleaned equipment he didn’t need to clean. He rearranged things that were already arranged. He got caught reorganizing the medical cabinet by expiration date. He wasn’t sure why but deep down he felt the need to.
Hen stared at him. “You nesting?”
Buck straightened. “No.” He laughed.
Chim leaned in, squinting at the labels. “He’s nervous-cleaning. Maddie does that before she yells at me for doing something I didn’t even know I had done. Must be a Buckley thing.”
Buck opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “Maddie had a dream.”
Silence dropped like a curtain.
Eddie’s shoulders went tight immediately. “A dream.”
Buck nodded. “She texted this morning. Said she dreamed I got hurt.”
Hen’s eyes softened. “Maddie has a lot of stress right now.”
“I know,” Buck said quickly. “It’s not, I’m not making it a thing. It’s just… it stuck.”
Chim pointed at him with a gauze roll. “Well, don’t make it stick. Shake it off. You’re Buck. You’re basically a human rubber ball. We need hyper golden retriever puppy Buck not the Eeyore version.”
Eddie’s gaze flicked sharp. “Chim.”
Chim blinked. “What? It’s a compliment.”
Hen stepped in smoothly. “Dreams are dreams. We stay smart, we stay safe, we do our job. We don’t borrow trouble you know that.”
Bobby, who’d been quietly listening while writing something at the kitchen table, looked up. “Everybody gets a weird feeling sometimes. That doesn’t mean anything is coming.”
Buck forced a nod. “Yeah.”
He told himself that was enough.
But later, when he stepped outside to breathe in air that didn’t smell like the station, he found himself calling Maddie anyway.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hi.”
Her voice was careful. Too careful.
“Hey,” Buck said. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said immediately, which meant she wasn’t. “I just ….. I hate those dreams. They feel too real.”
Buck leaned against the brick wall, sun warm on his face, and tried to swallow the tightness in his throat. “I’m fine. It was just a dream.”
“Was it?” Maddie’s voice wavered. “Because you always say that, and then you send me photos from a hospital bed like it’s a vacation. With some broken bone or dislocated joint or you know your in quarantine for some deadly infection.”
Buck huffed a laugh. “I have a talent for dramatic medical selfies but I don’t remember any deadly infections I have contracted recently.”
“I’m serious,” Maddie said. “Promise me you’ll be careful today.”
Buck hesitated. He didn’t love promises. Promises felt like jinxes but Maddie sounded like she needed something solid to hold onto.
“I promise,” Buck said. “I’ll be careful.”
“Okay.” She breathed out. “Okay. And you’re still coming by after shift?”
“Yeah. I’ll bring pastries.”
“Good,” Maddie said, and tried to sound normal again. “Because if you die and I don’t get pastries first, I’ll shout at your grave.”
Buck smiled, warmth blooming in his chest. “Noted.”
He hung up and stared at the sky for a second too long, like he was trying to read it. It stayed stubbornly blue. It had not got the foreboding memo.
⸻
Late afternoon brought the kind of call that always left Buck buzzing, there had been an incident at a warehouse, not catastrophic but messy. A worker had slipped on a catwalk, leg wedged, panic rising. Buck and Eddie moved like a two-person machine. One steadying, one assessing, switching without thinking.
“Alright,” Buck told the worker, voice calm. “I’m gonna get you out, and then you’re gonna tell everyone you survived because you listened to a handsome firefighter.”
The worker managed a shaky laugh. “Which one?”
Eddie deadpanned, “Not him.”
Buck grinned and felt, for a moment, the weird vibe ease. Like he’d pushed it off with humor and competence and the familiar dance of the job.
When they cleared the call and rode back, Eddie leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes.
Buck watched him. “You tired?”
Eddie didn’t open his eyes. “Always.”
Buck hesitated, then said, “You got weird when I mentioned Maddie’s dream.”
Eddie’s eyes opened, dark and direct. “Because I don’t like her being right.”
Buck swallowed. “She’s not always right.”
Eddie’s mouth tightened. “She’s right enough that I am awaiting what this years big Buck injury will be.”
Buck tried for light. “What, you think the universe is taking requests from my sister now?”
Eddie’s voice went soft, too honest. “I think you throw yourself into things like you’re not afraid of dying. And one day, that’ll catch up.”
Buck stared at him.
The truth of it landed hard, because it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Buck’s mouth went dry. “I am afraid.”
Eddie’s gaze held his. “Then act like it.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, but it wasn’t cold. It was heavy. Like they’d both touched something fragile and didn’t know where to set it down.
⸻
Back at the station, that late evening feeling crept in. The day softened into that strange in-between: not quite true night and as if the day was not quite done yet.
Buck checked his gear again. Overchecked it then rechecked it.
Hen watched him and didn’t tease this time. She just said quietly, “You’re doing okay.”
