Archive of Our Own ^beta

9:35 A.M. Mountain Standard Time
White Signal, New Mexico

The sun is so bright it hurts Buck's eyes. Every time it makes him squint, he turns to look at the driver's seat instead. Eddie looks like he's glowing, warmed by the light. Rays through the dirty windows cast dark specks on his face, and Buck follows them as they move across the car into the backseat. It feels like they’re going faster than they really are, and slower at the same time.

It’s probably the painkillers. Maybe a little of the adrenaline of still thrumming through his whole body, straight to his fingertips and toes. He keeps wiggling them to fight the buzzing static feeling that settles there.

Eddie’s a little drunk on it, too- the adrenaline. He keeps smiling, even as this forehead draws tightly and his eyes flicker from the side mirror to the rear view with textbook frequency.

They keep failing to hold a proper conversation. Every few minutes a moment pauses, then stretches. The air between them becomes still and it almost feels like everything is going to finally hit him. Every single time, Buck starts giggling instead, and Eddie gets halfheartedly exasperated before he ends up even harder with tears in his eyes.

Buck ribs stab with every breath, but it feels like a distant, unimportant problem right now. He knows the corners of his mouth should be sore from smiling this much. Maybe Eddie’s are. Eddie’s beat up at least half as badly as Buck is, and Buck has no idea how he’s still going on just ibuprofen, a few hours of hospital bed sleep, and gas station snacks.

Eddie stops fifty minutes into the drive, just past the Arizona border, and forces Buck up and out of the car. They’re at a little gas station with a fresh coat of paint. Neither of them are hungry or thirsty. Buck knows cracking open a bottle of water is a good idea while it's still at least lukewarm, but he doesn’t bring it up, and neither does Eddie.

Buck shuffles in a circle around the parking space next to them. The painkillers aren't strong enough to make this a pleasant activity. Buck tries the stifle the sounds coming out of his mouth, and he's only partially successful. 

Eddie just stares, absently bending his arm back and forth as he watches. He doesn't even bother topping off the tank. It’s weird. Just two days ago, they were timing their stops for maximum efficiency. Eddie refused to get off the interstate for lower than a quarter tank of gas. Now he’s cutting their ninety minute deadline in half just to play it safe.

Playing it safe might be an overstatement. Buck knows they're being stupid. There was some manipulation of the truth back at the hospital, and with their family back in L.A. While Buck was cleared to ride as a passenger, they neglected to mention that Eddie, with his broken arm and concussion, would be the driver. Eddie let the harried orthopedic surgeon believe that Buck’s sister would be with them after a brief misunderstanding introduced the idea, and Buck distracted the discharge nurse with medication questions when he’d seem confused about their plans.

Eddie reads a text from Hen out loud in a strained voice. She still doesn't know what happened. Buck hopes he won't have to be the one to have that conversation. Kidnapping aside, she's going to have some choice words about their medically dubious road trip. 

Buck doesn’t really process what Eddie is saying. The adrenaline is draining away, just like it had last night at the hospital when he’d fought to stay awake through his x-rays. He thinks it might come back around later, but for now everything’s going underwater in a way that’s not unpleasant. Before he knows it, Eddie’s hand is on his shoulder, guiding him back to the passenger seat. 

Buck stutters out a few syllables, not even sure what he’s trying to say. Eddie buckles his seatbelt for him, and Buck wants to glare, but really he’s thankful. The angle is awkward for his ribs. 

The door shuts, and after a few false starts, the engine rumbles. 

“Go to sleep, Buck.”

10:47 A.M. Mountain Standard Time 
Somewhere in Arizona

Buck sleeps, head shoved back against the hard seatbelt holder. It’s not a deep sleep, or a comfortable one, but he can’t bring himself to move his face forward to lay flatly on the window. The air conditioning is broken. He wishes the window were cool, but he thinks he might be sweating on it, instead. 

Eddie has the radio on low. He keeps dialing between stations before songs can finish, and Buck blinks his eyes slowly a few times to watch his fingers on the knob, twisting ever so slightly.

Eddie catches him looking after a long time, thumbing between a country station and sports talk radio. (It’s football. Eddie doesn’t follow football.)

“Got a preference?” he asks, but his voice is low, like he’s testing to see how awake Buck is.

Not awake enough to care. Buck finally moves his head off the buckle and burrows back down, wishing it didn’t hurt to fold his arms. The sun makes the back of his eyelids orange for pulses at a time. Slowly, slowly, the pulses fade until there’s not any color at all. 

11:32 A.M., Mountain Standard Time
Willcox, Arizona

Eddie starts coughing so hard that it wakes Buck up, and this time they really do drink some water. There are beads of sweat on Eddie’s forehead and he keeps shifting in his seat to change his position, hands locked at 10 and 2 in a way they never usually are. 

It’s time to pull over again. Eddie gets gas this time, and Buck insists on paying before Eddie reminds him they don’t have his wallet. Everything that was with Buck at the house has to stay in evidence, for now, and his wallet was in his pocket when they crashed, along with his phone.

Buck does another little shuffle around the car. They’re in a better populated area now. He could go further, stretch his legs a little better, but Eddie’s watching him again, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot as he holds the pump. 

The decision to go straight home hadn’t really been a conversation. By the time Buck was done with all his medical evaluations and police interviews, it was the morning, and Eddie had a plan to be back in L.A. by the evening. Buck could have said something, but how could he argue that Eddie couldn’t do something, after he’d done so much already? Besides, the thought of staying one more minute in that town made him want to crawl out of his skin. Even now, with his mounting reservations, Buck can’t bring himself to say anything. He just wants to go home. He wants to sleep somewhere familiar. He wants to see the rest of his family. The phone isn't the same. 

They’re being stupid now, but no one’s going to let them be stupid in L.A. Someone will bully Eddie back to urgent care to get his arm looked at again. Someone will decide where Buck is staying, or who’s staying with him, so he doesn’t choke on blood in his sleep alone. It doesn’t matter how they decide to shuffle responsibilities- Buck just knows it will be someone, and he has never felt so desperate in his life for anyone else to make the decisions. 

