Chapter Text
Athena moved slowly.
She'd stayed back through all of it, through the screaming and the self-hitting and Bobby taking Buck to the floor, not because she didn't want to go to him, but because she'd understood that what Buck needed in those moments was containment, not more voices. She'd stood at the counter and she'd watched and she'd waited.
Now, she crossed the room quietly and crouched in front of Buck, where he sat against Bobby's chest with Bobby's arms still loosely around him. Not blocking him. Just down at his level, close but not crowding, giving him the full option of her face to look at.
Buck looked at her.
His face was devastated. Wrecked in the way of someone who had cried past the point of crying, the skin around his eyes swollen and raw, his cheeks wet, his expression carrying the particular exhaustion of someone who had been holding an enormous weight and had just had it taken from them and didn't know yet if they were relieved or destroyed.
"Buck," Athena said.
Her voice was soft. The voice she didn't use often, not the officer's voice, not even the steady crisis voice she'd used earlier. Something quieter than both of those. Something that was just Athena, just a person, crouching on a floor, talking to a kid.
And maybe, her kid.
Buck looked at her and waited.
"You need help," she said. Simply. No preamble, no cushioning, because Buck had always responded better to direct and she knew that. "Real help. More than we can give you here."
Buck's eyes moved across her face slowly.
"The type of help that happens somewhere safe," Athena continued. "Where people who understand what's been happening, all of it, the system, the thinking, the-... " she paused, chose carefully, " all the ways you've been hurting yourself, and can sit with you and help you work through it properly."
Buck said nothing.
"Not because we're giving up on you," Athena said. "Not because you're too much, or too broken, or… " she held his gaze, " or because any of it was your fault. Because we love you. Every single person in this room loves you."
She watched his face.
Something in it had been shifting while she spoke, not the manic brightness from before, not the hysterical sobbing. Something quieter. Something moving beneath the surface like ice moved before it gave way.
"And because we love you," Athena said, "we have to be honest. We don't have the tools, baby. We don't know how to- " her voice softened further, " -we don't know how to keep you safe. We don't know how to help your brain find its way out of the thinking that built the system. We don't know how to do that. And you deserve people who do."
She reached out and very gently, very slowly, put her hand over Buck's.
"We'll be there," she said. "Every step. We're not going anywhere. This isn't us letting go of you, this is us holding on the only way we can right now, to help you, okay?"
Buck looked at her hand on his.
He looked at it for a long time.
When he looked back up, something had changed in his face.
"You're going to leave me," he said.
Flat. Quiet. Not a question, not a accusation, a statement, the way he'd been stating facts all night. The same register as I've never been loved. The same deep certainty.
"No," Athena said immediately.
"That's what this is." Still flat. Still quiet. "You're sending me somewhere and- "
"We will be there every day that they allow us through the door," Athena said, firm and gentle simultaneously. "Bobby will be there. I will be there. Hen and Chimney and Eddie and Maddie. We will be there, baby. This is not- "
"It's okay," Buck said.
The two words landed wrong.
Not reassuring… empty. The it's okay from before had been reflexive, had been Buck's automatic deflection. This one was different. This one was…
This one had no deflection in it. No reflex. Just two words that meant something had given way.
"Buck- " Maddie started.
"It's okay," Buck said again, in the same voice. Looking at Athena's hand on his. "I understand."
"I don't think you do," Athena said carefully. "I need you to hear me- "
"You tried," Buck said.
He said it like she did her best at something that hadn't worked. Gentle. Acknowledging the effort. Not cruel.
Just… finished.
Something had finished.
Just off.
One by one.
"Buck," Eddie said.
Buck's eyes moved to him.
But didn't quite moved.
They moved to approximately where Eddie was and then stopped, and Hen realized they weren't focusing. Weren't tracking. Were directed at the general space where Eddie existed without actually landing on him.
"Buck," Eddie said again, differently.
Nothing.
Bobby's arms were still loosely around him, and Hen watched the moment Bobby understood that the quality of what he was holding had changed. His arms tightened slightly, instinctive.
Buck didn't respond to the tightening.
There was no reaction, no leaning in, no resistance, no anything. Just present in the technical sense. Breathing. Upright. Eyes open.
Alive but not quite.
"Evan," Maddie said.
Both of them in front of him, and she took his face in her hands the same way he'd taken Eddie's face in his hands an hour ago.