Buck nodded. “I just want to finish the shift. Once this shift is done then I can put Maddie’s stupid dream to the back of my head.
Chim popped open a soda. “That’s everyone’s wish, buddy.”
Bobby came through with dispatch updates, calm as always. “We’ll likely get some more before shift change. Stay sharp there is a storm coming in.”
Eddie brushed past Buck toward the lockers. His shoulder bumped Buck’s, light. It should’ve been nothing. Instead it felt like a reminder: I’m here. You’re here.
Buck turned his head. “Hey.”
Eddie paused. “Yeah?”
Buck didn’t know what he wanted to say. Something big. Something truthful. Something like If something happens but he didn’t. He went with the only thing that felt safe.
“After this,” Buck said, “pastries at Maddie’s. You should come.”
Eddie’s expression softened, a tired curve at the edge of his mouth. “Yeah. Okay. Early morning Pastry Party at Maddie and Chim’s.”
Buck felt relief flicker through him. Then the tones dropped. Sharp, insistent. The station jumped into motion like a single entity. Bobby’s voice was immediate: “Let’s go.”
Buck’s heart kicked. He grabbed his helmet. His phone buzzed in his pocket as he was halfway to the engine bay running for the engine, Buck’s phone buzzed again in his pocket one last time, Maddie again. He didn’t check it. He couldn’t. The universe, it seemed, had finally decided on its punchline…
As he sat in the engine, he almost ignored his phone, muscle memory had had him moving on autopilot, already tasting diesel and adrenaline but the vibration hit again, insistently, like it knew it was competing with the tones. He sat there with one hand on his helmet, the other digging the phone out.
Maddie
1 new message
His thumb hovered because he hated himself a little, because Maddie’s voice had been too careful earlier, because the day had felt like the air before lightning— He tapped the notification.
Maddie: I know you promised, but I’m saying it again anyway: please come home to me tomorrow. I love you.
Buck’s chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.
The words shouldn’t have scared him. They were Maddie. They were normal. Maddie did this sometimes—squeezed the world with her hands and asked it nicely not to take her brother. But the timing was a punch. Buck stared at the screen for one beat too long, like if he looked hard enough he could find the trick. The hidden camera. The part where someone laughed and said gotcha and the universe let go of his throat. No such luck.
“Buck!” Eddie’s voice now sharper, closer. Eddie appeared in his peripheral vision, eyes locking onto Buck and then down to the phone. “You ok?”
Buck swallowed, throat suddenly dry. He shoved the phone back into his pocket like it was hot. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ok.”
Eddie didn’t say anything until Buck started looking out the window at the stormy weather. “Sure everything is okay?”
Buck forced a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s just Maddie being Maddie.”
Eddie’s gaze stayed on him for a half-second longer than normal, like he didn’t believe the easy answer, like he could feel the way Buck’s heartbeat had shifted. Buck was in the engine, clipped in, hands steady because his hands were always steady on calls, even when his mind was trying to sprint.
As they rolled through the streets of LA and the engine surged forward, Buck’s phone sat heavy in his pocket. He didn’t respond not because he didn’t want to because something in him, some ugly, superstitious corner whispered that replying I’ll be home would be the same as daring the universe to argue. He stared out the windshield as the station fell away behind them, lights flickering off the chrome and mixing with the rain slamming against the sides of the engine. Under his ribs, his heart kept up its frantic little drumbeat. Please let me go home, he thought, and didn’t know who he was asking.
Rain turned Los Angeles into a different city, one with slick streets and blurred headlights and that oily smell rising from asphalt like the ground was sweating.
The engine rocked as they took a turn too tight, tires hissing. Buck’s knee bounced uncontrollably, a tell he hated because it made him feel fourteen years old instead of early thirty-something and allegedly fearless. Eddie noticed anyway, he didn’t say anything. He just nudged Buck’s boot once with his own, a light quit it without words. Buck stilled his leg and tried to swallow the knot in his throat.
Bobby’s voice carried from the front, calm as a lighthouse. “Dispatch says trapped kid on a second-story balcony. Power lines down in the yard. Neighbors report structural damage, possible rot on the balcony supports.”
Hen, clipped in across from Buck, made a face. “Balcony rot in a storm. Love that for us.”
Chim muttered, “At least it’s not a sinkhole.”
Buck’s phone felt like a brick in his pocket. He thought about Maddie’s message again—please come home to me in one piece and tried to shove it into the same place he shoved every fear, deep down where it couldn’t trip him up on scene as the engine slowed.
Outside, wind slapped sheets of rain against the windshield. A tree had come down across part of the street, branches clawing at the air. A cluster of neighbors huddled under umbrellas and hoodies, pointing at a two-story apartment building with a balcony that jutted out like an afterthought.
Someone was up there, Buck could see a small figure at the railing, waving both arms wildly.