They get back on the road, and Buck doesn’t bring up the ibuprofen Eddie takes even though he knows Eddie isn’t spacing it properly. Instead, he starts fiddling with the radio while he’s still properly awake. He switches to AM and chooses something classical. Eddie glances sideways at him, and Buck can tell his eyebrows are pulled together with humor instead of pain this time. The giddiness from earlier is long gone, but Buck still huffs out a little laugh of acknowledgement. Everything else can wait for later. They just have to get back home. 

?
?

Maddie checks in on them as they pass by another small town. Buck’s not sure where they are. The pain mounted significantly a while ago, and for the first time in their drive he’s struggling to breathe through it.

It hurts for Buck to hold Eddie’s phone properly so he puts it on speaker on the console between their seats. The sound isn’t great on their end, so she just keeps up the conversation more or less one-sided. She's folding clothes, Buck knows, because that’s usually when they talk on the phone, and he hears the sounds of the dryer door. She tells him about the party, about the paperwork for Jee’s kindergarten, and every few minutes he bobs down toward the speaker to give little responses, trying not to grunt as the motion jars his ribs. 

Maddie talks for a long time, and he finally finds a position that feels a little better, bent forward at an angle that’s unsafe if they crash again. He should really be more worried about crashing, all things considered, but he isn’t. Eddie would never let them crash of his own volition.

He doesn’t realize he drifted off again until he hears Eddie’s voice, and realizes Maddie’s is much quieter.

“-miles back. Another rest stop. Once we get out of Tuscon. Yeah. Yeah, I will.” 

There a long pause, and Buck can’t make out what she’s saying, but he’s pretty sure she says his name, and suddenly all the fear that rushed out of him when he saw Eddie above him comes surging back. His eyes fly open and he’s sitting up despite the deep stab of pain that feels like it’s going straight through his lungs, and Eddie looks startled.

He shouldn’t startle Eddie while he’s driving. They shouldn’t even be here.

He wants to ask if Maddie is hanging up, but his jaw just hangs open. He needs Maddie to say his name again. 

“I-I wanted to say b-bye,” he finally chokes out, as Eddie fumbles for the speaker button with one hand. There’s rustling on the other end, but Maddie doesn’t say anything.

Bye, Maddie,” Buck says, and his voice breaks on her name in a way he could blame on his ribs.

“Bye, Buck,” she says. “I love you.” It’s that easy. She sounds normal, just like she had a few minutes ago telling him about Nash’s outfit for the party. Buck can’t remember if she called them or they called her. 

He knows he could ask her to say it again. He can’t bring himself to. It’s easier to curl away from Eddie and try and let his body relax like it had earlier, when they had laughed so easily. He takes the shirt clutches tightly in his fist and balls up between his face and the window, turning his nose all the way into the fabric. He can’t remember who got the shirt out of the backseat. He should be worried. He shouldn't feel this disoriented right now.

Eddie says a few more things that sound coded before hanging up. It’s a navy L.A.F.D. shirt. They both own a dozen of by now, at various stages of wear and tear. Christopher used to use Eddie’s older ones as sleep shirts, when he was smaller. It’s probably Buck’s- why wouldn’t it be Buck’s?- but when he breathes deeply, trying to calm himself, it smells like Eddie. 

1:24 P.M., Mountain Standard Time
Cortaro, Arizona

Another break, and they’re pushing the time limit this time. Eddie has to pee. Buck doesn’t, not really, but he goes through the motions anyway. He doesn't want to suggest they leave each other alone for even a minute. Eddie splashes his face with water at the sink and they don't say anything to each other. 

Buck feels more present now, but there’s a pit at the bottom of his stomach, and a new sensation like ants are crawling up the back of his neck. He knows Eddie won’t take his eyes off of him- he hasn’t except when he’s had to, to follow the ambulance to the hospital, and for Buck’s interrogations with the sheriff and his deputy. Still, he feels to overwhelming need to keep Eddie close behind him, and nearly trips them up stuttering his steps to make it happen. 

He’s used to the feeling of wanting to be the one at Eddie’s back, looking over his shoulder at whatever’s in front of them. Normally he wants to be shoulder to shoulder with Eddie, moving around each other at work or jostling each other Eddie’s couch reaching for drinks and remote controls. He’s never felt like this before. Whatever it is doesn’t feel like it’s coming from his body, but the air around. It’s primal, and he tastes something bitter in his saliva just as he stops in his tracks and nearly sends them both tumbling. Eddie’s hand comes to rest on his back to steady him, and he keeps it there while he pushes them forward along the dirt path to the car. It’s firm.

Midday has passed, and they flip their sun visors down as Eddie merges back onto the interstate. Buck's sure he's been here before in his early twenties. There’s still states he's somehow never been to, but Arizona isn't one of them. 

He remembers this one morning in particular when he was twenty-four and between jobs, in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Kansas. He couldn’t decide to go east or west, and he thought well, if I go east this time of day the sun will be in my eyes. So he drove west and he kept going until the sun made its arc and found him again. He remembers thinking how nice it would be to see the sun set over the ocean. 

Was it nice, to be alone? Was it scary? He can’t remember feeling scared, but he was also young then, and ignorant, really. He took dumb, unnecessary risks, mostly because he didn’t bother to think that hard about them. Sometimes he even did things he knew were stupid because it felt good, somehow. 

Is that what this trip is, this desperate scramble for home? Buck doesn’t exactly feel good. The pit in his stomach is still there, the dread churning, but the paranoia faded as quickly as it came over him now that they’re back on the road, The radio is still on classical. A voice drones for five minutes between each forty-five minute song, sounding approximately two hundred years old. 

Buck glances over at Eddie again. He doesn’t look tired at all, despite the bags under his eyes. He'd had them for months once, when his PTSD was bad. Maybe longer. It took too long for Buck to notice. 

“We can change it,” he offers. Eddie doesn’t answer, and the pit in Buck’s stomach grows. Finally, he glances Buck’s way, and Buck relaxes. Eddie had just been lost in thought, and he missed what Buck said.

“I can change the radio station,” he offers again. He wants to make some comment about the lulling strings putting Eddie to sleep, to probe and check if he’s somehow as awake as he looks.