Buck let her.
His face moved where her hands directed it and he looked in the direction of her eyes and…
Nothing came back.
"Evan, look at me," Maddie said. Her voice had the specific controlled quality of a nurse who was frightened for a patient and using the training to stay functional. "Buck. Look at me."
His eyes were on her face.
They were not looking at her.
They were the eyes of someone who had gone somewhere that didn't have a location, who had retreated to a place that didn't have an address or a door that anyone in this room had a key to. He was sitting up, he was breathing, he would probably respond if someone checked his pupils.
Absent.
Whatever had been keeping Evan Buckley present and fighting and screaming and sobbing and bargaining with the universe over the cost of love those three months and decades before that if you went back to Hershey, Pennsylvania, back to a boy who'd learned to bleed so someone would sit with him.
It had all run out.
Now he was just a man sitting on a living room floor inside someone else's arms, eyes open, face slack. Not giving anything. Just breathing.
Maddie's hands were still holding his face, her thumbs moving in small slow strokes across his cheekbones, tears falling freely down her face.
"Come back," she whispered. "Evan, come back. We're all here, we're right here, come back."
Buck breathed.
In the kitchen, the folder sat on the counter with its three months of documentation of a system created by pain.
The blanket of those nights after Friday Pizza nights was folded over the couch arm.
Athena stood up slowly.
She moved to the kitchen counter. Picked up her phone. Dialed a number from memory.
When it answered, her voice was steady and quiet and completely certain.
"This is Athena Grant. I need to speak to the psychiatric intake coordinator." A pause. "Yes. It's urgent."
Buck breathed.
In and out.
.
Eddie's mind had fractured somewhere between the grocery store and this moment.
He could track it if he tried, the specific points where he'd failed to see what was right in front of him. Could count them like evidence markers at a scene.
The grocery store.
That was the first one. The big one. The foundational failure that everything else built on.
”You're exhausting.”
Eddie had said it. Had meant it in the moment, the fury of feeling betrayed and like Buck had taken something from him without asking. Had thrown the word at Buck knowing it would hurt him.
Buck had gone home.
Had interiorized those words.
Had started the system.
”It made me less exhausting to you.”
Buck trying to talk to him after the lawsuit. Small attempts, careful approaches, the specific body language of someone testing whether it was safe to come closer.
And Eddie shutting him down. Every time. Firmly. Sometimes cruelly. Creating distance. Maintaining boundaries. Protecting himself and Chris from the person who'd sued the city that employed them.
He needs to earn his way back, Eddie had thought.
Had actually thought that. Had framed it exactly that way in his head. Buck had broken trust, had sued the department, had made things difficult for everyone, for Christopher, and now he needed to earn forgiveness. Needed to prove he understood what he'd done wrong. Needed to demonstrate that he deserved to be let back in.
Reasonable, Eddie had told himself.
Justified.
Maybe it had been, in the immediate aftermath. Maybe some distance had been appropriate.
But days had turned into weeks and Eddie had maintained it. Had kept Buck at arm's length. Had made him work for every good morning, every civil conversation, every small acknowledgment.
Had made Buck earn what should have just been given.
And he'd watched Buck's face do something every time Eddie had turned away, had seen the small flinch, the way Buck's expression would close down, and Eddie had let it happen.
Had told himself it was Buck's consequence to manage. Buck's mess to fix. Buck's responsibility to demonstrate he'd learned his lesson.
Earn it.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Eddie had made Buck earn forgiveness and Buck had taken that framework and applied it to everything. Had built an entire system based on the idea that love and acceptance and basic human warmth had to be purchased with pain.
Because Eddie had taught him that's how it worked.
You have to earn your way back.
The smile thing might be the worst thing.
That had been in those first weeks after the lawsuit, when Eddie was still barely speaking to Buck, when the team was fractured and Buck was trying so hard to bridge the gap.
Then Buck had stopped smiling.
Eddie had noticed because Buck's smile was one of those things you noticed when it was gone, like the sun disappearing behind clouds, the absence registered even when you weren't paying direct attention.
For three, maybe four weeks after the lawsuit, Buck hadn't smiled. Had moved through shifts with a careful neutral expression, had responded to the coldness of everyone in the team with quiet acknowledgment, had existed in the station like someone trying very hard to take up as little space as possible.
And Eddie had… Felt satisfied about it.