“Help!” the child shouted, voice thin through the storm. “Help—please!”
Buck’s body kicked into gear. Helmet on. Gloves. The familiar weight of his turnout coat settling onto his shoulders like armor.
The moment his boots hit the ground, the rain hit him like a shove.
“Watch your footing,” Bobby warned, voice sharp now. “Power lines down, make sure we stay clear. Hen, coordinate with Edison’s team, get confirmation the lines are dead. Chim, set up perimeter, keep any civilians back. Eddie—Buck—ladder. Balcony access from the side, away from the lines.”
“Copy,” Eddie said.
“Copy,” Buck echoed, and his voice sounded normal, which felt like a lie.
They jogged with the ladder between them, metal cold and slick under their gloves. Water ran off the rungs in steady streams. Buck’s boots squelched on the saturated lawn, and he felt the ground give a little too much. The balcony above creaked, not loud, but enough that Buck’s spine prickled.
A woman leaned over the railing, hair plastered to her face, eyes huge. “It’s my son! He fell …. he can’t stand … he’s…he’s gonna fall!”
Buck tilted his head back. The rain dotted his lashes, turning the world into blinking fragments. He made out an older child on the balcony floor near the door, one leg awkwardly twisted beneath him, hands scrabbling at the wet wood like it was trying to throw him off.
Eddie’s voice was at Buck’s shoulder. “We go up, stabilize, get him inside.”
Buck nodded. “Yeah.”
They set the ladder on the side of the building where the power lines weren’t. Eddie tested the angle, pressed hard into the feet, checking for slip. Buck braced the base like he’d done a thousand times, palms firm. The storm didn’t care about their competence. A gust punched between the buildings, hard enough to make the ladder shudder.
Eddie’s eyes flicked to Buck. “You good?”
Buck forced a grin he didn’t feel. “I’m always good.”
Eddie’s mouth tightened. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say stuff like you’re immortal.” Eddie looked up at the balcony again, then back down. “Stay with me. We’ll do it slow. Together.”
Buck’s chest warmed at the words, at the with me. He nodded, serious now. “Slow.”
They climbed, Eddie first. Buck followed, rung by rung, rain making everything slick. He kept three points of contact like the manuals said, like Bobby drilled, like his body knew. Halfway up, the ladder shifted a fraction. Not a full slip. Just a subtle settling as the feet sunk into the soggy ground.
Buck’s stomach dropped.
“Eddie,” he called, steady voice, “the ladder’s sinking.”
Eddie froze one rung below the balcony. “Hold.”
Buck tightened his grip, braced harder, tried to force the ladder’s feet into stability through sheer will.
Below them, Chim shouted, “I’m putting down cribbing. Give me ten seconds!”
“Ten seconds,” Hen echoed from somewhere to the left, voice snapping through the rain. “Power company says lines are not confirmed dead, stay away from the yard!”
Bobby barked, “Stick to the side access! Eyes open!”
The woman on the balcony wailed, “Please! He’s slipping!”
The boy’s heel slid, wood shining with rainwater and whatever algae had been growing there. His fingers scrabbled at the wet boards and found nothing to bite into.
Buck saw it all in sharp slices: the hand skidding, the woman’s face crumpling, Eddie leaning toward the balcony and the ladder giving one more tiny, terrible shift.
It wasn’t much but it was enough.
Eddie’s gloved hand shot out, grabbing the balcony railing. “Kid, hold on—hold on to my arm!”
Buck’s body moved before his brain finished thinking, because that was who he was: the one who reached.
“Eddie!” Buck shouted. “I’m coming up!”
Eddie snapped, “Buck, wait—”
Buck didn’t.
He climbed faster, heart in his throat, eyes fixed on the slipping body, on Eddie’s arm outstretched, on the distance that felt suddenly enormous.
His boot hit a rung that was slicker than the rest and his foot slid instinct fired. Buck lunged to correct, weight shifting outward but the ladder didn’t like that. The ground, saturated and soft, didn’t like that. A gust of wind hit the ladder broadside like a bully shoving a kid off a jungle gym. The ladder kicked sideways.
Buck felt it, felt the sickening moment where physics decided he wasn’t in charge anymore.
“BUCK!” Eddie’s voice cracked, sharp with terror.
Buck’s hands clamped down, but the metal was wet, his gloves were wet, everything was wet, and the ladder was moving under him like a living animal trying to throw him.
He had half a second to think of Maddie’s message.
Please come home to me safe.
He had half a second to think of Eddie’s stay with me.
He tried to do both. Then the ladder went.
Metal screamed as it scraped the building.
Buck’s world tipped. For one suspended heartbeat he was weightless, hanging in the rain, staring at the balcony and Eddie’s outstretched hand that he couldn’t reach—
The ladder bucked under Buck’s boots like a living thing and then he fell.