Eddie shakes his head. “It’s fine." He sounds normal, but that can’t be right. Buck feels like he’s missing something. He wants to start talking again, to churn things up between them until there’s something to latch onto, but it’s always been like this for Buck. It’s all his words or none of them, and right now it's crickets.

“Can we roll the windows down?” he asks instead. They’ve already had to crack them a few times. It’s unseasonably cool and only March, but it’s still Arizona. 

Eddie’s never ridden a motorcycle before, not even once. His abuela thought they were dangerous. Buck knows they are (doesn't think about it), and he knows Eddie’s not a fan of the wind buffering his face this strongly. The sweat is drying off both of their bodies. They’re going fast, racing home. Eddie’s lips are pressed firmly together like he’s afraid he might swallow a bug.

Buck used to ride in his Jeep like this whenever he could. Still does sometimes, when he gets out of the city traffic.

He closes his eyes against the sting of the wind. He can’t hear anything over the buffeting roar, but he knows Eddie is there, that he’s got them, and they’re getting closer every moment. 

2:36 P.M., Mountain Standard Time
?

This time when Buck wakes up it hurts bad in way that makes everything feel crystal clear. He’s still an hour away from painkillers. There is no position that feels comfortable enough to hold for more than a few seconds, and normally he could push through that, sit relatively still anyway, but the last few days are catching up with him. He’s out of the willpower to hide how much it hurts.

Eddie, who has been so quiet most of the day, has been roused by Buck’s visible distress. He asks questions what feels like every few seconds. He offers another rest, phone calls, something to eat. Buck declines everything tightly, unconstructively. They both know the real problem, and Buck doesn't want to make Eddie tell him no.

In the end, Buck gets his painkillers twenty minutes ahead of schedule, nearly hyperventilating on the shoulder of the interstate. Eddie keeps looking between Buck, the cars whizzing past, and his phone. He’s texting, fingers flying. 

Buck wants to ask who it is. He can’t look over to see. They’re both leaning against the passenger side of the car and Buck's bent over nearly double in pain. He’s crying, but he’s not sure if Eddie has noticed yet.

“Give it a minute to work, it’ll kick in soon,” Eddie murmurs, like if he’s too loud it will make it worse. Buck’s pretty sure nothing can make it worse at this point. “Do you want me to call Maddie again?”

Buck can barely hear him. The pain is a completely different animal than it was before. He hasn’t felt like this in a long time. It washes over him in perfect detail, mushy, dull blue carpet between the toes of his pale, freshly uncasted foot. Physical therapy, after the bombing.

“Buck,” Eddie asks again, desperate. “Do you want Maddie?”

A sob tears out of Buck’s throat. He wants Maddie, Eddie, everyone, his own mother even, but right now he wants nobody as badly as he wants Bobby. Bobby, who he had been so terse with, even downright nasty. Bobby, who had held a hand to his neck when he was bent over in pain like this, who the physical therapist deferred to when she needed to know if Buck was ready for more, or if he needed a break. Bobby, who was unendingly calm no matter what, who seemed to know instinctively what Buck could handle but always asked anyway. He wants Bobby so, so bad. 

The grief gets battered down by a wave of lightheadedness that sweeps over Buck, and he’s passed out enough times in the past few days, let alone in his life, to know what’s coming. His right arm shoots out towards Eddie and he tries to fall towards him, or back into the car, instead of pitching forward onto the pavement. He doesn’t need to worry. Eddie meets him halfway, gripping his bicep with one hand and the other under his armpit as the pain peaks, then fades. 

Buck’s not sure how much time he looses. The first thing he senses is Eddie’s hand on his face as he fights for a full breath. Slowly, his body recalibrates and he orients himself. His head and back are on hard concrete, and Eddie has his legs up against the car door, arm under his knees. 

Sound goes in and out. He hears, “You’re okay, Buck. Can you-,” and Buck wants to say yes, yes he can do whatever it is, but he doesn’t track the rest. Eddie doesn’t sound okay at all. The hand moves from his face to his wrist.

There are voices he doesn’t recognize, and Buck scrunches his face and tries to focus on his breathing. He hates this feeling, like he’s only capable of little puffs of breath, not enough to fully resurface. A hand sweeps against his forehead and he nods into it to indicate that he’s trying. 

His legs come down slowly and he realizes he's being turned into the recovery position. He’s able to wiggle enough to help a little, like a worm. The cuts on his face sting as they brush up against the ground, but that tiny, manageable pain helps. It’s getting easier to breathe in this position. He gets enough air to make a sound, but it's a whine that tears out of his chest. He wishes he couldn't hear it. His face is still wet from before. 

Eddie’s voice is the only voice again. The dials of Buck’s senses are turning up steadily now, so when a hand clasps his and Eddie asks him to squeeze, Buck overcompensates and grips harder than he probably should.

A laugh startles out of Eddie. It doesn’t feel like he’s earned it. He didn’t do it on purpose this time, doesn’t have it in him to try and get the worry out of Eddie’s voice. It returns as Buck starts moving to sit up.

“Give it a minute,” he says sternly, but Buck shakes his head. The pain is back, and it really doesn’t like lying down on the concrete.

“Ribs,” he manages to gasp out. 

“Okay,” Eddie says. “Okay, okay.” He helps pull Buck up gently by his shoulders. He moves to lean Buck back against the car down, but Buck shakes his head. It feels better to sit up straight.

“Not gonna pass out again,” he mutters to Eddie, eyes scrunched tight. “I just need to- breathe.”

“Okay,” Eddie says again, but his hand goes back to Buck’s wrist to take his pulse. “Can I assess you right now, or do you want to wait?”

“Wait,” Buck bites out. He latches onto the sounds of the cars rushing past. It’s not the most comforting sound in the world, but he tries to count them, to differentiate between vehicles. When he gets to fifty-four, he nods and opens his eyes. 

“I’m alert and oriented,” he announces, blinking up at Eddie. He doesn't seem overly assured by this. He releases Buck’s wrist and stares into Buck’s eyes, which would be intense if Buck didn’t know he was looking at his pupils. His other hand moves into view with a penlight.

“Where did you get that?” Buck asks, as he follows the light without prompting. 