Not consciously. But some part of him had registered Buck's lack of smiling as appropriate contrition, as evidence that Buck understood the gravity of what he'd done, as proof that Eddie's distance was having the intended effect.
Good, some part of Eddie had thought. He should feel bad. He should understand what he did.
And then, one week to another, Buck had started smiling again.
Just one shift Buck wasn't smiling, the next shift he was. Like someone had flipped a switch. Like Buck had decided that whatever internal work needed to happen had happened and now it was time to perform recovery.
Eddie had been somewhat relieved.
Because even if the sun burns you, you still want it to come out the next morning.
Had thought: good, he's getting better, we're moving past this.
Had not questioned the timing. He just thought if Buck could get better then things would go back to normal.
Had not wondered why Buck would go from not smiling at all to smiling regularly with no visible transition period.
He accepted it.
And the smiles continued.
And Eddie had thought it meant Buck was okay.
Had thought they were healing.
Had thought the worst was over.
Buck standing in Eddie's kitchen making pancakes.
Buck had been happy.
Genuinely, visibly happy in a way that had made something in Eddie's chest warm, had made him think that they were getting back to normal.
But then Eddie had really looked.
Had seen Buck's eyes when Buck turned to respond to Eddie's good morning.
The pupils were dilated. Too dilated for the bright morning light streaming through the kitchen windows. The kind of dilation that meant adrenaline or fear or pain or some other physiological response that didn't match the calm domestic scene of pancake-making.
And the smile…
God, the smile.
Buck's smile had always been one of his most defining features. The full-wattage sunshine thing that transformed his whole face, that crinkled the corners of his eyes, that was impossible to fake because it came from somewhere genuine and unguarded.
This smile had been different.
The mechanics were right, mouth curved, teeth visible, the general shape of Buck smiling. But the eyes were wrong. Too bright, too wide, pupils too large. And the quality of it was performative, somehow.
Not in the sense of being fake, exactly. Buck had been genuinely happy. Eddie could see that. But it was happiness that was too big, too intense, too much for the situation warranted. Making pancakes for an eight-year-old shouldn't have produced that level of visible joy.
It was the happiness of someone who'd been starving and was finally being fed.
The happiness of relief so profound it registered as manic.
The happiness of someone who'd paid a terrible price for something and had finally received their return.
Eddie had seen it.
Had looked directly at Buck's too-bright eyes and his slightly-wrong smile and had felt something prickle at the base of his skull, some instinct that said this isn't right, something is off, pay attention.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm good.”
And then Chris had come into the kitchen asking for chocolate chip pancakes and Buck's attention had shifted and Eddie had just… Let it go.
Had told himself he was reading too much into it.
Had told himself the smile was fine.
The eyes were fine.
Everything was fine.
Eddie believed him.
Had wanted to believe him.
Had needed to believe that things were getting better, that the team was healing, that Buck was recovering from not-smiling.
And Buck had been bleeding the day before.
The payment that had earned him the couch, that had earned him the right to wake up in Eddie's house and make pancakes and exist in this space.
Buck had hurt himself.
Buck had been hurting himself systematically, hiding the marks, hiding the burns, the bruises. He bled, he let people hurt him, he looked for people to hurt him.
The self, the thing that made Buck Buck had retreated so far inside himself that the outside world had ceased to exist.
Now Buck's brain had run out of capacity to process what was happening, the system collapsing, the framework disintegrating, the understanding that he'd hurt himself for three months and it hadn't earned him what he thought it would, and had simply shut down.
Gone somewhere Eddie couldn't reach. Where none of them could reach.
Left his body behind like an abandoned building.
And Eddie had helped push him there.
Had been one of the people who'd made staying present unsustainable.
You're exhausting.
Earn your way back.
Are you okay?
This is what happens when you teach someone to earn forgiveness.
This was what happened when you saw warning signs and looked away.
This was what happened when you asked are you okay with a tone that begged for reassurance instead of truth.
This.
Exactly this.
Buck, gone.
Sitting in Bobby's arms in Eddie's living room, breathing steadily, heart beating steadily, and completely, utterly unreachable.
Eddie’s fault.
Not alone.
But not innocent either.
I watched you die right here in my living room.
I saw it happening and I didn't see it until you were already done.
Unforgivable.
He'd helped kill his best friend.
.
Chimney's hands were shaking.
