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The sunlight in his LA backyard is different from the sunlight in New Mexico. Still, Buck hesitates at his back door, fingers curled on the doorframe. He inhales, exhales.
"One step at a time, right, Cap?"
Bobby's smile is quiet, calm. His eyes are gentle. He waits for Buck, the way he always has. Buck hesitates, toeing the line at the doorway where the sunlight draws a boundary.
"It's for Chris," he explains pointlessly, even though Bobby never needed him to explain at all. "He's been asking to go to the zoo."
Bobby raises an eyebrow at him, and Buck chuckles under his breath. "Yeah," Buck says. "I also think that Eddie put him up to it. Doesn't make it not work, though."
Bobby laughs, and it makes Buck warm all over the way it always does, proud like a child seeing their drawing taped to the fridge. He takes a step forward. The sun glows gold on his sneakers. His foot retracts.
"Doesn't make it any less scary, though."
Buck doesn't quite look at Bobby as he says it, shame rushing through his veins. His lips quirk. "I know," he says. "I know it's silly, and I should get over it, but." His fingers are numb from phantom electricity, or perhaps just from gripping too tightly to an anchor that he knows doesn't protect him at all. "Sorry," he says, uselessly.
Bobby is quiet for a moment, then Buck sees his feet move out of the corner of his eye. He looks up, and watches Bobby step into the sunlight. Bobby turns towards him, and Buck stares at him, alit under the LA sky.
"Sorry," Buck chokes out again. A tear that he didn't know was welling up in his eyes rolls down his cheek. Another. He wishes Bobby didn't have to see him like this, so broken. "Sorry, sorry-- I. Sorry."
The dad he never quite had shakes his head in that exasperated way he did when Buck said something silly. Steps towards Buck.
"Sorry for being so scared," Buck tells him, rushed and confessional, a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Sorry it got so bad. I didn't want to start taking meds, I know it's not-- I know I need them. But I'm scared anyways. Of not learning your lesson. Of being someone you can't be proud of anymore."
He looks Bobby in the eye. "I'm scared I'll never get better. I'm scared that I'll never be able to visit you."
He watches as Bobby takes the words in, his brows furrowing in the way they did when he was coming up with the right words of wisdom for Buck. It's Buck's fault, probably, for putting him on the spot.
Buck watches the play of light over Bobby's wrinkles, the hair that's gone grey in no small part because of Buck. Eventually, Bobby tilts his head at Buck, asking him a question that Buck knows he has to answer honestly. This is the one person he can't lie to, after all.
"Bobby," he says, and his words crack on a sob. "I think I need help."
Bobby watches him for a long moment, lips in a gentle line, eyes assessing. Buck waits for his judgement.
Instead, Bobby smiles at him, inclines his head. He holds out his hand, and it is covered in sunlight. If Buck took it, he knows it would be warm.
But the hand isn't for Buck to hold, he knows. Bobby is pointing to something behind him, eyes twinkling and knowing. Buck stares at him, bewildered.
"Buck?"
Buck turns, watches Eddie ramble into the backyard from the side of the house, brows furrowed. "What are you doing, skulking around at your own back door?" He walks towards Buck, unhesitating, brave. He holds out his hand, palm-up. "C'mon, man, Chris is waiting for us."
Buck looks at him, rubs his thumb over the worn coin in his pocket. His other hand loosens from the doorframe. He looks behind Eddie at the patch of sunlight where Bobby will never stand and smile at Buck. Will never be proud of Buck as he reaches back, takes a hand that can still be held, sun-warm, in his own.
He takes a step forwards, towards Eddie, into the light. He feels quietly, defiantly proud of himself. And, for just this moment, he allows himself to believe that it's something close to the same thing.