Eddie nods off to one side. “Someone pulled over. I asked them to get my kit out of the trunk and then give us some space. I probably shouldn’t bother asking, but do you feel like you need to go back to the hospital?”

Buck rolls his eyes, which earns a frustrated huff from Eddie. “I think I just slept in the wrong position. This sucks.”

“Ok, so if that pain was a ten-”

“-Eh, nine-”

“I said if. If that was a ten, where are you now?”

“Eight a minute ago,” Buck responds quickly. “Six, now.”

“You think the painkillers are kicking in?”

“Probably,” Buck says. “Don’t really feel loopy yet, though. I really just think it was the position, mostly.” 

Eddie rubs his hand over his face and leans back on his heels. “This was a bad idea,” he admits through his fingers. 

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking maybe we’re stupid,” Buck confesses. That earns him another startled laugh, and Buck smiles. Oh boy. Maybe it’s the painkillers again. 

Eddie claps his hands to his thighs and struggles to a standing position. “Okay, stay there. I’m going to grab some water and tell them we’re okay.”

“Tell them thank you, please,” Buck adds. He's surprised they haven't called an ambulance, with the way he and Eddie must look right now. 

He’s not really sure what’s wrong with both of them that he doesn’t need to ask Eddie if they’re going to keep driving. He knows they will like he knows when a roof’s going to go during a structure fire. They're not done being stupid today. 

Eddie takes his temperature before he drinks the water. It’s up a little bit from before, but nothing more concerning than everything else, especially since he’s been laying in the sun for a while. When Buck declares that his pain is at a four and clambers up off the ground of his own volition, Eddie nods tightly. 

“Okay. Well. That’s about where I'm at, too. We’ll stop before we get back on the road. We need gas, you need to walk around, and I need to get some Aleve.”

“Shit, your arm?” Buck asks. 

“Head, mostly.” Buck knows Aleve works better for Eddie than anything else over-the-counter. At the Diaz house, it has its own spot in the drawer of his beside table rather than the kitchen cabinet with the rest of the medication. No one’s really eager for Buck to accidentally send himself into anaphylaxis. 

Buck almost asks Eddie if he’s been drinking enough water- they have been sweating a lot- but he changes course when he sees an opportunity. “I won’t nag you to drink water if you don’t tell anyone I just passed out again.”

That earns a disgusted scoff and a rougher than necessary shutting of Buck’s door. By the time Eddie comes around to the driver’s side, the phone is on speaker and ringing. He tosses it on the dashboard and grabs the water bottle from Buck’s lap, draining it quickly while making pointed eye contact.

Buck throws his hands up, albeit much lower than he normally would, more of a twitch really. “Oh my- uh, hey, Chim! Yeah, we’re good. Well, we’re kind of good. Okay, so don’t worry, but-”

4:02 P.M. Mountain Standard Time
Phoenix, Arizona

It takes a while for Buck to convince Maddie that he doesn’t need the hospital again, they don’t need to stop for the night, and that she certainly doesn’t need to come meet them. By the time they hang up, he’s filled the gas, done his shuffle around the car, and Eddie has left him alone for the first time that day to get what they need from the gas station. 

Buck frowns when Eddie returns with only a single dose paper packet of medication. He stands outside the car to take it, throwing it the paper directly in the trash and even pouring water over his hands and fingers to wash off any residue. 

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Buck asks. He’s not that allergic.

Eddie ducks back into the car and fastens his seatbelt. “With the week we’re having? No. Where are you at?”

“Four, still. Think that’s as good as it’s going to get. You?”

“Better. Three. You say one word about the water, I’m leaving your ass in Arizona.”

Buck mimes zipping his mouth shut, choking back a giggle. He doesn’t feel as nearly as loopy as he had that morning, but the painkillers are definitely doing their work again. Instead, he presents his new plan. “I don’t think I should sleep again. There’s no way for me lean that doesn’t put stress on my ribs.” He’s also pretty sure that he should stay awake with Eddie, once it gets dark, but he keeps that to himself. 

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. “We’ve got what, five hours left? We get an hour back, we’ll be home by eight. See Chris before bed.”

There’s no way in hell that’s happening. They have stops and rush hour to contend with, and Buck’s not really sure what’s happening when they get home, if he’ll really get to see Chris or if at this rate they’ll end up heading straight to the emergency room. Eight sounds nice though. Seeing Chris sounds nice. 

“Yeah,” Buck agrees. “I think we need to talk, though.” Not about anything in particular, but he doesn’t need to specify. Neither of them have questioned the other about the events of the last few days, and no one’s asked Buck anything over the phone either, not even Athena. Everyone seems to be on the same page that it can wait until they’re home. 

Eddie turns the key, and the car engine stutters to a roar on the first try for the first time all day. Buck takes it as a good omen. Chris goes to bed later these days. Maybe they’ll be home by ten. Realistically, that could still happen.

“Okay,” Eddie declares, drumming on this wheel a little with his good hand. “Jurassic World is better than Jurassic Park.” 

Buck wrenches his ribs nearly jumping out of his seat, immediately defeating the purpose of not sleeping. “The original? Eddie, what the fuck?! You know what, you should leave me here. I’m walking home. I’ll walk!”

5:40 P.M. Mountain Standard Time
New Hope, Arizona

For the first time in days, Buck feels like maybe he could eat a real meal soon. They’re both putting all their effort into keeping the conversation flowing, and it’s good. He feels like if he played back what they’re saying with a tape recorder, it would make no sense, but the closer they get to California, the stronger the urge to fill the silence is. 

Buck wants to call Christopher badly. They did it together during the first leg of their trip around this time of day. The spring dance is soon, so there's plenty of high school drama. Chris keeps saying he's probably going to go with friends, but Buck think he wouldn’t be talking about it so much if he wasn’t thinking about asking someone. Eddie agrees.

They do another shoulder of the road stop, planned this time. Buck just needs to hobble around for a few minutes. Eddie grabs the phone the second they stop. Buck gives him privacy for a full three minutes while he walks to a tree and back. Eddie doesn’t even bother to get out of the car, this time. 

“Chris?” Buck asks, once he’s made his final journey back. He hovers his arms slowly around his torso in a parody of a proper twist, but it helps him feel out his range of motion before he eases himself into the car. Verdict: bad. 