That was the first thing he noticed when the silence in Eddie's living room became too heavy to ignore, his own hands trembling slightly where they rested on his knees, and the specific quality of the quiet that meant everyone else had run out of capacity to function.
Bobby was still on the floor, still holding Buck's breathing body, and the expression on Bobby's face was… Devastated.
Not crying. Not moving. Just holding Buck against his chest with his arms locked like if he let go Buck would disappear entirely, and staring at the middle distance with the specific thousand-yard stare of someone who'd just understood something that fundamentally changed their understanding of themselves.
Lost, Chimney thought. Bobby looked completely lost.
Maddie was still on the floor, trying to reach Buck.
Chimney looked at her now and felt something cold settle in his chest.
Something had changed in Maddie's face.
It was her eyes. The quality of them. The specific absence of light that Chimney recognized from the worst calls, from people who'd seen something they couldn't unsee, who'd crossed a threshold they couldn't come back from.
Something had died in Maddie's eyes.
Snuffed out like a candle.
She was looking at Buck's absent face with an expression that was too still, too flat, the look of someone who'd just watched the worst thing happen and whose brain had simply stopped processing.
Chimney knew that look.
It was the same one in that waiting room when Buck went to get surgery for his leg that night when the truck fell on him.
And Chimney didn't know how to reach her.
Eddie was on the couch, his arms wrapped around himself, staring at Buck with an expression Chimney had seen exactly once before.
When Shannon died.
That same specific quality of shock and grief and incomprehension, the look of someone whose world had just fundamentally rearranged itself and who was still trying to process what that meant.
Four people.
Four people Chimney loved, all of them essentially non-functional, all of them having reached the end of whatever capacity they'd had to deal with this.
Which left…
Which left Athena, Hen and Chimney.
Athena was at the kitchen counter.
She had the folder open in front of her again. She was looking through it again, her hand resting on the pages, her face doing something complicated that she was working hard to keep controlled. She already had made the call for an ambulance to come here, since no one was in any condition to drive yet.
Chimney watched her for a moment.
Athena Grant, who had seen everything in her years as a police officer. Who had processed crime scenes and casualty reports and the aftermath of things that happened to people. Who was the steadiest person in any room she occupied.
Athena was struggling.
Chimney could see it in the set of her shoulders, in the deliberate way she was breathing, in the small movements of her hand on the pages.
He saw Athena's hand press slightly harder against the pages.
Saw her jaw tighten.
Saw her close her eyes for exactly two seconds and then open them again with that same forced composure.
"How did you not notice?" she said.
Her voice was quiet. Controlled. But there was something underneath it that wasn't controlled at all, something that was barely being held in check.
Chimney's chest tightened.
"Athena- " Hen started.
"No." Athena's voice stayed quiet, stayed level, but her hand was pressing against the counter now, pressing hard enough that her knuckles were white. "I need to understand this. You're trained paramedics. You see him every shift. You work with him, you eat with him, you're in the same building with him for twenty-four hours at a time."
She looked up at them.
Her eyes were doing something that made Chimney's stomach drop.
Not anger, exactly. Something worse than anger. Something that was grief and betrayal and incomprehension all mixed together.
The eyes of a mother who was betrayed.
"How the fuck did you not know ?" Athena said.
The words landed in the quiet kitchen like stones.
Hen opened her mouth. Closed it.
Chimney felt his throat close.
Because that was the question, wasn't it?
That was the thing that had been sitting in Chimney's chest since he saw the bruises.
How did we not know?
"You're paramedics," Athena said again. Her voice was still controlled but the control was slipping, Chimney could hear it. "You're trained to assess injuries. To recognize patterns. To see when something doesn't add up."
"I know- " Chimney started.
"Do you ?" Athena's hand came down on the counter, not hard, not a slam, but with enough force to make the folder shift. "Because I read this, " she gestured at the diagram, " -and what I see is three months of documented evidence. Three months of injuries. Three months of pattern. And you were there. You saw him every shift. You worked calls with him. You ate meals with him. He got himself- " her voice cracked. “He got himself raped for fuck’s sake.” Her voice raised ever so slightly, almost like a hiss. Hen and Chim flinched. "You're telling me that in three months, with all your training, with all your experience assessing trauma and injury, you didn't see this?"
Hen's face had gone very still.
"We saw what we wanted to see."
Athena stared at her.