“Chim,” Eddie corrects. “But Chris is getting out of play practice soon.” 

“Will you tell him I say hi, if you send a text?” he asks. It feels weird, like he’s asking permission, even though he knows he doesn't have to. He knows Eddie just wants to explain all of this in person instead of letting him get it through the grapevine. 

Eddie doesn’t answer, and after a long moment Buck glances over at him. Not his face. His hands, which are shaking. 

“Eddie?” he asks. 

“We need to get home,” Eddie cuts out tersely. 

“What’s wrong?” Buck asks. 

A laugh bursts out of Eddie’s chest, but it’s short. Ugly. Buck definitely hadn’t earned that one. Eddie shakes his head. “Take your pick,” he says. He hands the phone over to Buck, who hadn’t asked for it. 

Buck doesn’t have anything to say to that. All he knows is they can’t talk about it. If he even thinks about it, any of it, before they make it home, it feels like they’ll never get there. He’ll die out here after all.

The car engine stutters three times before it finally turns on.

Buck’s not sure he wants it to this time. 

“I think I need you to do the talking,” Eddie asks, a little frantically, as he accelerates into a merge. 

Buck can’t think of a single thing to say. But he has to, if they’re going to make it. “Start me off with with something.” 

“Yeah…yeah. Okay, I can do that.” There’s an urgency in his voice that hasn’t been there all day, save for when Buck had passed out on the side of the interstate. He snaps his fingers for a long moment, and Buck fishes around in his own mind for something that isn’t- any of it. Anything. But before Buck spirals too hard, Eddie yelps in triumph, pointing at him with his eyes still on the road ahead. “Okay, I’ve got it. Is it just me, or did Dixie look like LeAnn Rimes?” 

He can do this. As long as Eddie can do this, he can do this. 

“Eddie. I have no idea who that is.”

5:02 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Colorado River

Buck is in the middle of talking about baseball, of all things, when they cross the border into California. Specifically, he’s trying to recall the Wikipedia page for the 1974 Ten-Cent Beer Night from memory, since they can’t kill the phone battery on it. He almost misses the border sign as they cross the river.

“We should honk,” he says absentmindedly. He’d insisted, on the first leg of their trip. He used to do it at all the state border signs when he was driving across the country.

“Eddie?” Buck prompts after a long silence with no response. He’s okay with being the only one talking, but he needs to make sure Eddie doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel. He looks over at Eddie, who is staring straight ahead, expression glazed. 

“Eddie?” 

Almost as if in slow motion, Eddie’s bad hand goes from the wheel to his chest. Buck reaches a hand out towards the wheel. “Pull over,” he orders, and Eddie turns the wheel with his other hand, braking suddenly. Buck fumbles for the hazard light on the dashboard. 

Buck’s never seen this happen. Never seen it start, at least. He wants to stop it before it starts, but it’s too late. They pull over and park without Buck having to take the wheel, and Buck removes the keys from the ignition before he grabs Eddie’s face with both his hands.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,” he hears himself say, but he doesn’t feel himself saying it. The pit in his stomach swallows him as Eddie’s breath wheezes out in punches. 

“You’re okay,” Buck eases, a little more intentionally. “You can breathe. You’re having a panic attack, okay? Look at me.” 

Buck had asked once what Eddie was afraid of. He’d asked so he could fix it. 

Buck can’t ask that right now. There’s not a single thing Eddie can name that isn’t trying to chase him over the border, too, and every part of his body knows that if they say any of it, he’ll open his eyes and the gun will still be pointed at him. They’ll never get home. 

Eddie is looking at him. His mouth moves like he’s trying to say something, but all that comes out is gasps. 

“Good,” Buck says. “Everything’s okay.” He’s lying. He’s a liar. He’s lying to Eddie who needs him. Eddie was there when he needed him, and he can’t help Eddie. 

Eddie suddenly twists to fumble for the seatbelt, unbuckling it, and leans over the center console. For one moment, Buck isn’t sure what he’s doing, but he gets one arm between the seat and Buck and no. It’s a hug. They’re hugging. 

Some horrible part of Buck has wanted this the whole time, but it can’t be Eddie. Eddie is hurt, too. Eddie saw it. He probably knows what happened. That sheriff probably told him about Derek. About his room. Eddie already got Buck out. He can’t do this now. 

A keen tries to break free from Buck’s chest. Eddie grips him tighter, and Buck manages to swallow it. He reaches up and clutches the back of Eddie’s head, trying not to pull his hair and partly failing. He can do this. 

Eddie is panicking. It doesn’t matter why. Eddie is scared, and Buck’s the only one here. This is what he wants always. He always wants to be there, when Eddie is panicking. No matter what. He grips tighter. No matter what.

When Buck was really little, his mom used to send him to bed before she yelled at Maddie. He remembers the sound of the yelling carrying up the stairs. He laid in his bed and gathered all the feelings in his chest into a ball, and when Maddie retreated to her room, sobbing, he tried to send the ball through the walls, will it toward her so she could feel it, somehow, even if he couldn’t hug her until the next morning. 

He’s hugging Eddie now. It’s easily the longest hug they’ve ever had, but he feels the same unbreechable gap as he did in his childhood bedroom. They’re shaking, and Buck is choking a little on his own breath. Eddie is afraid. Buck is afraid. Everything they’re afraid of is so, so real. Buck can’t fix this. 

But there’s other feelings in his chest he can’t verbalize, another reason he doesn’t want this hug. He can never tell Eddie. Especially now. But right now it’s all he has to offer. He lets the feelings twist into a ball near his heart, and he wills it into the chest heaving against his own. He bites his own lip so hard he tastes blood. 

Love you, he says to Eddie in his head. Love you. Love you. Love you. 

Slowly, slowly, Eddie breathing evens out. Buck wasn’t the one to initiate this hug, and he won’t be the one to break it. He’s statue still when Eddie finally pulls away.

He frowns at Buck and swipes a hand across his cheek, so light Buck almost thinks he imagines it. “You’re crying,” he says, gently, like he’s almost afraid to point it out. 

Buck, well, Buck does not match his tone. “You’re crying!” he yells, like an accusation, and Eddie-

Eddie laughs. Buck probably deserves that one. Buck probably deserves hell. “Jesus, Buck,” Eddie coughs out. 

“Jesus, Eddie,” he echoes back, but it’s less aggressive at least. 

“I don’t think I should drive,” Eddie admits. It’s an understatement. He looks more pale than Buck’s ever seen him, including the time when he was shot. 

“No shit,” Buck mumbles. He heaves a deep breath and lets his eyes close for a moment, taking stock of himself. “I don’t think I can drive,” he finally declares.

Eddie snorts with way more derision than someone who looks like a corpse should be able to muster. “We’re not that stupid.” 

“Agreed. Good for us, yay. Okay, give me the phone.” 

“I can call,” Eddie offers weakly.

“No,” Buck says firmly. “Stay here. Keep breathing. Give me the phone.” 

He walks a few paces away from the car to do this. Eddie’s watching him, and he’s watching Eddie, and he’s probably still in earshot, anyway. He’s not really sure whose dignity he’s trying to preserve. For one brief moment, he thinks that he can get through this without more tears, but it’s not Chim who answers. It’s Maddie, and she answers so softly that he feels like she somehow already knows it’s him, and what he’s asking.

“Hey,” he says, voice cracking. “Hey, so um. Uh. We need help.” 

7:04 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Blythe, CA

In the end, Eddie pulls it together enough to drive them to a McDonalds parking lot less than ten minutes away. His color is better, but the last few days have finally caught up with him, and he’s visibly exhausted. Buck is, too, but at least he’s slept today, no matter how poor the quality. For the most part, Buck checked out after calling Maddie. Every so often, a feeling or two bleeds through, but mostly he feels numb, tired, and slow, like he’s moving through a fog. 

Eddie tries to text Chris. He bounces potential excuses off of Buck for why they won’t make it home in time to see him tonight (car accident in particular is a little too close to home) and panics a bit more about lying to his son before giving up and putting his head in his hands. 

Apparently, Jee, Nash, and Mara are now with the Lees, and Chris and Denny were already with Aunt Pepa, which was the plan even before the party mix-up. Buck's not sure how he missed that detail before. He feels like he should always know where Chris is. 

Eddie sighs a deep, world weary sigh. “Buck,” he says slowly. “Buck, I don’t need to lie. We’re too tired to drive.”

Buck blinks. That’s right. That is the fundamental problem, at this point. He’d kind of forgotten. “We’re setting a good example.”

“Yeah. We’re being good parents, actually.”

Buck processes the triumphant tone of his voice more than anything else, and jabs a finger in Eddie’s direction. His eyes have closed without his permission. “Exactly.” 

“Exactly! Hey, don’t sleep.”

Bucks groans, forcing himself to sit up straight. The painkiller from earlier is fading. He really, really doesn’t want a repeat episode.

“This fucking sucks,” he mutters. He wants to sleep more than anything. Honestly, at this point he wants to sleep more than he wants to go home. If he were alone, he’d have a hotel booked by now, but the tiny part of him that still feels like a person instead of a pile of biological needs wants Eddie Diaz back in L.A. county yesterday. 

“I know, bud. Do me a favor and eat another chicken nugget, okay?”

Buck shakes his head. Eddie had eaten his own meal like he was starving. He probably was. The car is full of snacks but Buck can’t remember either of them eating much today. Buck made it three chicken nuggets in before he’d been overwhelmed by nausea, and he’d refused to eat anything since. Throwing up with his ribs the way they are would really, really suck. 

A suspicious amount of time passes before Eddie speaks again. “Hey, when was the last time we took your temperature.”

“Side of the highway,” Buck mutters. “Fine, just gimme a- hey!” Rather than get the thermometer out of the kit in the backseat, Eddie just palms his forehead. Buck opens his eyes to glare. “You’re a medic,” he reminds Eddie, but Eddie is frowning.

“Dammit,” he says, and half the color he’s gained falls back out of his face.

“What?” Buck asks.

“What do you think? Fever." He fumbles around the backseat for something, and Buck hears the rattles of pill containers. Yipee! But Eddie doesn’t give it to him, just grabs a handful and shuts the door on Buck, taking the phone with him. Asshole. Buck watches distantly as he stacks them on the hood of the car and consults with someone over the phone, occasionally holding a bottle up to the streetlight above their car to make out a label. 

Frustrated, Buck hauls himself out of his seat.

“Get back in the car,” Eddie orders, with no room for compromise in his tone.

“I have to walk around anyway,” he points out, starting a lap around the car. “Put Chim on speaker.”

Eddie complies. “Good walking, Buck,” Chim quips, but Buck only knows it’s a joke from his tone. Weak stuff. 

“Chim, he didn’t even get a proper reading,” Buck tattles. “We have a thermometer.”

“Then do it yourself, Buck,” Maddie chides. Her voice sounds more distant. She must be driving. 

"Fine," Buck groans. He knows he’s pouting, but he’s so past caring. He digs around in the med kit in the backseat, then hobbles around the car in a circle for the thousandth time that day, thermometer hanging out of his mouth. Might as well, at this point. 

Eddie’s right. He has a fever. Nothing too dramatic, but high enough now to be concerning. Buck’s pissed. 

Eddie takes another ibuprofen while Maddie and Chimney discuss all the pills Buck definitely can’t take right now. 

“Did I just hear a bottle open?” Chim asks. 

“That was for me,” Eddie clarifies.

“What’s-”

“Eddie’s concussed,” Buck interrupts. “And his arm is broken.” He feels a bit like sticking his tongue out, for good measure. 

Eddie looks like he did at the diner, right before they started screaming at each other. Good. It’s really nice that Buck can still get a rise out of him everything that’s happened.

There’s silence on the end of the phone that lasts a long time. Buck’s stunned Maddie like this before, and Chim, but he’s not sure he’s ever gotten them in combination like this.

He and Eddie blink down at the phone together, waiting, before Eddie realizes, “I think they muted themselves.”

“That’s exactly what they did. Conspirators!” Buck accuses. Someone across the parking lot picks up the pace going back to their car. “Not you!” he clarifies. He’s scaring the general public. Again. Great. 