"We saw Buck getting better," Hen continued, and her voice was steady now in the way that meant she was using every bit of professional control she had. "We saw him being more engaged. Smiling more. Participating in the team. We saw improvement. And we- " she stopped, "We were wrong," Hen said. Simply. "We missed it. We saw the signs and we didn't put them together and we missed it."
Chimney felt something hot in his chest.
"I saw the smile," he said quietly. "The wrong quality to it. I saw Buck light up over small things, over praise, over being allowed to stay at Eddie's. And I thought- " his voice did something, " I-I thought he was just happy. Just grateful. I didn't think he was…"
Paying for it.
Athena was looking at both of them now with an expression that was complicated and painful and full of things she clearly wanted to say and wasn't saying.
"I blame all of us," she said finally. Quiet. Certain. "Bobby for the distance. Eddie for not seeing it. Maddie for choosing her boyfriend over Buck during the lawsuit. You two for not noticing what was right in front of you. Me for not being more present, for trusting that the team had it handled."
She looked back down at the diagram.
“I was so fucking stupid in trusting any of you.”
The ambulance arrived at 11:47 PM.
Psychiatric transport, not emergency, the specific code that meant conscious patient in crisis requiring professional intervention. She'd been clear on the phone: catatonic presentation, self-harm history, needs psychiatric evaluation and probable hold.
The paramedics who came through Eddie's door were professionals. Chimney could see it in the way they moved, calm, measured, assessing the scene with practiced efficiency. A woman in her forties, dark hair pulled back, name tag reading NOLAN. A younger man, maybe thirty, MERRIT on his chest.
Nolan took in the living room in one sweep, Bobby on the floor holding Buck, Eddie on the couch with his arms around himself, Maddie in the chair with her thousand-yard stare, the general quality of a room full of people who'd hit their limit.
"I'm Merrit," she said, addressing Athena. "You called about a psychiatric transport?"
"Yes," Athena said. She'd moved to stand between the paramedics and the rest of the room, creating a buffer. "Evan Buckley. Twenty-nine. Catatonic presentation following acute psychological crisis. Self-harm history. Needs immediate psychiatric evaluation."
Nolan nodded, her eyes moving to Buck.
To Buck's absent face and open unseeing eyes and the specific stillness of someone who wasn't there.
There it goes the usual protocol.
How long has he been unresponsive?, half an hour.
How are his vitals?, stable. Pulse steady, respirations normal. Pupils reactive but tracking is absent. He's not responding to verbal stimuli or physical contact.
Buck’s eyes lacked any life or awareness that there was two paramedics assessing him.
Buck's eyes stayed open, directed at nothing, seeing nothing.
Nolan reached out slowly and put two fingers on Buck's wrist, checking his pulse herself. Then her other hand came up to his face, gently tilting it toward her, checking pupil response with a small penlight.
Bobby hadn’t moved.
Bobby tightened his holding on Buck when the paramedics asked him to let go.
"I understand this is difficult- "
"You don't," Bobby said. "You don't understand. I let go of him before. I let him go and he- " his voice did something, " I-I'm not letting go again."
Athena had to gently persuade him to let go.
"Bobby." Athena's said. "You have to let him go."
"I can't," Bobby said. Small voice. Broken voice. "Athena, I can't. What if- what if letting go is what- what if that's what makes him- "
He couldn't finish.
Bobby's face was doing something that was painful to witness.
"He's my kid," Bobby said. "He's my- I did this to him, Athena. I did this. I can't just- "
"You didn't do this alone," Athena said. "And you can't fix it alone. But you can let him get the help he needs. You can do that. I know you can."
Bobby looked at her for a long moment.
Then at Buck's absent face.
Then back at Athena.
"Okay,"
His arms finally loosened.
And then those other two people were the ones holding Buck.
Had him on the gurney, strapping him in with practiced efficiency, and Bobby's hands fell to his sides and he sat against the wall with empty arms and looked…
Shattered.
The ambulance was big.
The paramedics let them choose who would be going with them.
Maddie was the first one moving. Chimney next because he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight when her eyes were like that.
"No one else?” Nolan asked.
Eddie hadn't moved from the couch.
He was still sitting, his arms around himself, staring at the gurney with Buck strapped to it.
Hen crossed to him.
"Eddie," she said gently. "They need to transport Buck now."
Eddie's eyes moved to her face.
"Okay."
"You're riding with them," Hen said. "You, Maddie, and Chimney. The rest of us will follow in our cars. Okay?"
Eddie looked at her for a moment like the words were reaching him from a distance.
Then he stood.
Moved toward the gurney with the specific mechanical quality of someone whose body was functioning while their brain was somewhere else entirely.
He looked down at Buck.
At Buck's open eyes and absent face and the breathing that just kept going.
Reached out slowly and put his hand on Buck's shoulder.
Kept it there for a moment.
Then let it fall and stepped back.
Nolan looked at him with an assessing expression, the same look she'd given Bobby, the professional evaluation of whether this person was going to be a problem during transport.
Whatever she saw in Eddie's face must have satisfied her, because she nodded once and started moving the gurney toward the door.
Merrit took the foot of the gurney.
Maddie followed.
Chimney followed Maddie.
Eddie followed all of them.
Hen watched them go.
Watched Eddie pause in the doorway.
He stood there for a moment, his hand on the doorframe, looking back at his living room.
At the space where everything had broken.
Eddie's throat moved.
Then he turned and walked out.
The door closed behind him.
Athena stood up slowly.
Looked at Hen.
"You're following in your car?" Athena asked.
"Yeah," Hen said. "I'll get Bobby. You go ahead."
Athena nodded.
She crossed to Bobby, crouched in front of him one more time.
"Bobby," she said. "I'm going to the facility. Hen's going to drive you. You're going to get in her car and you're going to come with her and we're going to be there for Buck. Okay?"
Bobby looked at her with eyes that were red and wet and completely wrecked.
"Okay," he said.
Athena kissed his forehead.
Then she stood and left, her footsteps quick and purposeful out of the house with the folder on hand.
Hen sighed, breathed for a couple of seconds, she needed to keep it together.
"Bobby," Hen said quietly. "We need to go."
Bobby looked at his hands.
At his empty hands that had been holding Buck ninety seconds ago.
"I let him go," Bobby said.
"I know," Hen said.
"I let him go and he's- what if he thinks- what if wherever he is, he thinks- "
"He's not thinking that," Hen said, even though she had no idea if that was true, even though Buck was somewhere none of them could reach and there was no way to know what he was or wasn't thinking. "Come on. Let's get you to the facility."
She held out her hand.
Bobby looked at it for a long moment.
Then took it.
Bobby's mindset had been clear from the beginning.
Buck needed to learn.
That's how Bobby had framed it to himself in those first weeks after the lawsuit, not as punishment, though maybe there was some of that underneath if he was being honest. But primarily as teaching. Buck needed to understand that actions had consequences. That you couldn't sue your family and expect everything to go back to normal. That trust, once broken, had to be rebuilt.
He needs to earn his way back, Bobby had thought.
Had actually believed it. Had structured his entire approach around it. The professional distance, the chores, the careful maintenance of boundaries that said you are not family right now, you are an employee, and you will be an employee until you prove you deserve to be family again.
It made sense.
Buck had broken something when he'd sued the department.
So yes. Buck needed to learn.
Needed to understand what he'd cost them all.
Needed to demonstrate through action, not words, not apologies, but action, that he understood the gravity of what he'd done and was willing to do the work to repair it.
The chores had been part of that.
It had made sense.
And then the Wednesday incident had happened.
"Buckley!"
"Cap, I can explain- "
"I asked you to clean these floors. That was six hours ago. Six hours, Buck, and they're still filthy."
"I did clean them, but some guys from B-shift- "
"I don't want to hear excuses." Bobby shook his head. "I need to be able to trust that when I give you a task, you'll complete it. If you can't handle something as simple as mopping- "
"I can handle it," Buck said, sounding desperate, almost scared. "Bobby, I did mop them, I spent all morning- "
"Then why do they look like this?"
There was something passing by behind Buck’s eyes, something Bobby ignored.
"I'll finish them,"
Any emotion on Buck’s voice had died.
Bobby again ignored it, or rather, pushed it aside. Then he'd just turned and walked away without another word.
Harsh.
But… satisfied.
Had felt like this was the lesson working. Buck understanding that he'd failed, accepting the consequences, learning what was required.
The next day, someone from B-shift had come to Bobby.
Miller, a firefighter of B-shift, came to his office telling him it wasn’t Buck’s fault, but Smith and other firefighters of B-shift. “Saw Buckley cleaning those bays. He was thorough, Cap. Spent all morning on it. Did a good job." Miller had said. "And then I saw Smith and a couple guys from our shift come through after. They were… they were deliberately messing it up. Laughing about it.”