There’s a rustling sound on the other end of the line.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Maddie enunciates. Buck instinctively straightens up, then hisses at the stabbing pain in response. 

“Buck, get in the backseat. Eddie, sit in the passenger seat. No one drives. No one takes any more pills. No one gets kidnapped. I cannot believe you two. Buck, if you feel one more symptom, even if it’s a twinge, call 9-1-1 first, and us second. We’ll meet you in the emergency room. Even if you think you’re just passing out again. Do I make myself clear?” 

“There’s bags in the back seat,” Buck complains.

“Then move them! Do I need to repeat any part of that?”

“No,” Buck mutters. He kicks Eddie's shin when he fails to reply, stumbling in the process.

"Yes, ma’am,” Eddie says, and Chimney chokes with laughter.

“Thank you. Tell me when you’re back in the car.”

They both look a pile of pills on the hood like it’s a grenade in a retired teacher’s leg.

“Maddie, we’re gonna move the pills,” Buck warns.

“I’ll wait.” 

It’s slow, stilted going, like everything else today, but eventually they move the bags around enough that they have room in their assigned seats.

“I’m in the backseat, Eddie’s in the passenger seat,” Buck confirms. 

“Good. We’ll be there in forty minutes. I love you.” Somehow, it sounds like a threat.

“Love you both!” Chimney chirps. He sounds way too amused for the circumstances. "Even if you're grounded!"

“Love you, too,” Buck grits out. Eddie hangs up. Buck almost makes an instinctive dig about his failure to tell Chimney he loves him, but stops himself just in time.

“This is why I’m scared of your sister,” Eddie laments.

“You’re scared of Maddie?!” Buck exclaims.

“You’re not?”

“Of course I am. She’s my sister. I just didn’t know you were.” 

Eddie flashes his phone screen, checking something. “Where are you at, pain-wise?”

"I think you just got fired, dude.”

“Did you just call me dude? She doesn’t have the power to fire me. Give me a number.”

“Seven,” Buck admits. “I think they’re going to separate us and interrogate us. Like cops. Hey, remember that bank robbery?” 

Eddie fumbles around, reaching back for something. Buck thinks he’s going for the thermometer, but instead he grabs Buck’s wrist.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to touch each other. We’re in time out.” 

Eddie ignores him. “You should try and lay down. Close your eyes, and I’ll wake you up if I need to check in, okay?”

“You told me not to sleep, earlier.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, you told me not to let you sleep earlier, because you couldn’t sit up and sleep without hurting your ribs. But I just realized we’ve been parked for two hours, and you could have been lying down this whole time, but you didn’t.”

“Because we’re stupid.”

“It’s looking that way.”

Buck eyes the backseat, judging his real estate. Lying down anywhere is dicey, but the bench is deep enough to help with what it lacks in the length department. It's really not the worst idea in the world.

"Well, we're also both concussed," Buck adds, easing himself down as gracefully as possible. He ends up propping his bent knees sideways against the seat back. It's wildly uncomfortable, but some muscles that haven't been released all day sag with relief. "You think maybe we can use that as an excuse?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

That’s enough for Buck. Maybe they’re not so stupid after all. Eddie’s finger is on his pulse again. It’s dark, even with the streetlights. Everything hurts. He curls up as best as he can, tossing his free arm over his eyes. 

8:17 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Blythe, CA

Buck stirs slightly when someone sets his arm down. He’s vaguely aware that he’s in a car. There is the very, very soft click of a door being shut. He starts to flip around as carefully as he can, trying to alleviate the pain in his side. 

It only takes a moment to realize he’s not going to be able to fall back asleep, and that on it’s own is almost enough to make him cry. Just as he’s sitting up and processing what’s going on around him, Chimney opens the backseat door and slides in next to him. His jaw is working, chewing gum. Buck’s not sure he’s ever been so happy to see him.

“So, how was the trip?” Chim asks. “I know we’re friends on Yelp, but I thought I’d ask in person.”

“Nashville’s fine. New Mexico, no stars,” Buck croaks. “Where’s Maddie?”

“Talking to Eddie.” Chimney replies, looking Buck up and down in the dim light. "She's being nice, don’t worry. I think she’s mostly mad at you.”

Buck makes a face, and gets the thermometer handed to him for his troubles. 

Chimney runs him through a check in on a nod and head shake basis while they wait for his his temperature (about the same), and makes it halfway through a too-close-for-comfort examination of Buck’s ribs before Buck gets nauseous with pain and they have to stop. Chimney lets him breathe through it, one firm hand gripping his knee, before he gives his official diagnosis.

“You’re a hot mess, and I cannot believe you got discharged to the hot mess out there. Would you like whatever regional medical center is around here, or an L.A. emergency room of your choosing?”

“What’s Eddie doing?” Buck asks. If it means he’s in a bed sooner, and he won’t get to go home tonight anyway, he’d rather take the regional medical center at this point.

“Well, if you’re even considering it, that means it’s local.”

“Will you make Eddie go home to Chris?” Buck asks. One of them should go home tonight, even if it can’t be both of them. 

“Do you really think I’ll have to?”

Buck thinks about Eddie’s finger on his pulse, just a few minutes ago. "Yeah."

He pats Buck on the shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll do my best. You sit tight, okay?” 

Buck nods, and rest his forehead up against the window. It’s finally cool. He’s pretty sure it’s only a few moments before the door opens, and Maddie is pulling him halfway out of the car so they can hug as best they can with Buck still sitting. 

Maddie is already crying, which makes Buck feel a little less bad that he bursts into tears the second his head is buried in her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he cries. “Sorry.”

She just shushes him, cradling his head. She’s good at this when she wants to be, hugging him in a way makes him feel a foot shorter than her instead of the other way around. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he chokes out. So far, he’s been able to hide from himself behind the overwhelming pain of his ribs, but it’s all too real now. It’s not only the ribs, the seatbelt burn, the whiplash. He can’t pretend he and Eddie just got in a bad wreck. The burns from the cattle prod. The laceration on his temple from the butt of the rifle. The bruises around his wrist. “Please,” he begs.

Maddie just pulls him tighter, and the back of her hand finds his forehead. He wants to lean into the touch, but the lightheaded feeling sweeps back over him and he makes an involuntary sound.