Bobby had sat in his office, knowing he made a mistake.
A significant one.
He'd assumed Buck had been making excuses when Buck had tried to explain. Had cut him off before Buck could even get the words out. Had been so convinced that Buck needed to learn responsibility that he hadn't even considered the possibility that Buck was telling the truth.
Had delivered a harsh professional reprimand to someone who had, by all accounts, done exactly what was asked of him.
Fuck.
Bobby had found Buck at the start of the shift.
Had approached him with the specific careful pace of someone who knew they owed an apology and was trying to figure out how to deliver it.
"Buck," he'd said. "Got a minute?"
Buck had looked up, and Bobby had seen something flicker across his face, uncertainty, maybe, or the beginning of another brace-for-impact expression.
They'd moved to a quieter corner.
"I owe you an apology," Bobby had said.
And he'd watched Buck's entire face change.
Not relief, exactly. Something more complicated than that. Something that looked almost like… Desperation.
Like Buck needed this apology more than air.
Buck's throat had worked.
"I should have listened when you tried to explain," Bobby had said, and meant it. "Should have given you a chance to tell your side instead of assuming you were making excuses. That wasn't fair to you."
He'd extended his hand.
A handshake.
Professional. Appropriate. The kind of gesture you made to acknowledge a mistake between colleagues.
And Buck had looked at Bobby's offered hand like Bobby had just given him the world.
Had stared at it with an expression so raw, so desperately grateful, that Bobby had felt something twist in his chest.
Buck had shaken his hand.
Had smiled, tried not to, Bobby could see the effort to keep it controlled, but hadn't quite managed it. The smile had broken through anyway, this thing that was too big for Buck's face, too relieved, too…
Too much.
"Thank you, Cap," Buck had said, with a fervor that didn't match the situation.
It was a handshake. An apology for a mistake. Standard professional courtesy.
Buck had received it like salvation.
Bobby had walked away from that interaction feeling… Well, uneasy.
Something about Buck's reaction had been off. The intensity of the gratitude. The barely-contained joy. The way Buck had looked at Bobby's hand like it was something he'd been starving for. Something about the way his pupils were working.
But Bobby had pushed the feeling aside.
Buck was just relieved to be acknowledged. To have Bobby see that he'd been wronged. That was normal.
“-since the lawsuit you've been, you barely looked at me, you gave me a handshake, I paid for that handshake, I hurt my head myself and you gave me a handshake- "
The words echoed in Bobby's head now as he held Buck's shaking body on Eddie's living room floor.
I paid for that handshake.
Oh God.
A couple weeks later, Bobby had patted Buck's shoulder.
Small thing. Instinctive thing. They'd just come back from a call, residential fire, successful save, Buck had done good work breaching the door. Bobby had been moving past him in the bay and his hand had just landed on Buck's shoulder.
"Good job," Bobby had said.
Simple. Professional. The kind of acknowledgment Bobby gave his team regularly when they'd performed well.
Buck had lit up.
That was the only way to describe it. His entire face had transformed, had gone from careful-neutral to radiantly happy in the space of a heartbeat, and he'd spent the rest of the shift beaming.
Beaming.
Over a shoulder pat and two words.
Bobby had noticed it. Had felt that same uneasy twist from the handshake incident. Had thought: that's not a proportional response.
But he'd pushed it aside again.
Buck was just happy to be getting positive feedback. Happy to be earning his way back. That was the lesson working. That was Buck understanding that good work got acknowledged.
Everything was fine.
Then came the call that made Bobby lose his mind.
Structural collapse. Victim trapped. Buck had gone in without waiting for confirmation that the building was stable.
And it was a cat in a carrier.
Buck had gotten it out.
And Bobby shouted.
Had yelled at Buck in front of the whole team, in front of other crews, had let his fear and frustration pour out as anger. Had poured weeks of accumulated frustration into it, frustration about the lawsuit, about Buck's recklessness, about having to teach these same lessons over and over.
"You didn't think. That floor was thirty seconds from going. You knew that. I know you knew that because I trained you and you are not stupid, Buck, you are not stupid, so what was that?"
"You almost died. For a cat, Buckley. You nearly died for a cat. I don't even know why I let you go into calls if you plan to be this reckless !"
Hen was the one to chew him out a minute later.
Had chewed him out. Had told him that it was enough. That whatever anger Bobby felt was justified until a point. Because what if the noise was actually a kid like Buck believed it was?
Hen called Bobby’s actions, pushing Buck away even months after the lawsuit was finished, as cruel.
The word had landed hard.
Cruel.
Bobby had opened his mouth to defend himself, to explain that Buck needed to understand, needed to learn, needed to face consequences.
And had closed it again.
Because Hen's face had been doing something Bobby hadn't seen from her before. Disappointment. Not in Buck. In him.
"You're punishing him. For the lawsuit. For breaking your trust. And you're calling it teaching but… He already understands he fucked up. Can't you see that?"
Bobby had felt something cold in his chest.
"Talk to him. Just… see him. Please."
She'd walked away.
Bobby had stood there processing that.
And maybe Hen was right.
Maybe the distance and the chores and the lessons had been…
Too much.
Maybe Buck had learned whatever he needed to learn and Bobby had just kept going, kept punishing, kept making Buck earn something that should have just been given back.
Bobby had gone to the kitchen.
Had planned to make coffee. Wait for Buck to come back from the showers. Have a real conversation.
Then he heard it.
The kettle. The sound of it heating, the small click when it reached boiling. Maybe someone else was already making coffee.
And there was Buck.
He recognized his frame, Bobby was glad that he could talk this out immediately… Fix it.
But then, Buck moved to the sink and began… pouring the boiling water on his naked forearm.
Bobby's brain had stopped.
Had just stopped.
For one full second he'd looked at Buck pouring boiling water on himself and his brain had simply refused to process what he was seeing because it didn't make sense, it wasn't-
"BUCK!"
Bobby had crossed the kitchen in four strides, his hand coming down on Buck's wrist, yanking the kettle away with enough force that it clattered into the sink.
He'd turned on the cold water. Full blast. Both taps. Had gotten Buck's arm under the water with the automatic movements of someone who'd treated burns before, who knew the protocol, whose hands knew what to do even when his brain was still trying to catch up.
Buck's arm was red. Angry red. Blistering already in places.
Second-degree burns. Maybe deeper in some spots.
Self-inflicted.
"Bobby," Buck had said.
And Bobby had looked at his face.
Buck was smiling.
Not grimacing, not crying, not showing any of the pain responses Bobby's brain expected.
Smiling.
Small smile. Distant smile. The expression of someone who was somewhere far away from the pain they were currently experiencing.
"I can come back home now, right?" Buck had said.
Bobby had stopped breathing.
"I fixed it. I paid it. I fixed what happened on the call. Can I come back home now?"
The horror was dawning immediately, Bobby had missed something catastrophic. That whatever that had been happening with Buck was so much worse than he’d thought.
So much worse than distance and chores and lessons about consequences.
Buck thought he'd paid for something.
Had hurt himself deliberately.
Was smiling about it.
Thought it would let him come home.
Bobby held Buck and felt every moment of the past three months rearrange themselves into a new and horrifying context.
The handshake that Buck had been so pathetically grateful for, I hurt my head myself and you gave me a handshake-.
The shoulder pat that had made Buck beam for hours, The cuts… those are for the bigger work things. Calls. Bobby's- Bobby said good job.
Every small kindness Bobby had shown, every tiny acknowledgment, every moment of warmth that Bobby had doled out like rewards for good behavior.
Buck thought he had purchased.
In advance.
With his own blood.
And Bobby had watched it happen.
Had seen the too-intense gratitude, the disproportionate joy, the wrong quality to Buck's smiles.
Earn your way back, Bobby had thought.
Prove you deserve it.
Show me through action.
God help them all, Buck had shown him exactly what he'd learned.
That love was conditional.
That family had a price.
That Bobby's approval could be purchased if you just bled enough for it.
I love you like a son, Bobby had said, and Buck's eyes had looked through him like he was lying.
Should have been said on day one after the lawsuit.
Should have been the first thing out of Bobby's mouth instead of the last.
Should have been given freely instead of being something Buck had to destroy himself to hear.
Too late.
Too late, too late, too late, too late, too late, too late, too late, too late, too late.
But he held on anyway.
Because it was all he had left to give.
Earn your way back, he'd thought.
And Buck had tried.
Buck had tried so hard.