“Okay,” Maddie says. “Let’s lay down, okay?” She slowly guides him to slide across the backseat and just as she shuts the door, Buck hears it, the horrible sound. He wants to react, but for a moment he almost passes out again. It’s only after four deeply controlled breaths that he finds himself contorted in the backseat again, his head in Maddie’s lap. 

“Eddie,” he whines, because that was the sound- the catching breath of his second panic attack of the night.

Maddie's fingers comb through his hair, and her pinkie brushes his birthmark as she shushes him. “He’s alright,” she assures. “Chimney has him.”

That sounds good. Too good. That’s what Buck wanted. But he still feels like it should be him. 

“Look,” Maddie says. “They’re right there.”

Buck shifts his gaze out the front passenger window, where she’s gesturing. Chim and Eddie aren’t far outside the door. Chim has one hand on Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie’s good hand is on Chim’s elbow, the other covering his face. “He’s got him,” Maddie says. “I’ve got you, too, okay?” 

“Is he coming with us?” Buck asks. He knows he wants Eddie to go home to Chris, but the idea of being in different cities tonight is suddenly too much. Maybe he can make it home to LA after all. His legs are cramping like this, but for once they’re the part of his body that’s in the best shape. 

“I don’t know,” Maddie says. Her hand shifts from his face to his shoulder, rubbing up and down. “I took a look at his arm, and it seems like maybe he made it worse today. But we’re going to handle that, okay? We’ll figure everything out.” It’s exactly what Buck's wanted to hear all day, but he still feels guilty that he couldn’t fix it himself. 

Eddie’s eyes mainlybare on him now, chest heaving. Chimney is still talking, and Eddie glances back at him every so often. Buck can hear it faintly, not the words, but the tone. Steady. Comforting. 

“I’m really surprised the car got you all this far,” Maddie comments. Buck glances at her and sees she’s looking out the window, too, before he returns his gaze to Eddie. 

“That was all Eddie. Were you mean to him?” Buck asks. He wants for it be a joke, but he’s not sure it comes across that way.

“Of course not,” Maddie says. “I was thanking him. Did he tell you Athena made him jump out a hospital window?” 

“No,” Buck says distractedly. Eddie’s gesturing at him now with his bad arm, and he looks upset again. 

“Why don’t you close your eyes?” Maddie suggests. Buck wonders if she can hear what they’re saying. Normally he would argue, but maybe he doesn't want to know what’s happening right now. 

He shuts his eyes, but he doesn’t want to fall asleep. Maddie and Chim just got there. It overwhelms him for a moment. He almost didn’t see them again. 

“Chimney kind of sounds like Bobby right now,” he mumbles. He thinks of all the times they've called him this week, nearly every time something went south. He knows who they would have called if this happened a year ago. 

“Yeah,” Maddie agrees softly. “I think so, too.”

“Proud of him?”

“Always.” 

“Me, too. But he’s really mean to me at work. Bullies me. Ask anyone.” 

“Of course he does. He’s your brother.”

“Shouldn’t have married him,” Buck complains, as if it isn’t one of his favorite things that’s ever happened. 

“Yeah, but you all were like that before I even met him,” Maddie observes, and Buck frowns. He can’t quite remember. Were they? “That was one of the things I liked about him. He liked you. And you trusted him, so I felt like I could trust him, too, even with everything going on back then.”

“You thought he was hot,” Buck accuses.

“That, too,” Maddie agrees, and Buck groans as if he wasn’t the one who brought it up, which makes Maddie laugh. Buck expects her to keep talking, but her hand stills. He raises his head a little in alarm, eyes opening. 

Eddie is crying, angled away from them, hand on the hood of the car. Chimney is talking to a McDonald’s employee who looks younger than Harry. 

“I think we’re getting kicked out,” Maddie admits.

Buck starts flailing a little, because Chimney doesn’t have Eddie anymore. Chimney has the McDonald's employee. Maddie shushes him. “I shouldn’t have said anything. But I bet if we call an RA unit for you, it’ll deescalate this.”

“Don’t need an RA unit,” Buck complains. “I just want to sleep.” 

Maddie glances down at him, then out the driver's side window, a weird look on her face. 

“What?” Buck asks.

“I agree,” she says. She opens the door, patting his cheek a little bit as she slides out from under him. “I’ll have medicated and in a bed in fifteen minutes, I promise,” she says, leaving the door open. It sounds too good to be true, but she's never let him down before. Buck can hear the employee talking. He watches through the window as Maddie makes her way around to Eddie. Whatever she says he starts nodding along with, quickly at first and then slowly. His shoulders sag, and he turns to make eye contact with Buck and says something that Buck can tell is directed to him.

“What?” he calls as loud as he can, which isn’t very loud at this point.

Eddie shakes his head and walks around to his side of the car. “We are stupid,” he says. “Your sister’s not. We’re getting a hotel. There’s, like, four on this block.” 

By the time Buck has processed how completely, absurdly nice that sounds, Eddie has taken Maddie’s place under Buck’s head. “I still want to take road trips with you,” he declares.

Buck blinks at the non-sequitur. Eddie looks terrible. Not the worst Buck’s seen him. That’s still the night with the baseball bat. But he looks bad enough right now that he’s getting them actively kicked out of a McDonald’s parking lot.

“Just so you know," Eddie continues. "This hasn’t ruined it for me. We should do one with Chris, if he lets us. He’s smart.” 

The door is still open. Maddie’s on the phone. The McDonald’s employee is still talking, somehow, and Chimney sounds exasperated. Eddie was crying just a minute ago, and no one had him. 

Buck looks up at Eddie. Everything hurts. Everything’s awful, except for all the things that aren’t. Right this moment, he feels safe. Eddie wants to go on another trip with him. He wants to bring Christopher.

“Love you,” Buck tells him. 

Eddie laughs, and it's not a half laugh. It's his whole face. His eyelashes are still wet. Buck earned this one. “Yeah?” Eddie says. He looks like he’s been through hell. He’s had two panic attacks tonight. Buck did that to him. Right now, he looks ridiculously happy. Buck thinks he did that, too. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah.”